About Us
Traveling Geeks is a consortium of entrepreneurs, thought leaders, authors, journalists, bloggers, technology innovators and influencers who travel to countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public to educate, share, evaluate, and promote new, innovative technologies. The initiative was founded by Renee Blodgett and Jeff Saperstein in 2008.
Trips are funded by sponsorships from corporations, organizations and governments. The first tour was sponsored by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a trip that successfully marked the proof of concept that could expand to other countries around the world.
Read MoreIntroducing Mahala
South Africa introduces Mahala, a new creative culture and reality magazine. August will be the first issue.
Freshly squeezed last week “My Black President” by Sean O’Toole.
A vision of 2019: Interface eye candy
It’s a vision of the future from Microsoft Office Labs. If you’re into interfaces and devices — and how they may look in the future, you’ll love the video below:
(You can watch a crisper version too)
tags: future interfaces, interfaces, Microsoft, Microsoft Office Labs
Potentially related posts
Will Facebook eventually replace the Windows & Mac desktop?…
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Joburg’s Moyos
Moyos in Johannesburg, shot by Zadi Diaz during our tour in November.
TweetUp planned for 5th July in London with The Conversation Group
This photo, taken at the Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, is of JD Lasica and Susan Bratton, two of the Traveling Geeks headed to London this July. We are meeting with Ted Shelton (front) and Chris Thomas (back) of The Conversation Group.
Ted is spearheading a TweetUp for the Traveling Geeks, the Conversation Group and social media Twitterers in the UK.
Mark your calendar and DM @SusanBratton if you’d like to be notified of the time and location for this TweetUp (likely at 5 pm on 5 July 2009).
South Africans Vote
South Africans voted for party and president yesterday, and though the ANC is going to maintain its 15-year hold on power in SA post-apartheid, it is unclear whether the party will gain a 2/3 majority necessary to change the constitution. It will also take at least a few days to determine whether the results indicate shifts that may lead to significant change in the 2014 elections and beyond.
There was hope among the many unhappy with the ANC that a breakaway party, Congress of the People (COPE), would offer a strong alternative. Infighting and poor leadership extinguished that, but there is reason to believe that demographic changes are substantive and point to the future.
More when results are in, but in the meantime there may be stories that report the continuation of one-party rule and highlight the compromised nature of Jacob Zuma, corruption and rape charges and tribalism. There is truth to this, but the country is only 15 years removed from totalitarian rule, and alternatives are slow to emerge to the ANC, which is still rightfully seen as the deliverer from the wilderness.
On Blogging: A Word From the South Africans
Winners of the South African blog contest have been unveiled across multiple categories. The “best blog across all categories” this year is 2 Oceans Vibe.
My buddy Nic, who was on the South African blogging expedition with us last December is listed as the first runner-up although they did win for best group blog. Matthew Buckland who also joined us for part of the tour is included in the runner-up list as well.
Interestingly enough, there have been a few debates raging since the ceremony on Friday night. including disappointment from one of the judges.
2oceansvibe won in 6 categories and although she was a judge, votes were weighted in favor of public votes. According to the rules, that means that ‘in the voting phase the vote weighting will be 30% judges and 70% public’ whereas in the nomination phase it is ‘50% judges 50% public.’
It sounds like she is disappointed with the voice of South Africans, in other words, where they spend their time and what they think about. She says, “I realise that there is a pretty large audience for tits, ass, cars, rugby and surfing, but the fact that this is the blog that we hold up to the world as our national pride and joy makes me want to hurl.”
She encourages the need to distinguish between popular voted blogs and then get the judges together to discuss their choice of winners that best reflects where South Africa is right now and where it is heading. Of course, that model is the old media model where two men decide which movie gets a two thumbs up or three book reviewers can influence whether a book makes it to the NY Times Bestseller List or not.
She talks about brand and the power of brand, in this case, something that stands for quality in the way that perhaps the Oscars do here. Her take: if the blog awards brand doesn’t have any meaning, any vision, any unique take on the world of blogging, then – ‘it becomes just another popularity contest.’
“The masses decide” is where its heading though – no more judges, very few editors (who can afford them now in the new Google economy where everything is expected for free), and less calling for experts, although we’ll return to experts soon enough as quality goes down. We now live in a Digg and Yelp society where hopefully over time, quality will rise to the top and the unauthentic voices and players will drop to the bottom.
The upside: more feedback and discovery than anytime in history. The downside: too much clutter and noise until the next genius brings out advanced filters that make that online discovery process even more efficient, more compelling and more fun.
Your backstage pass
Before, during and after the Traveling Geeks visit the UK in July, I will be interviewing, recording, and having discussions with the geeks about what motivates them, turns them on, and is ultimately rewarding to them about their lives as journalists, travelers and tech-heads.
We’ll start with some pre-trip Q/A and then while we’re in the UK you’ll see much more – kind of a backstage pass – about how the trip is going and what the geeks are experiencing. To do this, we’ll be recording using solid-state high-definition cameras, editing each day, and uploading via wireless.
At the moment it looks like the little FlipMinoHD cameras will be our vehicle(s) to record the backstage segments. I’ve been doing both audio and video interviews for a few years, and believe me, having a tiny camera that you can slip in your pocket, that doesn’t require tape, and uploads to the computer in seconds via USB, is a real treat! I was even out on the ski slopes today with one of these in my hand, recording my fellow skiiers while I was also flying down the runs…and it worked well.
Questions? Ideas? Let us know.
Big Idea: How online publishers can rival Google
Quite sometime ago I did a rather entrepreneurial proposal to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) about a new, non-profit industry-focused search engine and advertising network to rival Google. I know what you’re thinking, apart from the general nuttiness of the idea itself: I must be crazy approaching a “newspaper” body? But the idea around […]
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Traveling Geeks kickoff meeting
Here are two great shots of some of our traveling geeks including JD Lasica, Jeff Saperstein, Robert Scoble, Jim “Sky” Schuyler and myself, Susan Bratton.
In San Francisco the other day we were planning our day and night events, trying to figure out how we can meet as many companies, entrepreneurs and UK companies in the social media, open source, consumer technology and media world as possible in our all too short trip.
Is SEO evil?
It’s an old debate, but always worth a good discussion: The Digital Edge podcast by Jarred Cinman and Saul Kropman is tackling the topic of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It’s a contentious topic, around which there is still discussion, and a bit of obfuscation.
The podcast sensationally interviews two “anonymous SEO practitioners” to see how they […]
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