For the second year in a row, I live Tweeted and Visualized the Internet Strategy Forum Summit at the Governor Hotel in Portland, OR.

My goal was to track Twitter volume, speaker quotes, and general buzz around the event of every attending Twitterer in the audience. I had to formalize the data and take samples during many parts of the day to get a solid visual.

Instead of digging through pages of Twitter data with the search term #ISF09, the method here allows the audience as well as speakers to see how their speech ranked in comparison others at the conference. This way, one can see exactly the topics that hit the audience the hardest.

I used a Java Applet called StreamGraphs to visually track the Internet Strategy Forum Summit. The app was built by Jeff Clark. You can follow him @JeffClark on Twitter.

Standardizing the Data

StreamGraphs has some limitations. It only shows the last 1,000 tweets and thus it must be queried in real-time, during an event, to get usable results. The first thing to do was to standardize the hashtag. Some Twitter users were Tweeting with @summit, #isfsummit09, or #isf09. For the best data to be presented, users had to Tweet using one hashtag. I did a Twitter search for everyone following @summit OR #isfsummit09 OR #isf09 OR the Governor Hotel and began following them. Then I @’d them, welcoming them to the Internet Strategy Forum Summit and added an #isf09 hashtag to the end of each Tweet. I watched for people questioning as to which hashtag to use and informed them that #isf09 was shorter and better.

By 10:47, I had regular data and was able to begin tracking the Internet Strategy Forum Summit. Katherine Durham’s Tweets were not able to be recorded into the graph, but Shelia Tolle and the speakers after her were picked up. This was due to a limitation of the StreamGraph Java Applet (StreamGraph only shows the last 1,000 Tweets). So alas, we missed Durham’s excellent words: “Flat is the new up“.

And the second sample was taken from 10:08 to 2:37. The second sample did a better job at gathering the overall sentiment and buzz of the conference. It is evident from the image that Jeremiah Owyang was the speaker that captured the audience’s attention the most.

What Was Shown:

The interesting part about visualizing data in this way is that it shows that there is an inherent difference between what a speaker says and what they audience values. The conversations bursts worked just like sine waves as audience began to engage with the material of each new speaker. As memorable quotes were released into the audience, a lot of tweeting and retweeting coverage occured, melding some of the terms into like-groups. The graph shows that people tweeted about the speaker during the middle of the speech as opposed to at the beginning or end of the speech.

The First Burst: Shelia Tolle

Vice President of Marketing, Intuit Small Business Group. TOPIC: Combining eCommerce and Community: It’s a New Normal…and, There’s
No Going Back

The three words most associated with Shelia’s speech were online, Twitter, and Social.

BenZee: Fastest growing group on Twitter and facebook is people over 40.

CommunityMGR: Fastest growing group on Social Networks (ie: Facebook) are over the age of 45! Social Equillibrium from young to older. #ISF09

CommunityMGR: Channels like Twitter allow companies to help customers WHERE THEY ARE. Personalize with indiv photos, NOT logos as avatars. #Intuit #ISF09

TMMPDX: Intuit helping customers where they are - Twitter. @intuit draws the ire from professional haters online - Sheila Tolle. #isf09 #isfsummit09

cyndibrigham: Help customers where they are. This is the work I focus on through online syndication. Go to where the people shop and research #isf09

tmmBosley: turn bullhorn around, be part of the community, live your higher purpose, create amazing, embrace chaos! #isf09 Sheila Tolle

The Second Burst: Lisa Welchman

Here we can see the major takeaways from @lwelchman’s speech on change.

Top tweets: “orgs need to handle change internally. All communications need to change, and people don’t want to grasp impact, says @tom_bennett and @tmmBosley.

@smdempsey: @CommunityMGR Game has changed, but the internet was just the impetus. Time to rethink the model; biz as usual is not sustainable.

@blocheads: Effecting change is hard. I’ve asked clients to agree to a “We promise to do whatever you say clause, but no takers yet.
@tmmBosley: What to do? Systematic change: Figure out guiding principles in your organization (like Intel has done right @bryanrhoads?

Key Point: Chief Content Officer

At 11:11, @lwelchman brought up the idea of the Chief Content Officer, or the Chief Web Officer.

rahelab: Time has come for a Chief Content Office, Chief Web Officer, ect as these areas have become critical to web ops.
close2open: “Why can’t there be a Chief Content officer?
tmmSabrina: Lisa from @welchman Start a management REVOLUTION! Chief Content Officer, Chief Web Officer, ect. Amen Sister!

But I was told later that it was not about hiring a Chief Content Officer, but about becoming one.

Retweets of this comment appeared again at 11:49.

10:40: We all have a ‘wierd background’ - I’m a philosophy major w/Phorics minor and did did vocal opera. what does that make me? a Web person.

Caseorganic: RT @jeffreybunch: @lwelchman inspiring the oppressed web masses at #isf09!

imeldak: The CIO should be responsible for driving content, web and technology revolutions in the C Suite

@lwelchman was an excellent speaker.

The Third Burst: Jeremiah Owyang

The audience took away major points from Jeremiah Owyang’s speech, including ideas related to the web, context, users, eras and years, pages, and community. The social theme resonated most with the audience, as well as being a major theme of the conference.

The idea of eras was a new and interesting take on the standard ideas of business the and social web. One of the main takeaways concerned the fact that a company could actually have a 5 year media plan instead of a year to year thing. He outlined the social eras to come so that businesses might plan instead of being left behind.

Era

CommunityMGR: 5 eras of social web: Relationships, Functionality, Colonization, Context & Commerce.

Web

Webtom_bennett: Allow users to surf the web within your experience (put your wrapper on it).

msdouglass: Social web colonization is coming to your business. Will you be France? Belgium? Ivory Coast? USA? Offline lessons abound.

Context

jdenizac: People will surf in social contexts, even if your site is not social. eg, digg bar.

tom_bennett: Social Context - contextualized experience based on universal IDs is coming.

Page

agray: Registration pages are going away - the way you collect leads online with change.
@thisKat: @agray More details! Live Tweet this! So many marketers are slaves to the registration page.
NathanJWagner: Registration pages will change…lead gen and CRM reporting will change…SM sites will get more traffic than corp sites.
Caseorganic: Registration Pages Going Away. May be able to measure by # of fans, engagement you have instead of signups.

Community

Tom_bennett: Agencies will appear that represent communities, not brands.
tom_bennett: Functionality - shatter your corporate website and let it spread within the community.
CommunityMGR: Social Networks will become next generation CRM Systems. Ad agencies may flip to representing the Community.

User

caseorganic: Social networks becoming operating systems - can put apps on top like Scrabulous and interact with users where they are.
Rahelab: Social functionality: more like operating systems. Apps on top of platforms-Facebook, LinkedIn apps. “Go where users are.” Not mature yet.
BenZee: On the web: technologies evolve, users adopt then companies adapt.

Johan’s speech about Intel Corp’s Keynote spurred a lot of Tweets about Intel, and thus the Intel name is associated with it. Most of the Tweeting was done towards the first of part of Johan’s speech, as well as the discusion of a very nice Intel ad about the co-founder of the USB. Towards the end of the speech, and the subsequent panel, the electronics in the room ran out of batteries, making it impossible to cover the event via Twitter. I was told that iPhones and Blackberries were also running out of power. Although some battery life may have been restored during lunch, the life quickly ran out. I saw many audience members turn towards pen and paper to take notes for the rest of the conference.

Conclusion:

There are many graphs like this available online. Most are made by students at colleges, and a lot have to do with graphically displaying content volumes. I found this analytics visualizer to be exceptionally powerful because of its ability to track word volume over time.

The applications for this type of visual presentation of information are vast. During the ISF after party, I determined that these graphs would be an invaluable tool for examining PR statistics over time. If I sat down and pulled apart the code with someone, it would be fun to develop this graphing system into an extremely granular tool for online reputation management.

Data Dimensions:

My research depends on attending conferences because my current focus is on visualizing data with 4 main dimensions.

1. Time
2. Volume
3. Keyword
4. Event/Person

In this way, data becomes more like an audio file, and even closely resembles it. It is a friendlier way of viewing trends, and is more accurate (because of the added dimension of volume) than

Tool Limitations:

Currently, the tool I am using is Java based. It does not yet allow the user to set periods of time, and does not have the server capabilities to store server data. It is a brilliant data analytics tool, and if it were to allow a greater amount of granularity (in terms of keywords), as well as time range, it would prove to be an invaluable tool for tracking Public Relations. Currently, it is possible to do this, it just takes a longer amount of time to do so.

I approached Jeff Clark, the tool’s developer, about collaborating with him to create a more robust version that would incorporate a larger time frame, clickable data formats (I have a paper prototype of all of this), and a zoom feature. He declined, so the tool will stay where it is. If he releases a new version, I will be the first to use it.

There are so many great potentialities with a tool like this, because being able to visualize data over time with an extra dimension of volume is really exciting. Please let me know if you’d like to work on an open source version of it with me.

Now What?

Systems are optimal when the amount of time and space it takes to get pieces of relevant data from one person to another continues to decrease. Those designs/processes that exemplify this paradigm will be successful in the future economy. Systems like these that track the most important data points will be an important part of your complete data breakfast.

About:

Amber Case is a cyborg anthropologist, internet marketer, and speaker from Portland, Oregon. You can contact her at caseorganic at gmail.com, or on Twitter at @caseorganic.

Many thanks to Steve Gehlen for running the Internet Strategy Forum Summit and inviting me back to the conference to visualize the data streams.

On Wednesday, Jully 22nd 2009, Webtrends hosted a Social Media Club event with Jeremiah Owyang (@owyang) on the top floor of the building. 

Attendees were excited to see Owyang before his keynote speech at the next day’s Internet Strategy Forum (ISF) on Thursday, July 23rd, at the Governor Hotel in Downtown Portland.

Questions and Answers for Jeremiah Owyang

As we drank Widmer beer and pizza, Owyang answered some of our questions - some of which cam through Twitter (through tweeting @SocialMediaPDX).

Note:
If you want to follow along with what was said, you can check out the hashtag #smcpdx.

Can journalists engage the Groundswell and retain their abilities?

Take for example Megan McCarthy of CNET - she’s a traditional journalist but publishes as fast as the bloggers. She publishes a post immediately and then lets people know she’ll be updating the post as the news increases.

I’ll let you know something - Embargoes are almost dead. TechCrunch doesn’t honor Embargoes when they get them from large companies. As soon as that Embargo goes – it gets published. But it’s all real time now - kind of a free-for all. The rules have changed.

What do you think of web companies as long term businesses?

The think is - startups are cheap. It takes 15K -20K to get a startup running And VC’s are going to honor that. There’s still going to be money coming into the space. Because it’s cheap to run a startup these days.

Lets talk about the challenges - they’re focusing on the tools and features, not about what consumers and business want and need.
You can tell whether these companies are going to survive or not by just looking at their homepage. Are they focused on the tools and the features, or are they focused on ‘how can I help you?’

Are there any companies that are doing that well?

I was just over at Jive. They understand that very well over there. Radian6 is getting the hang of that in the startup space. They’re hiring people out of enterprise.

Is Twitter a waste of time for small businesses?

That’s the wrong question. The right question is - is the audience for that small business on Twitter? There are a lot of people out there that should be asking clients this question when they provide social media marketing services. 

Most small businesses and restaurants are Using MySpace, and then Facebook comes around.

At Forrester we have a methodology. The POST methodology. It’s in that order. Not TSOP - that’s backwards, and not even a real word!

First is Demographics, Psychographics, Technographics. How do they use technologies and where are they online? Are they reading blogs.

The O in POST is the business objective. What are you trying to do? Make them do things better, listen to them more?

The next piece is Strategy.
What is social media strategy? It’s not the tools. It’s all the things that happen behind the scenes to make it successful. The policies. The engagement.

 

Then, at the very end, the Tools. The Tools come last.

In review:
PEOPLE
OBJECTIVES
STRATEGIES
And then
TOOLS.

It is better to focus on the long-term piece - what are people doing? And how to work with them?

What are some pieces that people can look to?

Chris Brogan does a lot of good stuff. I’ll just start with the blogs. Razorfish has been doing a lot of good stuff. I think the best way is to go to the companies and pick apart what they’re doing well.

Comcast, Dell, Half-and-half Microsoft, Dell.

And those changing things? Best BUy is tryin to do a lot with social.
Intercontinental Group.

One of the best persons to follow is Obama.

We see corrpoations merge all the time and cultures change all the time. Amazon and Zappos, for instance.

I was with Tony a few weeks ago.

I think the big difference is that the culutes are very difference. What you might expect is that a lot of the inventory will appear on Zappos.

This is important to know. Social media doesn’t scale. If we’re all about building one on one social media with these tools. It doesn’t scale.

Zappos is about one to one relations. You ask them a question and they’ll give you a response. But that means they have to hire one person for every 100 interactions. If you do, you’re going to have to start outsourcing.

One thing you can do to solve this problem is to focus on word of mouth marketing on the customer side, or get the customers to help each other. They haven’t built a tool that has customers help each other yet. Maybe they’ll build a page that lets people correlate certain items of clothing with shoes.

We’re just at the early stages of references and recommendations. Our research on Trust. You should expect your friend recommendations to appear on
rather than being supported by people you don’t actually know.

There was an article in Wired about the Facebook wall. With my friends telling me what to buy and what to eat. That is their exact strategy.

The social networks are Facebook and Twitter is not to be a destination site but to get the content out there. And they know that.

My most re-tweeted tweet was “IBM is afraid of Microsoft who is afraid of Google who is afraid of Facebook who is afraid of Twitter who is afraid of whales”. I know this because each of those companies has told me who they are afraid of.

What about walled gardens?

Consumers don’t think of walled gardens. Most people don’t know or care.

People don’t remember that Email is the biggest social network - and no one has leveraged that yet.

Email does all of those things - Email signing your name, CC’ing, E-mail lists and groups.

Would you say that Email is broken?

No Email is not broken. All the A-List bloggers communicate by Email. I’ve totally seen it happen. They don’t use the tools. They use Email.

Yahoo Gmail, ect. These are the dominant social networks.

Do you think people appreciate Yahoo! and what they’re doing? Like with Yahoo! Pipes?

There’s a lot of innovation at Yahoo!, but we only see it in pieces and spurts.

That’s definitely a trend we’ll see in 2010. Aggregation.
Right now the trend is pollination - that everyone is trying to get things out there. That creates a lot of buzz. Friendfeed, Google Wave - all of these things will be trying to aggregate the signal.

And people are saying –“ is this going to be a tool used in Enterprise?” Well, it’s going to be as successful as Google Docs is in the Enterprise. Google is not an enterprise play. We’ll have to see how that plays out.

Kelly Feller: The goal is to minimize the touch points .We think
“Oh my gosh” Twitter might increase that - Kelly Feller - From Intel social media.

Audience: Is there a cost differential for Twitter vs. calls?

Owyang: If people are Tweeting about Best Buy in their free time or off hours? Should they get paid? No - because they’d be doing it in their free time. This is something that’s not been solved yet.

Here’s something that’s happening. CRM - Oracle. There’s basically a huge database about you and what you do. Lots of companies are pulling in data about you and what you like. And then if someone says, “Arggh! This Sony TV has 4 dead pixels” - they know to send someone out - via a tweet or comment - to help them with that. But if people use a different ID, it is difficult to know where something comes from.

The second thing is that companies are not ready for this – they’re just like “woah”.

Regarding Mobile

Mobile in Japan is big. Did you know they only use the phone for 4% of the time to talk on it? It’s a different type of behavior - it’s a different type of engagement.

Audience: Why do they have two?

UncleNate: One for talking and one for data?

Audience: Youth don’t E-mail. They have E-mial accounts just to set up social accounts and things.

Owyang: One of my relatives in college says she only uses E-mail to talk with old folks like me.

But as the digital natives move into the work force, they’ll be forced to use Email.

Owyang: It’s interesting that Twitter is more skewed towards older people. But youth have been using SMS for years.

About Jeremiah

As an analyst at Forrester Research, Jeremiah is on the cutting edge of all things social media. He authored the recent report “The Future of the Social Web” and is #2 on the “Twitter Power 150 List.”
——

About Social Media Club of Portland Oregon

Social Media Club (SMC) was started in 2006 by Chris Heuer, co-founder and partner at The Conversation Group, and Kristie Wells, Co-Founder and President of Social Media Club, with the core mission to:

• Expand Media Literacy
• Share Lessons Learned Among Practitioners
• Encourage Adoption of Industry Standards
• Promote Ethical Practices through Discussion and Actions

Social Media Club Portland is one of a growing number of SMC chapters across the globe.

Interested in getting involved or would like more information? Feel free to contact us.

About Internet Strategy Forum

Internet Strategy Forum Summit is a way to engage with six global brand executives in a single day at an affordable price and gain actionable Internet strategy insights at the Internet Strategy Forum Summit on July 23 and 24 at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon. Join other Internet executive attendees and our thought-leading presenters from top companies such as Forrester (Jeremiah Owyang), Hewlett-Packard, Intuit, Xerox, Intel, Portland Trail Blazers and WelchmanPierpoint.

These experts will share their experiences and ideas on how to best leverage the Internet and integrate it into your overall business strategy. Register for the Internet Strategy Forum and save 15% with our discount code: SMC.

About the Author

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and new media consultant based in Portland, Oregon. You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic.

PORTLAND, Ore. – March 20, 2009 – TechAmerica Oregon (formerly the Oregon
Council of AeA) announced today the finalists for the 2009 Oregon Technology Awards.

More than 60 nominations received in five categories comprising top picks in
System/Hardware, Software, Tech-Services, Emerging Companies, and Products.

This year’s winners will be announced at the Oregon Technology Awards event on May 7, 2009 at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Ore.

This premier Oregon business event celebrates excellence and achievement in the region’s technology industry and honors one outstanding Technology Executive of the Year. The Executive of the Year award winner was previously announced February 6, 2009, with this year’s honor going to Ralph Quinsey, president and CEO of TriQuint Semiconductor.

“We wish to thank all of the companies that prepared nominations for this year’s awards,” said Jennifer Bosze, executive director, TechAmerica Oregon. “This region boasts many noteworthy companies that continue to influence technology development through out the rest of the world, and we’re excited to help highlight them.”

The Oregon Technology Award finalists were selected from approximately 60 entries representing a broad range of companies within five categories. Three finalists were selected in each of the categories. The 2009 Oregon Technology Award finalists are:

System/Hardware Company of the Year

nLIGHT Corp.
RadiSys Corp.
TriQuint Semiconductor

Software Company of the Year

Digimarc Corp.
Tripwire Inc.
WebTrends Inc.

Technology-Service Company of the Year

ACME Business Consulting LLC
EasyStreet Online Services Inc.
Integra Telecom

Emerging Company of the Year

Elemental Technologies Inc.
Jive Software
Monsoon Inc.

In addition to the finalists named above, three products have been named finalists for this year’s Cool Product of the Year. This award will be voted on live at the May 7 event using innovative technology. These finalists are:

Cool Product of the Year

Clearwire Corp. – Clear Spot™
GadgetTrak Inc. — GadgetTrak®
Ontier, Inc. – Pixetell™

To learn more about this year’s Oregon Technology Awards event, please visit http://www.oregontechawards.com.

About TechAmerica

TechAmerica is the leading voice for the U.S. technology industry, which is the driving force behind productivity growth and jobs creation in the United States and the foundation of the global innovation economy. Representing approximately 1,500
member companies of all sizes from the public and commercial sectors of the economy, it is the industry’s largest advocacy organization and is dedicated to helping members’ top and bottom lines. It is also the technology industry’s only grassroots-to-global advocacy network, with offices in state capitals around the United States, Washington, D.C., Europe (Brussels) and Asia (Beijing). TechAmerica was formed by the merger of AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association), the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the Government Electronics & Information Technology Association (GEIA). Learn more at www.techamerica.org.

For more information, contact:

Barry Katcher
McClenahan Bruer Communications
barry@mcbru.com
503-546-1000

Jennifer Bosze
Executive Director
TechAmerica Oregon
jennifer.bosze@techamerica.org
503-624-6050

Let me preface this blog post with this simple phrase - “We had to do this”.

Hence, the following sound byte.

 

 Grmfwklsnaxp [0:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (214)

History

Grmfwklsnaxp is a concept that is becoming increasingly important. Since its first incarnation only a week ago, it has increasingly grown in the field of AWESOME.

As Grmfwklsnaxp reaches a plateau of importance, it may begin to enter the vocabulary of everyone around you.

Grmfwklsnaxp is VERY Important

In this case, it would be best not to look ignorant.

This is why It is important to understand how to pronounce the word Grmfwklsnaxp. But we need your help. Well, specifically, we need @mettadore’s help. But since he’s not here right now, we’re left to our own defences.

Thanks for listening.

Where are you from? What kind of work do you do?

I’m your stereotypical fast-paced ‘East Coaster’ from the NYC/NJ area but have been fortunate to have traveled all over the world, and have lived in a few different cities in the US — and abroad — over the years.

Currently, I am the Founder and CEO of Acclimedia, a consulting firm focused primarily on online brand adaptation, helping clients acclimate their products/services and customer experience to the web environment. We take a holistic approach to this process in order to preserve — and maintain — the integrity and essence of the brand online. I also serve as President and Chief Marketing Officer for Jelly Labs, the creative agency and market research arm of Acclimedia, specializing in campaign stickiness.

As a person who thrives on collaboration, I also founded Idea Brew, a think tank for fellow entrepreneurs that churns out ideas, copy and design for start ups and small businesses, where I act as the Creative Director (but that’s just a fancy title for ‘Do-It-All Creative Grunt Worker Extraordinaire!’). As if that weren’t enough, I also blog at Jelly Flux.com, covering marketing, technology and the social web, am a contributing writer for Green Options Media on all things green, renewable and sustainable from fashion to fuel, and recently accepted another writing gig for Triple Pundit adding political review to my writng repertoire.

Lastly, I will also be hosting a weekly podcast in 2009 and have a couple of other start up ventures in the works as well. Needless to say, I’m very busy but still manage to find the time to Twitter!

How did you first hear about CyborgCamp?

With my immersion (or more aptly, submersion!) in the digital world, I’ve had an increasing interest in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), and was seeking to network with others in this area. A Twitter search on the topic led me to tweet from @CyborgCamp, and after a quick scan of the posts and interactions, I began following immediately. Through @CyborgCamp, I have been able to connect with several interesting, intelligent and savvy people from in and around the Portland area — especially Bram Pitoyo, with whom I have sparked riveting, thought-provoking discussions about the semantic web and branding.

I am always seeking kindred spirits and like-minded innovators for collaboration, and I thought that if the people with whom I had connected on Twitter were representative of those I would meet at Cyborg Camp, I knew I had to be there. Being able to interact with these folks in person is so exciting, and I can only imagine the energy that will be emanating from their erudite minds. I must also give a shout out to Tyler Sticka, yet another Portlander with whom I’ve had the pleasure of interacting through Twitter, as I was completely blown away by the logo he designed for CyborgCamp. It’s absolutely brilliant in its simplicity and manages to effectively juxtapose the human and machine elements in a meaningful — and engaging — way. Talk about stopping power. And, of course, you, Amber, whose insights on a variety of topics always leave me pondering the philosophical elements of this space. I continue to be amazed by how Portland seems to be a hotbed for such an enlightened group of individuals and am looking forward to meeting everyone in person.

What is your dream ‘future technology’? If there was anything you could change about the current state of technology, what would it be?

I’m a total geek so I have several dream ‘future technologies,’ but in this case, environmental consciousness wins out, and I would love to see groundbreaking advancements in renewable energy become a reality, finding innovative ways to harness wind and solar power, eliminating our wasteful dependence on fuel and its harmful effects. Of course, as someone who grew up with Star Trek, The Next Generation, and an old school first-person adventure gamer, if I had to choose a more frivolous dream technology, it would most definietly be a virtual reality chamber similar to that of the Holodeck.

The one thing I would probably change about the current state of technology is the ‘on all the time,’ ‘always wired’ mentality [and applications that perpetuate it]. It’s great to be connected, and were it not for technology and the web, I would not have been able to meet the people from around the globe who have profoundly impacted my life, but I think it’s missing a human element that respects — and facilitates — offline/’unplugged’ experiences and personal growth. Our brains, cognition, and capacity for learning are increasing at staggering rates as a result of rapidly advancing technology, but what about the intrinsic human qualities that separate us from machines? I feel that those are getting lost in the process, and in some cases, diminishing in value. I think that this is a critical issue to be addressed with the Web 3.0 movement, which is being dubbed ‘The Semantic Web’ or ‘The Human Web’ by some. Marta Strickland recently referred to it as ‘The Relevant Web’ which I think ties in well with another issue of the current state of technology — too much information. In my ’spare time,’ I am working on a theory as to whether accessibility of information enhances or detracts from our relationships, or to take it one step further, does our relationship with that abundance of information enhance or detract from our human-ness?

What is the tech scene like in New York? Do you attend many tech events there?

It’s hard to say. In any city where there are mass numbers of people, there is always something brewing in tech, and NYC has been home to many Web 2.0 types of expos and the like. It’s a hub for gathering people from all over the world, so it’s an attractive spot for events, but the scene itself tends to veer more toward the social realm of the industry than deep into the geek sector. And those with successful tech start ups tend to migrate west to Silicon Valley and other more booming tech ecospheres.

Running several companies with clients — and vendor partners — throughout the world, I don’t have the luxury of attending as many events as I’d like. That’s one of the reasons I am continually exploring new technologies for participating remotely without sacrificing the experience, or being able to benefit from the key learnings just as I would as in-person attendee. Obviously, nothing can ever truly replace physically being at an event, amongst a group of people collaborating and sharing ideas, but I think that there are ways to bridge the virtual and physical worlds to make it advantageous for remote viewers to participate, share in discussions, and watch it happening real time. Pop!Tech did this very effectively with the live stream for their recent conference. While there weren’t any participatory applications to join in directly, the quality of the video was top notch, allowing you to substantively connect with the speakers and subject matter, and you could supplement the experience via sharing tools like Twitter. There are a few events where I think it’s important to attend in person; I am planning to attend SXSW in Austin, TX in March, and possibly Interactions09 in Vancouver in February.

Have you ever been to an un-conference before? If so, which conference? How was your experience?

Yes, I have attended a few unconferences, and I prefer them to big, splashy events because the intimate setting and smaller, thematic-driven groups allow for participatory learning rather than having so-called ‘expert’ speakers pontificate to a large group. The result is always inspiring and I find the experiences expand my views on a subject and enrich my thinking much more than linear, highly structured formats; plus, you are able to feed off the energy of the participants, who typically are very passionate about the topic. There’s much more of a community feel and sense of ownership to the material because it was self-created, where each participant plays an instrumental role in the process instead of watching a series of slides and taking notes. I think unconferences also stimulate action more so than traditional events, because you are excited and inspired to start applying your newfound knowledge and put your ideas into motion.

What do you think about the future of entertainment, branding, online media? How has your world been affected by new networks such as Twitter?

I think the future of branding has many challenges as brands tend to get diluted in the oversaturated web space. And I am of the thinking that not all brands need to — or should — have a digital presence.

Entertainment, on the other hand, is significantly augmented by technology, and is on the precipice of expansion in a variety of different areas. In addition to the rich visuals and advancements in CGI, more traditional network programming is able to connect viewers with their favorite TV show, or even characters with web-enabled services and extras. Even movies are enhanced by using the web to draw users into the storyline where they can make a personal connection with the film. But, in my opinion, the future of techtainment is with the continued growth of podcasting, iTV and web film-making. Major, capital-driven networks no longer control the market or drive the content. Anyone with a video camera and a dream can penetrate the space, and some of the most popular programs are web shows that are able to reach a global audience thanks to the power of the Internet medium, and even gain the exposure of mainstream media previously reserved only for big budget film houses.

Online media is another area where oversaturation makes it difficult for many new products and services to rise above the clutter, and for platforms to sustain long-term. I think in order for the online media space to advance, it needs to be streamlined, sourcing content better for relevancy and audience, and built to evolve with its users’ needs/wants/behavior/usage. A living, breathing architecture will be critical for maximizing the value of online media, and creating a vehicle for meaningful interactions that become an inherent, consistent — and active — part of the user’s daily life [with tangible impact] vs. a distraction or passive activity that wanes over time until the next ‘hot hit’ comes along. The ‘throw spaghettic against the wall to see what sticks’ method doesn’t scale. If Web 2.0 is analagous to the ‘classoom,’ Web 3.0 is the real world opportunity to put those learnings into action.

Twitter has dramatically impacted my world in a positive way. Save for the distraction and source of procrastination it can sometimes be, it has become a daily (read: hourly!) go to resource for real time knowledge sharing, product reviews, market research and even local, national and international news. It’s information with a pulse. And it has become an important part of my routine from my daily good morning exchanges with friends I’ve made to checking in with the Twitterverse on a myriad of subjects throughout the day — from their insights on project-related/client issues to their thoughts and experiences with new gadgets — even recipes and restaurant recommendations. Just about everything that touches my life makes its way into my tweetstream.

How have you built your Twitter network? What rewards have you received? What do you find most difficult/annoying about Twitter?

I am a firm believer in using Twitter to build relationships. I take pride in my network and value my connections. And I’m proud that I have been able to build such a quality network of amazing individuals each of whom bring something unique to my tweetstream — and to my life. I built my entire network organically, using Twitter search on keywords of interest to me, connecting through @ replies to individuals connected to those I follow, and by returning the follow to those who have sought me out through similar means. I always read a person’s bio, visit the link to their blog or website and read at least 3 pages of their posts before I follow. I take it very seriously and do not use auto follow scripts or try to inflate my followers. I prefer to keep my network small with even ratios of followers/following as I believe that’s the only way you can develop — and nurture — the one-on-one interactions that drive meaningful exchanges and encourage sharing.

I have made professional contacts, built lasting friendships, secured new opportunities and been exposed to new cultures through my Twitter community. In fact, my overseas partner is someone whom I connected with via Twitter, expanding my services into the European market with a creative shop in London. I will also be co-hosting a podcast with another Twitter contact and am collaborating with others on a new venture. Not to mention the personal friendships I’ve built that have come to mean a great deal to me.

Without question, the most annoying thing about Twitter is the spammers, self-promoters and get-rich-quick schemers that appear to be multiplying in droves, as well as those who are obsessed with their number of followers, using it as a misguided measuring stick for their popularity or ‘influence.’ I have always contended that the true value of Twitter is in the relationships, and the aforementioned groups are only interested in advancing their own agenda. It’s a megaphone for them vs. a sharing tool to spark two-way communication. Their misuse and flagrant disrespect for the network detracts from the experiece and devalues the service. I’ve become adept at spotting (and avoiding) the culprits, but it requires continual contact clean up to maintain a quality, spam-free community — time that could be better spent engaging with people who actually want to learn and share with you.

What is your presentation style like? What would you like to see discussed at CyborgCamp?

I recently ditched PowerPoint and any form of canned slides when presenting to clients or speaking at events, which has proven to be a much more creatively enriching experience for me — and my participants. By not stifling the flow of creativity with a highly structured set of materials, I’ve found that the group is more open and expressive, and that better ideas are generated. So, I am going to apply that same principle to CyborgCamp, allow the dynamics of the group to guide my talking points, and put a raw perspective out there for consumption, dissection, discussion and ideation.

I don’t want to limit the flow of creativity or expression by mandating a list of topics but I’d love to spark a discussion around what I referred to earlier in the interview as ‘The Human Web’ to get the group’s perspective on the interconnectivity of it all and how to effectively bridge/honor the dual faceted-ness of that interaction.

Connect with Gennefer

http://twitter.com/acclimedia
http://www.acclimedia.com/

Moving lives online, creating conversations across geography, connecting with consumers - how is social media defining the current entertainment landscape? As people not only put more content online, but conduct more of their daily lives in networked spaces and via social networking sites, how are social media influencing how we think of audiences?

Thanks to Joshua Green for inviting me to speak at the conference. It was one of the highlights of 2008.

Panel Members:

Joe Marchese - President, SocialVibe.com

Joe Marchese is co-founder and President of SocialVibe, a service that effectively brings brands into social media by empowering people to interact with the brands and social causes of their choice. Series A funded by Redpoint Ventures, SocialVibe connects brands and people in social media, recognizing that individuals hold the key to attention and influence in social media. SocialVibe’s goal is empower its member community to team with brands to make a difference for the causes they care about; the service allows people to utilize their influence to enhance their social media experience and provides a way for brands to reward the people that support them with brand specific perks. Most importantly, SocialVibe empowers people to use their influence in social media to raise money for the causes they care about, by allowing people to direct the money they earn from the brands they support to the charitable cause of their choice.

Prior to SocialVibe, Marchese built and lead the online media strategy division at a boutique management consulting firm. Marchese developed and guided the group to provide Fortune 1000 clientele research and online strategy development focused on digital media. Before consulting, Marchese began his career as a business analyst for Monster Worldwide, the parent company of Monster.com. He is a well known thought leader in the social media and advertising industry, writing weekly for MediaPost publications. Joe has also keynoted various digital advertising and media summits including, OMMA, iMedia, Digital Hollywood, as well as having contributed to a number of national publications as an expert on new media, such as BusinessWeek, NY Post, Boston Globe.

Amber Case

Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant living in Portland, Oregon. She received her degree in Sociology/Anthropology from Lewis & Clark College this May with a thesis on “The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial sites of Engagement”. She uses her anthropological training to provide strategic intelligence to businesses and individuals. She is an active blogger on oakhazelnut.com and is currently researching how the psychology of space in the digital world affects relationships, business systems, and value creation online.

Sabrina Calouri - Director, Marketing and Promotions of HBO online

What Sabrina Caluori, a storyteller who has found a home in digital entertainment strategy, loves about the web is that it’s a logical extension to on-air plot development in an environment that encourages conversation. After two years as an Account Executive at a Los Angeles creative agency that specialized in the motion picture industry, she moved back to NYC and joined interactive agency, Deep Focus as the third employee. As Account Director she led digital marketing strategy for clients such as HBO, Picturehouse, Miramax and Court TV. Shepherding effective ideation sessions across multiple disciplines (media, creative and publicity) to a unified strategy led to award-winning work and happy clients.

In 2007, Sabrina joined HBO as part of the leadership team managing the enterprise-wide redesign of HBO.com. As Director of Marketing and Promotions she oversees consumer engagement including community and social media, sponsorship and research. In the spirit of giving back, Sabrina acts as a Pro Bono Account Director for the Taproot Foundation. Currently, she is overseeing the redesign of The Hetrick-Martin Institute’s website www.hmi.org. If community is about the intersection and exchange of human experience, then Sabrina believes that technology will continue to redefine the delivery and the shape of those exchanges, but never the substance.

Kyle Ford - Director of Product Marketing, Ning

Kyle Ford is the Director of Product Marketing at Ning, a service that lets anyone create their own social network in seconds. He has been with the company for nearly three years.

Prior to Ning, Ford was an Associate Product Manager at Yahoo! Movies and TV, and a Writer/Producer for new media at FOX Broadcasting Company, working on shows such as The X-Files, Firefly and Undeclared. He’s currently based in Los Angeles and blogs at houseofkyle.com.

Rhonda K. Lowry - Vice President, Social Media Technologies, Office of the CTO, Turner Broadcasting

Rhonda K. Lowry is Vice President, Social Media Technologies within the Office of the CTO for Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (”TBS”) and has been with TBS for eight years. In this role, Rhonda provides thought leadership and strategic guidance toward emerging social media technologies and trends across the spectrum of social networking, blogging, online communities and virtual worlds, gaming, social collaboration and computing, and personal media. Ms. Lowry is based in Atlanta and reports to Scott Teissler, Chief Technology Officer. Prior to her current role, Ms. Lowry was Vice President within the New Products Group and led the development of key digital business initiatives including the development of Turner’s advertising widget. She led efforts in the adoption of virtual worlds including the CNN iReport presence in the virtual world of Second Life and is the company’s primary contact for emerging social spaces and virtual worlds. Rhonda began her career at Turner in the Digital Media Technologies department where she led technical program management and development teams for major programs across a wide portfolio including: CNN digital news production and archive systems, digital offerings including CNN Pipeline and GameTap, as well as numerous web systems and publishing services for the CNN, NASCAR, Turner Entertainment, and Sports Illustrated web properties.

Ms. Lowry has over 15 years of complex systems development experience and held a number of program management and technical leadership roles within the aerospace industry at NASA, Rockwell International, and Lockheed Martin. She began her career at NASA where she was a software developer and systems integrator for a multi planetary detection system that eventually became part of the Kepler Mission. Ms. Lowry was Chief Engineer and Department Manager at Rockwell where she was twice awarded the President’s Award for professional achievement, and she spearheaded a revolutionary modeling and simulation program for Lockheed on the F-22 program for which she was awarded Lockheed’s highest award for leadership, the NOVA Award. Ms. Lowry earned a Bachelor’s degree with honors in Physics from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and a Master’s degree in Physics from Washington University in St Louis. She has a certification in Systems Engineering from UCLA and is a member of ACM, INCOSE, WICT, and is a Betsy Magness Leadership Institute Fellow. Lowry was the recipient of WICT Atlanta’s 2006 Catalyst Award for Woman in Technology and was listed on Cable World’s Top 50 Women in Cable in 2006.

Moderator: Alice Marwick - NYU

Alice Marwick is a PhD candidate in the Media, Culture, and Communication department at New York University. Her dissertation examines how social media technologies affect social status and social hierarchies. Most discussions of power and cyberspace focus on either the positive transformative potential of the internet, or how structural oppression (race, gender, class, sexuality) is maintained through technology. Instead, her research looks at one form of power-social status-and how it is transformed by mediated “lifestreaming” technologies, like Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook, when used by a specific community. Alice is a frequent presenter on internet celebrity and social media and recently gave the keynote at “ROFLCON”. Her work has appeared in First Monday, the LA Times, Wired, Business Week and on BBC radio. Alice holds an MA in Communication from the University of Washington and a BA in Women’s Studies and Political Science from Wellesley College. She grew up in suburban New York, spent eight years in Seattle, and now mostly resides in Manhattan. Alice currently lives in San Francisco, where she is conducting ethnographic research on status structures in Web 2.0 startups, consulting on user practice for technology companies, and enjoying karaoke, thrift stores, and feminist blogs.

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Amber Case is a Cyborg Anthropologist who studies new media and the relationship between humans and computers. She enjoys data visualization, search engine optimization (ask), and how marketing works in the online ecosystem.

You can follow her on Twitter @caseorganic, or drop her an E-mail at caseorganic[at]gmai[dot]com. She’s spoken at various conferences including MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3, Inverge: The Interactive Convergence Conferece, Ignite Portland, and Ignite Boulder.

Convergence culture has moved swiftly from buzzword to industry logic. The creation of transmedia storyworlds, understanding how to appeal to migratory audiences, and the production of digital extensions for traditional materials are becoming the bread and butter of working in the media. MIT’s Futures of Entertainment 3 once again brings together key industry leaders who are shaping these new directions in our culture and academic scholars immersed in the investigation the social, cultural, political, economic, and technological implications of these changes in our media landscape.

The speakers and audience will be a mixed industry and academic crowd, and the diverse topics grouped together will give the conference both broad coverage of the new media and entertainment space and deep engagement across industries and disciplinary boundaries. This year’s conference will work to bring together the themes from last year - media spreadability, audiences and value, social media, distribution - with the consortium’s new projects in moving towards an increasingly global view of media convergence and flow.

Topics for this year’s panels include global distribution systems and the challenges of moving content across borders, transmedia properties, franchising and world building, comics and commerce, social and spreadable media, and renewed discussion on how and why to measure audience value.

The conference is on the 21th and 22nd of November at MIT. It works around a talk-show style model with panelists participating in a moderated discussion. Over the last two years this produced great, thorough treatments of the subject matter, getting industry and academic speakers together but avoiding product pitches. For a sense of what to expect, you can check out the site from last year’s event.

This will be the third conference of this kind.

Confirmed speakers for this year’s conference include: Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman), Alex McDowell (Production Designer, The Watchmen), Kevin Slavin (Area/Code), Donald K Ranvaud (Buena Onda Films), Amber Case (Cyborg Anthropologist and Social Media Consultant), Mauricio Mota (New Content [Brazil]), Alisa Perren (George State University), Amanda Lotz (University of Michigan), Sharon Ross (Columbia College Chicago), Nancy Baym (University of Kansas), Alice Marwick (New York University), Vu Nguyen (VP of Business Development, crunchyroll.com) with more to come.

Thanks to Joshua Green of MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium for hooking me up with this excellent opportunity!

14 were companies were selected to present at Oregon Entrepreneurs Network’s Venture Northwest conference on October 30.

The companies that have presented at VNW in the past have amassed more than $1.3 billion in venture funding. Many on the list have business models that will lead to success despite the state of the current economy, and they will be able to derive funds from VCs across the US who are looking for solid investments. This is good news in a time of uncertainty.

Venture Northwest 2008 will be held October 30, 2008, at The Marriott Waterfront in Portland. The companies selected to present at OEN’s Venture Northwest in the past have gone on to raise over $1.3 billion in venture funding the since 1997.

“The companies presenting at the conference represent some of the most innovative and creative companies from across the Northwest,” said John Hull, chair of the OEN Venture Northwest 2008 and managing director at OVP Venture Partners. “Some of these companies are seeking their first institutional venture financing while others have already received first rounds of capital from top-tier venture firms. In total, this list of companies represents well the broad spectrum of investment opportunities that flourish in our region”.

The companies were selected from a group of 44 companies that applied to present at the conference, and were chosen by a panel of venture capitalists, investment bankers, institutional and angel investors and professional service providers chaired by Brent Bullock, a partner at Perkins Coie LLP in Portland.

Registration information is available at oen.org or call the office at 503-222-2270.

The companies selected to present at OEN’s Venture Northwest are:

AboutUs – www.aboutus.org

Tagging and summarizing every website. AboutUs aggregates website information and captures UGC with the goal of creating the most current and comprehensive guide to the Internet and presenting it in a clear, consistent and summarized format. You’ll find different, interesting and useful information at AboutUs.

Advanced Inquiry Systems - www.advancedinquiry.com

Advanced Inquiry Systems, Inc. (AISI) is revolutionizing semiconductor test, helping our customers combat rising costs in the midst of falling product prices. Our unique solutions enhance flexibility for device design, greatly reduce test floor WIP, and nearly eliminate pad scrub, enabling at speed wafer test for flash, DRAM and logic devices.

Collaborative Software Initiative - www.csinitiative.com

Collaborative Software Initiative brings together like minded companies to build software applications at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. CSI introduces this market-changing process to build software for an implementation of a defined standard, an application for regulatory compliance, or a system to provide leverage for multiple companies.

DepotPoint – www.depotpoint.com

DepotPoint is a technology company that deploys a suite of web based workflow and marketplace applications that are designed to accelerate disposal of distressed properties. The company’s solutions are delivered to lenders, trustees/attorneys, REO asset managers, real estate agents, and property buyers resulting in greater processing and transaction efficiency.

END Outdoor – www.endoutdoor.com

END exists to bring affordable, sustainable, high performance footwear to our athletes. Through a powerful design ethos, END will employ a groundbreaking sustainable design and manufacturing process that raises the bar in the industry. Our goal is to only create high performance, sustainable running product that has outstanding fit, comfort and stability.

M-Six - www.m-six.com

M-Six is a software-as-a-service firm armed with a disruptive 3D visualization technology. Our product delivers an innovative workflow that reduces our customers’ costs by 10x while increasing their freedom to invent and collaborate. We’re currently administering a private beta with leading design firms that will enable a revenue stream of $75M within 3 years.

NuScale Power - www.nuscalepower.com

NuScale Power is commercializing a modular, pre-fabricated 45 MWe nuclear power plant. The plant can be scaled to any size by grouping modules together. It will be safer and will improve economics by moving to mass manufacturing off-site, simplifying refueling, and permitting units to be added to match demand growth.

RallyPoint – www.rallypoint.tv

Rallypoint builds and operates the “TV App Store” that delivers web-based services and advertising over the broadband pipe to Internet-enabled television sets without using a set-top box. Rallypoint is seeking to generate $40 to $200 of revenue per Internet-enabled HDTV per year. Rallypoint has developed distribution relationships with the #1 HDTV chipset maker, the #2 and #4 TV OEMs, and the #1 retailer that will ensure general availability of its software and key applications by mid 2009. Rallypoint is raising $3.5M.

Revelation – www.revelationglobal.com

Revelation creates cutting edge web applications for qualitative market research. Launched in 2007, Revelation dramatically extend the reach of qualitative research, enabling companies to collect more data, faster and at a fraction of the cost - while providing a truer picture of the consumer experience. Already generating revenue, Revelation is poised to become the end-to-end platform for qualitative customer understanding and knowledge management.

RNA Networks - www.rnanetworks.com

RNA networks is the pioneer of collaborative cache technology for the enterprise data center. A core architectural building block for the data center, RNAcache provides companies in high-volume transaction and content delivery industries with large-scale cache resources to reach microsecond latency, eliminate performance bottlenecks and achieve high-speed certified messaging.

SplashCast - www.splashcastmedia.com

SplashCast is the leading content syndication service for emerging media. It enables brands to engage with typically elusive audiences by creating micro-channels of continuously-refreshed content consumers value, interact with, and can share with other people. SplashCast syndicates content to emerging media including online social networks, mobile devices, IPTV and desktops.

Tamarac, Inc. - www.tamaracinc.com

Tamarac Advisor™ is the leading portfolio rebalancing and trading platform used by hundreds of advisory firms to dramatically scale their business more profitably. Tamarac’s web-based software automates portfolio construction and maintenance, portfolio monitoring and analysis, cash management, rebalancing, tax management, trading, post-trade reconciliation.

Topaz Bridge - www.topazbridge.com

Topaz Bridge makes enterprise-class HR software applications that combine the power and flexibility of Microsoft SharePoint with the strength and control of SAP. We realize true strategic impact for large companies by saving millions of dollars, while dramatically improving employee satisfaction and maintaining the security and structure of corporate data.

Wi-Chi – www.wi-chi.com

Wi-Chi designs, manufacturers, and markets highly reliable and efficient nano-inverters for solar PV systems. Driven by a highly experienced team of innovators, Wi-Chi’s proprietary and miniaturized inverters achieve 25 year reliability at significantly reduced cost. Wi-Chi is focused on simplifying installation and enabling solar technologies to achieve grid parity for broad market adoption.

About Oregon Entrepreneurs Network

Founded in 1991, the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to providing opportunities for Oregon entrepreneurs and improving the business climate for emerging, growth-oriented companies statewide. The organization has members throughout Oregon and southwest Washington. For more information about the OEN, visit its website at www.oen.org.

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News Media Inquiries, please contact:
Jeff Fishburn
OnPR for Oregon Entrepreneurs Network
503-802-4408
jefff@onpr.com

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Amber Case is an Internet Marketing Professional and is a member of Portland’s SEMPDX. She’s worked with a variety of clients - and enjoys teaching individuals and small/medium sized companies how to create and maintain an online presence. You can contact her at caseorganic at gmail.com or on Twitter @caseorganic.

 

 Hazelnut Tech Talk Episode 5 [43:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (452)

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Hazelnut Tech Talk is a collaboration between Amber Case and Bram Pitoyo.

Our fifth episode features Craig Schwartz from toonlet, wherein we talked about how the web bubble burst helped form FooCamp, why San Fransiscans are dastardly good at spotting werewolfs, history and future of the button, BlackBerry camp, ribs breakage due to excessive laughter, online comic that shares the same spirit with SPORE, and text adventures built on HyperCard.

Let the Comic Making Begin!

If you’re interested in making your own comics really, really quickly, head on over to Toonlet, where you can do pretty much whatever you want. (And the replies to comic posts are in comics too, making it an amusingly spam-free environment!).

Digitally Yours,

Hazelnut Tech Talk

The Baraka Institute is the brainchild of the fiery Feroshia Knight, an entrepreneur, life coach, and teacher. She’s new to Twitter, but wanted to take a brief break from her entrance into the social world to give me (and the world) five time management tips.

As an instructor at Baraka Institute, Feroshia illuminates the classroom with her vibrant energy. She understands the meaning behind practice makes perfect and creates powerful learning environments in which students thrive, leaving inspired and ready for action.

Five steps to better time management

Tip #1:

Know your priorities for the day.

Tip #2:

Have a system to check that you’re on task.

Amber: What kind of system do you use to keep on task? I often use a legal pad, or a notebook with check boxes.

Feroshia: Actually, in addition to having a list, I use a timed device to make sure I’ve stayed on track in alignment with the day’s plan

And a timer can be as easy as an egg timer. Anything that keeps ticking.

Tip #3:

Have a criteria list for when time becomes sparse to make the right decisions as how to best use your time.

Tip #4:

Check in with yourself — Ask: “Am I on fire in a good way or a stressful way? Am I on target?” Because a lot of people try to grind without actually making progress. There’s a difference between working hard and working smart

Tip #5:

Pre-plan your day the night before with the long term future in mind. People tend to focus on the moment, getting stuck in the details.

When people get stuck in the details, life becomes prey ANALYSIS PARALYSIS! The key is to look at different ways to see and do things.

Amber: How long have you been coaching businesses and organizations?

Feroshia: Since 1989. I initially had a marketing and communications agency called Foto:Grafika/Agent 47. I moved from the “expert model” of consultant to the “harness the collective intelligence” model of coaching. Of course there is a mixture of consulting in there, where relevant.

Amber: Brilliant. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and advice. Good luck to you in the future! How can people interested in learning more about being productive, happy people contact you?

Feroshia: Catch me personally at feroshia@barakainstitute.com or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/barakainstitute

There’s also the Baraka Institute Website, which is http://www.barakainstitute.com/