WeOttaGo Delivers Relevant Data About Where To Hang Out on the Road

This past weekend, I hung out with the WeOtta founders Forrest and Grant Wernick, who gave me a demo of their mobile app, WeOttaGo -- available as a free download at the iTunes store. WeOtta is all about giving you more accurate refined data about what to do and where to go in a particular location.

Using machine learning and natural language processing (my past life -- aka Dragon Systems days), they harness, process and turn data that is unstructured into contextually relevant results that are most relevant to us in real time.

Example: you're in San Francisco or London and are trying to find a great wine bar that is still open now that dinner has finished and you look at your watch and it's after 11 pm. How many times do you struggle to think of a place to go that is close to where you're already at, even if you know a city relatively well. As an avid traveler, this happens to me all the time.

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WeOttaGo Delivers Relevant Data About Where To Hang Out on the Road

Photographer Rick Friedman Does Coast-To-Coast Lighting Tour

I just returned from another trip and took close to 4,000 shots on my trusty Canon 7D. The longer I've been shooting, the more I can appreciate the complexity and value of lighting. A photographer star in this area is Boston-based Rick Friedman, who holds a number of workshops around the country. 

Rick has a number of upcoming workshops where you can learn a 'hands-on' way to control your lighting. His events are highly interactive and designed for portrait photographers, photojournalists, corporate and event photographers, wedding photographers, and serious amateurs who want to take their knowledge of illumination and light to the next level.  

His workshop begins with ways to create wonderful light using a single speedlite and continues to add a 2nd and 3rd speedlite and progress to using studio strobes. Rick teaches using both Nikon and Canon and brings different lights for participants to test out so you can determine what will work best for their 'kind' of shooting.

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Photographer Rick Friedman Does Coast-To-Coast Lighting Tour

American Academy of Environmental Medicine Warns People About Smart Meters

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has released its latest position paper on electromagnetic field (EMF) and radiofrequency (RF) health effects calling for immediate caution regarding smart meter installations. Citing several peer-reviewed scientific studies, the AAEM concludes that “significant harmful biological effects occur from non-thermal RF exposure” showing causality.

As an article over at The Blaze says of smart meters impact: headaches, insomnia, tinnitus, DNA breakdown are all just a few of the myriad problems mentioned when people talk about the constant bombardment of EMFs or electromagnetic frequencies, a huge by-product of the new Smart Meters being installed by public utilities around the country.

“A more thorough review of technological options to achieve society’s worthwhile communications and business objectives must be conducted to protect human health and wellbeing” stated Dr. William J. Rea, a member of the AAEM and former thoracic surgeon. “By continuing to layer more and more wireless communication within our communities, we are setting the stage for widespread disease.” 

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American Academy of Environmental Medicine Warns People About Smart Meters

Facebook & Twitter: Lonelier Beings For Using Them?

The Atlantic Validates Our Prediction: Social Media May Make Us Lonelier In this year's edition of our annual predictions of top media stories, one of our prediction was: "We may be immersed in social media, but we’ll spend less time with actual people."

Back in Jan., we wrote, "So many people use social media sites – from Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, to and more -- that people have less time to spend with their friends and family. We’re not sure if this will get much media coverage..." Well The Atlantic Monthly has validated our prediction in its May 2012 issue.

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Facebook & Twitter: Lonelier Beings For Using Them?

Remembering the Strong Female Forces In Our Lives

This week, I couldn't stop thinking about them. Among "them" was not THE woman in my life who guided me, took care of me, shaped me. That was my grandmother and like most grandmothers of women in their forties, they're no longer a phone call away.

The benefits of being raised by your grandmother is that you are surrounded by older, wiser women at a much earlier age, all of which have stories, many of which remind you not to take the world....and everyone in it so seriously.

In my grandmother's circle was an incedible group of women who got together for lunches, martinis, and shopping, even in the 1930s and 40s when they were all healthy, raising children and had husbands that they 'navigated.' (see My Mother's Kitchen -- 2004 blogging days) and a dedication to mothers).

All of them strong, yet sweet...the kind of women who didn't tolerate weak character or housewives without some other mission or job. It wasn't the south, yet a couple of them have moved north for some reason or another. Most of us were "baked" in a small town in upstate New York and with that came things like country fairs, football games, horse farms, 4H, piano lessons, and more sewing and craft afficiandos than wine snobs.

Learning the basics of being a 'woman' of that time was part of living in a small town...you know, the traditional stuff: sewing a button, baking a cake, rolling pie dough the 'right' way, dance lessons, serving tea. Yet, they absolutely tolerated if not encouraged sports for women. While I regularly played many a' sport in school, none of these stronger older women who influenced me in my life played a thing.

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Remembering the Strong Female Forces In Our Lives

TEDxSummit in Qatar's Doha Brings Together Nearly 100 Cultures to Accelerate Change & Meaning

I recently came back from Doha Qatar, where I attended a week-long event exclusively for TEDx organizers.

The first TEDxSummit was hosted by the Doha Film Institute at the Katara Cultural Center aka the Katara Valley of Cultures. The "village" is a bit like a sprawling outdoor convention center that houses an ampitheatre, tents and domes where you can see live concerts and events.

Katara was born out of a long held vision to position the State of Qatar as a cultural lighthouse of art if you will, highlighting the best of theatre, literature, music and visual art in the Middle East. It sits along the water, so you can watch boats sail by and a sunrise in the early evening off in the distance while you take in your event, whether it be performing arts or meetings, or in our case, a mishmash of both. 

Before arriving, I wasn't sure what to expect, from the kinds of content they'd choose to why Qatar and what is Qatar? Refer to my numerous posts on Qatar including a write-up on the Arab Museum of Modern Art, images of the impressive Museum of Islamic Art, a display of work from renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo Qiang and the over-the-top Murakami Ego exhibit.

What is Qatar is probably the most mind blowing takeaway from the event as you'll see from my write-ups. At first, it didn't make sense why we were having an event in such a remote place, a country barely known to so many and yet, after returning from the Summit, the location makes perfect sense.

Given that the Summit attracted TEDsters from nearly a hundred countries around the world, it is in fact a fairly central location, though obviously a longer haul for those of us on the American west coast. And, given the diversity of the attendees, Qatar, which rather than having hundreds of years of history and cultural references, really only started to make its marks a few decades ago.

In other words, its a country in search of an identity as demonstrated by the volume of new immigrants pouring in to tap into Qatar's exploding economic growth...less a land of local Qataris and more a land of transplants from Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon, the list goes on.

And, let's not forget other stats: 75% of those living in Doha and surrounding area are expats/foreign nationals. Doha is preparing for its growing global interest; the city is about as modern as it gets with highrises going up faster than Las Vegas hotels in its prime.

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TEDxSummit in Qatar's Doha Brings Together Nearly 100 Cultures to Accelerate Change & Meaning

Relevenz: Your Mobile Calendar Marries Relevant & Hyper Local Promos

If the word of the day in the social media world isn't engagement or curation, then its geo-location or relevance.

Finding things that matter to you amidst the clutter (bring on smart and interesting curators please) is like finding a needle in a haystack. And truth be told, while the content needs to be interesting, it also needs to be relevant.

Relevenz is banking on the fact that people are starving for more and more relevance in a world where so much of what comes our way either doesn't spark our interest or has nothing to do with who we are or what we care about.  

Relevenz is a downloadable app (they're starting with iPhone and Android with other mobile support coming later this year) that focuses on relevance within your social calendar. The idea is simple: share relevant plans with people who matter to you (Plancast has demonstrated that sharing events with friends is something people will spend their time doing), and within the parameters of that shared information, you can be informed of local offers, products and services that are most relevant to your world.

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Relevenz: Your Mobile Calendar Marries Relevant & Hyper Local Promos

LocalSocial: The Bridge Between Mobile, Proximity Marketing & Great Deals

LocalSocial is all about the bridge between mobile and proximity marketing. Targeting business owners, retailers, merchants and venue owners, they're trying to make it easy to create offers and loyalty points rewards that can only be unlocked on the premises.

The goal of course is to drive footfall, repeat visits, and provides deep insight and social context for new and existing existing visitors. It turns anonymous walk-ins in to real people, enabling merchants to better engage with your customers in a way that's convenient and fun for them. 

What they're doing is not new, but it is relevant and it is tapping into a massive market, one which a ton of players are banking on the fact that the power of proximity and location mapped with interests and culture will be a goldmine for brands. 

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LocalSocial: The Bridge Between Mobile, Proximity Marketing & Great Deals

Meet Volta, Home of Irish & Worldwide Independent Cinema Online

Volta is the home of Irish and worldwide independent cinema online.

A little history and background is in order for how it got 'its' name. Volta was the name given to the first cinema in Ireland opened by James Joyce in 1909. Over 100 years later, the Volta name remains synonymous with the best of independent Irish and International film. 

Today, for anyone interested in independent film and creativity, Volta is a great companion (a non-subscription companion that is) where you can rent or buy top independent titles and interesting and intelligent articles. They are developing the market for "on-demand" film in Ireland. 

Obstacles for getting this to expand as fast as they'd like include the obvious ones that nearly every country faces: broadband proliferation outside Dublin and another major cities. That said, there's a huge appetite for cinema in Ireland according to Tom Lawlor who heads up their marketing efforts. He says, "on a per capita basis, the Irish go to the cinema more often than any other European country. There's a hunger, especially for Irish theatre."

Since they're not subscription based, they don't compete with the likes of Netflix, a service albeit useful and popular, releases films a year later or more. Volta is focusing their efforts on "on-demand" independent film. As for how fast they'll grow and whether they'll expand beyond Ireland?

Right now, they're focusing their energy on the Irish market. "We don't see ourselves as a start-up because we're part of a large film company," says Tom. Volta has been developed for the Irish market by Element Pictures as part of the Universcine network.

The goal in the next few years is to increase the number of devices where people can access content, i.e., Android, iPads, connected TVs and so on.

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Meet Volta, Home of Irish & Worldwide Independent Cinema Online

UCLA's Social Media Business Course on April 27-28

There's a fascinating social media "business" course coming up in LA April 27-28, 2012 at UCLA. Entitled the UCLA Social Business Course, the course is designed for executives and professionals who want to go beyond the basics and learn how to apply social media to get concrete business results.

Led by industry veteran Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, she'll explore real-world examples using case studies and explore how social media affects each functional department (PR, marketing, customer service, product development, etc.). The course will also dive into ways to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each.

Social media monitoring will be part of the curriculum, along with an assessment to benchmark the "as is" state of your social media initiatives and compare them to "could be" via best practices geared toward social media and digital programs with higher monetizations of social media investments.

With this insight, business leaders can assess their next steps; create executable strategies and tactical plans that make sense to traditional organizations (even those not familiar with social media); and make the approval process for initiatives and implementation simpler, more efficient, and effective because they are grounded in business fundamentals that maximize the ROI in social media.

If interested, you can find out more and register here.    

UCLA's Social Media Business Course on April 27-28

Kavaleer: A FORCE Behind Animation, Short Films, TV Series, Design & Interactive

I first met Andrew Kavanagh during a trip to Dublin a couple of years ago. Introduced to me as someone "interesting to know and meet" because I expressed an interest in arts and culture and write about it regularly, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an expansive world of expertise which unfolded as a result of a one-time "pub" meeting.

He drew an impressive animation sketch for me in some Irish pub way back when and so it comes to pass that Andrew is a huge creative force behind Kavaleer Productions, a well known, savvy and talented studio group, who have created a top notch reputation in the film, design, interactive, animation and television space around the globe.

We had the fortune of spending time together in Austin recently so I could learn about their latest updates. While most known for their creation of award–winning film and television projects, Kavaleer also creates animation, interactive and design services. Aside from creating their own TV shows, where they have been twice nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award and a British Animation Award, their film work has been selected by over 100 international festivals over the past ten years. Impressive, non?  

Interactive has been increasingly playing a major role which is no surprise given what is having on the investment front in Silicon Valley, LA, London and beyond. Kavaleer is also a seasoned provider of interactive content and apps for the e-learning and games sector; no surprise given what's happening in the games industry recently.

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Kavaleer: A FORCE Behind Animation, Short Films, TV Series, Design & Interactive

Billfaster Makes it Easy & Fast to Manage Money, Invoices & Your Business

I come across new start-ups on a weekly basis if not a daily one and when you are introduced to as many as I am, its easy to glaze over the details because so many of the pitches sound the same and are in similar categories trying to do the same thing.

I met with the founders of Billfaster recently who are working on a solution for real businesses with real problems around invoicing, accounting and money.

It is not a widget. It's not a social media or analytics tool and it's not some web app or vertical search engine that is likely to get crushed by Microsoft or Google. 

Billfaster is essentially online accounting software as a service that targets small businesses, startups, freelancers and professional service contractors.

They offer a quick, easy and fast way to keep track of and manage money, as well as handle businesses and individual's accounting. You could say pieces of what they provide compete with QuickBooks yet it cleverly does things a little differently and the interface seems to be incredibly simple, at least from what I could tell from an in-depth demo in Austin last month.

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Billfaster Makes it Easy & Fast to Manage Money, Invoices & Your Business

Entrepreneurs: Look Outside Silicon Valley for Innovation, Talent & Money

While Silicon Valley may be the "hub" for technology start-ups and where the world thinks the top creativity and talent reside, there is plenty of innovation coming out of other parts of the world.

In the states, Denver, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Portland and Seattle are all making strides.

Just this week, I was informed of a few start-ups out of Montana which just closed small rounds.

Outside the states, many entreprenuers and VCs alike know about the flood of activity coming out of Israel, the UK and mobile apps from developers in Eastern Europe, Asia and South Africa (Memeburn is a growing social media and start-up blog for the developing world and a hot new Cape Town-based start-up conference is unveiling in the fourth quarter).  

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Entrepreneurs: Look Outside Silicon Valley for Innovation, Talent & Money

Zartis Leverages Social Media & Existing Employees to Mine the Best Talent

There are still plenty of opportunities to create a lucrative business in the "job" and "talent" market. Not only was LinkedIn's entry into the public market a hit last year (its IPO brought the company $352.8 million), but this BusinessWeek article (a GigaOm re-post) from last May touts numerous potential acquisition targets that might complement their business. Among those targets include Hashable, Socialware, Yammer, Indeed and BranchOut.

Sprouting from Ireland, Zartis is a new player in this space, who see the growing difficulty in hiring, particularly technical talent. Jobs boards aren’t returning great or even relevant candidates and recruitment agencies are expensive and can be time consuming.

Unemployment and economic recession issues aside, the growth of new technologies, mergers and acquisitions and start-ups with great ideas around the globe, offer tremendous new employment opportunities, but finding the right person for a position is often like finding a needle in a haystack, a very high and dense haystack.

Zartis, which is part of Enterprise Ireland, who had a major presence at SXSW last month, is an online service designed to help companies with between 5 and 500 employees to “look within” to find the talent they need through employee referrals.

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Zartis Leverages Social Media & Existing Employees to Mine the Best Talent

Austin's Scene & #SXSW in a Nutshell: My Summary of Sorts...

SXSW aka South-by-Southwest, the event that takes a week of my time every year in Austin, Texas, seems to get bigger and bigger every March, not to mention more global.

Refer to my blog write-up on its international diversity here.  

For example, Ireland had the most number of start-ups they've ever had at SXSW (30 in total representing film and interactive).

Below are the Enterprise Ireland folks with Storyful founder Mark Little.

Singapore, Great Britain, Spain (primarily music), Japan and Canada also tried to make sure attendees knew they were taking this space seriously.

Also in my international blog post, I covered the sheer volume of brands who had tents (Nokia, Microsoft and others), threw parties (HP, Pepsico and others...I lost track) or carted folks around town (Chevy).

On the interactive side, there was so much activity between the dozens and dozens of panels to the after parties, all of which I couldn't keep up with despite my social media apps buzzing me every ten seconds to tell me what was happening and where. Foursquare remained a popular app for check-ins and to see where your buds were - that said, the private parties were off the grid and frankly, had to be, for the intimacy of the "old SXSW" to prevail, a necessary for those of us who have been going for a decade (or more).

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Austin's Scene & #SXSW in a Nutshell: My Summary of Sorts...

10 Ways to F-K Up Marketing Yourself at #SXSW

Truth be told, I go to a lot of conferences and events throughout the year and have been a regular attendee at SXSW (South-by-Southwest Festival) for about a decade. One of my favorite things to do at conferences is observe what vendors do well (rarely are my socks knocked off) and of course, where they make obvious marketing faux pas (more often than not).

Many of the things on my list will apply to pretty much any show, however the below incidents actually happened during my trip to SXSW this past week. And I couldn’t help but think: It is 2012 isn’t it? There are some basics. What Not To Do:

1.      Throw an Event and Target the Wrong People:

Let’s call it a B-Brand, aka, not a Ford, Pepsi Co or Kodak but let’s say a company in between Instagram and Adobe as far as name recognition goes.

Targeting early social media adopters, musicians and music “lovers” would have been the right way to go. Upon arrival, I was escorted to the VIP section (nearly every event I went to had one of these yet it surprised me how little the venue cared since they certainly didn’t go out of their way to cater to that section, which btw, housed the sponsors who actually paid for the event).

After meandering around for a couple of hours and asking people why they were there and how they knew about the ‘brand,’ I was amazed at how unaware they were, not to mention it simply wasn’t their target audience. The other half? Too drunk to carry on a conversation. I had to ask to find out who the key ‘sponsors’ were as well as the Twitter ‘handle’ and hashtag which no one seemed to know. Marketing 101 folks. It’s a social media event.

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10 Ways to F-K Up Marketing Yourself at #SXSW

30 Irish Start-Ups to Make Splash at #SXSW This Year: #IrelandSXSW

Representatives from 30 Irish companies unite in Austin Texas to participate in South by Southwest (SXSW), the world’s premier film, music and interactive conference.   

With the Irish delegation is Ireland’s Minister for Innovation, Mr. Sean Sherlock. The delegation is supported by Enterprise Ireland (EI), the government agency responsible for the growth and development of Irish companies in international markets. Collectively, the Irish will stage their presence at booth #1307 in Exhibit Hall 4 at the Austin Convention Center.  Enterprise Ireland is joined at SXSW this year again by IDA Ireland and the Irish Film Board.

Ireland’s web, gaming, digital media and film ingenuity will shine in myriad ways throughout the event. For Storyful which uses social networks to create an authentic and socially useful journalism, SXSW is the latest stop on its US market roll-out campaign.  This week the company named Erica Berger, who previously reported for The Economist, as head of its new Americas operation. At Storyful, she will manage relationships with publications like the New York Times and The Economist, and tech companies like Google and YouTube.  Also this week, the new Storyful Direct app landed in Apple’s App store, which helps citizens connect their content with news organizations. 

Other Irish standouts at the show include:

• Relevenz which will launch its plan-sharing social app for the Android smart phone.
• VendorShop, a provider of Facebook shopping cart solutions recently scored a seed round which it will use to expand its presence beyond the 15 countries where it’s currently entrenched.  With the VendorShop solution, merchants can promote and sell products from their Facebook page without redirecting customers to another website. 
• Volta makes its first foray to SXSW.  The provider of video-on-demand services specializes in Irish and international indie films.  The company is collaborating with its European partners on a feature that will enable users to watch and share films from their Facebook accounts.  For producers and distributors, this broadens the market for their films and facilitates social interaction with a wider audience.
• OnePageCRM is launching their Version 2.0, a simple sales management tool for small businesses.  They also boosted their global sales team by partnering with a New England-based reseller. 

•  Zartis hit a 2000 WordPress installation milestone for its user-friendly recruitment software and signed a partnership with SiliconRepublic, Ireland’s leading tech industry news site.  The company just added a feature that enables firms to launch employee referral programs with a unique social media integration flavor.

Ireland’s presence will also be felt in film.  Five Irish movies are slated for screening with several marking their North American debut at SXSW.  They include feature films “Citadel” and “Dollhouse”, and the documentary, “Dreams of a Life”.  Two short films, “Foxes” and “Joy” complete the Irish line-up.    

Take a meander over to their site to see a list of Irish companies attending SXSW.  

30 Irish Start-Ups to Make Splash at #SXSW This Year: #IrelandSXSW

Yahoo's Filmmaking Panel on Storytelling - #SXSW #webstories

On March 12, 2012 at SXSW, Yahoo! will be holding a unique filmmaking panel on the future of storytelling media titled “Times Are a’Changing: Digital Storytelling Today.” Moderated by Erin McPherson, VP, Head of Originals/Video at Yahoo! Inc., the panel will feature Mike Rosenstein, Director of Digital at Red Hour Films, Larry Tanz, President at Vuguru LLC and Jordan Levin, CEO at Generate. 

The greatest filmmakers of the 20th Century long maintained that there was nothing comparable to watching an epic story told on a screen that enveloped our frame of vision..but they didn’t have smartphones, tablets or PC's.

 As our consumption habits have adopted the same frenetic pace of our lives, a new breed of storyteller has emerged to match those habits.  They don’t exist only in Hollywood--or in Austin, they exist in every corner of every town.  Their stories are framed on an iPhone screen, through the viewfinder of a DSLR or on tablets.  Content creators and distributors now have a duty to combine a story that might be viewed on any manner of screens.

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Yahoo's Filmmaking Panel on Storytelling - #SXSW #webstories

Dastoli's "Machines of the Working Class" at SXSW

Robert and James Dastoli are identical twin brother filmmakers hailing from Los Angeles whose short film "Machines of the Working Class" will be part of the SXSW Midnight Shorts program on March 9th, 10th and 16th, 2012.

The two minute short features practically built robots having an unusually profane conversation. SXSW marks the fifth flm festival screening of Machines of the Working Class in the past year, with a screening at the Florida Film Festival coming up in April.  

 Check out their amusing behind the scenes featurette on YouTube here. 

Dastoli's "Machines of the Working Class" at SXSW

TEDxBerkeley 2012's Inspiring Innovation Merges Magic, BioData & Technology With Film, Oceans & Plants

Most people in my circles know what a TEDx event is but for those of you who don't, it is a local, self organized event that bring people together to share a TED-like experience, in the spirit of ideas worth spreading.

This video gives you an idea of what these non-profit events are like, which extend far beyond Berkeley. Cities around the world are organizing TEDx events, with a goal to teach, share, collaborate, educate, faciliate and grow. Ideas worth spreading means that some of these ideas can revolutionize (and have revolutionized) the world because of a new relationship or partnership that has evolved as a result of the wider distribution of these ideas and the courage and dedication of people behind making the 'magic' happen.

It's the second year I've been involved as co-curator of TEDxBerkeley, an event held at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall every February. In attendance were well over 1,000 people from a broad range of disciplines and minds - from academic, music and science to medicine, technology and the arts.

15 ground-breaking thinkers, leaders and performers entertained and educated the audience through storytelling, performance and anecdotes from their life experiences.

Given that UC Berkeley is involved, so were some of the professors and students, including the opening act by DeCadence (pronounced dee-KAY-dence, with a capital ‘C’), a vocalist group that sports eye-catching blue and gold capes and creative dance moves at nearly every performance.

The musician in me couldn't help but call out music brilliance first and while we're on the topic of incredible voices, Charles Holt stole the stage with his storytelling and singing of "He Lives in You," my favorite Lion King number.  

He had me at "go" is an understatement, largely because of his intuitive nature, the fact that he lives his life through that intuitive lense and his witty and incredibly honest stories of his mother and grandmother from the south, which will leave you crying and laughing at the same time.

From music to dance, Jodi Lomask then awed us through her dance troupe. Known for her work with an organization she founded called Capacitor 15 years ago, she works with world-renowned research scientists to create original dance works that draw attention to critical environmental issues. 

I think about people I know who spend their life committed to understanding oceans and I think about the moment it was for me that I got one step closer: deep sea diving off the coast of Australia some 60 or so feet below the surface. In that world, that remarkable world, you truly understand the beauty of a world we need to cherish and preserve.

Her dancers showed us that beauty through a combination of violin, dance movements in and outside of rings in somewhat of a Cirque du Soleil style and environmental videos, all creating an outer world exerience for us to share.

One of my favorite moments of the performance is below...the intertwining of minds, hearts and bodies.

Also involved in conservation and the environment was Dr. Maria Fadiman who I had the pleasure of setting up with a new Twitter account (social media will get us all, the deep hidden voice says, lurking in the background), is a fascinating combination of geologist, comedian, nature lover and ethnobotanist, her work focuses on the relationship between people and plants.

From South Florida, her style was very informal for an academic crowd yet had people laughing as she pounced onto the stage with a machete in hand, telling one humorous story after another of her time in the jungle, the majority of her time spent in the rainforests of Latin America.

She has worked with Tibetan children in teaching them to record their own ethnobotanical traditions and is currently working on a global scale cross cultural study of people’s use of a cultural keystone species (the flora and fauna that are deemed important to the survival of a culture), and how these plants can act as larger ecosystem preservation incentives.

AutoDesk's CEO Carl Bass walked us through five trends of innovation, using Kickstarter and Moon Express one example of companies doing something extremely unusual. 

Digital fabrication is where you change the rules about how things are made, referencing 3D printers, showing us examples of various things which can be printed into a variety of materials, including rubber, plastic and metal.

It's amazing what can be printed on a 3D printer now...I ran into BitTorrent's Bram Cohen at SF Music Tech who showed me a very interesting 3D ring he was wearing on his finger. Additionally, imagine 3D buildings and even a 3D-printed human kidney. 

We also heard about the rise of information, aka the wisdom of the crowds and the wisdom of the 'cloud.' Not only are we all becoming creators in our own way on our own personal platforms, but we're becoming curators as well.  

Then, ARZU's Connie Duckworth, who took the stage in vibrant red, focused on international development sharing things learned from her work in Afghanistan. She says of the current state of international development:

• The international development industry is dysfunctional.
• Big money brings big unintended consequences.
• Hope can’t thrive in the world’s worse places.

She believes that we have an urgent call to change the structure of the international development industry, which holds in its hands the lives of billions of people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Their thinking is that somehow inherently flawed short term thinking will move into sustainable systems. Big money when not hosed in the right direction can create a lot of chaos. She asserts that its a key reason that so many people lose so much faith in their government.

She refers to another unintended consequence of big money going to the wrong places: Brain Tilt, which is when the most highly educated local people (engineers, professors, doctors), all end up working for expats in low level positions. Local smart people are working as drivers and clerks rather than working in higher level positions because they can get paid so much more in the other positions.

Connie defines the quest for peace as security. “We all see the world through our own lens of experience, so for me, success all starts with a job. This is how people start with a way to solve those basic level needs, such as the ability to eat and feed their family.”  She encouraged the audience not to just sit back and want peace, but believe in it and take action.

We went on a gratitude journey with Nipun Nehta of Service Space who asked us how we could all have more "Gif-tiv-ism" in the world?

Rather than focus on money, we wanted to focus on giving, in other words, the idea of unleashing the power of compassion capital. “Once you unleash compassion,” he says, it’s amazing what happens. “Stay focused on adding value and discovered untapped capital.”

When small acts of giftivism get connected and activated, it rekindles a gift economy. A gift culture, he says, is marked by four key shifts:

• Shift from Consumption to Contribution – Instead of asking “what can I get,” open with “What can I give?” He says if you open each door with a different question, about what can you give, it changes the entire dynamics.  
• Shift from Transaction to Trust: Build synergy. He refers to Karma Kitchen, a restaurant in Berkeley, where you pay for the people ahead of you or behind you rather than for your own bill. 26,000 meals so far and  people continue to pay it forward.
• Shift from Isolation to Community: it is not enough that we connect, but rather how we connect.  When you serve other people together, you create a network of ‘gift ties.’
• Shift from Scarcity to Abundance: Cultivate inner transformation to arrive at enough. “There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.” 

Hear hear Nipun. From gift economies, we shifted to Gopi Kallayil from Google who talked about the power of social and a connected world, particularly during the 18 days of the Egyptian protests, showing us a video where Desmond Tutu is talking to the Dalai Lama on Google+, a clip which has now been watched 2 million times. This is a great example of how social media is driving innovation around the world. 

We saw examples from Libya and Kenya to South Africa and Egypt, where during the protests, they were able to express how they really felt and more importantly, people were able to listen to those words on YouTube and other platforms. They sang, “the most important thing is our right and writing our history with our blood – if you were one of us, better not blabber and tell us to go away and leave our dream and stop saying the word “I”. In every street in my country, the sound of freedom is calling. In every street in my country, the sound of freedom is calling.” Powerful stuff.  

From the vantage point of healthcare, intuition and communications, Dr. Neha Sangwan encourages everyone to be proud of yourself for "listening to yourself." Often, listening to ourself comes second to listening to opinions of others, whether they be friends and family or a doctor we're seeing for a particular issue.

She asks, "what if communication is the cure that we're missing? What is the way we talk to ourselves & whether we choose to lean into our discomfort & show up in the world? What is this is the prescription for health long before I need to write you a prescription?"

Her talk was highly emotional as she brought us a journey around the world to the Middle East, where she spoke to women, sharing with us insights she learned about their world, their pride and in turn, what we can learn from them in the western world.

A professor at Berkeley, Ken Goldberg who closed the talks, on nothing other than robots. Yes, robots...and what we can learn from them. As someone who worked in speech recognition for years and did a project for the Willow Garage guys (I love PR2 and even danced with one), I was eager to hear his insights.

Ken thinks robots can inspire us and that we have a lot to learn from them. Some of those insights from various projects over the years include: always question assumptions. It's amazing how quick we are to turn to other people's assumptions and make decisions based on them without digging deeper. Secondly, when in doubt, improvise.

I couldn't help but smile but when i realized that both of these recommendations btw are great ones for start-ups as well as for children. So is tihs one: When your path is blocked, pivot. In start-up culture, we learn to pivot a lot, something that Fortune 500 companies should pay more attention to...

Author and thought leader David Ewing Duncan focused on DATA and how do we make sense of it all?', something he thinks is an awesome achievement of humanity, for 'better or worse.'

Because of his background, he centered his talk around bio-data. He points out that today, we can get a micro-analysis of our blood work, which can tell us how just whether we have a high chance of cancer and chronic diseases, but how empathetic we are as human beings. He notes "more experiences, more tests leads to more data."

But, as so many of us know, we have so much data, that its often overwhelming, so much so we can't make sense of the data we have at our fingertips. This is David's point.

Whats needed, he asserts is a new mindset in every occupation. "Enough of all this data, what does this data actually mean?" he says. "We need a revolution in interpreting the tools and the data as well as a radical shift in resources. In other words, how do we go about testing 42,000 genetic traits?"

Clearly, we need a radical shift in resources. There's only 4% invested on translational medicine and he thinks there needs to be a reversal in resource allocation. He also pointed to trends in the future for all the students sitting in the hall: "we're going to need 500 million analysts in 6 years and we only have 100 million today." Clearly, these are the people who are going to be well versed at making sense of all that data and transforming it into something usable and most importantly, actionable by individuals.

Tapan Parikh, a Berkeley University professor brought us back into traditional technology and current trends. Tapan’s research interests include human-computer interaction (HCI), mobile computing, speech UIs and information systems for microfinance, smallholder agriculture and global health.

He showed us photographs and results of some of his work in rural areas. Of his latest projects, Tapan has been designing, developing and deploying information systems in the rural developing world – initially in India, and now also in Latin America and Africa.

Tapan and his students have started several technology companies serving rural communities and the development sector. It was inspirational to see what they have accomplished so far and to see what is possible with resources, tearing down silos, sharing among communities and better access.

What he hopes to represent is the notion of showing respect for where you come from. He says, "Pick a challenge that is important to you" (for him, it was setting up real-time video conferencing, knowledge sharing and instant messaging in India), "and stick to it." He adds, "Don't assume you know what people need for their development - let them speak up, don't act for them."

I was thrilled that Tiffany Shlain was able to join us this year as I've always been a fan of her work. She has been making films for 20 years, and some of them have hit Sundance, Tribeca, Rotterdam and others and her films have won over 36 film festival awards.

Tiffany says, "each time we were able to change the way we recorded film and show reality, we were able to change reality itself."

She showed us snippets from her most recent film: Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death & Technology, A Declaration of Interdependence.” Connected had its U.S. theatrical tour this past fall and is now available for people to host their own screenings. 

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) announced earlier this month the 29 films selected for the American Film Showcase, an international cultural diplomacy initiative that brings people together worldwide through film and Connected made the list.

The movie is enlightening and sad at the same time, taking us deep into what is happening around us in a connected world and how technology is shaping and reshaping us. Bravo!! I have a love/hate relationship with technology myself -- the timing of this film couldn't be more perfect.

"Do something radical and true," she says. "We as humans should declare our human interdependence." Film projects they're working on for others are centered on life's most emotional topics: engagement, power, money, wisdom, death, inspiration, the brain and others.

Now that we're back to Entertainment, the E in TED, the last two speakers this year were performers: magician Robert Strong and violinist Lindsey Stirling.

Robert Strong is known as 'The Comedy Magician' and in watching him, it's so clear that magic is his life passion. He has performed on every major television network, in more than 40 different countries, in all 50 states, and twice at the White House.  

I never paid much attention to the word magic until I renamed my own consultancy with Magic in the name. Now, I see 'magic' everywhere and am a true believer that perception is reality and that we can create any outcome we want through our own belief systems.

Lindsey Stirling, who I first saw play at Idea Festival in Kentucky last fall, is often referred to as the Hip Hop Violinist. Her passion, energy, and presence is magnetic, so much so, that you can't help but want to get up on stage and dance as she jumps around, violin and all, around you. Here's some background on her work. Let's just say that I'm a huge fan.

Check out last year's (2011) TEDxBerkeley talks on video. And a few talks from last year to get you inspired were Chip Conley on remembering that we're human in business, Anat Baniel on flexibility and vitality, Lopas Brunjes on carbon reduction, Bryan Alvarez on living organisms in our body, and Shore Slocum on spiritual awakening and awareness and how this can transform your everyday life. 

Photo Credits: Lightbulb - Kauffman.org, Speaker images by Renee Blodgett

TEDxBerkeley 2012's Inspiring Innovation Merges Magic, BioData & Technology With Film, Oceans & Plants

Womzit's SXSW® GO: Mobile App to View/Build Schedules & Navigate the Show

SXSW® GO from Womzit, is going to be the official mobile app at SXSW, which will allow you to view/build your schedule, view maps of what’s happening, where and how to navigate to locations.

The app allows you to sync your online schedule with your phone, so as things change, your schedule will too. It will also allow you to tap into the thousands of SXSocial Registered Attendees who are going, browse by category, view profiles and make connections from within the app.

SXSW GO is now available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 versions are coming soon apparently.  

 

Womzit's SXSW® GO: Mobile App to View/Build Schedules & Navigate the Show

Is What I Crave Connected to My Heritage, Where I Live or Both?

It always seems to take over a month for those post holidays sugar and fatty food cravings to disappear. I’ve noticed that those cravings are often more prevalent during certain times of the year and when I visit certain parts of the world, and it’s not just because those “cravings” are the only things that locals eat.

I currently live in northern California and have lived in 10 countries, including more than my fair share of cold-weathered cities. There’s no question that colder climates can make you crave heartier dishes and hotter temperature foods, even though Brits argued that soups and curries helped them cool down in India during the colonial years.

Since living on the west coast, I crave more sushi than when I lived in Boston. When I visit northern European cities, I crave more red meat even if there’s fish or chicken on the menu and the weather is warm.

Culture contributes to those cravings and may explain why my Italian-born friends prefer a crisp Sauvignon Blanc over a buttery Chardonnay and how I developed such a tight bond with South African biltong that it’s hard to convince natives that I wasn’t raised there.  

Continue reading "Is What I Crave Connected to My Heritage, Where I Live or Both? "

Is What I Crave Connected to My Heritage, Where I Live or Both?

D Dive into Media: Where Big Media Meets Digital Explosion...

How we tell stories is not linear, so what will emerge to transform storytelling in the face of new media? How much value -- real or perceived -- does vinyl have today when digital is winning because of convenience? As digital video continues to explode and the quality gets better and better, will the cable bundle last?

These were a few of the questions the D: Dive Into Media event explored in late January in Laguna Niguel, California, a fascinating event focused on the future of media. Says host Peter Kafka on opinions versus behavior:

"Nearly everyone is convinced that the TV industry is ripe for massive disruption, brought on by some combination of free Web video and pay video services like Netflix. But the pay TV business is behaving as though it has all the leverage in the world... buying big bundles of programming, at ever increasing rates, and forcing customers to buy all of it if they want to watch TV."

 

He also points to the fact that Hulu is generating more than $400 million a year only five years after its launch and that even Twitter is in the big media game now, "hoping that they can help TV programmers and movie makers attract new eyeballs."

 

Continue reading "D Dive into Media: Where Big Media Meets Digital Explosion..."

D Dive into Media: Where Big Media Meets Digital Explosion...

Top Ten Social Media Blogs

The Social Media Examiner recently chose the top ten social media blogs they suggest following. Reprinted here. 

#1: Social Mouths

Social Mouths, the brainchild of Francisco Rosales, provides deep and honest looks at social media marketing and trends that impact our industry.

The site contains detailed posts with real-world examples, and addresses new and difficult topics.

#2: ViralBlog

ViralBlog provides a daily stream of social media trends and inspiration through case studies and other interesting articles.

The site has excellent content with useful tips and advice.

Continue reading "Top Ten Social Media Blogs"

Top Ten Social Media Blogs

TEDxBerkeley’s 2012 Theme “Innovation” Kicks Off Third Year at Zellerbach Hall on Feb 4

Tomorrow, Saturday, February 4, 2012, UC Berkeley will gather world leading thinkers, visionaries, creative pundits, philosophers, academics and doers to host the third TEDx Berkeley Event (a 501c3) at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. It's the second year I've been involved in the event and we're thrilled to have a stellar line-up of speakers once again.

The theme this year is: "Innovation." 15 ground-breaking thinkers, leaders and performers will cover a diverse number of global issues and topics, ranging from health and toxicity, politics in a new media world, robotics, machine learning, and mobile computing to the arts through life-changing film & storytelling, micro-finance, the gift-economy and “magic.”  

Continue reading "TEDxBerkeley’s 2012 Theme “Innovation” Kicks Off Third Year at Zellerbach Hall on Feb 4 "

TEDxBerkeley’s 2012 Theme “Innovation” Kicks Off Third Year at Zellerbach Hall on Feb 4

Life Can Come From the Negative Side of a Story

From a well know screen writer's view related to the most important and least understood precept in story design:

    "A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them". 

          What will cause a protagonist to become a fully realized, multidimensional, and deeply empathetic character? What will bring his story to Life?

           The answer to both questions lies on the negative side of the story...." -Robert McKee

 

Life Can Come From the Negative Side of a Story

Statf.ly Simplifies Social Monitoring, Engagement, Reporting & Storage

Statf.ly, a social media management and analytics company just added new quick-switch multi-profile management and unlimited reporting. Targeted to brands and agencies managing brands, new features include team collaboration, unlimited report generation with data point annotation, real time search for both Twitter and Facebook and social data storage for up to one year.

Statf.ly enables users to store Twitter and Facebook history, keywords, and report annotations for up to one year, which is valuable for generating more compelling long term analysis, in depth quarterly reports and annual strategy reviews.

Statf.ly Simplifies Social Monitoring, Engagement, Reporting & Storage

UBER Car Service: A Dream App When Flow & Timing Are Critical

For those of you who haven't heard of UBER, and because of the name, think it's some funky, hip device, think again. UBER is a car service that is as simple to use as calling a taxi. Many higher end car services require you to call them well in advance and they're often fairly pricey.

While UBER is definitely more expensive than a taxi (roughly about double in my experience), it's incredibly useful when you need a more formal sedan for business purposes, when it's late and taxis might take too long to get to you or you're in a location where taxis are tough to find.

I ran into the CEO Travis Kalanick recently on my flight to Paris for the LeWeb conference, the annual renowned Internet, social media & technology event held in Europe every December. The news was that while UBER had already been announced in San Francisco and other cities, Paris was to be unveiled that week as their first European location. And so, I had an opportunity to use their newly launched service in the world's most romantic city.

It was a simple free download onto my iPhone. Once you have the app, you can quickly request a car by telling Uber where you are. If you don't have an iPhone or Android app, you can text them your address. Cars typically arrive within 5-10 minutes. In Paris, it ranged from 6 minutes to 18 although most of the time, it was around the 8-10 minute mark and the accuracy of arrival times was spot-on nearly all the time.

Continue reading "UBER Car Service: A Dream App When Flow & Timing Are Critical"

UBER Car Service: A Dream App When Flow & Timing Are Critical