Modeling ourselves in the FourSquare and Twitter era

As a child I grew up without a television, instead I read hundreds of books and listened to old time radio shows and dramas both on the radio and on cassette tape (yes, I’m old, my childhood pre-dates CDs). Then a bit later in my childhood my parents bought me an odd but fun clock radio cube which also could get the audio of over-the-air broadcast television (remember that, something now impossible with today’s transition to digital television). I then would wake up every morning to the Rocky & Bullwinkle show but as a radio broadcast, not as the animated cartoon.

I somewhat suspect that the resulting confusion and neccessary imagination is why I write fiction.

But a more telling result of my childhood, until nearly when I started high school, of growing up without a television is that my models for behavior were of an older age than that of my peers combined with the fact that I was a year or two younger than all my classmates as a result of skipping the end of 2nd grade and finishing 3rd grade that same year after we had moved to a new city, and I was a very strange kid (and perhaps a bit of a strange adult).

Why this discursion into my childhood?

What does this have to do with Foursquare and Twitter?

I have been playing FourSquare since my friends all joined it during SWSWi earlier this year. (btw go vote for my talk proposal for SXSWi 2010) I wasn’t sure if I would keep it up back in San Francisco post-SXSWi but so far I have and in the past few weeks I’ve been seeing more and more friends join (via their requests to be my friends on FourSquare) and I find myself using it nearly every day if I manage to get out of the house.

While the opportunity it presents me to run into friends via seeing where they have just checked in, something I have taken advantage of on multiple occasions as well as the value it gives me by reminding me (or in many cases informing me) of events via seeing multiple people I know all check into the same venue at the same time are all valuable, it is another, more subtle use of FourSquare which I am really enjoying.

That of presenting to me, in a manner which I missed growing up without a TV, of a model of how to be, of how to work and play in this city. It may not be a great model, it certainly isn’t the only model, but observing over time the ebbs and flows of my friends, when they check into their gyms, when they do their grocery shopping, when they are at work, when they are working from a cafe, where they have lunch, when they go out for dinner, drinks and movies, is all very imformative – it is creates a model that is bigger than any single event or check-in, a model that communicates a great deal about living life in this city.

My friends are gay & straight, younger & older, single & married and there are also differences in how they each pass through their days and weeks in this city. All of which is incrediably fascinating to me and revelatory.

Combined with Twitter, where I follow over 1200 people, but only allow a very small number of those people’s messages through to my phone (in which case I see nearly eveyr tweet they send vs seeing only a fraction of most tweets from everyone else I follow) I have found myself in the past 6 months getting a lot of new insight into how other adults live their lives, how other independent, entrepreneurial consultants manage their time. And how my single friends vs my married (or in serious relationships) friends differ in how they spend their time.

These revelations are not major but they are thought provoking for me nonetheless. I have always wondered how people fit going to the gym into their schedules, now I have a far better sense of how at least some of my friends manage that task. I’ve never been much of a going out for drinks kinda of guy, neither are many of my friends, but I do get a bit of a sense of how some of my friends who are a bit more of one do. And it is via observing my friends who are married (in most cases of my friends I’m friends with and follow both partners and thus get two perspectives usually on their activities and relationships) that I’m getting a clearer picture of how, at least my friends, manage many of the details of being in a modern relationship.

For the past three and a half years (and really more like four years) I have been single. My last relationship ended before Twitter started, before Facebook was a big deal, before most of this current round of Web 2.0 (and now whatever we call them) applications took off and long before the iPhone. Now as I begin a new relationship (yeah!!!) I’m glad that I have had months (and via twitter years) of observing a bit of how my friends manage their modern relationships in this city and online. Every relationship is, of course, different and I know we’ll find our own tools and balance – but I have been struck of late by just how much I have absorbed without intending to absorb it from the ongoing small signals and messages I’ve followed of late.

What have you learned from how you use such tools?

Social game ideas – open ended, multi-sponsor ARGs

My background in games and the current state of things

I have been a game player since my grandfather taught me to play chess at the age of 4. In my youth I played AD&D, Shadowrun and many other role playing games – usually at the DM. At my high school there were a bunch of us who played all types of games on a regular basis, we played many boardgames after school, had AD&D campaigns including one we ran at times over lunch in the cafeteria and were regulars at the local games shops.

In fact the father of one of my high school classmates was a professional game designer at the time for Mayfair Games where he lead the development of many classic board games, games such as Cosmic Encounters. A number of us, myself included, occasionally were drafted as gametesters for new board games.

At the local games shop, a massive, custom designed building built by a serious historical minatures gamer, we would spend hours many evenings and weekends playing a wide range of games, including historical minatures, roleplaying games and all types of boardgames.

I always assumed that I would stay playing games on a highly regular basis when I entered college but that didn’t happen, somehow I didn’t stay as active a game player, though I did play the occasional game of chess and lots of card games with friends.

In the 90’s I spent many years as literally a professional Magic the Gathering player and dealer, in one year I earned over $40,000 trading pieces of cardboard and won prizes valued into well over $5,000 in many tournements which I often won or placed very highly. Friends of mine were even better, winning at a global level and traveling around the world to play Magic the Gathering (and winning well over $10k from some tournements in the process). I quite my regular job at the time when I realized I could make far more money in a few hours than I would earn in days.

A bit later I also became active in a range of Live Action Role Playing games, mostly around White Wolf’s World of Darkness game. The game I played started in the mid-90’s in Chicago, grew rapidly to include nearly 100 games in cities all around the world all sharing a common set of rules and world and which allowed players to play their characters from one city at the games held in other cities. As a result players could and did interact across continents (friends of mine went to Brazil to play the game) and there were games happening multiple times every week near to Chicago.

It was  great fun – immersive and engaging. While we did play in spaces we reserved just for ourselves (we would contribute to rent spacees from time to time) we also played in the midst of other events – often in nightclubs, once very memorably at the Chicago Museum of Modern Art when they stayed open for 24hrs to celebrate the Summer Solstice. Playing in the midst of 100’s or even 1000’s of people who were not playing the game added layers to the interactions and was extremely fun.

In the past few years Alternative Reality Games (ARGs) have become increasingly popular and successful, though with some notable caveats. Most, though not all, have been run as commercial promotions for a specific event or product – very often a movie or TV series. Currently the upcoming movie District 9 for example is running an ARG where you can play either a human or an alien in the world of the movie.

The model of ARG’s has become in some ways fairly formalized. They start with a series of clues usually embedded inside of something in mass release – billboards & posters, movie trailers, occasionally other forms of advertising. The clues in these ads, often a phone number or a web URL lead a player to signup to the ARG. From there a series of clues lead to other sites or phone numbers often with embeded small games or challenges.

Over time additional clues are released which further the ARG’s storyline. For most ARG’s the model has become a bit of a funnel, with fewer and fewer players continuing as the puzzles are released, usually these ARG’s lead up to a final end clue and often the players who figure it out in time arrive at an event or get a prize of some form (a sneak preview of a movie for example as well as other gifts & prizes). Then often the ARG comes to an end as the movie or TV show is released (or the season ends in the case of ARG’s such as Lost’s or Fringe’s where there were clues embedded inside of each episode).

These games are effective ways of engaging and building fans for a new media property but they have many unfortunate side effects of this model.

1. They generally are less and less engaging for new players as they grow in complexity – sure most of the time players set up Wiki’s or other sites to explain what is known so far, but as the game goes on it becomes less compelling for new players – and once the final reward is given out it often is far less interesting to new players (and even existing players may cease engagement)
2. While some ARGs have included a wide degree of player driven content & storytelling, for most there is a very heavyhand of the ARG designers at work in telling the story and though players can visit many parts & sites in any order they want there tends to be a very linear path of the story being told by the nature of new clues being released on a specific timetable.
3. A few ARGs have had occasional “real world” events but the global distribution of most media for the most part means that most ARGs now primarily employ mass media & the Internet for the game play (also often voicemail/800 numbers for some parts and frequently SMS messages to players).

A few weeks ago a variation of a type of game which has been popular for a few years inside of social networks such as Facebook was released on top of Twitter – Spymaster – these games build upon usually preexisting social elements and relationships to form part of the game play. In the case of Spymaster your twitter followers become the size of your “spy ring” and you gain game play advantages by having more of your followers also playing Spymaster (they become “spymasters” in your “spy ring” and give you game bonuses).

Add in the fact that social tools such as Twitter (or Facebook) have many ways for you to communicate with people – and the games take advantage of these tools to send out messages about your game play activity to your social network (with your permission) and not surprisingly these games can and do often experience rapid, exponential growth as large networks of friends all start playing.

However while fun games such as SpyMaster or the multiple Mafia based games on Facebook (and in those cases now also with iPhone apps) suffer from (but also benefit from) a fairly simple game play and room for interactions between players. They offer only relatively limited sets of actions, have constraints on what you can do in a given period of time, and allow for only a handful of direct in game ways to interact with other players. Though often players evolve ways alongside of the formal game play elements to interact. In the case of SpyMaster many players have set up Twitter accounts only focused on playing Spymaster and have builtup networks of followers with whom they coordinate in game actions and for strong in game cliques.

I play Spymaster and enjoy it, though it is a relatively lightweight game, so I only play for a few minutes most days, if that. They haven’t yet settled on a business model, but it should be noted that some of the Mafia games on Facebook are already part of game companies rumored to be rapidly approaching over $100M/year in revenues, primarily through the same of virtual currencies to game players to use to enhance their game experiences.

A few players of SpyMaster are starting to expand the game via sites such as SpyMasterFans. There they are forming groups, sharing ideas & insights into the game, challenging each other to new interactions etc.

You may have noted that in my recounting of my own game playing background, I have not mentioned a lot of computer gaming. In the early 1990’s I ran a Muck (think an all text based version of Second Life) but I never got into computer gaming very much. So I haven’t played, though I do follow, the rise of social computer games. At present there are two very important models of social computer games.

1. Massively Multiplayer Online Games (mmog’s) most famously World of Warcraft (or WOW) but also dozens of other games from companies around the world. There are three primary models of MMOG’s – subscription (usually with regular expansion packs as well) – this is WOW’s model and is the most common, free to play but game and expansions needed (Guild Wars is one of the few that use this model) and the newest model free to play including the software but virtual goods & items available for purchase (Sony’s Free Realms uses this model though subscriptions are available with additional benefits).
2. Server based games. Increasingly console games as well as many PC games have multiplayer options and game companies are now often offering services that both run server instances and help players find other players to play against. Microsoft’s Xbox live for the XBox 360 and Valve’s Steam service for PC games are two examples of these game services. Often a fee is required for membership (for XBox live) and in most cases the games have to be purchased to play them.

There are many further nuances to computer and console games. For this post the most crucial of which is the number of players they are designed to facilate interactions amongst and the length of that interactions. Console games often are limited to a relatively small number of players competing against each other (4 vs 4) which can be over the Internet or over a local area network. MMOG’s differ in how many players they handle interactions amonst – many have multiple “servers” which are different instances of the world and which may have slightly different game rules, meaning that in most cases players on one server do not interact with players on another so they are limited to the number of players who choose to play on a given server. Some games are designed to encourage cooperative play where players cooperate together to achieve game goals (WOW has quests that can involve 40 or more players from a single Guild working together). Many games also have elements of player vs player interactions where players fight directly against other players – depending on the game this could occur anywhere in the game world (on a given PvP server) or in many games may be limited to a specific area of the game.

Some ideas for the future – open ended, multi-sponsor ARGs of a new form

While I know that computer and console games have many incredible aspects offering amazing graphics and game play capabilities they also have in-built limitations. Even with voicechat which is increasingly an important part of the player to player interactions in many games playing such games is limited to players who have the required equipment and financial resources to buy the necessary games & game subscriptions.

So here are a few ideas I have for where social games could go in addition the ongoing evolution of computer & console games.

Instead of an ARG which is sponsored by a single media property – and which is thus usually tied to the world of that particular movie or tv show (or less often an artist such as NIN) I would suggest a game with the following models & business elements.

• A combination of lightweight, easy to adopt technologies AND frequent, multi-city live interactions & events. Neither element would be necessary to enjoy the other but if you used both your game play enjoyment would be enhanced.
• The technologies could leverage and be built upon existing social tools such as Facebook or Twitter but would likely have a website and perhaps mobile applications as well
• Much of the world and game interactions would be driven by the players with a light touch of the people designing and running the game – they would mostly design the world & backstory and would occasionally facilitate in game activities and elements, but the game would be designed for the players themselves to evolve the plots & ongoing stories.
• In place of a single sponsor driving the event to a particular end point the game would have sponsors that come and go and which interact with the game in a variety of ways – I could see some sponsors embedding story from the game into their media (tv shows perhaps even movies) while others would provide real items and help support game related events in the “real” world (as well as having in game repurcussions). These interactions could at times be lightweight – having characters from the game (probably mostly actual player’s creations) who appear in the background of a movie – say as items in a newspaper story – this would I think be a lot of fun for players – and great marketing for those movies or tv shows.
• The game would be designed to allow for new players to join at any time and for players to play at a wide range of play cycles – some playing daily while others playing only a few times a month or taking a summer off and resuming months later. This takes careful game design to balance and to give everyone a lot to do without the game becoming boring for anyone – but it suggests that for the most part these games would only have light elements of “levels” or the like but heavy elements of role playing and interaction. Though there could also be puzzles and cooperative quests so players uncomfortable with heavy roleplaying could ease into participating in the game as well and be rewarded for that interaction.
• The business model could include clues & game elements embedded in physical items (t-shirts, trading cards, books, comic, digital downloads of many forms etc) which is a model that other similar in some ways games have already used quite successfully. Some of these products could be from sponsors who not only embed game elements in something they sell but also support the game finacially & through promotional efforts.

So that is the basic ideas – I haven’t yet designed an entire game example just started thinking about this, if it sounds like fun (or if you know of examples I should take a look at) please leave comments or contact me privately.

Idea for a new magazine – to be named later

I recently learned about a very interesting new service, MagCloud, which prints magazines on demand and handles all subscription features (mailing, payment etc).  They are currently in limited Beta and have some limitations (the biggest of which is the cost for buyers – $0.20/page though the publisher can set the price for any given issue at a higher rate to make some profit. 

For a long time I have been thinking about creating a media outlet of some form and at the moment I am serious leaning towards a magazine of some form. This post is an exploration of those ideas, it is a stake in the ground as to the shape of this new publication. It is also a call for submissions and volunteers.

The Name – to be named later

My working name for the publication was going to be Mesh (or The Mesh) but it turns out that there was a MeshSF magazine here in SF a while back (appears to be out of print now) and there is another Mesh magazine in Jacksonville Florida. Thus to be named later - the name has to be highly inclusive and evocative of the range of topics to be covered, while also not being too long or hard to remember or use (and yes this includes requiring that there is a good domain available). 

The Format

My thinking is that to be named later will be more akin to a series of books than a monthly (or more frequent) magazine, though over time it may evolve into a more frequent publication. Thus I am torn about a number of physical formats – leaning between a book like size such as that used by Granta (or many University literary magazines), a slightly larger format such as that used by Foriegn Affairs, or a more traditional magazine size such as The New Yorker or Monocle (which is more booklike in format). 

That said, while a perfect bound format (glued edge) creates a more booklike publication, I personally find that format less conducive to reading – as quite literally it makes it harder to read the publication (since you can fold the magazine to only view one page at a time as you can with a traditional magazine). That said, it does create a more archival publication which has some advantages. 

Years ago when I was the editor of a literary magazine (in high school, we won an award) we decided to go with a half size format which had some advantages especially for the publication of poetry as it created a highly readable format (if small).

However for to be named later my goal is to have a publication which stays in print for a long time (so “back issues” remain available for a long period of time), which eventually (and as soon as possible) pays highly competitive rates for photos, art and articles, which supports a lot of very interesting writing, and most critically is a publication which I want to read myself. 

The Guidelines

1. Articles must have a point of view, but may not be purely opinions.
2. Every article will have illustrations – photos or art
3. Every article will be bylined
4. A very wide range of topics and types of articles will be accepted – no subject is out of bounds IF the writing is good, consise, and well written.
5. Serious as well as non-serious writing is welcome and encouraged, including in most issues at least a few articles that meet peer-reviewed academic writing standards (footnotes and all)
6. The physical form & design matters.
7. Every issue will have at least one work of fiction (clearly identified) – genre writing not just welcome but encouraged (Science fiction, fantasy, mystery, romance etc).
8. Every issue will be meant to be relevant for at least a year, usually longer. Thus timely articles will not be printed, nor will reviews which are timelimited (i.e. of a limited run of a show – though movies which will eventually be on DVD may be accepted)
9. While the focus may include regional and city interests – underlying to be named later will be a global perspective (though initially at least all articles will be in English)
10. CC-licenses for the content will be encouraged (though not mandated) and while to be named later will retain a right to keep each issue “in print” for a long duration, authors & artists will have the right to sell their work for other publications (i.e. they retain all rights – but to be named later has the right to keep an issue “in print”, including via print-on-demand for a long duration – ideally perpetual). Much of to be named later (perhaps all) will be published online as well as in physical form – though the PRINT edition is the primary focus.

So what do those 10 somewhat random points mean?

First I am imagining a publication which will have a seriously broad range of articles – from writing about food, to serious academic exploration of economics, to science fiction stories, to photographic coverage of art and hacking. 

That said, the focus of to be named later will also be on timeless writing, on writing which is first and foremost eminently readable and engaging – which you want to turn back to and could pick up anytime after it is published and enjoy (i.e. this will not be a publication trying to cover breaking news or trying to get “exclusives” or scoops). 

to be named later will have advertising

Even if to be named later is wildly successful in generating interest and subscribers it will include commercial content from the beginning. Advertisers who welcome the timeless nature of to be named later and want to support the publication of high quality, challenging, intelligent writing covering a wide range of issues with a high focus on being enjoyable to read and experience. 

My tastes are wide ranging and eclectic – a magazine I publish will reflect these interests – and thus, I hope, will be of interest to an audiance that share some traits with me. In turn, I hope that there are (and I believe there are many) advertisers who want to reach this audience. Some may be local, some national, some global. All will be welcome (with some limited exceptions) specifically political or advocacy advertising will probably not be accepted as it would be discordant with the tone and focus of the magazine (which is inclusive not exclusive). 

Curation will be key. 

I may technically be the publisher, may also be an editor, but first and foremost I will be the Curator of to be named later - it will be my tastes and decisions (or my choices on delegation) which will determine the content of the magazine. 

Topics to be covered

• Food – especially from a Slow Food and serious foodie perspective
• Local businesses – not reviews persay but stories about local businesses but with a global perspective
• Hacking – especially from an Arts perspective
• Science Fiction – both via publishing great stories (including perhaps Fantasy or other genres) and also articles about the field & genre
• Science – especially reports from the frontiers of research
• Business – if written about in a highly engaging manner and in a timeless manner
• Non-fiction storytelling – think This American Life style stories – which can cover any topic imaginable but are written with a point of view and story to tell
• Design – especially highlighting intentional design applied in innovative ways.

Topics which will not, mostly, be covered:

• Breaking news – i.e. current events, pop culture etc
• Politics – while great stories about campaigns might be published, “stories” which are more manifestos will not
• Activism – I am a CENTRIST. I am neither “left” nor “right” and my magazine will reflect this. While we may, occasionally, take (and publish and clearly label) an opinion on important matters, my magazine will not be a forum for activism, nor will it mirror the articles found in most Free weekly newspapers around the country (indeed in spirit we will likely be more capitalistic)
• Time sensative reviews – stories about the arts (movies, theater, music, books, gallery shows or events) will definitely be published, but reviews of specific events or limited availability content will not
• Product reviews – the focus of the magazine will be on stuff people want to and will enjoy reading, reviews of products rarely meet this criteria – nor do they usually meet the criteria of remaining relevant for years to come (since most products today are only sold for a limited time and replaced later with newer/better/cheaper/faster versions)

I intent to be named later to be eclectic, to be personal, to probably not be for everyone. That said, for those to whom it resonates I want it to be a publication which is read cover to cover. The focus will be on being reader friendly first – high design second (we will not be akin to Wired magazine in terms of design aesthetic)

All of this is tentative – now I am looking for:

• Submissions: email submissions or ideas for articles/stories to shannon DOT clark AT gmail DOT com, please use a SUBJECT line of “Submission for to be named later”. Include a short bio of yourself, as well as the publication history (if any) of the article (preference is for unpublished writing). For the first issue(s) payment will depend on advertiser and subscriber targets so be prepared to only get a token initial payment (but the goal is to reach “professional” levels as quickly as we can. If you will only sell the story for a specific ammount include that, but realize that may impact our ability to accept the article/story for the first few issues
• Volunteers: while in the future all staff will be paid (if only small amounts initially) to get going will be a labor of love, not money (unless we obtain financing or serious advertisers/sponsors quickly). Copyediting, “slush pile” reading, and pre-press layout help are initial core needs. Quickly as well help with advertising sales, distribution and more will also be needed.
• Advertisers: From the first issue the plan is to have advertising. Rates almost certainly will go up as we grow the audiance, but the advertisers in the first few issues will be set – even as those issues remain (as is the plan) in print for at least a year, likely longer. So the first few advertisers will, we hope, get a bargain over the long term. There will be a limited number of full page ad opportunities, as well as a handful of partial page opportunities (think New Yorker style part of page ads). The back of the front cover as well as the back pages will be the highest cost ads. Rates are still to be determined, preference will be given for advertisers who are willing to commit to a full year of issues (at least 4 but the goal is to get to probably monthly). Advertisers will also be part of the online presense as well as the print publication – so should include a URL to link their ad to online. As a new publication ALL aspects of the readership are yet to be determined (including the size, demographics etc) so early advertisers must be interested in the mission of to be named later and willing to support it. Exact dollars are hard to determine (and to a point go up as the number of copies printed go up) but my initial “gut” guess is that for the first 4 issues something close to $100,000 is needed to pay all writers & artists, to physically print the magazine, and to pay staff (even just a token amount). So a target of about $25,000/issue is the goal though more may be needed for the very first issue.
• Investors – My plan is to bootstrap. Even in the absense of all the advertising support I might like, the goal is to use a service such as MagCloud to enable us to put out a first issue (or two) and build up the audiance over time. To learn by doing and to thus incur as little costs upfront as possible. But if the right investor or sponsor/grantmaker were to offer I would listen. My goal is first to get great stories published, secondly to make money doing so (mostly I want to build something which is self supporting at a minimum). I also want to test my theories about how a new media publication could more than just made do but also prosper even in the Web 2.0, “the media is dying” world. 

So that is the idea – very rough, may not happen, but I hope it will. Please leave a comment, blog about this, link to this or at least contact me if you are interested!

Why I buy local (and organic)

I buy almost everything locally, mostly from small, often independent (or at least local small scale chains) stores. Most of the food I eat and cook for my friends comes from local shops and for the most part local farmer’s markets. For the most part I buy organic produce, eggs, milk and other products including meat when I can. The rest of my meat is at a minimum free range and cage free (though as I noted in earlier blog posts I was against the recently passed Proposition 2 which mandates larger cages/cage free raising of poultry in CA).

However, when you talk about Organic (especially certified organic products) and the dilemma of large scale businesses starting to produce and others to sell organic products the arguments against buying organic usually assume that people buy organic because of health concerns (no pesticides etc) or from a belief that the flavor is better. And then an argument is made that the health claims are dubious and the flavor differences minor.

That is not, let me repeat, not why I buy organic or why I mostly shop locally.

I buy locally and buy organic for many other reasons. First and foremost I prefer to spend my money with people who care about what they do – who value their own labor and strive to be the best at what they make. I have to eat, I far prefer to spend my food dollars as directly as possible and with vendors who are passionate about what they grow and/or sell. That passion translates in no small part into a focus on selling high quality (and in the case of food usually great tasting) items.

Organic farming is also highly innovative farming. It is looking for creative and as importantly sustainable ways to grow and cultivate products. This innovation usually permeates all aspects of a good organic farm’s business – from the soil to the packaging they use to present the final products at the market.

I usually go to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market run by CUESA (The Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), a group well worth supporting if you have money to donate and/or employer matching funds to use before the end of the year.

At the market this morning, a smaller scale market between the Holidays, I spoke with one rancher who sells a wide range of meats they raise and slaughter themselves. Usually they have poultry but he said that they would not until the spring due to it being out of season for chicken at the moment. While that means that today they lost a bit of my business, it also is a reminder of the seasonality of all food and it encourages me to look at other proteins this month.

Another merchant, Frog Hollow Farms, who I personally think is one of the premier orchards in the entire US (and probably the whole world for that matter) unveiled new packaging they designed specifically for their pears. It suspends each pear in an individual sling of material so it neither touches other pears nor touches the overall packaging, they keeping their amazing pears fresher for longer and bruise free.

Shopping at the farmer’s market, which I do nearly every Saturday morning, gives me a real appreciation of the seasons here in northern CA, by going to the market without planned recipies or menus most of the time I have learned to buy just what looks the best at the moment. I also always talk with the farmers about what is really good at the moment, usually they offer samples, and I then adjust my menus. At the moment there are some great pears, lots of citrus, still great brocolli and caulliflower and indeed quite a range of other flavorful vegetables.

By being flexible I am also able to spend not much more (indeed less usually) than I would if I were shopping at a large, national supermarket chain. Today one of the butchers at the Ferry Building had a special on Sirloin Tip steaks (free range and locally raised and very very good, I’ve had them before) offering 5 individual steaks – ranging between 1/2 to 3/4 of a lb each for $20. I don’t eat a lot of red meat, but that is 5 quick and tasty dinners or lunches in the next week (or longer if i freeze a few) for $4 a meal. And these steaks cook in about 5-6 minutes total in my cast iron skillet on the range top.

For the most part I buy my meats from my local butcher’s shop, a store which has been there since 1889 (making it probably the oldest continously open butcher’s shop in CA), Drewes Bros. Christmas Eve there was a line of over 60 people waiting to pick up holiday turkeys, hams and standing rib roasts. They only sell extremely high quality, mostly local products from passionate producers and offer great service and very fair prices (often cheaper than large supermarkets in fact). Plus they greet me by name when I enter or stop by.

I would much rather that my spending support such a fantastic, local treasure, than to help pad the profit margin of a large supermarket chain such as Safeway (and full disclosure, I say this as someone who does in fact own a few shares of Safeway).

I choose to buy mostly organic because to grow vegetables or to raise animals in an organic manner requires a lot of attention to detail, it requires a committment on the part of the farmer and most of the time it also involves returning to a focus on seasonality and on techniques such as crop rotation and multiple use farming. By “mulitiple use” which isn’t quite the right term I mean techniques such as raising both crops and animals and via rotation grazing those animals on some fields for a few years, then alternating with growing crops on those fields taking advantage of the natural fertilizer from the grazing animals.

When I do shop at larger stores a Safeway or a Trader Joes, I try to mostly buy organic, seasonal, and when possible local products from those stores as well. While I prefer to buy closer to the actual producer, such purchases do help shift large dollars to organic methods – and in turn that means more people working on innovation around large scale, organic agriculture. That, in turn, lowers costs (for the farmers as well as consumers) and should draw more and more farmers and farmland into organic methods.

In the long run that should also have an impact on US (and other countries) agricultural policies which currently prevent many of the simplest and in fact easiest forms of organic techniques – such as wide scale crop rotation or cover crops (which US policy prohibits on farms recieving certain forms of subsidies such as corn or wheat – they can’t use fallow fields to grow market crops such as vegetables or fruits).

From a health standpoint one of the best aspects of buying seasonally and fresh is I can spend around the same amount as I would at a big chain, but instead of getting lots of calories from say processed baked goods, I can get far fewer calories but much more flavor from a perfectly ripe local pear.

I’ve chosen to emphasize quality over quantity in my food buying.

So please do go out and sample your local farmer’s market (there are new markets opening up and extending their seasons all throughout the country). Also when you are choosing where to live, look to live somewhere where you can walk to a local shop to buy great quality local foods. Since my butcher’s shop is literally on my way home (it is across the street from the Muni stop I use to get downtown most days) I can pick up a piece of meat or fish for my dinner and walk home – with less effort and time than navigating the parking lot of a big supermarket (if I had a car which I do not). And for produce, when I can’t make it to the farmer’s market or when I need something midweek, there is a great local produce market also on the same few blocks across from the same muni stop.

Many a night I have picked up some vegetables, a loaf of bread baked that day, and some great meat of fish on my way home. All for less than the cost of a single dinner out at a low cost restaurant and usually (day before xmas excepted) taking far less time than just waiting to pay at a big chain supermarket.

the photo above is a shot I took of a drink from Blue Bottle, a local coffee roaster and cafe who import their own beans directly and roast them here in the Bay Area in the East Bay

A few more ways the world has changed

After I posted my last post on how the world has changed in my lifetime already I have thought of a few other major ways the world has changed around me.

1. Smoking. As a child my father smoked a pipe in our house, at least one pipefull most evenings, the smell of his tabacco remains a childhood memory. He stopped, cold turkey, when I was in high school on the advice of his dentist. But as a child there was smoking everywhere, smoking sections on planes, smoking inside of buildings. Every house still had ashtrays and every building’s lobby had many receptacles for cigarettes in the building lobbies and inside of offices. Until just a few years ago smoking was still allowed in restaurants, bars and nightclubs in Chicago. But this has changed quite rapidly in my lifetime. Smokers used to be the ones who were accomodated, I distinctly recall that people said that smoker’s couldn’t survive a cross-country flight without smoking so the other passengers would just have to continue to accomodate them.
2. Payphones. On a trip during college to Boston I recall distinctly that I could take the T and make two phone calls for a $1, payphone calls in Boston at the time were just $0.10 which I thought was quite the bargain, they were closer to $0.25 in Chicago. For most of my life payphones were a very common sight, you needed them to call anyone when you were out, I carried change with me then later on memorized a calling card number. Nowadays both are unnecessary, almost everyone has a cellphone, I have in fact given up on giving out my landline number to anyone. It is only when my parents are visiting that I am reminded what it was like before everyone had a cell phone – my parents for some reason have refused to get a cell phone, so when they are traveling they have to either find a payphone or borrow someone’s phone to call me.
3. Travel Agents and paper airline tickets. As a child my father traveled frequently for work, he had a subscription to the OAG (Official Airline Guide) but for the most part he also had secretaries (next entry) who booked his travel for him with the corporate travel agencies. For our family trips my mom would organize our travels with a local travel agent and she would go and pick up the paper tickets. In the 90’s on my own I would for the most part book my travels myself, when I worked for a company even as recently as the late 90’s I was told a travel agent to use when I needed to arrange travels. Even just a few years ago I had a problem as a result of having paper tickets for a complex trip I had booked for a business trip which I then had to change. Something which almost never happens now just a few years late as paper tickets have pretty much ceased.
4. Secretaries. Except perhaps when I was very young and my father was a college professor, for most of my childhood my father always had a secretary, sometimes one he shared with other executives but mostly a private secretary, who typed for him, who booked his travels and managed his appointments and schedules. Today without anyone exactly setting it down secretaries have become increasingly rare, fewer and fewer people and businesses have secretaries, or if they have any they are shared amongst many people. When I took time off from college in the mid-90’s I actually worked as a temp for Kelly (well not as a Kelly “girl” guess more a Kelly man), I knew how to use office software with a very high level of proficiency and I typed almost 100 words a minute, as a result I earned the highest rate, over $20/hr (and this was when I was 20 so pretty decent money) and in my brief employment there I saw what secretaries and receptionists did for a wide range of companies. Today most people in business handle their own tasks which were previously done by secretaries – book their own travels online (or via a corporate website) and prepare their own documents and presentations. I suspect this has meant a pretty major change in business, a change that was fairly slow in coming but a very big one.

I suspect I’ll think of even more changes after I post this.

How the world has changed in my lifetime already

I was born during the last months of Richard Nixon’s administration, as a child I assumed that the world would end in my lifetime (at least humanity) probably due to an all out nuclear war between the USA and the USSR.

In high school I learned typing alternating between manual typewriters and computers (Apple II’s) and in a year long programming course actually learned Fortran including all the features leftover from the days of punchcards.

Telegrams had mostly gone away by my childhood but people still had a mix of rotary and the newer touchtone phones, long distance calls were expensive and a somewhat big deal, pagers were only for doctors (and drug dealers) and cell phones not even a term – it was “car phones” and those too were rare. Music still came on records or cassette tapes.

Before high school I remember the big deal that tape added to early personal computers (the ones before that had had nearly no way to save your work, you typed in your code each time). I learned programming theory via flowcharts on large format printouts from the courses my mom taught at the local community college. In high school the programming class was taught on a much upgraded PDP-11 which though we had terminals all throughout the school was not connected to any other network but did double at the high school library card catalog, stored on the then huge 400 MB large platters hard drives. I recall as well the transition from large floppies to small floppies to CD-ROMs. Buying a 100MB hard drive for our home was a huge investment.

Now I throw away anything smaller than 2GB when I get memory sticks free at conferences and I fully expect that my next laptop purchase may have close to 1TB of storage built-in.

As I grew up elected officials were primarily white, usually Protestant, men. To a degree that is still true here in the USA, but my home state of Illinois has elected to African American Senators in my lifetime (and I was honored to have been able to vote for both of them) and it is very like (and I certainly hope it will be the case) that Barack Obama will be elected the President of the United States later this year. And a growing number of women hold major elected offices around the country, even without the ERA ammendment (remember that?) women have made major gains during my lifetime. As the child of two generations of very successful and high achieving, college educated women I am very pleased that my generation and those after it will face a far more open world – indeed in my lifetime women have beome the majority of students in graduate school in many fields (and I think overall).

In high school I took history courses on Asia and on Russia, both were courses that had at times been relatively controversial in the school, the teacher told us stories of how he had obtained English language materials, materials which in some cases were explicitly propaganda materials from what were then seen as our enemies. As a child I recall both the scares of WWIII and of a great emphasis on WWII, I spoke with vetarens WWII and recall their stories.

While my family did not have a TV for most of my childhood I do recall when people still had, some at least, black and white TVs, when all television was over the air and cable only slowly grew popular. For a brief moment in my childhood newpapers still printed radio broadcast schedules and I grew up listening to radio dramas both broadcast over the air and on cassatte tapes which I collected. I also had a very strange clock radio (both now and even then) which would pick up the audio tracks only of TV broadcasts, so I grew up listening to Rocky & Bullwinkle as I woke up each morning, the many different characters bluring in my just waking up mind.

When I first started buying books for myself, sometime in elementary school, new paperbacks were still just a few dollars and many used bookstores would sell them for less than a dollar. Now a new mass market paperback (which as a child was pretty much all there was in paperback form) costs $7 at the low end and often far more.

And I’m probably of the last generation to remember buying gas for less than $1/gallon when I first got my license, though to be fair prices often hovered just above $1 for the most part.

Though we never visted him, my Uncle Jimmy lived in Berlin when it was still a divided city and we heard stories of his artist’s lifestyle there and I remember when the wall fell and the USSR started to breakdown and crumble, one of many major events as it would turn out in my lifetime already. As a child having grown up under the spector of the Vietnam War I somehow always assumed that the next war we would enter as a country would be the big one, WW III and would likely mean the end of everything. Instead in my lifetime we have been in three fairly major but also relatively limited in scope wars and a number of other conflicts and engagements (First Iraq War, Haiti, Panama, Rwanda, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Second Iraq War not to mention ongoing skirmishes in Colombia and President Reagan’s Contra stuff and I’m probably missing some smaller skirmishes as well). We have been a busy and all to militeristic nation even as the world has changed radically in my lifetime.

India, China, and the Soviet Bloc were all quite isolated countries as I was a child, Now the USSR is no more (the current war between Russia and Georgia which is occurring as I write this not withstanding) and though China is still “Communist” it is the third largest economy in the world and India is not far behind it. And Europe which was somewhat neglected when I was a child is a booming and strong economy with a strengthening Euro and with massive changes resulting from greater mobility and open borders internally to the EU. South Africa which was the focus of great preassure throughout my childhood also abandoned Aparthied and opened up in a far more peaceful process than most people assumed would happen. As I write this only North Korea is almost entirely isolated from the world economy, Cuba and Iran are for the most part isolated from engaging with the USA by our laws but do participate to a lesser degree with the rest of the world (and Iran in particular plays a major economic role).

Dozens of countries have emerged (or more accurately in many cases) reemerged in my lifetime and have started to make their way in a more complex global economy than the simplistic picture which was depicted in school when I was a child – the “first world/third world” split is no longer so clear or so relevant. Though the US hasn’t entirely caught up with these changes when you engage with media from outside of the US the amazing change in the globe can start to be glimpsed.

In college I was among the first people to have a computer in my dormroom connected via an ethernet connection to the Internet – i.e. an always on connection. I was on the Internet when it was still a non-commercial space, a place mostly restricted to universities where not every student had an email address or a way to connect to the Internet. I was amazed one day when I was awoken by my computer beeping at me as a result of a chat request from a student in Singapore and from my dormroom I ran an online game with 1000’s of users from three continents. An early precurser to the types of games and online interactions now seen inside of Second Life.

I started online before graphical browsers, reaching my first “webpages” via Gopher and I resisted using Netscape in favor of the faster if non-graphical Lynx browser for many years. I remember using both Yahoo and Google when they were still university research projects. In short in my adult lifetime I have witness the many evolutions of the “web” from complex and obscure academic playground to the worldwide, mass institution it is today.

I found my early jobs and apartments (and much more) via using paper classified ads in the daily newspaper and in the weekly alternative press. Something which in the past 15 years has almost entirely disappeared in much of the US and which the rise of online sites such as Craigslist and countless specialty sites (for dating for job search, for home buying and more) not to mention Ebay have changed forever. Buying a computer used to involve buying the large, multiple inch thick Computer Shopper and comparing the best packages and deals, it was a complex and difficult process. Today it remains a vastly more complex and obscure process than it should be (perhaps Apple computer excepted) but now you do that process online not via searching a paper magazine.

Speaking of print as a child I turned in hand written assignments for quite a long time. It was only into high school that computer printed papers become relatively standard and were usually printed on computer paper which would then involve seperating each page. Then laser printers became affordable and fairly common so I printed a great deal. But more recently I am far from being alone in having managed to go back to a nearly paperless lifestyle – my printer stopped working two years ago and I have yet to replace it, with the rise of always on connectivity I just keep documents online instead of printing them out and my various computer screens are now so high resolution that I read most things on the screen directly.

In summary in my still fairly short lifetime the world has changed considerably. Much of what seemed fixed, seemed certain, from the cold war to “long distance calls are expensive” has gone almost entirely away. It is both exhilerating and a bit scary at times to think about how much more the world will change in the next 30+ years, how what seems certain today will be rendered silly or foolish in the future.

I am not a Futurist but I end with a few areas I think bear a lot of thinking about.

1. How does the use of technology keep changing when all the technical bits become nearly free and nearly endless? i.e. already storage is so vast and cheap that it is rarely wise to scrimp, computational power is likewise vast and abbundant, and while bandwith remains a bit of a bottleneck it too is rapidly beoming faster and ever more readily (and all pervasively) availalble – I read that in Japan they are starting to  test wireless cell data services exponetially faster than even 3G,
2. When the world is really all connected and living and working with each other it is vital that US shake off old stereotypes and very very broken assumptions. For example in the US it is still common to depict blond haired, blue eyed, overly buxom, fair skinned women as the physical ideal of beauty even as on a global scale by far the vast majority of the world have both a very different vision of beauty and a much wider range of physical features. The population of the planet has, I think, nearly doubled in my lifetime and the full impact of those numbers hasn’t really echoed here in the US yet. China is now over 4 times as populous as the United States and India is not far behind.
3. Design will continue to be ever more vital and important. By this I mean that one of the amazing impacts I’ve witnessed already in my lifetime is the growing importance and pervasiveness of design in all aspects of life, as the production of physical goods becomes easier and also less constrained what differentiates goods and services is the design. As well as more of the world has a chance and opportunity to interact and to work for and with each other and as well to learn from and be influenced by each other the pace of innovation is accelerating with impacts seen even in some of man’s oldest and most basic of tasks and technologies (innovate means of moving water or of heating a cooking while burning simple and basic fuels for just two examples).

In short I have already lived in interesting times and I think we haven’t seen anything yet.

What has changed in your lifetime? What assumptions about the world did you grow up with which you might want to revist and rethink? I predict as you start to think about it you will find that it is more than you originally guessed, this list is by far not complete and I’m only in my mid-30’s.

The communities all around us

In less than 10 minutes walking from my house are nearly a countless number of different communities, throughout the greater San Francisco and Bay Area there are thousands, probably millions more.

I have been thinking about the communities to which I belong, the communities all around me, and the online and offline implications of these communities, our changing notion of identity, and on a more personal level what all this means to what I’ll do next weekend or more long term how my life is and will be changing in the future.

In a conversation with friends a few weeks ago (and some blog posts) I noted that many people here in SF seem to be defined by a single, dominant community to which they belong – whether by virtue of sexual orientation, sexual practice/preferences, or active participation in an arts community such as Burning Man. In the Mission there are “hipsters”, down the Peninsula in Silicon Valley some are yet another part of the tech world and all around the Bay Area there are other communities – hippies (aging or youthful) in Haight-Ashbury and across the bay in Berkeley etc.

But as I was walking home from getting a late night dinner a few nights ago I started looking around my neighborhood and realized that there are literally 100’s if not 1000’s of communities just in the blocks around my house, in the businesses (and churches) and amongst the apartments and homes. Some are small communities, others are very large, many people indeed most people belong to many different communities but often will define themselves via just a few or perhaps just one.

What do I mean by “community”?

In this context I’m thinking of community as a group to which you belong, an association of people though that is clearly still very vague. Perhaps simplest is a group where people know you and very likely would help you (or you help them) because of your mutual membership in the community. Now this is not entirely complete, there are plenty of people in any given community who are clearly members of that community but who may not know each other and may not help each other if asked, but most broadly a community are people to whom you can turn to – whether for something as simple as a smile and a hello or as complex as help in a time of crisis.

A few examples of communities scattered around my neighborhood on just one street upon which I walk frequently.

• At the bottom of the hill a large Catholic church and school. Multiple overlapping communities here – the parishoners who attend the Church and the parents, students and staff who go to the school
• Among my neighbors on the way down the hill I see political signs (here in San Francisco primarily Obama window signs like the one in my own window) as well as flags to proclaim other associations, here in San Francisco lots of rainbow flags generally as a sign of Gay or Lesbian identity.
• Also at the bottom of the hill are a number of restaurants and shops around each of which to a lesser or greater degree a small community has sprung up. In all cases a community of the workers of the store, but also in many cases the regular customers of the business form communities of a sort bonding with each other and with the owners and staff through frequent visits and conversations.
• a bit further down the hill there is an Orthodox Jewish center, during high holidays I have seen it busy, many evenings I may see a small group (usually of men) inside in what I assume is Torah study. It stands out a bit in contrast to the mostly Hispanic rest of the surrounding blocks.
• across from the Jewish center is one of the many legal marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco, I assume a community of a sort gathers there as well
• also in my neighborhood are yoga studios, beauty salons, therapist offices, art galleries, day care centers, veterinarians, midwifes, and countless other small businesses. Around each one ore more small communities likely has formed, people who in many cases live nearby and bond with each other over shared practices, hobbies, children, religion, or other common interests.

And outside of this very local scale of relationships and communities people in most cases are also part of one or more work communities, of the extended community around schools they have attended (and/or which their children attend) and on a bigger scale still people come together around a shared support for a professional sports team (and more broadly for a shared passion for one or more speciic sports).

But why observe all this? Why take stock of the many communities around us?

Because as I started to do this I realized a couple of pretty vital things.

1. Without intentionally meaning to I am not, in fact, part of many of these communities at all.
2. Most of the communities people are a part of have little correspondence with anything “online” the seeming overlaps are, in fact, a different, perhaps related community
3. All communities on or offline succeed and add value to your life in relationship to your own involvement, your awareness of them (sure a smile from the woman behind the counter is nice, better though is getting to know her by name)
4. While there are some communities created around facts of the people involved (skin color, sexual preference, school you attended) the most meaningful are around not a noun or adjective but around verbs – around what you (the members) do. Knowing how to play chess doesn’t make you a member of a local chess playing community – playing chess with your fellow players who gather at North Ave Beach in Chicago (and in nearby cafes in the wintertime) makes you a member of that community.
5. The communities I perceive myself as a member of very likely do not or at least not fully overlap with the communities others perceive me as a member of. And what matters most in a community is not whether you think you are a member but whether the other members of that community agree that you are – i.e. if they perceive you as a fellow member. Even in the small, adhoc communities around the businesses in my neighborhood there are these differences. I may be a semi-regular in a cafe but if I don’t take the time to get to know the staff, the owner, the other regulars then though I may be recognized as someone who has been there before, in a very real sense I am not a member of the community.

When I first got online, in 1991, I was an active member of a number of online communities. very real communities which had a more than just online impact on my life. In the two largest cases as a result of these communities I offered friends whom I had only met online a place to stay, got together with many of them in person (with many people traveling long distances for these gatherings) and many other members of these communities formed even more permanent and lasting relationships (and yes some marriages). Musual membership in an online USENET discussion board (open to anyone but the community was formed of those who participated even if just mostly as readers) or of the players of an online game rapidly expanded to a level of trust that allowed people to open up their homes to each other when travelling, to offer “real world” assistance when needed, in short to be there for each other when the need arose. All as a result of the ongoing and active and reinforcing trust built up via online participation and engagement.

In many cases this did not, in fact, at that time (1991-1994 or so) require people to post and participate entirely as their real world selves. Indeed some of the most important members of the community of one online game which I helped run refused to reveal to anyone his or her gender (instead preferring to have a gender neutral identity even while also active in relationships with others in the game). And though merely having online access in the early 90’s meant that we all shared some common traits (technical knowledge, access usually via a university) we were quite a diverse community – with people from many different generations, of many different gender and sexual identities, of quite different professional interests, and indeed very different religious and political views.

Taking stock, however, of the communities which I feel an active part of today online I see a diminution of this diversity. In many cases these are groups of people who overlap in many many ways. Sure we may all use a given technology (twitter/friendfeed for example) but in many cases we also work in the same industries, many of us are of similar ethinic backgrounds, hold relatively similar political views and in short overlap in many many ways.

I find this very unfortunate though I suspect it is a difficult trend to reverse the group forming tools online today almost always presuppose a shared engagement with one or more specific technologies/sites (Facebook vs MySpace vs Orcut vs Bebe vs Hi5 vs Topix vs Yahoo Groups etc) so the people who share your interest who also find and then participate in the same online “community” tend to overlap not only around that interest but also around a whole range of other shared traits which led them, like you, to choose the same tools and online homes.

There are some minor exceptions – communities which are online but not formed as part of another site or service but as a standalone site. In many of these cases they may attract a somewhat more diverse group of members – but only to the extent that there are both not many other alternative venues for those interests and that people from many different backgrounds are all looking for such a community.

I will be writing more on this subject in the future. Full disclosure, among the publisher clients of my advertising network, Nearness Function, is a large online network of standalone communities mostly clustered around a shared passion for a particular type of consumer electronics.

Economics, live video, and The World Economic Forum at Davos

I am deeply interested in Economics, for many years now I have been researching and thinking about a Networked Theory of Economics, a goal of mine for 2008 is to write and publish my book on that topic (ideally selling it as well so it reaches a wide audience).

So at this time I am very interested in what is happening this week in Davos, Switzerland. This year, in a fairly radical move towards openness, The World Economic Forum has a YouTube channel where they are posting many videos from the press events as well as interviews with attendees and leaders at Davos. Davos has also given a number of leading bloggers full access (though some sessions are off the record, quite a few portions of the conference are on the record). Robert Scoble is wandering through Davos with his cameraphone, frequently streaming live to the web via Qik. Jeff Jarvis and Michael Arrington among others are also in attendance and posting about their experiences as they happen.

As I wrote this, Robert streamed live, I jumped into the live chat. Yup, we live in science fictional times.

I am up late here in San Francisco, as I go to sleep soon, the 2300+ participants at Davos will go on about their day, when I wake up they will likely be almost about to eat dinner and heading to parties (apparently tomorrow Google is having a big party). And I know that because minutes ago I watched live video from and of my friends at the forum, streamed live across the Internet. Of course that same video started by Robert observing the President of Israel recording two videos for YouTube, which are also now likely live on the web as I write this.

Truly this is amazing stuff. When I was growing up, in the 80’s and 90’s CNN and cable news was just getting started, though my family didn’t even own a TV, the impact of live news around the clock was just starting to have an impact on the globe. But the rest of the world was still fairly far away, phone calls cost money – especially overseas calls, and data rates were measured in baud (and computers showed mostly only text and very simple graphics – though that changed rapidly as I was in high school in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Now Robert’s cell phone on which he was recording and streaming live video has more computational power, I’m fairly sure, than the computers I used throughout high school and even into college. He almost certainly has multiple GB’s of storage and very rapid data connections to the web (3G I assume), a screen on his phone that is far denser than the screens we used then – and a camera that records at resolutions unheard of back then – heck nearly unheard of not all that many years ago.

And though Robert notes that not that many bloggers are at Davos this year, the impact of YouTube and bloggers is to help crack open in a fairly major way a gathering that had for years been shrouded mostly in secrecy into a far more open event. Still with a lot of secrecy and I’m sure a lot of security – but also impressively interested in engaging with the world.

In watching the video which I have embedded above, I was also struck by how interesting the group of co-chairs of the forum are – world leaders past and (near)present along side business leaders from across the globe – leaders who were not just white, anglo saxon males – but leaders of large and yes powerful companies from across the globe.

All speaking, at least in this press conference in English, and all seemingly comfortable with their roles, with each other, and for the most part with the press (though the press were for the most part mostly interested in talking to Tony Blair). Personally I was most interested in everyone else on the panel except Tony Blair and Henry Kissinger. I am encouraged by the engagement of the leaders of some of the largest companies in the world in the issues which face us as a globe.

My views on Economics, in the most simple form, is that all economics can be modeled as a network over time. What this means is that value is not fixed, not inherent but deeply and tightly embedded in the economic networks we create and participate within. I have to do more and deeper research and modeling, but in general I would thus be deeply opposed to protectionist steps – and also deeply suspicious of attempts to economically isolate countries (or other entities).

At MeshForum we talk about many types of networks and especially about interdisciplinary approaches to networks. The World Economic Forum at Davos is a prime example of the power of social networks – and the vital importance, even for the very “important and/or famous” of face-to-face interactions, of shared meals and joint experiences. But the spectacle of and around Davos also highlights that there is much more going on, there are other factors – new media old and new, political networks both within countries and globally such as the UN, economic networks both within corporations and between corporations, and newer, creative networks such as the Project(red) campaign which connects individual customers, brands, an NGO of the UN, and millions of HIV patients thoughout the world. $57 million dollars is, perhaps, a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of AIDS to Africa and the world, or to the revenues of the corporate sponsors of the project, but it is also enough to have had a very real and dramatic impact on tens of thousands of our fellow humans who were suffering and now have some measure of hope.

As I live and work here in the US, in this very expensive and deeply futuristic place called Silicon Valley, even here in San Francisco which has at least a small measure of history and culture as well, it is well worth remembering how large and diverse and complex our planet is.

And to recall how small are the links which connect us all. My friends are now there at Davos hanging out, meeting, and sharing meals with some of the people who quite literally lead this world – the leaders of large corporations, the organizers of major efforts to save lives (as well as, less fortunately some of the leaders whose decisions cost lives), and the leaders of many governments (or past leaders).

They say that we, all humans, are connected by just a few steps, but also at far too many times it seems that even in our own countries, within our own cities we exist and live in different worlds. In 2008, however, I see many signs that our common links, our common, global interests are starting to be made clearer and that technology is, in part, helping more people reach out to each other – and to engage and perhaps see the “other” as also human, also worthy of respect and engagement with – even and perhaps particularly when we do not entirely agree.

Liveblogging the Future of Media Summit 2007

I am sitting in a conference room in San Francisco, watching a discussion happening live in front of me and via videoconference in Australia. This is all part of the Future of Media Summit organized by my friend Ross Dawson.

The summit started in a very future forward manner, a Skype conference call while viewing on a projected screen a conference space in Second Life, with the main speakers calling in from Toronto. Nothing earth shattering but a good update on the presence of over 100 large corporations as well as the very global characteristics of the Second Life community (estimated at about 400-800k active users, but 63% or more non-US).

Now the panel is talking about future business models. I think people are missing key points, though they do get some. For one, people have written off the value and revenues of music too rapidly I suspect. One of the current speakers from Australia gave his list of business models as

1. Audience pays for content

2. Third-party pays for access to your audience

3. Third-party pays for your content for their audience

One buisiness model he is missing is selling something else – for example data generated by watching the interactions of your audience. Ross just asked about micropayments.

Keith Tarre (of Edgeio – who are hosting my MeshWalk next week) is making some points about selling micro-chunks of content sold without a storefront (a listing becomes transactional) – i.e. you can sell from inside of your blog for example. “Selling content through peer relationships”

Ross just asked about the Zune to the woman from Microsoft who is on the panel here in San Francisco. She pointed out, however, that the peer-to-peer sharing is actually not selling.

She is talking about peer to peer networks who are also advertising platforms (I think she is thinking about sites such as Joost).

First Neil Stephenson citation of the conference. Snowcrash mentioned specifically – a little woot for that, though I think there is more and richer complexity than the panelists are citing at the moment.

Discussion of “proxy currencies” (Linden Dollars) however I think you should consider many of these as real currencies.

Point was made that direct email marketing is personalized advertising today and works. Keith mentioned JCrew who know his shirt size and sends him very targeted emails a few times a month.

Keith just noted that targeted advertising in the case of the TechCrunch job board generates about $30k per month and has about 30k page views per month, for an effective CPM of $1000. Because it has an very targeted audience and message and is effective.

I asked about the concept of selling data gathered in course of a media business, mentioned specifically Technorati, but I was hoping to get into other areas as well. The panelists seemed to agree with my point but think that the best opportunities would be for the company themselves to leverage that data, which is not exactly my point. My point is that there can often be adjacent businesses which want something different – for example tracking trends.

Next panel includes Mitch Ratcliffe and Gage Rivera here in San Francisco is on influence networks. Now someone from Australia talking about social network analysis. Something I know a bit about from running MeshForum.

Mitch is talking about influence – pointing out that redefining the conversation is a different type of influence than the mass numbers of links and popularity. It is about relationships – all about it. Points out the walled garden problem of most social networks today.

Now first citation of Ron Burt and the concept of Structural Holes and “brokers and bridges”. If I get a chance, I’ll ask about how the speed of creating new networks and the very dynamic nature of them changes things today. Too often social network analysis is focused on static networks. Mitch talks about synthesis and cites the Jeff Jarvis “Dell Hell” story. Mitch cites the term “Synthesis” as something to create.

Discussion now about paying for influence/posts/blogs/comments.

Gabe was just asked about what has changed in the tech and blogging world in the past 12 months. “A lot of people want to be TechCrunch and that has distorted things a bit”

Follow up question was are there more or less authoritative sites and Gabe answered that there are now more, and more companies who are and have active blogs. Now most startups have a blog.

I asked about dynamics and pointed out that MySpace is still growing. The panelists in Australia thought something different about my question and said he thinks there will be a single winner. I think he is wrong and that Marc Canter’s vision of 1000’s of social networks is a more likely one.

Joost enough?

As I have mentioned in the past, when I moved to the Bay Area in 2006 from Chicago I left behind in Chicago my TV. And since being here, I have not yet replaced it. My intention in not buying a TV was in part to save money (both the cost of the TV and subscription to some source of channels) and in part to save time, time I expected I would spend catching up on the many books I had and wanted to ready.

For the most part this has mostly worked. I have not spent the ~$1000 (or so) for a decent HDTV (and easily much more), nor do I have a monthly bill of $40-60+ from a cable company. I do have a very high monthly phone bill for my DSL – but that is also a very direct business expense.

In the past year I have read about 70 books (yes, at least one a week, often more) and some 100 magazines, not to mention 1000’s of pages of writing online. And though I read quickly, I am buying books faster than I read them (yes, a slightly bad habit of mine). However, I am probably still net ahead – were I subscribed to cable I’d still be buying many of the same books (about a quarter or more of which are books by friends of mine plus books by authors I’ve met).

But this post is not about my book buying habit (that will be the subject of a later post when I finish adding my collection to LibraryThing) rather it is a post about Joost.

A few months ago I was sent a Joost invite. I downloaded it, tried it out on my large screen iMac (24″), generally enjoyed it, but then found I had not run it in months. A few days ago I updated my installation of Joost to the latest version.

As I write this blog post, I am watching Joost, streaming quickly and smoothly, in a window to the left of my screen. I am listening to some of my favorite music on the Warner Channel. Earlier I listened to some great (and then some not-so-great dance songs on another channel, and before that got a bit of a poker fix via the poker channel). I see that another channel has Lexx, one of my favorite sci-fi series and I’m looking forward to catching up/seeing if there are any episodes I haven’t seen. I’m also curious whether or not Joost will be showing censored versions of Lexx, I seem to recall that there were some episodes which were more revealing when shown outside of the US.

But for the most part my entertainment viewing on my iMac have been from other sources – so for the moment at least Joost is not enough (for me). I still use other means – dvd’s I buy, iTunes, and other sources (the later generally for stuff that is unavailable). I subscribe to some video podcasts – but actually rarely view them – generally watching video podcasts, when I do, by going directly to the site (such as Ask a Ninja).