Over the River

One of Boston’s best events – WebInno – is on for tonight at the Royal Sonesta in Kendall Square. If you’ve never been you need to go and if you’ve been before you know you don’t want to miss out. As I’ve done for some time now, I’m offering my rundown of the companies that will be on hand and I’ll be following up in a few days to see if I was right in my predictions and assumptions.

Main Dishes

Good2Gether – one of the really nice things about WebInno over the past several months is that there’s been an undercurrent of social benefit in many of the participating companies. We’ve seen Carbon Rally, Make Me Sustainable, GoLoCo and SpotScout to name a few. Good2gether continues this tradition.

The goal is to help connect people and causes. The idea is that they will put non-profits in front of potential donors, volunteers and advocates. It all sounds well and good and some of their launch partners are terrific (the American Red Cross, the National Audubon Society, the MS Association, etc.) but I wasn’t able to get on to really monkey with things.

The company is planning to launch in 11 cities over the coming months, staring here in Boston in April. Given the general economic slowdown, non-profits are going to need all the help they can get to stay relevant and well-funded. I sure hope this is a solid, well-executed and well-received idea.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: at the moment they’re pretty low. The site looks good and the idea seems strong but there wasn’t much to go on.

Chances that I’m way off base: wicked low

PicMe Photo Sharing – I love taking and sharing pictures. I am totally addicted to Flickr. It’s probably the service I use the very most and find the most satisfying. But is there another category that is as splintered and diverse as online photosharing? I mean you have the big walled sites – Kodak, Shutterfly; the public sites like Flickr and Photobucket; the hybrid sites like Phanfare and into the fray leaps PicMe. How many of these do we need and how many are going to stick around?

PicMe seems to be all about organizing photos. (A good thing for someone taking a few thousand photos a month.) I signed up, downloaded the desktop application and was pleased to see how quickly it found and stacked the few photos on my work PC. I liked that I could see my Flickr contacts but couldn’t figure out how to see my own photos. I scared me that I could right mouse click on a friend’s photo and get the options: “Remove Photo from Flickr” and “Remove Photoset from Flickr.” I was too chicken to find out if that really works but if it does it’s really, really bad.

Sharing photos seems a little annoying as everyone you want to share with has to have the desktop client (which is currently Windows only . . .). Even the old-school sharing sites allowed you to share with just an email address.

Not to be a total gloomy Gus though. This has some very positive points. The ability to see all of my contacts images in a single UI is pretty nice (of course I can do that with the Media Bar in Flock, my main browser). I think PicMe is an interesting application and one worth checking out. I do kinda feel like most people have their imaging workflows more or less together so it will be interesting to see where this fits in.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: I liked what I saw but didn’t exactly love it. I’m sure it will demo well though and that it will get plenty of ohhh and ahhhs.

Chances that I’m way off base: pretty high I guess. I could see myself walking out of there and wanting to go to town and use it every day.

Jack Cards – Connecting our World Thoughtfully? What might that mean? The home page includes a quote from the Wall Street Journal: [jack cards] “ . . . saves users the hassle of last-minute trips to the card store.” Guess what? I don’t make FIRST minute trips to the card store. In fact, I don’t like cards in general. When I get them I look at them for like a second and say, “Aww, that’s nice,” as I walk to the recycling bin. Clearly I am not the target market.

What’s weird about this is that unless I am mistaken this is the second greeting card company to present at WebInno in the past year. Nichie-nichie or what?

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: On a scale of zero to negative infinity, I would say there is an infinitely negative chance of that happening.

Chances that I’m way off base: If I become a woman between now and this evening I might think this is perfect; but I’m not expecting that to happen (and if it does I’ll be pissed) so I think that speaking for me I have this right.

Side Dishes

Traackr – can I tell you all a little secret? I am a total attention whore sometimes. Not *ALL* the time but certainly sometimes. My greatest aspiration is to be a supahbrand. I spend hours on end clicking refresh. I can’t control myself. The along comes Traaker. It promises to do this mindless checking and double-checking for me. I signed up but I can’t figure this thing out to save my life. I’ve put in my user names multiple times but they never seem to stick. There’s a tick box but it never seems to click.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: Pretty high actually. I would LOVE to have an easier time of determining how awesome I am. I just wish they’d look at a broader range of sites and services.

Chances that I’m way off base: not that high. This seems straight forward and if it actually works it would be a cool site.

Moborazzi – When I first heard the name I thought of Lego Bionicles. Then I went to the site and saw that it was a play on words “Mob” and “Paparazzi” – two popular and friendly terms . . . So this is ANOTHER way to share photos? This is a service that allows you to take picture with you phone and post it to the Web. Ummmm and this is new how? Most of the photosharing sites seem to allow this and new services like Utterz and Qik are allowing people to do more and more interesting things with their mobile devices.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: See Jack Cards.

Chances that I’m way off base: Moderately good I guess; maybe this is just what the world needs.

Lingro – first blush – a dictionary? Meh. But then I checked this thing out and man is it cool. You can go to ANY Web site and click on ANY work and get details on the word in a number of languages. How cool is that? I tried it on a number of sites and it worked awesome. Go and try this – it really is cool and I think if like words you’ll like this site.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: Well, I already am so I guess the expectations that I’ll be wowed are very high. I suspect that seeing it in person will probably show things I didn’t find on my own. I can’t wait.

Chances that I’m way off base: Very low. If I am not as excited after I see this I’ll be extremely surprised.

Yamli – This is kind of a niche but it’s cool never-the-less. Yamli lets you search Arabic Web sites in English. That’s pretty neat. Of course the results are all in Arabic so it lessens the utility a little bit (at least for me since to say my Arabic is rusty is to say the sun is bright). It also provides the ability to type in English and have it converted Arabic on the fly. Here’s an example:
ذي والروس ات مي انجلش مفنس. (In case you can’t read it, it says “The walrus ate my English muffin.) Definitely a tool with potential but it still feels a little rough and the utility could be stronger.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: I like the idea of being able to expand my ability to search beyond English and to write in other languages so I have high hopes for this one.

Chances that I’m way off base: Total. I could be totally wrong.

Entrecard.com – These are essentially ads for blogs. They kind of reminded me of the ads you see over urinals – kind of weird, generic and untargeted. I have to be honest – the site does a terrible job of explaining what it does. I’ll try to stop by to check it out but man it doesn’t do much for me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Chances that I’m way off base: Any time I take an extreme position my chances of being off base go up. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.

FLIMP – Except for its really unfortunate name this is pretty cool. The site allows you to create video sites very quickly and then distribute them to targets via email. The email distribution this is cool because it allows the site to collect crazy analytics. From a content creators perspective it’s pretty cool. As a content consumer, boy, do I really want all the details of my behavior analyzed so quickly and easily?

I like what they are doing and offering. I like the look and feel of the site and I REALLY like the look of the microsites generated by Flimp. It’s cool, they have awesome customers and it seems to work well.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: High – I already like this service and am imaging ways to use it.

Chances that I’m way off base: Pretty low.

Stylepath – A neat idea – kind of a personal online shopper/stylist that learns about you and makes suggestions for additional products you might like. If I had a less slovenly sense of style I might find this site really useful but as it is I don’t care as much as I probably ought to. I will say that the site is pretty slick in terms of look and feel and functionality.

There would probably me more in it for me if it allowed my to create a profile based on broader interests – books, movies, music – and made style suggestions based on my similarities with other – more stylish – people who share my taste.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed: For people who are into and care about how they and their space looks it might well be a total “wow!” For me, not so much.

Chances that I’m way off base: I think it’s pretty low.

This is an open call for people interested in participating in Boston’s first (and perhaps the world’s only) air marching band. Unlike a rabble, the Boston Paper Hat Air Marching Band (BPHAMB - pronounced b-fam) will be a credit to the community and its members.

The first BPHAMB event will take place on Saturday, April 19th (Patriot’s Day) at 1:00PM on the Boston Common near the corner of Beacon and Cambridge Street. The event will begin with general aimless milling around, followed uniform craft time (paper hats for everyone!), instrument selection and finally a VERY brief rehearsal.

The proposed route will take the band over Beacon Hill, across Government Center and into Faneuil Hall for drinks and other refreshments.

Please let us know if you are interesting in attending this inaugural march. Send us an email and please note if you are interested in helping to promote, enlist, fold or fabricate our mobile sound system.

This has the opportunity to be totally KICK ASS so grab a friend, a sheet of newspaper, a bring your marchingest attitude down to the Common on the 19th.

This past Tuesday’s WebInno was great. The event continues to grow and, in fact, may be getting TOO big (at least for the room it is currently in). It’s size actually made it hard (and in some cases impossible) to see many of the sidedish companies. I was near the door and the conversations in the foyer - even with the door closed - made it hard to hear some of the presentations. But these are nits.

While I really enjoy the presentations and the companies, what’s most valuable about WebInno for me is the chance to see people and to get a sense of the Web market here in Boston. Based on this week’s event that state of Web innovation and interest is higher than ever. I was only able to spend time with two companies - MakeMeSustainable and Glassbooth.

I really liked what I saw from MakeMeSustainable. Their analytics and Facebook integration - with its carbon tree metaphor for building a network for carbon reduction - were very impressive. Ben Brown, the CEO, and David Delacourt, the COO, were kind enough to show me the product and to discuss how they see themselves fitting into the market.

We talked for a while about how MMS compares with Carbonrally - a company that was at WebInno a few months ago. MMS has the analytics well in hand while Carbonrally has done a great job of building on people’s competitive spirit to engage them around the issue. It’s hard to say which approach will be most successful (if either) but some hybrid would be very appealing.

I went in expecting to love Glassbooth and I totally did. Robert Boyle explained things to me in more detail than I had gotten on the site - including their plans for the future. This was something I think a lot of people wondered about - sure, it’s a great tool heading into a presidential election but what do you do afterward?

Robert explained that they hope to use the system for a growing number of elections - local, state and federal. It sounds like a plan - especially since they are a non-profit that is receiving its funding primarily through foundations. I continue to be impressed by the depth of the site and by the commitment of the people involved with it.

As for the main dish presentations - my opinion of SpotScout and Urban Interactive is unchanged from my preview. SpotScout seems like a really niche product (if I don’t take the T I just part in a garage most of the time) and Urban Interactive still seems like it could be an annoying idea. That said, I can imagine examples of Urban Interactive executions that would be totally engrossing and fun. Maybe it’s just the way it was described - with references to reality TV, etc - that turned me off.

A new wrinkle on the event was the ability of everyone to vote on the coolest main dish. SpotScout won in a landslide so they certainly had something to say to many of the attendees.

Paper Hats did well at the event. More than 20 people were willing to don the recycled headgear and allow themselves to be photographed and the Paper Hat movement seems like it is poised for some exciting growth. Keep your eyes peeled for Paper Hats cropping up wherever the cool kids congregate.

Ans speaking of congregating - post-WebInno saw a terrific traveling Tweet-up. First downstairs at Dante and then across the street at the Cheesecake Factory. It was a veritable who’s-who of wicked fun people.

The next WebInno isn’t until April so we’ll have to come up with something else to amuse ourselves in the meantime.

Did everyone else have a great time?

Today is a day for paper hats. I was on my way to work this morning and realized I’d forgotten my hat. My head was cold. What could I do? The answer was simple: make a paper hat. As soon as I got to work that’s just what I did.

The result was stunning. I am so happy with my hat - and I want other people to be happy too - that I’ve created a new Flickr group dedicated to paper hats. Take a second today and do something fun. Make yourself a paper hat and post a pic. You’ll feel better, trust me.

WebInno16 is right around the corner and so I thought I’d take a few minutes to preview the companies that will be presenting and sidedishing at the event. To see them for yourself, come to the meeting on Tuesday, January 29th at 6:30 at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge.

Here’s who’ll be there and what I expect from each of them:

Main Courses

MakeMeSustainable

The Rap:
This is a tool that helps people understand and do something about their carbon footprint and it’s pretty slick. Lots of nice graphics that illustrate how much carbon is being used and some very practical suggestions for reducing CO2. One of the things that I thought was really cool about the site is that it tells you not only how much carbon you can reduce by doing simple things (recycling, composting, raising or lowering your thermostat, etc,) but also how much money you’ll save in the process.

I found parts of it to be a little confusing. The “action” (where you make adjustments to your carbon use) is rich but not always super clear. For example, it suggests limiting the number of newspapers you receive. Well, I don’t have any delivered but there’s no way for me to tell it that. I THINK I can commit to the number that I will reduce by but if I’m already at zero, well, what can I do?

That said, it’s a really clean and good looking site and given the fact that it’s still in beta very strong. It’s similar in spirit in some ways to Carbon Rally but it doesn’t have the same competitive edge to it. Both are cool and ought to be checked out and supported.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
I’m looking forward to seeing the demo and hope that someone who knows the site will be able to make it clearer to me. I mean the idea is pretty simple but I’d love to see all it can do. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be wowed and don’t expect to be disappointed.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Pretty low. I think I get this one.

SpotScout

The Rap
From discouraging the carbon life style to celebrating it! Talk about niche, SpotScout is a parking space. It’s not really fair to say these guys are about celebrating carbon, in fact, a ton of fuel is spent cruising and looking for spaces so anything that improves the process will actually cut CO2. While I get and like the concept, it seems like it could be tricky - especially for on-street parking.

Reading about it makes the whole seem sound pretty complicated to me. There are “SpotCasters” who broadcast information about available spaces via the Web and “SpotScouts” who are looking for spaces. These can be spaces on the street, a driveway, parking lot, etc. I guess that since I don’t usually drive this doesn’t seem that pressing to me but I guess I could be missing something.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Very low. I just don’t see the pressing need. Hey everyone, leave your cars at home if you can and take the train. Here in Boston they’re a way better alternative.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Pretty low. This seems like a cumbersome answer to a petty annoyance.

Urban Interactive

The Rap:
“Discover the secrets of a city with an interactive sight-seeing adventure,” hmmm, sounds kind of interesting I guess. But the site goes on to say, “learn about a city while solving riddles, performing stunts and competing for prizes.” Performing stunts? Listen, if I live in the city and am confronted by a gaggle of giggling yucksters on a fun filled adventure in my neighborhood I could see myself being a little less than amused.

I CRINGE when I see people acting like idiots and the idea of people “engaging in exquisitely goofy behavior” is probably more than I need to know. Last WebInno featured Untravel which seems like a more civilized and less annoying way to learn about a city.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Very low. The idea of people wandering around searching for “lost relics” and interacting with comedians is enough to make my skin crawl - no thanks.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Pretty high. This is probably a really fun way to see a city and I’m sure that the people involved have done a great job in setting things up and preparing the groundwork so a good time is had by all.

Side Dishes:

MyHappyPlanet

The Rap:
“Learn a Language. Make Friends. Have Fun.” Hard to argue with the concept. Unfortunately, the site is in a closed beta so I can’t say much about it.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Super high, I mean, how couldn’t they be since I don’t know anything about it.

Chances that I’m way off base:
How can I be off base?

Survol

The Rap:
“Building Wireless Data Use through Usability” Hi Survol, 1996 called and they want their Web site back. This is all about streaming data to mobile devices. I THINK i has to to with navigational data but I’ll be honest, the site is SO poorly designed and written that I glazed over in five seconds flat. And I actually really like geeky stuff but this was a snoozer.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Pretty high. Look, just because the site stinks doesn’t mean that what they’re doing isn’t cool. I just can’t really get it online. I’ll bet that talking to a person about it will make everything clear. At least I hope so.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Moderate. It’s possible that this is just really, really boring . . .

Glassbooth

The Rap:
“Glassbooth connects you to the 2008 presidential candidate that represents your beliefs the best” Heady stuff and this site tackles it well. In fact, this is a totally awesome site. If you don’t know who you’ll be voting for next month, you have to go to this site. Not going, why that would be just dumb.

Basically, the site starts by asking you which issues matter to you more or less. You’re give 20 points to weight your preference. While I was doing this I was thinking, “Hey, it’s not clear if I’m saying I am for our against these things.” As a friend of mine would tell me, “Patience young Jedi.”

Why be patient? Because the very next thing that happens is a little quiz. There are only 20 questions and you’re asked to rate statements like, “I support or oppose gay marriage” or “I support or oppose increased funding for public schools” on a five point scale, from “strongly oppose” to “strongly support.” The questions are based on the issues you said mattered to you.

Once you take the quiz, it lets you know which candidate is closest to your point of view. For me, it came out with John Edwards and Mike Gravel being 81% similar to me. What’s really great about the site is the ability to drill down into all of the issues and to see each candidates statements, voting history, etc.

This is a totally awesome site. You’ve GOT to try it.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
I already am about as wowed as I can be with my clothes on.

Chances that I’m way off base:
I would put that at a great big ZERO.

Mofuse

The Rap:
“Increase your brand awareness & conquer the mobile Web!” I’m still trying to crack the Web that’s sitting right here still in front of me but I guess I could use this thing. I have a bunch of blogs and there’s one in particular that would benefit from a little mobile twist. Mofuse sounds totally smart and easy. I didn’t set it up because I don’t have a mobile browser that I don’t think sucks. Maybe tonight I’ll try it and check out the results on my wife’s Touch.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Very high. I think this is a great sounding tool and am looking forward to see it in action.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Pretty low. This is fairly self-explanitory and if it works like they say it will be great.

Buildium

The Rap:
“#1 in online property management” Last WebInno saw two companies - FlipKey and iiManagement - dealing with property management. And now a third? Who knew that online property management was such a strong sector here in the Boston area? Just doesn’t do much for me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Very, very low. I though iiManagement was cool but it will be hard to impress me with this kind of thing two events in a row.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Very high. I think, as is often the case, that seeing it in person will be cooler than reading about it on the Web.

Socrato

The Rap:
“Test preparation getting smarter” First, I can’t stop giggling about the name for some reason. You know, half the time I hate getting old and then I see something like this and I’m so grateful I don’t have to deal with these kind of tests any more. My kids do - but, hey, that’s their problem. I kinda wish I’d had something like this when I was a kid though. Basically, you can take sample tests, see how you’ve done and receive study materials based on your results. Sounds pretty smart to me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed:
Moderate. I think this is a great idea and can’t wait to hear more about it.

Chances that I’m way off base:
Petty low, this is a simple concept that I expect will be really helpful.

So that’s my take on the companies lined up for WebInno16. Of all of them, Glassbooth is the one that really gets my blood flowing. Check back later next week to see what REALLY happened.

I’ve been so busy with my other blogs lately that I haven’t been writing here as much as I ought to - now that the 2008 events are underway I expect that to change.

I went out last night to MITX. The panel was moderated by Larry Weber and featured Tom Arrix of Facebook, Pauline Ores of IBM, Juan Santos or StudioCom, Suzanne Skop of MySpace and Jeff Taylor of Eons. The event drew a good crowd, probably 250 people. It was less the hip social media scene people and more folks that I think were looking for ways to understand what’s happening. (I will say that most of the people in the room raised their hands when asked if they were using Facebook or Myspace.)

In terms of content, I didn’t come away with anything especially new or revealing. It was what has become a fairly familiar conversation - the way people want to receive content is changing so the way marketers communicate with them needs to change as well. Yep, got it.

What made this panel perhaps more interesting was the quality of the panelists - or at least of the companies for whom they worked. This gave me an opportunity to raise an issue that’s been bothering me lately. Let me explain the issue and then get into the panel’s response.

I’m reading, “The Ball is Round - A Global History of Soccer.” It’s a pretty good book and has been a good introduction to the game. One of the things that surprised me is that in the early days, “amateurism” was the spirit of the day. What this meant was that players weren’t paid. So the club owners would invest in building stadiums (often just a few wood stands or even raised earth mounds for spectators) and charge a gate. At the time though, the players saw NONE of the money and that, of course, suited the owners just fine.

Fast forward a hundred or so odd years and replace stadiums with social networking sites, replace the fans with visitors and the players with content creators (who might also be visitors). There’s typically no admission fee but there’s a ton of money flowing into the pockets of the companies that build and maintain the sites. The value of these sites is the content and interaction provided by the members. But the people creating the value are seeing NONE of the revenue.

It seems like a pretty exploitative model to me and one - over time - that’s bound to change in time as people recognize that this is the same old economic model that unions were created to deal with wrapped in newer and friendlier fabric. So I can pay Linden Labs for the privilege of creating value for Linden Labs . . . hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?

So I asked the panel what they though. Whether they’re respective companies would ever think of a model that recognized and compensated people for the value they bring to the community. Guess what? The short answer is no. I was told that this was a naïve question, that people are already rewarded with intangible things like recognition and kudos.

Those early soccer players were also rewarded by the cheers of the fans but sooner or later they recognized that cheers don’t buy a whole hell of a lot.

One of the big ideas of this whole social media thing is the democratization of content creation and distribution and that’s awesome. But the result can’t be a concentration of money and control in the hands of the few built on the work of the many. That just isn’t going to be sustainable forever.

Is it time to form a content creators union? Is it time to organize the unrecognized social media workforce? Is it at least time to take a step back and ask these kinds of questions?
Let me know what you think.

Over the past couple of days I’ve been talking with people at the Society for New Communications Research and the Social Media Club here in Boston about the intersection of communication and culture. I support the idea of looking at the stuff of life as legitimate channels for communication - but this has to be done with an extremely high level of sensitivity - especially when the content is commercial.

This past week the Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood sent out an email exposing an exploitation of a cultural communication channel by McDonald’s. The program was built around commercial messages being included on report card envelopes of kids in kindergarten through fifth grade in Seminole County, Florida. It offered free Happy Meals to kids that did well in Academics, Citizenship or Attendance.

Here’s the piece that went out:

Some complained that the promotion forced them to be the bad guys if they said “no” to the free Happy Meal; that kids might feel that they were entitled to a reward for their accomplishments; that it was simply inappropriate for commercial characters and messages to be included via this channel.

This isn’t the first time - and nor is McDonald’s the first company - to do this type of “sponsorship;” and some might argue that if communities don’t want this type of thing they should find alternative ways to fund local schools. The fact is though that even with full funding - if someone offers a school system with cash few are going to say “no.”

So using the idea of cultural communications, how might McDonald’s accomplished its marketing goal without raising the hackles of parents and advocacy groups?

First, they could have taken their commercial message off of the envelope all together - but still have paid the school for the mailing. Since this was a local program, they could have promoted their sponsorships in-store and perhaps generated positive word-of-mouth.

Second, they could have included parents in conversation. This was one of the things they were criticized for - and rightly so - they were marketing directly to kids and setting up potential conflict between kids and parents. Again, a program that was aimed at parents in the stores, letting them know that McDonald’s would let them - the parents - bring their kids into a store for a free Happy Meal would have make the reward the parents could bestow if they say fit. This would have made mom and dad - as well as McDonald’s into the hero.

Third, they could have made the program broader and more interesting. For example, rather then just giving kids a free meal for a report card, why not create a redeemable currency that kids could collect and save for meals or merchandise online? This would be something that would include the parents and the kids - and, for those that opted to participate - create and even stronger tie between the customers and the brand.

Instead, McDonald’s took the easiest path and is getting hammered (coverage has appeared in the New York Times, the AP and in local papers in Orlando). Cultural communications can work; it just has to be handled with more intelligence and sensitivity than was demonstrated in this case.

What do you think? Would you feel comfortable with a program like this in your community?

Technorati Tags: McDonald’s, education, marketing, cultural communications, report cards, Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood

So a colleague sent me this article from Computerworld last night - finally, I have a label!  I am part of the Virtual Generation - and I am with pride.  Here’s how Gartner describes GenV in the article:

Generation Virtual, or V, is made up of people from multiple age groups who make social connections online — through virtual worlds, in video games, as bloggers, in social networks or through posting and reading user-generated content at e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com, said Adam Sarner, senior analyst at Gartner.

Forget Generations X and Y: Here comes Generation V

I spend WAY more time active and interacting in virtual communities and relationships that I do the physical world (OK, so that might be an exaggeration - but I do a lot online). And I do these things through a number of persona that have developed for different purposes.

So here’s my life as a 41 year old member of GenV:

I have three blogs that I update regularly - two of them every day.  Only this one is by me the person.  The others are written as persona - and one of those was a splinter from the first . . .

There is an online relationship with a fan of one of my blogs.  I’m very open about this.  My wife knows, friends know, she knows I’m married - we all know the terms and it’s all good.  Our relationship is built around collaborating on what is frankly pretty much pure filth smut.  The stories are a lot of fun and have resulted in a very popular blog (and no, I am not telling anyone where to find it).

I have three Facebook profile that I am on every day.  One is me, the other two and tied to my other blogs and have distinct friends.

I can’t even guess how many email accounts I have but there are four that I use on a daily basis.

Flickr is my friend and though I’ve slowed down recently (I need to revise my photographic workflow) I visit the site every day.

Twitter - and the network of friends and contacts there - has become a big part of my day.

(There’s more but I need to get moving - I have to bring my daughter to Spanish soon.)

When I read or hear people criticizing virtual contacts, communities, connections, relationships, etc. I always think that they’re the ones missing out.  Online communities and just as rich - if not richer - that their real world analogs.  They are populated by a far more diverse range of people and interests than you come across in the real world.  There’s only one GPC wandering around in physical space but there are several versions and variations of me active online.  And truly, I think that is a good thing.

Technorati Tags: Generation V, Computerworld, GenV, persona, person, identity, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, email, communities, Flickr, relationships

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I’m a bit tardy in getting up my scorecard from last week’s event - I had to travel, got real busy, etc., etc., etc. OK, so it’s lame that it’s taken a week; but better late than never, right?

So let’s see how I did calling the companies:

FlipKey

These guys are all about helping find great vacation rentals. Now you may be saying to yourself, “how hard can it be?” and to a certain extent, you’d be right. But their point is that most people find it much easier to simply book a hotel room rather than looking for a place to rent. They’re also saying that there are tons of vacation properties around that are vacant most of the time so their owners are missing out on some economic upside. FlipKey wants to make finding and renting a vacation property simple. Maybe it’s not a cure for cancer but sounds pretty cool to me.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – not super high. The idea makes sense and all but I’m not sure it’s going to be a big show-stopper demo.

Chances that I’m way off base - pretty low. I get the idea and am looking forward to seeing it but don’t expect it’s far from my expectations.

I was definitely impressed by what these guys had to say. There was one point in their demo when they showed a search for property on VRBO. It was a totally confusing mess. Then they showed the same search on Flipkey. Let me just say that the results were way, way different. And different in a good way - no, a great way. The site is slick, the content strong and they’ve really seemed to think through the business details.

I missed the boat in terms of being wowed by the demo - the night and day difference between Flipkey and what’s out there now was pretty dramatic.

Lemonade

Billed as ecommerce for everyone, I’m a little confused by Lemonade. It’s not like you have to own the products you sell on your stand, you only “recommend” them. You can put your stand on Facebook and other social networks which is good since who’s going to go to Lemonade to find my stand? Seems odd but what the hell, I signed up. That process was pretty smooth (the section for selecting your date of birth didn’t really work) and parts of it were really slick (the tool for choosing your stand color comes to mind). The range of products you can include on your stand is pretty extensive – almost a million – and they run the gambit from pretty cool to pretty crappy. One thing that I wasn’t clear on – and it might just because I didn’t read everything as carefully as I should have – was how you (and Lemonade) actually make money. I guess they’ll explain all that on Tuesday.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – I really, really want to be wowed by this. If it’s a way for me to make a little cash I’m all over it.

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. This sounds too good to be true so it probably is.

So I saw the demo and heard the story but I still wasn’t that blown away but Lemonade. I get the idea, but I’m not a big impulse shopper and that’s kind of critical for this to work. I mean, if I’m looking for something, I’m more likely to go to a company Web site or Amazon or Google rather than a friend’s Facebook page. But that’s just me.

I will say that they have a good looking site and that they’ve considered how they’re going to make money - both good things; but I just don’t see how it’s going gain any traction. Of course their job got a whole lot harder when Facebook announced a new, friendly approach to advertising . . .

iiProperty

I guess if one “i” in front of a word is good, two “i”s must be twice as good. Either that or this is targeting aspiring sailors. Joking aside, this is an online property management tool for owners, builders, realtors, etc. who need to manage property as a commercial asset. This is the second property related demo at the event and it will be interesting to see if there is any connection between the way they each talk about themselves and their market. It’s also the second company I’ve seen in the past few days that seeks to automate a business process to make it easier and more palatable. (The other is FreshBooks http://www.freshbooks.com/ - which is seeking to provide billing systems.) Not being in their target market (although I do like boats) I didn’t register for this one to check it out. The idea makes sense though, and I will say, I was a building manager at one point and there were lots of parts of the job that would have been easier with a computer or something but it was the 80s so what can you do?

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – moderate. I don’t really know all the ins and outs and intricacies of property management so I may be pretty easy to impress.

Chances that I’m way off base – equally moderate. Who knows . . .

So it turns out that the “ii” has nothing to do with sailors - which is kind of disappointing. What wasn’t disappointing was their demo. Now I’m not going to say that EVERYTHING about it was cool or impressive but there was certainly some stuff in there that was. They are going after “casual” landlords - people with a few properties but who aren’t living the landlord dream.

They showed a pretty slick dashboard for managing properties, contacting tenants, etc. It looked pretty nice. But that wasn’t all. They also showed a version that’s intended for renters. It allows them to put in repair requests, correspond with their landlord and even, in the future, pay rent online. There was another slick little think they showed - the rentometer - that showed all of the current rents for specific kinds of properties. It looked nice and all but I don’t think it’s going to help anyone argue for a rent reduction . . .

Side Dishes:

Carbon Rally

Now this is cool. It uses competition to get people to make little changes in their lives to deal with environmental issues. The site issues challenges – things like giving up bottled water for a week – and calculates the carbon impact this will have. It encourages people to create teams of friends and colleagues to compete with others to see who can eliminate the most carbon from their day-to-day activities. As someone who recently gave up his parking space in Kendall Square in favor of the train, I’m all for what they’re doing.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – pretty high. I like what these guys are doing, I like the approach they are taking and want it to work.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. What I’ve seen of the site looks good.

I had a chance to talk to these guys a little before things got rolling and was impressed. It’s clean and simple site, it’s not trying to do too many things and I could see how it might get people engaged. What I don’t see is any way from these guys to make money.

Mixandmeet

Kind of like flashmobs meet online dating – but not quite, Mix&meet lets you create social situations with random people on the fly. Hmmmm. So you feel like grabbing a drink after work but all your co-workers are losers? Just tell Mix&meet where you are and what you want to do and you’ll get a note telling you who you’re meeting, where and when. It sounds pretty cool to me. I actually met the founder, Bruce Franco, the other night at the xconomy launch party and he sure made it sound appealing. I signed up for the service but it’s not quite ready just yet so I guess I’m going to have to wait.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – as someone who loves going out to drink and meeting new people, I expect I’ll think this is pretty cool.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty good. I’m 41 and I’m willing to bet that this is going to be popular with a slightly younger set and I’ll be seen as kind of an outlier.

I didn’t have a chance to talk with Bruce but saw his short description of the site. It does sound good and he’s pretty passionate about it. I can’t really say much beyond that.

Panospin

Haven’t I seen this somewhere before? Panospin provides 360 degree panoramas and to be honest, I know these have been around for years – years and years and years. So I’m honestly curious about what makes this different, new or better than previous incarnations. The language on the site seems a little bizarre to me - “Although still photography is good for detailed views, it doesn’t simulate a real life experience the way a 360 degree panorama can.” Huh. By this logic, video would be even better for “simulating” real life, so why not just grab a camcorder and go nuts. Color me skeptical.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – hovering at or below the Mendoza line.

Chances that I’m way off base – fair I suppose – it’s possible that I’m missing some wonderful and essential fact about Panospin that will totally blow me away . . . but I doubt it.

OK, so I checked this out. Still doesn’t do much for me but I do understand it better. These guys didn’t develop the technology or anything, they’re basically a production company that can make products, sites, etc. look good in 3D. I wasn’t wowed, not by a long shot, but I guess I can understand why people might use them. How many places have this capability themselves? Let alone the skill and eye to do it well?

360gadget

When I first saw this company’s name I thought, “is it really possible that there are TWO 360 degree panorama companies coming to WebInno?” Not surprisingly, the answer is “no.” So what does 360gadget do? The apparently provide a customized Facebook page that can contain all sorts of terrific stuff – Google search, RSS, YouTube, etc. I say apparently because every link I tried on the page gave me a slightly different error message. I’ll try it again at some point but I didn’t really do that much for me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – gimmie a Z, “Z”, gimme an E, “E”, gimme an R, “R”, gimmie an O, “O”, what’s that spell? “Zero!” What’s that spell, “Zero!!”

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. Look, the thing wasn’t working when I went to check it out and so it might be beyond fantastic. Having a broken site isn’t good though so I’ll have to wait till Tuesday to see for sure I guess.

So I didn’t really check this one out. Things came up, what can I say? I have to say though that I just don’t think this is very interesting at all.

Student Concourse

Ah for those halcyon days of carefree youth! But it looks like youth isn’t as carefree as it used to be (or at least as carefree as I remember it). Student Concourse vows to help though and they’ve created what looks like a pretty slick application. Not only does the application itself look pretty cool, the site is nice as well. Being that I’m not a student in the most technical sense of the word, there’s plenty about this application that’s probably Greek to me but I’m still looking forward to checking it out.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – very high. From the little I’ve seen I want to see more so I am hopeful.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. I think this looks cool – of course there are a ton of questions and I’m only talking about this from an application/technology perspective – who knows about the business model . . .

OK, so I didn’t really check this one out either. But what was cool about it is that it was developed by a kid in high school. I’m betting he has a pretty good handle on what’s needed to be a successful student these days so I’m willing to guess that this is probably a pretty solid offering. A pity that I won’t have the occasion to attend high school again, that would rock on so many levels.

Untravel Media

So just because of the order they’re listed on the WebInno page (kinda sorta alphabetical) this is the last company I checked out. It also happens to be the one that I think is the most interesting. It combines a bunch of stuff that I really like – mobility, travel, media, etc. So what is this all about? It’s about portable content on places produced by the people who live there and telling interesting stories. There are a few examples up on the site now - “Creeping through Boston” - that has to do with Salem (for Halloween and all). The concept, content, site, etc. are all very polished. The process for creating the content is pretty complicated and I hope that it isn’t always going to be (you have to apply to product content, go through a review and training process, attend regular meetings, etc.). It would be great is people were able to do these films in a faster and more flexible process. I can imagine people seeing this content and deciding they can do it without all of the process and overhead. Either way though, this is cool.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – super high. I like this one very much.

Chances that I’m way off base – tiny; it’s possible that it’s going to seem way less cool when I see it in person but I don’t think so.

I went in expecting to be impressed and I wasn’t disappointed. Having worked at Alcatraz (I was a park ranger) I understand how much people love location-based rich content (I’m referring to the audio tour of the prison). Untravel is making that kind of content - even richer with the addition of images and video - available for anywhere someone wants to produce it.

The types of content and kinds of devices they support was good and will only get better as they add GPS support in the future. I also love it that anyone can create content for the platform. I like being able to share and hear stories about places (I liked SpotStory and am bummed that it folded) and can imagine all sorts of tours that I’d like to create. The tools for doing them looked good and I am hoping to try my hand before too long.

So that was it in terms of the companies last week. Beyond the companies though there was the whole social scene that is WebInno. That continues to grow and improve. No more WebInnos now until the end of January. That stinks.

Hope you enjoyed this little recap. Let me know what you think - if you agree, disagree, etc.

Technorati Tags: WebInno, FlipKey, Lemonade, iiProperty, Carbon Rally, MixandMeet, Panospin, 360gadget, student concourse, untravel media

Earlier this month I attended the MIT Communications Forum on Collective Intelligence. Here is a summary of the event.

Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School
Alex “Sandy” Pentland, MIT Media Lab
Thomas Malone, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence

David Thorburn introduced the evenings panel and explained that the idea of collective intelligence has been a topic that the Forum has covered in the past, mentioning Howard Rheingold’s session on Smart Mobs in 2002 as an example. He also pointed out that it has been an ongoing preoccupation for people in technology for a long time.

One of the missions of the Forum, he explained, is to speak to a literate citizenry – and he asked the speakers to speak in a common, literate language. With that he opened the Forum by asking Thomas Malone to provide a definition and overview of collective intelligence.

Malone started by saying the the Forum was an example of collective intelligence, in that it seeks to take advantage of the intelligence of the audience. Collective intelligence happens through conversations among a literate citizenry.

He defined collective intelligence as groups of individuals, doing things collectively that seem intelligent. By that definition, it’s clear that collective intelligence has been around for a very long time – families, armies, countries – have all provided examples throughout history. He pointed out that all of these groups (and others) have also exhibit collective stupidity. Recognizing the differences between collective intelligence and collective stupidity is important.

In the past few years, he went on, there have been some interesting examples of collective intelligence: Google – not jut the technology or the company; but also the system – the creation of Web pages, the linking of pages and the technology that harvests all of this information. It’s an amazing example because it combines people and computers in a way that never existed before.

Wikipedia is also an excellent example. Again, it’s not just the technology. What’s really amazing is the organizational design that has arisen around Wikipedia. There, the community – which is virtually entirely voluntary - has invented an organizational design that allows thousands of people from all over the world to create an intellectual product with out centralized control.

He thinks these are just the beginning of whole new classes of intelligent entities that we will see over the coming decades. In order to take full advantage of them, we will need to understand their possibilities at a much deeper level. The goal of this understanding is to connect people and computers so they can act more intelligently than any people, machines or groups ever have before.

Consider the research status of collective intelligence as compared with artificial intelligence. In AI, the goal is to create machines that are more intelligent that humans; and much work has been done on this topic so the core questions of AI are well understood. Too little time has been spent on developing the same understanding for collective intelligence and we need to figure out how to take advantage of both people and machines.

Sandy Pentland spoke next and described his general thoughts on collective intelligence. The reason people come together into groups, he explained, is to be more intelligent. There are also problems that arise when groups collect – conflict, group think, etc.; and the larger the organization, the bigger these problems become. In some ways, collective intelligence can be seen as the attempt to simply break even and avoid collective idiocy.

This break even can be achieved by developing more sensible organizations – not ad hoc but based on data, science and modeling. In modern organizations, there is a great deal of organizational data that can be analyzed – emails, memos, etc. But the most important communication happens face-to-face. This communication is the delicate, content-full discussions that really matter. Until recently though, this was unmanageable and unstorable. Most of it was invisible and couldn’t be organized and managed. Now, Pentland explained, we are able to measure face-to-face communication in real time.

Pentland and his team are tracking face-to-face interaction with a name badge the keeps track of whom the wearer is talking to and when – but not the content on the conversations. It creates a recording of what happens when people see and are animated by each other.

He went onto describe research conducted at a German bank looking at the dynamics of communications. It analyzed communications patters – both over email and face-to-face. The resulting maps were very different, and, for the first time, provided a means to view how information flows within an organization.

Pentland emphasized that neither alone was key; but that the combination of the two helped provide and understanding of the most effective modes of communication. This work has allowed an analysis of what is happening, who is over worked, the quality of group interaction, etc. It permits the identification of potential problems and provides the ability to make suggestions for improved communication and information flow.

It can, of course, also seem more than a little Big Brother; but Pentland sees a value in creating personal information tools – based on electronic communication tracking, proximity badges, etc. - that lead to more awareness and alert people to issues of group think or polarization. His hope is that with this information people will be better able to manage themselves and achieve better results for themselves and their organizations.

He also mentioned other work that could lead to more formal collective intelligence applications. These included market-based models for predicting future events and systems for identifying and addressing the problems of gossip and rumor – which can be identified by paying attention to communication patterns.

Thorburn was interested in how rumor or gossip could be identified without access to the content of the communication. Pentland explained that you do need to have some baseline understanding in order to identify patterns of communication with patterns of decision making. With this though, he said, you can see who is reacting to the same memes versus those you are thinking independently.

Malone liked Pentland’s research to Von Leeuwenhoek and the microscope: what the microscope allowed was the observation of things that have always existed but in detail never before possible. Pentland is creating an organizational microscope for observing existing communication behavior in ways not possible in the past.

Lakhani spoke next and described how he came to be involved with collective intelligence – which he described as being quite by accident. He’d been working with a client, trying to sell them some software. They wouldn’t buy because they claimed to have created a similar system themselves. Given the complexity of the problems they were trying to address, Lakhani couldn’t accept this explanation; but when he spent time looking at what they’d done, he saw they were years ahead of others. How had they done this? By tapping into the Open Source community.

While at MIT he saw examples of this again and again as people were using communities to solve tough computing challenges. How, he wondered, is it that this distributed organizational model can work better than large, centralized systems? He came to recognize that there was something real and different about the Open Source approach – despite the general skepticism of the time. These projects typically entailed lots of work – so what motivated people to get involved in what is essentially unpaid work?

Lakhani found that Open Source is a prototypical example of collective intelligence and there there is a heterogeneity in motivation. Some people simply believe in the model and so want to support it. Others are pragmatists who are trying to solve a specific problem they are facing. The fact of the matters is that the community doesn’t care about motivation as long as the work gets done.

For this to happen, communities need to have a participation infrastructure that will attract people. There also needs to be an understanding of the ownership of the intellectual property. For Open Source projects this has been solved but, he wondered, will it become an issue for collective intelligence efforts? Governance also needs to be considered. Wikipedia offers an example of a functional flat structure, but within each article there are battles to reach compromise and build consensus.

For Lakhani, the Open Source community provides an inspiration; but he sees other examples. Innocentive, for instance, takes scientific problems beyond the bounds of an organization to tap into the collective intelligence. Often, people are able to provide solutions that are outside of their domain. One of the hopes of collective intelligence is that it is able to aggregate the pockets of “sticky” intelligence that exist around the world.

Another example he provided was Threadless, a t-shirt design company. Its designs are user submitted and user judged. User demand for specific shirts is also tracked to determine how many of each design is actually produced. This model – though small and specialized – shows how the way an organization can be redefined and how much work can be done by the community.

Thorburn asked the panel to provide additional examples of collective intelligence at work, and to discuss its limitations.

Malone described the idea of collective prediction and predictive markets mentioned by Pentland. The idea is to broaden this and to predict more types on information. This will require an infrastructure that includes the participation of computational agents. In many cases, these types of software agents can do a better job of predicting things that humans with the result being faster, smoother markets. People will continue to play an important role to step in if the agents are making bad predictions.

In terms of measuring collective intelligence, Malone pointed out that we’ve been measuring human intelligence for more than a century and as a result have a precise definition of intelligence. According to the psychometric definition, how well does at one intellectual task is a good predictor of how well one will do on other types of tasks; and there are all sorts of statistically significant relationships and correlations.

The question is, can the same thing be true for groups of humans or humans and computers? Will a group that does well on some tasks do well on others? While it is currently unclear if this is true, there is a project underway to find the answer. Malone is especially interested in what causes difference in intelligence between groups and to find ways to improve the collective intelligence capabilities of groups in general.

Thorburn raised the issue of collective intelligence as a surveillance tool and asked Pentland for his thoughts, as well as about the limitations of collective intelligence.

Regarding privacy, Pentland pointed out that like it or not, we are constantly being monitored or monitoring ourselves (he pointed to cell phones as one means of this happening). The real question is determining the balance between privacy and advantage: how much information do we need to give up for what level of benefit.

His vision is the creation of feedback tools able to provide valuable insight for individuals. In terms of limits, there certainly are some; but we need to work to detect our errors and improve the way we think in groups.

Malone pointed out that behind Thorburns questions was a widespread misnotion – wisdom of crowds – that crowds are intelligent and can by their nature can solve problems. He explained that collective intelligence isn’t magic; sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. It’s also very complicated and whether it is successful or not depends on what one is trying to achieve. His goal is to put it on a firm scientific foundation so we can better judge when and how collective intelligence will work well. For this to happen, we need to know which people and computers to connect and how to connect them effectively.

Lakhani said that collective intelligence is not a universal solutions. He has worked on decision markets in the past and the data showed that the system can work. One of the biggest issue is that managers don’t want to use predictive markets or collective intelligence because they can be contradictory to the role of the manager. This is often an organizational rather than a technical limit and at this point there are no course on community management so there are few mechanisms for doing this yet.

He also pointed to legal and technical issues as potential limitations. From a legal perspective, our views on intellectual property are a major question mark. How will profits be shared the profits from that which is created by the community? And on technology, not everything can be modularized and distributed. It works well in software, but how would it work in something like drug discovery?

With these comments in mind, Thorburn asked if the best we can hope for from collective intelligence was selling more t-shirts and wondered if there were any applications that weren’t based on profit and loss.

Malone pointed to Wikipedia is an example. Another, he suggested, is the use of collective intelligence to monitor and deal with climate change. He mentioned a project using technology to allow people to propose and analyze plans for addressing climate change. It will probably focus on government policy and give people the ability to access, view and analyze massive computer climate simulations. Collective decision making around climate data - by allowing people to consider and vote the policies that make the most sense. Finally, he discussed using technology for improved argumentation by providing structure around discussion through a series of positions and structured arguments so debates can become become less chaotic.

Lakhani mentioned Open Congress as a means to enable citizens to observe what the legislature is doing. He also discussed the rise of creative commons and peoples willingness to allow their content to be remixed to create new content.

Pentland suggested collective intelligence as a tool for detecting depressions by analyzing patterns of interaction. He again mentioned the benefit of collective intelligence as a reflective aid. In the larger arena, he said that collective intelligence could be used to detect societal discord and mentioned patterns of cell phone usage in the UK and the correlation of that data with social integration. He concluded by describing the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, which is bringing together change agents from around the world to consider problems and bring solutions back to their communities.

———

Overall, it was a strong and interesting Forum that raised some pretty interesting points. One of the things I found most interesting was how much the patterns and context of communication among a group could say about the group’s effectiveness. That, coupled with the difference in patterns of electronic and interpersonal communication, made me question my own communication patterns. I use the phone very infrequently now - most of my communication is either over email or Facebook, twitter, etc.

The analysis that was described didn’t appear to take these channels into account - but were focused more on email, telephone and interpersonal. How different would the patterns be if these were taken into account?

Technorati Tags: MIT, Communication Forum, Collective Intelligence, Karim R. Lakhani, Thomas W. Malone, Sandy Pentland