Creativivi

Confessions of a green-mama wannabe

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:42:00 +0000

I bought an ultra cool new supermarket grocery bag that fits into the supermarket cart while walking the aisles, then turns into a knapsack to help you carry groceries easily.

Now I can preach silently to the masses of shoppers who'll admire my eco-sense... while I fill my reusable bag with processed food and disposable diapers and hope nobody notices (at least it's opaque.)

Of course, I'm all for the environment. And for sustainability. And for renewable energy. And for the myriad of other buzzwords that have sprung up in our language for the past few years.

But I admit I sometimes feel like the grown-up version of that teen who feel's she's saving the world by just "thoroughly eliminating CFCs from her life" - in that case, refraining from buying hairspray & certain brands of mousse (according to what my then-source of wisdom said at the time)

Fast forward a couple of decades and different versions of of bad hairstyles later. I'm a full time marketing consultant, mother, diaper-changer, air-conditioning queen who doesn't have time to breathe. Being green is much more important today, yet much more complicated.

A few examples. What would you do?

Dilemma #1: finished conference call at 11:15 PM. Husband rightfully complains that I (well, we) don't have a life. Washing machine is done. Should I bring in the laundry hanging outside from previous day, then hang the new batch on the clothesline, or just spend 10% of that time to push the wash into the dryer? (never mind it's 30 degrees outside in the Israeli Summer)

Dilemma # 2: We need a second car so that husband can help dropping off kids in the morning (none of the preschools/schools are within walking distance), and so that I can add at least 1 more hour to my work life.

Should we actually get the car and stop using the organized transport the amazing company he works for puts together as a perk (and as small contribution to carbon-emissions reduction?)
Now that I've said yes to question #1, should I feel guilty I'm not even considering hybrid cars as an option (too expensive here, unknown resell value, unknown problems in the longer term, and too little storage room for strollers and "really important things" like grocery bags)

Dilemma 3: Which takes me back to my ultra-cool grocery bag. First, a confession: the real reason I bought that ultra-cool shopping bag was to organize my shopping cart and separate tax-deductible items from the rest of my shopping (don't ask - the only joy of being a freelancer here). But since I'm already using The Good Bag, I will also aim to reduce my consumption of the bad (aka plastic) bags. But then, what would I do when I run out of current stock of bad-bags at home? After all, where will I put all those dirty diapers? Should I just grab a few at the cash register and stuff them inside the lining of my Good Bag?

Guess that my role in saving the world will currently be accomplished by the sole virtue of displaying my use of Good Bags, regardless of the shipment they carry.

Question from the audience: should large corporations be twittering?

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:09:00 +0000

Someone asked on the DigitalEve list "Should big companies be twittering?" Summary of my response below.

1. Is it a good idea - in a nutshell, yes. But there are numerous things you must take into account. More on that later

2. Are others doing it - oh yes. Mostly from B2C, but lately I've seen lots of B2Bs doing this as well.
This is happening at various levels
- corporate (from the smallest startup to large corporations, here's a find a partial list
- Divisional (e.g. HP IPG division communiques)
- product support (e.g. Comcast, the cable company)
- execs from company tweeting (e.g. Jeff Hayzlett, CMO, Kodak)

3. How about Israel? There are several Israeli companies & organizations tweeting as well, from IBM development in Israel to many B2Cs (and I think I should mention the TLV police as an example of very creative tweeting as well)

4. Are there any downsides? Risks?
Obviously. Before you propose this to the right people in the organization, be prepared to answer the following.

You need to understand who's tweeting, and why. Do you want to share exclusive offers on the web (e.g. JetBlue?) Do you want to increase your presence online, share PRs, gain feedback? Solve problems? Monitor what users are saying? Set an agenda? Influence? Experiment?
And as obvious as it sounds, for publicly traded companies, there are numerous non-disclosure regulations you/anyone who's tweeting on behalf of the company must obey. There's no reason why SEC cease to apply in social media.
You need resources. Sure, setting up a twitter account is free. But to do it properly, you must have a startegy. Invest time and effort to get to know your environment, set a presence, monitor it, and most of all, maintain a relevant presence in twitter. There are also the technical issues, like doing a a little bit of branding, especially around background you use, and training relevant users in your company.
My expertise is in competitive intelligence, so obviously I'm interested in Twitter as a source of info . From many perspectives, there's lots to be gained by your company -and your competitors - from the interactions on this medium. What you say, what you don't say, who follows - it's much more complex than it seems at first glance.

The beauty of Twitter is that we're all still experimenting ( Done sensibly, there's much companies can gain. But keep in mind that it's not a spur of the moment thing - it must be aligned to avoid the pitfalls above.

Tweeting up

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:18:00 +0000

It's been almost two years since I joined Twitter, so I'm effectively an old-timer. Yes, I have earned the right to get up on a carboard box and shout to the world what I've learned from my experience so far.
(Well, not really. If there's something twitter teaches you, or social media teaches you, is to L-I-S-T-E-N)

Sharing some thoughts on Twitter in honor of tonight's scheduled Tel Aviv Beer Tweetup:

Today, my twitter village is about 25% local, and growing. Why? Maybe tweeting time zones. Maybe keywords. Maybe language. I reckon t's a convergence of circles - friends, business, interests, luck.

When I first joined, my village consisted of a bunch of social media gurus abroad. Still learning from you guys, just like I'm learning from the newbies. Biggesst lesson out there.

Which takes me to a nice link: Interesting how @pistachio values the thought of revisiting her village, too.

After years of laughing at me for being too 2.0-bubble minded, I've convinced a large IT company I work for on the absolute necessity of looking at twitter holistically. For competitive intelligence purposes. For customer leads. For marketing. For brand monitoring. And more. "Corporate PR have it on their radar" is not an acceptable answer.

Revisiting my Top 10 for Twitter, i find that over a year later (that is, a light-year in web terms) this is still true.

I smile. And tweet this. And now look forward to hear what you think.

How not to spend money: freebies

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:20:00 +0000

I received a gift consisting of a "deck" of coupons from my gym last week to celebrate International Womens' Day.
Suspicious as I am of freebies, especially during a recession, I immediately began to separate the true freebies from the discounts. Coupons are good, but freebies are harmless. The former force you spend money on things you really weren't planning to use, but the latter really save money, right?
Wrong.
Instead of a free, 45-minute makeup consultation in a local makeup store (plus gift!), I willingly threw away 340 shekels in less than an hour.
I've only myself to blame. I got ripped off by a 22-year-old called Shani (is that her real name or her lipstick shade?) who spent 22 minutes raving over my "incredible skin" and "perfect eye for makeup" while blocking my escape with a chair that was too close, under neon lights too bright and an array of products I hadn't seen since my fairy tale wedding a decade ago. Before wrinkles. Before aliyah. Before kids.
But I let her. I let her bullshit me with her sweet talk. I even stood silent while Shani hovered over the imaginary properties of mineral makeup "it's medical makeup" which I should even "wear to bed a couple of times a week" and the inexisting SPF (and probably other) qualities of the setting spray she used at the beginning of the session, under the makeup.
"Don't you look amazing!"
I nodded. Helpless. Glowing cheeks and twinkling eyelids. Fast, before the baby wakes up in his stroller.
I somewhat regained composure when asked to supply the names and phone numbers of friends to give them the same "gift." It was too late for me, but I could still save my friends.
- 0 - 0 - 0 -
Epilogue...
The next morning, I took my old sneakers and jeans and favorite maternity leave sweatshirt (the one that covers stains the best and provides the best coverage while nursing in public) and wore my magical mineral medical makeup to the discount supermarket.
People were either going to admire my makeup, or admire the wise choices I made in my supermarket cart. Penance for my carelessness the previous afternoon.
And for just having set an that appointment for a facial at 50% discount with another coupon from the deck.

Clink-clunk-clank - and the sirens of Cast Lead

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:10:00 +0000

Here we go again.

War is here. To be politically correct it's not a war, at least not yet. It's officially a campaign. An operation. A series of "activities." An ongoing clink-clunk-clank of a hammer and a sweaty ironsmith doing his craft. Because it's his job. Because it's needed for a "transformation." Clink-clunk-clank, followed by fire - and silence.

It's also a live reality show- as proven by Eretz Nehederet on TV exactly at the same time that a Grad Rocket hits a kindergarden in Beer Sheva.

Oh, yes, it's eerily familiar. As Amir Peretz of Winograd fame hinted this morning on Galei Tzahal, we might as well just all recycle the TV broadcasts, the interviews, the analysis and the analysts of the Second Lebanon War. It's all the same.

Me? I'm having an out-of-body experience and I'm watching it from the side yet unable (unwilling?) to react. "About time we stick it to 'em," says my idealogically challenged neigboor. "We all know they just don't understand otherwise," says the technician who visits me the next day. But I don't share the enthusiasm. I just want it to end.

Time to check in with my friend S, who spent the night with her husband and 3 kids on the floor of her house's shelter. "Good thing I brought in some games yesterday and clared out the clutter, against my husband's instincts." Her oldest girl had a panic attack at 3 am. Nobody slept, she reports from her office near Tel Aviv. Kids are spending day with mother-in-law in "faraway" Holon.

And me? With one hand, reading David Grossman and praying for a truce. With the other, applauding the long overdue efforts of @israelconsulate and packing chocolates for our "troops" for my daughter to take to kindergarten.

Ridiculous. Bizarre.

Just going through the motions, like an ironsmith doing his craft.

Updates galore

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:43:00 +0000

Two quick updates on what's been going on in the last few months since we last saw each other:

In late March (last entry) I had a very bad case of the flu. What I didn't tell you was that I was severely limited on (a) the type and amount of medicine I could take to make me feel better (b) the way my body responded (taking ages to recover) because, well, I was in the early stages of pregnancy. So a belated "be sha'ah tova"/enhorabuena to me.
Remember ResearchTrail? Well, it shut down, unfortunately. As you may recall, I called it quits late last year (before the first funding round) and was no longer a partner, but it is still disappointing to hear. Good luck to Dudu & Judy in their new ventures in the future...

And some minor tidbits that might shed light on my mood swings of the past few months (compounded by pregnancy hormones, of course).
Here they are, in ascending order of stress level:

My sister-in-law and three nephews stayed with us for a visit. 13 days and 13 nights.
Did some renovations to the house (dust, dust, everywhere, and no toys to be found)
Have not yet completed (ehem, effectively started) handover to my recently hired replacement during the planned maternity leave
I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up
Bad news: Olmert is still PM. Worse news: Looks like Netanyahu is coming back. Or Barak.
How the heck will I juggle three little monsters when I only have two hands? (No, I'm not expecting triplets, just baby #3)
My wonderful friends and neighbors A & J just went back to Mexico for "a couple of years". (Yea right. I've heard that one before.) Still crying.
It's terribly hot outside. And inside. Everywhere.
How the heck will I handle three little monsters (and maternity leave) without A & J?

Ideas, suggestions and support all welcome.

Gathering strength - Preston Reed helps

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:37:00 +0000

Been out with a bad case of the flu lately. So thanks to my twitter pals, here's some inspiration to go on in the meantime.
This particular song is called "Overture for Lily" and legend has it he wrote it for the birth of his daughter.
Introducing la guitarra magica de Preston Reed.

Izhar Ashdot's new video: fiddle, guitar and grey hair

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:58:00 +0000

I always liked T-slam, but ever since our friend Isaac took us to see Izhar Ashdot live some 6 yrs ago, I got absolutely hooked.
Head-over-heals-hooked. Addicted.
To the point that my husband is convinced the reason for our 4-year-old's addiction to music is found in those 9 months of constant prenatal soundwaves from Ashdot's guitar.
Today I found this new clip (very sorry I missed his live performance). A sample of Izhar Ashdot at his best, with just a dash of Irish music. Enjoy!

On gender, faith and a 4-year-old's wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:16:00 +0000

Friday night dinner. Ben is telling us about what learned in Gan this week.

- So what's the Torah Portion this week?
- Mishpatim
[ah-ha. He remembers more than the drawings and songs]
- And what happens there?
- It's about rules. Like when you find a ball in the street and it's not yours. You can't take it. But if someone comes looking for it and they say it's their ball and that it's red, when the ball is really yellow, you can't give it to them.
[This is way beyond the level I had expected from a four-year-old. He's well on his way to become a lawyer. I decide to go on, just for the fun of it.]

- Ben, do you know what the Ten Commandments are?
- Yes, "Aseret Hadibrot"
- Right. Do you know what's written in them?
- Not really.
- Well, the first one tells us something about God. Like, do you know how many Gods there are?

[That should be a piece of cake for him after his elucidation on Jewish Law]

- Yes. There's two.

[Jaw drops. What kind of Jewish parents do we call ourselves?]

- Ben, we know there's only one God.
- No mom. There's two... One man, and one woman.

Creativity, Living and inspiration

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:04:00 +0000

Thanks to @edwardharran for sharing this entry from a blog entry by Prof. John Maeida (MIT Media Lab) A snippet below:

So it dawned upon me how important it is to be a creative. Because it means you
have within you infinite capacity to experiment. You are unafraid to go somewhere new because you are creating a new thought process about your own creativity. You know that if you stop and no longer challenge yourself, you cease to be creative. You become still, silent, and the bow no longer connect with the strings and music is not made. And you do not exist. You show you do not have the courage to exist.

[how can I not add this to CreatiVivi?]

Creativity is courage. The world needs more fearless people that can influence all disciplines to challenge their very existence. Creativity is reflection aimed not at yourself, but at the world around you.

[Hello world! Thanks for sharing]

My top 10 for Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:56:00 +0000

My Twitter chronology:
- It's early 2007. I don't get what all the hype is about. "Twitter is only for self-obsessed geeks"
- August 2007. I sign up. Might as well try it if it's survived this long. Now what do I do?
- November 2007. This is cool. Have 5 followers, don't have the faintest idea how they found me.

-December 2007 @LeWeb3. Meet serial twitterers and see them in action. Start to see the light.
-January 2008. I'm hooked. Here's why:

10. Procrastinating: Twitter's a wonderful way to pass the time when I want to avoid a task.
9. Blog traffic: I got over 100 visits in 3 hours thanks to a twitter by @LoicLeMeur (not that it has happened again since :-)
8. Diversity: I can "create my own village"
7. No pressure: Watch, listen, learn. No pressure to speak out, show up, bump into.
6. Garbage Can: Second thoughts? That's okay. Delete.
5. Style in 140 chars: If WW2 Allied radio operators could "see" who was behind the German transmissions just by "reading" the pulse and style of their morse code transmissions, I can surely get to know people in 140-character bursts of personality
4. No "fun walls."

3. The mental challenge of being concise. Of building a style, consciously or otherwise.
2. Great blog posts and great bloggers I wouldn't have otherwise gotten to know.
And my top top reason:
1. A weird sense of community. For Frozen Peas. For Ashley . For causes. For news. For something beyond the egocentric, narcisisstic tweets that I initially throught were the achilles heal of the app.

Let's meet. @creativivi

Update: redefining journalism & social relationships

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:09:00 +0000

This is an update to two seeminly unrelated posts: "What frozen peas can teach us" and "Jounnalism Reinvented."

A couple of days ago, a twitterer I didn't know about, but with whom some of my twitter "friends" had conversations and shared twitter/flickr initiatives - died in a car accident.

Her name was Ashley Spencer, otherwise known as @ahspeamama. She left behind a toddler, a baby and a husband.

A fund has been established in her name to help out her family. Spreading the word are lots of twitterers and bloggers who, in her honor, have changed their avatar to a purple and gold croc shoe.

I still can't get over the immediacy of the response. And over the lack of geographical boundaries. And the cross-channel coverage. And over the human story behind it.

Jounalism Reinvented

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:01:00 +0000

I always knew I wanted to study journalism. Ten years ago I graduated with honors from a good J-school in Mexico, complete with CNN internship and half-a-dozen "real" articles in business magazines by the time I handed in my BA thesis.

Today, all this is basically useless.

(and I'm not only talking about the concept of an undergrad thesis)

The only thing remaining is the “core” – the drive, the discipline, the writing skills (and the luck.) But the majority, that 89.6% of the content taught in journalism schools today, is completely out of synch with the reality of surviving in an era of blogs, free newspapers, and kids with camera phones and portable MP3 recorders landing larger headlines than the networks. No wonder that many of the traditional reporters are reluctant to blog, add video and other channels, change.

As Steve Outing recently wrote in his column at Editor & Publisher,

"Even at the college level, where you might expect all students to be on
board with the notion of a digital-centric, publish-it-right-now,
multi-media approach to news, I still run into budding journalists who cling
to the hope of finding a traditional newspaper reporting job."

Here's a snip from the reaction of Mindy McAdams (of Teaching Online Journalism blog fame)

Tear up your news hole. Destroy it.
Tear up your CMS templates. Install something else and link to the new thing.
Do it fast and furiously, as if your life depended on it. Because it does.

Yes!

Looking for fun and safe playgrounds - online

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:33:00 +0000

The first time I saw a child-friendly keyboard back in the mid 1990's I thought they were a just a natural evolution of the "My First Sony" tape recorder + microphone that my friend Sara got as a present when we were both 11.

Fast forward 20 years. I’ve got a four-year-old who can spend 90 minutes, on his own, reading stories and playing a virtual xylophone. And I’ve got a two-year-old that is more adept at using a mouse than I was at age 12.

In a world where three-year-olds can’t figure out how to ring up grandma on the phone but have no problem skyping her, shouldn’t we invest more effort in ensuring their online time is quality time?

A recent article from The New York Times (free access, requires login) caught my eye.

“Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the
grammar-school set.”

An estimate from eMarketer quoted in the article: by the year 2011, 20 million children will be members of a virtual world, up from 8.2 million today.

For now most of these sites have been extensions of old media empires (Walt Disney Co. or my local version, satellite TV’s Arutz Hop) or toy manufacturers (Mattel, Lego - or in my case, Sony)

Hopefully, there will be some real grass-roots efforts here and things will begin to change.

In the meantime, two big barriers to overcome:

1) Trust: I want top quality content for my kids. No ads (covert or otherwise). And safe logins. I can take more risks with myself and my online identity, but really don’t want my kids to be exposed in any way.
2) Money: Kids (or should I say, their parents) are buying online virtual pets at Webkinz (in the picture) or paying up $5,95 a month to dress up and play with online penguins at Club Penguin. But who else out there has a proven business model?

These two factors are, of course, interconnected. Unless they rid themselves of advertising based revenue models, it’s going to be really hard to build a safe, ad-free, educationally rich and well designed (and maintained!) virtual playground.

But this is exactly where web 2.0 grassroots initiatives from enthusiastic parents (and parents-to-be) might pay off.

Justifying offline guilt

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:41:00 +0000

There was a notable slowdown of blogging activity during the holiday season, often preceded by a note apologizing to the readers for going offline for the next few days.
"Of course I pardon you," I anwered back the Netvibes widget on my screen.

But then, within 48 hours or less, there was a new post that started "I just had to blog about this cool thing in my skiing vacation / Christmas presents / New year's resolutions." That's okay. But what I found disturbing was that it was sometimes preceded by an apology to their children/spouse/conscience for breaking their promise to go offline.

Then again, who was I to judge them? That is, what the heck was I doing online at that horrible hour in the day? Maybe my husband's complaints about the wife who quit her start-up partnership but is still online 24/6* were justified after all?

One has to think whether we're really taking our online lives too seriously. And with that thought, sorry, but I have to finish my accounting tasks for the month, pick up the kids, and find a birthday present for my husband before he really gets mad atme. After all, he does read my blog.

*24/6 vs. 24/7: A conscious decision not to turn on my computer on Shabbat I (thankfully) made prior to the Web 2.0 era.

The Semantic Web

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:50:00 +0000

I watched three very smart, hard-working high-tech colleagues have a discussion this week about what "Web 3" really means.
- One said it means "finding middle ground" (i.e. we had top-down content from the same old media empires and corporate boomboxes with Web 1.0, bottoms-up, user-generated everything with Web 2.0, so something in between had to be Web 3.0. )
- The other one said that it was all a myth, just like the Web 2.0 is just a bubble, (in the good scenario) and all bull (in the worst case.)
- The third one had absoltely no idea what the other two were talking about, and stayed silent.

All three could be right. Just like all three could be wrong.

I was always assumed that it was a synonym of The Semantic Web. Here's a short intro by Digital Bazaar to get the conversation going.

Thanks, and Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 15:23:00 +0000

It was after many, many months of deliberating that I reached decision to stop my active involvement in ResearchTrail. Many factors argued for and against staying, but two won out:

Evolving professional interests (more on that later...)
The juggling got too heavy to remain enjoyable, especially since there were far more important things I feared I was just about to "drop"

Letting go of your "baby" is very hard, but I'll always remain a proud parent seeing it flourish. ResearchTrail continues as strong as ever, and I look forward to see it launch very soon.

So to Judy and David, thank you for your trust and openness and friendship.

And to the regular readers of Creativivi, thanks for accompanying me in this rollercoaster. You can certainly expect more life juggling, idea bouncing, and Web & Work 2.0 explorations going forward.

In other words, stay tuned for part 2.

What frozen peas can teach us…

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:52:00 +0000

If you’re in the twittersphere lately, you will have noticed that some of the most prominent 2.0 figures have traded their traditional photos for… well, peas. Peas as wigs. Peas as backgrounds. Pea pods as dresses. Peas as their profile photo altogether.

To me, the mystery was solved thanks to a twitter question, and subsequent answer, by Dave Weiner yesterday

Here’s the story:

Susan Reynolds was, until earlier this month, an artist and media consultant from Washington DC. Some two weeks ago, she found a lump in her chest and found herself undergoing numerous tests (including biopsies) that would later tell her she had breast cancer. To cope with the immediate pain of the scars those tests left, she grabbed a bag of frozen peas and stuck them into her bra.

She very candidly began blogging about her experience in, which has, two weeks later, she has generated somewhat of a cult following.

As she writes in her blog,

- A bag of peas was something
everybody could relate to.
- Some people love them,
some hate them, some use them for their own injuries.
- A bag of frozen peas was a
vehicle for conversation and let people tease me instead of having to cry.
- It let people share
instead of bemoaning.

With the viral spreading and speed that only Web 2.0 can offer, today there’s a group in Flickr where you can upload your own FrozenPea “pea-vatars.” There’s also a FrozenPea Fund for cancer research started by her friends (which is due to launch tomorrow, Dec 21st).

So in just a little over two weeks, a growing list of little known and well-known bloggers alike have taken the “pink ribbon” cause and given it a funny, personal, whimsical makeover. And people are buying into it.

Case in point: Robert Scoble (Scobleizer blog) thinks about the Davos question " how to save the world?" His answer: Peas.

(photo credit: Goldie Katsu )

Time waster of the day: Dumbest Moments of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:56:00 +0000

It's that time of the year again. Somebody on an email listserv (yes, despite Twitter and RSS, some of us still get old-fashioned email digests with post by people we'll likely never meet face to face), sent me a link to a news story by the editors of Fortune magazine "the 101 Dumbest moments in Business"

After reading about executives who play golf for 3 weeks days while their companies are in deep sh*t from the subprime crisis, and hearing more "shocking confessions" from so-called celebs, and then worrying sick about the lead paing and date-drug-like substances that my kids might have been exposed to in the 2 and 4 years I've surely endangered them by buying them toys, I felt nauseated.

Was I the only one? What were others thinking?
I can just hear their voices...

- The Israeli: If that punk can be CEO, so can I. In fact, I already know I'm better.
- The religious extremist: Told you so.
- The Latin American Macho: Idiots. The idea is not to get caught.
- The Latin American with "Marianismo": It's the poor who always get scr*wed.
- My Jewish Mother: See, that's why it's better that we're not millionaires.
- My friends' Jewish Mother: Told you so.
- The writers of the piece: Checkmark. Now let's start our filler on "New Year's Resolutions." so that we can finally go on vacation.
- The execs, celebs and other (in)famous people covered by the story: Hurray! My name is at the top of the blogosphere/mediasphere/noiseland for today!

Feedback for Loic: Top (and bottom) five from LeWeb3

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 07:15:00 +0000

BEST of LeWeb3 this year.

The caliber of the people. Big names not just for the sake of their names, but for their wit and influence and variety.
More on the people: The openness of Martin Varsavsky, the cleverness of The Guardian’s Emily Bell, the charisma of Jason Calacanis & Ev Willams, plus, Jeff Pulver and Scoble popping up everywhere.
Presentation fun: Jacob Share’s DIGGs live; Robert Scoble replying to TechCrunch announcement live, and good improvisation by several presenters in light of technical glitches.
Israeli startups (and fellow iDrink members) take silver and bronze in the Startup Competition
Blogger friedly: The networking lounge, the Ad-Click booth with seats and power outlets, the guy from Google who helped me find the nearest store to get a new power supply for my dinosaur laptop, and WiFi after they fixed the first day's glitches.

And now, some suggestions for next year

Did you notice that none of the names I mentioned before were women? Except for a couple of presenters (and our host, Cathy), there were no women spekers (and a very small percentage of attendees).
Please ban “advertorials” from the keynote presentations. Some really went overboard in trying to promote their companies when they should have made it more generic.
Day 2 ended in what was perceived as rushed improvisation and with very few people in the room. Better call it quits at 4 and then have people mingle for coffee downstairs if they want to stay until 5 or 6. (On a positive note, I glad they gave the stage to http://www.ninemillion.org/)
Parties are a place where people want to mingle and dance. LaScala was loud & awkward, and as somebody pointed out, they finally got around to playing tood music, but "have you ever tried to dance to Led Zeppelin?"
Online updates: many people didn’t know about the wiki or official site until late in the event, and then, it was not really participatory. Would have been great to follow changes in the schedule live throught these sites.

We know Loic and Geraldine and Ouriel and the rest were stretched to the limit, but still, appointing someone else would have been great. (ehem, if iDrink sponsors me again, or ResearchTrail takes off as we'd like it to, or if I'm invited as a speaker or otherwise find a creative way to get there next year, I officially volunteer :-) )

leweb3

Instant dose of culture – The Refill

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:49:00 +0000

Thanks to an airport strike in Athens, I got to spend an extra night in Paris. Luckily, it’s on a Wednesday, when the Louvre is open until late (10 PM according to the tourist guides, more like 9:30 PM in real life, when le-guards start to kick you out)

This night was a treat. I had just come from two mind-guzzling days where “dudes” and a few “dudettes” from 40 countries and inflated egos spoke about collaboration, communication, design, and technology - and I needed to get away from WiFi and let it all start to sink in. My first encounter with hieroglyphics and a Sphinx and the Venus de Milo (and yes, Raphael and Delacroix and the others again), finally drove home the point:

I can relate to this. This object is trying to engage me, to have a dialogue, to have me participate (or reject it). It goes well beyond the artistry and tools (the technology and skills). It’s –you guessed it- trying to tell me a story.

After walking up and down Denon (and Sully too this time!), I went back for a final dose of chic from the Gioconda. Unlike my visit Monday, the crowds around her were gone. I followed the famous gaze, reminding myself that it wasn’t enough to just stand there and listen to the audio guide or take another pic. Perhaps there was something I could understand about the Mona Lisa by myself?

And then her smirk turned into a full blown smile.

Thank you Paris.

On changing the world

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 19:40:00 +0000

At LeWeb3, basically everybody in the room thinks they can change the world (and most want to get filthy rich on the way). There’s a lot of emphasis on change and inspiration and dreams. But what impact are they really having?

After Hans Rosling’s talk, I felt moved. I wanted to continue to act, to make a difference in one of the “220 varieties” of countries he was referring to. But then, something started to bother me: as much as Gapminder brings alive otherwise very dry facts and statistics, the access to these graphs requires certain basic level of background/education to understand (as well as the means to see them).

I tracked Hans Rosling at the coffee break to ask him about the “lowest common denominator” of the people who use these graphs. His answer, tongue in cheek, was, “kids under 12 and Heads of State.” And added “This is because neither group wants to be told what to do. They want to explore themselves.”

Hans is a good conversationalist. People burst out laughing. Then somebody jumped in with a stat on the low ratio of CEOs with MBAs, and the high correlation of CEOs with MBAs that end up in jail. More laughs.

But Jonathan Mark, who was standing nearby, understood what I had in mind. Yes, the issues in so-called “third world” countries are important to raise. But by doing this on our own, with our own language and without giving others the chance to join the conversation (or create and preserve their own), we’re just imposing our own views on the subject. We’re not attempting to share (or listen to) the voices from those we’re trying to “help” in the first place.

Jonathan is trying to change this. He’s involved in projects in Africa that teach villagers, and especially women in these villages, to continue sharing their stories, their memories, their problems. The technology is simple, and most importantly, using a medium they’re familiar and feel comfortable with: voice. Radio is the solution.

Grass-roots radio stations are popping up everywhere. Women are communicating their issues, their hopes, their solutions, their dreams. And thanks to these projects, they’re preserving their stories, their memories.

Now that’s impressive.

The New World of Personalization, and what Philippe Starck didn’t get

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:51:00 +0000

Jonathan Medved from Vringo built a nice case for the personalization of technology. As a presenter, he made a very nice use of slides (featuring everything from Crocs-ware to Phone-ware.) He also had some memorable quotes:

(Quoting Efuse): “A web site is your personality in pixels”
As an investor, I wouldn’t have given money for companies in the ringtones business 5 years ago. That's unfortunate, because now it’s a $6 Billion business” (Jon's background is in VC)
Mobile personalization is behind the web. But it’s about to catch up.
The phone is really a fashion statement. [Vivi’s comment: my Nokia, by this definition, en is more like a 1987 Volvo station wagon: looks old and box-like, but sturdy and safe with kids…]

The second half of the presentation was, unfortunately, solely devoted to promoting Jon’s startup, which, marketing oriented as I am, was bit over the top. But I forgive him given the intro he gave on stage when he politely disagreed with design genious Philippe Starck after the latter’s (politically incorrect? shallow? even-for-this-audience disrespectful?) comments on God and stupidity earlier that morning.

Monetization dilemmas? Stay in the middle.

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:00:00 +0000

A note from a packed panel this morning on "Monetization" at LeWeb3.
For the most part, the answers were pretty much the expected ones (no, nobody has found the magic formula):

Bloggers & Content providers? Be among the top 5 in an industry in your country, or carve a big piece of a (tiny) niche. Otherwise, don't expect to make any money for blogging (or maybe enough to pay for BigMacs).
Others? Draw users in. Keep them there. Try subscription. And of course, various forms of advertising. And remember, Ecommerce is not making a profit from the commerce itself because the logistics are so expensive; they're good for being in the middle. Try being an intermediary - to offer serivces that either don’t produce the content or don’t do the selling part.

The one piece of advice I don't necessarily agree with: sell virtual products, like that website where 13-year-old girls purchase pixelized clothes for each other. I find it rather depressing. Maybe someone will show me something that will convince me of the viability/usefulness of such?

On European Entrepreneurs, or Robin Hood 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Vivi) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:15:00 +0000

One of the highlights today was Loic Le Meur's "conversation" with Martin Varsavsky. Unlike the self-perpetuating Sarah Lacy/Kevin Rose "conversation" yesterday or some of the impolite remarks to the audience during Dave Winer/Loic Le Meur's "conversation" this morning, this was one conversacion I wished could have gone on much longer.

Martin Varsavsky, entrepreneur, investor and Spanish speaker (no bias here, of course) struck a cord when he spoke about the change in Europe's perception of entrepreneurs. Before, he said, entrepreneurs were considered thieves, bandits. Nothing more than "Ricos, llenos de mierda" [his words].

Things are changing in today's Europe, where the entrepreneurial spirit is taking off (I take his word for it; he's also a lecturer at the Instituto de Empresas). Varsavsky says that their new image is much more positive, to the extent that some consider them the new saviors of Europe. They've gone from robbers to job creators, from outcasts to cultural icons.

Reminds me of Robin Hood.