This is a great talk about how web video leads to innovation and excellence. I think it has dramatic implications for how all of us will behave and develop.
I, for one, know that I spend a lot of time watching and studying great presenters (kind of like studying a game film), so it helps me in my own presentations.
Enjoy.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
There’s little doubt that the arrival of the Internet and social media/social networks have increased our global consciousness (and probably global conscience).
I’m just wondering, however, what impact this will have on local consciousness.
With the decline of newspapers and diminishing importance of the local TV news, I wonder if we will be more connected to people on the other side of the world, than people in our own communities?
It takes a lot, from an Internet perspective, to shock me.
But, tonight, for the first time in a long time, I can say, “wow, now I’m scared for my kids.”
My personal guru of Internet technology is a VC in New York named Fred Wilson.
He blogged the other day about a site called Chatroulette.
So, I checked it out. Warning: Not Safe For Work.
Basically, you log on and are randomly connected (mostly via a camera) to people around the world.
The idea, in its purest sense, is a great one…meet people to expand your universe.
In practice, however, it’s just a depressing commentary on society.
The number of people (mostly young guys) on there who are either naked, semi-naked, or doing obscene things (two guys masturbating, for example) is mind-boggling.
I was connected to someone who just raised his middle finger to me and said “Fuck you. Go fuck yourself.”
Then, a room full of teenage boys who started making fun of the way that I look (granted, an easy target).
I failed to have one meaningful interaction. Granted, after 10 minutes, I was just revolted and felt like I was wasting my life.
Still, it’s out there…and many others like it, I am sure. There’s no use fighting it and you can’t block it, so it just made me realize how important it is to inculcate strong values into our kids.
BTW, there’s a piece in the Sunday NY Times on it with the founder, a 17 year old in Moscow.
You will recall my frustration with Panasonic over my non-functional TV
While waiting for prices to drop and my personal assessment of the economy to get completed, I borrowed an old TV from my brother.
Instead of throwing my TV away (the original plan), I figured I had nothing to lose by putting it up on eBay.
“Maybe,” I thought, “there is some tinkerer who will give me $20 bucks for it?”
If it doesn’t sell, I’m no worse off.
The auction was up for a day, when a message came in from a member known only as PRSCSY, who wrote:
I have the same exact TV and it did the same exact thing.I took the back off and where plug cord plugs into the board there is a 6.3amp slow burn 125/250volt fuse, $1.00 part from radio shack, it DID NOT look burnt out but I changed it just to be in the safe side and the TV till now is serving me well. Let me know if you changed the fuse?
Refusing to believe it was this simple, but hoping it would work, I went to Radio Shack. It was actually $3 (for 4 fuses though), but bottom line,
TV is up and running.
I was flabbergasted. I offered to buy the guy a beer or dinner, whatever.
What motivated him? How did he find it?
Why would he be looking for a TV he already owned?
He simply responded:
I keep track of many different listings on ebay just for fun one of those being mt model of TV and when I read your listing I totally felt your pain.
Told my girl friend about it and she had a good laugh.
Now you'll have to pass on a good deed, LOL
And I will…
Say you are Pro-Choice. Would you buy a car from a dealer (assuming it was the best deal you had found, of course) if you knew the owner gave money to Pro-Life causes?
What about the reverse?
What about someone who supports Obama? or McCain? Or Hamas? Or enables Chinese suppression of Tibet?
Was talking to someone who sells products online the other day.
He’s got very strong political views. He was expressing concern about how “open” one can ‘afford’ to be in social media, given that there are those who would punish you economically (i.e. not buy your product) if they knew your political opinions.
He said, “I’m not willing to sacrifice profits for social media,” so he’s keeping his opinions offline.
A nice discussion of this in the comments section of my buddy Adam’s blog.
What are your thoughts?
Back in the earlier days of the web, say 2000, somehow I became part of the "all Jeremy Epstein" mailing list.
Since first names didn't help, we had nicknames. I was "frog" as that was the SilentFrog days. There was "Brooklyn" and "Shearman" and "Tulane."
Every now and then, we'd get emails intended for another one. It was all quite humorous (particularly when one of them wrote an anti-Microsoft letter to the Washington Post and my boss got a call from HR!)
Today, one of my namesakes sent out an article about people who look for others with their same name and why people like to do it.
We had a mini-Jeremy Epstein reunion. "Brooklyn" now teaches high school math (he was in finance) and we've got an artist in our midst, see http://www.eggfree.net
Jeremy's welcome to the blog!
What I like about it is that the platform I am using (www.graffiticms.com) offers me a LOT more flexibility to grow my site and Jer979 online experience than a simple blog.
I'm not sure it'll work, but wanted to give a heads up on it and ask for feedback...
"Act as if what you are doing will be on the front page of the New York Times."
"Act as if what you are doing will be on YouTube"
May be an interesting way for you to find some new info, where I am acting as your filter (assuming you trust my judgment!)
The intersection of two of my favorite things...football and technology.
So good that I am copying wholesale from Church of the Customer Blog
If you're a football fan, you haven't escaped seeing the YouTube-like Coors Light commercials that employ fake fans holding their cans of Coors (in a most improbable way) and ask dumb questions of actual coaches.
The gimmick is that the spots splice in the coaches' answers from their actual post-game news conferences. Funny premise, but most fell short of actual humor.
The commercials have succeeded, though, in inspiring a bevy of online copycats, precisely because it is an ode to amateur culture--mashing up actual footage with fake footage for humor. One of my faves features Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. The Pittsburghese is dead-on funny.
Not a bad blueprint for future TV ads: pay homage to amateur culture, and amateur culture will return the favor, spreading word of mouth.
Amateur ad featuring Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy [RSS readers click here.]
BTW, how GREAT was that Green Bay game in the blizzard?
I've been hot and cold on Facebook.
Thanks to Ari Goldberg, I am hot again.
I caught up Ari (he does tech support, if you need it) at a New Year's brunch today at the Guggenheim's (more on that later) and he tells me:
"You know, we have a friend in common, Joel Haber. I haven't seen him since High School, but I found him because I saw he was a friend of yours on Facebook. I looked at his profile and I see that he is
- supporting the WGA strike
- interested in being a writer
As it turns out, I know someone who is pretty high up in the WGA, so I brokered the introduction."
There, my friends, in a nutshell is the power of Internet-based social networking.
It used to be that you would need to search
I've added two services on the sidebar Lijit and PredictAd to help you.Saw a friend of ours today at the Hannukah concert for Tonka.
He's a physician and on call at nights this week.
He saw me at CVS on Monday as well.
"Dude, do you ever work?" he asked.
Which reminded me, again, of how unique my position is for some people.
"Sure, but my work is practically place and sometimes, time, independent.
I work at 9.30pm. I work on Sat. nights if I want to."
I pulled out my T-mobile Dash.
"And I am working now."
In the Man Cave, I am as connected to the outside world and my colleagues as anyone in an office.
Yesterday, I hosted a webcast with 80 people, all while I was on camera.
It's a whole new, globatlized, flat, knowledge, connected economy.
Netiquette is Internet Etiquette. The following question came in from an FOJ, who shall remain anonymous :-)
What do you think is the correct answer to his dilemma?
(My thoughts are at the bottom)
He writes:
I am emailing you because I consider you to be an expert on email etiquette and online networks.
By now you may or may not have seen my invitation to you to join Doostang.
I wanted to "connect with" perhaps 10 people and I inadvertently invited my entire gmail address book who aren't already Doostang members to join Doostang. You might be able to imagine how this happened.
I wanted to find friends who were already on Doostang and "connect with" them so I used my gmail email address and password on the Doostang website to do this. It then found and checked the boxes next to everyone in my address book who were already members AND it checked the boxes next to everyone in my address book who are not yet members.
So I unchecked the people who are already members who I did not want to "connect with" (like someone in the Admissions Office of Fordham Law School who I don't know at all). I then neglected to uncheck the boxes of everyone else who isn't already a member. I then carelessly clicked on "Connect with Friends".
There are over 400 email addresses in my gmail address book and voila, I had just sent an email to nearly all of them.
I just wanted to make sure that my instinct is correct and I should not email my entire address book to apologize. Rather, I am just going to apologize if people respond to me asking me what is going on or to remove them from this list. One person already has and please see the PS for the text of what I responded. I am assuming that most people who don't know me or barely know me are just going to delete the Doostang invitation.
On a somewhat surprising note, a partner at the law firm where I used to be a paralegal, and with whom I am not all in touch, accepted my Doostang invitation!
Any advice would be most appreciated.
Thank you,
(Name withheld)
PS Here is the text of my response to someone who responded to me.
Mr. [Name Removed],
I am really sorry. I wanted to send the Doostang invitation to perhaps 10 people. I inadvertently sent it to my entire gmail address book.
Once I did that, though, I did not want to send yet one more piece of unnecessary email to my entire gmail address book apologizing for doing so. I am sending a personal apology to whomever responds to me as you did Mr. [Name Removed].
My apologies again,
It's a tough call to generalize about all 400 people's responses, of course. For those who already like you, like me, I'll just ignore it and move on. It's not enough to damage our relationship and you don't do it very often (unlike those annoying Vampire=referrers on Facebook), so you are probably ok just moving on.
Your response to the person who wrote to you was right on, so that was ok. No need to contact all 400 probably.
The last part, I would think is that, possibly, you can use this as an opportunity for a segment of your 400.
Not all of your contacts are equal.
You can write to those in your gmail book in group 3 w/whom you have less contact and offer them an apology, acknowledging that you made a mistake (which can be a great sign of strength), and then use that to strengthen your personal bond with them.
Work and enhance your network relationship and linkages.
Follow up with a call for 5 minutes to chat, send an article that you know s/he might find relevant. Re-connect in some way so that, next time you mess up, you can count that person as "solidly in your camp," the way you can count me.
Will it take some time to go through your list of 400 and figure out to whom you should reach out? Yes, of course, but you are only as valuable as your network is strong (I've blogged about this a lot, here and here, for example), so it is probably worth it.
And, thanks for considering me a guru, though it's probably not deserved.
Wonder what others think...
My friend (on Facebook and otherwise), Sean posted some other good ideas.
I took a walk around the neighborhood today at 3pm. The street was quiet.
Middle of the day and I'm on my front yard.
Once upon a time (agrarian), you got paid for manual labor based on your output (say bushels of cottons picked).
Then, (industrial), you get paid for the hours of work you perform (say assembly line).
Now, you get paid for the knowledge you produce. Time doesn't matter. Can't be measured in physical terms.
A total paradigm shift.
In the days of paper memos, a BCC or "Blind Carbon Copy" would most likely not come back to haunt you.
Now, however, you can 'bcc' someone and, if the recipient doesn't realize it, she can 'reply all' and then reveal herself.
That happened to me.
No, I didn't send the email w/the bcc, but someone (who later revealed herself) was the bcc on an email to me.
And, when I found out, I was pretty irritated. Angered. Upset. Betrayed.
It automatically lowered the trust I had for the person who sent the email to me.
Comes back to the topic of anonymity and anonymous comments.
Something to think about before you start bcc'ing others....
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