11.30.2009
Why Facebook Email is a Facebook E-Fail
I was having lunch with Adriel Hampton today (who many of you know as the first person to declare candidacy for Congress via Twitter), and the subject turned to Facebook. We're both overwhelmed by Facebook's popularity, and subsequent deluge of data. Everyone's seemingly got a friend they recommend you add, a group they recommend you join, and an event they recommend you attend. (My personal time management system is to spend 10 seconds per day saying "yes" to every friend request, "maybe" to every event request, and "no" to every group/fan request...which is a Facebook "fail" in itself - where are the useful filters? I'm in DC, why do I have to respond to a request about an event tonight in CA? - but that's not the topic of this post.) Perhaps the most overwhelming feature of Facebook is its email. I get tons of email about everything because that is the primary information distribution mechanism for friends, fans, groups, events, causes, and everything else. It's not efficient. Adriel and I compared it a bit to RSS, which also has become overwhelming. There's a big bold number at the top like *56* that's the number of unread blog posts you have. That's how I feel about Facebook - what's the most efficient way to clear the decks and get to the fabled "inbox zero"? Usually, I do this in a quick, elegant two-step process. One, I "select all." Two, I click "mark as read." Easy, right? The reality is that I almost never read all the stuff everyone is sending me. About the only exception is someone I recently met who doesn't have my email or phone number, and is initially reaching out to me. I see the name, recognize, and reply. But here's where it gets really interesting, and why Facebook email is a Facebook e-fail. Often one of the first things I tell someone connecting with me for the first time, whom I want to talk to more, is something like, "Why don't you write me at xxxxx@gmail.com and we'll continue this discussion there?" Why not, right? Gmail is my "real" email. But that's exactly the *opposite* of what Facebook wants. They should want us using their system for email for all sorts of reasons. But we don't. There's no reason in particular Icouldnt do the opposite, right? Meaning, tell people contacting me through email via my business card to friend me on Facebook and contact me through my Facebook email, since that's where I'm most engaged. Has *anyone* ever done this?? I doubt it very seriously. Email - whether it's Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, or corporate mail - is still the preferred social network of choice (which reminds me of a blog post by Jeremiah Owyang a while back...) People find Facebook useful for all sorts of reasons. I get a lot of mileage out of posting things like this on my personal Facebook wall, for example. But when you look at what is and is not successful on Facebook, I wonder how the platform will mature over the next few years. What do you think?
An Investigation: Who Has the Best and Worst Congressional Websites?
For a whle now, NationalJounal.com has been writing som great stuff on at you might call "investigative Government 2.0" stories - digging a little deeper, making charts and graphs, and tryng to quantify to some degree what's happening. Their latest is no different. In an article titled Congress' Best (And Worst) Committee Websites, reporter David Hebert got three people (including me) to go through every House and Senate committee website and rank them according to tech progressiveness and citizen usefulness. We also made brief, and sometimes snarky, comments on them. Check out this great article if you're interested in Government 2.0, Web 2.0, government-citizen engagement, Congress, openness and transparency, and user interface design.
11.29.2009
Kevin Rose Fantasizes About the Most Powerful People in Technology
The November 30 issue of Forbes is themed with profiling The World's Most Powerful People. Very important stuff. Henry Kissinger contributed a list on the most powerful people in history, Karl Rove made a list of the most powerful people in Washington, Dr. Elias Zerhouni wrote his list of the most powerful people in medicine. Lots of good material here. Kevin Rose, co-founder of Digg.com, spent some time working on his list of the most powerful people in technology (p. 98). Interesting list. Here it is, in order of most to least powerful: 1. Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams (Twitter)
2. Jonathan Ive (Apple)
3. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
4. Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn)
5. Julius Genachowski (FCC)
6. Chris Anderson (TED Conference)
7. Leo Laporte (This Week In Tech) Ever seen that SNL skit where the charters say "Really? Really??" a lot? They should do a parody of this list that goes something like this... "Really? Jack Dorsey. Really. The galavanting chairman of Twitter. And his friend whose name is Biz that is in the tech biz? Really. And really, LinkedIn? Really? The powerful desert of a social networking wasteland. Really. Leo Laporte - really? He's doing a podcast from his mom's basement. Yeah, really. Chris Anderson? Really? He runs a conference where other people shine. Really? Really." Now, that's done in humor, but this list is a little whack. I'm not even sure those are the most powerful tech people in the greater San Francisco area (let's put Genachowski to the side, since he's on everyones list right now), but let's look at the bigger picture. All the most powerful people in tech work on web stuff? And are entrepreneurs basically? No one from MIT or Caltech, no one from an Italian or Japanese car company, nobody working on energy or clean technology - and nobody from outside the United States??? This could go on and on, but what's the point? Maybe a couple of these people should indeed be on such a list, but I find the myopia of Silicon Valley and its extended entrepreneur, web, and venture capital community a little frightening. An overly inflated sense of self-worth combined with a seeming ignorance of anything you can't acces from a smartphone results in some really wacky views of what technology is, and who is powerful in that sphere. And even if we are only talking about IT (which the magazine doesn't designate), really? No one from IBM? Google? Microsoft? I don't really fault Kevin Rose for making a list, though it would be easy for Forbes to find 25 people who work in technology that are more qualified than he is. I do fault the thought process behind it though, and I fault even more that this list made it past Forbes' editors,who should know better. Put up against the other lists in the issue, and the overall list, Rose's list is almost comical in its naivity.
2. Jonathan Ive (Apple)
3. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
4. Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn)
5. Julius Genachowski (FCC)
6. Chris Anderson (TED Conference)
7. Leo Laporte (This Week In Tech) Ever seen that SNL skit where the charters say "Really? Really??" a lot? They should do a parody of this list that goes something like this... "Really? Jack Dorsey. Really. The galavanting chairman of Twitter. And his friend whose name is Biz that is in the tech biz? Really. And really, LinkedIn? Really? The powerful desert of a social networking wasteland. Really. Leo Laporte - really? He's doing a podcast from his mom's basement. Yeah, really. Chris Anderson? Really? He runs a conference where other people shine. Really? Really." Now, that's done in humor, but this list is a little whack. I'm not even sure those are the most powerful tech people in the greater San Francisco area (let's put Genachowski to the side, since he's on everyones list right now), but let's look at the bigger picture. All the most powerful people in tech work on web stuff? And are entrepreneurs basically? No one from MIT or Caltech, no one from an Italian or Japanese car company, nobody working on energy or clean technology - and nobody from outside the United States??? This could go on and on, but what's the point? Maybe a couple of these people should indeed be on such a list, but I find the myopia of Silicon Valley and its extended entrepreneur, web, and venture capital community a little frightening. An overly inflated sense of self-worth combined with a seeming ignorance of anything you can't acces from a smartphone results in some really wacky views of what technology is, and who is powerful in that sphere. And even if we are only talking about IT (which the magazine doesn't designate), really? No one from IBM? Google? Microsoft? I don't really fault Kevin Rose for making a list, though it would be easy for Forbes to find 25 people who work in technology that are more qualified than he is. I do fault the thought process behind it though, and I fault even more that this list made it past Forbes' editors,who should know better. Put up against the other lists in the issue, and the overall list, Rose's list is almost comical in its naivity.
11.27.2009
You Worry About Powerful Registered Lobbyists; I'll Worry About Powerful Unregistered Non-Lobbyists
Today the Washington Post ran a story about how the Obama administration will bar registered lobbyists from sitting on the nearly 1,000 advisory panels to the Federal government. These are panels of subject matter experts with named like the Defense Science Board who conduct studies that the government doesn't have time to perform, and provide subject-matter expertise the government doesn't necessarily have.
These new rules about lobbyists sitting on Federal advisory panels will be ineffective at "curbing negative influence" on the government for at least two reasons.One, lobbying firms will find simple ways around the new rules. They will change people's job descriptions, alter the number of hours they spend lobbying on behalf of clients, and other maneuveurs to make employees eligible for advisory panels under the new rules, in cases where it is important. Tom Daschle is the ultimate example of effectively lobbying without being an actual registered lobbyist. New people will also be hired as non-lobbyists to sit on these boards in situations where it makes sense to have a presence on them. Two, unregistered non-lobbyists can be just as influential, devious, and self-interested as registered lobbyists. There are many people who have all kinds of special interests that do and will sit on these boards, and they will use the information they glean from them in ways that may help the country, but may also help them. And a great many of these people work in the private sector. Is there anything wrong with that? Not necessarily, it's just that it's not much different than what lobbyists do. And more dangerously, an unregistered non-lobbyist is much closer to a wolf in sheep's clothing - you don't see them coming until it's too late. My biggest problem with stories like these is that they report the 'action' (ban lobbyists) but spend little if any time talking about the 'reaction' (skirting the rules to get what you want anyway). But the reaction is at least as important, if not more so. Stories like the one in the Post make me think of a terrorist who defeats a billion dollar spy satellite with a baseball cap. In government, in business, in life, when the action is high-effort and the reaction is low-effort, it's a loser.11.22.2009
When Did Government Become a Business?
When did government become a business? I keep hearing government called a business, and business terms like "efficiency" creeps into the lexicon here among progressive Washington folk. Sorry, government is not a business any more than the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, or a public high school. Yes, they have some things in common, but so what? Governments do not even meet the most basic definition of a business. From Wikipedia:
A business is a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, most being privately owned and formed to earn profit that will increase the wealth of its owners and grow the business itself. The owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for work and acceptance of risk...The etymology of "business" relates to the state of being busy either as an individual or society as a whole, doing commercially viable and profitable work.
Besides the fact that governments generally don't have customers and aren't designed to compete within a market sector and usually don't generate a profit, there's a bigger problem with applying terms like "efficiency" to government. Governments are purposely designed to be inefficient! Do you really think that the whole checks-and-balances idea was done in the interest of efficiency? That the way the Senate operates is done in the interest of efficiency? One of the smartest things I heard after I moved to Washington, DC was from a senior person at the Library of Congress. She asked the room, "How many of you think Congress is designed to pass laws?" Everybody raised their hand. She said, "Wrong. Congress is designed to not pass bad laws." Congress is inefficient for a reason, and to some degree all parts of government are. For all the complaining about gigantic, evil corporations not caring about their customers or the public at large, and in the middle of a recession in which greedy businesspeople nearly destroyed a global financial system, I can't imagine why anyone would be eager to associate the word "business" with government. The government has enough issues, thanks.
What You Should Read About Monetizing Your Tweetstream
There's been a lot of discussion about the authority of Twitter users, and how users with many followers, or authority, or subject-matter expertise, might monetize their tweetstream via inserting paid advertisements. Here are the most important articles I've seen about this debate. I recommend reading them in the order below. The New York Times has a piece that makes it sound cool and neat-o. Paul Carr has a piece at TechCrunch that makes it sound like the end of civilization. A venture capitalist investor in one of the services wrote a piece defending the idea. Robert Scoble crunches some numbers and writes a good piece that digs deeper. Finally, read this piece about the hypothetical SuperTweet with a "metadata payload."
11.19.2009
IBM Knows How To Monetize Your Friends
IBM researcher Ching Yun Lin gave an interesting talk about the monetary value of having friends today at Web 2.0 Expo in New York. IBM is a gigantic company with thousands of people, mobile, global, and moving around. How do you find the right person to answer a unique question or problem? How does one unlock the power of existing social networks? Where within networks does knowledge actually reside? I can't hope to summarize the talk, injected with math and graphics and jargon as it was. But here's the big takeaway: Your friends are worth money to your organization. Somehow, IBM scientists have not only determined that network size is positively correlated with performance, they also somehow know that every email in an address book is worth 948 dollars! Researchers also found that stuctural diverse networks within which few people are connected are correlated with higher performance, and that having strong social links to managers also was positively correlated with performance. Some of the research information should be available here: http://smallblue.research.ibm.com To me, this is really cool because I am an advocate of social networking as a positive influence on the workplace, even if such networking is not strictly work-related. IBM seems to have data that back up my more anecdotal and street-smart notions about this, which I've been speaking about lately under the guide of "Social Networking: The Two Dirtiest Words in Government 2.0" - and I will continue to do so!
White House Deputy CTO Beth Noveck Wants MORE LOBBYISTS!!
New York, NY - Far from reducing the power of lobbyists in Washington, DC, it seems that one of the goals of Government 2.0 is to create more lobbyists. Millions of them, in fact. "We want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to advise government," Deputy Federal CTO Beth Noveck remarked while being interviewed this morning by tech publisher Tim O'Reilly at the latter's Web 2.0 Expo in Manhattan. One might term this "democratizing Gucci Gulch," playing off a phrase commonly used to describe the K St. corridor where many of Washington's lobbyists have offices. Tapping the expertise of people living outside DC is a common theme of Government 2.0, one that will certainly be discussed at O'Reilly's upcoming Gov 2.0 Expo in 2010. The reality of how 150 million people get meaningfully involved in their government is a little fuzzy, however. Tech blogger Anil Dash perhaps summed it up best to me as, "How can I work for my country without working for my government?" Noveck's answers to some of O'Reilly's excellent and probing questions were generally vague and political, in thr sense that she tried to answer questions that she wanted to be asked rather than the ones she was actually asked. She was on her talking points, which was disappointing. I'd like to ignore her (largely forgettable) answers here, and instead print some of Tim O'Reilly's questions, which will continue to be asked in and around government, at the Gov 2.0 Expo, and at other events. "In the private sector, if an entrpreneur has a great idea, it can rapidly spread and become a standard. Why does stuff in the public sector have to be reinvented in every agency or city?" "In the private sector, someone who has the 'best' product wins. In the public sector, how does the best project 'win'?" "Let's say that someone has an app that's useful for the government. Is there a way that someone can get that into the Apps.gov catalog?" (Paraphrasing a conversation with CTO Aneesh Chopra) "A friend can get something done in an hour for free, but an official government procurement gets the same thing done in a year and costs a million dollars. How do we get developers like the ones in the Web 2.0 Expo 'in the loop' without having them move to DC and get on the GSA Schedule?" "Is the President exempt from the Open Government Directive?" "What can we do to open up Congress?" Tim O'Reilly, despite being a self-described "newbie in Washington," is clearly asking some of the most interesting and thoughtful questions around the topics of transparency, data, citizen-government interaction, and networking with regard to Government 2.0 today.
11.18.2009
Anil Dash creates Expert Labs to connect government policymakers with citizen-expert networks
New York, NY - Earlier this afternoon at the Web 2.0 Expo, techie Anil
Dash announced the creation of Expert Labs, which will work to connect
government policymakers with science and technology experts from the
public. Working under the assumption that the government doesn't have all the
knowledge it needs from its internal experts nor from a handful of
industry leaders, Expert Labs will work with the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington to network
government employees crafting new policies with the people who
understand the relevant technologies. Anil is perhaps best known as a person behind the successful tech
company Six Apart. My creative juices flowed a bit when Anil discussed an early iteration
of Expert Labs with me at the O'Reilly/Techweb-produced Gov 2.0 Summit
in Washington, DC this past September. I'm really pleased that he's
followed up on his initial thoughts in such a thoughtful and
meaningful way.
Dash announced the creation of Expert Labs, which will work to connect
government policymakers with science and technology experts from the
public. Working under the assumption that the government doesn't have all the
knowledge it needs from its internal experts nor from a handful of
industry leaders, Expert Labs will work with the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington to network
government employees crafting new policies with the people who
understand the relevant technologies. Anil is perhaps best known as a person behind the successful tech
company Six Apart. My creative juices flowed a bit when Anil discussed an early iteration
of Expert Labs with me at the O'Reilly/Techweb-produced Gov 2.0 Summit
in Washington, DC this past September. I'm really pleased that he's
followed up on his initial thoughts in such a thoughtful and
meaningful way.
11.16.2009
Why Weird Al Is the Best Video Blogger Ever (And Other NSFW Favorites)
The term "blogging" has become nearly meaningless because blogs have gotten so simple and so complex they can look like nearly anything these days. Is Twitter a blog? Yes. Is MarkDrapeau.com a blog? Yup. Is Mashable a blog? That too. So is Gawker. So is WashingtonLife.com, which is technically a magazine hosted on WordPress. Looks kind of like MarkDrapeau.com. So I argue that anything with continuously updated content, particularly if it's hosted on WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Posterous, etc. is a "blog" no matter what it is marketed as. Not really a profound idea. But I want to argue here that having a blog means that you are performing on a digital stage for an audience. Your readers, or viewers, or fans or whatever are your audience. And the content you provide for them - text, audio, data, video - is your performance that keeps them engaged. And especially in a time when people are selling advertising based on eyeballs and engagement, keeping your audience engaged in your performance is important. So I'd like to point out that Weird Al is the best video blogger ever. Why not? His performances of parody videos post well to YouTube and other online video platforms, and many are so good that not only do you watch them, remember them, talk about them - you watch them again and again and again. How many times can you watch a Cheerios commercial? What about that "Chocolate Rain" video guy? This is the quality stuff that separates the talented from the talentless within the "cult of the amateur" in which everyone can produce content but very few tell a great story and craft a wonderful performance for an audience. The quality is poor, the storyline makes no sense, the message doesn't resonate, it's too long, or too short, and so forth. There's a reason Scorsese makes so much money. So relax as I explain what I love about Weird Al and some of my other favorite nouveaux video bloggers. Weird Al's "White and Nerdy" video is genius. He takes Chamillionaire's original "Ridin' Dirty" video and not only parodies it but inserts a lot of fun comedy extensions (like Donny Osmond and Seth Green). This is about as good as a one-man show on YouTube gets. The boys at Lonely Island (the Andy Samburg-led subcontractors to Saturday Night Live) come really close. The "J*zz in My Pants" video is two-and-a-half-minutes of painfully funny stuff (plus great cameos including Justin Timberlake). No one ever forgets this once they've seen it. Finally, a pair of classic videos from Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman. In case you didn't know, they've been dating Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Sarah and MattJimmy and Ben (note Josh Groban cameo) Finally, my new bud Taryn Southern and her crew (including Scott Baio!) has a video that's slightly dirtier and almost as funny as the above video. This is what I'm talking about. New faces, great humor, high production value. It's called "Wrong Hole" (NSFW). See a pattern emerging? Yes, they're all a bit dirty, each one more than the last. That's just good online humor. And they all have cameos you're not expecting (did you catch Brad Pitt as a FedEx delivery guy?). But most importantly, they all tell a coherent "story" with a beginning, middle, and end, that keeps the audience engaged until the finish. They're interesting, they're funny, they're surprising, and you don't forget them easily. Wouldn't you like people to think that about your company, or your cause, or your public service announcement? Yes, you would. Watching something for two or three minutes straight - that's something. How long do you spend reading an average written blog post or newspaper article? If time equals money, eyeballs mean cash. This kind of long engagement is hugely significant for online journalism, marketing and advertising, and generally making money in business. It's also important for the government interacting with citizens. No, not everyone should start making raunchy videos. But if you aren't at least watching these videos and thinking about what lessons you might learn from them to apply to your own work, you're missing out.
Gov 2.0 Event - "Open Government: Pages From the Playbook" #gov20
Today I'm attending a Government 2.0 unconference called Open Government: Pages From the Playbook (http://3.ly/31a) at the MLK library in DC. If you're not here, you're missing out. Attendees are hearing from govies and contractors about how they are adopting the Administration's directive on open government. I hear and read a lot in this area, and I've definitely heard some new stuff. My favorite five-minute talk so far was from Virginia Hill of NIH-NIDA, who spoke about a project called "Drugs Facts Chat Day," which leverages the brand and scientific expertise of the National Institute on Drug Abuse to answer teens' questions about substance abuse. It's hard to reach audiences (of citizens) that are, shall we say, "shy" but they seem to be doing a great job. Primary organizer Lucas Cioffi tells me that many govies who wanted to speak couldn't make it for this initial event, and so there almost certainly will be another one. This is not only a great opportunity to hear a lot of quick talks from people working on open government in the trenches, but also a great opportunity for sponsors to get involved at a modest level.
11.15.2009
What Does Innovative Social Engagement Look Like?
As many of you know, I've been thinking about the topic of Government 2.0 a lot lately. Part of this topic deals with the multi-directional engagement between government and citizens. This is what the White House and others have termed a more transparent, collaborative, and participatory government. Unfortunately, the engagement for the most part is not very authentic nor meaningful. Boring "fan pages" on Facebook are one example I've written about, but there are many others. Often, engagement, when it does happen has so many rules associated with it, or such a high barrier to entry, or such a limited window as to be practically meaningless. It seems to me that everyone can celebrate the fact that government entities merely have a YouTube channel here, a Twitter account there, or a Blogger profile some other place (the so-called "TGIF revolution"), or we can think a little harder about what the goals of citizen engagement really might be. On the evening of Nov 2nd, I tweeted from my phone about a local restaurant, Co Co Sala, just as I was leaving. We had a nice experience, but the hostess had been a little, shall we say, disinterested in helping us? So I commented as much. Less than a week later, the co-owner of Co Co Sala sent me an email and cc'd his general manager. He apologized for the treatment I experienced, assured me it was not policy, introduced me to the manager, and said he'd talk to his staff. It was a four-paragraph email. I've never met him before, and furthermore, my personal email is discoverable but not the most easy thing to find. This is what real social innovation looks like. This is what customer service looks like. This is what true engagement with stakeholders looks like. I want to give this great lounge Co Co Sala a hearty shout-out for not only having a great product, but also really caring about their customers. Now, imagine we weren't talking about a restaurant here. Imagine we are talking about the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the Patent and Trademark Office, or your Congressman. If you tweeted, would they see it? Would they care? Would they react in any way? I think the answer in many cases is no. Let's look at a sliver of data. According to TweetStats.com, the people behind the White House Twitter account reply to individuals less than 2% of the time, and seem to have never @ replied to any single more than once (i.e., they have never come close to a conversation). They re-tweet others' tweets about 6.5% of the time, but they only seem to re-tweet other government accounts and the New York Times. Granted, there are more people tweeting about White House issues than Co Co Sala, but does the above data represent any caring in any way, shape or form? The terrific TechPresident blog recently noted that actor Vin Diesel is the single most followed living person on Facebook - and that he recently passed up President Obama. Perhaps that's because Vin Diesel's Facebook fan page is awesome. He is engaged, his fans are engaged, and the tone is informal and fun. When did "serious and formal" become a substitute for "informative and meaningful" in government circles? Why is everyone scared of letting their guard down in public?
11.14.2009
Do you think Andrew Ross Sorkin worries about his quarterlife crisis?
I just finished reading a great New York magazine article about New York Times writer and now book author Andrew Ross Sorkin. There's a lot of interesting information in the article about Wall Street's evolution during the past year, the tensions between Sorkin and other financial reporters (even at his own paper), and questions about where you draw the line of being too close to your sources. But what was really interesting to me was the depiction of Sorkin (who's about my age, by the way) as a breathe of fresh air with an entrepreneurial spirit working within (some might say, trapped within) a traditional business that's losing money. From very aggressively and socially courting valuable sources, to capitalizing on his personal brand and news trends to get into management at the Times and get a 600 page book published, to devising new ways to drive traffic and make money (like a daily morning newsletter for finance and mergers and acquisitions geeks), he's a killer. He hustles. There's a growing trend I see in the blogosphere, particularly among women (not sure why that is), of talking about a so-called "quarterlife crisis" that people have in their late twenties. Just because someone writes a book about something - especially something bad or depressing - doesn't mean you have to believe it! And just because someone generalizes about your gender or race or place where you live or age group or career path - doesn't mean you have to be part of that stereotype! So: Boo hoo. If everybody spent the time they think, talk, and blog about their perceived quarterlife crises and put it instead into doing something productive, maybe you'd be a little more like Andrew Ross Sorkin or Gary Vaynerchuk. You know, successful people who have built personal brands through hard work, talent, and marketing that open doors they never thought possible. Vaynerchuk signed a ten-book deal for eight figures. Sorkin has a standing offer to move to Vanity Fair. Who had really heard of these guys three years ago? Sorkin hustles to crush it every day, and when he's not doing that, he's probably thinking up new ways he can do it tomorrow. He outflanks his boring competition. He exceeds people's expectations. Sure, he steps on some toes, and sure, he takes a few wrong turns. But to quote one of his (presumed) Wall Street sources, Jamie Dimon, "It's better to do ten things and get eight right, than to do five things and get them all right." If you don't believe that, enjoy your quarterlife crisis.
Tweetup: The Term Is Played Out
Do you know what a "tweetup" is? If you don't, trust me, that's okay. Don't bother learning it. The term is already played out. A tweetup is a meet up that is planned on Twitter, or at least it's supposed to be. At first it was a cool, insider thing. Now it's an uncool, wannabe thing. In 2009, I was invited to "tweetups" in person, on EventBrite, on Facebook, by email, and by e-newsletter. Guess what - that's a meet up, not a tweetup, folks. Just because you use Twitter and are having a gathering of people who may happen to use it to does not mean you've having a tweetup. Just call it a happy hour, or a fundraiser, or a gathering, or a salon, or just a bunch of techies having drinks. Stop calling it a tweetup. The word has become meaningless.
11.12.2009
My Philosophical Review of the Audience Conference
Loren Feldman. 1938 Media. Audience Conference.
That’s about as much of a summary as you’ll find about the Audience Conference held in New York last Friday. That’s because there were no open laptops allowed during the performances. There was also no Wi-Fi, no video streaming, no tweeting, and no blogging. Something akin to omertà joined the members of the Audience Conference together.
This bond of silence was at the core of the Audience Conference, and it goes against everything that technology and Web 2.0 events normally stand for: openness, transparency, and participation. You would be hard-pressed to find any information anywhere on the web about any of the Audience Conference content. Tweets during the event were generic (“just arrived at the Audience Conference”) and posts after the event were vague (“loved the conference, got to meet Calacanis”). Nobody knows what happened unless you were a genuine member of the audience.
Many other features of the event were also unfamiliar. There were no sponsor booths, banners, and signs all over the place, the speakers had no slideshows, internet connections, or videos to keep us interested, and there were no press or even questions from the audience allowed. No problem.
Read the rest of my new post, "Quarantined Conferences: Claustrophobic Technophiles or Attentive Audiences," at O'Reilly Radar today!
11.11.2009
Don't Understand New Media? Maybe You're Not Old-Fashioned Enough
Yesterday I wrote a post contrasting Twitter with the ancient honeybee "waggle dance" that is used by a single forager bee to signal where food resources are located to the hive. It was my little metaphor to explain the larger point that the instinct to tell a group of people that a cafe you got to first doesn't have wi-fi, or that the line at the nightclub is too long so we should rendezvous somewhere else is an ancient as, well, humans. Sure, cavemen applied it differently (probably more like bees - "Big. Animals. There.") but it's the same instinct. Well, a newcomer to the Government 2.0 space, Strategic Social (who I am an advisor to as they are "leveraging the social web for national security"), is actually studying this notion more formally. In a recent post on their website, they outline a new project in which they will study online "tribes" of people in combination with anthropology studies in South America and Africa. I wholeheartedly believe in their approach:
"The key to understanding the power of Web 2.0 communication tools is the application of an anthropological approach. Strategic Social firmly believes that social media represents just one more arena in which we can conduct field research."
New media is not about "new" and not really about "media" either (see Gary Vaynerchuk's vlog on the latter point here). It's about behavioral communications, instincts that pre-date man. As a behavioral neurogeneticist I studied some genes that are very similar in insects and man, and indeed virtually all animals, that similarly affect behavior instincts. This stuff is old-fashioned. What is new is the shiny objects in the so-called "TGIF Revolution" (Twitter, Google, Internet, Facebook). Yes, the tools are new. They are exciting. But what we do with them is not.
Don't Thank Your Famous Fans
Frequently, when I start following a new blog or Twitter account, I get a note that says something like, "Thanks so much for following me! I've read your stuff for a while and I love it - look forward to chatting!!" That's flattering, but truly unnecessary. The fact is, I (and I suspect that this is true among many others) don't follow you because we want to chat, or because we want to boost your ego. I follow something you're doing because you have information and I want it. It's as simple as that. I think that your blog might help me learn, I think that your Facebook page may have interesting events I should know about, I think that your Twitter feed may have local news before someone else's, I think that your YouTube channel will make me laugh. You see, it's all about me. I think, I want, I need. People are selfish. They do things that benefit them. Now sure, I become friends with people I interact with on the Web, and sure, I chat with people, and sure, I can be generous to them. But there's no need to thank me. I've already rewarded me by following you.
11.10.2009
The Latest Twitter Chairty-For-Followers Scam
Ben Parr, a co-editor of Mashable, tonight became the latest in a series of indistinguished charity-for-followers scam artists on Twitter. Here's a recent tweet of his: "I've decided that I'm going to donate 10,000 pennies ($100) to charity, one chosen by whoever is my 10,000th follower." This charity scam is disingenuous for three reasons. First, why develop a person marketing campaign in order to get $100 into a charity's hands? Give privately and thoughtfully like so many others. There's no useful need to advertise. Second, why benefit personally? The notion of not giving $100 to charity without getting something (followers) in return is selfish. Why not just give money to the best crowdsourced charity idea from current followers? Third, why not get others involved? Rather than follow Ben Parr, why not have them follow the benefiting charity? Then, money is given and new followers are involved in the charity's story - not Ben Parr's. Selfish social scams suck. And there are enough bad actors giving social media tools a bad name without getting charities all wrapped up in a nice story that amounts to just another way to inflate influence scores. People may argue that this is just hunky-dory - at least a charity is getting money! - but style points count too. Ben Parr and your social media charity scam brethren: Get off the charity runway.
Animal Behavior: How Microsharing is Like the Honeybee Waggle Dance
Some of my readers may know that my background is in scientific research, and more specifically on the neurogenetics of animal behavior. One of the projects I was fortunate to be involved with was the International Honeybee Genome Project, within which I analyzed a family of proteins that likely underlies some of the social instincts that species exhibits. One behavior that honeybees perform is the "waggle dance," in which a forgaging bee leaves the hive in search of a food resource, finds it, and then returns to the hive to report the good news via dancing. The speed of the dance is inversely related to the distance to the food, and the angle at which the dance is performed is directly related to the placement of the food in relation to the sun's place in the sky (amazing, right?). Honeybees have been doing this for a long time, long before humans invented these "new" social media tools. Twitter and similar microsharing services like Identi.ca perform the same basic function. Twitter caught fire at the SXSW conference, where people would report that a certain afterparty was awesome, or too crowded, and attract or repel others to/from the location with the "resources" (free booze). Is this really so different from a waggle dance? I had an interesting discussion about digital communication today at the international marketing and communications firm Fleishman-Hillard (thanks Rachelle Lacroix!) today, and one thing we discussed was why so many people seemingly still know very little about social media, generally speaking. Related to that, I'm fascinated by people's fascination with the fact that I'm a scientist who's gotten interested in social media and Government 2.0 - to me it just makes sense. It's just one big animal behavior problem.
My Quick Take on the Twitter-LinkedIn Deal
Anyone who talks to me a lot about Twitter knows that I often mention LinkedIn during those conversations. Why? It's a storehouse of Rolodex information from high-income, business-oriented Internet users who know enough to be there but often have some trepidation about "social media" at the bleeding edge like Twitter and Facebook. And those are precisely the kind of users that Twitter needs to attract in order to grow and stave off competition. Well, tonight Twitter and LinkedIn will announce a deal, according to ReadWriteWeb. It will allow people from LinkedIn to post to Twitter and vice versa, basically. I don't know what exactly LinkedIn gets out of it - perhaps it's just a maneuver to seem more hip and stay relevant. But from Twitter's point of view, this seems like an obvious move to me. They effectively get tens of millions of novel users in a strategically important demographic. If Twitter's goal is to become communications infrastructure, and their strategy is to build a huge, dependent user base, then a deal with LinkedIn appears to be a prudent tactic.
The Fuller Fellowship: Advancing Conservation Through Science
WWF-US is pleased to announce the availability of Kathryn Fuller Fellowships for 2010. For nearly 50 years WWF has committed to delivering science-based conservation results while incorporating the latest research and innovations into our work. As part of its commitment to advancing conservation through science, WWF established Kathryn Fuller Fellowships to support PhD students and postdoctoral researchers working on issues of exceptional importance and relevance to conservation in WWF-US priority places. This year, the Kathryn Fuller Science for Nature Fund will support doctoral and postdoctoral research in the following three areas.
- ecosystem services
- measuring and monitoring carbon stocks in forests
- climate change impacts on and adaptation of freshwater resources
Fuller Doctoral Fellows receive either $15,000 or $20,000 allocated over a period of up to 2 years to cover research expenses.
Fuller Postdoctoral Fellows receive $140,000 to cover a stipend and research expenses over a period of up to two years as well as $17,500 to cover indirect costs at the host institution over the two-year fellowship period.
Citizens of any nation may apply. Applicants for Fuller Doctoral Fellowships must be currently enrolled in a PhD program. WWF staff, directors, and their relatives as well as current Russell E. Train Fellows are ineligible to receive Fuller Fellowships.
Deadline for applications is January 31, 2010.
For more information on complete eligibility requirements, selection criteria, and how to apply, please visit the Fuller Fellowship webpage.
Or you may send your questions to fullerfund@wwfus.org.
WWF-US Priority PlacesAmazon – portions of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname
Arctic – Arctic portions of Canada, Norway, Russia, Sweden, United States (Alaska)
Borneo and Sumatra – portions of Indonesia, Malaysia
Coastal East Africa – coastal and marine areas of Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania
Congo Basin – portions of Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Republic of Congo
Coral Triangle – coastal and marine areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor Leste, Solomon Islands
Eastern Himalayas – Bhutan, Nepal
Galapagos – Ecuador (Galapagos Islands)
Mexico – State of Chiapas, Chihuahuan Desert , Gulf of California, Mesoamerican Reef of Mexico, Monarch Butterfly Reserve, State of Oaxaca
US Northern Great Plains – portions of the states of Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming
Microsoft Public Sector: The Bright Side of Government?
My colleague Steve Lunceford from Deloitte called my attention to a new Facebook Fan Page that Microsoft Public Sector (government group) started, called "The Bright Side of Government." From an initial glance, it looks pretty cool. First, there are a lot of nice features, including YouTube videos from Microsoft principals, and links to local and state governments using emerging technologies in new ways. There's a theme to the page that's greater than the Microsoft brand. And there are some links to other sites like Twitter and LinkedIn where people can connect deeper or converse with the people behind the site.
In the recent past, I've been somewhat critical of the Federal government's Facebook Fan Pages; perhaps this "cause branding" tactic is something that Web and Public Affairs folks in the government should look at. For example, rather than have an EPA "Fan Page" (Who's truly a fan of the Environmental Protection Agency? How many people wake up in the morning excited about new environmental regulations or inland waterway policy?), have a page devoted to news and information, and yes, fandom, over a larger movement: "Green for America, Green for Everyone" (or whatever). Second, there is a call to action on the Fan Page. At the time I looked at the page, the status update stated: "Is your city/county/state/agency on Facebook? Share it with us so we can add it to the Bright Side Stars tab!" One of the biggest challeges I've faced as co-chair of the Government 2.0 Expo is finding local government success stories in the realm of social technology and new media; The bright Side of Government may become a resource people like me who are trying to plan well-balanced and thoughtful events in the Gov 2.0 space. People and groups that develop unique resources and generously give them to the community develop strong brand engagement with their communities. This isn't a fair post, because I'm not looking at other companies. Who else in Microsoft's sector (Intel, Apple, Cisco, Google...) has something similar, or worse? What about brands more generally, how does this effort by Microsoft Public Sector stack up?11.09.2009
Social Networking: the Two Dirtiest Words in Government 2.0
Next week I'll be speaking at a Sweets and Treats event called Social Networking: The Two Dirtiest Words in Government 2.0, which has been organized by Debbie Weil and is sponsored by Neighborhood America. Sweets and Tweets features leading voices from DC's diverse technology community talking about the use of social media by the public and private sector, from the White House and federal agencies to local startups. Previous events featured Mark Walsh on crowdsourcing and Andrew Wilson, who runs Flu.gov. Neighborhood America is a terrific enterprise software company that has been doing cool things in the Gov 2.0 space before it was Gov 2.0, and Neighborhood America's CIO Jim Haughwout will fly up from Florida to attend the event and mingle. This is a private, after-hours event at the very cool Baked & Wired store in Georgetown. Attendees get free cupcakes, lots of time to mingle, and hopefully some food for thought about how social networking - those two dirty words - fits into the workplace, both within the government and beyond it. Sweets and Tweets is Tuesday, November 17, 2009 from 7:00 - 8:15 PM, and you can get your tickets here: http://sweetsandtweets3.eventbrite.com/ (If you read about it here, use special discount code "sweeter3" when you register!)
Untitled
I would love to tell you about what I learned of human engagement, engaging storytelling, stages and audience – but I won’t. I won’t tell you about Dan Farber’s realistic view of the current state of the journalism industry
Washington DC's Most Creative New Media People [including me!]
I'm pleased to say that I made Washington Life's "Creative List" of people working with new media (http://www.washingtonlife.com/2009/11/08/the-creative-list-new-media/) this month. There are some other great people on the list, including Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs, Teresa Carlson of Microsoft, Alec Ross of the State Department, Shana Glickfield of NextGenWeb.org, and more. Check them out!
Does Government Create Incredible Experiences Or Avoid Bad Outcomes?
This morning, marketing blogger Seth Godin asked the question, "How much of time, staffing and money does your organization spend on creating incredible experiences (vs. avoiding bad outcomes)?" This really hit home to me as someone who spends time thinking about how marketing broadly defined fits into government missions. Under the framework of what we call Government 2.0, I've written a bit lately about how government can use social networking and new marketing to tell citizens and other stakeholders about the great things they're doing. I think that proactively putting out compelling content (http://3.ly/tEU) is a great tactic, and how small, innovative, engaging events (http://3.ly/Td2) can create very memorable brand experiences. I've also been publicly critical of the lame Facebook Fan pages (http://3.ly/NSp) that Federal government agencies have, among other "lame" aspects of Gov 2.0 - From my vantage point, a lot of effort seems to go into avoiding bad outcomes, rather than creating incredible experiences. There are good reasons for some of the "avoiding downsides" stuff, but where are the limits? No one ever seems to know how to answer that question for me. People tell me to praise them because, well, at least they have a Facebook Fan page - it's new media! But at what date am I allowed to criticize you because you never took the slightest risk with it? To quote Godin:
I avoid meetings like the plague (unless they're at happy hour: http://3.ly/dGM), but I know a lot of people who have to attend lots of them as part of their jobs in Washington, DC. So I ask, particularly to those who are interested in "change" and Gov 2.0 and participatory government and all these other related topics: How often is the topic of your meetings about creating an incredible citizen experience?
"Here's a rule that's so inevitable that it's almost a law: As an organization grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring. With more to lose and more people to lose it, meetings and policies become more about avoiding risk than providing joy."
I avoid meetings like the plague (unless they're at happy hour: http://3.ly/dGM), but I know a lot of people who have to attend lots of them as part of their jobs in Washington, DC. So I ask, particularly to those who are interested in "change" and Gov 2.0 and participatory government and all these other related topics: How often is the topic of your meetings about creating an incredible citizen experience?
11.03.2009
Hollywood Flash Mob Does the Hammer Dance
I love this video of a "flash mob" hitting a Sunset Blvd store in Hollywood and doing the MC Hammer "Can't Touch This" dance. One of my favorites.
Seed-Funded Psychometric Web Identity Startup Looking for Chief Scientist
So my buddy Tim Koelkebeck of Apps for Democracy fame has a new startup called MyType that's looking for a chief scientist. And the company sounds like they might be on to something important (I have a Ph.D. in animal behavior, so I know this stuff, okay?? :) How can I deny Tim access to my social network of govies, techies, and influencers? Hope that some of you or your colleagues find this job posting useful! About MyTypeMyType intends to develop a psychological identity platform that will allow web users to incorporate a psychometric model of their personality into their online identities. This will enable websites to perform "likemind collaborative filtering", e.g. Amazon could recommend books, the New York Times could personalize headlines, ad networks could target ads, and Google could alter search results based on personality. Our alpha Facebook application's ~50,000 monthly active users have answered tens of millions of psychometric questions, linked their Twitter accounts, and generally been willing to volunteer any information that we can analyze and provide minimal feedback on. We’re releasing a more viral beta application around Thanksgiving. Role of the Chief ScientistWe’re looking for a top-notch data mining/machine learning scientist to predict user preferences via psychometric models and develop a general identity model that combines the best of various psychometric measures. You must be proficient in the LAMP stack as you will be doing some app development in addition to analysis. Practical ConsiderationsWe’re offering a startup salary and equity. Location not important for now, but must be willing to move to SF if we raise another round.
ContactIf interested contact tim@mytype.com please!
ContactIf interested contact tim@mytype.com please!
11.02.2009
Why Don't Social Media Companies Have Good Blogs?
For all the talk of how every person is a brand that needs a blog, how
marketers need to be part of the conversation, and how even the White
House needs to be more authentic and transparent and participatory, it
strikes me that one major group of organizations is not really like
that at all - the social media companies. Why aren't companies like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, StumbleUpon,
MySpace, YouTube, and so forth blogging? Why don't they have short
podcasts or vlogs that are must-watch and generate lots of word of
mouth? Isn't that the "new marketing" I keep hearing about? I guess
Kevin Rose of Digg has Diggnation; I'll give that credit as a
corporate-branded video blog. But where are the others? Seriously,
how much would people love a once-a-week post from Zuckerburg? Or
someone walking around Twitter with a Flip doing quick interviews? No, I think the people that control the very tools that empower us to
be open and transparent communicators are themselves largely closed
and obscured from the public. What are the implications of that for
us? And who am I missing? Which social media companies have truly
informative, transparent, valuable blogs for their communities?
marketers need to be part of the conversation, and how even the White
House needs to be more authentic and transparent and participatory, it
strikes me that one major group of organizations is not really like
that at all - the social media companies. Why aren't companies like Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, StumbleUpon,
MySpace, YouTube, and so forth blogging? Why don't they have short
podcasts or vlogs that are must-watch and generate lots of word of
mouth? Isn't that the "new marketing" I keep hearing about? I guess
Kevin Rose of Digg has Diggnation; I'll give that credit as a
corporate-branded video blog. But where are the others? Seriously,
how much would people love a once-a-week post from Zuckerburg? Or
someone walking around Twitter with a Flip doing quick interviews? No, I think the people that control the very tools that empower us to
be open and transparent communicators are themselves largely closed
and obscured from the public. What are the implications of that for
us? And who am I missing? Which social media companies have truly
informative, transparent, valuable blogs for their communities?
11.01.2009
How To Win Dates and Influence Girlfriends
In 1936, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called How To Win Friends and Influence People. I have serious doubts about whether this is the best way to go about trying to be an influential person, but I have to admit that this is the best dating guide for men I've ever seen. Below follows the summary, which can be found here (http://3.ly/OhF). Men, imagine while you read this that you are on a first date. You may not feel very honest or authentic after doing all this stuff, but I guarantee she'll think fondly of your time together. "How To Win Dates and Influence Girlfriends" Part One
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People 1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want. Part Two
Six ways to make people like you 1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely. Part Three
Win people to your way of thinking 1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge. Part Four
How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment 1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement.
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People 1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want. Part Two
Six ways to make people like you 1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely. Part Three
Win people to your way of thinking 1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge. Part Four
How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment 1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement.
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
10.30.2009
The Emerging Twitter List Arms Race
I use Twitter a lot, but I was not among the very first to see the new Lists feature. I can now, though. And what I find much more interesting than actually using the feature myself is the fact that I woke up this morning to find that I was on dozens of other people's lists. Even though the irony is that Twitter introduced lists about a year after I stopped wanting such a feature, I do think there is some value in having other people put me on their lists. Braggadocio. Oh yes, braggadocio. I'm talking about the incredible hubris that comes from knowing I'm on Ezra Butler's list of people he'd take a rubber bullet for, the chutzpah of telling everyone that luminary Tim O'Reilly's list of Government 2.0 people includes me among its few members, and the extra swagger in my step that comes from the radiant energy of being on professor Jay Rosen's list of the best mindcasters he knows. I always knew I was awesome, but now I can prove it. I'm joking a bit, of course. But when getting retweeted has been boiled down to a science ("Adding 'please' increases retweets by 12.3%!"), every maven is in search of a social media metric that shows who has "authority." Being on someone's Twitter list is a difficult thing to game because it's about organic usefulness to a community. I recently read Gary Vaynerchuk's inspiring book Crush It, and to me, Twitter lists have the potential to be a metric that measures how generous you are to the communities you're a member of. So forget about counting your number of followers, or how many retweets you get, or the many "Follow Friday" mentions you land - Those metrics have been blown out for a long time now. The new high fidelity for my vanity is the Twitter list.
10.29.2009
Job Opening: National Security Journalism Web Community Manager
I don't normally post job openings, but in this case I'll make an exception. I've been talking with the folks behind the Northwestern Medill School of Journalism's new National Security Journalism Initiative about their Web strategy. They're hiring a community manager, and I'm sure it could be a great job for someone in my network. It's also a part-time job, maybe 20 hours per week, so that's important to keep in mind. Medill has a newsroom in downtown Washington, DC. Job opening follows:
The Medill National Security Journalism Initiative at Northwestern University seeks a Web site community manager with strong production, writing and editing skills. The ideal candidate will have experience in social media, participatory media and interactive journalism. The focus of the Web site is on national security, defense and civil liberties with the purpose of improving journalistic practice and increasing public engagement. The community manager will help launch the Web site and other outreach tools to bring together interested parties.
This is a part-time position of at least two years’ duration.
Responsibilities:
* Launch, along with the co-directors of the program, the week-to-week editorial strategy for the new site
* Help develop the tone and the voice for the site and any associated programming
* Maintain and produce the site (A working knowledge of HTML and CSS, as well experience with audio and video production, is essential.)
* Grow and expand site traffic and audience engagement
* Seek out and execute meaningful editorial and content partnerships
* Supervise social media and other audience development strategies.
10.28.2009
You Don't Have To Follow Everyone You Like In Real Life On Twitter
I want to let you all in on a little secret: You don't have to follow everyone you like in real life on Twitter, just because they have an account there!Simple, right? Well, not really. A lot of people seem to have a disease whose symptom manifests itself in the form of a question, "Why don't you follow me on Twitter?" Guess what. I can choose follow people I don't like in real life on Twitter. And I can choose to not follow people I enjoy speaking to in real life. Maybe you tweet so infrequently I forget you're there. Maybe you're boring. Maybe you don't engage. Maybe I don't even have to explain myself. It doesn't mean I don't like you. You might just suck at Twitter. Let me give you one example. I unfollowed @MorningMika (http://twitter.com/morningmika) today. She co-hosts a terrific morning show on MSNBC, "Morning Joe" - I watch it all the time. But her tweets are boring. And she doesn't engage her 13,000+ followers, almost ever. So, follow people who add value to you. And link up with other people on Facebook, LinkedIn, the comments section of their blogs, whatever and whenever adds the most value for the least cost. If using Twitter were the same as real life, it wouldn't be very unique, interesting or useful, would it?
The Secretary of State's Sounding Board
Guess I missed this story (http://bit.ly/49Saqj). Someone at the ACT/IAC ELC 2009 conference yesterday mentioned that, like the terrific TSA Idea Factory, the Secretary of State has something called the Sounding Board, where people can essentially upload suggestions that are then taken seriously and sometimes implemented. Anyone at State using this that can mention how it's going? Only curious. I think it's a great notion if it's used the right way, as TSA has been using it. TSA did such a good job that Idea Factory is now expected to spread DHS-wide, which sounds terrific to me.
10.27.2009
A Talk Is Bigger Than a Tweet
Learn one thing about Twitter: it is a unique medium of 140 character
or less communications. It's like the haiku of the real-time Web. If
what you have to say is often longer than those 140 characters, maybe
you're using the wrong medium. Dig this. When you're at a large conference with (say) 20 people live
tweeting every interesting sentence from every speaker, are you
thinking about your audience? I seriously hope not, because you're
often delivering them a bundle of jumbled thoughts. And when you start
retweeting each other, and then people not at the conference start
retweeting *that* everything stops being real-time and becomes
wrong-time. We don't yet have filters and interfaces that can make
sense of this stuff. Dig this too. There are alternatives. While celebrations of YouTube
and Twitter happen at dedicated events, you're overlooking less-used
social technologies with great features, like Viddler and Posterous.
Look at my last few Posterous posts: they were from a conference I
attended. But instead of burying my nose in my BlackBerry for two
days, I listened and took notes, and when I saw something worthy of
250 or so words, I wrote a short post for Posterous and pushed the
info to Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Xanga, Plurk, and more. What's up. Experiment with Web 2.0 technologies. Think about your audience. Do
what's valuable for your community. Engage.
or less communications. It's like the haiku of the real-time Web. If
what you have to say is often longer than those 140 characters, maybe
you're using the wrong medium. Dig this. When you're at a large conference with (say) 20 people live
tweeting every interesting sentence from every speaker, are you
thinking about your audience? I seriously hope not, because you're
often delivering them a bundle of jumbled thoughts. And when you start
retweeting each other, and then people not at the conference start
retweeting *that* everything stops being real-time and becomes
wrong-time. We don't yet have filters and interfaces that can make
sense of this stuff. Dig this too. There are alternatives. While celebrations of YouTube
and Twitter happen at dedicated events, you're overlooking less-used
social technologies with great features, like Viddler and Posterous.
Look at my last few Posterous posts: they were from a conference I
attended. But instead of burying my nose in my BlackBerry for two
days, I listened and took notes, and when I saw something worthy of
250 or so words, I wrote a short post for Posterous and pushed the
info to Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Xanga, Plurk, and more. What's up. Experiment with Web 2.0 technologies. Think about your audience. Do
what's valuable for your community. Engage.
Why You Probably Shouldn't Mourn Media Property Loss
Today the editor of the terrific blog from PBS called MediaShift, Mark Glaser, pointed me via Twitter to comments on one of their recent posts about the closing of Gourmet magazine: http://bit.ly/4zvPu4 Some people mourned its passing, and others didn't. It's more logical to be in the camp that didn't. The reason is that a good deal of the content in a good deal of magazines and other media properties simply isn't that valuable. It doesn't have much value because it isn't very unique, and it's easy to duplicate and repurpose. Commenters who didn't mourn mentioned that they increasingly turned to sites like Epicurious.com for their information. Thus, in their minds, Gourmet (which costs a lot of develop, print, and distribute) is getting outcompeted by websites like Epicurious. If you want to sell hard-copy magazines for 4, 5, or 6 dollars, you really have to provide something on the order of 5X the value of all the websites I can access in 10 min. Otherwise, why would I make the effort to buy your magazine? The 5X rule means that it is insufficient to simply have the same stuff as a website like FoodBlogs.com, and then add some glossy photos and an interview with Wolfgang Puck. Consumers no longer think that's worth the money. What is worth the money? Unique, engaging, difficult-to-copy, valuable, branded content. The new database/wiki WhoRunsGov from the Washington Post is a good example of this strategy. Another thing that is worth the money is getting you the same information as competitors, but faster, in a time-dependent situation. Unfortunately for Gourmet magazine, Thanksgiving dinner can be a few minutes late. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed
Public Service is Multi-Sector at #ELC09
This morning at the ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference (ELC)
there was a great panel about generational gaps, government
leadership, and social software moderated by Lena Trudeau of NAPA. One highlight in my view was a statement about how "public service is
multi-sector'" made by GovLoop.com founder Steve Ressler. This was in
response to a thoughtful question about how he left his job at DHS in
order to work on GovLoop full-time in the private sector. The notion
is that Generation Y thinks about public service differently than
older generations. Rather than it meaning a 30-year career as a
Federal employee, it instead can mean public service in and out of the
government, in the government, non-profit, and for-profit sectors. Such "social entrepreneurship" as exemplified by Tom's Shoes (which
donates a pair of shoes to a child who needs them for every pair
purchased) and GovLoop (a social media knowledge network for govies)
can be expected as a future trend, particularly along smart younger
people in a weak economy.
there was a great panel about generational gaps, government
leadership, and social software moderated by Lena Trudeau of NAPA. One highlight in my view was a statement about how "public service is
multi-sector'" made by GovLoop.com founder Steve Ressler. This was in
response to a thoughtful question about how he left his job at DHS in
order to work on GovLoop full-time in the private sector. The notion
is that Generation Y thinks about public service differently than
older generations. Rather than it meaning a 30-year career as a
Federal employee, it instead can mean public service in and out of the
government, in the government, non-profit, and for-profit sectors. Such "social entrepreneurship" as exemplified by Tom's Shoes (which
donates a pair of shoes to a child who needs them for every pair
purchased) and GovLoop (a social media knowledge network for govies)
can be expected as a future trend, particularly along smart younger
people in a weak economy.
10.26.2009
Georgetown Professor Mike Nelson on Government Collective Intelligence at the #ELC09 Conference
At the ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference (ELC) in Williamsburg, VA today, I got to hear from Mike Nelson, who's a Visiting Professor of Internet Studies at Georgetown University. He spoke on a panel within the ELC "Innovation" track, and made what I thought was a great case for government innovating with social networking tools. [You may recall that I've previously written (http://bit.ly/JFlgc) about how social networking is the underlying key to collaboration.] The following is paraphrasing of Prof. Nelson's thoughts.
We are drowning in a sea of information. In the future we will be encountering 50X as much information as we have now, and we're already maxed out. How do we find the right piece of information, quickly, in any given future situation? The solution is, in essence, taking advantage of collective intelligence and using social tools to help share the best information with the people that need it. Working together helps to form a "group brain" that is a different paradigm than how we normally think about individualism and workflow. [My side note: How do we individually incentivize group thought?]
What's the killer app for collective intelligence? This will change in the future, but right now it's basically Facebook and Twitter, which can act as a powerful aggregation and filtering mechanism for finding the right information at the right time. Self-organizing systems of collective intelligence, as evidenced by organizations like IBM, are one part of solving the "collective intelligence problem."
This quick post oversimplifies but hits the main points. It should also put Mike Nelson on your radar if he's not already. Find out more about him here: http://bit.ly/2ROdkW
The Human Side of Government Collaboration, IDEO Style
At the ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference, I just heard a panel about "innovation" that included David Haygood, a partner at the design firm IDEO. They've worked on something that's touched your life: the Apple mouse, the Motorola VoIP phone, the design of Acela trains for Amtrak, and the Bank of America "change back" products and services are all things they've had a major hand in designing.
They've also worked with the government, and Haygood mentioned work they've done with the Intelligence Community (IC) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). One big theme of his was including the end user early in the process. As he related what one intelligence analyst told him, "Development happens to us, not for us."
Haywood outlined some fundamentals of the "human side of collaboration," having empathy for the end user. One, a design thinking process that includes enlightened trial and error and an easy-to-share narrative for senior executives. Two, a tangible working process. Three, a shared experience of a team that bonds together.
There's so much more about design that I can't possibly put in this brief post. But if you're in government, or work with it, and are interested in the process of innovation, check out IDEO: http://ideo.com
10.25.2009
Amtrak Irresponsibility at Washington DC's Union Station
Today, I'm taking a train to Williamsburg, VA from Washington, DC to attend a conference. Train #99, in fact, which was scheduled to depart Union Station at 5pm. In fact, it didn't. As I type this we're late, and still not moving. Oh, I'm not writing about how an Amtrak regional train was late; I've been experiencing that pleasure since about 1993. What was interesting to observe was the way computer technology interacted with the actual train being late. You see, a few weeks ago, someon installed new screens around Union Station that give gates and updated information about trains You know, "On Time," "Boarding," and so forth. They're nice screens. You can find summary boards around the train station, and individual boards near the gates. They're coordinated, and most likely run by some central software. Sounds great, right? Well, anyone who's taken trains knows that the big board says "On Time" until the second they switch it to something like "30 min late" (how can they not see that coming?). This doesn't really happen with the Acela trains, but for the longer, slower regionals, they're often off by a few minutes at least. As we were running a few minutes late to board train #99 to Newport News, VA, the automatic screen at the gate (where I was standing at the front of the line) switched from "On Time" to "Boarding.". Except we weren't boarding at all. The attendant said it would be just a few minutes, and the door was shut with a fabric rope in from of that. The attendant went in the back with his walkie talkie to check on something and we quietly stood by the gate, about a hundred of us. Jumbled. You know how these train lines go. Suddenly, we hear a shriek. A middle-aged woman is running at us, yelling a bit about how her train is boarding, hurdling over people and their bags. "Where's the train to Newport News?! My train is boarding!!" Before anyone could say two words to her, she quickly glanced at the sign that said "Boarding," tore off the fabric barrier, barged through the door, and started running towards the escalator to the train. Now, she bumped into the Amtrak attendant quickly, and he calmed her down and walked her back to us, and we all boarded a few minutes later. But what if this had happened on (say) October 15th, 2001? Would we have not taken this more seriously? Everyone was totally complacent today. More importantly, this is a good example of how updated technology not only can be merely a cosmetic improvement (I don't recall people asking for help reading the boards, or wandering aimlessly looking for gate E, before the new signs.) but also can be harmful when used improperly. In this case, Amtrak personnel clearly knew we were not boarding, yet the signs said we were. In the minds of people these days, virtual boarding is as good as the truth, and we saw this with the middle-aged woman, who ran by a hundred people waiting to board because a digital display convinced her that her train was boarding. (We all must have been waiting for something else, maybe Balloon Boy?) This is a similar problem to the "celebrity death hoax" phenomena whereby Kanye West or a similar high-profile person is declared "RIP" by an enterprising Twitter user - and the information spreads like wildfire. Being dead on Twitter is now equivalent to actually being dead, unless you literally "resurrect" yourself via a YouTube video (Zach Braff) or a late-night TV appearance (Jeff Goldblum). How can we blame this pleasant woman for thinking she was going to miss her train? So, I don't know if Amtrak, Union Station, or some third party is working these signs, and I don't care (It is a good question for a local journalist, though.). What I do know is that whomever is running this system doesn't know what the fuck they're doing, or even worse, does know what they're doing but is too lazt to give a shit. After all, it's just a Sunday afternoon; football's on...what could possibly happen? Amtrak is not totally immune from blame. Even if they're not working the software running the signs, they have employees standing right next to them. Is checking the signs for accuracy in anybody's job description? Today's incident could have been prevented in a number of ways. It was very minor, but it serves as an example of what happens when half-assed technology is involuntarily injected into our daily lives by people we don't know, who don't care about us. Boarding 10 minutes late may not seem like a lot, but to that woman it was. If we don't have standards about making digital information match reality, where does that logically leave society? Working bathrooms declared closed? Incorrect pricing on lattes? Misleading highway directions during an emergency? What I want to know is: Who's going to be in charge of coordinating the digital and the real as our country moves toward a more technocratic future? **********
See Amtrak, these are the kind of blogs you get when you temporarily close the Cafe Car on me.
See Amtrak, these are the kind of blogs you get when you temporarily close the Cafe Car on me.
Just In Case You Thought About Dating Mark Drapeau
I'm a Libra, and today I was somewhat randomly reminded about what that means. I don't think much about astrology, but this fits me very well. So, just in case you thought about dating Mark Drapeau, be prepared for the the following!
Mark Drapeau (LIBRA): The Harmonizer. Nice to everyone they meet. Can’t make up their mind. Have own unique appeal. Creative, energetic, and very social. Hates to be alone. Peaceful, generous. Very loving and beautiful. Flirtatious. Give in too easily. Procrastinators.10.24.2009
Adam Zand Interviews Mark Drapeau at BlogPotomac Conference
Nice interview of me and journalism student Michelle Reed by Adam Zand at the recent BlogPotomac conference in Falls Church, VA. http://www.utterli.com/u/utt/u-OTYyNzM2OA
10.23.2009
10.22.2009
Video Interview With Mark Drapeau on Government 2.0 and New Media
Talking With a Real-Life Branded Avatar
Almost a year ago, I wrote a popular post for Mashable.com called Do Brands Belong on Twitter? (http://mashable.com/2008/12/12/twitter-brands/), which turned out to be a controversial topic. The main thrust of my argument against brands with no names or photos attached tweeting was that it was very impersonal - brands have coupons, not conversations. Well, I have more evidence for my argument, because last night I had the pleasure of meeting a branded avatar - in the form of a restaurant waiter. I was having dinner in the downstairs wine bar of the new J&G Steakhouse in the W Hotel in Washington, DC. My friend and I had a pleasant-enough waiter, but I knew there was something a little off with him. Sure enough, when discussing side orders to share, I asked if the potatoes au gratin were something really special, that we should try. He replied, "Jean-Georges [Vongerichten] puts his heart into every dish at J&G Steakhouse." What? I just want to know about some potatoes! That was the funniest line, but the waiter's demeanor was like that all evening. I commented to my friend that the experience was like ordering food from a PR firm! Contrast that with Cyril Renaud, whose New York bistro Bar Breton (http://www.chefpiano.com/bar-breton) I visited once, to get a hamburger (an amazing one, by the way) - he saw that I tweeted about the place and wrote me, and we've kept in touch a bit. He's very authentic, and kept me thinking about the place long after I'd gone to it. Nobody likes talking with a nameless, faceless brand - on Twitter or in real life.
10.21.2009
Incorporating Tweets Into Bing and Google Search Results
Earlier today at the Web 2.0 Summit news broke that Microsoft (Bing)
and Google had struck deals to incorporate Twitter's tweets into their
search results. This is great because it allows for an organic search
engine not gamed by SEO with real-time results to additionally be
tapped into by Bing and Google users. Additionally, there is in principle a person attached to each tweet,
and therefore each piece of information, so you can contact them and
tap into their social network for more "organic" information. I suspect that this will also allow us to better tap the Deep Web,
those things on the Web that search engines can't easily find, but
that humans might find, link to, and talk about online. Finally, I have been doing a stripped down version for this for a
while using a FireFox plugin called GreaseMonkey. This plugin gives
Google search results as normal, but also gives the last five tweets
that fit the search in a box at the top of the search results. Its
been very useful for tapping into real-time versus link-driven results
for keywords or questions I've been interested in. Side note: In my continuing experimentation with Posterous, I entirely
wrote this on my BlackBerry while waiting for someone stuck in traffic
to meet up with me. I'm making the most of my alone time (otherwise it
would just be me and my bourbon).
and Google had struck deals to incorporate Twitter's tweets into their
search results. This is great because it allows for an organic search
engine not gamed by SEO with real-time results to additionally be
tapped into by Bing and Google users. Additionally, there is in principle a person attached to each tweet,
and therefore each piece of information, so you can contact them and
tap into their social network for more "organic" information. I suspect that this will also allow us to better tap the Deep Web,
those things on the Web that search engines can't easily find, but
that humans might find, link to, and talk about online. Finally, I have been doing a stripped down version for this for a
while using a FireFox plugin called GreaseMonkey. This plugin gives
Google search results as normal, but also gives the last five tweets
that fit the search in a box at the top of the search results. Its
been very useful for tapping into real-time versus link-driven results
for keywords or questions I've been interested in. Side note: In my continuing experimentation with Posterous, I entirely
wrote this on my BlackBerry while waiting for someone stuck in traffic
to meet up with me. I'm making the most of my alone time (otherwise it
would just be me and my bourbon).
Go Dutch on Social Networking Cybersecurity
Recently I attended a private meeting with a group of Dutch government folks working in the space of new media. We talked about Enterprise 2.0 and better information sharing inside government, the way that government and citizens communicate with each other, and current developments in the U.S. government and with U.S. tech companies like Twitter. One thing was striking. Very briefly, the U.S. seemed to be ahead (not that this is a race) in building internal social software for use by government employees. But the Dutch were much more progressive in how they approached communicating with citizens. In particular, to educate people about cybersecurity in relation to social networks like Facebook (popular there), they created custom commercials that showed "dangerous paramilitary guys" mobilizing an attack...on your social network. The program would basically yank photos of you and your friends and then incorporate them into the video as the bad guys' intelligence for their operation against you, their target. The following video isn't subtitled in English, but you get the drift. I believe that in this case, the "target" is their Prime Minister.
10.20.2009
Amazingly Patriotic WWI Soldier Formations
Guy Kawasaki linked (http://3.ly/78w) to some amazingly patriotic solder formations that were photographed during World War I. I'm reposting the photos here. I'd love to see the modern-day version of this!
Who's using Microsoft's Zune, and why?
I guess I'm becoming a bit of a tech junkie. First I started moving some of my comments from Twitter and WordPress to Posterous. Then I decided to stop being so iPod-centric and check out a Zune. Now I'm even having crazy thoughts about getting a Flip Mino or a Kodak zi8 digital camera. Who am I, Robert Scoble??? Seriously though, as a new Zune owner I wanted to get some feedback. Do you use the Zune full time? Do you like it better than an iPod or other devices? Why? What model do you have? Do you mostly use it for music, video, etc? Any innovative uses for it (I seem to be able to plug it into my television!)? Thanks!!
12.20.2008
Technology and Government Transparency
Wrote about the intersection between branding, new media, government, and transparency at Politics Online. Interesting.
How to win friends and (tw)influence people
This is what I've learned by using Twitter to talk with people over about 9 months. How to "win friends and twinfluence people." Read if you're new to it. Enjoy.
Do Brands Belong on Twitter?
Do brands belong on Twitter? That's a question I asked at Mashable. I don't think they do, because I think Twitter is about people talking to each other. Of course, this spawned a lot of controversy.
The Post-Geekdominant Twitterverse
Guest post on Chris Brogan's site about what will come of Twitter after the geeks stop being the most popular people there. I call that, the Post-Geekdominant Twitterverse.
11.13.2008
11.09.2008
I will be a judge for the DC Office of the CTO's contest, Apps for Democracy. Read more here at Mashable.
Presidential Transition 2.0
I wrote a bunch of articles on incorporating social technology tools into the three-month presidential transition period (post-election, pre-innauguration), or what I call "Presidential Transition 2.0". Center for American Progress, TechPresident, and Mashable were among them.
10.24.2008
Ask what you can hack for your country
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can hack for your country. What?! Here's a nifty article on the DC CTO's office working together with developers to make sense of the government's huge data stores for the average citizen.
10.17.2008
Three new Mashable.com articles
Big last two weeks. I have three new Mashable.com articles. Enjoy!
Government 2.0: NASA CoLab-oration
Government 2.0: NASA CoLab-oration
Government 2.0: Crowdsourced Beltway Pandits
How to Execute (Against) Your Resume
10.01.2008
Government 2.0: Where's the Urgency?
This is a great post (IMHO) about the seeming lack of urgency within the government to adopt new social tools. I posted it - where else? - at Mashable.com!!
9.24.2008
Intelligence Renaissance Networks
New post on Mashable.com about the intelligence community and the extensive and interesting social networking technology it is building for its analysts.
9.10.2008
Can New Media Save Television Ads?
Hey, I wrote a kind of random post for Mashable a few days ago that came out while I was at a conference. It's called: Can new media save television ads? Check it out!!
9.03.2008
8.26.2008
Government 2.0: Being Individually Empowerful
The third in a continuing series of guest articles at the #1 social networking news site, mashable.com, came out today! The guy on the right, Pete Cashmore, runs everything and letsme do this. Thanks also to my editor, Sharon Feder, for helping with the great title!!
8.24.2008
My article on the Democratic National Convention, government satellite intelligence, and blogging in secret came out today at Grand Central Political Magazine.
8.14.2008
Mark Drapeau in the Buzz Bin
PR 2.0 guru Geoff Livingston profiled my efforts with Government 2.0 in his blog, the Buzz Bin today. Thanks, Geoff!!
8.11.2008
Government 2.0: A Theory of Social Government (post 2/2)
My second post on Mashable.com last week was perhaps even more interesting than my first!! Thanks to Pete Cashmore (left) and everyone else who made this possible!
8.06.2008
Government 2.0: An Insider's Perspective (post 1/2)
I wanted to tell everyone that I had a post on Mashable.com yesterday, titled: Government 2.0: An Insider's Perspective. Thanks to everyone that made this possible!
Really, I welcome constructive feedback, information, and networking opportunities related to bringing social tools into the government.
Stay tuned for part 2/2 on Thursday!!
7.08.2008
Pandemic Influenza Readiness (Poster)
My new pandemic flu readiness poster for the Dept of Defense is out in draft, please comment on it. Thanks!!
We hope to publish this and distribute it in Fall 2008.
7.07.2008
Innovation and STEM education (speech)
Last week I was honored to give the keynote address to the LA Council of the AeA, a national group bringing together technology business leaders. I spoke about innovation, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, and how Washington generally looks at these issues.
You can read the text of my talk here on the AeA/LA blog.
Thanks to Lee Fox for inviting me, and the local AeA staff for treating me great!
7.06.2008
Human Disease Cannot Be Eradicated
Please check out my new article in Grand Central Political Magazine, titled, "Human Disease Cannot Be Eradicated."
It's about designer babies, curing cancer, medical ethics, and evolutionary biology! And funny, too!!
You can also see it on OpEds.com here.
7.05.2008
Fishing for Terrorist Starfish - Part Deux
I wrote an updated version of my Washington Times article, "Fishing for Terrorist Starfish" for the online magazine Grand Central Political.
Speaker: 44th Annual AeA/LA Golf Tournament
Recently, I gave a dinner talk to the AeA (fmr American Electronics Assoc.) LA council, a high-tech trade group, at their 44th Annual Golf Tournament at the Calabasas (CA) Country Club:
The speech will be published online within about two weeks through the AeA blog: http://aeala.blogspot.com/2008/06/us-technology-industry-in-jeopardy.html
Part of the proceeds from the tournament benefited Project Lead the Way, a wonderful organization promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education through training teachers: http://www.pltw.org/index.cfm
2.13.2008
The Ecology of Counterinsurgency
http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/defense_horizons/DH%2062.pdf
The possibility of understanding counterinsurgency operations as an ecosystem involving competition for resources, and predators and prey.
Published by the National Defense University of the USG/DoD.
12.05.2007
12.04.2007
A Microscopic Insurgent (IHT Op-Ed)
The International Herald Tribune version of the "A Microscopic Insurgent" Op-Ed about cholera in Iraq. (4 Dec web; 5 Dec print, p. 6)
A Microscopic Insurgent (Op-Ed, NYT)
A Microscopic Insurgent
by Mark D. Drapeau
New York Times
4 Dec 2007, p. A35 (Op-Ed)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/opinion/04drapeau.html?ref=opinion
12.02.2007
Immortality
Some nice comments on my aging work by authors writing in The Scientific Conquest of Death by The Immortality Institute. See: http://www.imminst.org/SCOD.pdf
Biology - 7th ed. (reviewer)
Some nice recognition for helping to review chapters for the ubiquitous textbook, Biology (7th ed.), while at UC-Irvine.
http://erpi.com/elm/11485.5449562053553526797.pdf
http://erpi.com/elm/11485.5449562053553526797.pdf
CONTINUING THE FIGHT: MILITARY OPERATIONS AND PANDEMIC INFLUENZA (talk)
CONTINUING THE FIGHT: MILITARY OPERATIONS AND PANDEMIC INFLUENZA
MARK DRAPEAU, PhD.
Talk given at a CENTCOM workshop, 2007
http://www.centcom.mil/sites/SG/CRMS%202007%20Post%20Conference/Agenda%2021-24%20May%20CRMS%202007.doc
MARK DRAPEAU, PhD.
Talk given at a CENTCOM workshop, 2007
http://www.centcom.mil/sites/SG/CRMS%202007%20Post%20Conference/Agenda%2021-24%20May%20CRMS%202007.doc
Fishing for Terrorist Starfish (Op-Ed)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070731/COMMENTARY/107310009/1012%20
Mark D. Drapeau
Washington Times July 31, 2007
Fishing for Terrorist Starfish
A elegant commentary on decentralized organizations, incuding modern terrorist groups.
Nice discussion of my op-ed here:
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2007/07/al-qaeda-metaphor-search.html
Featured on Rod Beckstrom's page:
www.beckstrom.com/Books,_Articles_and_Press
See also:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6799267/Fishing-for-terrorist-starfish-COMMENTARY.html
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5244/is_200707/ai_n20972657
http://fellowships.aaas.org/07_News/07_index.shtml
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/07/print/31-july-swj-oped-roundup/
http://www.asam.org.tr/fpr/073107f.htm
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003696.php
See my related post at Wired on Steven Wolfram:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/building-better.html
Mark D. Drapeau
Washington Times July 31, 2007
Fishing for Terrorist Starfish
A elegant commentary on decentralized organizations, incuding modern terrorist groups.
Nice discussion of my op-ed here:
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2007/07/al-qaeda-metaphor-search.html
Featured on Rod Beckstrom's page:
www.beckstrom.com/Books,_Articles_and_Press
See also:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6799267/Fishing-for-terrorist-starfish-COMMENTARY.html
http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5244/is_200707/ai_n20972657
http://fellowships.aaas.org/07_News/07_index.shtml
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/07/print/31-july-swj-oped-roundup/
http://www.asam.org.tr/fpr/073107f.htm
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003696.php
See my related post at Wired on Steven Wolfram:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/building-better.html
Climate of subtle conflict (Op-Ed)
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2007/0422globalenvironment_mignone.aspx
Climate of Subtle Conflict
Washington Times April 22, 2007
Bryan K. Mignone and Mark D. Drapeau
Also featured: http://www.brookings.edu/topics/energy-security.aspx
Thoughtful discussion of the op-ed here:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/04/my_take_on_global_warming.php
"Mark Drapeau, a Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University, was kind enough to send me a link to an op-ed piece that he and another military analyst wrote recently about a new Pentagon report on global warming as it relates to national security. It's certainly very interesting that the Pentagon is taking global warming more seriously than the administration is. But it has also prompted me to offer some thoughts on global warming, something I've never done before because I just haven't taken the time to really study the science of it."
Some discussion at Wired:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/the-next-climat.html
Nice write-up by Prof. Matt Nisbet:
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/04/at_the_washington_times_two_sc.php
See also coverage by the CNA Corp. and The Energy Conversation:
http://www.securityandclimate.cna.org/news/
http://www.energyconversation.org/cms/node/459
And technocrat.net:
http://technocrat.net/d/2007/4/22/18552
Green Hawks:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/26/105113.php
And:
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2007/04/climate_change_threatens_globa.asp
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6460296/Climate-of-subtle-conflict-COMMENTARY.html
http://climateofsubtleconlict.blogspot.com/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5244/is_200704/ai_n20956915
And finally this:
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/05/announcing_next_weeks_bloggers.php
"Third Culture"
Climate of Subtle Conflict
Washington Times April 22, 2007
Bryan K. Mignone and Mark D. Drapeau
Also featured: http://www.brookings.edu/topics/energy-security.aspx
Thoughtful discussion of the op-ed here:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/04/my_take_on_global_warming.php
"Mark Drapeau, a Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University, was kind enough to send me a link to an op-ed piece that he and another military analyst wrote recently about a new Pentagon report on global warming as it relates to national security. It's certainly very interesting that the Pentagon is taking global warming more seriously than the administration is. But it has also prompted me to offer some thoughts on global warming, something I've never done before because I just haven't taken the time to really study the science of it."
Some discussion at Wired:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/the-next-climat.html
Nice write-up by Prof. Matt Nisbet:
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/04/at_the_washington_times_two_sc.php
See also coverage by the CNA Corp. and The Energy Conversation:
http://www.securityandclimate.cna.org/news/
http://www.energyconversation.org/cms/node/459
And technocrat.net:
http://technocrat.net/d/2007/4/22/18552
Green Hawks:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/26/105113.php
And:
http://www.climateark.org/blog/2007/04/climate_change_threatens_globa.asp
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6460296/Climate-of-subtle-conflict-COMMENTARY.html
http://climateofsubtleconlict.blogspot.com/
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5244/is_200704/ai_n20956915
And finally this:
http://scienceblogs.com/intersection/2007/05/announcing_next_weeks_bloggers.php
"Third Culture"
Culture, Conflict, and...Climate? (Commentary)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/316/5831/1564b http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/reprint/316/5831/1564a.pdf
Science 15 June 2007:Vol. 316. no. 5831, p. 1564
DOI: 10.1126/science.316.5831.1564b
Letters
Culture, Conflict, and... Climate?
Mark D. Drapeau and Bryan K. Mignone
This is a nice commentary published in Science magazine, June 2007
See also:
http://www.climatepolicy.org/?p=38
http://jebin08.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html -- "See, for example Culture, Conflict...and Climate?, which notes a provision for the U.S. FY08 intelligence authorization bill to explicitly direct the U.S. intelligence community to consider climate impacts when preparing future National Intelligence Estimates..."
http://www.melma.com/backnumber_106623_3713005/
Tony Long and Justin Blau
Tony Long was my Ph.D. dissertation advisor and a great mentor during my time at UC-Irvine, when I worked on Drosophila behavioral genetics. Lab: http://cstern.bio.uci.edu/
Justin Blau (http://www.nyu.edu/fas/biology/faculty/blau/index.html) was my postdoctoral advisor at NYU, when I studied the neurobiology and genomics of circadian rhythms.
An auditory-deficient double mutant in Drosophila melanogaster
http://www.ou.edu/journals/dis/DIS83/index.html
Leung, N.Y., M.D. Drapeau, and A.D. Long. An auditory-deficient double mutant in Drosophila melanogaster: aristaless1; thread1 (al1; th1).
See also -http://flybase.org/reports/FBrf0135617.html
The Copulatron, a multi-chamber apparatus for observing Drosophila courtship behaviors
http://www.ou.edu/journals/dis/DIS83/Technique83/10tecDrapeau/Drapeau.htm
Drapeau, Mark D., and Anthony D. Long. 2000. The Copulatron, a multi-chamber apparatus for observing Drosophila courtship behaviors. Dros. Inf. Serv. 83: 194-196.
Drapeau, Mark D., and Anthony D. Long. 2000. The Copulatron, a multi-chamber apparatus for observing Drosophila courtship behaviors. Dros. Inf. Serv. 83: 194-196.
The infamous "Copulatron" paper - describing a contraption for observing "fly copulation" and for taping "fly blue movies"...
Supplying food vials with paper
http://www.ou.edu/journals/dis/DIS83/Technique83/1TecDrapeau/Drapeau.htm
Drapeau, Mark D. 2000. Supplying food vials with paper. Dros. Inf. Serv. 83: 171.
Drapeau, Mark D. 2000. Supplying food vials with paper. Dros. Inf. Serv. 83: 171.
A new model for circadian clock research?
http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v1/n1/full/msb4100019.html
News and Views
Molecular Systems Biology 1 Article number: 2005.0014 doi:10.1038/msb4100019Published online: 28 June 2005
Citation: Molecular Systems Biology 1:2005.0014
A new model for circadian clock research?
Daniel Forger1, Mark Drapeau1, Ben Collins1 & Justin Blau1
Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
See also: The "Circadian Forest" family tree of circadian clock researchers:
http://www.srbr.org/postdoc%20II_LD_dd_6.pdf
News and Views
Molecular Systems Biology 1 Article number: 2005.0014 doi:10.1038/msb4100019Published online: 28 June 2005
Citation: Molecular Systems Biology 1:2005.0014
A new model for circadian clock research?
Daniel Forger1, Mark Drapeau1, Ben Collins1 & Justin Blau1
Department of Biology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
See also: The "Circadian Forest" family tree of circadian clock researchers:
http://www.srbr.org/postdoc%20II_LD_dd_6.pdf
Is your organization ready for a pandemic?
A series of blog response/posts on 'weathering the storm' of a pandemic
http://news.speeple.com/scienceblogs.com/tags/global+warming+and+national+security/
http://www.kiplinger.com/businessresource/recommend/archive/2007/PandemicInfluenza_CIDRAP.html
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4965
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/01/congress_to_ask_president_for.php
http://blog.pandemicflu.gov/?p=27
http://microbiologybytes.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/uk-preparedness-for-pandemic-influenza/
http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/weblog/2007/05/us_government_u.html
http://communionblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/31/welcome-to-our-old-friend-the-plague-version-20/
http://news.speeple.com/scienceblogs.com/tags/global+warming+and+national+security/
Empirically testing heterogenity theories of mortality
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/10945450260195676
Mark D. Drapeau.
Empirically Testing Heterogeneity Theories of Mortality
Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine. 2002, 5(2): 235-237. doi:10.1089/10945450260195676.
Old commentary on controversies in aging
Further origin of species
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/15706
American Scientist
Further Origin of Species
Mark D. Drapeau
Book review of a Lynn Margulis book, circa 1999
Molecule Talk
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookReviewTypeDetail/assetid/15651
BOOK REVIEW
LIFE & EARTH
Molecule Talk
Mark D. Drapeau
Book review of The Touchtone of Life by Werner Loewenstein - 1999
See my quotation here:
http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/25965/subject/GeneralScience/?view=usa&ci=9780195140576
Weathering the Storm
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/mdrapeau_20071002.html
October 02, 2007
Weathering the Storm
Mark D. DrapeauAnother view on infectious disease and national security, and also international stability operations.
"Spreading diseases are not discrete events but continuing crises. Are businesses, governments, and armed forces prepared to operate during such events and “weather the storm”? "
See related: http://denverpickles.blogspot.com/2007/02/pandemic-panic.html
http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2007/03/slideshow-pandemic-influenza.html
http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/05/pandemic-flu-meet-peak-oil.html
Terrorism Business Management
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/mdrapeau_20070913.html
September 13, 2007
Terrorism Business Management
Mark D. Drapeau
September 13, 2007
Terrorism Business Management
Mark D. Drapeau
Nerds on film
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/mdrapeau_20070915.html
September 15, 2007
Nerds On Film
Mark D. Drapeau
"American dramas that portray contemporary science and math can be a powerful weapon in the battle over U.S. competitiveness in a new global economy. "
See also: http://everythingisnumb3rs.eponym.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/14/3232855.html
September 15, 2007
Nerds On Film
Mark D. Drapeau
"American dramas that portray contemporary science and math can be a powerful weapon in the battle over U.S. competitiveness in a new global economy. "
See also: http://everythingisnumb3rs.eponym.com/blog/_archives/2007/9/14/3232855.html
12.01.2007
Beyond the Hospital: Science Policy, National Security, and Pandemic Readiness
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/mdrapeau_20070528.html
An early view on infectious disease and national security.
See also: http://projectdisaster.com/?p=3508
FRU does not regulate yellow in fly pigmented cells
http://www.philica.com/display_observation.php?observation_id=13
Drapeau, M. (2006). FRU does not regulate yellow in fly pigmented cells. PHILICA.COM Observation number 13.
Drapeau, M. (2006). FRU does not regulate yellow in fly pigmented cells. PHILICA.COM Observation number 13.
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