Thanks to good friend Hernán, I came across uncyclopedia today.
Now... I must admit I found myself wasting far more time than I could afford on the dang thing. Some stuff in there is plainly hilarious.
There is something in there for everyone, For instance, an article entitled "Evil Galactic Umpire" states:
The Evil Galactic Umpire exists primarily to destroy the Rebellion of Baseball at the A, AA, AAA, and Majorly Overpaid level. Although singular in name, the Evil Galactic Umpire encompasses a vast network of Umperial Commanders which are collectively referred to as the Evil Galactic Umpire, collectively.
The entry on baseball is even better, but not quotable except for the main definition: "Baseball is just like cricket for people who can't be bothered to spend 5 days playing." I'm sure geek-slash-baseball-aficionados such as Churbuck and Jim will enjoy those.
There is, quite evidently, a very wide british influence on the wiki, which brings its type of assorted and twisted humour get straigh to me. I'm sorry, but Americans have become too politically correct.
Of course you can also learn all about British Humour (with an u) at the uncyclopedia:
One popular British comedy technique: starting off a sentence normally and then ending it with something completely unrelated. For example:
- "You must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with... a herring!"
- "We will burden the colonists by levying a tax on... a herring!"
- "How ironic is it that we are aiding the United States in a war in which one of the goals is to bring democracy to Iraq while our country's government is still a monarchy... a herring!"
But possibly the best part of it all are the quotes:
“I said give up your sins, not your brains, can't you read?”
~ God on Christian Fundamentalists
Since Mariano made it official, I'm proud to say that I'll be presenting at WordCamp Argentina in about a Week (November 8th).
You can check out the Agenda and registration to the event is now open.
I want to make something different from the usual keynote, but the lack of time might prevent me to go all above and beyond as I would like.
Stay tuned!
Post disponible en español en redtácora.
I'm no Microsoft fan. That is a well known fact to the loyal readers of this blog.
But I must admit I'm intrigued by Windows 7. I want a pre-beta. Badly. Really. I think it is the first time that happens to me since Windows for Workgoups 3.11.
So my Gift to good old Bill Gates is a vote of trust. Trust that Windows 7 won't require IBM's Roadrunner to run smoothly.
Watching the markets lately has been a bizarre experience. I'm not an expert in economy by any means, but until recently I could understand and even forecast the market's general direction.
Right now I can't. I don't understand why it goes up or down. I don't get the roller coaster.
The only pseudo-logical explanation I can come up with is: hysteria. Those in decision making / buying and selling / trading understand as much as I do and go about buying and selling compulsively.
If anyone has any smarter explanations, feel free to put me out of my ignorance on the comments.
Almost a week has passed since WeMedia Buenos Aires concluded. I was fortunate enough to attend and other attendees were unfortunate enough to be forced to listen to me.The audience was somewhat challenging, not because they booed at me (they were respectful enough not to!) but because I had to keep the pitch very high-level, thus somewhat boring those initiated in the dark arts of social media.
Since I believe this things take a while to get digested (and my brain is taking longer than usual times to digest) an unordered list of thoughts follows.
- Mainstream Media (is there such a thing) does not get it. Gross tonnage is no longer a valid argument to state that one "rocks" or "sucks". The overall ignorance of traditional journalists with regards to Social Media was put to evidence thanks to Mariano's intervention.
- Video is going to keep migrating from TV to Internet. This is going to take a while. TV will become an "online thing" in advanced countries in the next 15 years or so.
- Most of the action takes place at coffee breaks and lunch breaks. I guess the idea of un-conferences is to try to replicate that. I had a great time chatting people like Mariano, Ismael, Ivan, John, Nicolás and others (too many to link!).
- I like presenting. I like it a little bit more every time I do it. One day I might even get moderately acceptable at it.
- I got a ton of ideas from the BBC's presentation. And I mean real-life marketing ideas.
- Inspiration comes from the oddest places.
- Timing was too strict in some senses and too loose on some others. Some speakers could of got to the point in half the time. Others I would of listened to for hours.
I'll resume normal blogging habits now.
After reading this article on CrunchGear and particularly after gazing this inevitably quoted paragraph:
Still, it seems that MS has changed up the strategy for putting things together, emphasizing smaller teams with less higher-up input. Teams called “Triads” — one developer, one tester, and one program manager — chisel away at problems and work independently. The poster says this leads to a more integrated approach to creating a feature, and more transparency in management means decisions can be made in good time with enough visibility for the teams to accommodate them.
I can't help but wonder if the big Redmond Company is not trying to replicate the Open source way of doing things.
The old Cathedral model might be gone. And it might of took Vista for some companies to realize that Open Source and transparent development cycles are not a dreaded enemy but rather smart ways to tackle complex projects.
Please don't see this post as a "Windoze sucks, linux rulz" kind of thing. I'm keen to Linux, true enough, but I make this point as a mere observation of what could put Microsoft back into track.
My Wishlist for Windows 7:
- Don't make it a process hog.
(end of list)
Final part is just John Bell's keynote on Perpetual Beta. Stating that John is one smart guy is like saying rain will soak people wet.It was quite an adequate close to the sessions, I just wish some of the media guys would present on day 1 of been there to listen.
John started by stating he was going to "try to tie together everything we've heard before".
Perpetual Beta: make our minds up to the idea that we need to be in constant change. Adapt to adapting constantly.
Ogilvy (or 360°?) holds up an annual unconference called stream, they start up with no agenda and then build one with everyone's knowledge and inteterests. (Esteban's Note: wouldn't it be nice to build something of the sort but "publicly available"? Agenda could even be worked up remotely in the form of a wiki...)
Mr. Bell then went ahead and showed the Video Ogilvy compiled as a culmination of the "Voices" program, as well as some other examples of Social Media engagement for brands.
"We need to try and be part of the power of Word of Mouth".
Influencers may not matter that much anymore. Thank the long tail for that.
Brands should build communities (AMEN!)
"Google is the big filter". What appears on the first two pages of a google search is more important than anything that appears on a major newspaper.
"Listening -> Planning -> engagement"
7 habits of perpetual beta:
- Experiment all the time (google labs as an example)
- Hire differently (people from diverese backgrounds) (Esteban's note: tell me about it, what's a musician doing at Lenovo's social media if not!)
- Implement a cross-training culture.
- Embed technology in your everyday life.
- Invite customers in to make products better.
- Re-think how to measure success.
- Re-think how to inspire loyalty
"We have to become comfortable about being in perpetual change".
This ends up the reviews of what was said. Soon I'll post my thoughts.
Its about 9PM and only now I've been able to go online. I decided not to take the PC to WeMedia and write down with pen and paper (so analog!) and pay more attention to the keynotes. I'm not doing it ever again. I felt naked without my reliable T60p in my lap.
Day 2 annotations (Evereything but John Bell's presentation, too tired to finish it today). My conclusions will have to wait for a couple of days I'm afraid.
The first track was entitled "Communicating with the new generations"
Carlos Perez, President BBDO.
"It is the how that changes, the what remains the same". Carlos started by showing a Video from 1976's Olympic Games featuring Nadia Comanechi's Perfect 10, freezing the image on the display that showed a 1.00 score because it was not prepared to show a perfect 10 performance.
He sees the generational clash as massive as the difference between Columbus and the Native Americans when he first reached the continent. (Personally I don't think it is that wide, or even think there is a generational clash, but rather some personality differences)
"New generations multitask by nature"
Marketing for the new generations intertwines things that usually would not be otherwise connected, this marks a new tendency.This can lead to Brandjacking, although people do not consciously hijack brands, they just relate to the message. Unidirectional marketing is gone for good. (Amen!).
"When everything changes one should ask: 'what has remained the same'".
Guillermo Oliveto, CEO, CCR.
Time's "Man of the year" cover for 1997 featuring "you" is an example of what WeMedia is.
"We can do amazing things with technology, but there's always a side B to things".Destructive vs. Constructive technology, quotes Humberto Eco.
"We need to humanize technology". "We're going back to basis": giving new meaning to the future based on giving value to things from the past. Underlines the tendency that brands have on putting emphasis on their heritage.
iPhone is an example of the fascination on the how. There's a lack of truth, we're shaken when we're told the truth.
Second part of 1st track. Several youngsters share their views.
Since there was not a very clear line of thought, bulleted list is in order.
- TV is not their favorite type of media
- Internet is their main means of communication
- "Social Networks are all alike"
- "I don't understand facebook"
- MSN is respectful enough to call people contacts and not friends. (Killer phrase if you ask me)
- Cumbio: "Besides an individual am a product of the internet".
Second track: Online Communities
Anton Chalbaud, Chief Revenue Officer, Sonico.
"Social Networs are the natural evolution of media".
"Users switch from simpler Social Networks to more complex ones".
"Microsites don't make sense"
"We need to find new ways to advertise"
Victor Kong, MySpace.
In Victor's view Social Networks:
- are based on fundamental changes on relationships
- "Enrich real life interactions"
- Have very high penetration and usage rates. (doh!)
- People like to connect with brands. ("They talk to McD's as if it were a person"
Florencia Pettigrew, Linkedin.
Linkedin has diversified its revenue stream. Linkedin groups came as an answer, they allow people to "do stuff". Politicians (Obama) and Media create groups. Linkedin has content agreements with several news sites (CNBC, New York Times).
Final part of Today.
Jorge Gobbi, Editor Social Voices.
Social Voices does not cover Europe and the US because they have enough traditional media coverage. Social Voices is a global startup. He's talking about "voices without votes" what the rest of the world thinks about the US election. He's the only Argentine writter. The idea is not to yield their own oppinions but rather to leverage bloggers's points of view.
"Rising Voices" gives grants to develop blogs for those people who don't have access to the internet or blogs. OLPC is huge in Uruguay.
They also try to help bloggers who suffer censorship.
Reuters invests in Social Voices. NYT republished the feed about South Osetia.
Juán Cruz Mones Cazón, idealistas.org
60K daily uique visitors, 500k registered users, 80k organizations.
"Can Internet change the world?" "No, people can, using Internet".
Gives examples of how idealistas.org helps to connect different organizations. "That is what idealistas is all about".
Things are free because people believe that once you start charging for a service another company / guy will come and do it for free.
The free business model is a challenge even for organizations such as Idealistas.
Paulien Osse - Wage indicator foundation.
She's coming to the public asking what people earn. Of course people are reluctant to answer.
"Essentially this is what we do, we ask people how much they make, but on the internet". They are going to display a movie.
This is fun for economists. Just to compare the wages of exactly the same job in different countries. It is essential to know if you know if you're paid propperly.
Knowledge sharing for collective inteligence.
The question on how they validate the date, make sure people are not telling lies when completing their wage information. Paulien says there is only a small percentage are not truthful about their sallary.
Final Keynote
Steve Herrmann, Editor, BBC.
When thre was an earthquake in India the BBC got tons of messages of people trying to tell each other they were ok, if they knew something about missing people and other "social" requirements.
On Zimbawe they asked the population to SMS the BBC to let them know what was going on during polling. BBC was banned from the country at the time. People reported all kinds of abuses and other atrocities.
Burma: BBC's reporter couldn't move freely through the country. They contacted the local population to get updates on what was happening.
The Burma story didn't end up very well. They stopped getting messages and emails. The burmanise government shut down the ISP's, BBC was left out of sources.
China Earthquake. They are mentioning the twitter feed. Also Chinese bloggers. They also monitored what was the Chinese media said about the torch relay protests in Europe and the US.
More examples about blogging from countries that are hard for the BBC to get into (Saudi Arabia, Cuba).
They tried an experiment called "Laptop link-ups". Sent people with Notebooks to remote places so people could tell their stories. (Brilliant!!).
In the UK they have a project for schools where they send a journalist to let kids know what journalism is about. They create news from this schools and then publish it on the BBC. This program has cought up in other countries and regions as well.
BBC uses blogs as a publishing platform for their star journalists (the screenshot is from Peston's Picks, title: "We own the banks").
They use an interactive map about the general mood around the financial crises where people pinned thier economical problems (unapyable mortages, rising food prices, etc).
To exmplain globalization BBC painted a crate and send it all over the world, then they encouraged readers to ry to spot it at ports and boats, take pictures at it and send them back to the BBC. Amazing shots.
And thus the day ends... sort off. Pictures coming soon.
I've skipped blogging and tweeting an entire track, since I just came down the stage mysel. Went to have lunch and now I'm reporting again. (Does that make me a journalist?)
What the readership will most regret is that I've skiped Josh Cohen's Keynote. I regret it myself.
Officenet - Leonardo Piccioli;
THere will be no secrets in the future. "That my competition learns about stuff we're doing is a risk I'm willing to assume".
"I talk with everyone" -> I talk with customer, I talk with unions, I talk with government.
Juan Carlos Lucas.
1. Amoebas are easy to predict.
2. Human Beings are harder to predict than Amoebas.
3. Most managers don't know #2.
The way management is done today is not going to work for much longer.
There is a shift in paradigm.
Twitter as an example of this change. Juan Carlos asked the question of what twitter was publicly made on twitter, this yielded "collective intelligence" (note: I need to further think whether I believe in the concept of collective intelligence or not)
Leaders as strategic coaches.
"What do we have to learn as Managers"
1. We need to be openminded and flexible observers.
2. We need to constantly learn.
3. We need to motivate conversations that add values. (watch out not to confuse tool with conversation)
4. We need to systematically add value. We need to embrace the new before it is even perfected.
5. We need to be authentic collaborators. Lies are no longer good for business and they will be even less so.
"Instead of looking for answers we should be looking for new questions".
Ernesto Van Pebrogh.
Chart from Forrester that shows internet users behavior. People over 27 years are considered "innactive" because they download instead of uploading.
Youngsters will beb in positions of power within companies in the next 10 years. This "Digital Natives" do "Social Homeworking".
Facebook has about as much population as Japan. 50% of Brazilians will have access to internet. 30 Million Brazilians use Orkut weekly.
Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution, it is a philosophical shift.
We need a new work ethic.
Managers need to think how to make their employees happy so they become marketers as well.
That companies block access to 2.0 applications makes no sense.
Next segment.
Luis Alberto Quevedo. Alejandro Prince. Alejandro Piscitelli.
The invention of writing changed all the social interactions. Probably the first texts were love poems and contracts. There was a technological revolution.
Invention of press. Then the concept of "nation" develops. Today we live in a massive herd of 7 billion people.
Internet changes yet again the way information flows. Yet this is not "another leap" it is a big leap, we're going through a major social change.
The digital breach does not exist, the breach is social and economic. At least 60% of the world's population is not in a good jape to make the next social revolution (in the sense of things changing).
New York is the most connected and social media prone city in the world. NY Times only has 0,7% of outgoing links. This is their doom. This is their breach with the rest of the social media world.
"The best writting happening right now is stuff written for TV". TV before was all redundant. TV today is more dense in terms of narrative.
Rupture between profesionals and amateurs (proams).
The 2300 billion clicks on google are the "spirit of today's world".
"hat are the consecuences: "ways to know what we are loosing".
We are still living with 19th and 20th century media. TV still plays a major role on today's life.
For mass media their business is not "to share" it is to amass consumers. This clearly oposes the 2.0 model.
One more block left. Which means one more post left today.