Communicating in a networked world
Tom Foremski is the Silicon Valley Watcher. We met up at Green’s in Fort Mason, San Francisco, to get phones working and try out some tiny Internet-enabled portable devices. Here’s what Tom is looking forward to learning on the London trip.
Why is this a short post? Well, I have to go catch the BART (train) to the airport in a few minutes. Thank goodness for fast Internet connections.
What’s the special sauce in marketing? In the case of Renee Blodgett, it’s a creative approach combined with a lotta hard work. Getting ready to go to London with the Traveling Geeks (which Renee co-founded), she’s working day and night to get a client site launched, while at the same time she’s bringing a new sponsor on board and also trying to make sure that 8 geeks who are arriving a day early will have their hotel rooms all arranged. I was able to spring Renee long enough for a dinner last week, but wow has she been burning the midnight oil to get ready for this trip!
Her online projects are her blog Down the Avenue, and We Blog the World, an interesting syndication of blogs around the world – designed to improve communication between cultures and serve as a platform where interesting conversations can happen.
The Washington Post (byline Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post Foreign Service) reports that several authoritarian governments, including those of China, Cuba and Myanmar (Burma) are censoring in whole or in part, news of the strife that has followed the Iranian elections. Probably for fear that people living under the control of their regimes will get the message and understand that modern viral (social) media have the potential to spread dissent much farther than it ever might have gotten before, in eras when media publication could be held tightly in check.
Of course this is a fundamental human tendency – to do things we’ve seen done elsewhere. In criminology it’s called “copycat crimes.” And certainly these regimes consider those who do this kind of thing to be criminals.
As if managing to publish 40+ podcast series at Personal Life Media weren’t enough, Susan Bratton is totally a bundle of energy. (In fact, maybe that’s her secret.) She’s no stranger to tech, having worked in the semiconductor industry, but her personal podcast DishyMix (now at 100 episodes) is focused on marketing and she does the most fascinating interviews, digging down deep to find out what makes each of her interview subjects really “tick.”
Susan says “Our mantra is ‘frank talk and deep discussion for your personal life.’ ” And Personal Life Media’s tag line is “Podcasts and blogs with expert advice on personal growth, anti-aging, intimacy and relationships.” You can tell that Susan is going to have a great time in the UK and we invite you to follow along!
I noted this BoingBoing report that China[1] blocked all Google services yesterday[2] for a time and that it seemed to be punishment for Google not blocking access to certain sites or types of sites that the Chinese state disapproves of. And rumors that this was all intended to divert attention from the Green Dam incident that took place last week.
[2] Here’s the source report in The Guardian. And a quote:
Earlier in the day, the main state and communist party media – Xinhua and People’s Daily – condemned Google for providing links to pornographic websites through its search engine. Last week, the government ordered the US company to halt foreign website searches as a punishment.
See also my notes on China’s Golden Shield.