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I am a little bit behind with my preparation of the preconference podcast for
LeWeb (and I was hoping against better judgement ;o) that Loic might help me out).
I will start researching and sending out the email invitations for the preconference podcast with the speakers for LeWeb but I know i dont have all of them, especially the 'new kids on the speaker block'.
But as this is the new way of communicating, it might be easier this way. In case you read this and you are speaking at leweb, could you please
ping me shortly through the mail form here or the given email address so we can make a appointment for the recording.
(I will give out another posting shortly with the missing ones so in case you know the mail address of one of them you can help out too. )
As possible listener i would of course be interested in your question / opinions for the upcoming conference so I can use those in my questoins for the people I am going to interview. :)
Technorati Tags: leweb, leweb3
30.11.06 - conference, podcasting - 0 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Sometimes you have to wonder if marketing and PR of a company are so out of touch with the rest of the world ... okay they usually are but then again, you always hope someday they would get more clever.
As I read on techcrunch, Dell wants to make a move in Second Life but as a closed off, invite only event:
This new trend of announcing news in Second Life is generally pissing off journalists, who don’t have a lot of time to waste. But Dell is apparently going ahead with plans to host an invite-only press event inside of Second Life on Tuesday morning at 10:15 AM PST to announce that they’ll have an ongoing presence within the virtual world.
The virtual event is under heavy embargo with a select few journalists (we weren’t invited), but one journalist, annoyed that he is being forced to create a Second Life account and log in to see what the announcement is, decided to just pass it on to us to break the news.
First of all - I am getting tired of companies just hopping into SL as a mee too!!! and expect me to be excited about it. This is just as lame as all those companies and media organisations popping out telling the world "we are the first!!"
(A tip: As most of the people dealing in this space seem to be male, remember sex? This is even lamer than "being first" at sex.)
Some disagree, like
Paul Short writes in the comments:
Lame? I think not.
Imagine 2 years from now when Second Life is one of the largest internet commerce enablers on the planet.
Imagine the SL client preloaded on Dell and Alienware computers in the near future.
They will already be packed with Windows Vista which leaves not enough space at these margins they have to include even more RAM and speed for a ressource sucking system as Second Life. But more to the point: What sense does having an invite only, SL only event make now,
today?
None at all - except reducing the possible coverage. In two years this may be a viable option, but today?
How many journalists - mind you those are the text base crowd - actually have computers at their hands which can even start Second Life?
How many global IT departments have already cleared SL as an allowed installation?
How are journalists supposed to get the information there out of the system easily?
In two years when the setups are much better - yes absolutly. But today? That is just screaming "how to reduce exposure".
Especially with text loving journalists. Is that what somebody really wants? A reduced exposure of their own event?
I use the word office as I do not see any real news at the moment out there - guess what, you reading this could have been informed about what Dell is planning to do but you will have to wait for some journalists to attend and report back on it. You know in the paper magazines you do not read anyway.
[What would be interesting and actually would make it newsworthy is if they would have a setup like a store where I can order a in game Dell and watch how it gets assembled or something like it. But then again it is a PR/marketing move so probably nothing new there ...]
Technorati Tags: second life, sl, dell, event organisation
14.11.06 - second life - 1 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Croncast is one of my favorite podcasts because of the chemistry between Kris and Betsy. Basically they are 'just' talking all the time about her goodwill, dumpster diving, yard sale buy and sell them on ebay stories but I really dig their stories and have to laugh every time.
It is also nice to hear how Betsy keeps Mr. B in check. ;)) And it is a good way to learn about suburban live in Chicago ;) Now Betsy has also started a blog about her experience selling stuff on Ebay - you know the brands and what they are worth.
Love it and I find it a great example of how to use a blog to really express yourself. ;)
Go read the Resale Queen! :)
11.11.06 - business blogging - 0 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
It is quite interesting to read articles from english (= US based) newspapers and magazines and how German magazines describe Second Life. The interesting difference is: Sex. Or the absence when talking about it.
Most american articles rarely mention that there is something in Second Life which has to do with Sex whereas the German articles most correctly state that there is also a lot of sex involved. Cheap sex to be precise.
If you look for most articles, SL is great because of the people, the land rentals and sales, some selling of goods and of course now the big companies coming into the game.
When in reality it is all about sex. gaming and clothes / enhancements for sex. The land rentals are only there to provide space and place for this and I would consider the sales for items non sex related to be rather small. *g*
Of course, that is not everthing, but seriously - I have never met so many cheap "escorts" as in there. Did I say cheap? When talking about prices for sex in Second life there are things you have to seperate.
There is the equipment necessary to 'perform' - I once wanted to buy a bed which was supposed to cost an outragous amount of money which I could not understand until I saw the poseballs ... Then, you have to dress up for your occassions but those prices are very cheap given the work involved for the artist. All of this has pricing which is in game levels - cheap but okay, these are items which are sold and resold.
If you want to go shopping a bit - use
SLExchange to explore a bit of the real world out there in Second Life in the uncensored part of the boutique. ;)
[If you wanna buy something there, refer me with Nixande Teazle. And no, afaik they do not show what you buy they just will give me a commision] ;)
But there is one ressource which is sold ridicoulusly cheap. Second Life Escorts! If you want to buy sex as in 'see' someting and get some action as text? You can call a telephone sex hotline and get poor, or you swing over to one of the SL escort services - where the 'expensive' ones will cost you about 7 dollars an hour - 10 if you include tipping.
Remember that 1000 L$ is roughly 3-4 dollars and take a
look around here. You get more working at McDonalds!
If you dig a bit deeper into the profiles of some of the Escorts you will notice that they also expand their services towards telephone - sorry skype sex. (You will also notice that the available few male escorts have even lower prices).
Nothing against a healthy industry but girls (and the boys in disguise) - at least take a fee which is worth your time! :o)
Technorati Tags: second life sex, second life escorts
08.11.06 - second life - 4 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Eric rants about an article in the Guardian where they claim Axel Springer will start the first tabloid in SL. Which of course is not true as Eric states.
It does make more sense in German -
as this is going to be the first German thing in SL afaik. (make that in English - which makes a lot more sense). And just for the record: If I hear anybody using "look at me! look at me! I am first! I am first!" again I think I am going to loose it.
The *real* news in this is not that it is the first tabloid but the background behind it. Bild is comparable I think to the british Sun and I do not know what the US equivilent is to it - a HUGE media house in Europe. Them getting into SL and using their basic knowledge of everyday work to build a professional tabloid - not in content probably but in production.
Don't get me wrong - the
Second Life Herald surely is nice but we are talking different leagues here and different interest groups.
Let me put the German hat on again for a minute, because that is the real thing: Second Life is getting hyped in Germany quite a lot. Dozens of articles, reportage in the news - much more than blogging and even more than podcasting.
As I was considering blogging more about Second Life, the first reaction of mine actually was to do that completely in German. :)
Technorati Tags: second life, bild, axel springer
08.11.06 - second life - 4 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
I love West Wing (the Aaron Sorkin episodes) for their dialogues. During a recent reviewing of the first two seasons one quote really hit home with me:
Decisions are made by those who show up:
It fits very good on the ongoing discussions about female speakers on conferences, or even female attendees on tech conferences.
I have made that point before and will do it again in here: I do not want females on a conference just for the sake of them being there. For me "but you have to have women" is not good enough for a reason to get a women up as a speaker. I also do not want the same men over and over again as it gets annoying, they seldom bring something new to the table.
That being said I usually state also that most topics at such conferences are not the stuff women are interested in. Now why do I feel like I could speak for all women in this topic? (the usual phrase from women is btw how do I dare to do so?). Easy: Because I am going and I am interested. And I have learned a long time ago that what I am interested in is not the stuff most women are interested in.
"They" usually look at me and call me weird (and from time to time ask if I would not like to do something worthy with my time). So the more I am interested in a conference, the more likely it is 'normal' women will not.
Why? I do not know. I assume it is the same like with driving cars. Men love to have them as gadgets and women just want to drive from a to b, not understanding why men can spend so much time with it.
And while I go through a certain amount of effort to get more women interested in those topics there is a limit in how much effort I will invest to get women to see that there is something happening which will change their lives big way and they should better be part of it
in the beginning.
Because later, when something is hip and big, the complaints will start about the old boys club and how they are an elite circle. Some of them may be, but many of them are not. Especially not when they start out openly and start meeting, start building relationships. With who would you rather work together and share information - with strangers you do not know at all or with people you know?
Decisions are made by those who show up.
If you do not show up on such events, if you do not take part in such events, then those relationships will be build up with other people than you. Which btw is one of the reasons I strongly support events like
blogher - as a start. But it is not the solution to all questions. It is good and worthy to have such women only events, but the real world is a mixed one.
If you want to play football, stop going to parties for cheerleader only. You will end up being just a cheerleader and not part of the team.
This year I have met a lot of really nice men who organized events and really where puzzled by how to attract more female speakers as well as attendees. Imagine the look a husband has when he gets the feeling he has done something wrong although he does not really why, how to fix it or how to avoid it - still he is willing to do whatever it takes. But he needs clues, please?
They where serious in their efforts and one of the most asked question was "where do you connect with one another so I can give notice of it?" Obviously, most women do not connect in a visible way which men can reach. Help them.
Decisions are made by those who show up - and participate as well as those who do not get interrupted.
Try this for your next social gathering: count the times a women is telling something / talking to somebody and a guy interrupts your conversation - and the women keep still and lets him take over. Count the times the same happens with between guys.
[Bonus question: Count the number of genders which will react irritated if the women insists on finishing their sentences / stories. Did you guess 2?]
At the moment, the game still has football players and cheerleaders. I think we know that the world is supposed to turn to a place where this kind of separation does not happen anymore - and this does not limit itself to men and women, colored or not, what ever.
But this need to be an effort from all sides and also some compromises.
Some suggestions:
- For a start, go to a tool like upcoming.org and get yourselves a user with your name and a photo of yourself. Find some people you know. Me for example. Look through the events you might be interested in and add yourself as watching. Look into what groups those events are added and subscribe to their feed to stay informed.
- When complaining about not having female speakers on a conference I often hear "but we send names" - how many of those names actually took the effort to send in something about themselves and what they would like to present once they hear about the event? If you are interested in the topic, ping the organizers and make them aware of yourself and what you can bring to the table. Hint: Being a women is a bonus, not sole qualification.
- If you hear about a new conference: blog early about it. Organizers of conferences start with the program and then do the marketing machinery - which in most cases means they are set with the programm. Use a tag like lookingforspeakers or callforspeakers.
- When going to an organizer, how many of the women complaining really had something more to say than "there are not enough female speakers"? Because if that is your tune, then go read this link from Loic in the comments about diversity. and refine your message.
- It is not about the female speakers - so I would assume - but about bringing topics on the program you are interested in because then you would have an incentive to go. Do you actually make suggestions which fit the profile of such an event? Do your interest really align with the goal of the specific event or is it just not for you?
- Where is your "Top 10 things I would like to see on a dream event" blog post, linked together by a tag like Things I would like to see at the next conference?
- If you saw somebody who really was a good speaker, empowering and all - blog about that as well so in case one of your readers does organize something they will get a clue about it.
You will notice that most of this does not apply to women only. :)
And while I am at it: As I am not so keen on speaking but love to help people and answer question - allow for more diversity of the style of your event as well. Mix presentations with discussions with workshops with expert tables and more.
So we all can participate with our personal strengths and make every day a happier more successful day for everyone. ;)
Technorati Tags: female speakers, conference organisation
08.11.06 - conference, cruel to be kind - 1 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
Valleywag calls it "
A middle-aged man doesn't like MySpace, and other breaking news from the Times" and links to a NYT article in which they talk about the perhaps not so easy as thought expansion of Myspace and co into the German market. The
NYT quote goes
A couple of months ago, Robert Basic, a 40-year-old technology consultant in Frankfurt, signed up for MySpace, the online social networking site, mostly out of curiosity.
In September, MySpace opened public test pages for Germany and France, the company’s first versions in languages other than English. That month, the site had 2.5 million unique users in Germany and about half that in France, respectable numbers for a new venture.
But Mr. Basic was only briefly among them. “I’m not a typical user,” he said. He became frustrated by unwanted messages and he did not care for the flashy pages.
Now you could think "why the hell did they take such an old man as an example?"
Easy.
Robert Basic is one of the most linked to bloggers in the German sphere, partly because he blogs so much and because he is something like the translation post machine for taking what is happening in the Valley and reblogs about it in German. This is 'new' for Germans in most cases and instead of linking to the original source, they link to Robert.
If you talk blogosphere, Robert Basic is one of the players. If you think Myspace - of which the article claims they do have over 2.5 unique users which I find hard to believe as a number of real users - well that is happening outside of my sphere as I only do myspace on a very basic level. If they would have 2,5 mio users then they would have nearly 10% of the whole German internet users - and that would show much more in daily life as it does. But let's stick with it for a moment.
In Germany there is no hype setting as within the Valley where you do have the 20 year old who go on and build stuff - they tend to be older because they have to work first to be able to get into this adventure of playing web 2.0.
At the lead fair this year about online marketing there was a big discussion about if the adventure online marketing is really really doable and should be done - or if it is still a risk. Yes, that is Germany too. At the same time (and the article pointed it out as well) the usage pattern is not what you would expect from your normal US usage - SMS is the favorite IM system and not your message service. :)
So when Valleywag is irritated by the 40 year old men they show what I see a lot inside the valley: The blindness toward the rest of the world. And as I like to say: We have money too. And we like to be treated like normal beings with money. Think about it for a minute if your company actually understands this.
[And if you want to meet a lot of European companies and businesses - take a trip to Paris to
LeWeb3. It may change the way you are thinking. ]
Tag(s): valleywag, web20 in germany, internet usage, europe
07.11.06 - european view - 0 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
After missing the first Barcamp in Germany in Berlin (I was at the Portable Media Expo that time), there are two more to come in a short time and plans about a Podcamp in Januar as well - on my birthday. ;))
Barcamp Cologne (
upcoming) will happen 24-26th of November, Barcamp Nuremberg on 16-17th of December (
upcoming), Podcamp Berlin is probably happening at Jan 13/14th (
upcoming). And as you can guess, chances are it will be held mostly in German. And there is another one I am dying to blog about but cannot until it has been officially announced. :) :) :)
You see, Germany finally has some more things happening in the space I am interested in so I do not need to travel so much all the time. If your organization or company deals in Germany and have people there, you should consider getting them to those camps. :))
I myself will be going to Podcamp and Barcamp Cologne - perhaps also going to Nuremberg. Somebody tell me where I do get some Werewolf cards? :)
Tag(s): barcamp, barcampde, barcampcologne, barcampnuernberg, podcamp, podcampde
01.11.06 - conference - 0 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
So go an learn to pronounce Epicaricacy. :o)
Answer.com:
Epicaricacy is a noun describing the act of taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.
via #secondlife
01.11.06 - fun - 3 comments / TB ( ) - permanent link
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