• Sunday 25th Jan: Klaus Eck‘s Blogger meetup / tweetup (enter yourself in the comments)
• (only for registered attendees of DLD) Monday 26th: Jeff Pulver is planning a Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (tbc)
• Tuesday 27th: Girl Geek Dinner with guest Amazon evangelist Simone Brunozzi (web / twitter) Amazon Web Services Evangelist Europe
  

Did I miss anything? Please add! :)

Watch all the tweets about DLD or DLD09

The MID Moves project is an event designed to highlight how mobile Internet and Mobile Internet Devices bring you the power of the full Internet and the full Web in a way that enables you to go mobile while remaining productive, able to communicate, able to locate yourself and your contacts and even allowing you to have some fun on the way.

Each of the team will be taking two or more Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices on a fun and exciting 4-day tour and using this website, social networking and other internet media tools, bringing the whole event to you; update-by-update, picture-by-picture-by-picture and inevitably, problem-by-problem. A veritable Web2.0-fest!

 The team consists of Steve "Chippy" Paine, Jenn from Pocketables, Ewan Spence and myself. Each of us will be doing something quite different and we will be blogging / twittering / mobiling all of it.  Of course I am looking forward to unboxing the gagdets I am getting as well trying out how good my new (temporary) twitter machine will keep me connected while I am on the road again. :)

My two gadgets will be the Clarion MiND ? something for my car ? and the Compal/Aigo MID, what I call my new twittering machine. And it will be a hardcore test, as I will be heading for the Microblogging conference in Hamburg end of the week as well as twitter away at the DLD conference in Munich.

In case you have any suggestions for me what I should try out, I’d be happy to listen to them here plus Have a look at the midmoves blog and the twitter stream for #midmoves. :)

As such it is a great pleasure for me to do again a pre conference podcast with some of the speakers. I will finish the uploads by sunday so you should have enough time to listen to all of them.

Short link for Tweeting: http://tr.im/leweb08interviews
Subscribe to the feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/crueltobekind

Caution Itunes user! Make sure to set the podcasts to “get all episodes” or you only will get one episode per day!

Overview of the LeWeb08 Interviews

Tip: Each interview has the image seen on the right with a link back to this overview.

• Interview with Loic Le Meur
  About Leweb itself, this years topic and some news about the conference
• Interview with Brian Cox
  Brian teaches us how to love the universe and has the unique capability to make science fun and exciting.
• Interview with David Weinberger
  about “When the scarcity goes away, so does the primacy of information and the old idea of leadership.”
• Interview with Joi Ito
  about Japan, Creative Commons and entrepreneurs
• Interview with Fred Wilson
  another VC talk with a special focus on european entrepreneurs
• Interview with Itay Talgam
  a conductor from Israel compares music with love with technology
• Interview with Helen Fisher
  meet the women responsible for the theme of this years leweb – and why even romance and the feeling of attachement is not what you might think it is
• Interview with David Recordon
  open technologies are good, and big companies do implement them
• Interview with Robin Good
  about how you can love what you do and still be successful
• Interview with Klaas Kerstin
  gaming is a huge business and you can survive as a european company quite easily, as gameforge proves
• Interview with Ewan Spence
  about mobile and why the iphone and apple was not a game changer
• Interview with Linda Avey
  analyze your DNA with 23andme and find out about your anchestry – and why coffee might not work for you as much as you though
• Interview with several bloggers
  as part of the blogging programm several bloggers helped share their insight about leweb and even some comparison of love and plato ;)

I would very much appreciate it ;) if you help your fellow Leweb guests help discover these interviews before they start of for Paris. Each and every one of the interviews has a kind of “tweet this” with preset text about that specific interview in the bottom similar to this one:

Want to spread the love? Why not tweet (click on link to tweet)

listening to pre leweb08 interviews http://tr.im/leweb08interviews #leweb

My publisher is putting on the final touches and I am waiting for the last chapter to proofread – but Monday should be the start of the printing. It is called “Twitter – Mit 140 Zeichen zum Web 2.0” which roughly translate to “get up to speed with Web 2.0 in 140 characters”. Although the book is in German, over 40 million Germans online should be enough of a market. :) And who knows, maybe with the continuing success of microblogging the US partners of my publisher will rethink their decision and publish it in English as well. ;)

The book will be released mid Dec 2008 and makes a nice christmas present *hinhint* And yes, I tweaked the cover above slightly – they made me look really mean in the cropped image, so at least for here I give you a slightly better looking one.

Asking for your input

I already receive a lot of questions from users and the press, about best practice stories, tips and tricks and Howtos (due to which we are already looking into the 2nd edition). In case you yourself or somebody you know has a good use case / story around Twitter (or in a broader sense Microblogging), I’ll be looking for input from the following areas:

• for interview partners who want to share their experiences
• general business cases / best practice from different industries
• usage of these tools insides the firewall (SMB or enterprise)
• tools and services around Twitter and Co.
• links to articles and tutorials you wrote to link to them
• or just a quick note about what you wished somebody had explained to you when you started. It may sound trivial but you would be surprised what people have questions about.

If you have an idea or a suggestion, especially with a focus on business and enterprise / corporate microblogging, feel free to ping me under “suggestions /at/ mit140zeichen.de” or @nicolesimon. These cases can be in other languages, but unless it is German, I would need the communication to be in English. ;)

Out of experience from the last weeks I’d like to add a warning: Just because you think your contribution is the best thing since sliced bread, but you might want to look at it from a more objective perspective. And blatant advertising will never fly.

Some lessons

I talked to some other authors and we all agreed that writing a book is like being pregnant. You start to understand pregnant women who say “I just want it out. Pop. Now. Please?!” At the same time, you start getting a feeling of ‘the whole’, you see how the structure manifest itself in your head as logical and even beautiful (I assume that is the part like with women finding their own baby to be beautiful no matter what, thank you nature). But I am truly proud of the result: on roughly 230 pages we explain what makes Twitter so special, how to use Twitter, what pitfalls to avoid and give an overview of some good stuff in the twitterverse. It is something both for beginners as well as more experienced users, and we made an effort to contain the biz buzz talk and marketing speak in one single chapter. And yes, the most often asked question was “will it be in 140 pages” followed by “how can anybody write a book about 140 characters?!”

Are there areas where I am grumpy with the editor for cutting or where I wished we would have explained it better, put more effort into it, started earlier etc? Of course. But my co-author and I already talked about how we are proud of what we (with a lot of help from others) produced. And want it in our hands. Now. The rest goes on the already long list for “baby 2.0″.

One does learn a lot when writing a book, good and bad, about yourself and others. For example that it is really a good idea to have friends with certain talents, like proofreading and editing. A mentor and sparring partner for ideas. Or just somebody willing to spend time to have a look at it. Or somebody who can cheer you up. Also more practical stuff like make photos for the cover at the beginning of the project and not the end (when you look like a zombie). You will underestimate the time needed and overestimate your capabilities. The list goes on.

I am sure, every author can write a book about writing a book after his or her experience. But I also think that everybody has their own challenges – you need to go through it once to understand yours and then start your own list of “lessons learned, don’t do that again” aka “improvements for the next time”. As streamlining of processes is one of my strong areas I was probably better off and the fact that I know how to work smart with tools like Word, Latex and Batch files helped me tremendously.

And I know Twitter and the tools around it very well. As such, the structure of the book was easy, I ‘only’ had to cope with writing it. Originally I was approached to write the book alone, but it became clear to me after a while that it would be impossible, at least for the time frame intended. I was glad I could fall back on one of my best friends and make him my co-author. As we have been best friend for over a decade, he and I know each other pretty well in regard to our strengths and weaknesses (yes, we are still friends *g*).

Help from the outside

Let’s start with the people who did not help much: I have to admit I was very surprised at how little (make that close to none) responses we got from the company behind Twitter, even simple requests for basic information where not answered. They must be flooded with requests, but you would think that a company – which btw is still looking for a business model – would have an interest in books being published about their service and at least answer valid requests going to their press department. After all, the publisher is an established real life publisher and not some print on demand service.

Luckily there were people who did help. First and formost of course my co-author Nikolaus Bernhardt. He claims the only reason I got him involved was so that he finally joined Twitter but that of course is not true *cough*. It helped tremendously to have the content judged by a Twitter newbie and while the structure and most of the content per se was done by me, it is only one part of a bigger equation. I could not have done it without him and he is a true co-author.

As it became clear that in order to make it in time for a christmas launch we would need some more help, I asked fellow Social Media Enthusiast Bastian Scherbeck to help out with the business chapter which he wrote alone (with the exception of the parts about internal microblogging and the guidelines for event twittering). Big thanks to him as well.

Of course there are more people involved. From a very dear and close friend who helped tremendously with editing and proofreading, my editor and the publisher, twitterers contributing their stories down to everybody by just asking questions like “what do I need to do if I want to use hashtags, do I have to register them somewhere first”. All of that helped a lot.

What’s next?

Although the writing of the book is over, the work does not end. First of all we will need to put all the information on the blog as we said in the book, following up on the questions and requests as well as getting back on track with the normal life and projects which had to take a bit of a backseat (note to self: don’t do that again).

The two things which became (again) very clear to me when writing and collecting the stories and twitter sound bites was how much I like helping people understand how to use something like Twitter as well as how much I enjoy working with corporations and SMB. I have not decided yet on how I will persue these ideas in 2009, but I will be dedicating more time and focus on the topic of microblogging in general but also into how organizations and SMB/enterprise can use this internally and externally. Especially inside companies I see a lot of application and while you may call me crazy for dreaming of tweeting Abaps – if you ever have been working in a corporate environment and where depending on somebody else finishing their job after such an Abap, you know why this is a very good idea.

Being based in Germany I will of course have a strong focus (but am not limited) on Europe and I am already working on some workshop ideas for online and offline. But first I am going to recover a bit, and head for the next project, the preconference podcast for Leweb. Stay tuned! ;)

ps: once the text is ready, I will also link to the English announcement of the international Microblogging Conference in Hamburg, Jan 2009.

The West Wing folks I found so far:

• Mr. President
• Abbey Bartlet
• Sam Seaborn
• Donna Moss
• Josh Lyman
• Toby Ziegler
• Matt Santos
• Lord John Marbury
• Bruno Gianelli

I am missing CJ and Leo?

After the success of the Mad Men Characters we will see how many other TV show producers pay attention about grabbing their shows characters on the service. But also they should have a look on how they can engage the audience through it much more. The new Twitter accounts combine two hot topics – politics and TV characters. With them, I might actually bare politics again until that election is over.

For me personally, one of the most exiting parts of the expo is how it brings together so many different areas and groups of people. And although Berlin really is a melting pot and a hot city to be in (met several people who told me they are moving to Berlin because of it), not only Berlin but Europe has the problem of getting more in touch with VC and alike. Meaning not that it is hard to get in touch but it is harder to build a personal relationship and develop over time a rapport.

Not that Pitchcamp will change that alltogether, but if you ever wanted to know how those VCs tick and how media people of popular techblogs react, Pitchcamp might be something for you. Robert Goldberg (Crossroads Ventures) and Ted Shelton (The Conversation Group) are playing hosts for a very intruiging three hour workshop during the Web 2.0 Expo Europe.

The official description says

Have you ever wondered how to impress an inscrutable Venture Capitalist, convince a doubting journalist or perfect the guaranteed door opener for a partner? Then this workshop is for you. Learn the inside scoop on how VC’s, corporate partners and journalists think. Hear tips on how you can compellingly explain your business to each audience—whether it’s raising money, trying to close partnerships, or getting attention from the media.

Watch as fellow entrepreneurs develop concise, and unique value propositions that generate fever and excitement in their markets. And personally participate with industry experts to find the best ways to position and pitch YOUR company.

But that is only part of what this is going to be about, read what Ted writes on his blog about it:

Pitch Camp! Or how much fun can we have in Berlin?
Are you coming to Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin at the end of the month? If you are, please join Robert Goldberg and I for our October 21st workshop on how to improve the way you tell your company’s story to VCs, partners, and the media. Here is the link to the official session description where you will see the great lineup of folks at our panel:

• Mike Butcher – European Editor TechCrunch
• Toby Copel – Managing Director of Europe, Yahoo!
• Matt Marshall – Managing Editor and CEO, Venture Beat
• Mehrdad Piroozram – Managing Partner, iSteps Widget Ventures
• Reshma Sohoni – CEO, Seedcamp
• Adam Valkin – Head of Digital Media and New Business, Endemol
• Yossi Vardi – Investor and Entrepreneur

BUT HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART — PAY ATTENTION
Sorry for yelling :-) Robert and I are looking for 8-12 startups that want to participate in the camp as the example companies (anyone can come and participate as an attendee of Web 2.0 Expo). These participating companies get

1. one-on-one coaching by one of our panelists
2. special prizes for participating and even better prizes for being the best
3. oh, and you’ll probably improve the way you tell your story to VCs, partners, and the media!

Send an email to Robert — robert(at)crossroadsvc(dot)com — if you want to be one of the companies.

See you in Berlin!

There is also a Facebook event listing for it. Even if you are not one of the selected startups, I am sure this will prove to be valuable for all entrepreneurs to listen to this group, as it is very focussed on giving practical advise. (I think the english term is directly from the lions mouth? )

How to attend
If you like to join this, you will need a ticket for the workshop day (see the overview of tickets here). If you already purchased a conference only ticket and now would like to add the workshop day, you can ping them (see mail at the bottom of that pricing page).

I am not sure why, but it always seems as if the information about what ticket you need to attend the conference and or the workshop is confusing. Which i find irritating because for everybody in the business of having a tech startup they should be able to process information given in a table overview like that. ;o) So let me put that again differently:

• you only want to meet people on site, have fun and hang out! Means you want to attend the expo hall and the keynotes: choose Expo Hall Only
• you only want to attend the workshop day f.e. for Pitchcamp: choose Workshops Day Only
• you want to go to the conference and to the workshops: choose Conference Plus Workshops
• you do not want to go to the workshops but to the conference programme: choose Conference Only

As a special service for my readers, you can use the code webeu08gr26 for a 35% discount. ;)

[updated - added the link to the Girl Geek Dinner asking for a date you would prefer, added berlinwebweek and closed the link to the blogging programme entry. :) ]

As most of you hopefully know, the Web 2.0 Expo Europe is coming back to Berlin on October 21 til 23rd – but that is not all there is, because there is a whole lot events going so. So much in fact that I am not sure how I will survive them all.

• international Barcamp Berlin 3 (still places for international visitors)

• Facebook Dev Garage
• Ignite Berlin
• Techcrunch UK Meetup (is there a date yet)
• Girl Geek Dinner Berlin (needs a date, your preference?)
• yet unannounced parties

All events can be found on the page: http://berlinwebweek.de

Would like to be part of that crazy week and network and more?
Together with Techweb and O’Reilly Suw, Steph and myself have setup a cool blogging program which will hopefully bring in a great batch of content about and around the expo over the next month. Even more importantly to me: It will bring the European Community way closer and make them exchange thoughts, ideas and dates for barcamps and more! :)

Steph has written about it in french and Suw has the post about it in English, in a nutshell:

The way the blogging programme will work is that we’ll ask participants to do these few things between now and 6th October:

• publish at least 4 Web 2.0 Expo-related blog posts, podcast episodes or videocasts, e.g. announcement of the event, speaker information, speaker interviews, or any other event-related stuff
• encourage readers, friends, and/or community to register for the event
• display the Web 2.0 Expo logo on their blog, with a link to the registration page, until the day of the conference

We think that’s pretty easy, but to help you along, we’ll provide participating bloggers with:

• event badges
• a 35% discount code to share with readers, colleagues and friends
• access to information about the event suitable for re-blogging, such as announcements and speaker information/interviews (when possible)
• be added to the official blog roll

In return, bloggers will get a full conference pass that to either use themselves or give away to readers.

There is more of course and if you like to join I have set up a simple google form with some question, so if you are interested please add yourself. There are some fields asking you about blog post examples (in case you already did something similar you could show them to us) or to provide a bit more information about you in case it may not be that obvious why you are a good fit for this program. We’re kicking things off on Tuesday September 9th with latest admission a week later.

I am especially still missing some swiss and austrian bloggers. ;)

(removed link as programme is now closed for accepting)

No time for guesses? ;) It is the main representative office of the Telekom, a building with a long history. Between 300-500 people from all over Europe will come together and judging by last years success, it will be bigger even this year.

The complete information from the newsletter about when, where what can be found at the Barcamp Berlin blog. You will need to register for an account on the Barcamp Berlin 3 network and notification will go out with a newsletter.

Like last year, the event is put on this specific date as the Web 2.0 Expo Europe 2008 returning to Berlin again which puts a special emphasis on the international visitors. To accomodate these, there will be a special block reserved:

We are also holding back some space for international visitors. If you are an international visitor and if you are on the waiting list, than please contact us at international@barcampberlin3.org. We will try to put you on one of the international guests spaces then.

Meta:

• If you like to blog about it, please use the tag bcberlin3
• take one of the logos to spread the word
• follow the Twitter user and see what others are talking about
• add to the usual suspects: Upcoming and Facebook

“Twitter is currently down for maintenance.
We expect to be back in a couple hours. Thanks for your patience.”

currently nearly 1000 women are at blogher, many of them seem to be in love with twitter.

they are in media, marketing and more and now is one of the times when they would WANT to twitter. a lot. instead they will not.

my question? who schedules a downtime during such a conference?!

I will have a short visit to San Francisco from 14th til 22nd because I will be speaking at Blogher about “Blogging with a global perspective“. Not only am I am looking forward to event, but also about how many people I will have the chance to reconnect with.

See my planned events below – if you have anything more as suggestion, please feel free to ping me. Direct message on twitter hopefully will be delivered to my normal german mobile phone.

Additionally (please try that first) this number hopefully works again: +1 702 6356 027. Please note that my online access most likely is limited unless I find wifi. ;)

And now wish me luck that 3h at ORD really will be enough. ;)