(Heiko for example ran into something similar with my blog, running into a spam filter. Trying to fix that now. )

Lufthansa is being one of the sponsors for DLD and given how many interesting, well travelled people will be arriving, they thought of asking the question

So our question to you is:
In view of modern rail travel concepts, what innovative ideas and visions must the aviation industry implement in order still to be attractive in 15 years’ time?

Please discuss this with us. The findings of this Internet forum will be posted on the DLD site 20-22 January 2008. Lufthansa will reward the best suggestions, and the winner will receive two Business Class tickets for our worldwide route network.

We look forward to a lively discussion and many creative suggestions from you.

While I was highly disappointed not to see any participation of Lufthansa and only from a few people (namely Brad Templeton, Jeff Jarvis and Steve Lavi), I took some hours (on my birthday mind you) to give my input plus reflect on what the others had said before and participate.

The tickets are a nice touch (though I do not fly LH) but my main interest was to have a conversation. The comment was over 3K words and I thought about publishing it here as well, but then decided not to, as it belongs more to the context of that site.

With only a few more days away, I though I have a look about what others might have added to my comment, but to my utter surprise, my comment is nowhere to be seen. I don’t know if it just went into spam, or was not published due to the content or whatever. Dissappointing.

So that is a discussion not really happening. Thankfully we do have blogs and comments of our own, so have a look at: Brad Templeton’s ideas on transportation and Jeff’s “The social flight” and “Taking flight — and fixing it” – including a real conversation.

As I say below – you may not like it, but we are already talking about you.

[If you can't be bothered about the asked question itself, you should though hit "next" on your feedreader right now. ]

Note: The answer relies heavily on previously posted entries of Lufthansa Technology Forum.

Simple question, simple answer. “Make the customer happy and they will happily throw money at you”

In many ways I am hesitating to give the answers, as you should really get yourself a good consultant crew and pay for it. Even just in the area what you call Web / Social media which is my area of expertise, even answer would need way more thought and process than just some answers in a forum to form a strategy out of.

Why I think this way? Simple. Because except posing this question, nobody has cared to chime in with thoughts and questions. Nor in the places where the discussion has continued, like for example on Jeff’s blog. For just asking a question and hoping that the audience will be happy on their own is a very outdated way of communication, people already deal with this lack of interaction from your side, see my remarks about flyertalk etc below. And yes, you can have such a conversation even as a company.

I have to be the naive dreamer that I am to think that any of what we are writing will have a noticeable impact. Because in order to put these thoughts into a strategy, one would need to understand why they are mentioned. You not answering is partly proof of that. Just like somebody who never flies a plane has a hard time discussing the development in aeronautics (that would be me, and I hope I at least got that analogy right).

Put together with such a typical cloud in the sky question from upper management it deserves the simple shiny ‘everything will be perfect’ answer.

Which is disappointing to think of, because the management should be on the top of their game about devising a strategy around this for the future on their own. Be ahead of whatever we are thinking.

There is no easy answer. Deal with it.
As said, this question could be answered by a cool new mission statement, but as the world is not that simple; you will need to deal with more complex answers. Which of course are all influenced by our own viewpoints and desires, mine is not different.

It is to your credit that you ask the question here, and I hope that you understand the message that you do get from all of the answers: Yes, you are behind. Do your homework. Get help.

Because nobody expects you to come up with that on your own, ‘we’ know none of you can. Well, in a perfect world you would at least start your homework on your own, but then again, you are not the only one.

How much will I pay extra?
I am well aware of the balance of cost, profit for you and what I pay and get out of the equation. Then again, I want airlines – and I actually do not care if this is Lufthansa or not – to recognize that my world is revolving around me and only me. I am sick and tired of having to bow down to ‘their’ optimizations and logistics, when they more or less easily could be made in a way that would work for both sides.

The answers above me, especially from Brad, are nice ideas for the future but seem to share a massive increase in technology and expenses for personal mainly to areas where the airline has nothing no power in. So those are good ideas, but addressed to the wrong part of the process. Plus very expensive, while at the same time no indication is made if doubling or trippeling the price is acceptable for these additional benefits or not.

I for example could care less about booze on the plane – something some people insist very strongly on – because I do not enjoy drinking. Having a coffee latte on board though, now we are talking! Internet on the plane is great, but I get nausea every time I fly so even listening to radio is hard for me. So why should I pay with my ticket for these benefits? I don’t need them! Rather than having an overall price increased, I prefer that other people who want it get charged much more. And I think this is workable.

And as much as I choose my flights based on the size of the seat, others do on different amenities. Why not have certain flights with guaranteed free Internet? Maybe just on the main routes. There will be small to zero need for a “Mallorcabomber” to have Internet and probably 100% need on a JFK-NYC flight.

Everybody has different needs and interests
The thing we probably agree on: Everybody is different, competition is rising and more and more customers are aware that they, as an individual, count. If I have a bad experience with an airline, it counts. Because I have a voice. (and as customers rather complain than praise … the old saying of every dissatisfied customer tells at least 10 people can be multiplied by dozens if not thousands in time of blogs etc.)

For me as a customer there is a difference between things I want and things I think should be done for everyone. I accept in certain areas that this is something only I might want.

Airlines per se need to make sure that they understand the customer, because for me as the pax I blame everything on you. If I travel my usual BA/AA to NA, and go through the hell of LHR because it is the fastest way for me, I blame BA/AA. If I would fly LH, it would be LH. When in all cases it should be BAA. But the airline is what I relate to.

Therefore I expect the airline (even more so if I am a ff), to take my complains and concerns seriously and act with their power. Example: The new 787 I think it said to have a direct connection between the control of the plane and the passenger LAN. A *nightmare*! I as a single person have no power, the ordering airlines have.

I want to make use of my network for my benefit
The usual win win argument. Make me happy and you will be happy. Jeff’s idea of networking is nice and has it’s benefit, though I would like to add that we should not put that ‘flea of an idea’ as we call it in Germany of your own social network to an airline. Airlines should discover that this is not their main business and push the current ideas around open social and data portability to allow me on the platform I am already on to connect even further.

[I assume most of you are not on Xing, which for example for Germany and Europe is *the* one and only sns.] Jeff’s idea of socializing is one of the “you but not me” examples – I don’t care much about automated discovery and ‘socializing’ like this, but I do care about having these kind of information working with my existing network.

Every time I am involved in a conference there is a lot of talking around how to get there, how to get to the airport, which hotels to use etc. If one airline works at making me happy, it will only work for customers of one airline, maybe the alliance. But other than that it fails. Because the airline is only interested in them and not in me, I use something else.

And learn that actually I get more information out of my network than with the company. There is no connection with that airline. The theory of weaker ties applies here as well.

The customers are already talking
Customers already talk. You can see it in the blogs mentioned here, and other forums are there as well. People do not only exchange information but also provide information that should be provided by the airline. Not fancy stuff but simple stuff like “would you like to download this to your computer, it is all the information you need to have with you when you travel through this airport”. Not 50 clicks on my web page, access which I often do not have, but handy simple information.

I am not even sure that the German side of LH is aware that the US LH has nominated a person to be liaison in the most important forum around frequent flyer, flyertalk, aptly named LHrelate if I recall correctly. This forum being one of the major ones in this was even subject to a white paper for I think Anderson consulting. It is easier to go through there and read the stickies to get information than from the airline itself.

Noticeable ESPECIALLY for the places where they screw up. Favorite answer? “Call again. You got an agent who has not finished their training yet”. Though I am flyertalk addict, I am fare from the level of most people there in knowledge. Still, the last three times when I booked my flights to the US with specific notes on when to fly and checking back if that would be this plane or not and which seat I would like to have, all three agents said “thank you, I learned a lot today” and wrote down several web addresses.

“This should be a basic question of any company or industry in the Internet era: ‘What do my customers know and how do I help them share that?’”

Brainstorming like Jeff mentions is already done. You can see it here; you can see it on any professional forum. The reason why so few people are answering here is simple – it is not the audience. Put that over to flyertalk (though with a better offering than here and with more guidance / facilitating the process or you will be dead right away) and you will have more feedback than you can handle.

Why do I need the internet instead of you providing me the info?
Why do I have to rely on third party sites like Seat Guru to get basic information about something very valuable to me, meaning sizes and pitches? Why do I need to use tools like the backend for ITA, farecompare, KVS and alike to find the information I should find on YOUR page?

Why do people use another airlines website even get an account there to have a better insight of the award situation on your airline? Why do I have to ask flyertalk colleagues about connections in and around the airport instead of finding the information on your site, the company I am paying money?

Most of the information could be gathered from an external company and be done for all the airports for all of the alliance partner etc to lower the costs. Start thinking of me first. I am the one with the money.

The frequent flier
Jeff also shows the benefit of frequent flyers and as he said, status is earned due to the benefits. Though I find it insulting to my intelligence and my money what is offered as ‘benefit’ for miles, like glass pears in exchange for gold. There could be many more offerings available if somebody would really dig into what would be worth for the customer to find.

I chose my airline due to my travel pattern and which kind of aircrafts I can fly. The decision was BA with AA as second partner, offering me a much higher value in flying. So I seldom fly Star Alliance but sometimes I do. As my middle tier status does not yield anything here, I would be interested in exchanging my miles for a voucher to visit the lounge. Not spend high amounts of miles to second best goods. Simple as that. You can even put a limit on that to ensure nobody misuses this like only when you do not have status you can buy that with miles etc. But that would be worth something and is much easier to implement than complicated “order this newspaper and get 10K miles” offerings. (again: perception. I do not see this as an offering of a newspaper but of the airline).

Frequent flyers are your evangelists (you might want to look that up in what they do in this Web 2.0 sphere). They convert people to fly your airline – not because those others care, but because they know the system. The normal person though is stranded. Hence they turn to a place of knowledge. Several friends now use the ITA backend first, though they do not understand it very well. But they did understand that this is delivering a decent way with expert options to get the information they want.

There is iirc a podcast from you. And oh how much do you prove what Jeff said about you not even on the first steps of this. But what is there for your evangelists? Nothing. (Again, I assume you don’t even know about the baby step of Michelle being liaison of flyertalk. Flyertalk has around 160K registered members with 9 million postings).

The money instead of being spent on a fancy fake podcast towards nearly no recognition besides schadenfreude (the customers you reached through that have no clout of their own) could have gone into basic steps towards working with existing communities at much higher revenue.

Your evangelists also manage their friends’ travel. When I go to a conference, I will look up my options. And as soon as I do, I will make sure to let my contacts know what I found or where. A hotel in Berlin was wondering why it was full – simple there was a barcamp and a conference in town around the corner and we provided everyone with this address because it had wifi. People ask in twitter for help about connection issues and get helped by more experienced flyers. They will take what they get recommend, no matter the airline. They will however learn to pick up the ffp that works best with their travel also according to their friends. (In case of flying star alliance in Europe, the choice for that seldom is LH btw.)

Acknowledge that there is an international connected market
The minute promotions are send out or sales appear they are announced around the world, in LH example it does not even needs to be in English, people will be notified. If problems arise at an airport, you can be sure that in the hub airports you will have notification around the world in minutes. For the connected ones. But we connected ones talk. A lot. After a while people will start asking if there is something to take notice off.

Again, as over and over there is the theme: Customers do not talk to one company because they always always get information that only is in the scope of interested to that company. And not customer oriented. I do care about me, you care about you. I am the one with the money; you are one of many with the transportation.

Do not reinvent the wheel.
LH is an airline. Period. I want an airline to actively work with partners and stay away from things they have no clue about. Example Bahn. If I arrive at Muc, why would I have to fetch for Euros, run to a ticket counter to get the S-Bahn? Why can’t I book that with the system?

I am aware that this does not work in all markets and it contradicts a bit my question from before why the home market is stronger, but public transportation like this is essential for my travel. Not for all people, but for some – and especially Bahn.de has been top notch in all those areas for over a decade.

Also no own social network, but work together with people who have a clue. And let them do there their job. Provide them with the help needed for them to make the life of customers easier.

An example for working aggressively with partners would be to define a way to allow even more services like tripit to take the data and process them. (Tripit allows me to send the confirmation mail of airlines and hotels etc to it and it will build up MY itinerary of every company in one place. Great idea. Just too US centric, I would love something in Europe, but as a start it is great.

Simple things I would want too
I prefer Air Berlin to LH for two things: The planes look cleaner and they go to great length to ensure that middle seats are filled last. The last one really is the kicker. And really hard to implement … I choose BA/AA for their better offering of seats. Though AA is stupid too – I have to choose aa.com to get decent information about the best flights from Europe.

I want airlines to realize that while they are best on their home market, they should not dismiss the rest of the European market. This is true for LH in other countries as much as it is for BA for me. Dozens of offerings for the home crowd, nothing for the ones in the countries next to them. Same with LH: Offerings to the home market, few or nothing for outside.

I see those offerings and so do customers. And they see that while they also pay the same prices, a lot of energy does not go towards them. I want what they are having. Take from my experience from BA: I do not need a German page or special German offerings. I would be satisfied if there would be a general European side, because for me there no difference between flying from LHR/FRA/CDG etc, as I start in Hamburg.

Us talking into the void
These are some of my thoughts, put together and taking up quite some time. Presenting of course in some areas my own view point, my own interests and things probably only I care about.

Nonetheless, me and my colleagues here have invested our precious time. We are still waiting for the promised conversation.

Hint: Next week, you will have in the crowd top-notch people from all kind of areas, and I strongly encourage you to get into conversations with as many of us as you can.

Btw: Different than last year I would like to meet at least one person of LH at DLD, which provides me with the feeling that they really are interested in getting better and make things happen – and not just be there for some publicity reasons.

That would be a welcomed change.

The eruption came mostly from this I would say: 8 aisan:

Maybe people aren’t as sensitive to political correctness as they are here in North America. But seriously, one of their web badges has the slogan “ping pong, king kong, Mister Wong.” Which I, of course, interpret as “ching chong, Mister Wong” and get INCREDIBLY FUCKING ANGRY. It’s like Jeeves, the ask.com butler and Uncle Ben had a stereotypical illegitimate Asian son.

I don’t think I ever want to be “as sensitive as” people from the States to certain issues, the well known issues around decency for example, or just creationism.

But this takes it to a new level of what we experience with this newly connected world: I do not know what your life is about. What you care about. What is important for you. I do not walk in your shoes. Simple as that. In case of somebody living in the States and obviously having experienced a lot of stereotypes, this rings a bell with him and makes him angry. No denial on that.

But I am missing the point in this and the following discussions from there that he manages to see that there is a huge world outside, with different perceptions and memories. Which also have a reason to be there and a right. This is not a discussion about who is right or who is wrong, because life is not so simple.

Kai Tietjen, the founder of Mister Wong replied today:

As CEO and founder of Mister Wong, I feel it is my obligation to make a personal statement regarding certain allegations made about Mister Wong relaying a poor image of Asians in general.

It was never my intention, nor that of my company, to hurt anyone with the use of the illustration. We are extremely sensitive to this issue and the feelings of others. We removed the original illustration off the top of the page some time ago, when the issue first arose, in hopes that no one would be offended by it any longer. Though this was met with great disappointment from many of our users, we felt it was the right thing to do.

We consider each individual comment and suggestion made to us with all sincerity. We would like our users to feel as though they are part of our team by knowing that their opinions count. We’re a social bookmarking site that welcomes 2.5 million international visitors each month, which makes the social part very important to us.

However, certain comments have been made that I feel were below the belt, unfounded, and inappropriate. Even these we take into account, because what is first and foremost important to us, is the satisfaction of our users and that no one feel wrongfully harmed,
especially in such a manner.

We welcome your opinions and are open to discussion.

The “offending” graphic for me is not that of a stereotype, but more of a play with the name. I tried to digg into what I would call a racial offensive icon and so far I would only come up with an image of a slave doing slave work and call the service Mister Nigger. That indeed would be noticeable offensive.

Or having a German person in a suit and a turkish person [Germany has a lot of turkish people] in a working suit; that would give a stereotype of superior or not. But other than that I am baffled. Yes, I am sure there are stereotypes which are in heads, but then again, how will a society evolve when you do not even want to discuss possibilities? Or explain?

Because that is part of the problem. The discussion very often goes like this
Person A: THIS IS OUTRAGOUS! OFFENDING!
Person B: hm no?
Person A: HOW DARE YOU?! EVERYBODY CAN SEE THIS?
Person B: (irritated, but seeing that person A has an issue.) sorry not to me, please explain?

at which point the discussion moves toward A telling person be not to be so stupid, because it is so clearly visible etc.

But it is not. Culture, cultural taboos, evolution of a society are not shared on a global level.

Meaning they need to be explained for me, the outsider, to even understand what your point is. Which is your duty because let’s face it: Even if I try to understand you, I do not have access to your memory.

The comment I left on Kai’s entry for context:

As most Germans, I am amazed at the comments towards Mister Wong in this regard. Once learning about them, I do understand where they come from, but there are two things which stick out for me:

This is ‘suddenly’ a world which is connected 24/7 on a global scale. There is no possible way I know about every little taboo or every little implication somewhere on the world. It is not possible to know everything anyone somewhere might feel about it, that is a work in progress which needs to be taken step by step.

At the same time I feel that this is not only in your case YOUR obligation to do something. I expect from others a bit of understanding as well. Not on the issue, but why this was done.

There is not one single way how the world ticks, there is no one single way how “the people” think, there are several different ones. And I would like to see a bit of understanding from the other side as well – instead I see a lot of hatred and a lot of “how dare they and THEY have to change everything”.

I have read some of those comments and have to say that I feel sorry for you. Some of the accusations and visible moves to rally a negative buzz around it are just horrendous to see – lead by example should apply here.

My view of this icon, which I think many do agree on over here, is that it portraits a clever person to help me on with the platform, funny and wise. You can have a different opinion on how it is received by you, but you can’t declare this is how everybody felt.

Hint: The fact that I as a female am very outspoken is a an offence for some people as well. Shall I stop posting now, because it does not fit into what society thinks a women should do in certain areas of the world? I don’t think so.

In real life, if I don’t like you, I avoid you, because you and I do not get along. Yet in Cyberspace, we bump into each other over and over again. There is a reason why there are separate areas in real life, and maybe we should start building such places in Cyberspace as well.

Yes, this in part may become a problem if misused. But seriously: If both sides are not willing to change their perspective or enhance it, what reason is there to go through this tantrum over and over again? None at all, only brings misery.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Sure. But this is not your home aka Rome, but this is the internet. Everybody’s home, and at the moment, everybody expects everybody else to play to their rules. I suggest we ask someone who has studied how society has evolved into the smaller areas like towns and countries, what we can learn from them, because we are going to need it …

It reflects a lot of what I am interested in as well as do, although you might think differently of me when you read my posts or meet me. But basically I am a nice person. Really. *g*.

But from the start. While I am a strong individual, I am really interested in making things work for others and help out. And I do not see that there is any bias in that, it may just not be the way we are used to see somebody “do something for the greater good”. Which is where the comment on the post comes in.

Tara is speaking about how much giving out is much more enriching, and commenter Kerry Nitz refers to this:

This reminds me of the (no longer respectable) economist/sociologist Werner Sombart:The trader approaches life with the question, what can you give me? . . . The hero approaches life with the question what can I give you? Sombart goes on to point out that the trader’s approach implies that she is poor, whether the hero’s approach implies that she is rich.

To which my answer basically is:

The human is much too complex to be reduced to one way of being “rich”. What most of us are doing with investing time, passion and energy in projects we believe in is not what traditionals see as “society work” but it is.

I remember a talk with a teacher once who was puzzled by my test results on a career decision test because I ‘failed’ miserable for everything which had to do with “do good for society stuff”. Simple. I have no interest in contributing “to society” as it was defined by their definition, meaning going to a home for elderly people and nurse them, doing social work, go and ‘enriches’ society by giving up myself for the community. But only in a very very limited sphere.

I dread that and the results marked that. Still I am one of the first person to help people – in my areas of interest as well as expertise.

Could I be more “generous” and do it everywhere? Sure. But you do not want help from me in regarding anything like cooking because it would be a waste of both of our times. So why should I?

By that definition I am a trader. But – I rather give something useful than just give anything. “In which way are you useful to me” does not imply just me being the person taking. It means to me also being the person judging you as well and making a wise decision about wasting your time, energy and passion or not.

Shall I ask person a to give me / help me with something which they will struggle with or do I ask person b who can do what I need in their sleep?

Do I just mindlessly offer my help, or should I offer help especially in those areas where I excel and do them good?

I do believe I should pay attention to “what can you give me” and then make a wise decision from that on.

As I said, this is not just black or white.

I ask myself all the time “what can this do for me” but you would be mistaken to believe that it is about being greedy – for me that is more about structuring and sorting, ordering and making connections in my head.

Although I do not say it, this “what can you do for me which is also along the lines of what you love to do and how do I not waste our time / energy and everything” is implied. *I* need to know what you can do for me, what you can do in general before I am able to bring you together with other people or bring other people to you. This “what can you do for me” also means “how are you structured? Could we work on something crazy?”.

“Me” in this sense does refer to “making sense of you in regard of me”, to place you in my mind, to put you into a place – and then work from there.

But you may not know this when you just encounter me. It was said in my yearbook for my high school degree “Nicole likes to repeat what others have already said and likes to help other” with an addition of “others should take her as an example for that”.

Which is a very good description of myself. I have a miserable memory (hei! I am good at filtering information quick, that does not work with memorizing everything) and I like to help people. Especially developers of applications I like probably can “sing a song of it” like we call it in german. Most of the relationships started with “I tried your application / service, and here is a list of things I would like to see / you should care more attention about / this is a bug” etc.

Not that I expect them to implement this or just make me happy. I am satisfied when I can see they understood my point and why I said this. Only if I am really interested or want something, I will insist. But other than that, I am happy to help out.

And it is a well known fact that this kind of pay it forward (which as an idea is not new) does give you back something, though most often not directly where you gave it. And that is great.

It just does not mean that there is only one way to do it. I can make the world a better place. But on my terms, on my talents – and that is going to be so much more than it would be if I would obey to what current society as a general thinks is “improving society”.

It clashes additionally with Etech and Twitter, hyping it even faster. It tracks attention like a good fairy tale with a good princess and an ugly devil; as well as there are some simple followers throwing in support, there are also some more or less naive people, who go for the opposite. And some because it fetches attention – basically we have everything in the game we always have.

A ‘benefit’ of the new world?
You get called for what you do. Suddenly, personal integrety and actually standing by what you say and do, is required. It is not as easy to get away with things.

Btw: Somebody using a name and a logo / icon does not make a proof that this is a specific person.

What happened on that web site is something which does also happen when people meet. Difference? They got caught and there is a google cache of it.

I will not downplay in any way how for example Kathy or other people involved “have to feel”. The fact that I personally feel not threatened but annoyed by idiots does not mean everybody has this kind of reaction. Things which tick me off, will many times not be of *slightest* a disturbance to you.

This is not the first time something like this happened, it will sadly be not the last time. And it is always different when it happens to somebody you know or even care about.

So how to move on afterwards and MAKE something out of it?

Move on does not mean forget and go to the next scandal. Quite the opposite.

I found one quote of Don Park I really liked :

The line is not clear?
The line is formed by people standing shoulder to shoulder,
not by some airtight logic. The sign on the line reads:
We’ll be unreasonable if you cross this line.

This is how society has been build up for a very long time.
The one problem with this?
The rules have changed.

Today, when I hit send on this, this can be around the world and back in seconds. It is exposed to people I know will read this, up to people I do not know.

The net, especially with easy tools for blogging allows suddenly an openness / spread / connectivness we are not used to, nor is the society used to this. We broadcast thoughts and ideas, and suddenly we live in something like a borg-connected world where everybody hears everything. Though our communication pattern – even for most of us very advanced in using and understanding the system and technology – is build for close distance, small groups.

It connects all of us in a way which does not happen when we meet in real space – there are people you will go with in a group, and others you will just not get near. You play with people you like, and avoid people you do not like.

And the rules of forming new rules in society? Absolutly not ready for the new way.

“Rules of society”
“Rules of society” btw do not work that simply. Rules of society are the ones YOU are used to. I am not saying this to take myself out of responsibility, but making the point that “society” on this world wide scale has not developped its rules yet!

If somebody says words like cunt and bitch, test yourself if you just got the feeling of wanting to vomit because somebody who looks intelligent from her writing “uses such words”.

They are basically just words for me. I do have to *learn* the degree of rejection you put into that. There are German equivilents I would not use in normal daylife, nor really tolerate someone using them – but if you would speak German as a second language, they would be just words for you too.

Why do I go to these example? Why does Chris Pirillo say it is not just that, and tells about his bullying experiences? Why does danah boyd goes into hers?

Why those as they seem to have nothing to do with Kathy’s case? Because that is what we personally care about and that is only thing we are interested in fixing: stuff we do care about.

I come back to Don’s quote.
What is the line for you? Are you willing to take the consequences of standing for this line? And how to you make sure your surrounding knows, this is the line which should not be crossed?

How about for example the line “innocent until proven guilty”? “Benefit of the doubt”? For both sides?

As said before, the world is not black and white. And we only evolve when we learn from experiences.

I can go through all the posts and comments and form my own opinion of what happened, and to which degree I am satisfied with explanations given (or not). I can try to keep an open mind and pay attention and details.

But in the end, it will boil down to:
What are my lines?
Are they crossed?
And where is the limit.

Oh and did I mention that my main german blog is broken because the provider decided to switch something on which will make the blog software impossible to run? I have been unsatisfied with the provider since they changed owners two years ago and I am with them since 98 … so I have to change servers with an unwilling incompetend provider and I am not even at home nor do I have access to those needed documents, passwords and alike. Did I mention that I will need to recode some patches for the new environment and make adjustments on a core level?

if you ever met me you will know that I am not much of an esotheric person, far from that. But there is something about good and bad energy which just fits at the moment – event though good things happen to me at the moment, the negative ones hit so hard, that the good ones cannot make up for it, even if they are plenty …

Ode to the Nice Guys

(This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal and revised for this facebook group.)

This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining about what jerks guys are, while disproving the very point.

This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. [...]

It is something you read with a smile on your face, stating how true that is yada yada. It would have been just a nice link, but it kept bugging me for some reason.

And now I know why: Usually the nice guys stays the nice guy until somebody finds out about this unpolished diamond. Now meet the greatest polishing machine of the world: The net!

Not popping up on the radar
Yes, fellow women know: nice guys are a much better choice to spend our time with but they rarely pop up on our radar.

It does not help that those guys often are the quieter guys, more willing to listen, perhaps even a bit insecure to put himself in the spotlight. He who does not brag about what he did or what he likes and how cool he is. How sensitive, interesting, wonderful, intelligent etc he is. He who probably reflects too much on himself and is too self aware to push this.

We would have to discover that on our own. Which, basically, women do not often do because we are busy doing other things.

When the second move is the first move
I read a book once way back and it talked about how especially the nice guys use the wrong strategy when approaching women. They make their move and when they are rejected or feel like rejected they stop having interest at all. Whereas the women often is irritated and rebuffs a move out of initial shock, but then starts getting interested and looks into him more. Gets perhaps more interested and starts noticing things she had not before. But if she then makes a move back, she is rebuffed, because the man already is on “bah, she did not like me! Now I don’t like her anymore” mode.

I found this very often to be true. I would assume that the ‘non nice guys’ just ignore this and hit as many times as they want perhaps having learnt that they will get what they want in the end. You might see where the problem lies for the nice guys if he is not aware of this. So far nothing new. Well, kind of.

Popping up on the radar differently
Through the net I have met so many people I would never have met otherwise. And not the usual way “shell first, content later” but the opposite: “inside out first” and later the ‘shell’. In real life you do not run around and broadcast what occupies your mind. You do not run around and spend a lot of time with just anyone.

With the new media, you do. It is so easy to consume or interact with a wider base of people that someday someone pops up and you can click so much faster than through traditional methods.

The thing which hit me when reading the text was how many ‘nice men’ I got to know from the net. And they “score” so much more “points” in this “game” than out in the wild. Not just on the getting laid score, but much more important on the “I would like to get to know this person better because (s)he is really interesting / has something to say / is respectable / has knowledge” scale. They pop up on the radar in a new and different way. Shiny new nice guy, 2.0 if you dare to say.

The net increases chances for communication of all kinds
Which is one of the many reasons why I find the Net so wonderful in its possibilities to actually let us evolve as a society. It is my strong believe that the Net and the things we do with it is a major keystone to what society will evolve to, not only on a small and local level, but to what Science Fiction has long told us can be the future.

For now, I can connect with people or use the tools to connect them with my contacts and benefit from it on so many different ways. I am not restricted to my direct surrounding but can look out for people I like to interact with on a global scale (as long as internet connection is given and I do understand the language of course).

So, will using the possibilities of the new media help the nice guys to get more women? ;o) Probably more than other tricks. But jokes aside: most important it will connect people and take away the stigma of ‘just being nice’ and make others aware of the qualities a person has.

It is the nice guys and girls who add to the experience and bring in new and clever thoughts, not the ‘hot studs and babes’. It broadens *my* horizon to see how many different talents and interests are out there. *I* can experience how wonderful it is to get to know them, talk to them and more.

Thanks to all of you. Now go out and tell the rest of your nice friends to use new technology as well. ;)

[thx to Falk for the inspiration and the link.]

Technorati Tags: nice guys, communication, friendship, net

The multitude of independent podcasters will scratch and claw for the occasional hour when people want to hear about a niche of their interest, but podcasting will have about the same long term business impact as e-books.

Reading the article and the comments I have to agree and disagree at the same time.

First the usual complain: Given the fact that many people do not know what Podcast are it is always great to ask them if they have downloaded one.

Saying that the technology has been around for a decade misses the critical point that let podcasting explode when it started – the combination of techniques who had been around for a long time. (If you want to stay in this one should add that recording capability has been around for several decades …)

But lets put that aside and think for a moment that the author actually believe the current report which he is citing (which neglects so many aspects I will not even start with it, critical ones, not minor ones): A good article would have take a look into the development and compared it with other media.

E-Books, the ones he chose as comparison, have never been so wildly adopted into the multimedia mix of companies and where not as heavily produced by individuals and supported by over a billion players world wide (mp3 players and mobile phones). Looking at the development of Tivo and Co, the worldwide spread, the numbers around it is hard to come to a conclusion like that – except when one really does not like the new media and wants it down for different reasons.

The commenters suggest the study was more done for the dying radio industry – well, looking at the studies about new media in the last year I would say you can find faults in so many of them that I would not even go there.

So a sloppy article – why do I even write about it? Because when a blog named (!) marketing shift writes such a piece in this way, you have to ask yourself how many other things they do not get?

The Business Week Article which is referred to “What Podcasting Revolution?” is better build and ask more relevant questions although some of the premises are wrong as well.

When 75% of the traffic for podcasting goes through itunes (something I cannot confirm) why does it cut of the rest not to have an ipod? I do have an ipod and still do not use itunes for podcast downloading. ;)

In both articles I am strongly missing a few points. Podcasting in itself – for many people indeed a revolution in it self – is not ‘just that’ anymore. But that has not been the case since the release of itunes. If at all then Itunes did kill the podcasting star.

Podcasting belongs into the same row of inventions like the VCR and Tivo, because it changed how a lot of people consume media. I for example have increased from nearly zero radio consumption to “a lot” because of pocasting. I have changed from nearly no TV at all to a lot of stuff I get through the internet. Although Audio is much more, my media consumption has changed – and it is no likely to go back. Just like with Text and Blogs / News through the internet. There is few going back to old ways like newspapers.

Like me, many people have changed their behaviour forever and this will gain more traction over time.

People who still consume ‘normal’ media will start changing the moment it is compelling enough. How many people do Tivo and alike in the US? Is it so much different than VCR? Basically that has been around for decades as well! But suddenly when people get Tivo, they change. Away from traditional media. And has DVD changed the way we look at “video”?

Absolutly. It changed drastically. *This* is the context in which I expect those number to be interpreted.

Podcasting in itself as a revolution for its own had its time and I am more than happy that I was able to be part of it. It was a small burst, but now it IS mainstream. Not in the sense of everybody is using it but that it is mainstream that it is used the way it is.

But how can I say it is mainstream if only few people use it? Because that is a development which has to be seen as well. The era of mainstream mass media is nearing its end.

The future is my interests, content for me, highly selected and delivered just to me. When I want, where I want, what I want, how I want. With cross connections over the globe, cultures and languages.

THAT is not going away or going back to the old ways. That is the revolution. And that is the context in which everything has to be jugded … If you do not see how the world has been changing in the last years and deny how much more this will change over the coming years, you should start reading job applications for a different job.

Just look a year back, or 5. It is incredible what will be coming and Podcasting has been part of this. And will be in the future.

Technorati Tags: podcasting, statistics, the revolution will not be televised

vowe says: Fcuking the customer is not good for your business. File under “stupid ideas”. If your business model does not work any more, invent a better one.

In his comments, Andrew Pollack is reluctant to agree:

Oddly, I’m not sure I’m against it. When I watch NBC at no specific cost to me, I’m agreeing to an implicit contract that allows them to show me commercial advertisements. The ads pay for the shows, and for 50 years or so we’ve been happy with that. Time shifting via dvr’s doesn’t inherently break that — but fast forwarding or skipping commercials does. I have no right to NBC’s content for free. The ads are the price NBC asks. I can agree to that price or not.

Which let me post the following comment back:

@Andrew so you do also believe that nobody at current does switch the channel when ads start to run? Or go to the bathroom? Or do a quick check on email? Or just look away?

We do skip them today already. We fast forward them with switching to other channels. From that point of view, it should be make sure I did not go out of the room either.

There is a simple way to actually make it pay for the channel: Get interesting advertisement. Nearly nobody I have met so far is not interested in good advertisement, and downloading good commercials is a favorite sport.

It is how I watch advertisement, as I don’t watch television at all. I go and download those clips, enjoy them and from time to time, i even watch them again.

Building a TV which does prevent me from doing what I always wanted to do or did? Well. The buyers will speak on that. And if the channels try to start a signal which makes sure only “play with advertisement” TV can receive their program? Then we will find new media on the net.

For me it is another signal that the times have changed and even the idea of doing so shows how desperate traditional media seems to be getting. Becoming competition in the old time was complicated and very expensive. It is not anymore.

At the same time it leaves me wondering if we are already at the point where user generated media (however you may want to (not) call it) is ready to take over the space which has been occupied for so long by experienced media.

One problem with podcasting at the moment is – at least from my point of view – that we are getting mediocre again instead of rising more. The evolution seems to have stopped and there are more and more patterns of how it morphes into something very traditional.

Examples? Podshow starts annoying us big time with advertisements. Rocketboom sells advertisement. Video / Audio podcast form themselves to networks. Social Media tools bring everyday people near to court appointments because they did not know about the fact that their are likely to fall under press criteria.

Think I am kidding? Think about it again. What I do here, and you probably too is likely to fall under the laws of what press is allowed or not. With all benefits (which we still have to fight for) but also with all downfalls. I do see the discussion coming about whether or not normal people will be able to understand the impact of what it does to their lives if they start podcasting about their inner feelings or how they feel about their coworkers.

I do have the feeling that one of the next needed steps is to look back where press and traditional media comes from and learn from it for the future, our future. Otherwise we will not be able to make the step from pure traditional sending media with us as passive users to me, the personal publishing empire connected with the world.

We, in general, are not ready for this step now. We, the mainstream do need a bit more time to not be crushed by the possibilities and risks.

I have no solution, neither do I have an idea where to start. But I know I don’t want this fun, love and wonderful experience I am having over the last years to go away, but I want it to evolve into something bigger and greater. Not seeing that we are going that way at the moment, I think we are heading back a bit. We should change that. :)

Or any of the other areas listed on the left side over there of course! :) Not a her but a he? Well, then the usual applies: Get some links from people I read, write something good / funny and we may link to you as well. ;)

Longer version:
I just updated my openbc page a bit when it struck me that I have posted on my German blog about it, said something in my last podcast about it, but did never actually tell you, the reader of this blog, about it. :)

As most people have a problem in understanding how somebody can have a day job and be a consultant, I did separate those two parts of my life in the past quite a lot. Which was no problem – my day job as being technical reporting backbone in controlling in a larger corporate environment does not at all mingle with my interest in helping people understand the digital world we are living in.

To help you understand this better: I do own a tshirt saying “caution – A-list blogger”. I got it from Toby when I guest moderated on the AMA marketing mailing list about the topic Podcasting last may and I like it a lot. I just could not wear it in “the real world” as I would be laughed at once. But I can wear it in the company, because most of them only know that blog is something funny Nicole does.

In the past it was also possible to have the job and the freelancing, but both sides got very time consuming and demanding in the last year – and a decision had to be made. So, why not keep the safe day job?

A look at the corporate life
Let me take a look at my corporate life: I do manage my (not so little) reporting empire with Excel, awk+grep and an OLAP database. I don’t have the talent for numbers which you need to have as a controller, but more for data and structures. Always painful having to check reports every time instead of just knowing or having a feel for it.

Also, we are heading more and more into the processes of SAP and our own world wide template. As I do have a good abstract thinking, I could do SAP – but this somehow feels like perl to me. I could learn it, but I don’t really want to. The spare moments which are really enjoyable are when I can help people, like for example understand Excel. And I love to streamline powerpoint presentations and give feedback on concepts.

My colleagues are nice and the job is not unpleasant, but somehow, something was missing. Which is why I started back in 98 to do trainings and later coaching with a friend of mine, who runs a consultancy here in Lübeck.

The second life
I spent a lot of time with entrepreneurs and developed some skills in confusing them. Also known as “giving them different ideas about how to make money”. Mainly oriented in getting them informed why they needed to be online, I also did coaching and consulting on topics like marketing, usability and how to sell. It all blends together if you are a creative, idea giving person with a special interest in some of those areas.

Being online.
First web sites but also Usenet, mailing lists, now blogs and podcasts. Not only consuming, but engaging and producing. This resonated so much more with me. Especially everything happening around podcasting.

I am blogging since 2003, but podcasting took me to the point where I started to go international. For some reasons, I did not like so much reading english for a long time and around me in my daily life, I have no chance in speaking or writing english. I started Useful Sounds to speak english. Writing in english and engaging with the international community also meant getting in contact with more like minded people than just through my german blog.

Going internationally also meant starting to visit conferences. Reboot does have a very special place in my heart for several things; one reason being that it was a test. I wanted to see if I would feel welcomed into this kind of community. It felt like home. Home, where you not have to explain what the things are you deal with every day and be ahead of the curve, but are challenged by the people around you.

At the end of Reboot, Thomas smiled and said to me when talking about next year “I bet you will be doing something very different next year”. Deep in my heart I already knew back then, that he was right.

Meeting the people I have met in the last months, be it online or offline, made me aware that I am part of this movement and I want to be an active one in this. I want to be challenging to people, I want to bring the topics further, especially in Europe, and see where we can get this whole thing. And it feels as if there is a change at the moment and the time is right to be available.

It is therefor not by accident that I am trying to end my job for the end of April (so it hopefully is done til end of May) so I can go to Reboot 8 and say “it is different now”. From what it looks like now I may be still doing for some months work in my old company for a day or two a week – I am kind of not replaceable in some parts – but the goal is to be ‘free’ for new stuff and be able to be rebooted in Copenhagen.

Of course my boss was not very thrilled, but given my past and what he also sees more as my talents, he somehow expected this to happen – well at least in 2008 or so. ;)

But, what will I be doing and what is my business idea? Glad you asked. I don’t have the short version, but Alex Bellinger made a very nice ~130 words summary for me.

Nicole in roughly 130 words:

Nicole is a European blogger and podcast pioneer with a passion for digital rights, social media and the way technology is revolutionising how we live and interact with each other. She has an eagle eye for detail and a talent for (beta) testing your products, ideas, business plans, and other things related to social media and the impact you can have.

Never shy of ‘expressing difficult truths’ or offering up stingingly constructive criticism, she is certainly cruel to be kind (http://crueltobekind.org), but leaves you feeling glad you asked for her help. As the queen of the pre-conference podcast, Nicole is a familiar face at major tech and social media events in Europe.

When she’s not extending her own personal blogging empire, Nicole enjoys consulting, teaching and speaking on how the online world can benefit business.

So when you ask me what I am going to do after leaving the company, my answer at the moment is “I think, vacation?”.

But to be honest, I have a rough idea what I can do to earn my living, but I really will need some time for myself to focus on what exactly it is I want to do. Be it to blog more, differently, for money, do more podcast, more training, coaching, evangelizing, a professional feedback person or in the end just end up with another day job, I don’t know what will come. But I am sure that my talents will make it possible for me to earn money. Yes, I do have savings, I am not that naive. ;)

Of course this is frightening, but it feels like the right step to do. I was bound by my job in the past, but I will be free soon. There are different venues where it can go from here and I want to be able to travel those roads. They will be rocky, there will be downsides, but I think that in the end, I will be much happier with it.

So, just to let you know what will be coming. And one advantage of having more time to write? It also means more time to edit and have shorter posts. ;o)