buzznovation

"Learn how to blogpaddle"....Joe Trippi

Yesterday morning I got up at dawn and headed to Fisher Plaza here in Seattle to attend a panel discussion at KOMO which included my pals Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. They discussed their book “ Naked Conversations” in a conversation with Joe Trippi and Georg Kolb of Text 100. A good time was had by all!

It is always interesting to me when at an event put on by a PR firm the attendees are almost universally nice looking women in the PR business. A few guys show up, but not many. I routinely marvel at how I seemed to have missed dealing with the PR industry over the first 35 years of my business life, and now am not sure how relevant they are.

As I have written before, I seemed to get 1–4 calls every time ActiveWords gets some ink from PR professionals. It takes me about 5 seconds to check to see if they have every tried ActiveWords, and the answer is always “no”…and the conversation goes down hill from there.

But back to the panel. Robert and Shel were great, Trippi was a lot of fun, and Kolb held his own with a group that talked well and talked a lot! I had met and talked to Trippi at Pop!Tech. He made some interesting comments about the 2008 election, the most surprising of which was that he seriously anticipated a strong third party candidate. He wasn’t sure if it would come from the left, i.e. Al Gore or the right, i.e. John McCain. He also expected a very conservative candidate to come from the Republican party as a reaction to his expected nominee from the Democrats, Hillary Clinton.

Trippi made one nice comment to the crowd when asked the classic question about blogging, i.e. “Where do you start”…and he responded “Learn how to blogpaddle”….

The best picture I took is above…L-R, Shel, Kolb, Dreyfuss, Joe and Robert.

The moderator of the event was Joel Dreyfuss who did a nice job of keeping the event focused.

Breakfast with Mama....& Maurice...

When I am on the road with ActiveWords, I try to meet our customers for breakfast! Lots of reasons, including it’s the cheapest meal of the day, and I prefer to buy and thank those people who have bought ActiveWords, helped us, or are those we want to pitch/partner with.

I had a sensational breakfast and great meeting last Saturday morning with Maurice del Prado at

Mama's Royal Cafe (510) 547-7600 4012 Broadway Oakland, CA 94611

Maurice is with IBM and is using ActiveWords inside Lotus Notes. He showed me some ideas about using ActiveWords inside Notes, and has volunteered to help us build a WordBase that we can distribute to anyone on the planet using ActiveWords and Notes! I asked Maurice to put together some ideas and that we would work on them, and post them on our site.

Also, when I fumbled to buy breakfast, I found out that Mama’s doesn’t take plastic, just cash!

Thanks again Maurice for breakfast, and if you are in Oakland, head to Mama’s for great food! ( and don’t forget to bring cash!)

Thinking about your business card and a business card scanner....

I have been on the road for about a week. As usual my pockets are full of business cards. I have been testing a great device from NeatRecipts. It scans in both receipts and business cards. I like a lot of things about it, form factor, size, software, support, and so far would give it a solid ten on a ten point scale. After using it for about 3 weeks, I would unconditionally recommend it.

As good as it is, there are some business cards that just don’t scan well. ( And the problem is not unique to NeatReceipts!) These are a combination of fonts/colors and designs that it just doesn’t seem to pick up. I am not sure why, but it occurred to me a moment ago that there are three parts to this equation.

1. The person who hands you a card!

2. The person who gets the card!

3. The folks who make the scanner!

So, today’s rant kind of goes like this.

If you plan to give out business cards, take the time to try them on a scanner. If your scanner can’t pick up all the information on your card, then maybe the person to whom you give it, might have a scanner and have the same problem. So, what should you do? Why not design your own business card in such a fashion that the scanner has a chance to read it. Cute works for some things, but when all you are trying to do is provide a means by which someone can reach back to you, use your head in the process.

Assuming that the person that you give your card to is going to go to the trouble of typing in your data just isn’t smart. Make it easy for them, make your cards readable, and avoid cute fonts, and shaded/light colors.

If your card is hard to read or scan, don’t plan on hearing from the person you gave it to, or maybe you didn’t plan to in the first place.

Bloggy Mountain High.. DIA to Keystone...

Delightful flight from Seattle to Denver. The United flight was about 2/3rds full, great seat, very pleasant conversation with an Aspen resident who furthered my understanding of the changes in skiing, gear, skis and the tales of the mountains.

Denver International Airport is also quite spectacular. I have flown in and out of it a half a dozen times, but it is still impressive each time I pass through. Our ride up was also a delight, full moon, snow on the mountains, and more snow everywhere.

I have a lovely room here at The Keystone Lodge. I had forgotten this was a Rock Resort. I have stayed at a couple of their other places, all first class. I just looked at their site, and it appears that Rock Resorts no longer has their places in the Virgin Islands, which were truly memorable destinations.

Tomorrow morning we are meeting to plan future Blog Business Summits. Should be fun! Great group, lots of energy and ideas. I hope that it is a quick meeting so that we can hit the slopes. The forecast is for snow tonight and clearing tomorrow.

I think I will dream of pointing my skis downhill, and flying through the snow, and of sugar plums.

Blog Business Summit meets Bloggy Mountain High...

Last summer I had the great and good fortune to go a Boeing Connexion flight. The net result of the trip was that about a dozen bloggers had a great day trip, and a wonderful adventure flying around Mt. Ranier and then to Walla Walla for dinner. We tested the Boeing technology, and determined it was great!

Boeing got some excellent press, we had a great time, and so following on the heels of one mutually successful adventure, a group of us have been invited by Colorado Ski Country to head for the slopes, check out their stuff, share ideas about blogging, and how it might impact what they are doing, etc.

I hope to be able to blog about my normal topics, but most importantly how about how Colorado Ski Country  is using technology to improve the skiing experience for all of us.

My first stop earlier this week was at REI to pick up a new jacket and some powder pants. I haven’t been on the slopes for about 10 years, but I grew up on skates, and at one time could ski well enough to handle most of what a mountain could throw at me. I have been in the gym almost every day for the past month trying to get stronger and in better shape, and am really looking forward to the trip.

My pals DL Bryon and Steve Broback have already created the Bloggy Mountain High  blog to memorialize the best parts of our trip and experience, and I have already subscribed in Onfolio. I have my camera and iPod packed, long johns and great socks, gloves and hat in hand, and just about ready to head for the airport.

If you are reading this somewhere in CO, come and ski with us, and teach me how to ski on fat skis as I need all the help I can get!

One of my pals here point out that I have a great life, I told him to start a blog! Write about the things you are passionate about and see where it leads.

A day in the life of....

I was just writing a note to one of our customers regarding resetting a call we were going to have. What has been striking to me about the tech business here in Seattle is that everyone seems to get up shortly after dawn, work at home until 9:30–10 A.M. then head to the office or to meetings. Rarely do there seem to be lunch meetings. And most everyone seems to work until 7–8 P.M.

I just took a quick look at my morning, and in the first hour and 45 minutes, I had either read or sent a combined total of more than a 100 E-Mail messages and made three calls. I took a quick look at about 5 blogs, and read the Orlando Sentinel, the N.Y. Times and the Wall St. Journal

The term dog fooding is often used in the tech business, as in eating one’s own dog food, i.e. testing and using one’s own product. I have to say that without ActiveWords, this would be impossible.

I once thought I could imagine using a computer without our product, but no longer can even envision it.

 

Finding a VA....

One of the very interesting business I have encountered is that of a “Virtual Assistant”. This morning I have been talking with Diane Ensey. Diane is a VA, and runs a very successful business solving problems for people like me. Diane is also a big time user of ActiveWords, and lives not far from me.

Diane has a lot of clients who communicate with her either via the phone or E-Mail and have no real need to meet her in person knowing that she will get their stuff done.

Diane is also a blogger, her blog VA Journal is here, and worth of being included in your newsreader.

And, if you need a VA, I recommend Diane!

Demo 2006...Showtime...16th Demo conference...Wednesday Afternoon...

This afternoon has been all enterprise stuff. Lots of smart ideas and products that are way over my head.

Right now my pal John Patrick is moderating a panel on the future of Internet security. A very important topic. Key seems to be a secure operating system.

A lot of talk about “smart cards”, but key is viable economic basis.

It is painful, you won’t do it, bane of security.

EvokeTV…

I hate to think that this could possibly be a good idea. What it seems to be is a IRC channel integrated into a computer screen so that if you are tired of watching TV alone, you can go on line, and find equally lonely and stupid people to chat with.

It’s late, I’m tired, I am done for today.

But wait…house lights down, screens going crazy, all kinds of special effects! Killer…

Future announcement!

Neil Silverman on stage…Partnership between Demo and IDG World Expo. DemoWorld…DemoChina, 70 of the best companies that will launch. Companies from China that will look to launch in China.

I want to go to China, maybe this will be a great opportunity!

But for the grand finale…Demo2006 is over.

My choices for Demo gods include:

Riya

Plum

Smilebox

Ugobe/Pleo

MooBella

Stay tuned, I will see how my handicapping turned out!

 

 

Demo 2006...Showtime...16th Demo conference...Wednesday morning...

I have spent a fair amount of time this morning, reading and responding to E-Mail, and mulling over the sweet Duke victory over the heels… I am a huge Duke basketball fan, and whenever they beat the heels, life is very, very good.

I have only paid passing attention to the first 4–5 presentations.

The Iotum team is on stage right now. Guys are from Canada. I talked to them at length yesterday about an idea. Not sure if anything will come from it, but I enjoyed the conversation. Secret sauce…when it does its thing, it does it totally in the back ground, but their demo didn’t work.

Early today a demonstrator talked about his girl friend as a cross between Beyonce and Bea Arthur….great line, but the younger members of the audience didn’t get it.

Sharpcast…my pal Amy Wohl tells me these guys are great, but their first Demo bombed…have applications take care of back-ups. Nice show of syncing in on real time from desktop to phone and back.

LocoModo using mobile phones like remote controls.

Broadramp…

Yahoo Photos… world’s largest photo service, 2 billion photos stored. Need to connect them to ZoomAlbum. Pretty clever stuff, on line tagging, annotating. Smart album dynamic playlist. Smart albums allow you to end photo chaos. Your community your way…

Vizrea Snap…incorporates with Nokia phones…smart application. They have a excellent team. A number of former smart Microsoft guys. They have very cool stuff that does exactly what they represent it does. I have seen both the on-stage demo and the one at their kiosk. I am wrestling with the notion that I would share my pictures on line. I am guessing that there is a age demographic cut off point wherein people either will or won’t do it. Not sure what it is, but last night at dinner I spoke to 4 people in their fifties, and no one in that group was willing to post pictures on the web. But it is clearly a product that if you are interested in doing what Vizrea does, look at their product. One more note….about 75% of the phones in the room seem to be Treos. Yet I don’t think I have seen a single phone related product that runs on a Treo.

Smilebox…. reminds me of all the stuff that I saw at CHAShow. Presenter just talked about the fact that scrap booking is a Billion dollar business. I think his numbers are low…, another strategic partner for ZoomAlbum

Newsgator…Newsgator hosted solution..you can expose your audience to a world of RSS enabled content. I have been a big fan of Newsgator for a long time. Greg Reinacker, the founder and CTO, is a great guy, smart as can be, and a real pioneer in the area of RSS. I am sure knowing Greg that it will be a great product.

Off to lunch!

 

Demo 2006...Showtime...16th Demo conference...Tuesday afternoon...

Just back from lunch! Fun lunch with new friends and old friends. I spent a lot of time talking with some very smart people, many of whom are old friends.

The afternoon has kicked off, and I haven’t mentally engaged in blogging about the companies presenting.

Kaboodle you simply and easily search for products across the web.

You can use to buy almost anything.

Kaboodle before you buy.

Plum.com, free Internet service that lets you collect and share...

First you Google, then you

Plum

.

No download required€¦

Raw Sugar, vertical market search tool€¦

Most relevant topics in search€¦

Riya very, very clever product! Riya is a photo search engine that looks inside a photo for face or pictures on your computer for text. It has a very powerful recognizer technology built in.

You select photos, drag them on to a name, and you are done.

Very nice auto training feature.

Riya presupposes that you are willing to upload your pictures to their service. I have mixed ideas about my willingness to do that.

They just pointed to a picture of

Waterloo

,

Canada

, but in reality they had

Waterloo

,

Iowa

, i.e. my pals Guillo and Andy would be thrilled.

This may be the best product of the show so far, and there have been some pretty cool technologies shown. I need to talk to them about when they will have a desktop product as it would radically alter how you search for pictures on your computer.

TagWorld

Much better version that MySpace.

Krugel...my friend Steve Larson is on stage with his new company. I had gotten a sneak preview months ago. Krugel is a very cool vertical market search engine for programmers. Searches open source code and gets info, and allows you to put it in context. During the lunch break I was at the Krugel booth with a programmer friend of mine who was very impressed with Krugel. As I think about it, I really understand what a significant idea Krugel is for teams building software products. I have yet to figure out how ActiveWords benefits from Open Source, but certainly Krugel is the kind of tool that would radically simplify our lives.

Excellent presentation by Steve, I think the product is going to do very well!

Jitterbit

Open source integration company.

I seem to have missed the presentations by Jitterbit and IPSwap, but I am sure someone will blog about them.

Next up is FutureScan: Computational biology panel being moderated by John Patrick€¦

My head is hurting thinking about the definitional aspects of the conversation topic.

New era of personalized medicine.

Very complex topic, as being impacted by computing power.

LogLogica...Andy Lark...great guy! Very powerful and specialized tool, something enterprises need. Little companies like ours wouldn't even know how to install or turn it on.

Persystent Technologies. One simple expectation is that people will sit down at their computers and that they will work!

Seeking to create a higher level of reliability.

Avokia

Last demonstrator the day...

iGuitar just works! No external devices. Very cool. Think what the Beatles would have done with this kind of technology.

Ideally suited for iSpace generation...60 million guitar players that don’t know about www.iguitar.com .