From the category archives:

Twitterville

Twitteropolis.

January 16, 2011 · 9 comments in social analytics,Social Media,tech business,Twitterville

I try not to be one of those crotchety old guys, muttering about how much better things used to be. I almost never shout for the kids to get off the lawn and I never wear suspenders. I try hard to keep current on diverse newsworthy issues.

But lately, I’ve been reflecting on a book I wrote way back in 2009, when there were a mere six million users on my favorite social network.

I named it Twitterville because I wanted to connote a certain homey, small-town feel– a place where you met up with people you already know and through them people who shared your interests in business, sports, politics or whatever.

I described Twitterville as a cozy, neighborly, safe place place.

Was that only two years ago?

Now the place feels more to me like Twitteropolis, a noisy, unwieldy place.I still have lots of friends in Twitteropolis. I share interests, information and ideas every day, but often, Twitter feels more like Times Square than it does a small town where neighbors might learn where to go and what to buy, by chatting over the backyard fence.

This is not all bad. When we have something to say, each of us has the ability to be heard far and wide. If we complain about a company, chances are someone there is monitoring what we have to say. As a writer, more of my research and new leads come from twitter than Google.

In fact, Twitter is more valuable to me today than it was when I wrote Twitterville. The success of the network today confirms predictions in my book of 2009. In the course of a week, I chat with people in more than a dozen countries about the ten or so topics that are dearest to me. Twitter is my global neighborhood and I meet so many people who are pretty much like me, except they dress and eat and talk very differently.

But something there is that doesn’t love the noise, the skyscrapers of Babel, the buzz meisters and conversational intruders, the deceivers, brand logo screamers, phishers, spammers and scammers that now crowd the streets of this little hamlet that has grown faster than any megalopolis on earth.

Sometimes, I see myself as a small town kid in cyberspace. I moved from a rural community to a big city to study and work. I found a great circle of friends, we go to places we enjoy together and our little circle of friends could only have been assembled in this big city.

But each of us has to watch out. While there is so much to see and do, there is so much worthless or damaging distraction. While my circle of friends is always open to new people with new information to add to our conversations, there seems to be an ever-growing number of those who intrude into these conversations for less altruistic reasons.

Twitterville has grown into Twitteropolis. Much has been gained and a little bit has been lost. The growth cannot and should not be stopped. The brilliant, unassuming founders have built something of astronomical value and the horde of cynical Twitter detractors have been made to shut up and sit down.

But I miss the folksiness and intimacy of Twitterville. I am told I am a public figure in this new place. As such I have to temper my tendency toward irreverence, I need to more polite and show less attitude.

So I find myself poking around new social networks. Most recently, that has been  Quora, which has been gaining steam in recent weeks. To me Quora is a very useful site. Specific questions get answered, usually in a reasonably objective manner. I find myself speaking almost exclusively with people I already know.

Quora has stringent rules, intended to prevent the network from being tainted by aggressive marketers. Those rules work well, but they eliminate banter, irreverence, humor and digression. Quora is useful but for me it is not very social.

But those same rules prevent Quora from adopting a social.

So I will keep looking for a new small town. Maybe I and some of my friends will eventually relocate from Twitteropolis to NuNetVille. Then more will come and still more until it too becomes s a megalopolis.

Or maybe my view has become jaded, and I’ve become one of those crotchety old men.

How eBooks change the author business

December 21, 2010 · 9 comments in Miscellaneous,Social Media,tech business,Twitterville

My last post intentionally implied that 2010 was a crossover year for social technologies. The ebook is not really a social technology, but it promises to make the business of authoring more social than it has previously been.

And like social media, ebooks, for better or worse are eliminating bevies of middle-market add-ons. By eliminating these middlemen, they are allowing authors and readers to get much closer with each other.

This direct interaction can change author-reader relationships. Ebooks may soon allow books to contain video, the ability for authors to answer questions and the creation of author/fan/critic communities.

Toss in what you can already do with blogs, Twitter and other social networks, in terms of research, testing and promoting your work and eBooks is already a first cousin to social media. Soon it will become a nuclear family member.

and there is no question in my mind, that 2010 was the crossover for eBooks in almost every publishing category.

The advantages to readers are huge, to the environment clear. The threats  to  traditional bookstore are obvious and the steadily weakening traditional publisher’s position, is becoming weaker still.

Traditionally, authors have been like developers. We provide intellectual property, then others refine, package, distribute, market, promote and merchandise. Like developers, we can make some money, but others often do far better from our works than we do.

Traditional publishers and authors have long had symbiotic love-hate relationships. Mark Twain got so frustrated with the leading publishers of his day that he started his own.

More recently, Seth Godin announced he will move into self-publishing, despite having had 12 successes in a row with traditional publishers.

Self-publishing bring authors a step closer to readers because the authors need to interact directly with potential customers on their own.

They also have to schlep books all over the place, not to mention yielding garages and spare bedrooms to storage.

I’m agnostic about the future of publishers.

I’m following Seth’s moves closely and am betting that a huge percentage of his new books will be sold in electronic form. I’m betting that this will allow readers to pay less while he simultaneously makes more.

Seth is ideally suited to pioneer the trail away from traditional and into e-publishing, because, well he’s Seth Godin, for godsakes. He’s a purple cow in business publishing and where he goes, many of us are likely to follow.

Like all disruptive technologies, we lose something as we move forward.

We don’t enjoy that parental rush of holding a new book in our hands when it rolls hot off the presses about 90-days after we finish writing and editing it. We won’t enjoy the tribute of autographing title pages, one of my personal favorites.

But we gain so much, beyond financial profits. I’ve been out on the edge with social media, getting close to readers as I could, using them for sources of information and feedback. I’ve used them to promote my books. At a promotion cost of near-zero [using social media], I got 400 people to attend a book launch party.

I still do that. Earlier today I tweeted a complaint that I had time to blog today, and couldn’t think of a subject to cover. Scott Hepburn, a friend who I only know through social media suggested this post. As I write it, I wonder if this may not become a chapter in a future ebook.

We also get to keep our books current.  Twitterville, my last book, was locked up by its publisher on June 11, 2008, one day before the Iran election. The book did not get released for another three months. So that election was the biggest Twitter story at the time of its release and was not in the book. Had Twitterville been just an ebook, I could have added a new chapter to it.

For that matter, keeping books current has a huge advantage in textbooks. Every time history is updated books can be updated. Whenever Hubble’s wandering eye focuses on a new phenomenon, it can be added to astronomy books and so on.

The ugly truth that so many are out of date before they are sold would no longer have to be true.

Perhaps there’s additional revenue . What if those of us who write on current issues offered readers quarterly updates for, say $1? This would be in the form of an eBook update. Hell, if we could have done that maybe Scoble and I would still be updating Naked Conversations.

I don’t think books will ever fully die. I recently stumbled upon a shop in Santa Rosa California that sells vinyl records. But I do believe we have hit a crossover time in eBooks and that in 2011, more new books will be sold in electronic format than in traditional paper.

Twitter Daily Newspapers. Useful or deceptive?

December 1, 2010 · 16 comments in Social Media,tech business,Twitterville

You have probably seen a customized “daily newspaper” on Twitter already.  Particularly, in the morning, you’ll find these “newspapers” from people who find you in your stream. They are called Whatever Daily News or some more specific name.

What’s going on?

The virtual publications are  aggregations of links that were shared on Twitter in a 24-hour period. They are organized into a very readable format that looks like an old-fashioned newspaper. You can peruse the front page or read from one of 4-5 topical news sections.

I know nothing about the group behind this novel project. You start one by going to paper.li. It is free and takes about three minutes to set up your own. Then Voila! you are a virtual newspaper publisher.

Except there is no original content. And it is sometimes confusing who first posted the information offered. Let me explain:

The New York Times runs a story about some leaks embarrassing the US government. My pal Joe, who tweets as @DeepThroat2 tweets a link to it. I see his post and RT, giving Joe credit and pointing to the Times article.

But in the Daily News. Joe is completely eliminated. In fact, it’s hard to tell the words you are reading come from the Times and not me. I may have posted a few words saying that I completely disagree with the Times article. But the Daily News strips out what I say, and just shows you the original article above my tweet handle and photo.

This does a few things for my benefit. It re-distributes my tweet address and shows the sorts of topics I cover. If I linked to the Times it may even make me look smarter than is the actual case.

it also changes the dynamic that makes Twitter special to me. I love the conversations, and there is nothing conversational about these newspapers. It is one-directional republishing of other people’s content, which brings me back to the point that I do not know who is behind paper.li.

I do not know how they are funded or how they expect to make money. The obvious way to do that is to insert ads into these papers as they rise in popularity.

If that is the case, I wonder who gets the ad revenue. I doubt that the publisher of the Whatever Daily News does. I am certain I don’t, nor does @DeepThroat2. I’m also pretty sure, the Times, who is the original content publisher doesn’t share any revenue either.

Perhaps I’m over reacting, but I find myself  just a little suspicious.

Oh, there’s another concern as well. Remember when FourSquare users first popped up in your stream taking about being the mayor of your local CostCo. It really was pretty innocuous. Then FourSquare started getting more popular. If you follow a lot of people-as I do, then you know that the frequency of these posts can get pretty innocuous. Previously I called it stream pollution.

These daily newspapers are gaining rapidly in popularity. I have this fear that I will find a second major pollutant in my stream, coming from some of my favorite Twitter friends, whose intentions may be good, but whose total output of one-directional content may block those conversations that I hold so dearly.

Looking Back & Forward with Scoble & Owyang

September 13, 2010 · 7 comments in Social Media,Twitterville

The producers called it WOW10. Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble and I called it “Naked Reunion.” Either way it was a memorable event.

In 2005, Robert and I collaborated to write a book called “Naked Conversations.” It enhanced Robert’s career in social media in a meteoric sort of way. It launched my social media career and changed my life for the better in a great many ways.

At the time, no one had even heard of Jeremiah Owyang, who was a voice in the wilderness of Hitachi USA, where he passionately extolled the virtues of online communities to a disinterested management. He has probably come further and risen higher toward prominence than either Robert or me.

Much more important than any of that is the role Naked Conversations became a seminal book. It was regarded as a catalyst for introducing serious professionals to the power of social media all over the world. The book is now a bit long of tooth, and the stories we told have been eclipsed by hundreds of thousands of newer and often more interesting cases of business transforming through social media.

Jeremiah, serving as moderator asked the audience of well over 100 how many had read the book. Less than 10 hands went up. I turned to Robert and asked him, why they were there.

The answer to that became obvious in the Q&A period, where the hands of a good 20% of the attendees shot up. They asked a wide assortment of thoughtful, sophisticated and well-informed questions ranging from issues of privacy to new products on the market.

Jeremiah asked how many in the audience was using Twitter and the hands of just about everyone in the room shot up. I’m sure the same would have happened had he asked about Facebook.

For me, that was a watershed moment.

Most of these people were not involved in social media when Naked Conversations came out in January 2006.It had zero impact on their jobs, a majority of which are in or connected to the wine industry.

Down in Silicon Valley, 100 miles away, it was starting to catch on in the tech sector. But the wine industry, in 2006, felt like it was a hundred years away from social.

Now, four years later, the tools and platforms are ubiquitous.

Back in 2006, social media was used mostly to talk about social media. Everyday people were still going about and doing their jobs with the tools they knew, hoping to keep their jobs and budgets during tough times.

Then this massive wave came out from the Valley and rolled over just about every institution–business, government, education, news media, entertainment even religion.

Social media has become ubiquitous. It is being used by people everywhere–not to discuss social media itself as we in the Valley so often do–but to use the tools to get their jobs done, better and more effectively.

In 2006, social media was a disruptive novelty. In 201o it has already become a ubiquitous commodity. It’s fitting into the same class as computers and cell phones. Social media is a family ow work and communication tools and no more.

We have left the Age of Disruption and entered into a new Age of Normalization. And this was what Scoble and I predicted would happen back in Naked Conversations.

We simply had no idea that it would all happen so fast.

Almost no one in wine country cared much about social media. It was still an oddity for technical users.

We could tell that they were engaged. That they were li

Do you Tweet or email 1st each morning?

August 2, 2010 · 11 comments in Social Media,Twitterville

Earlier this morning I asked a question on Twitter: “What do you look at first each morning, eMail, Twitter or Facebook?”

In two hours time, more than 30 people responded. There was never any closeness to the results. Twice as many people start each day with email than Twitter. Facebook, in my unscientific survey finished a distant third, but Hell, I asked the question on Twitter.

I have no overwhelming point to make. I was just curious. I am not surprised at the results. I look at email first myself. It is where business  and new business come in first most of the time. My Gmail is an easier venue for deleting the spam and assorted crap we all must endure.

H. Stumm of Darmstadt, Germany gave the most creative non-answer. He said he goes to “CM” first, the Coffee Maker. Since he was the 8th of over 30 to respond, I assume he consumes his coffee with great gusto.

What I do find remarkable is that Twitter has become the first or second “to go” destination for people I connect with every morning. The platform is less than four years old and yet it has become so very important to so very many people.

I wonder if it will continue to evolve as a top priority. Will it overtake eMail as the first place to look in the morning? Or will it’s sharpness get dulled as more marketers and message senders insert themselves into what has been people-to-people conversations.

What do you look at first each day? What is rising and what is falling? Why?

How I keep my Tweet Stream Fresh

June 19, 2010 · 10 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Twitterville

Every few days, someone I follow on Twitter complains that everything on Twitter is the “same old, same old…” as my friend CC Chapman put it this morning.

What CC and others tend to forget about Twitter is that each of us creates our own unique stream by the people we choose to follow. They become our newspaper, giving us news, views, commentary and diversion.

Over time our interests change. Our friends change. Our business strategies change. There are people you have followed for years in your stream who have posted nothing in recent times that seems to be of interest or value to you.

It’s not that Twitter is getting old and stodgy. The problem is your stream has gone stale. The solution is simple. Dump a whole lot of people you follow ad replace them with new voices, who have new thoughts taking you to new places.

In my view people pay too much attention to who and how many people follow them and far too little attention to who they follow.It’s not just the quality, quantity is also a factor.

I am a news junkie and follow many topics. I prefer a thick newspaper and so I follow people all over the world. I find that I can follow 1800 at one time. Keep in mind that all 1800 never post simultaneously, so the content I review is very manageable.

But when I add on more than 1800, it get cumbersome. Like a bad newspaper, I find myself reading too much that is not relevant or amusing to me.

So I start cutting. If someone posts a tweet that just doesn’t interest me, I visit their stream and see what they generally are talking about. If it is uninteresting, I simply stop following. It is not personal. It is more like an editor chopping copy from a report who just didn’t hit the right news story at the right time.

Now and then, I offend someone. I regret this. But who I follow is important and selfish. It is not an issue of relationships–although it can impact relationships. It is an issue of information and how I can keep Twitter fresh and relevant as time goes on.

Why I love the Twitter Block Button

February 11, 2010 · 7 comments in Social Media,Twitterville

Yesterday and today I had two brief unpleasant instances on Twitter. In between I had two interviews in which I was asked how I handle all the noise and crap that flows through the public Twitter stream.

First off, I never use the Twitter stream. It simply has no value for me. Second, I continue to find Twitter better at allowing us to filter stuff that is not useful to us with greater ease than almost any other social media program.

The rude comments came from individuals I do not follow. Bu going to their home pages I could see that they did not follow, nor were they followed by people I know or respect. I could see that they seemed to like making offensive remarks.

It took me less than 120 seconds with each of them to click on the block button and, “presto,” these two problems disappeared.

We all have different reasons to be on Twitter. But it seems to me that one intelligent and fairly universal reason is to have interesting and useful conversations. I pay much more attention to who I follow than who follows me. If someone posts several comments that just do not interest me, I unfollow. If someone wants to try to get my attention with offensive tactics, I reach for that trusty Block button.

I think a key to making Twitter useful is to protect your stream. Don’t let it get corrupted by trolls and assorted spammers. Avoid the bore. Avoid those who want to engage you in something that does not interest you.

Then when you dip into your personal stream, there is a higher likelihood that you will find more valuable content. If you do not, then use that Unfollow button with greater vigor.

NASA announces 2nd 1st space tweet

January 22, 2010 · 3 comments in Personal & off-the-wall,Travel,Twitterville

I thought I was having a senior moment this week, when NASA announced the "first tweet from outer space this week," by astronaut TJ Creamer, who declared:

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International
Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your
?s"

Lots of press picked this up and declared this an historic moment.

Just like they declared it an historic moment on May 13, 2009, when Astronaut Mike Massimo stepped out of his spacecraft to repair a telescope. When he returned, as many of us reported, he tweeted:

"My spacewalk was amazing. We had some tough problems, but through them all, the view of our precious planet was beautiful."

The event got enough notice that @astro_mike now has over 1.3 million followers.

I recalled this instantly when I started seeing reports this week on Creamer's first tweet because I reported on the incident in Twitterville. What is remarkable is that a great many newspapers who reported Massimo's first tweet last year, reported Creamer's first tweet this week with seemingly no recollection of their own reports of eight months ago.

What about NASA? Well the may have some wiggle room, although I have my doubts. Last year, the question was raised on just how the first first tweet was actually sent. After all, there is no broadband in outer space. It turned out, that Massimo had relayed his message to a coworker who had the astronaut's twitter user ID and password. So the post actually came Florida, which is sometimes strange but always terrestrial.

So was Creamers the first space tweet that did not involved just a little bit of a cheat?

Not sure, because there still isn't anyway that's been explained on how you post a tweet from outer space.

I would ask NASA, but I have tried to interview them three times and all three times they ignored my requests and there's just so much rejection an earthling can take.

My answers to 5 Twitter FAQs

December 14, 2009 · 5 comments in Twitterville

Those of us who spend significant percentages of our public time talking about Twitter and social media, often hear the same question voiced over and over again. It my seem redundant to us, but it makes overwhelmingly clear what the barriers are: what reason people have to not use Twitter.

On the short list of these questions is: "How can a message constrained to 140 characters possibly have value?"

It takes more than 140 characters to answer it.

First off, the question often reveals a traditional marketer's mindset: How do I get a message out? How do I get people to buy my goods and services in a measly 140 characters.

The answer is that you don't. Twitter does not work well as a one-directional message-sending tool. It is more like a telephone. One person speaks and another listens. The parties go back and forth. The person who started the conversation often finds greater value in what she or he is told, than in the brief words that initiated the conversation.

Second, Twitter is a business tool that is best used in conjunction with other social media tools. It's advantages are that it is very fast for spreading ideas, information or just interesting thoughts. It is broad and shallow, while other tools such as blogs, podcasts or even wikis go much deeper.

Let's compare Twitter to a hammer.  Both are diverse in the ways you can use them. You can use a hammer to build a house or perhaps bludgeon a spouse. In either case using a saw to help you with the job will usually prove useful and productive.

That gets me to the third frequently asked set of questions: "Exactly what do I use the thing for?"

The answer they hate to hear is precisely the one I have to give: Use it for whatever you want to do with it. Twitter is not an application. It is a communications tool or platform. You can use Twitter in as many ways as a telephone or email.

Then there is the dreaded ROI question, the one that makes Twitter and social media champions roll their eyes toward the sky with Pavlovian consistency. 

There are somethings that have clear value but are difficult to measure. For example, I have elected to wear pants at every face-to-face business meeting I've ever attended. I cannot think of any way to measure the value, but I know it's there. I know in most cases the pants have greater value than say my wearing a skirt or no pants at all.

But I cannot give you the comparative ROI on the investment.

Nor can I quantify the value of a good telephone conversation; a customer whose problem got painlessly fixed by a support technician; a CEO spending five days of company tie and money to speak at an industry gathering; or a holiday donation to a homeless shelter.

Yes, there is a value to each of these things and somehow it translates to the bottom line. Yes, all things in business need to be measured to be understood and to scale. But more and more, measurement has become more complex.

When you understand what it is you want to do with Twitter, then you can find what it is you need to measure. Their are many tools and people who will help you.

And that brings me to the final and most difficult to answer of my frequently asked questions: "Why should I use Twitter."

My blunt answer is: "Whatever you want." Just like that hammer and phone.

So you don’t think Twitter is for B2B?

December 13, 2009 · 5 comments in SM Global Report,Social Media,tech business,Twitterville

I have a chapter in Twitterville called "B2Bs are People Too.  If I were to rewrite the book, I would have to expand the chapter on B2B, [business-to-business] because it has grown so massively since June, when the book was finished.

IBM, for example, was the tweetingest company I found last June with over 1000 employee tweeters. Now that number has grown to about 7500 and that's just the IBM employees. The number would be far greater if you included the partners, consultants, customers, analysts, editors and other members of the IBM infrastructure. If you included them, you'd have tens of thousands of IBM community members communicating tens of thousand of times daily. IBM, the third largest technology company in fact is trusting a growing portion to its business to Twitter, where they are realizing significant, measurable and growing favorable results.

Another company, mentioned in my book is Sodexo, North America's largest food service company. Last year they adopted Twitter as an executive recruiting tool, integrating it with their other online tools. Traffic to their job site traffic has tripled and they have saved, I'm told about $350,000 in recruiting ad costs.

Even Pitney Bowes, the postage meter company, is using Twitter to modernize its generally stodgy image.

My favorite B2B story in the book is about tiny United Linen. Located in Bartlesville, Okla., this company was founded by a family during the Great Depression. They took in laundry from neighbors to make ends meet. Now United Linen is the largest restaurant linen and uniform laundry service in a four-state region. They use Twitter in all sorts of ways and it's activities have made happier customers, established the company as a community leader, has given them an emergency customer communications tool, which they used last winter in an ice storm. It has also generated significant coverage in BusinessWeek, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and other publications.

While companies who use Twitter to reach public markets get more attention, simply because they are trying for public recognition, B2Bs are extremely active and at this time, may be growing faster that consumer-focused companies. You may not know much about what IBM is doing, but IBM doesn't really care. They are using Twitter and other social media tools to talk with their communities online.

I learned about United Linen from Joe Zuccaro, who is better known as the Marketing Consigliere . Joe is passionate and highly knowledgeable about B2Bs and social media. Last year, he started awarding a "B2B Tweeter of the Year Award" and it went to United Linen. When I asked through Twitter for suggestion for my book, Joe suggested the Bartlesville laundry service.

This year, Joe just asked for suggestion for the new B2B Tweeter of the Year and received a note from someone he knew that was crammed with ridicule and scorn;; someone who thinks tweeting is about broadcasting a single message, rather than having ongoing conversations, someone who in my opinion is completely ignorant to the mounting facts and stats, of Twitter''s value in B2B. Facts that decision makers I've talked with at Wells Fargo, Microsoft, SAP, HP and others have noted and embraced.

Joe's a classy guy and doesn't want to name his ignorant colleague. I would have named him and still would. Anyone who goes on the record, using disinformation or a lack of knowledge to defame those who are better informed, should be spotlighted in my opinion.

Anyway, my best to Joe. My repeated thanks for a great story in my book and I look forward to spotlighting whoever Joe selects this year in a future blog post.

Our Dinner with the Epic Changers

December 12, 2009 · 1 comment in SM Global Report,Social Media,Twitterville

When I started exploring Global Neighbourhoods in Twitterville, I never thought I would discover and connect with a Tanzanian chicken farmer turned educator. But there was Mama Lucy Kampton, smiling and warm, having dinner at our home in San Carlos, CA some 10,000 miles  from her home on the rural edges of Arusha, Tanzania, not far from the legendary Mt. Kilimanjaro.

She had come to dinner with Stacey Monk and Sanjay Patel, the co-founders of Epic Change, best-known for producing Tweetsgiving, the annual grassroots fundraising campaign to benefit the children of Shepherds Jr, a school Mama Lucy founded for Tanzanian school children in a country whose government does not provide adequate schools.

Last year, Epic Change slapped together a last-minute, short notice campaign to raise money to replace the building Mama Lucy was using to school about 175 kids when the landlord decided to bulldoze the property. In a two-day period, using blogs and tweets to promote the effort, Epic Change raised about $11,000 from 372 people who gave about $30 each.

A new school was built and the kids, who now have their own Twitter account, engraved the Twitter handles of all 372 donors into a stucco wall at the new school. [You can talk to the kids on Twitter at @ShepherdsJr.]

My connection with all this is that I wrote about Epic Change and Mama Lucy in Twitterville and I often discuss Shepherds Jr and Tweetsgiving in my public talks.

This year, Tweetsgiving went global with a series of events all over the world, each scheduled close to the American Thanksgiving. This year, $30,000 was raised. The funds will be used to for classrooms, a library, cafeteria and a dorm. The former is needed because feeding these children is an essential part of what the school is about and the dorm is needed because several orphans attend Shepherds Jr.

The school is mostly dedicated to giving a good education. Last year it finished first in Tanzania out of 117 schools taking an achievement test, despite the fact that many of the other schools were long-established, privately funded and run by people with more academic credentials than Mama Lucy, who actually holds not formal educator’s credentials. This year, Shepherds Jr has expanded to about 350 students, enabled mostly by Shepherds Jr.

Uneducated herself, Mama Lucy is bursting with passion about education for her kids. Mama Stacey She has put three children through college. That is a journey that started when each was only six-years-old and Mama Lucy had to put them on a bus that traversed and navigated a poor excuse for a road into neighboring Kenya, where her kids would stay for six months to attend real schools.

None of us knew what to expect when our three guests arrived on a rainy night December night at our door, but we somehow found  ourselves hugging and laughing and all talking at once. It was like meeting old friends for the first time and it was all because of social media and the book and we all just felt like we knew and understood each other and shared many of the same values.

Mama Lucy seemed to like our home, but what she liked best was the fire we had going and how it warmed our living room. She was in the Bay Area on part of a whirlwind trip, made possible by Epic Change and Tweetsgiving funds. She and Stacey had spoken in Amsterdam, the Bay Area and DC. In between were visits with friends of Epic Change and that included Paula and me.

Mama Stacey Mama Lucy is essentially a shy and humble woman. She seemed more worried about her English than she needed to be. She told us a few stories with calm and dignity that showed not everyone treated her r these kids with much calm or dignity.

She told us about being treated in an insulting style by a Barclay’s Bank clerk in Tanzania, who she had successfully taken on. ” Some people come to Africa, but they don’t seem comfortable being physically close to Africans. I don’t understand why they come to where we live she told us.

It took a little prodding by Sanjay for her to tell us about an incident at a Tanzanian Game Preserve, where her son had arranged for four busloads of Shepherds Jr kids to visit. The buses of excited children arrived, but the pre-arranged entrance at the gate was denied and the kid were denied entrance.

It seems that some white visitors were enjoying lunch on the veranda and the Preserve administrator did not want to disturb his visiting guests. Apparently, people who had come to see wild animals would find the sight of African children disturbing to their digestive system.

The teachers asked if the kids, could just go in a few at a time, but the request was denied. They asked if it would be okay if the kids came in and promised to not speak. Request denied.

Stacey, at the time, was a volunteer assistant at the school and Mama Lucy asked her to go to talk to the official. Why Stacey? Because she had white skin as did the administrator. Stacey went, but the administrator hid from her. She could see him cowering in the shadows.

These were conversation that touched Paula and me. They were blended into a night where Mama Lucy revealed herself to be an overwhelmingly positive person, appreciating what so many people she has never met have done on behalf of her school project.

This trip was her first to Europe or the US. She visited with some misgiving based on experience such as she had at the bank and the preserve. But she has been touched by how well received she has been.

She does have one misgiving about the US. She thinks we could treat older people with greater respect. In her country, the title “mama” is a term of respect. Here, she sees children calling aunts and uncles by their first names and she considers that disrespectful. She also does not understand why children send off their parents to homes for the elderly. They should bring them into their homes where they can receive love as well as care. She has a point.

Meeting mama Lucy makes me want to do more to help her kids and Epic Change who is committed to finding and helping other Shepherds Jr-type situations.

There are many ways you can help Shepherds Jr. Here are a few that Stacey and I discussed:

  • Money is always appropriate. The best/easiest is through EpicChange.org [link above]. It can be a modest amount. $30 goes a lot further in Tanzania than it does in say, San Carlos, CA.
  • New Books. Mama Lucy is building a library. She would love culturally appropriate children’s books. You can find her Amazon wish list here.
  • Used books. Mama Lucy welcomes any child-appropriate books that your kids may be done with. Just ship to: Mama Lucy Kamptoni, Shepherds Junior School, PO Box 1888, Arusha, Tanzania.[no zip needed]. The bad news is that shipping is costly. he good news is that it is probably tax deductible, because Epic Change is a registered non-profit.
  • Volunteer there. This story began with Stacey Monk being a volunteer teaching assistant. If you have time and inclination, or maybe some teaching talent, Mama Lucy welcomes your help for whatever time you wish to dedicate.
  • Volunteer here. Epic Change is a grassroots international network. Contact Stacey at Epic Change or on Twitter [link above].

Meanwhile, on the list of things Paula and I are thankful for in 2009, is to having had the honor of Mama Lucy, Stacey and Sanjay having been guests in our home.

In loving memory of live blogging

December 10, 2009 · 5 comments in Social Media,Twitterville

In the early 2000s, I partnered with Gary Bolles in something called Conferenza Premium Reports. It was a subscription-based newsletter that we circulated via email. We covered the major tech conferences of the day, like "D," TED, PopTech, Demo, PCForum, Agenda, the Dick Shaffer Outlook Conferences and more.

We covered what speakers said, what the audience thought abut it and the added our own opinions. We also had observations about the mood of the conference and the quality of food as well as blink.

We wrote for what we thought the conference was worth, sometimes we went as long as 10,000 words. It took several days to write and edit. We thought that if we got it out in a week, we had done well and so did the few hundred people who subscribed to us.

We never made a living at it, but we did get free passes into the coolest tech gathering. We met many interesting people and picked up some consulting fees from time-to-time.

Then, in late 2003, these clusters of people started showing up. They were mostly respected members of the tech community and they were doing something new and different called blogging.

Gary and I almost immediately understood the threat. These guys were writing much shorter pieces then Conferenza produced. They weren't doing the legwork we were doing, but they were loosely-joined reporters, linking to each other's works.

Conferenza was longer and deeper than any of them was producing, but collectively they were contributing more information than we–as individuals–possibly could. They were posting nearly instantly, and we could not possibly post ours with the filtering, editing and polishing we thought our readers required.

Worse–much worse–they were offering these new blog posts for free.

As a great many media companies of much larger size would son learn, Free was a very tough competitive price point.

By 2004, we knew were cooked. We changed Conferenza into a blog and hoped for ad support which never really materialized. I went on leave from Conferenza, took the style Gary and I developed and started writing books in 2005. In March of 2009, Conferenza seemingly stopped posting without fanfare and to be honest I had not really even noticed.

By 2005, live blogging was flourishing. Every tech event had multiple free reports being generated to the world by audience attendees. Photos and video clips were flourishing. People started to post blogs on non tech gatherings, particularly educational and government. They were filling a void caused, nut just by the small death of Conferenza, but by the steady atrophy of trade and business journalists who had been attending these conferences.

The live bloggers were a new cadre of citizen journalists and I considered them important to a social media revolution. Each speaker on any dais in the developed world could be heard and seen by anyone who was interested. Several bloggers would post from multiple perceptions giving those interested a balanced point of view. People everywhere could comment and ask questions that could be heard in the room. Speakers who lied got caught and it was reported even as they stood on stage fabricating.

Then along came Twitter. Obviously, I considered this also important and revolutionary. I still do. But it has occurred to me that this, faster, easier, shorter way of reporting through "live tweets" has replaced the longer, deeper, more thoughtful social media form,at of live blogging. It has done so in a very short period of time and my sense is something is being lost.

Tweets by their nature are terse. An audience members usually says who is speakig & maybe the topic. A rave review is the that she or he "rocks." But the coverage of what is actually being said is reduced. So are the questions and comments coming from outside the room.

I have noticed this year, that there were fewer live blog posts at conferences I was attending that there used to be. But I wondered if that was partly because my path has veered to some degree from the tech sector where live blogging had been so strong so recently.

So, this morning I checked out Le Web. Being held in Paris, it has over 2000 attendees from 46 countries and is probably the largest gathering in history of social media people. A search on either Google or Bing produced less than 20 blog results.

Then I looked at Technorati, the fading mainstay for blog searches. I almost spiked this post after taking a first look, which produced  1759 results. While that still seemed low for a conference of 2000 people running over five days with a sterling of prominent speakers most of who are known to have a good deal to say.

But a closer look, cut the number way down from that. Many of the Technorati posts were duplicates. Others were traditional media posting about columns that appeared elsewhere, I guess these count, but they are not quite citizen-generated. Still more were old, talking about would would happen. Quite a few were by scheduled speakers announcing they would be on the dais.

On a quick look, my guess is there have been a few hundred posts of attendee reporting on what was being said from the dais. Those focused mostly on the most prominent speakers. Few discovered new people with new ideas. Very few spaned a lot of commentary.

I did not bother to compare this Le Web with the last or the one prior, but my guess is there is less coverage and far fewer diverse opinions coming through blogs.

Meanwhile the tweetstream has been a whitewater gush of little tidbits. There have been thousands of them and I guess I could get some substance from them if I went to #LeWeb. I could see what the producers had to say, if I joined over 14,000 people to follow @LeWeb on Twitter the official account.

The all may be useful and interesting. They are also extremely good at spreading the word about what is happening almost as it happens. But they are also shallow little spoonfuls of information, lacking depth and missing nuance.

As I wrote in Twitterville, Twitter works best when used with other social media tools including photo, video and in this case, blogs. I certainly remain a proponent of Tweeting conferences, but I believe something is being lost as the world so rapidly blows past the very short Era of live blogging.

What Tweetsgiving means to me

November 25, 2009 · 5 comments in Twitterville


[Mama Lucy Kampton and some Tweetsgiving recipients. Photo by Tim Llewellyn]

Almost any author will tell you the same thing. There are parts to their books that become part of them. There are moments we write about, which change the paths we take in life.

When I was writing Naked Conversations, it was the realization that blogs were part of something much bigger than another business marketing tool. There was something fundamental that would change a great deal between organization and constituencies. When I started on the book with Robert Scoble, I had no idea that much of my next five years would continue down a social media path.

When I wrote Twitterville, I had no idea that my Goodwill Fundraising chapter would rekindle a long-abandoned interest in organizations dedicated to helping others. I had become jaded in my belief that the money I had donated to curing cancer and saving whales was not being used for the purposes I had believed they would be used. There is something in many of us that simply doesn’t trust large institutions whose messages are engineered by marketing teams.

But then I came across people like Beth Kanter, whose dedication to Cambodian orphans has clearly made a difference; to Connie Reece who started the Frozen Pea Fund to fight Susan Reynolds cancer; to David Armano who raised money to help an abused house cleaner and her kids; to the folks at charity:water and Twestival.

Each of these stories rekindled my long-smothered belief that people can help people; can contribute to the well-being of strangers and that money raised can go almost entirely to the people in need.

Of all these stories, the saga of Stacey Monk, a freelance product manager, Mama Lucy Kampton, a Tanzanian chicken farmer [above] and the kids at Shepherds Jr who were going to lose their school in Tanzania and Tweetsgiving moved me most of all. Last year, 372 people donated about $30 each to build a new school in Tanzania. I’m not sure why. All these other causes and so many more, are equally valid.

But causes are a subjective thing and I have given what little money and time I could this year to the new Tweetsgiving event. I am taking my wife and her mom to one of the worldwide Tweetsgiving fund raisers being held tonight and I am hoping that people all over the world will give to Tweetsgiving and Stacey’s Epic Change which will find other Lucy Thorntons and help more kids.

I don’t know what you favorite cause is. And if you don’t live in the U.S. the synchronization with our Thanksgiving may make no sense to you. But it is a holiday about giving thanks, and that I’m sure you can understand.

It is a time to be thankful that you may be able to give rather than need to receive so that you and your kids can eat, or be educated or be made safe or healthy or drink clean water.

Sometime during this season, I hope you give to something and I hope you feel as good about it as I feel about Tweetsgiving.

Josh Bernoff’s Tweet-based interview–an experiment that Teetered

October 16, 2009 · 8 comments in Twitterville

Groundswell co-author Josh Bernoff interviewed me on Twitter this morning. You can see his transcript of it here. For 30 minutes, he asked me questions & I answered, Then we opened it up for anyone to ask questions.

It is the fourth such tweet-based experiment in which I participated and I think it will be my last for a while. There are certain aspects of it that I think have potential. In our talk prior to doing the interview, Josh likened it as a panel talk at a conference followed by a Q&A. For two college classrooms, it was a good way of demonstrating what can be accomplished in quick conversational tidbits.

But for folks viewing my interchange with Josh this morning, there were too many moving parts. The latency between Q&A was some times painful. People did not know who to address questions to. Sometimes I forgot to add our #tville hashtag and so on.

Maybe someone will find a way to refine how this sort of interchange could succeed. Maybe Twitter or a third-party will figure out a plug in or addition that will make it work.

Until then, there are lots of other venues. Even for classrooms, I think Skype is a better social media tool. It still leaves a great many useful applications for my favorite tool.

A Tweet-based interview with Josh Bernoff

October 12, 2009 · 2 comments in Twitterville

I am pleased and flattered that Forrester Principal Analyst Josh Bernoff, co-author [with Charlene Li] of Groundswell, the seminal corporate social media book has asked to interview me for his Groundswell blog. It is fitting that he suggested we do this on Twitter itself. We are set to go at 9 a.m. Pacific this Friday morning.

Josh has the details here. A good way to follow will be to use our hashtag: #tville.

So far, I've done one previous "twinterview" live on Twitter as well as two "tweach-ins" in which we used Twitter as the conversational venue. The first two went great, but a couple of weeks ago when I was talking to students in Mihaela Vorvorreanu's graduate student class at Purdue, a few people started to jump in with questions of their own.

While I had posted that this was a chance for people to observe the conversation, it was apparently not sufficient to cause confusion.

Using Twitter in this fashion is experimental. Both Josh and I–as well as students in two universities see some unique advantages and I hope this time it works better, so that the focus is our conversation–rather than our choice of venue.

From 9-9:30 Pacific, Josh will interview me. If you ask questions Josh will keep them on hold until 9:30 am at which he will then open it up. As he says on his post–it's like a panel talk at a conference that gets opened up to the floor.

I hope you join in. I hope that this  experiment proves both useful and interesting. Either way, I hope that when it is completed you will give us your feedback.     

Getting past cluelessness: some tips on getting started on Twitter

September 25, 2009 · 2 comments in Twitterville

I've done a lot of public speaking on Twitterville lately. One of the most valuable parts for me are the questions. It tells me what's on the minds of people attending Twitter-related events.

Invariably there are some people who have just started poking around on Twitter. They often convey that they are confused by all the enthusiasm they are hearing from the veteran users in the room.

Each time I am reminded of a quote in the book from Ev Williams, CEO & co-founder, who observed, "people are clueless at first, when they first get to Twitter." I know I was.

When I first got there, I posted what I thought was a brilliant tweet: "Well here I am. What happens next." I did not realize that's pretty close to most first posts. For me nothing much happen for about 30 days, until I discovered my friend Jeremiah Owyang was visiting Boston at the same time I was and we eneded up having a good meal and fun time together; not a wrld-changer, but it was an event that could not have possibly happened without Twitter.

The Twitter team has had all sorts of functionality to make it less disorienting and  easier to get started since Ev made his clueless comment in December 08; yet 30 days of cluelessness seems to be the norm.

I have a few thoughts on getting started that may be helpful:

1. Stick around. It's very much like moving into a new neighborhood. You may be lost at first. You may patronize all the wrong restaurants for your tastes, hire the worst handymen and take the longest routes to your destination, but after time you will become wiser through your experience.

2. Begin by listening. A mistake many newbies make–particularly business and professional people–is they come in talking, not listening to the conversations that were going on before you got there. It's like walking into a social networking room and starting by booming about who you are and what you sell. People will ignore you. If you persist they will turn their backs on you. Just listen to what is being said, until you think you have something that is useful or interesting to add to the conversation. Then join in softly, waiting fr others to ask you to say more.

3. Use Twitter Search to find relevance. I tend to avoid listing my favorites on almost all topics. But my favorite tool for getting starting on Twitter is Twitter Search.Think of all the topics relevant to you and chance are good you'll discover people talking about the subject. Pick the ones you like the most, then check out the people they are talking with. Also check the followers/following lists for more people talking about what interests you.

4. Focus on who you follow. Over time most people discover that who they follow is far more important than who follows them. They are your daily newspaper. By choosing your "reporters" you can maintain a high quality of interesting and useful information. You can adjust your reports on a very regular basis as your interests–and theirs–change.

5. Give it time. I think there is some comfort in knowing that most everyone was clueless at first. But that about 50 million of us stuck it out long enough to find great value in Twitterville.

Finally, have fun. Fun is vastly underrated in business. Those of us who realize how much fun you can have in Twitter soon discover great business value despite the fact that Twitter is quite enjoyable.

Is Social Media Strategy Overrated? No, but be flexible.

September 23, 2009 · 1 comment in Twitterville

Consultants and marketers have historically been fond of the strategic perspective and for good reason: if you don't know where you are going, then any road will take you there.

In fact I agree that businesses should  not embrace social media unless they have a good reason for it.

But there seems to be a catch. Once you start down the social media road, situations change and you may find that in pursuit of one goal a more valuable one emerges. You may also find that in the fast interaction of day-to-day business the real power of each social media tool you use may be in tactical implementation.

The strategy of a telephone may be to ensure customer communications. But one day your kid may call you to say she or he just got admitted into college. That is off-strategy, but my guess is that you won't tell your kid to get off the phone because this is an inappropriate use of the tool.

When I wrote Twitterville, more often than not, business people told me they started using the tool for one reason and a better one just popped up. Lionel Menchaca at Dell wanted to drive traffic to his blog. It worked, but he found greater value in the content relevant to his company he found there and the speed of conversations.

IBM started using Twitter ad hoc and discovered it was the best place to demonstrate the expertise of employees and a faster, better way for its ecosystem to communicate than its own Lotus Notes. Mayo Clinic started a Twitter account to stop the sort of brand ID theft it had experienced on MySpace and discovered it was a great venue for discussing health issues.

Social media's greatest benefit over other options is that it is both interactive and public. You may start a conversation and someone talks back. You may join a conversation and find something valuable to add to it. You may talk about lunch or weather and end up doing business.

When you start, you just don't know where it will take you.

When Laura Fitton started, she was a stay-at-home mom who hungered for interesting conversation with grown ups. I doubt she had any sense that it would help her become an author, speaker and entrepreneur.

Sometimes the path has many switchbacks.

United Linen, a restaurant uniform and laundry service started tweeting Bartlesville Oklahoma high school baseball scores to be a hometown booster. They eventually posted a series of YouTube videos on different ways to fold linen dinner napkins making them a thought leader in a vertical niche. Eventually they would use Twitter to update customers during an ice storm. The latter incident would indicate an emergency preparedness strategy, but my impression is that it was a much more tactical implementation. Something happened and Twitter was a tool at hand. The phones were down and Twitter was working, plus it was faster and easier.

 My point is to go into social media with a sense of who you want to reach and why. But be prepared for surprises and pack flexibility into your approach. Surprises happen and social media allows you to adapt and adjust with greater ease, less time and lower cost than other available options.

Tuesdays in Canada.

September 21, 2009 · 5 comments in Social Media,Twitterville

[Joe Thornley by Julien Smith]

Three years ago, I spoke at the first-ever Third Tuesday in Canada. The name of the event was selected because it just happened to have been the Third Tuesday of September. Third Tuesday had been the brainchild of Joe Thornley, a partner in Thornley Fallis a PR firm based in Ottawa and Toronto.

He and I shared a passion for social media. We had met at one of my earlier speaking engagements I was pleased because he had read Naked Conversations. He was pleased because I had read his blog.

So, when Joe got the idea to plant the seeds among professional communicators for a Canadian-based community of social media enthusiasts I thought he was the right guy with the right vision at the right time.

When he invited me to be Third Tuesday’s first speaker, I thought the combination of his PR skills and my recognition as co-author of Naked Conversations would make give Third Tuesday a good kick off.

In terms of head count, it did not start all that auspiciously. We did not need to rent out Maple Leaf Gardens. That much was certain.

Airupthere510

In the greater Toronto area there are about 5.5 million people. We managed to draw 42 people of them. We met in a comfortable tavern, where Mark Evans, then a newspaper reporter interviewed me.

What made that night memorable was not presentation, but conversation. I stayed quite late just chatting and listening and joking and drinking with some really nice people.

I had a few things in common with everyone I met. Sometimes it was travel, sometimes sports, but I had one thing in common with each of them. We shared a love and hope that social media was going to change the way businesses and people communicated.

Seeds were planted that night. Apparently, they  were genetically altered to endure harsh winters. My return to Third Tuesday after a three-year hiatus revealed to me a national, thriving social media community.

Last week, the second week of the month, I spoke at five consecutive Third Tuesday events in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Not only do seeds germinate in winter but the social media community up there has the apparent power to change the calendar.

I’m not sure of the attendance numbers, but each room was filled. Toronto alone had grown by more than fourfold in three years. What impressed me more than quantity was the quality of the attendees I faced. They were among the most engaged and interactive audiences I have found in my three years on the speaking circuit.

Canada is happening in terms of social media. The audiences I faced were as engaged and knowledgeable as any I have found. They are also great hosts. I was wined and dined beyond my ability to imbibe. I came home with a few great stories for my social media global report.

If you have something to say to people who care about social media, I encourage you to contact Joe Thornley. If you happen to be in any of these five unique and beautiful cities, I encourage you to join these meet ups. You’ll meet some really cool people.

I won’t talk about Twitterville tomorrow. It’s 9/11

September 10, 2009 · 3 comments in Twitterville

Tomorrow is 9/11, the anniversary of the ugliest day of my life.

I really have nothing new to add to the conversation; to the reflections and memories that you have or I have or have been recorded. I won't watch the videos of horror that I know will be shown again and again and again tomorrow. I don't need to. They are etched in my mind.

But I've been reflecting a bit about what I can do to show my respect for the day, and the only thing I came up with is quite small.

I won't talk about Twitterville tomorrow. I won't self-promote. I won't exude the power and wonderfulness of social media, or tell you where I'm talking. I'm going to use the time I usually spend promoting my new book to reflect about life and what is important.

I have no advice whatsoever for you on what you should do. I'll just say this. There are somethings in your life that are very big, and very enduring and will etch your time on the planet.

I'm willing to be it's not the launch of a product, service or even a book.

TBASH. It was about Twitterville…

August 25, 2009 · 3 comments in Twitterville

… and Twitterville is about Tbashers

[TBashers--a diverse, but highly connected crowd. Photo by Ken Yeung]

It was a big week end for me. Yeah, I observed a milestone birthday, but that was almost beside the point. The big tomato of my week end was TBASH, my Twitterville book launch party.

My first purpose for Tbash was of course to sell books. It is my view that my Twitter community will have greater influence on Twitterville‘s marketplace fate than anyone else. This is a book about them, more than for them, but what they say about my book  is more likely to determine its fate than any other factor, or so it seems to me.

I invited quite a few of the people who I profiled in Twitterville, as well those acknowledged in the book for giving me stories and ideas which I used. More than 50 of them received Twitter-blue buttons to wear when they arrived. I asked everyone else to go up to the badge-people and ask them their stories and to share their own.

So a good portion of the conversation became people telling their Twitter stories, which quickly led to new Twitter stories. For example, I met Perrine Crampton, who it turned out was the daughter of someone I worked for more than 40 years ago. But what I loved the most was seeing folk like Scott Townsend of United Linen in Bartlesville, Okla., who is in the book talking with Aneta Hall of Pitney Bowes and the two discovering through #tbash how much common ground they shared in Twitterville.

This was my night, perhaps, but more than that this was a night for people who knew each other only on Twitter to discover when they met they were already old friends. There were lots of hugs, handshakes and smiles wherever I looked.

A lot of that happened and it was extremely cool to see.

Tweeter came from Washington State, Oregon, Southern California, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, DC, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire and probably a few states I had not heard about. They were diverse by age (9 to 89), profession (enterprise, home office; technology to a regional laundry service) and in all sorts of other ways.

But they stood on a common ground called Twitterville.

Now they go home and read the 225 books they purchased.

Those who browsed at the party, who will be the earliest influencers of Twitterville conversations sometimes read small excerpts during the party. Their facial expressions sometimes seemed to reveal a certain ambivalence.

Should I be worried?

Overall, however there seemed to be a lot of photos depicting people who had a T-blast at T-bash.

Yesterday morning I invited the folk from out of town and a few of my closer Bay Area Twitterville friends to a brunch in my backyard where smaller number of people could have longer and more personal conversations until they caught airplanes or work they couldn’t avoid.

It always is nce when old friends get to meet each other in the real world.

Thank ou everyone. For me it was about the best party weekend I ever had.

Singapore Documentary filmmaker Tan Siok Siok needs help making a ‘Twittamentary’

August 22, 2009 · 1 comment in China,SM Global Report,Twitterville

Back before the Beijing Olympics, when the world’s media was filled with news of anti-China protests, a Singapore-born documentary producer, named Tan Siok Siok who lives part of her life in that huge and complex city, produced a documentary film called Boomtown Beijing [link just to trailer].

Boomtown told a different story then the one on stage center. It depicted everyday people of Beijing, people who had nothing to do with the issues fomenting protest.

Tan captured the excitement, spirit and aspirations of people who lived there and were just proud that for the first time ever, the whole world was coming for a visit. The controversies, were not part of the stories of these people.

I met Tan when I was in China, she is understated, passionate, perceptive and generous. And now she has turned her considerable talents to a new story, one that interests me even more than China. Her Her new film, Twittamentary looks at how
lives connect and intersect within the Twitter community.

And for those of you who spend time in Twitterville, well, this is your chance to be a movie star. Tan wants you to contribute video clips to Twittamentary. Get in front of a video camera and tell your best story about Twitter and you. Tell a story or talk about what Twitter means to you or why you think Twitter matters then upload it here.

To me, what really is interesting is that from the comfort of your own home, or while sitting in front of a webcam or smartphone, wherever you are in the world you can be part of a digital film being produced from China.

This, seems to me, expands the definition of Global Neighborhoods.

Giving Twittervilles to Beth Kanter so she can give to good causes.

August 20, 2009 · 1 comment in Twitterville

I spotlighted Beth Kanter in Twitterville for her remarkable work in goodwill fundraising. Portfolio, my publisher gave Beth three books, which she announced she will auction off, after I sign them, then give the money to the cause of the high bidder's choice.

Now, Microsoft's classy Betsy Aoki who was interviewed in Naked Conversations has stepped up promising that she will buy three more Twitterville copies at #tbash, my imminent book launch party, and donate them to Beth after I sign them, hopefully to double the amount of money raised for a worthy cause to be named.

I have to help this cause. I am going to sign and donate three more books from my small stash of copies for Beth to give away as well. Now there are nine up for auction.

Anyone else?

HP becomes an angel sponsor for #tbash. Registration reopens.

August 20, 2009 in Twitterville

HP has just made a last-minute sponsorship contribution to #tbash. I asked HP social media honcho Tony "Frosty" Welch on Monday and they came through in time. How's that for corporate response.

As a result, we can reopen registration one more time, at least a little bit. I've opened 20 more slots. We will now accommodate 325 people, which is probably just about as far as we can stretch our envelope.

If you still wish to attend, please register with your Twitter handle at twitvite.com.

Thanks HP. Also thanks to Dow Jones, Network Solutions  , Radian6, Intuit Inc. , MyWay Interactive and

Uptake.com for making this event possible.

See 325 of you on Sunday. We're gonna have a ball.

tbash expands guest list to 305

August 17, 2009 · 1 comment in Twitterville

#tbash, the Twitterville book launch party filled up yesterday and today 12 people requested they be added to the wait list. We did a few recalculations and have decided we can comfortably accommodate another 30 people. Everyone on the waiting list has been added to the guest list.

There are now 18 more spaces for to attend #tbash. To register, please sign up here. And I know I keep saying this, but a new sponsor would allow us to make this a bigger party. The Hiller Museum can hold lots of people.

We really want to accommodate everyone, but if you want to go, I advise you to sign up soon. The sign up pace seems to have picked up now that the event is less than a week away.

See you Sunday.

My Tbash Overfloweth

August 17, 2009 · 1 comment in Twitterville

Yesterday, the sign up site for #tbash, the Twitterville launch party hit 275, our maximum capacity–unless either a new sponsor steps forward. This is unlikely with one week to go before the event starts at 4 pm in Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos, CA.

However, Tatyana Kanzaveli, my event producer and I are looking at a few options and we expect we'll be able to squeeze a few more people in and hope to have an announcement later today.

We have already started a waiting list, but twtvite.com, the application we are using, doesn't not let us track sign ups by time and date. It lists names alphabetically by Twitter handle only.

So if you'd still like to go to the party, please email me: shelisrael1@gmail.com . In the subject line, please write "tbash" & your twitter handle. I'll ping you back and tell you your number on the list and your current chances for getting in.

I will add you to the wait list and I will tell you what your number on the list is. I'm sure we will be able to squeeze a few more folk into the museum.

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