Thanks to my creative friend and colleague, Sherry Heyl, for her favorite things poem-post about all the tools you need to smooth your ride in the Networked Economy, and have some fun. I love it! Remember how we memorized the names of the states with a poem in third grade? This may well be another such historical archive. Thanks, Sherry!

Thanks to my friend and blogger Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing for sharing a cool way to sift through the noise to what is important (Example: A blogger has invited you to post, how do you find out if it’s relevant, it’s importance, and the blog’s reputation?): you can use AideRSS (eh?).

Ilya Grigorik (I think!)- CTO of AideRss

Look for an increase in tech solutions that smooth our ride - and relationships - in the Networked Economy; and thank goodness! The more we can talk with something in common, the better we like each other.

9) Relationship Tech. As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.

You may have already read Adam Penenberg’s Fast Company May 2008 cover story on Ning ["Create Your Own Social Network for Anything."], the company’s eye-catching CEO Gina Bianchini, Marc Andreessen [Netscape founder], and virtuous circles; if not, it’s excellent - take a look: “Ning’s Infinite Ambition.”

Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreessen, CEO and
Chairman of Ning ["peace" in Chinese], respectively.

The article resonated for me, obviously, at its conceptual, hip level - but over time I realized it revealed:

The True Role of the Baby Boomers.

First, the Ning story is all about relationships in the Networked Economy:

“Rule #9: Relationship Tech. As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.”

Ning’s paradigm IS relationships, starting with the existing friendship between Bianchini and Andreessen [pg 80. "Bianchini, a 35-year old northern California native,met Andreessen after receiving her MBA from Stanford and launching a software startup that tracked and measured advertising. Andreessen sat on the board of the company, which went under in the dotcom crash; he and Bianchini dated for a spell before becoming friends." ]. Who in your life do you really enjoy and trust that is your technical or marketing opposite? Why not start a business with them?

Relationships drive the Ning “double viral loop” paradigm (you have to read the article), which ensures “nearly limitless growth” according to the article.

But since I’m a Baby Boomer with lots of experience in the frictionfull world, this thought also stood out for me: pg 82 “Viral expansion loops have long existed in the offline world. Tupperware parties, in which each attendee was a potential salesperson, are a classic example. Amway’s multilevel marketing strategy to sell personal-care products, jewelry, and household goods is another. And what are chain letters and pyramid schemes but viral loops with nefarious intent?”

But viral loops are better suited to the frictionless environment of the Internet, where a message or idea can carry essentially forever.”

I agree with this, but I also know that models like Tupperware, Amway and others are about *developing people* - helping people have a change of consciousness and grow into something other than they were before. “Your business grows as fast as you do.” So far I’ve not seen any personal growth or consciousness changing mechanisms in the frictionless world. But then, we’re still at the beginning of it.

And that may point to the true role of the Baby Boomers. Because of our childhoods, we straddle the cusp of the frictionfull and frictionless worlds. We remember lazy afternoons after school when there was nothing to do; we remember piling into the car with the family for a summer’s night drive-in movie with fried chicken baskets made by mom; we remember star gazing with our families on a blanket at the edge of town. A lot of good relationship building and even self-discovery goes on during those quiet times.

We Baby Boomers understand the time and the patience and the friction it takes to evolve - or help another evolve - into a confident, whole-souled person. Keeping that human awareness + slowness in view may be the true role of the Baby Boomers in the slick, frictionless Networked Economy.

It may be that the Networked Economy, aka The Light Years, is already in full bloom – and by Light I include the concepts of  

• Fiber optics,
• Enterprise social software like Connectbeam that connects people + ideas, and
• Dylan Thomas’ “Dawn breaks behind the eyes” variety. 

These expressions are all coalescing, with once in a while a shooting star tearing across the sky.   

  Sherry Heyl at SoCon ‘08, courtesy of Mike Schinkel.

One such comet is my friend and colleague, Sherry Heyl, who - in the space of two years - has founded What A Concept! social media agency;  lunchtime educational MeetUps on same for the community;   SoCon, the annual Atlanta-based new media unconference; and this month Sherry debuted, in conjunction with the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), a special interest group called Enterprise 2.0.  Puneet Gupta, CEO of California-based Connectbeam, gave the inaugural keynote on “Using Social Software to Turbo Charge Innovation.”  The “innovation” word pulled me there at 7:30 in the morning.  Connectbeam basically brings consumer social networks – like FaceBook – inside the enterprise, secures them and then makes it easier for you to find like- minded colleagues.    

  Punete Gupta, CEO of Connectbeam

On the same day, Oprah Winfrey hosted the first in a 10-week series of live webcasts with contemporary spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, who also authored the #1 New York Times best selling book The Power of Now, and more recently The New Earth.  Over 700,000 people logged on to the opening webcast.  Thanks to my friend, Sharon Rockey  of Web Spin Studios, for letting me know. 

 Eckhart Tolle, The New Earth

I have The New Earth and started reading; turns out my favorite parts are the first five pages and the last four.   According to Tolle, you may be a builder, creator and achiever – or you might be, like me, a “frequency-holder.”   

“In past ages, they would probably have been called contemplatives.  There is no place for them, it seems, in our contemporary civilization.  On the arising new earth, however, their role is just as vital as that of the creators, the doers, the reformers.  Their function is to anchor the frequency of the new consciousness on this planet.  I call them the frequency-holders.  They are here to generate consciousness through the activities of daily life, through their interactions with others as well as through “just being.”                

In this way, they endow the seemingly insignificant with profound meaning.  Their task is to bring spacious stillness into this world by being absolutely present in whatever they do.  There is consciousness and therefore quality in what they do, even the simplest task.  Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner.  As each human being is an integral part of the collective human consciousness, they affect the world much more deeply than is visible on the surface of their lives.”      The New Earth, Eckhart Tolle, page 307 

Ah, it’s good to begin to know oneself.  I appreciate the clarity, and since it’s time for Sunday afternoon yoga class, I’ll say  

Bye for now.

What does editor Chris Anderson’s March ’08 article in Wired magazine, “Why $0.00 is the Future of Business,”   mean for your company?  It means Rule #4 of the Networked Economy  is full blown, and you might want to participate. 

4) Follow the Free. As resource scarcity gives way to abundance, generosity begets wealth. Following the free rehearses the inevitable fall of prices, and takes advantage of the only true scarcity: human attention.

 For ideas, take a look at the “How To” sidebar snacks that accompany Chris’ article.  Or better yet, read his book (“Free”) due out in 2009.    

I’d love to hear what your company is giving away and remember, it has to be essential to your business. 

To get a free copy of Wired’s March ‘08 issue – and Chris’ article – click here (first come, first serve for the first 10,000 only). 

Enjoy.

I was  delighted to meet another Networked Economy visionary at the ALIS show last week :  Wen I. Chang, founder and president of San Francisco-based Atman Hospitality Group, Inc., a green hotel developer of properties such as the GAIA Napa Valley Hotel in American Canyon, California. 

He puts a new twist on relationship-relevant Rule #9 of the Networked Economy; Chang uses the technology of architecture (“Architecture is frozen music,” said he) to bend non-supple materials and to help people relate to a deeper part of themselves.  Chang told me Atman, his company’s name, means “the sea of God in our heart, which is our true nature.”  

The man is forthright about his vision and mission.  “Why green?” he asked the audience attending the ALIS  panel on “How to Develop a Green Hotel.” 

“The collective human consciousness is emerging up, and it’s showing here.” “We try to shift the mindset of separateness to oneness with nature,” Chang continued.  “To create the new experience, we offer the emotional connection.” 

Chang believes the true green hotel expresses the harmonious duality of “left brain reason and right brain rhyme”. 

“When we create this environment, the customer dares to dream back to their true nature.  Then the hotel is no longer just a place to stay; it becomes a place to journey and to dream.  A place, a journey, and a dream.”  

With 3,000 people in the ALIS plenary sessions this week in Los Angeles (see below post), naturally some forgot to turn off their cell phones.  I wish they would – like me – download nature sounds from Conservation Calling for their ring tones (my cell phone sounds like a Wood Thrush). 

 What a great use of technology to smooth a more sustainable way for a crowd of 3,000 to spend three days together.

I was in beautiful Los Angeles this week at the 7^th Annual Americas Lodging Investment Conference (ALIS), truly the most enjoyable, valuable conference I have attended in my short life.  

Never mind the slabs of sweet tasting honeycomb nestled in between ornate pans of warm brie and other cheeses at the opening night reception; or the actress on stilts, dressed like a green ivy vine, who oozed and wound her way through the crowd to highlight the conference’s Green track. 

The main show was throngs of “dark suits” - astute hotel executives, investors and developers making deals, and making one feel as if “the economy isn’t so bad after all,” said my friend, Carlo Wolff.   (The sub-show was the magical staff at Hyatt’s Century Plaza who repeatedly turned the famed Los Angeles Ballroom from plenary session to lunch and back again for 3,000 people.)  

Even though it was not a technology show, Rule #9 of the Networked Economy was evident in spades at ALIS: 

“9) Relationship Tech. As the soft trumps the hard, the most powerful technologies are those that enhance, amplify, extend, augment, distill, recall, expand, and develop soft relationships of all types.” 

ALIS was all about relationships; a few people and vignettes stood out for me. 

In a keynote address, Jean-Claude Baumgarten, president of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), weighed in on the four million-person decline in overseas travel to the U.S, during the past eight years. “In the first 100 steps when people leave the plane, you have a chance to make an impression.” 

Panelist Jay Rasulo, chairman, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, agreed.  “Foreign tourists are very hesitant to come to the United States, mainly feeling that they are not wanted, not welcome.  This is reinforced at the borders. We should be having a boom.”   

To help address this issue, Disney productions teamed with the U.S. State Department to produce and release the ”Welcome: Portraits of America” video to encourage international travel.  (It includes no mention of Disney logos, products or attractions.)  Already playing in Washington Dulles International Airport and Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport, the seven-minute video will soon be released to other major international U.S. airports. Take a look, it’s stirring.

Also of note was Stanley Selengut, engineer and developer of the highly successful ecotourism destination Maho Bay Camps and Estate Concordia on St. John, US Virgin Islands.  Stan uses technology to turn “trash into treasures” at the resort’s Trash to Treasures Art Center.  There, guests can recycle, transform and then buy the waste they created. Tie-dyeing, ceramics, glass blowing, watercolor painting, and paper making classes are taught. Check out Audubon Magazine’s article on the resort  and video clips.   

  

Glass figurine from recycled trash.

Speaking on a Green track panel on “How to Operate a Green Hotel,” Stan shared:

“I try to deal with the kind of human beings I want to attract, who care about the environment, who want to learn rather than to be indulged.  I also want to bring people into nature.  I developed the resort with the goal of attracting people I would enjoy hosting; it’s a combination of camping and a luxury resort.” 

Later, during his brief acceptance speech for being honored with the International Society of Hospitality Consultants’ Pioneer Award  at ALIS, the understated Selengut thanked his wife of 54 years, Irma, for “putting up with me, and the industry for giving me 30 years to develop green resorts.”

All in all, it was an inspiring time in the Networked Economy.

How does an individual innovate in the Networked Economy?   Here’s how Eric Schwartzman did it.  

Ten years ago Eric was the PR point man backstage at the Emmy Awards handling the one-on-one interviews for Shania Twain, Steven Tyler and Madonna  (“It was like landing three turbo jets.”).  That was the year a new stop – the Internet - was added to the media line up.  Eric saw it as the next big thing, his boss did not, so Eric left and started:

• Schwartzman PR,
• ipressroom,
• On the Record podcast show,
• a blog,
• who knows what else,
• and - here’s the point – monthly New Media PR Boot Camps sponsored by the Public Relations Society of America.  

C-level and VP-level execs, head’s up; this is the fastest way to reset your compass for how to communicate in the Networked Economy.  You might consider going to one of Eric’s Boot Camps. 

I attended the Atlanta Boot Camp this week with 40+ other colleagues from as far away as Aruba and Nova Scotia.  We drank from a firehose but Eric’s self-effacing and friendly style camouflaged the learning curve; I’d love to figure out how he does that. 

Boot Camp classmates Jean Tate and Megan Leedy.

Here are some resources you might find useful if you’re trying to figure out how to (business) communicate in the Networked Economy; Eric used these to make his points:   

Books recommended:           

• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck         
• Clue Train Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, by David Weinberger et al    
• Permission Marketing by Seth Godin
• Podcast Solutions, by Michael Geoghegan and Dan Klass
• The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson.

 Websites mentioned:

• Zoom Clouds - makes tag clouds 
• For Immediate Release - PR Podcast 
• Gawker – media gossip 
• Eyetracking – how do people scan sites?
• Blendtec – unusual product promotion
• Keyword Map  – keyword ideas
• Google Trends - shows top keyword trends
• Keyword Discovery  – serious keyword research
• Tiny URL – redirects URLs 
• Pingomatic – I have no idea what this does
• Alexa – blog rating 
• Widget Box - choose widgets for your blog   
• Ad-ware - antivirus software
• Search and destroy - antivirus software 
• eSet - antivirus software
• Blog Talk Radio - free podcasting

 

 

• AW Stats – tracking package that will differentiate between bots and unique visits to your website
• Pod Safe Music Network -  free music for podcasts 
• Creative Commons – variety of different licenses
• Google Blog Search  - just what it says  
• Ice Rocket - blog search
• Technorati - social media search
• Blog Pulse - blog search
• Blogdigger - search blogs, make a hybrid feed

 

Events to consider

• New Media Expo -  for recording, feeds, engineering, etc.
• Society for New Communications Research – best social media group

Wish list you’ll give to IT when politely asking for help with the company website (to Search Engine Optimize your site):

“I need the ability to”:

1. Specify Browser Page Title:  put in top keywords
2. Specify Headlines
3. Specify Summary blurb [put on back-end, too]
   1. EyeTracking says the summary blurb is the most read text on any webpage. 
4. Specify Meta Page Descriptions – have text be part of the HTML, do not compress into a graphic JPEG.
5. Specify Meta Keywords – put in order of most searched.
6. Generate RSS feeds
7. Generate specific feeds
   1. if purpose is SEO, use your keywords as the category of feed
   2. if your purpose is media relations, categories could be editorial buckets.

Videos Eric showed to make a point

• Bank of America Sings U2’s One  
• Evolution of Dance 
• LonelyGirl15 
•  PR Gone Wild 
• A Comcast Technician Asleep on My Couch

You get the idea.  Once you (we/I) are up to speed, we can - like Eric - graduate to talking about the real issues:  ethics, credibility, the moral tone of citizen journalists, and the Fourth Estate - or lack thereof. 

By the way, Eric follows Rules 4 & 5 of the Networked Economy;  he is sending all of the Boot Camp participants his 95-slide PowerPoint deck to repurpose as we wish.   Thanks, Eric, for a job well done.

    Orion, the Hunter, is a prominent Winter sky constellation.  

Like many people, I took time to introspect – personally and professionally - during an almost two week break over Christmas.  I also enjoyed the extra time to ponder “How does one educate children to be valuable players in the Networked Economy?”     

For me, the answer includes providing a balance of opportunities, with a heavy dose of nature – particularly during the pre-fourteen-year-old years when one’s ability to Imagine is forming.   

Two experiences over Christmas reinforced my feeling; one was a day trip to Deerlick Astronomy Village, a unique dark sky planned community (one of three in the U.S.)  in Georgia ”catering to the specific needs of amateur and professional astronomers,” including families.  Take a look - taken with our new flip camcorder (Thanks, Toby Bloomberg, for the idea.) We’re learning! It’s fun.:

The second experience was a daytime WinterStarLab class at the Chattahoochee Nature Center; you have to be five-years-old to register and over 20 of us did.   Thanks to a large corporate gift from the Cox Foundation, which purchased two StarLabs for the Nature Center, for an hour we saw that the North Star can be cited off the handle of the Big Dipper; oohed and ahhhed at the Milky Way’s arc; hunted with Orion and his two dogs, Sirius (the brightest star in the Winter sky) and Procyon; and learned that Pluto is no longer a planet (there are officially eight planets now and four smaller dwarf stars.).

• CNC coordinator:  “What’s a constellation?”
  • Five-year-old:   It’s a group of stars where you have to use your imagination!“, and
• Five-year-old:  “Excuse me, excuse me.  Is the Joy planet up yet?”

In response to Richard Louv’s seminal book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,” even the USDA Forest Service is involved in educating for this aspect of the Networked Economy.   The agency is leading the “More Kids in the Woods” challenge-grant program initially involving 24 programs across the nation and $1.5 million in Forest Service and non-federal funds.  Its goal:  to fund efforts to get youth outdoors and connected with nature.

Education for the Networked Economy could be looking up.  With that in mind, our family supports the Trust for Public Land, the Ilan Lael Foundation, the Charlie Wellman Memorial Fund, Deer Lick Astronomy Village, Chattahoochee Nature Center and the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center annual Youth Birding Competition.    

Let Freedom Ring in the New Year.