Archive for category Web22

Tiny Bubbles on our Social Calendar – It’s bub.blicio.us

Our good friends Brian Solis and Joey Wan are working on a new blog dedicated to the San Francisco / Silicon Valley, Bubble / No-Bubble / Wishing-it-were-safe-inside-the-bubble party scene called Bub.blicio.us. Given how the parties have been heating up lately with open bars, better food and better entertainment, this is a good time to start celebrating those tiny bubbles that make our social lives so much better.

During the first Internet wave down on Miami’s infamous South Beach, Rick and I managed to fend off starvation by going to all the best parties – I understand it was the same here for many entrepreneurs.  Of course, our SoBe parties had little amenities like Dom Perignon and Stone Crabs from Joe’s, but we could have gotten by on finger food and veggie trays all the same – plus the energy from the party atmosphere itself.  At the time I was feasting on the open bars and parties in Miami, the bubble had not even begun to inflate back in 1995-6 – and I was some 3,000 miles away.  Now I get a front row seat.
It should be a nice view as things start heating up and the bubble fills with more and more hot air to lift us all up high. Well, in all honesty I hope we have learned our lessons and won’t repeat the same mistakes, but from the recent frenzy of newcomers to the Bay Area, there is a whole new crop of folks who think Web 2.0 is the second coming of the messiah – or at least “the rise of the (less) evil dead daytrader”.

What does it really mean?  Hopefully some more great parties paid for by large corporate interests and VC’s – but really, we don’t need all those ice sculptures to pour shots of Belvedeere down our throats – just put the Belvedeere on ice, shake it, and pour – lets save a few thousand here and there and just do our best to bring people together to have a great time – or think about having more parties instead of bigger ones.

I think Bubblicious particularly makes sense today now that we have lost our reason to read Valleywag – maybe we can get Nick Douglas to make a few guest appearances from time to time?  So good luck Brian and Joey – be kind to me when choosing those photos and remember to get some sleep in between those parties!

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Web 2point2 Kicking

So tired – great day though – looking forward to tomorrow…

Lots of thanks to go around, but time for bed.  Photos are uploading to Flickr now as I go to sleep, did not edit them at all, but did throw away the really bad ones.

Oh yes, and Sarah Dopp wrote this great post today that made me smile and laugh (but the suit coat, jeans and meditation bells is really just me Sarah – just the eclectic mix of humanity that I am) and Susan Kuchinskas has done a real kick ass job live blogging for the main Web 2point2 site – thank you so much!

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What’s best for the community? Isn’t that the other point?

One of the most important things I have been talking to people about over the last year is how organizations with similar values should support one another but don’t because of their egos or fear of losing mindshare or donor dollars. Instead of really working towards what is best for the community, they work on what is best for their own self-interest, in the name of the community. As I noted in my post on the Importance of Social Media, this is one of the key reasons many of us left the work world – to leave the political BS behind and do the right thing, that is in the best interest of the community.

That sort of political BS is in stark contrast to the wonderful relationships we are building with the Society for New Communications Research and the National Coalition for Deliberation and Dialogue. Where we are constantly looking for ways to expand the conversations, to include more people and to work together towards our common interests. This is one of the core premises of Social Media Club – to support other organizations that are doing good work – not excluding those organizations that are serving similar interests within the community out of fear.

This is why I am excited to see the Portland Social Media Association rise up from the Portland Podcasting Group. Social Media Club will support them, instead of worrying about them competing with us – we will both be the better for it. We need to find people who are doing the right things and support them so that more of that good work is put out into the world and that other people can connect with them. This is very much in line with the work of The Uplift Academy – another organization we want to support in every way possible and with which we share common values.

I guess I should explain where this is coming from – it is a bit about something I have been holding onto for a while and also about the fact that a few ‘community leaders’ have chosen not to support the Web 2point2 unconference we are organizing, and are, according to what some have told me, actively working against it. (This is not, BTW, something between the 2 conferences going on this week – we have nothing against Tim O’Reilly or the Web 2.0 Conference and as far as I know, they are probably just annoyed with us by the contrast and/or laughing about how hard we work for no money.)

The Web 2point2 Unconference is providing an alternative to the expensive Web 2.0 Conference.  Web 2point2 is more accessible and more about the people interested in the Web 2.0 era and working hard to make it real. Chris Pirillo really nailed the difference on the head – there most certainly is value in the networking, and the amenities offered at a big hotel are really very expensive, but a lot of that is superfluous to what really matters. We are doing this event because it is the right thing to do for the community and it is representative of our core values. We are doing this because it helps us build the community we want to belong to. We are investing our time and energy because we are passionate about doing so and hope to make a living doing what we love.

I’m not speaking against any individual, but I am calling for everyone in the community to be supportive of efforts like the Web 2point2 Unconference and/or to call out the effort’s shortcomings publicly and fairly – to participate in the community. It is FOR the people, FOR the community, and FOR improving the dialogue around social media and Web 2.0 for everyone’s benefit. Those who have said negative things about these efforts wihtout engaging us in conversation about how it could be improved are really doing a disservice to the community. But as all bloggers know, nothing stays secret forever. Those people who serve their own interests over that of the community will be found out. Those who support the community with their hearts, minds and deeds will be the ones who shape the dialogue of the future.

Don’t raise the torch for a participatory democracy when you’re only really marketing yourself as the one who should be put in charge of who gets to speak and who can belong. From my perspective, that looks a lot like a Stalinist view of the world dressed up in Kennedy rhetoric. That is beyond hypocritical – it is like the atheists battling each other in the most recent South Park episode. We don’t need to tear down the walls of a communtiy or organization only to erect new ones, we need to build better doors between communities and bridges across them.

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Web 2point2 Site Live – Join Us

I have lots more to post there, but am starting to drag, so wanted to get out a quick post that says the Web 2point2 site is live, though without the main Blog posts I need to write still.  It has been a long day learning the new WordPress theme called Subtle from Glued Ideas (these folks rock – thanks for the great theme).  I was also getting deeper into some plugins and finding errors on other sites I manage that still need to be fixed.

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Web 2point2 Sponsors???

I have talked with several of y’all about sponsoring and/or attending the upcoming Web 2point2 unconference (tag is web22 btw) happening on November 9 and 10, so now is the time to do something about it.  If you are still interested in sponsoring, please send me a note and a logo to one of my email addresses so I can include your support in the launched version of the site which I will most definitely be completing on Sunday.

You can also register for $32.95 (plus a small service charge) which includes a t-shirt, 2 lunches and access to the Web 2point2 Release Party, which will be a blowout on Thursday night November 9. Special thanks to Dave Winer who unbeknownst to me was on an email thread circulated by the lovely Miss Grace and who blogged about it on Scripting News, also becoming the first paying participant.  Nice.

His quote was perfect, embodying the true spirit of the event

“Like all the cool kids, I’ll be at Web 2.2, November 9-10 in San Francisco. Like the web, it’s open to everyone”

More details coming very soon, but please do know that space is limited, nothing I can do about physics…

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