Slow week of Blogging (maybe no blogging)
This week we’re taking some family time. The past few weeks have been
full of activity, and this week is no exception. We have house guests.
We wanted to let everyone know we may not be around posting quite as much this week, but should be back in full swing next week.
Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading our blog.
Sheryl and Ken
Upcoming Webcast about Web 2.0 on TechWiseTV
We got word this afternoon about an upcoming webcast on TechWise TV with our friends (at least in the Web 2.0 sense) Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble coming soon to a screen near you. This webcast will be done in conjunction with Cisco and include live Q&A on how web 2.0 applies to contemporary business practices.
Beneath all the hype about Web 2.0, a real revolution is taking place. And, regardless of your job function or industry, it can potentially change the way you manage technical projects and conduct business. Are you ready?
Join us for a fascinating 60-minute video Webcast that reveals how wikis, blogs, social networking, and other Web 2.0 applications are creating a “mass collaboration” paradigm. Learn how you can apply this model to solve technical challenges and promote innovation. Discover how other organizations are already using it to transform their business operations.
Interviews with Industry Experts
Learn about the technologies available to you now that you can put into action. Get valuable insights and practical game plans from the thought leaders in Web 2.0 applications, including:
- Don Tapscott, coauthor of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
- Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research’s Senior Analyst for Social Computing
- Robert Scoble, new Managing Director of FastCompany.TV and author of How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk to Customers
WebEx Connect Demonstration plus Live Q&A with Web 2.0 Experts
You will also see an exclusive demonstration of the new WebEx Connect solution, a powerful new collaboration workspace. And, David Knight, Jeremiah Owyang, and Robert Scoble will be on hand to answer your Web 2.0 questions during the broadcast.
Here’s a YouTube trailer for the show:
You can see the show here.
GeekSpeakTV with Sheryl and Ken – VON.x Recap
Sheryl and Ken took Stardust Global Ventures and GeekSpeakTV on the road to the Spring VON.x 2008 conference in San Jose Californie.
We’ve been Pulverized
Jeff Pulver mentioned us on his Internet TV show this morning wrapping up after VON. If you watch the video, you might even spot us in there. And you’ll get to see some of our friends and the people we were talking with during the conference.
FWD Global Communicator Project – Another Jeff Pulver Vision
On Sunday evening before VON, Sheryl and I had the pleasure of sitting after dinner chatting with Jeff Pulver for an hour or so. Jeff’s a fascinating man with many diverse interests. He’s someone we’re proud to count among our friends. For those of you who either know Jeff or have heard him speak, he’s passionate about a number of things. When Jeff’s passion kicks in, his excitement really shows.
Jeff shared a bit of information about the concept and drivers behind one of his new projects, FWD’s Global Communicator Project.
Announcing FWD’s Global Communicator Project:I meant to kick off Spring 2008 VON.x with the announcement of FWD’s Global Communicator Project. But I didn’t, as I spent a few minutes honoring the passing of Russell Shaw, who passed away on March 14th. I had hoped to see Russell at Spring 2008 VON.x and talk to him about this project before talking to anyone else about it.
Announcing FWD’s Global Communicator Project:
I want to thank the visionary participants of the first official planning meeting of FWD’s Global Communications Project.
- Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine
- Yves Behar, Founder, Chief Designer, fuseproject
- Daniel Berninger, CEO, FWD
- Tom Evslin, co-founder, CTO, FWD
- Stuart Gannes, founder, Stanford Digital Vision Program
- Mike Masnick, CEO, Techdirt
- Mitch Pergola, Managing Partner, fuseproject
- Tim Pozar, Partner, Late Night Software
- Michael Spencer, co-founder, i2 partners
- Emy Tseng, Director, San Francisco Digital Inclusion Program
- Roland Van Der Meer, Partner, Velocity Interactive Group
- Yossi Vardi, Principal, International Technologies Venturesfuseproject hosted the meeting in their San Francisco studio toward the creation of a new category of device capable of delivering communication to the billions of people presently unserved by the communication industry.
I have suffered plenty of abuse over the years about the supposedly naive sentiment that led to the founding of Free World Dialup in 1995, so it is gratifying to see the caliber of people excited by continuing the vision. Yves Behar and fuseproject, for example, created the design of the XO Laptop for Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC and routinely gets featured in art exhibits around the world.
FWD’s Global Communication Project (GCP) seeks to leverage VoIP and open standards in a device that delivers affordable communication beyond even the very rapid and ongoing price performance improvements achieved by the cellular industry. We have in mind a device costing a fraction of the $25 price point associated with low end SIP phones, and a business model without monthly service charges. The design requirements call for a device that copes with rural realities or urban environments and supports deployment scales from a few dozen to billions of devices.
Jeff’s unbridled passion about putting telephones in the hands of everyone on the planet is infectious and gigantic. That’s one of the things I like most about Jeff – he doesn’t think small.
Jeff and the brain trust behind this effort are looking for help from all of us. Grand ideas require grand efforts and teamwork to succeed. I urge everyone to contact Daniel Berninger (dan@danielberninger.com) and ask how you can help. I’ll be sending him a note shortly.
James Body from Truphone Goes Hunting
This video was shot at the MAXroam/QIK/Global Roaming St Paddy's party during the VON conference in San Jose, CA.
Our friend James goes on the hunt for big game.
St. Patrick’s Day Party with MAXroam/QIK/Global Roaming
Webinar Coming Soon
I’ll be working with my friend Owen Linderholm on another webinar coming soon.
The Always-On Enterprise: Convergence Means High Bandwidth All the Time and Everywhere
Date: Thursday, March 27
Time: 1PM ET / 10AM PT
Free Live Webinar
The explosive paradigm of Web
2.0 and convergence is impacting your network. New media
applications—YouTube to Web 2.0—are growing at a colossal rate across
your enterprise network and taxing your network infrastructure.
If
the future of your network infrastructure is your responsibility, then
this FREE live webinar is critical for you to watch. Find out the 20
strategies to survive the onslaught of Web 2.0, video, voice and data
pressure on your network—and your bandwidth.
- 5 ways to prepare for the avalanche of Web 2.0 applications
- 10 things that will break your network and how to survive it
- 5 criteria to chose your vendor
Featured Speakers:
Ken Camp
has 30 years of experience in voice and data networking technologies.
He is a highly experienced leader who has successfully coordinated a
wide variety of major telecommunications and IT initiatives. Ken has
worked with private companies and public sector organizations of all
sizes to solve complex business issues using innovative IT solutions.
His proven track record of success has helped move these networks from
the drawing board to reality.
Ken spent 17 years with AT&T
and Lucent Technologies designing and implementing voice and data
networks. He later worked in the security marketplace and played a key
role in early IPSec VPN deployments. Ken is the author of IP Telephony
Demystified – (McGraw-Hill Professional ISBN: 0071406700), Enterprise
VoIP Security, The Definitive Guide to Converged Network Management and
many industry white papers and articles. He lives in Olympia, WA. His
Unified Communications Community Weblog is online at http://realtime-unifiedcommunications.com. He can be found online at Stardust Global Ventures.
Dan DeBacker
is an Enterprise Solution Engineer with the CTO office of Nortel.
Leveraging his 18 years of experience in telecommunications technology
– the last eight years with Nortel, Dan focuses on the Nortel Campus
Solutions and specifically the Ethernet Switching Portfolio. In this
role, he is responsible for cross-portfolio solution development
supporting total infrastructure convergence. He is also responsible for
driving features and functionality within the product portfolios
through interaction with Nortel Product Management, the field, and
Nortel customers. Dan holds a BS in Computer and Information Systems
and a Master of Business Administration from the University of
Michigan.
Owen Linderholm is Senior
Editorial Director of ITManagement.com. He is an experienced editor and
writer who has covered the IT market for over 20 years. In the past he
was Editor In Chief of sun.com, Sun Microsystems’ main website and he
has held senior editorial management positions at Kaiser Permanente,
InfoWorld, Windows Magazine, PC World and Byte. Owen has also written
for a wide range of publications including USA Today, C|Net, Techweb
and many others in the US and Europe. Owen also founded a small
independent publishing house to produce the first compilation of the
best food blog writing ever published.
We’re Engaged!
Most everyone who follows here knows that we’re not just business partners. We’re life partners living together as well.
We live much of our lives in pretty open view. Between Twitter, Jaiku, Seesmic, QIK, our GeekSpeakTV, Facebook and all the other social media tools we use, people have a pretty fair insight into our life events.
At the VON.x conference in San Jose earlier this week, we shared the most momentous event of our life together. Many readers and friends have seen, but since it was live on stage at VON, and live streamed on the Internet, we thought we’d share it with all our friends and readers here too.
Breakfast with Jeff Pulver at Spring VON.x
On Monday Jeff Pulver hosted one of his legendary breakfasts at the San Jose Convention Center for people in the San Jose area. Since VON was getting ready to start, there were plenty of people around. About 70 people showed up for breakfast.
Sheryl and I have been prodding Jeff to come to Seattle for a breakfast here in the Pacific Northwest. He’s now got us on his calendar on June 11th. We’ll be helping to put things together on this end and will be writing more about this. We all hope you’ll come
Here’s some video of the event at VON.x
GeekSpeakTV at Breakfast with Jeff
This morning many industry notables joined Jeff Pulver for one of his breakfast meetings prior to the VON conference getting underway. We had the chance to be there taking pictures and shooting a bit of short video.
Come take a peek at one of Jeff’s legendary breakfast meetings.
GeekSpeakTV Takes to the Road
Another Loss – RIP Russell Shaw
I’m deeply saddened to learn of Russell Shaw’s unexpected passing. I just learned of this from my friend Andy Abramson.
Russell Shaw R.I.P.It is with the most profound sadness that I have to report the the untimely passing of Russell Shaw, a blogger, journalist and friend.
Russell passed away suddenly in his hotel room in San Jose Thursday night or early Friday morning. According to his girlfriend whom I spoke with after being advised of Russell’s unexpected death by CNET Editor in Chief, Dan Farber just moments ago.
Sheryl and I were looking forward to seeing Russell at VON next week. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him much since we saw each other last at the ITExpo in Los Angeles.
RIP my friend. You will be sorely missed.
Russell’s insights and keen watching of the industry will be sorely missed.
Heading to VON.x in San Jose
We’re are packing up and getting ready to head to VON.x in San Jose tomorrow morning. It’s going to be an action packed week filled with activity.
Tomorrow evening we’re having dinner with Andy Abramson and his wife Helene, Jim Courtney from Skype Journal, and James Body (Mr. Pink) from Truphone. We’re really excited to get to meet good friends for a relaxing dinner before the frenzy of the conference kicks into gear.
On Monday morning we’ll be with loads of friends as we all join in for Breakfast with Jeff. Jeff Pulver’s breakfasts around the world have become the stuff of legends, and lots of QIK videos. The Monday evening we’re going to be at the MAXroam/QIK/Global Roaming Saint Patricks’s Day Party. We’ll be taking pictures and plan on streaming live video from both events here. If you want to keep up with our live video from VON, you can follow stardustfcv on Twitter.
Tuesday, the VON event kicks into high gear. Jeff Pulver is doing his Industry Perspective talk at 10:45 or 11:00. Then I get a few minutes to talk about The Real World Impact of Social Media as part of the VONCamp Unconference around noon. There’s a great panel discussion that afternoon, and then the VoIP User Dinner, VoN San Jose 2008 followed by Jeff’s Party at Spring 2008 VON.x.
Wednesday morning Ken’s meeting his good friend friend Marc Robins.
We’ll be chatting with lots and lots of people while we’re there. There will be live video (GeekSpeakTV), podcast conversations, pictures and more. We’ve got so many friends and colleagues lined up I can’t even begin to list them here. It’s hard to specualte how much will get written here from the road because we’ll be on the go all day every day, but lots of material to be collected and we’ll share it as fast as we can. For those of you who follow, Twitter, Jaiku and Facebook, along with our QIK video or Seesmic are the best ways to keep up.
Hyper-Connected: Yes we really are!
This morning Ken received an email and it reminded me how incredibly connected we are.
There was a time we wouldn’t have written about the hyper-connectedness. It didn’t exist. In the last several months Ken and I have taken connectedness to new levels. 
Blackberry is our primary mode of connection after our laptops. We check email, use gtalk, talk on the phone, and we skype. Skype not so much on the blackberry, but still we do use it to a certain extent. We each have one Blackberry curve and Ken has also the World edition 8830.
The N95 is the next connection we use. Why? QIK video. It’s a fabulous streamed live video site and Ken and I are just starting to see the value in it. The N95 has a fabulous Carl Zeiss 5.0 mp lens. You won’t get better pictures from a phone.
The N800 is a tool I originally thought to use to replace my laptop for travel. What I learned is that I probably can’t replace my laptop for travel, but I can absolutely use the N800 for specific things like Skype.
I will be really honest, it was NOT my intention to skype on it but it is my skype tool of choice. I love using the N800 for skype. It’s my favorite skype tool.
Ken and I use a myriad of other tools, like the N93, 
as well as the N80i,
and more recently the N81.
Why does this matter? I think what makes it pertinent is that not only do we use these tools, we each have the ability to check each others messages and point out when something comes in that is maybe not picked up right away by the other. Email is a prime example. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard Ken’s phone buzzing away and picked it up and read his email. Ken has done the same for me. I guess we sort of field things for each other. It’s part of how we partner each other. I am Ken’s secretary, Ken is mine.
We get asked all the time how we use our technology tools. These days we have been using video a lot as we shoot into the realm of internet TV and more broadcast media. This is not to exclude other mediums, it’s only the current trend we’re not only paying attention to but utilizing.
Ken and I are gearing up for the VON.x conference. Look for us to be visibly using many of the tools I have mentioned in here. Don’t forget, if you send email to Ken, Sheryl very well may read it and vice versa.
Technorati Tags: Nokia phones, qik, von.x, ken camp, sheryl breuker