Stardust Global Ventures

Dean Elwood, one of our pals across the pond, interviewed us recently. Here’s Dean’s podocast of our interview from VoIPUSER.

Ken Camp and Sheryl Breuker

Dean Elwood talks to the first couple of technology about the last 25 years of telecoms and what the industry now requires to deliver on the promise of Unified Communications.

By Dean Elwood

Listen now using the player above or download the MP3 : here

Dean

Everybody is talking about Google Wave. Everybody. Correction, everybody is positively gushing about Wave.

 If you haven’t yet seen the preview, here it is. I’d encourage you to watch with a very open mind. If you’re already gushing about it, you’ll probably like what I’m going to say as much as you like chewing nails.

The potential is huge, and this next-generation prototype approach to collaboration will significantly change how many of us work every day – many, but not all.

As much as I hate the term social media, I believe Wave will reshape how we interact with one another in terms of sharing messages, conversations, pictures, video and other media.

The impact on innovators, entrepreneurs and small businesses will change work flows. Developers and collaborators will find new ways to work.

There’s one post I read today that had one bullet point that set my hackles on edge. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It made me want to ask our esteemed friends at Forrester, “you do actually talk to business enterprises on occasion, don’t you?”

I like Jeremiah Owyang’s work. Much of it anyway. I confess, I disagree with a fair number of his conclusions, and I think many are based on flawed information; information that is statistically invalid. But I feel that way about Gartner, The Yankee Group, and most of the major analyst firms. They use stats that feed their revenue stream from paying clients. They don’t represent the world view, or reality as I’ve experienced it in many cases. They represent their clients or customers no matter how fair and unbiased they might claim to be. And I’m not saying that’s wrong. We need to remember that they too are in business to make money.

I’m simply saying just because some analyst said it, doesn’t make it true. And even if it’s true, it’s not likely a universal, worldewide truth. It’s a truth for some subset they cater to. Much of what I’ve read from respected industry leaders and analysts in the last two days has been gushing praise. It feels good, but it’s irresponsible early enthusiasm that is going to be tempered with other realities over time. Keep in mind, this isn’t released for the world to use just yet.

Case in point, Jeremiah Owyang wrote a post today. Click the title to read his post, and I do encourage you to read his post. I’m only quoting the point I take greatest exception to here.

Google Wave To Bring Web 2.0 Lifestyle to Work

• Google’s apporach is signicant because it will enter the workforce without having to go through IT management. This undercuts players like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and SAP as it grows from the groundup –another groundswell like google docs and yammer.

Owyang and colleagues seem to think that because it’s so cool, Google Wave will simply circumvent IT and make its way into corporate life as a de facto tool of business.

I’ll give you some different truths.

• People will get fired for using Google Wave without corporate approval.
• Corporate proprietary information will be lost due to unauthorized or inappropriate sharing.
• Lawsuits will follow.

There seems to be some preconceived notion, driven perhaps my Microsoft’s ability to sell shinola to enterprise business, that enterprises want to collaborate. In some cases they do, but in many cases they really don’t. And the greats fear of any highly competitive R&D organization is open collaboration. I use MS as the example because Sharepoint is their highly acclaimed collaboration tool. I repeat – highly acclaimed collaboration tool.

Let me offer a challenge to anyone who reads this who’s used Sharepoint. Is it effective for collaboration? I say no, but I’ve only used it for 5-6 years in a half-dozen environments. Sharepoint is a control system. It’s a means of forcing and maintaining control under the guise of collaboration.

Sharepoint is all about documentation control, revision control, process control and workflow control. Sharepoint is not an enabler of free thinking. It doesn’t empower brainstorming. It simply forces everyone into the same box, the same structures, and the sameness of groupthink. BUT, it sells because businesses believe that they’re creating an environment of collaboration  under their own control.

In truth, these selfsame organizations are stifling creativy and ingenuity, forcing brainpower elsewhere. I’d argue there are more “skunk works” operations per capita going on in organizations that have adopted Sharepoint as a corporate tool than those that have not.

Google Wave presents, at first look (before it’s out the door), the next generation IT department and Chief Information Security Officers biggest nightmare to date.

• R&D information can be at risk.
• Proprietary business intelligence will be at risk.
• Personal use of corporate assetts becomes even easier, a violation still in most companies.
• I’m just talking about using Wave so far, nevermind the idea that this corporate information all gets moved into the cloud, outside corporate control and at risk in a new way. That’s right, employees will now put corporate data at risk without asking, or even knowing they’ve done so.

For the small business operator, sole proprietor and consultant, it’s a boon to productivity. For those of us who live on the edge of new frontiers, the ease of blending our business and personal lives more seamlessly is a great thing. The value for us is high. I like what I’ve seen from my personal view. I like it a lot. But I’ve spent too much of my career protecting corporate assets to swallow this all too easily, and I’m shocked that Jeremiah, and by extension Forrester, would put forward such a frightening proposition without actually citing the real viewpoint of CTO/CIO/CISO folks in the trenches. Some of those folks will lose many a night sleep over Google Wave. Many a night. I don’t envy my former colleagues and co-workers who are CISOs for state and federal government across the US. One of their biggest nightmares is about to invade their lives.

There’s a cautionary set of thoughts for those overtaken with optimism who think they’ve just seen Nirvana.

And there’s another set of nightmares I haven’t seen mentioned, but I’ll throw it in here as a bonus. Owyang said “This undercuts players like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and SAP” and I agree that it may. Given what I expect to be very slow and cautious adoption in the enterprise business space, for very good reasons, there’s yet another angle here. Google could potentially productize Wave and sell enterprise licenses that businesses can run inside their controlled intranet environment. If they do, they may overcome most of the concerns I noted above, and more. Productizing Wave as an enterprise offering could, overnight, put Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and SAP in the back seat. Google could become the big dog in enterprise application space in the blink of an eye.

Google doesn’t have a history of that kind of productization. They’ve never pulled it off. But with the right talent and thought leadership, they could step onto the enterprise business applications court with a game that could be hard to beat. They’ve got the money to buy into that game easily, if they choose to do so.

Finally I got Ken back in the hot seat. Ken talks to me about his evolution in the industry. Where he started and where he is today.

After the work history we do digress to topics more current like social media and a few other detours. Still, I’d say if you ever wondered about Ken and how to read his resume with it’s glossing over the many roles he’s performed, this may just be a way to get to know a bit more about how deep the waters really run. I’m partial to the part where he talks about his history at Hill Associates. The passion is tangible.

I believe you will understand why I call Ken one of the smartest people I know when you listen to him talk in this candid Incidental Interview.

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NOTE: This is a two-part podcast. This post includes part one. Part two will be posted soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot late about the term social media. Frankly it’s a term I loathe because it says and means aboslutely nothing. It’s an artifice created by spin doctors to manufacture buzz about little. Social media is nothing more than human communications. Conversation and engagement.

To call Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed or any of the genre a social network is subterfuge. It’s an artificiality imposed by someone who wants to sell us something – a false construct.

Wikipedia says
A community of interest is a community of people who share a common interest or passion. These people exchange ideas and thoughts about the given passion, but may know (or care) little about each other outside of this area. Participation in a community of interest can be compelling, entertaining and create a ‘sticky’ community where people return frequently and remain for extended periods. They sometimes cannot be easily defined by a particular geographical area.

My social network – your social network is not a service or a website. It’s the people we interact with in our sphere of influence. I’ve often said that my social network isn’t any of those much touted services, but rather, is contained in my Blackberry. I still hold that to be true. My network is my people. Not your people. Not Twitter’s people. Not Facebook people. They’re simply tools that let me talk to my people.

Dare I say it? Yes, I dare.

Social networking tools are nothing more than plumbing

Will we ever weary of that analogy? I think not because it’s so apt a description. Twitter is nothing more than a pipe that lets me talk to my people. The same with Facebook, FriendFeed and all the rest.

We aren’t drawn to a service. We’re drawn to people. And we will swarm. Twitter is popular for many because it’s simply the path of least resistance to talk to our people – our network. And I’ve watched communities of interest swarm from Twitter to Jaiku to Identi.ca and back. We aren’t following the technology, we’re following the crowd. In most cases, we’re following our crowd.

The same theory holds true with instant messaging if you think about it. We’ve moved from AIM to Yahoo to MSN to Gtalk to Skype to whatever. Not because the service offered anything more than the best unclogged pipe to talk to our people. Our community of interest.

Just as the Internet is a network of networks, social media is simply a community of communities of interest. As Merriam-Webster would put it:

Social networks are simply connnectors for our personal communications enclaves.

Connectors.

Plumbing.

And just as we want big, fat, dumb pipes for unfettered access to the resources of the Internet, we want unfettered access to our enclaves or social units.

Realtors want to socialize and collaborate with realtors and clients.
Doctors want to collaborate with health care professionals.
Lawyers want to collaborate with other lawyers.

We want to talk with kindred spirits in our own areas of interest.

Businesses will never be drawn to Twitter or Facebook and find the value they want. Taking a business to the community will never be a winning proposition. The way to win is to bring, or enable/empower the engaged conversation within the existing community.

We don’t need more plumbing. All we really need are the tools, APIs and connectors to bring the conversation seamlessly into our existing enclaves.

That’s where the next value is. Propagating the illusion that social networking and social media are the end is simple foolishness. They are plumbing. Today that plumbing is only irrigating a very small area. Extending the plumbing through collaborative information sharing (and openly published APIs combined with interoperable open standards) is the next generation of communications that we should really be looking at today.

My friend Craig Walker (@cwalker123) (think GrandCentral, now Google Voice) set off a flurry of conversation this morning when he said something about giving up on social media as a waste of time. Craig and I have been friends for a while now, but we don’t get to talk often enough.

A conversation ensued on Twitter, but Craig wasn’t involved. Social media is something that I’m passionate about, even though I hate the term social media itself. In that conversation, one thing I said stuck with me to the point I retweeted myself.

Just a few minutes ago, Sheryl and I saw this

First, thank you Craig for not giving up. I think your seeing my comments and responding proves my point in large part. If you didn’t believe in the power of social media, you wouldn’t have seen it at all.

So I’m going to suggest something. Some time back when Craig and Vincent were building GrandCentral, I was a naysayer. I had serious doubts. Craig engaged and not only convinced me, I became a GrandCentral advocate. I was the one who broadcast Craig’s presentation at the O’Reilly Etel conference via video. And I did an extensive podcast interview with Craig that same day. In short I became a believer because Craig showed me the light.

Today, Sheryl and I use Google Voice as our office number. It’s a valuable tool for us.

So Craig, this time around, let me help you see the value of social media in our world. Let me convice you and see if you don’t become a big advocate too. We can work via email, Twitter, or we can do a podcast chat and talk about the real world ramifications. I like that idea. Let me know what works for you. I think I can show you that GrandCentral that became Google Voice and social media are brothers underneath. They do the same things in different ways, but they are absolutely vital to our life today.

I’m hoping you’re game Craig.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about story telling. Actually, Gary Vaynerchuk just did a video post about it and it really resonated with me. I realized while listening to Gary how important it is that we take ownership of our own stories and not count on others to get our message out there. Still, Gary can’t get all the credit. I have a story, and I think it’s about time I told it. I believe when I’m done you’ll understand why I am so interested in social media, believe it is powerful and absolutely know I have the ability to help others understand the value of it.

My story starts like many others but is really sort of impacted by 2 very seperate but equally important situations. I started back in the mid 90’s using irc, internet relay chat. I found a neighborhood of sorts from around the world. I even met my second husband there. I knew I was intrigued by it, but when I moved myself and my son to Northern BC to live with my new husband, I walked away from the social media world. In fact, if you can imagine, I gave up computing altogether, opting instead to throw myself into an almost luddite existence – even giving up email! That can’t happen again, I count on it too much. Let me share with you why.

Situation 1 – The Beginning
A few years after moving to Canada my son went to spend time with his dad in the US. He did that in the summer so it was not unusual or unplanned for. My son’s father was engaged to a woman who I had great hope for as a step-mom because she was a nurse. For those of you who don’t know, my son has a rare bone disorder called Osteogenesis Imperfecta – Brittle Bones. Having a nurse available to my son was really exciting because while my ex husband loves his kids, he had never really had much to do with actually providing care for injuries and this seemed like a godsend to me.

A problem occurred. My son contacted me and told me he had been in the car with his soon to be step-mom when she was pulled over and arrested for a DUI. Her daughter was with them as well. The kids were about 7 and 10 at the time. I was in Northern Canada, my son was in the US and I immediately started trying to figure out what to do to protect my son from long distance. I found a message board for women in second marriages and asked for legal advice. I got help and things worked out fine. Most important, my son was protected and it actually turned out well because my son’s father never did marry that woman.

Situation 2 – The Passion
2003 was a good year in retrospect. We had been living a relatively normal life, we had a computer for basic needs also for my son to do homework and the year prior I had used it to find help in protecting my son. 2003 was calmer, except my son had been struggling with an almost perpetual back ache. The truth is, when you have a child who has a broken bone on a monthly basis on some level you learn to accept it. You also learn to deal with it differently than others who rarely have medical issues. You really stop going to the doctor for every little ‘owie’ because you know the fingers are broken and you learn to splint and do the right things at home. You learn what to look for. Obviously you go if there are long bone issues, a broken leg, arm whatever, but in general you deal with things on a case by case situation and do what makes sense. David, my son also had a scale system. He would rate his pain from 1-10. Still does.

Ok, so 2003 David was 11. He had gone to a friends house for a birthday party and spent the night. When he woke up in the morning he told me his back hurt. I picked him up and he stayed at home resting his back. He started feeling better though it did take a long time. Then it was summer and back to his father’s he went. At the end of summer He injured his toe and we really believed it was broken so we went to the doctor. The thing was, his back was hurting again too so we went to the doctor and they did x-rays of both his toe and his back. The x-ray of his back showed a compression fracture. The toe, though broken did not show a fracture. It wasn’t until we did a gamma scan that we found it too was fractured for sure. Because of the composition of his bones fractures aren’t always visible on x-ray until calcification has taken hold during healing. So, almost all injuries are treated like a fracture to be on the safe side.

Well, after the scan on his spine it was Winter break and David was doing well. We had gotten the teachers at the school to not have David participate in gym class just prior to the holiday to not place added pressure on his spine and body. After the break was over David went back to school and the gym teacher asked if it would be ok if David referee’d the volleyball games during lunch break so he would still feel like he was a participant with the kids. We agreed right away as soon as we asked David if he wanted to. He did.

I still remember I had decided to lie down with a book because I never got that opportunity since David always came home for lunch and this day he wasn’t. The phone rang and I saw from caller i.d. It was the school. I think my heart stopped beating. Somehow I knew something was not ok as I answered the phone. “Mrs. Breuker? David has had an accident. He fell off a table and the ambulance is on the way. Can you please come?”

I don’t know if I hung up the phone or not but I remember grabbing my keys and running out the door. I got to the school before the ambulance did and ran for the gym. I was met by a variety of teachers and many people hovering over my son lying on the gym floor. I fell to the floor and asked him where he hurt. He told me right away it was his back, his arm and his finger. About then the ambulance crew arrived and I told them he had brittle bones. They were clearly disturbed and asked me how to move him and let me help get him into the ambulance. I rode with them to the hospital where David was immediately taken in for x-rays. They came out a bit later and told me the surgeon was coming in to repair his finger. He would require a cast on his arm and on his other hand his finger would get a pin. His back was another case altogether. It was middle of winter and we were having a snow storm. Roads were impassable. We needed to get David to another hospital to have tests run. Finally several days later my husband and I rode with the ambulance and David where they did a ct scan and it was clear what was wrong with his back. Another compression fracture.

By now I knew my son’s ability to grow was starting to be put at risk. Every time he got a compression fracture, that was removing height from a body that was already compromised. I needed help and I found it online in a group for parents of children with this particular bone disorder.

More than just the group for support, I needed medical help. Where to go? Who to talk to? My son’s future was at stake! I started writing letters and emails. I wrote to doctors all over the world. Nebraska, Montreal, Illinois, Brazil. Finally I found a doctor in Alberta who was doing a treatment with a form of bisphosphonates. Think of all the commercials you’ve seen for fosomax or boniva. Well this sort of drug is related but is given once every 3 months on a 3 day intravenous schedule. After healing all spring and summer, we got an appointment and the day after my son turned 13 he had his first treatment at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

David has been receiving treatments every 3 months ever since. September marks his 5th consecutive year and the really cool thing? He is almost as tall as I am at 5′7 + 137 pounds. He has a girlfriend. He is healthy. He does well in school and he is alive!

My passion for social media was brought about because of a need for help. The power of that help, the power of that experience, for me is unmatched by any other event, or occurrence in my life. I looked for help online and I found it.

Where I am today
My experience with early stage social media, what existed before it had a name is compelling, but the story doesn’t end there. Absolutely social media has existed in a variety of forms, from how we wrote letters to the editor back in the day, to bulletin boards, irc, yahoo forums, freetel, pow wow and then on to the early interactive blogs where comments first started showing up. Instant messengers like aim, icq and msn messenger. Friendster and orkut, even linkedin were fairly early, but then twitter happened which led to jaiku, pownce and tumblr which sort of created a mixing of both blogs and chat, skype got introduced, flickr for photo sharing and the lists go on with identi.ca, facebook, friendfeed etc.

What’s interesting about all of these services, all of this social communication, is that people are empowered with these services. Everyone get’s the opportunity to tell their story. We no longer rely on traditional media to give us news. My recent interviews with both Shel Israel and Robert Scoble are good examples of that.

But that’s not all
We all, and I do mean all of us, get to not only be impacted by actual events around the world, which is precipitated by the relationships we share with people from around the world – all thanks to social media, we also get to do some impacting of our own. At what point could we have imagined such a thing?

Just this morning I opened my email and had a pingback to a post I had written when I interviewed Narada Michael Walden. Narada is putting on a benefit concert this evening for a little boy who was hit by a stray bullet while practicing the piano. Narada is a world famous music producer/artist who has worked with people like Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles, he’s written music for movies like The Bodyguard and James Bond License to Kill. When I opened my email the pingback went to a blog called, Shaping Youth. A person was looking for information for a write up about Narada’s concert this evening and stumbled across my twitter stream where I had just posted about Susan Boyle and also North Korea’s nuclear testing that took place yesterday.

Social matters
I know there is a lot of discussion about how social media distracts. Many people don’t like that term, and with all the problems we’ve all had with people calling themselves social media ‘experts’, which in my opinion seriously dilutes the value there is, that is understandable. No matter what we call it, social media exists and it’s making a difference. We are making a difference. My life is changed because of it, my son’s life is better because of it. No one can argue with that.

Point given
Let me just remind you in case you have forgotten. A mother bear is one of the most persuasive creatures on earth. We were all taught as children, do not get in the way of a mother bear and her cub. I believe in social media, or whatever we call it next. I passionately believe we are changing the world, and I know I’m a contributing part.
I have an impact.

For anyone who uses Twitter, today’s a busy day. It’s #FollowFriday when everyone tags a bunch of friends and people follow one another like crazy. In general, I’m not particularly fond of the whole idea because it gets carried to extremes. People feel some obligation to list everyone they know week in and week out. It’s great to compliment our friends, but at the end of the day it dilutes the real value.

I’ve been on a path of self re-invention, ar at least redefinition that past few months. And it’s struck me this week in particular that there are some people who I follow and talk to on Twitter (and other places, including real life) who truly impact me. They impact how I think, how I see others, and how I react to others. They open my mind to ideas and new direction in ways I appreciate more than I can really say.

Today, I’m not going to spam my network with a #FollowFriday list. Instead, I’m writing this post to introduce you to a few people I value. I want to tell you why they matter, why they create impact. I don’t want to just tell you to follow them. I want you to know something about them.

These are people I follow, not just on Friday, but every day. People I follow into the breach in some way. These are people whom, should I ever walk into a bar fight and find them surrounded, I would pick up a chair and step in to cover their back. These are people who impact me in some way. They matter because they bring real value to me. They are here in no particular order.

@jeffpulver

Jeff’s an icon in the part of the industry I work in. Beyond that, he’s a personal friend. We’ve traveled together, had meals together (breakfast *and* dinner). We talk on the phone. We check on each other daily, most often via the notorious Facebook poke. In short, We’re in touch often.

Jeff is someone who’s faced some challenges the past couple of years, and he’s never backed down. He’s pressed through to do some new things. I admire and respect that. His example provides me encouragement on those days when I feel discouraged.

Above and beyond that, Jeff’s a real futurist cut froma different cloth. Jeff sees a future he thinks should be, and goes forward to make it so. He did this with his VoIP work, again with Video. He’s doing it with social media (and the power of Twitter), and true to his voice services passions, he’s doing it with HD voice initiatives. Jeff’s a true visionary who takes his vision a step farther toward reality.

@claudioalegre

Claudio’s a new friend who I met on Twitter not long ago. He’s a kindred spirit who’s thoughts and words echo my own sentiments in harmony rather than being precisely the same note. He’s a thoughful man who really considers what he’s saying before he writes a blog post. His comments are insightful and always add to the stream of thought.

Claudio has another gift. He gives me some appreciation of myself. He has a way of paying a compliment that allows me to just step back and say “wow, thank you” rather than feel an attack of self-depracting humor and defensiveness. From Claudio, I learn the art of giving a genuine compliment to someone I appreciate. It’s a new friendship that I value. Claudio’s one of those online connections I hope to meet in person.

@jeffpower

Sheryl and I met Jeff on Twitter, and we were both struck by the work he does with Global Hope Network International. Jeff is working to improve the lot of people in the world by bringing basic essentials and education to small remote villages in faraway places.

So often in our lives, we see the pictures of people living in poverty, disease, drought and starvation. The legacy of my lifetime is that someone tried to shame us into helping these people. Sometimes shame worked, but most often it left a bad taste in our mouths and we didn’t stick to our efforts at doing something.

Jeff shows every day that we make a difference in the world. One person, doing one small thing, can and does make a tremendous difference to someone a world away. Jeff’s interest in social media and how it can help him share the power of human change with others inspires me to think more widely about the impact I have on the world and how I can help deliver positive change.

Sheryl and I both talk to Jeff all the time. We consider him a real friend. We’re investing our efforts in helping find support for GHNI wherever our network can help. He’s someone I look forward to meeting in person and sharing a long evening of conversation with. If finances permitted, I’d take Sheryl for a weekend in Denver so we could spend some time with Jeff and his wife.

@shelisrael

Shel’s another friend who I’ve met a few times and had many a pleasant conversation with. He’s the author of Twitterville, which is due out in September I believe. Shel impacts me for a couple of reasons, and through a couple of shared life experiences. He and I are neither one young pups. We’ve got some battle scars we earned through our lives. We’re both diabetic. We both need to be vigilant about our health, exercise and such. Shel does a better job than I, but he’s a good “peer group example” for me.

Shel has always had a fun comment when I talk about Sheryl online, yet I’ve noticed that his comments over time have grown beyond “going for a run with Brewster” (his dog) to include his time with his wife Paula, and that special time he spends with his grandkids.

Shel is someone who’s stepped out and risked trying new things. He did some video interviewing and found it wasn’t his best work. But without excuses, he openly took criticism on the chin and worked to bring it up to his standards. Shel finds value in the microcosm of 140 character tweets and the macrocosm of the Twitterverse. He spends his time and effort going out to gather and collect stories, then share them with the world. I like that. And now he’s working on a project around healthcare. That’s something I believe is critical to humanity at large.

@SherylBreuker

My biggest concern listing Sheryl here is the subset of people who will see her name and fail to read what I have to say. What a terrible loss for them to not hear about her from the man who knows her better than anyone else on earth.

Sheryl is above all, passionate. She’s the most passionate person I have ever met. She’s filled with ideas, with hope, with curiousity. She’s courageous beyond measure. I’ve watched her step out and do some things that challenged her and weren’t easy. She’s never backed away from a challenge.

All this passion and curiousity is leading her to something new. Sheryl is defining a new role in our world, our business, our industries for women. Some days I know she can’t see that. She’s too close to it to really see. She’s setting the bar for what women can do in a male-dominated sector. She’s a lyrical voice of sharing in the world, introducing a delicious buffet of new people, personalities and causes through her Incidental Interviews.

Sheryl pays attention in a way most people simply can’t. She listens, and she hears. She pays attention to me, to you, to her network, to the world. She’s in tune with the world around us in way that brings questions that matter to her mind. She has a way of asking a question that may sound simple, yet is truly deeper than the deep blue sea.

Sheryl’s my life partner, and yes we spend our lives together. I love her beyond anything I’ll ever be able to express in words. Beyond that, I like her more than anyone I’ve ever met. She’s the best friend I’ve ever had. She brings value to the world every day with her thoughts and her actions. She’s a butterfly taking wing, a flower blossom opening, the notes of a symphony of life, hope, curiousity and wisdom in the universe.

The man
Lewis Evans, one of the most talented people I know, is a truly skilled artist but that’s not all. In his life of work and careers, Lewis has gone from engineering to graphic design at the BBC.

Inventions
Lewis has several inventions under his belt. Recently, he invented and commercialized a new way to trade currencies. LEFT Brain Trading uses a combination of powerful mindset techniques developed by his wife, Olga Sheean and a revolutionary method of setting up trading charts that is based on ancient knowledge and the Fibonacci ratios. He co-authored a book on the subject and achieved worldwide recognition and sales within the first year through web-based marketing, seminars and courses.

The United Nations and HIV/AIDS
Lewis also worked for the International Labour Organization (part of the United Nations) in Geneva, as a communications specialist for ILO/AIDS, the part of the ILO that deals with HIV/AIDS in the world of work.

The art and artist

Lewis has traveled all over the world showing his art in a variety of venues, which he is quick to point out is most enjoyable in a private setting. Lewis appears to believe the best way to have the full experience of a single artists work is to not be distracted by a variety of other artists work. I don’t know if I agree with him, but I’m no artist. I simply admire his work and find it amazing how a such a gifted person can achieve what seems so effortless for Lewis.

Lewis is a very smart man with a lot of insight into our world. I think we’ve only tapped the surface.

I hope you’ll enjoy this long conversation. The file has been split into 2 parts for easier listening.

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This is a repost of a post from 2005 on my former Digital Common Sense blog. I reposted it here last year, and today it surfaced for me again after seeing someone hit it via search.

The thoughts here remain not only valid, but perhaps even more timely and pertinent than either of the times I’ve posted this in the past.

I’ve been around blogging and social media for quite sometime, and I realized that while we often hear the term echo chamber, this post more accurately describes our behavior – like the monkey cage. We continually condition and socialize ourselves to behave in certain ways that conform to the norms of our social group.

But more on that below.

In a conversation today a colleague and I talked about this old analogy. It left me thinking about changing corporate culture and the impact of institutional memory, so I’m sharing it here again as a framework for thoughts.

Picture 5 monkeys placed in a cage. A new community is formed. From the ceiling of the cage hangs a bunch of bananas. A stepladder is placed under the bananas. As the first eager monkey rushes up the ladder, a firehose knocks him off and hoses down all the monekys. Shocked, they sit back and regroup. Later another monkey tries, with the same result. It make take repeated attempts by each monkey before they become conditioned (socialized really) to not climb the ladder.

At some point, the lesson has been learned by this closed culture and controls how they respond as a community. Then one monkey forgets and steps onto the ladder. But the firehose doesn’t have time to react. The other four monkeys grab the offender and beat him senseless. They’ve learned that in this society, you don’t climb the ladder.

Now the process of attrition and replacement in the society begins. One of the original monkeys is removed and a new monkey is added to the group. He spies the bananas and leaps onto the ladder, only to be dragged down and beaten by the rest of the group. After several attempts, the new monkey learns.

Another original monkey is replaced with a new monkey. And the same process follows. Then another and another and another. Soon we have a group of five monkeys who’ve never been soaked by the firehose, but won’t climb the ladder. This learned behavior was socialized into the group over time.

It no longer matters how many generations of monkeys follow. The new behavior is that a monkey climbing the ladder will be dragged off and beaten. None of the monkeys in the cage has ever been knocked off the ladder with a firehose. None have been soaked down. They don’t know what the consequence is because it’s been replaced by group behavior. They can’t remember being soaked. They don’t know why they do what they do. The accepted norm for this closed community is to beat anyone who tries to climb the ladder.

Isn’t that a lot like institutional memory? We don’t know why we do what we do. We do it this way because we’ve “always done it this way.” The real end consequence may no longer exist. It may not matter. It may have vanished. But we don’t climb that ladder in this cage buddy. It just isn’t done. We don’t operate that way here.

Today’s conversation led me to recount a seminar and book from several years ago (about 1990 or 91). Teaching the Elephant to Dance by Jim Belasco. That sent me on a quick Googleventure because I didn’t have my copy at hand.

“But, we’ve always done it that way,”

This is a warning sign, a symptom of impending disaster for any organization.

Shackled, like powerful elephants, to the past, organizations rob themselves of the ingenuity required to meet new competitive challenges and escape the “re” dimension trap of “re-engineering, re-organization and re-structuring that concentrate on short term fixes rather than long term solutions.

Elephant is a practical, hands-on guide for creating the right change in any organization, large or small, corporate or governmental, manufacturing or service based. Filled with illuminating case studies, it shows how to devise new corporate visions and strategies… how to overcome inertia .. and how to form labor-management partnerships. Clear, authoritative, practical and inspiring, Elephant provides a step-by-step guide for making the impossible happen.

One of the things Jim said in the small session he led that I attended was a simple tenet of business and change, but one that so often escapes managers.

If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll continue getting the results you’ve been getting.

I was pleased to see a quote from Stephen Covey on Jim’s web page. Jim’s approach to changing corporate culture is one that’s stuck with me ever since. I still have his book. I still refer to it.

Why are the obvious lessons still so hard for some organizations to learn? Change is a fundamental principle in our universe. The rate of change varies widely, but change is everywhere. Permanence is an illusion.

I don’t have an answer, nor do I seek one. I do observe that those who embrace change have an easier time of life. Those who go out and court change…embrace change…drive change, have fun and enjoy. If you resist change, well, as the Borg would say — resistance is futile. Only when we become the agent of change do we have any control over the direction change takes. Isn’t it better to steer the course and set direction than to strive to hold a straight unchanging course. Isn’t progress like sailing, constantly tacking against the winds of change? And if you insist on ignoring the wind of change, don’t you deserve that “jibe ho” just as the booms swings around to knock you into the drink?

It is far too easy for us to fall into the trap. “We’ve always done it that way” is just that, a trap. As I watch the industry, something I’ve had too much time to do lately, we share a collective malaise that Is the root of many of our problems. It’s too easy to moan and groan about the economy. It’s too comfortable to plod along doing what we’ve always done. At this point in time, in business, in society, we do not want to continue getting the results we’ve been getting. Inertia is our mortal enemy.

I’ve been watching where the successes are in the broad technology sector, and they are not from the places we always look for success. I look at the likes of Microsoft, Cisco and Google, and what I see is protectionism, hunkering down, doing what they’ve always done. In short, I see failure and mediocrity. These are not things I aspire do. They aren’t the things most of us want.

The successes, the glowing, winning, resounding stories of greatness are still there. They get buried under the slow moving avalanche of mediocrity. Small businesses are doing well and growing. Creative entrepreneurs aren’t simply finding success – they’re building new companies, new products, new solutions. They’re winning but not listening to the echo chamber. They’re ignoring the monkeys in the cage. They’re taking risks, investing of themselves and winning.

I can think of many examples among my personal network. But so can you. Think about your network, your contacts, your Facebook and Twitter friends. Who are the winners and why are they winners? I’m betting they’re simply people who are committed and doing what they need to do to win. And they aren’t winning in the Fortune 500. Today, the Unfortunate 5 Million is the place to be, among the ranks of those quietly doing what it takes to succeed.

As I twittered earlier today:

I’m not a monkey, and I don’t think like one.

How about you?

Today on an Incidental Interview, Shashi Bellamkonda joined me for a fascinating and fun discussion on social media, what a Social Media Evangelist is and also the appropriateness, or not of discussing breakfast in our twitter stream.

Shashi, aka The Swami, is the Social Media Evangelist for Network Solutions, a company that has positioned itself to help small business find solutions for basic web needs.

How Shashi became a Social Media Swami

Everytime I give out cards , I raise eyebrows, For speaking opportunities the organizers call me back just to confirm that I am not playing a prank on them with my title Social Media Swami of Network Solutions.

The story is that I moved from Product Management to setup this listening post in the Social Media for Network Solutions. Now there is no precedence and I pondered on what the title would be.

So the first step we took was to ask our employees , now we didn’t do it in a official email all employees way but started spreading the word through friends and “microwaving lunch” conversations.

Shashi can be found on twitter @shashib. An interesting man with a solid sense of social media, Shashi is a great connection to have. Come listen to Shashi talk about what he calls boomerang marketing.

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This post has been sitting partially written for a couple of weeks now. Today seemed a good time to dust it off and finish it up.

Clouds. The stuff that networks are made of. I’m given to believe that while the wired telephone network of the late 1800s was truly a point-to-point network, when describing his grander vision, Alexander Graham Bell must have stepped to the chalkboard and drawn a picture of a cloud for his poor assistant Mr. Watson. (See Bell and the Invention of the Telephone). By the 1890’s anyone could build phones. That was easy. Connecting them…not so easy, but I digress.

Clouds have become the universal symbology for networks. From the PSTN to the Internet, business intranets to small office networks, clouds are the most common symbol used in describing a network. Are the clouds wherein we use services really any different? I don’t think so.

If we look at the tools we use to communicate today, the loose hierarchy of network topologies and interwoven networks carriers through in our services. I’ve layered and mixed clouds in a way that feels naturally consistent with the idea that our closest network of connections is at our core. In the past, when talking about network security, I often used the description of an old Celtic castle from the agricultural age to describe how we use layered defenses to allow those people in whom we have greater trust, or a closer relationship, deeper into our circle.

In our network circle, our phone is probably our tightest and smallest circle, with SMS and instant messaging opened to a broader ser t of people, then expanding out to our social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) with email often being the largest could of people who can contact us.

In social networks themselves, the analogy or perhaps even more fitting than it is with hard-wired technology, but we don’t see it used often. Sheryl and I have been deep into the impacts of social networking and how it affects our lives in business, in education, in family relations and general life.

When we look at our social networks this way, we see why fundamental changes are underway that are shifting how humanity communicates. Our closest core network is our family, with a couple being the tightest unit of networking possible. Our family extends to our friends in real life (IRL), but the two aren’t mutually exclusive. For most of us, there is a natural overlap of these networks. Coworkers and business colleagues represent the next tier in the cloud hierarchy, but again, clouds blend together. Social life integrates with personal life, and the lines of distinction between clouds grow hazy.

Enter social networking and the game changes irrevocably. Facebook includes our family, our real life friends, and our coworkers. Twitter has become a collaboration with our wives and husbands, and our customers. For many of us, new connections that become lifelong friends are built from the seeds of social networking.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said that humans are social creatures. I believe it’s a universal truth. Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs looks at the evolution of humanity, but once we move beyond the first two basic levels of physiological and safety needs, the rest of our growth and evolution is tied to our relationships with other people. We form communities, we live in cities, we talk with our neighbors because we are social creatures who cannot exist without social contact.

What’s different today? Social networking has redefined human communications. I’ve spent thirty years working in the telecommunications industry. It’s nice work if you can get it. Today, it’s harder to get that work, in part because that technology has changed. Communications today is about human interaction. It’s not about minutes of calling, so the old telco measurement of ARPU (average revenue per user) is failing as a metric for that business (although the telcos still try to make it fit).

Today we want to communicate in rich and diverse ways. We want voice, video, SMS, IM, Twitter, email, blog comments, location, presence, availability and more. We want them all at the same time. We want options and choices, and to always be able to use the medium that works best for our interaction of the moment. We don’t want phone calls. We don’t want voice mail. We don’t want email. We want every choice on the menu all at once. We want control.

Why do you think this is? I think the answer’s simple. When I make a phone call, I don’t want to talk to AT&T or Qwest. I want to talk to you. When I send a message, I don’t care if it’s SMS, Twitter or email. I care that it’s in your hands now, and that you can reply with the appropriate attention. If we’re doing something important, you can answer immediately. If it’s mundane, I’ll get your reply tomorrow.

Polar opposites, but truisms nonetheless. But the key for me is that technology doesn’t matter. It’s simply a support and delivery mechanism for the underlying human communications. That’s where the value is. We want to communicate. With people.

Social networking has blurred the lines of distinction between our circles of family, friends, coworkers, colleagues, contacts and strangers. We have moved far past the Information Age and are now deeply entrenched in the Interactive Age. In the future, the information economy won’t play as large a role as the revitalized interaction between people. Information is cool, but it and the technologies for delivering it have forever changed how we interact as people.

We’re finding new friends online, many of whom we may never meet in person. Yet our friendships are closer and stronger because of how we communicate. Our workday has changed because the time of day doesn’t matter in a 24 hour world. We call these place-shifting and time-shifting. Geography has become all but irrelevant. Country lines no longer matter. We are people, talking to other people.

We’re also doing some amazing things. We’re writing books together. We building villages together. We’re bring music and education to the youth in our cities. We’re building together. We are growing as a species and learning to care more, do more, live larger in how we think and act. We are, in large part, setting aside the petty differences between us that never really mattered and working together for our own common good. And it;s all because of clouds.

Clouds are soft and don’t have borders or perimeters. They blend together and intermingle. Clouds eliminate barriers because they’re permeable and easily mix. The clouds of technology and communications are merging so quickly, they’re like air. They’re everywhere, and we all live in them. All day. Every day. They’re changing us for the better.

I’ve got my head in the clouds about our future. You?

We got a note the other day from our friend, Sorenson Media CEO Peter Csathy, giving us a heads-up this was coming. Today Sorenson Media (best known for best in class Sorenson Squeeze video encoding and Sorenson Spark video codec), are announcing a major expansion of their video services into the video publishing space with our new “Sorenson 360” service. They’re calling Sorenson 360 a Video Delivery Network (VDN), because — based on the needs and feedback of existing Squeeze customers  — they’ve re-imagined what a video publishing platform should be. The press release is below.

They’re also introducing to the world an entirely new corporate identity, logo, and website as well. So, these truly are exciting times for Sorenson, but we knew they would be under Peter’s able leadership.

Sorenson Media Launches ‘Sorenson 360,’ the First High-Quality Internet Video Delivery Network

• New Web-based Service by Pioneering Digital Media Company Makes Publishing High-Quality Video Online Affordable to Video Professionals and Small- to Medium-Size Businesses for the First Time
• Unique Process Enables Customers to Easily Encode, Upload, Manage and Embed Multiple Format (Flash, MPEG-4) Video on Any Web Site in Minutes, With No Lengthy Contract Required
• Powerful Service Tracks Viewer Metrics, Supplies Video Analytics and Gives Users Bonus of Industry-leading Sorenson Squeeze Video Encoding Software and Confidence Instilled by the Sorenson Media Brand

SAN DIEGO (May 11, 2009)—Sorenson Media today announced the immediate availability of Sorenson 360, a Video Delivery Network (VDN) that enables video professionals and small- to medium-size businesses for the first time to easily publish the highest-quality video on their Web sites in minutes and at an affordable price. Sorenson Media’s flexible new VDN service greatly expands publishing opportunities in the flourishing market for Internet video and represents a significant extension of the company’s existing portfolio of industry-leading products. With Sorenson 360, Sorenson Media now offers a full suite of the highest quality and most innovative services to power video over the Internet.

Sorenson 360 provides all the features of high-cost online video publishing platforms, but rather than the one-format-fits-all approach dictated by others, Sorenson 360 empowers clients with choice and pricing transparency. Customers benefit from support for multiple video file formats (MPEG-4, Flash) and customizable presets. Users interested in publishing high-quality video with the greatest simplicity, can upload their content directly to the Sorenson 360 VDN using any browser. For those needing maximum control and highest video quality, videos are seamlessly uploaded using the latest version of user-friendly Sorenson Squeeze 5. Either way, customers benefit from Sorenson Media’s award-winning client-side encoding that both optimizes video quality and erases costly hidden upload fees charged by competitors with inflexible server-based products.

Once video is uploaded to Sorenson 360, users have access to sophisticated meta-data features, such as viewer-tracking, embedded tags with keywords, detailed and dynamic real-time video analytics, data-rate control and professional-level player skins. An unlimited number of videos can be uploaded, managed and then embedded into any number of Web sites. The transaction, including account creation, takes fewer than five minutes and requires only a credit card. There is no lengthy contractual agreement.

“Crisp, vivid video is one of the most powerful tools for engaging people on the Internet today, but until now no company has offered a high-quality, full-service solution at a compelling price,” said Peter Csathy, Sorenson Media CEO. ”Sorenson 360 re-imagines what video publishing should be and is a game changer. The power of a high-quality, easy-to-use, all-in-one video solution is now finally available to anyone; and it comes from a name and company that video professionals know and trust.”

“Sorenson 360 has infinitely simplified my workflow. I can now encode video easily with Sorenson Squeeze and automatically publish it online quickly and seamlessly through Sorenson 360,” said Blake Heathcote, a Sorenson 360 beta user who produces videos for Random House of Canada as well as the Testaments of Honour project, which chronicles the personal stories of 700 Canadian World War II veterans. “Increasingly, video is becoming the common language of so many aspects of business. Sorenson 360 will allow me to streamline my video publishing process, which will open up new business opportunities and enable me to deliver the highest quality video content online effortlessly and effectively.”

Sorenson Media was an early pioneer in Internet video and has a 14-year record of quality and stability, another critical differentiator for clients looking for a service they can trust with their strategically important video assets. “Users can be confident of the continuing availability of their published Internet videos with our service, certainly something that is not a sure bet with other video publishing services now struggling to find a profitable business model,” Csathy said.

Sorenson 360 features include:

• An elegant and streamlined UI and user experience
• Intuitive browser-based encoding
• Seamless integration with newly enhanced Sorenson Squeeze
• Support for multiple video file formats (MPEG-4, Flash)
• Video content management system
• Sorenson 360 media player
• Permalinks and embed codes
• WordPress plug-in
• Syndication controls
• Dynamic real-time video analytics and viewing metrics
• User controlled data rate
• High-quality webcam capture

Pricing and Availability
Sorenson 360 is now available in a variety of payment plans that start at US$99, which includes up to 2,500 video streams per month and 10 GB of video storage (more than 500 videos). Unlike other products, Sorenson 360 pricing is easy-to-understand, fully transparent (with no upload or set-up fees) and designed to make the process of publishing videos online as painless as possible. For more information, visit www.sorensonmedia.com.

About Sorenson Media

Sorenson Media (www.sorensonmedia.com) offers comprehensive, award-winning video solutions that empower customers to easily and affordably deploy the highest-quality video across the Internet. Included among its products and services are the Sorenson 360 Video Delivery Network (VDN); Sorenson Squeeze, the gold standard encoding application; Sorenson Squish and SquishNet, an easy-to-use browser-based video publishing platform for user-generated content; and Sorenson Spark, the industry’s most widely used video codec, which today empowers the largest selection of Internet video on mobile devices and other consumer products. From its inception in 1995, Sorenson Media has been instrumental in mainstreaming Internet video, and is committed to dramatically improving the online video experience for content creators and consumers alike.

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I put out feelers for strong women who are shaking things up in the technology world. I found Jackie Danicki.

Jackie is a fascinating woman with a colorful history for such a young age. She’s also gained a reputation for being a hard ball hitter as a marketing director for a young favorite company of mine, qik.

At 31 Jackie is definitely a force to be reckoned with and a really good representative of women in technology.

Jackie’s Bio:

Jackie is currently the Director of Marketing for Qik, the world’s leading mobile to web video service. Responsible for marketing and community development in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific, she came to Qik first as a fan of the product and is thrilled to be working with one of the best teams in the mobile web.

Jackie founded the non-profit Engagement Alliance in 2006, through which she consulted companies on their marketing, customer service, internal and external communications. Her clients in the US and Europe have ranged from large multi-national corporations to home-grown SMEs, in areas as diverse as pharmaceuticals, FMCG, publishing, entertainment, advertising, digital media, non-profits and think-tanks.

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Today I was truly honored to have a conversation with someone I deeply admire. Narada Michael Walden, a true musical genius, has worked with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Mariah Carey and so many others.

Narada, lends a great deal of his time and talent to causes ranging from the cancer society to rain forest preservation. On May 25th the Narada Michael Walden foundation is hosting a benefit concert, Let The Sunshine In, at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, for Christopher Rodriguez, who at age 10 was disabled by a stray bullet during his piano lesson in Oakland.

During this conversation I was reminded how much I appreciate people like Narada who see a need and do all they can to help out. Narada has done this time and again, never losing sight of the important things in life. For him, music is all. For a child, a person to be needlessly injured, especially doing something Narada places such value in, well, that’s when he steps up and asks the question, “What can we do?”

Let The Sunshine In is what Narada is doing to help. Here’s where to sign up and get tickets.

About Narada Michael Walden:

Marin County-based Narada Michael Walden, drummer (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jeff Beck, Weather Report), songwriter, producer, performer, three-time Grammy award winner, and Emmy winner has produced countless number-one hits with legendary artists such as Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston. He is credited with launching the careers of Houston and Mariah Carey, and the list of his collaborators reads like a Who’s Who of popular music – Sting, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Ray Charles, Al Jareau, Diana Ross, Steve Winwood, Clarence Clemons, Gladys Knight and Barbara Streisand. He also produced soundtracks for popular films including: The Bodyguard, James Bond: License to Kill, and 9½ Weeks

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Technorati Tags: Narada Michael Walden, Incidental Interviews, Sheryl Breuker, Let The Sunshine In, Christopher Rodriguez

Meet Jeff Power from the Global Hope Network International. Jeff is the Mobilization Director for the US and has a vision that he shares eloquently.

When you listen to Jeff, as I did, you quickly learn that his story, while typical in some ways, has really taken him on a path to something I would only describe as amazing.

Jeff is quick, bright, funny, appealing and every bit a man in search of the tools he needs to help people in a very big way. Jeff isn’t a corporate entity and he doesn’t feel stuffy. He’s a regular guy with vision and a passion that’s infectious. You simply can’t come away from him and not feel you have the ability to do something.

We’ll be writing more about this in the weeks to come. We believe this to be one of the most powerful examples of the value in social media.

Mobilization, USA, Jeff and his team mobilize people and resources from the United States that serve, support and accelerate the world-wide projects of Global Hope Network International. He comes to GHNI having spent his adult life working in the communities and college campuses of Virginia, Ohio, North Dakota, Illinois and Colorado.

Jeff is passionate about serving the world’s poorest, and feels GHNI gives him some great, tangible ways to do that and to involve others like him who also truly care.

Jeff’s been married to Mary for 25 years. They’re crazy about their four kids, and they love the new adventure they’re on with Global Hope Network International and its growing connection of world-wide volunteers.

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Technorati Tags: Jeff Power, Global Hope Network International, GHNI, Sheryl Breuker, Humanitarian aid, Incidental Interview, interview, podcast