Stardust Global Ventures

This morning I received a message from Andrea Weckerle.

Andrea wrote, “I promised I’d tell u about my new project: CiviliNation/cybercivility See WSJ op-ed I wrote w/ JW. Would love ur thoughts & support!” Of course I went straight away to see what she said.

I read it and think Andrea hit on something that’s incredibly valuable, so much so I wanted to not only share what she wrote but some of my own thoughts on this as well.

Class: Whatever happened to it?
We’ve become a crude and crass global world. It’s as though we’ve stepped back in time and all become what once was called the lower class. Cue the music for the song that was cut in the musical Chicago. The words are definitely raw, but in a sort of tongue and cheek way, they hit the nail on the head.

Click the words above for the rest of the song, but you get where I’m headed.

No longer does anyone stop and consider how what they have to say may impact others. Which is rather ironic because our individual reach has grown and as our arms have gotten longer, we have used less decorum. It’s almost as though we’re determined to hurt others as much as possible. Or are we?

I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m guilty of saying things I regretted later. Andrea makes a really great point when she says this:

Just as we’ve learned what is deemed appropriate face-to-face communication, we need to learn what is appropriate behavior in an environment that frequently deals with purely written modes of communication and an inherent absence of nonverbal cues.

I’m not entirely convinced we want to hurt so much as we want attention. Any kind of attention, but attention none the less. I’m reminded of children and how in an environment where they are not given enough positive feedback or boundaries they frequently rebel and become aggressive. Is there a corollary? Is it possible as a society we have stopped behaving well because there are no longer well defined boundaries, or is it something else?

Enter video.
We’ve been dragging our feet to adopt video, but what video has the ability to do is remove the barrier to those visible cues Andrea talks about. I think video might be a tool that has great potential to influence our relationships with those from other cultures, and even those in our own who would otherwise misconstrue our words.

It’s interesting that one of the topics of academic boards is how our kids are failing at language skills. Yet, most are involved in communication daily online. How do we give them the tools to communicate and be understood, so what is written is actually not misinterpreted? Video.

I don’t want to get so long winded you all no longer have the energy to go read the article by Andrea. I merely wanted to put out a couple of thoughts, incomplete though they are and stimulate some thoughts or dialog from others.

If I have one suggestion, it would be to treat each other kindly and with respect. That you have a voice or the ability to think and type out words doesn’t give you the right to be cruel. Be thoughtful. Maybe think of that as a New Years Resolution? I am terrible with metaphors and quotes, but treating others as you would wish to be treated isn’t such a bad idea, is it?

Technorati Tags: Andrea Weckerle, Jimmy Wales, WSJ, Cybercivility, CiviliNation, Sheryl Breuker

Every writer blogger feels compelled to spew at times. It’s one of our inner demons. We must write. This is my spew as we leave 2009 and look to the next year. If something I say here doesn’t make you angry, I will have failed miserably. If something I say here doesn’t motivate you to change how you view the world for at least one day, I will have failed miserably. If one of you reads this and takes some small action to change our world, even one, I will have wildly succeeded. Read on if you dare.

I’ve been focused on a word the last week or two that echoes in my brain. Transformation. I’ve used it a number of times lately, and as I begin writing this, I think of a friend who asked “what are we transforming?” Thank you Eran, for making me reach for an answer that came effortlessly, without thinking…the world. We are going to transform the world.

I’ve spent 30 years of my life in the tech sector. Telecommunications and networks, switches and routers, bits and bytes. Bullshit and dollars my friends. Bullshit and dollars.

Depending on how you count the decades, we’re wrapping of the decade of decadence. Gadgets and toys, we’ve got plenty.  As the song says “whoosits and whatits galore.” And with any collection of gadgets and gizmos, we’ve been awash in a sea of marketing/sales/pitch babble that has threatened to drown out our own humanity. Threatened and failed dismally.

I work in sector that’s all about information movement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s voice or data, pictures or video. It’s information and we hunger for it. Or so we tell each other. We need more. More more more. Faster. Bigger. Cooler, Slicker. New UI. Broadband. Wideband. High Definitiion. Let’s concentrate the bullshit so we can inject the essence of crap directly into our brains and a concentration of 1 million ppm. That’ll sell right? People will buy it. We’ll get rich. Then we can have more!

What a crock!

If I learned any real lessons in 2009, it came as a result of being laid off in January and spending almost the entire year looking for work. Not very successfully I might add. God has this mysterious way of slamming us to the ground hard before he let’s us bounce back. Crying uncle isn’t enough. Not really. But I’m not alone. I won’t call out the names of friends and colleagues who are unemployed or underemployed. You know I’m pulling for you every day. Just like you do for me. And every day is still a scary new beginning. But the lesson I learned this past year, is that I’m alive. I’m well. I have a wonderful woman I love by my side, and she loves me back. I have dreams. We have dreams. We have friends far and wide.

I’m not decrying technology. Not at all. We’re geek freaks and admit it. I’m a geekaholic, and it’s been 2 hours since I last lusted after some new gadget. We’re human. It’s our nature. But with technology comes a price if we pay it. We don’t have to pay it, but sometimes it’s easy to choose to pay the price. Let me explain, and I’m going to use a phrase I will abandon this year. It’s something I intend to speak about in the past tense. It was a bubble, and I’m just the prick to call bullshit and burst the damn thing. That’s right, I’m talking about the elephant in the room, social media.

There are very few more ill-conceived terms in use, but they do exist. Web 2.0. SEO. SEM. Convergence is another. They are the cornerstones of buzzword bingo. Designed to either befuddle us or set our salivary glands to drooling so we’ll write a check and buy something. Dammitall stop that foolishness. Now.

Is social media about technology? No
Is social media about business? No
Is social media about marketing? No

Dictionary.com has a number of meanings for social. Let’s just look at the first nine:

1. pertaining to, devoted to, or characterized by friendly companionship or relations: a social club.
2. seeking or enjoying the companionship of others; friendly; sociable; gregarious.
3. of, pertaining to, connected with, or suited to polite or fashionable society: a social event.
4. living or disposed to live in companionship with others or in a community, rather than in isolation: People are social beings.
5. of or pertaining to human society, esp. as a body divided into classes according to status: social rank.
6. involved in many social activities: We’re so busy working, we have to be a little less social now.
7. of or pertaining to the life, welfare, and relations of human beings in a community: social problems.
8. noting or pertaining to activities designed to remedy or alleviate certain unfavorable conditions of life in a community, esp. among the poor.
9. pertaining to or advocating socialism.

I used to talk a lot about what I called digital common sense and it’s time to get back to that. Look at the definitions and you’ll see that social is all about people and human society. It’s not about bits and bytes. It’s also not about how many followers we have or how often we get retweeted. It’s not about whuffie in any way shape or form.

Forget media. Your voice is media. Writing a grocery list uses media. Think about the core. Social is about people. What we practice online, badly for the most part, is a form of digital socialism. Did that make your back teeth hurt? That same dictionary defines socialism as

a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Ouch you say. Why? Does that hurt. What the Internet has given us is real democratization where every individual has voice. The real question is not what toys you have. It’s not whether you have an iPhone or Blackberry, tablet or netbook, Kindle or Nook. The question that matters is how are we using our voices?

I know you’re wondering where I fell off the planet and lost my theme of transformation right about now. So put your thinking cap on and hang on. It’s about to get bumpy for those of you selling trinkets, gadgets, and yes, services.

Fire did not transform the world. How we used it did.
Gutenberg’s printing press did not transform the world. How we used it did.
The light bulb didn’t transform the world. How we used it did.
Same for the automobile, the airplane, and countless other inventions and discoveries.

Radio and television changed us into receivers. We became fat, dumb and happy. Spoon fed by an industry created of greed that became the choke point of information that fed us what was popular. And we know that because people (advertisers) paid lots of money to spoon feed us that stuff. They changed the world in ways that are neither good nor bad at this point. Some of each.

The iPhone did not transform the world. How we use it hasn’t either. But it can.
Netbooks did not transform the world. How we use them hasn’t either. But it can.

Technology, used by people, can and does transform the world. And let me give you some examples. First, remember the story of the little girl throwing starfish into the ocean. A man told her she couldn’t make a difference in the number of starfish dying. She simply tossed another one back into the see and said “it made a difference for that one.“

Now I’ll give you some off the cuff examples of some people I met online this year. People who make a difference one person, one child, one village, one cause at a time. Transformation heroes who are out to make a difference. They’re using social tools for social causes. Helping fix broken pieces of our society and make the world a better place.

Jeff Power – Schools in Africa
Lotay Yang – Cause after cause
Pete Miller – Children, our most precious resource
Mark Horvath – Homeless people and their value
Drew Olanoff  – Cancer awareness
Alex Plank – Autism education

These folks are simply a tiny handful of the people I’ve met this year who through either little things every day, or major investments of their lives are transforming our world by using the tools of technology to bring about awareness, involvement and change.

We, yes we the people of the world, can transform the world in ways technology cannot. We’ll do it in the ways we come together to support causes, to support one another, make friends, engage, and share our lives. Technology won’t do that.

Used one way, technology is a great enabler for mankind. Lose sight of that and it becomes a great obstacle driving lust and greed. In the tech sector, I see fartoo much lust and greed. I’m too often guilty of it. If you’re honest with yourself, so are you.

What we have every day is something best illustrated by Hugh.

We reinvent ourselves every morning when we awaken. Are you awake? Who are you inventing today?
Are you inventing a marketer? Are you selling snake oil or making the world better?
Are you inventing a maker of products? Are you distilling snake oil or making the world better?
Are you inventing a commercial service? Are you selling illusions or making the world better?
Are you inventing a conference to promote hype? Are you selling tickets on a carousel or making the world better?

Many of you…many of us are far too busy building a house of cards. We chase money, success, prestige, and objects rather than real good.

2010 is a year of transformation. It’s a year of change. When we leave it on December 31, 2010, the world will be transformed. How are we all going to help?

One thing I’m going to do is pay far more attention to real change, real transformation and real commitment. Companies that do things that can changes our lives will get far more attention than bit twiddlers who can shave a penny off the cost of a phone call. Gadgets and services that are me too responses aren’t creators or innovators. I’ll do my best to either ignore them or call them out. I want to focus on the things that matter in the world.

Sure, I’m a geek. An enterprise architect. Technology strategist. Business professional in marketing and sales. But before all those things, I’m a person on this planet we call home. In 2010 I’m going to do something to make it a better place for you and me.

Sheryl’s pretty well known for her Incidental Interviews. And she’s always engaged in conversations on Twitter and Facebook. What doesn’t always get enough visibility is her writing. So I thought I’d take a moment to give you my pick of Sheryl’s Top Ten posts for 2009. Enjoy. And you’ll get to know her better in the process.

• Passionate about Social Media? Me too and here’s why!
• Investment versus Engagement or Pancakes versus Crepes
• How Social Media Makes a Difference for People!
• The sum of Twitter
• Should your Business be on twitter?
• Who are your influencers? I hope you know
• Small Business Does Not Use Social Media….Yet
• I Have A Dream And What’s Wrong With That?
• All Roads Lead To Walla Walla
• Who’s in Your Network?

I’ve been thinking about the power many of us grant Twitter lately. It’s been fueled by a number of conversations and articles I’ve read. I’d like us to consider something I’ll call the Zen of Twitter.

In the visual, the little blue pie slice represents our network – our real network – the people we know that we know. Large numbers or small doesn’t matter. It’s a finite set of people we know we have an established connection with.

The larger coral section represents a larger group – the people we know that we don’t know. We aren’t connected, but we know they exist. We saw someone speak to them or of them. They were on some video we saw and mentioned their Twitter name. We know these people use Twitter, yet we have no connection. We’re simply aware they’re outside our network.

The largest slice, the green one, represents most of Twitter. The people we don’t know that we don’t know. They’re there on Twitter. Some are more active than we are. Yet we don’t know that they exist. We don’t know what they do. We don’t know their value. They could easily become part of our network, but we’re unaware of each other, so far.

Consider how much effort is spent in follower counts. It’s the holy grail for the clueless on Twitter. More is good, more is better, I need more. More, more, more.  I won’t name anyone, but the misconception that more has higher value is rampant among even the most elite of the Twitterati. And many speak of little else at times.

I’m not denigrating the value of enlarging your network, but I am going to make a point.

Twitter exists inside that pie. It’s a closed ecosystem. True, the barrier to entry is zero but let’s be realistic and not give Twitter more power than it has. I know you want me to explain that, right? Read on. (more…)

A little over a year ago I posted to this and believed that while it might be good to have a twitter presence it certainly wasn’t right for all businesses. Today I have modified that thought and here’s why.

This week has been rather interesting in the world of technology. LeWeb, the conference held in Paris, is an opportunity for startups and entrepreneurs to come together and present, learn and coexist in an environment that offers collaboration as well as partnerships, providing both funding and help in building towards a funding stage. It also allows advisement to those unsure of how to proceed and really offers much more.

What’s interesting about this particular iteration of LeWeb is what happened when Robert Scoble met several entrepreneurs and asked the basic question, “Do you have a twitter account?” When he was told they did not he blew up at them. Hmmm, well, it raised a really good question about necessity in my mind.

Robert suggested that every business should have a twitter account, but in my opinion an opportunity was missed. He suggested that without a twitter account he can’t promote the company. I don’t completely agree. What would be wrong with twittering out a web address? After all, whether you’re on twitter or not, doesn’t every company have a web address? Another question to answer!

I’ve talked to several people recently and felt compelled to quote someone I respect for having pointed out that in todays world without a web presence you simply won’t exist to the young adults who are quickly moving into the business world. But I digress.

I think Robert missed an opportunity to educate, inspire and influence others with his current belief system. Rather than get annoyed and take it personally, Robert could have talked to these people and expressed his opinions, both why he thinks it’s important and what he thinks they should be doing. I understand that Robert is a big name in the world of technology, and I understand he may not feel it’s his job to teach, but whether he takes that as part of his job or not, people do follow his lead much of the time so he has a responsibility to his network to be an example.

Yes, Robert has a twitter presence and he uses it, today, but he also vacillates much of the time, moving to the next big shiny and frequently balking at the very things he claims are necessary today. Much of ‘09 Robert talked about how great friendfeed was and how it was much more powerful than twitter was. Then, once friendfeed got bought up by facebook he switched and started posting more to twitter talking about how it was worth 5-10 billion dollars and the best, most important tool out there. It’s not a good testament to the value of having your business on twitter.

Having just chastised Robert, something good came of his behavior and the much discussed berating he gave the people in France. I started thinking about my own views, I also came across some other articles that sort of support my own thinking and I’d like to share those with you and let YOU make up your own mind.

The first article I read this morning was – a berry business blog hosted on Chicago Now. The blog post that set things in motion was, To Tweet or Not to Tweet.

I recently took a meeting with a potential corporate partner to discuss an opportunity for co-branding and quickly found myself in a heated discussion about social media and its effect on our respective company’s brands.

“You don’t tweet?” I asked, in disbelief.

“We don’t tweet. Corporate is nervous. Too much room for discussion,” responded my associate.

“But that’s the whole point!” I exclaimed.

The rest of the story is here.

People still aren’t sure what they should do, which is one of the reasons I think Robert should have been a little less harsh. Just because he does it, and he gets it doesn’t mean the rest of the world does. They do have an obligation to learn, but it takes time and anytime we try to force our ideals, our views down someone else’s throat without giving them an opportunity to understand the value or make up their own mind, we essentially say to them, if you don’t agree with me, you are not worth my time. That’s a huge mistake. What business would exist if that were the perpetuated mindset?

In reading the article, To Tweet or Not to Tweet, what occurred to me was the value in having a twitter presence that is a representation of the company’s views, a visual helpdesk, a persona people can identify with and a LINK to the website for the company. It’s becoming the norm to see all across the web the twitter equivalent to a web address by using a ‘@’ in front of a company logo or name like this: ‘@so-and-so’, or in my case, @sherylbreuker .

We used to believe that aggregation was where it was all going, and while there may be some value in having a single point of reference for all of that, that was still about sites like friendfeed or jaiku where all your blogs, all your weblinks could be found in one place. Great as that is, what has changed is now people look for you on twitter, and will click through to your blog via the sidebar. My sidebar very clearly shows a Web address which directly links to my website. It’s a lot easier to have a single name, @sherylbreuker, for instance.

Today as a company trying to stay afloat in the business world, you have to meet your customers where they are. Twitter is powerful. Twitter isn’t all, though, and you need to seriously consider a presence not only on twitter but every other place there are potential customers for you. The web is bigger than anyone could have predicted. Existing there, is the only way to stay alive.

The next article I read that also gave me food for thought was by Ari Herzog. Ari posted a Case Study of 4 Companies on Twitter. The opening paragraph is, in my opinion, a fabulous directive to all companies sending one of their own into the marketing realm of twitter.

Short of the official Twitter rules and usage guidelines left and right, it is the choice of each business to either emulate best practice or test how to write and respond to 140 character updates on their own.

I have long believed if a company is to succeed on twitter, they need to keep in mind a couple of basic rules:

• Reciprocity is mandatory and should be written into a company policies and guidelines, under rules of engagement
• Authenticity, another critical piece of the corporate pie today, largely because people can smell a rat and if you’re simply sending a front person into the lines and provide them a script, it’s not real and they will be eaten alive
• Trust is what you gain by allowing for the above to take place and there is precious little else as valuable

Having said that, what is more important today, even than engagement is protecting your brand. A future proofing of sorts. Having a twitter presence and growing organically a following is just as valid as seeking the instant gratification so many large corporations expect and desire to prove ROI.

Today I rescind my past assertion that not all business should be on twitter. I embrace the need to look toward a future where all things are based on the web. Even the small town business will need to be findable. Why? Geo location services/devices will not find you and someone just passing through will be pointed to a competitor. Many twitter clients offer location services and people are using them.

Twitter is no longer a flash in the pan, or fluff. Twitter is one of the most powerful tools in the industry.

I operate under the assumption that, like many, many bloggers have half-written, partly formed (or ill formed) blog posts that never quite see the light of day. I know many people who write drafts and then never finish them. I generally don’t. Rather, I leave the ideas rattling around in my head, half-baked and unwritten. Sometimes they come back to to haunt me, demanding attention. Lack of interest, insufficient motivation or some other vague notion simply prevents me from completing my thoughts and writing the post.

Here are some examples of topics and ideas that just haven’t made it out to see the light of day for one reason or another.

• Quality of Service vs Gigabandwidth – I’m a pretty staunch advocate of QoS, which is nothing but a prioritization scheme for deciding what traffic to throw away first. How do we really determine the effectiveness of QoS given the reality of gigabandwidth? And aren’t we really almost to a transition to petabandwidth? And how useful will QoS really be in that mode?
• Why do we think 4G/WiMAX/LTE are such a big deal when we really should be talking about the future of mobile gigabandwidth? That’s our real future.
• Due diligence in development. When did we give up the idea of alpha/beta testing and decide to let others test for us? Has market demand for immediate gratification really offset the value of QA testing? It seems so in many cases, but do we have empirical data to support that. Or are we just intuiting it because it’s what we’d like to believe. And are we really just taking the lazy way out? 
• The evolution of what we call journalism. There are implications of citizen journalism and the now media that get discussed, but is there a change in journalistic integrity we simply don’t talk about? Prior research and fact finding have always been cornerstones of good journalism. Today bloggers and journalists alike seem to often simply show up for the story, with expectations that a story will present itself. Prior research and the art of investigative journalism seem to have lost their way in the NOW media. Instant gratification and the demand for “realtime news” seem to be superseding the motivation to put in the effort to investigate and prepare for many, especially bloggers who aren’t legacy journalists. And I plead guilty to being one of that group often.
• What’s happened in the culture of collaboration that led us to the idea of a team requiring UN-like consensus to move forward? When did we give every member of a team veto power with a vote. If we’re doing something innovative, new, next-generation, or exciting, shouldn’t we expect some percentage of the team, user population or audience to not like it and feel uncomfortable? Isn’t healthy disagreement still a good thing? If two people are in business and always agree on everything, isn’t one of them unnecessary?
• Why do we emotionally invest our support in startups that either don’t listen to feedback or don’t respond/acknowledge customer input and then complain? What made us so shy about pulling the plug. Instead we hang on and harp about what sucks and why we wish they’d listen or change. Why don’t we simply go somewhere else? What makes us stay so fiercely loyal to products and services that don’t give us what we want?
• Where is literacy headed? Books are being written on Twitter and Wave. Our literary world has become a 140 character sound bite. There’s an old Sioux adage about the impact of our actions on the next seven generations from now. So what will the William Shakespeare of seven generations now write in 12 characters and two emoticons that will impact generations to follow and be studied in school?

These are just a few things that rattle in my brain and haven’t made it out to posts yet. Will they? Maybe. And they may just remain half-formed thoughts and questions that never get fully explored.

The hook -

Make money simply for doing what you already do – tweet! Great line, but is it so simple?

Many of you know I’ve tried several different ad campaigns to see how they work, wondering how effective they are, but also wondering how comfortable I would feel with them.

I know a couple people questioned how smart it was for me to use my account to advertise all sorts of things, and truth be told, in the beginning I was not terribly discerning. Oh, I wouldn’t have allowed everything, but there were definitely a number of things I did allow to get tweeted that weren’t overly popular with my network.

What I learned -

After about a month of using both magpie and spontwts, I learned to be more aware of what content was getting pushed through my account. For instance, while I may appreciate nice clothes, a fashionista I am not. I took a lot of flack back when I was allowing the fashion ads.

This morning I was sent an ad campaign from twittad that on the surface was fine, still I hadn’t paid attention well enough, obviously. I was shocked to log onto twitter on the web and see my sidebar had been removed and in it’s place? A HUGE full size add, right where I typically advertise myself. WOW! How did that happen?

What do you need to consider before involving yourself, and, your twitter account in an ad campaign? Below are a few thoughts I would suggest you consider before jumping in. Once you make the decision to do it, take it slow and have fun with it. Also make sure you disclose to your network what you are doing. I didn’t unless asked which I believe is a mistake in retrospect.

• 1: Know your audience (network, alliances, friends)
• 2: Don’t settle
• 3: It’s not all about the money
• 4: Listen to your people
• 5: If you’re not comfortable, end it
• 6: Read the fine print and understand it before agreeing to anything
• 7: Don’t expect to make a ton of money fast; you won’t. 
• 8: Define your goals

Now, those may seem like no brainers but they may not be quite as easy to pay attention to at first. Funny thing with ads, they’re sort of addicting. They were to me anyway. I kept watching the money add up and was all excited that I might make enough to pay my internet bill or something. I did, but at what cost?

Fortunately for me I have a great network full of a lot of people I actually call friends. They may have dropped the occasional message, suggesting I was in over my head or asking what I was doing, Dameon, but in general they watched me fuss around, changing quantity, honing the ads so they were more the type of thing my network would be interested in, like technology.

There is money to be made from ads, but if your network is small, you will not make tons. It takes time to get the right campaigns coming to you that you can then approve. Above all, keep it in perspective. You will not get rich so don’t even go there. Do expect to hear from people occasionally who are not appreciative of content being broadcast at them. Broadcast isn’t well tolerated right now.

Thanks for your patience, and please don’t message me to tell me my sidebar is replaced with ugly content. It should be remedied now.

SB

Folks who know Sheryl and I know that while we’re huge fans and supporters of a number of conferences, we haven’t been to one ourselves since early 2008. Life has been such that we simply haven’t been able to be there. We don’t know if or when that might change, but we still try to lend support in sharing information about things that we think are important.

Because of the relationships we have with some conference organizers, we get information about coming events. Today I received email from Embrase Business Consulting who recently launched an event dedicated to startup companies in the telephony industry. That’s an industry near and dear to our hearts, even though neither Sheryl or I actively work in it.

Startup Camp Telephony, an event dedicated to everything Startup in emerging communications, is launching its first ever event next month in Miami. The event is co-located with ITExpo. The evening of January 21st, 2010 will bring together early stage companies, investors and industry insiders alike to share information and validate startup pitches in real time. The event is free for Startups. Startups can even apply to present, and if they are one of the five selected startups to present, they will get a free booth at ITEXPO, loads of exposure and great feedback.

Why StartupCamp Telephony
StartupCamp Telephony was born from the desire to grow the exposure – and ultimately commercial successes – of the many dynamic young businesses being created today in mobile, voice, video, network and other emerging forms of telephony. While the IP communications market continues to mature, there remains a powerful legion the early stage innovators and risk takers who view telecom as a place of great opportunity. Yet, in order for these energetic companies to prosper, they first need access to capital and expertise. StartupCamp Telephony aims to be a forum that brings together today’s risk takers and fuels the confidence of tomorrow’s innovators.

The Event
While the five startups selected to ‘fast-pitch’ the evening of the January 21st will surely bring dynamic and potentially disruptive offerings to the market, the dialog of the evening will be tilted more towards the challenges and solutions for commercial success. These five presenters will be vetted and selected by a group of industry guru’s, will each have 6 minutes to pitch their business then each benefit from the feedback from a panel of experts and the audience. Keynote speakers and rich networking sessions will round out this first-of evening.

The organizers of Startup Camp Telephony Edition are Phil Telio and Larry Lisser of Embrase, in collaboration with TMC, organizers of ITEXPO. Anyone interested in helping with the organization of the event can contact them directly.

I wish we were going to be at ITExpo. It’s an event with a very special place for us. I’d love to be in the panel for the event. We won’t be there. It simply doesn’t fit our life at this point.

Ripples of shock went through the Twitterverse last night when I said I was sleeping on the idea of an iPhone to replace Blackberry as my next mobile phone. Rest easy. All is well and harmony has been restored to the universe. But there were enough comments from friends and colleagues that I thought I’d explain why the consideration, and why I’ve eliminated the iPhone yet again as the phone for me.

First, why consider an iPhone?

Like most people, I’m impressed by the application platform. More importantly, I’ve been considering doing some development work again; something I haven’t done for many years. The iPhone is a far easier platform to develop for than other mobile devices. RIM has been my platform of choice, but frankly, I don’t see doing RIM development as being worth the headache and heartache it involves. Developing an iPhone/iPod app is doable, and could lead to other new things.

But, I have an iPod Touch. And most of the apps in the app store are garbage. I don’t want to create more garbage. Still, that isn’t what led me to back away from the iPhone.

What kills the iPhone for me, is the iPhone itself, in a number of ways, partly coupled to the Apple culture.

1. It’s a 3G device, but I live in a 2G community. 3G won’t be here before 4G hits much of the US. I haven’t seriously been considering a 3G device because they suck power when there’s no 3G available, and battery life is a big concern for me.
2. The iPhone is quirky and unreliable. I only say this based on how many times I’ve seen my friends and colleagues complain that they lost this or that and had to do a complete, tedious restore process. Or they were off to the Genius  Bar. That’s nice, but the nearest Genius Bar is a 6 hour drive for me. I won’t go there. Ever. So any failure of that sort, means shipping my phone into space and doing without until it returns; not a good solution.
3. Battery life is at a premium. My Blackberry has the best usable battery life I’ve ever seen. It’s better than my iPod Touch, every Nokia since the N73, my older WinMobile Treo. And it’s easily swapped. The iPhone doesn’t have good, let alone stellar battery life from all I’ve read. But at least if the battery in the iPhone dies, I can go sit and do nothing. A non-swappable battery is simply stupid beyond belief.
4. External memory is a concern. Sure the current 3GS has a 32G option, but there’s no microSD support, which seems terribly shortsighted and something that can’t be fixed without a new iPhone. Not good for me.
5. The keyboard on the iPhone isn’t really a keyboard. I’ve used my Touch for a year and hate it. Yes, I’ve learned I can get used to it. Getting used to it and liking it are personal things. I don’t like the iPod keyboard and I don’t believe I ever will. The Treo, with it’s combination of touchscreen and keyboard were my favorite solution. Maybe one day the iPhone will incorporate a slider keyboard. That would make me reconsider.
6. Contract lock. I’m already an AT&T customer, but I’m not under contract. I’d like to keep it that way and an iPhone means signing a 2-year contract. I don’t have to do that.

No, I don’t expect to do dev work on any mobile platform at this point. The iPhone is the only one I was considering, and if I don’t use an iPhone, why bother? It was a nice idea, but that motivation is gone for the time being. Maybe it will resurface at some future point.

Reality is that my work is largely in enterprise network and communications space. And government space. And security space. Areas where the mobile of choice is a Blackberry. The iPhone hasn’t penetrated my core target client base, and it isn’t on track to any time soon.

Windows Mobile hasn’t penetrated anywhere really. Except Redmond. There are pockets of use, but it’s simply not the OS for me.

Nokia has deeply penetrated the cheap phone market. Standard mobile phones, a new model every week. Some weeks every day. But in the high end, and the enterprise space, they’re a non-event in my target client base. The E series might be big in European enterprise markets, but in the US, it doesn’t exist. The N series seems to only exist in the die hard Nokia lovers segment. While I can get an E71 at a reasonable price, even cheap with a contract, why would I? It’s a phone that’s at de facto end of life just by virtue of how Nokia rolls out new ones. Nokia doesn’t make sense for me.

My opinion of ‘droid phones and Android is already well known enough. Not for me.

To be fair, I do love the iPhone browser. I love some apps, but not all. But the Touch is enough. There’s plenty of WiFi. It’s a great sofa computer for casual computing. The iPhone would be too. A great computer, but not a great mobile phone as a single device for my personal requirements,

Blackberry. Simple, obvious, and expected. And the choice is pretty easy for me. There’s either the Curve 8900 or the Bold 9700. The only differences I can see are the Bold comes preloaded with OS5. I may have to load that by hand on an 8900. And the Bold is a 3G device in my 2G world. I already know my Curve 8310 gets better battery life than Sheryl’s Bold 9000 and 3G searching for network is one big driver. The other is WiFi, which both the models I’m considering have. But I manage WiFi pretty judiciously on the N95 when we use it. I learned how to do that without even thinking about it when I  started testing the Nokia N series phones.

Winner – Blackberry Curve 8900. The biggest changes and enhancements for me? WiFi, 3.2MP camera and a faster processor that my older 8310. All things I want and need.

Interesting that over 6 months after picking the 8900 as my next phone, I’m still sticking with that decision. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m running out today to part with money and buy one. My 8310 is on its last legs, but it’s limping along and gets the job done. It’s my primary device for communications of all forms for about 14 hours a day.

When’s the last time you got 14 hours use out of your iPhone without plugging in to keep it alive?