SURVIVOR Silicon Valley

SURVIVOR Silicon Valley goes to Web 2.0 Expo

From March 31 to April 3, this blog will report random acts of trendiness, cliches and over-the-top geekiness from a perch at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.  While there will be many excellent presentations and useful exchanges of knowledge, we fully expect to be entertained by silly geek tricks.  And don't forget the VCs.

Here are some places to visit for more information.

About the conference
Online registration
The free expo pass opportunity -- use websf09tr3 for a $100 discount or the free expo pass

A word about inventing

Inventing, is, after all, the business of Silicon Valley.  After some of the conference attending and blog reading, one might think otherwise.  One might conclude it's about a lot of other things.  I have a feeling, however, the wheat will be separated from the chaff.

As the curtain closes on another phase of irrational greed unencumbered by either ethics or babysitting, it's interesting to contemplate what happens next here in the land of startups.  While some master bloggers issue warnings and promote fear -- none of which I recommend reading -- the real work of this corner of the world continues.

Last night I attended a panel discussion, sponsored by Business Association Italy America, chaired by Professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli of University of California Berkeley and Co-Founder, Cadence Design Systems.  He assembled a group of inventors who specialize in wireless sensor networks [WSNs], and they shared their stories and perspective on what lies ahead for their specialty and the industrial customers who use their products.  It struck me that while they, like us, will have to think about what's happening in the financial markets, their focus remains invention and bringing products to market.  A market they seek to serve, not to manipulate.

Last week, I read Calley Nye's heartfelt yet business savvy prospectus-on-a-blog about a startup she is launching.  Calley, who works out of LA and through relationships here in Silicon Valley, has come up not only with an idea for managing one's social interactions on the Web, she is attempting a new business model for funding her product development.  Read about it here and make sure to read her followup post.  Calley is relentless in her creativity.  I hope her initial funding approach works. 

These are the stories that are just as important as the very painful market correction we suffer today.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

What Silicon Valley can learn from Wall Street's disaster

What can Silicon Valley learn from Wall Street?  If you're on Twitter today, the answer to this question would be, "put us in charge."

Not a good idea.

A lot of the folks tweeting this morning level an interesting type of criticism at Wall Street.  Those Wall Street people and their pals in Washington are not ethical.  They're not fair.  They don't share.  They want the system to serve them.  They are inept leaders.

I'm not sure we in Silicon Valley are in a position to lead the charge on ethics, leadership or self absorption.  That's because, as we learned earlier in this decade, we suffer the same maladies as our buddies on Wall Street.  Many of us do not share credit with others for their contributions to a team effort.  We don't invite new blood into our cozy circles.  We often work with hidden agenda.  We get in line only when a bigger bully lowers the boom.

We in Silicon Valley talk about collaboration but we have a lot to learn about what collaboration means.  We suffer just as much from the seductions of elitism -- being invited to the right parties, knowing the right people.

So I suggest that we in Silicon Valley look at our own behavior.  And remember that a lot of us are here because we did business with Wall Street and benefited greatly from the experience.  We just might be Wall Street.  Without the $700 billion.  So let's eat some of that dog food we're selling on Twitter and in the blogs.  Let's start spreading the wealth, whatever the currency.

The data portability wars: Real notes from the front

Business Association Italy America [BAIA] held an event in Palo Alto this past Wednesday evening, to address the topic of data portability and where the user fits in the various DP equations.  You can find a PowerPoint deck covering the main points addressed by the panelists on SlideShare, a terrific website for posting and sharing presentations.  Just click here and you can run through the slides.

About the same time I was preparing for the panel [I was the moderator], news started leaking about a new foundation with the word "open" in it, related to data.  Here's what you need to know.

I spent around six months as an active volunteer in the DataPortability Project, which I still support -- largely because technologists and people like myself [liberal arts business folks] are working hard to address the question of how technology can understand and serve ease of movement around the Web.  The inclusion of regular business people, as well as the focus on users, is what attracted me to the project.  There are several excellent research and development organizations, but most of them are uncomfortable inviting business types into their folds.  And they move very slowly.

What I learned during my time on the project is:  there is a jihad afoot among so-called experts in openness and data portability.  This jihad is all about power and influence -- not about the issue of data portability and certainly not about the people who are devoting a lot of time to making data more portable, legally and without an anarchistic ax to grind.  The latest announcement and the silly people tricks associated with it, from all all sides of the jihad, wreaked yet another round of collateral damage upon the people who are really devoted to addressing data portability.

I left active duty with the DataPortability Project about ten weeks ago because, as someone with experience in handling these types of silly people tricks, I knew the time and energy required to deal with the high school-esque antics.  While most of the antics were happening to people inside the project, there are a few there who contribute to these distractions.  Further, most people in the project just didn't want to deal with stemming the bad behavior.  While I can handle myself in either guerrilla or formal strategic battles, I prefer to focus on work.  The weekly media manipulations and nasty assaults via wikis and blogs became too much for me to handle, so I moved to an inactive role. 

So:  I do not relish calling attention to this behavior.  I tried to get it to stop, but to no avail.  And as many of the folks involved are friends, I chose the path of least resistance.  But things are out of control.

When I was preparing for the BAIA panel and reviewing content, I invited the input and participation of many in and around data portability who command the limelight.  I know them, so this was not a reach.  Not only did I not receive any sort of input, I didn't get a flicker of interest.  While I'm used to the bad manners of many Silicon Valleyites, this was pretty surprising.  And telling.  Because I thought that even amid all the games they were playing, these folks cared about every effort to illuminate data portability as a user issue -- no matter the size of the effort or its reach.  It was during all this that I really got a clue about why data portability got the attention it did:  as a way to further a few persons' personal visibility. 

Which leads me to a question:  You companies out there who employ the folks at the forefront of data portability and open web and whatever, why do we never hear your names in all the publicity given by the major blogs, such as TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, Valleywag?  It would seem to me that if you are employing this nobility of the Web, you would be getting some of the action.  And some of the credit for the momentum around data portability.  But all I hear are the names of illustrious individuals. 

Further, it would seem that you would notice the bad blood flowing as a result of these folks' ability to waste a lot of time, on your dime.  One of these days, that blood might splatter on you.  Answers to this question are most welcome in the comments.  If I've got this wrong, please elucidate.  Because I want to get me some of that cash.  Why volunteer when you can get paid to cause trouble?  And let the unpaid volunteers do all the work?

Now, these folks have done at least one useful thing.  They have brought to light the interesting question of how to make the movement and manipulation of Web content profitable, valuable and useful to all concerned -- businesses and users alike.  That's why I ask all of you to demand from your information sources -- journalists, bloggers, the various foundations, the jihadists themselves -- accountability in analyzing and reporting facts and results in all things data portability. 

It's time to neutralize the impact of those who are commanding and hogging media attention of all kinds.  Demand real news from news sources.  And grant some visibility to the people who know what they're doing and are really devoted to the topic of data portability-- not using it to build castles or throw wars for their own amusement.

Justice for Gepetto

Every now and then our serene little valley becomes more like a back alley.  That's when the grumpy old men meet the grumpy young men for a good old-fashioned brawl.

Scratch that.

It's a brawl, all right, but it's a tempest in a toybox.

From what I can tell, in what we might call the clash of the puppets, literally and figuratively, the patronizing old guard wouldn't make room for the new kids and underestimated both their talent and reach.  Instead of practicing what they preach -- this is an open community and we must share so that we can all beat The Man at his own game -- the old guard sought to snuff the talent because it wasn't ready to give up what it perceived to be its power.

That's when the fun began for the rest of us.

Puppets began to tell the story of what lies beneath the green grass of our valley home:  a complete absence of humor.  Yes, folks, that dreaded rumor that geeks cannot laugh at themselves was proved true by a new guy from the east coast who just wanted to jump into the community sandbox.  And he told the story with genius.  Sometimes in poor taste.  But that is the nature of the comic, no?  And goodness knows everyone in both guards could benefit from a few lessons with Leticia Baldrige.

Try to tell the old guard that.  Its defensiveness and bitterness gave way not only to the new guard it sought to stifle but one that practices its own variety of elitism.  [Complete with misogyny. That story is for another time.]

So the torch passes and there is another moral to another story.  Or is it the same story with the same moral?  Today's Gepetto should remember what the Blue Fairy has bestowed upon him.  Jiminy Cricket!

Just because you wear lipstick doesn't mean you don't wear brains

So NEWSWEEK decided to publish another analysis of women in technology.  Like its cousin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, the editors saw fit to print the article in the culture section and, surprise, give it a sexual slant.  Of course these days, maybe they don't even recognize a sexual slant when they write one.

Some say we should be happy that they're writing anything at all.  Not me.

Here's the deal.  It's time to pursue some new themes with this women in technology thing.

We are all Bill's and Sergei's and Steve's children.  We come in all shapes, sizes, colors and styles.*  Some of us are engineers, some scientists, some anthropologists, some business types.  If you really are searching for new material, all you have to do is read some blogs by tech women.  If you know how to use a search engine, you can find them.  Do your jobs, journalists.  Believe it or not, some of us go to work and it's not about uncovering the sexual side of a pixel.

And journalists, a good number of men in technology are often the worst enemy of greeting and welcoming anyone new -- not just women -- to the table.  You are not required to follow their lead.  I mean, some are suspicious of anyone in tech who wears clean clothes and combs their hair.

So imagine what happens when these guys encounter someone -- most likely a woman -- who might go beyond hygiene, which is enough, in my book, to express herself via color, fashion or cosmetics.

Not only are some of these guys threatened by someone they didn't anoint for membership to their club, they are afraid of the combination of beautification and brains.  Because it proves it can be done.

Then there are those uber narcissist tech males who believe that any woman who is interested in color, fashion and cosmetics must be a hussy who has her eyes on them.  Because the only way they can compute women is to defeminize them or sexualize them on their terms.

BULLETIN TO TECH MALES:  It's not all about you.  Your hormones.  Your drives, hard or otherwise. 

Well, someone had to say it.  NEWSWEEK sure isn't. 

And for you young women journalists, including the ones who wrote this article, remember that there was much more to the sexual revolution than the ability to assign a sexual component to everything.

*I forgot smells. 

How do you know?

Early in the last decade, before I found my way here to northern California, I had a very wise client.

When I would share with him some nugget of sage advice or piece of wisdom, he would ask, "how do you know?"  Wasn't being obnoxious.  Just wanted the data source.  Or for you to fess up to sharing an opinion.

I loved it. 

Apparently, this is not necessary, or recommended, when dealing with the new luminaries of the web world.  They just don't seem to think they have to answer the how do you know question.  Often, they emit one of those noxious elitist glares.  You know the one.  The "how dare you ask me a question, I'm one of those In The Know" looks.

My latest experience with this phenomenon was today, when one of those major talents -- genius, actually -- first snubbed by the Old Men In The Know and now sponsored by the New Men In The Know, pontificated about how large corporate entities would never adopt microblogging.  I was not there in person, so I don't know if the glare was emitted.  However.  I must have tweeted four times to another guy on the panel as well as to the emoter himself asking for the data.  You see, I actually work with large companies, so I could use this info.

Did I receive a response?  Of course not!  This is the antisocial side of social media.  Here's the message.  We want you to hang on our every word, but don't ask any questions.  Because we're not to be questioned.  Just followed.

Now we've all been around long enough to know that this is a you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours kind of planet.  But.  This kind of behavior is not nice.  Plus, we are an industry that still needs to win points. 

A recent snubbee now feels empowered to be a snubber.  And he's assisted by another guru of socialization in contradicting the reason social tech tools exist.  Not just to further your careers, guys!  But to reach out!  To share!  To connect!

Anyway, back to the data point.  Subsequent tweets revealed that Mr Microblogging Expert proclaimed that web-based video would be a much hotter tool in large corporations.

Guess what he's selling.

STOLEN: Miracle on 34th Street

WHAT is going on?  Why are all those In The Know writing and talking about how if you send users to a competitor that has something you don't, you build loyalty, as if no one has ever heard of this concept?!

In "Miracle on 34th Street" [1947], the Macy's Santa [Edmund Gwenn] sent a mother [Thelma Ritter] to Schoenfeld's to get the toy her little boy wanted for Christmas.  Macy's didn't have it.

Thelma Ritter's enthusiastic response demonstrated the power of putting the relationship above the transaction.  In the movie, Macy's turned the theme into a big campaign, even instructing employees to tell customers where they could find things that Macy's didn't carry.

This is not an obscure little picture, people.  This is considered one of the best films of all time.

Now in 2008, in our little old valley, we've got all these people -- the In The Know crowd -- telling us the very same thing that Edmund Gwenn told Thelma Ritter, as if they invented it!  Heck, the movie's writers probably got it from somewhere else.

I suggest watching some old movies and -- gasp -- reading some books just to get your feet back on the ground.  Having bazillions of followers on Twitter does not a wise man make.

You know, we are really getting too big for our britches around here.

Content spewing

So, who gets to decide whether social content is spewed?  Scintillating? Worthy?  Pontificated?

Let me guess.

The news from across the valley

Well, the bloggers and the media and the founders and the engineers never fail to disappoint.  Week after week, the names change but some sort of either crass or really out-of-this-business-world activity comes to our attention.  Courtesy of those In The Know.

So just for my own amusement, I've started mapping where I think the startups and annointed players behind this week's news stack up on this survivor's value screen.

The x axis addresses the quality of the entity's business idea -- from generic to genius.  Is the company merely transferring an analog business to the digital space?  Is the idea new and exciting?  Does the player take us somewhere new?

The y axis plots relevance to the user -- you know, the one beyond Silicon Valley.

And the arrows by the names -- where the entity might be headed if things continue as they were this week.

Comments:  Redlasso is a great idea and its team is making all the right moves.  Useful product, grownup strategies.  Seesmic is a good idea whose marketing builds the company's relevance daily.  Twitter?  Brilliant but it has GOT to address its scalability -- fast -- with some of that dough coming its way.  And start making itself indispensable to the general public.  23andMe is, I'm sure, scientifically sound -- but what is it doing and why should we care?  Except for Uncle Rupert getting his DNA mapped?  All Things D = All Things Me.  See previous post.  Zivity is an old idea tarted up with business language and a CEO who wears makeup but no undergarments for interviews.  Hard to say whether Zivity will become massively relevant or just a niche play for exhibitionist females, teenage boys and the peter pans of Silicon Valley.  Maybe its code is so fabulous that after those In The Know get past their hormones, that code can be used to do some real digital business.  In the meantime, you prostitutes out there will be happy to know your job description has changed to artist.

Omnidrive is here because it came out of its cave this week.  A miraculous recovery that -- full disclosure -- puts itself in direct competition with a startup I advise.  Which would be most exciting if the competition proves to be transparent.  Sorry to say it, but I'm skeptical.  At least one of its investors saw my startup's investor pitch shortly before Omnidrive went dark -- and asked a few questions about whether we wanted to address storage.  We explained that we do not because we believe the immediate future of utilities is social.  Guess what.  Omnidrive has reappeared with a lot of the same features of my startup!  Not as well-designed, of course.  And, another Omnidrive investor runs a startup bake-off that denied entry to my startup last year!  Maybe a coincidence, but it's fishy.

Anyway, this chart helps me in three ways.

• I blow off steam.
• I test my own assumptions.
• While listening to Tony Bennett's rendition of "If I Ruled the World," I can pretend what it would be like if I ruled Silicon Valley.

I wonder what those In The Know play in the background as they fantasize about their, ahem, power.  The soundtrack of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?"