I’m happy to report that Blue Whale Labs are growing in leaps and bounds. We’ve been adding clients to our roster is expanding much faster than we initially expected. Of course, with rapid growth comes the always-difficult growing pains. Despite our own super-human powers, we’re starting to get more and more worn down (in a good way, of course). More importantly, we are always eager to provide better experience and specialized knowledge to our clients.

To that end, we’re on the hunt for more mammals to add to the pod. Stowe’s crafted the main piece of this:

Here in the US, we are tryng to attract a few good mammals (whales aren’t fish, you know) to join us in growing our exploding consulting service. We are interested in bringing aboard some more folks who are interested in the things that obsess us, like social applications, user experience, application design, product design and management, social media, and helping us to reinvent the way that software consulting works.

[…]

Do not send us a resume. Collect the ten most important posts on your blog (You aren’t blogging? You’ve got to be kidding!) and write a blog post entitled Why Blue Whale Labs Should Care About Me (or the like), and tag it “a few good mammals”. Send us the link. Let’s see where this goes.

If you are shy, you can send it as email: mammals@bluewhalelabs.com.

Source: Blue Whale Labs, “Blue Whale Is Looking For A Few Good Mammals”

So that’s the official word. We’d love to know who you are - just follow the rules ;) If you know someone who you think is a great fit, please send them a link or e-mail.

technorati tags:bluewhalelabs, a+few+good+mammals

The tumultuous state of the newspaper industry is one that has not only been long in the making. Over the past couple of years, I’ve covered a number of different aspects of this change - an analysis that has only accelerated with the work behind SocialRoots. In many ways, I can relate to the utter blur that is the future. It’s hard to see an empire die, especially one you’ve worked arduously to build and protect. Perhaps the hardest part, aside from the financial dire, is the potential dilution of values and practices.

An interesting post on Search Engine Watch got me thinking about the industry again. As is the usual coincidence, I had a conversation last night about the hyper-local business model after being asked if we now had ubiquitious WiFi in San Francisco now (we don’t). Mike Boland does a great job summarizing the current state of affairs:

The reality is that the web has commoditized national news. The only way to differentiate it is to have a specific angle of coverage at which you excel (Wall Street Journal), or unique voices that demand a premium (New York Times). Notice that these are two major papers that can get away with charging for online premium access.

The third strategy is to leverage a position that can’t be replicated by aggregators; local. This hasn’t really been done in a meaningful way online by local newspapers, or any national publisher with a patchwork of local assets. The opportunity exists, however, to create attractive and unique local destinations.

The Blogosphere Sounds Off on Hyper-Local

We’ve seen the “nichification” of news in the social media universe - there’s a blog, podcast, or video blog on almost any topic conceivable. Naturally, this is not new considering our history of online special interest groups (BBSs, newsgroups, forums, chats). the key difference, of course, is that the surface area for social media is simply an order of magnitude larger - propelled by not only the increased ability and reliance on search but also on the implicit and explicit social networks that connect these publishing posts - millions of regular people consume social media, they just don’t know they do.

Which brings us to today, at the proverbial doorsep of a hyper-local movement. If we trust the signals from the major search players, we’d be safe to bet that there’s gold in them mountains. There’s no coincidence that Google, Yahoo, and MSN are building up their local ad serving technologies and partnerships in the preparation for the next arms race. Chris Anderson reminds us of another reason, the Vanishing Point Theory of News:

Our interest in a subject is in inverse proportion to its distance (geographic, emotional or otherwise) from us. For instance, the news that my daughter got a scraped knee on the playground today means more to me than a car bombing in Kandahar…There’s nothing new about this (it’s a truism of the American newsroom that Paris, Texas counts for more than Paris, France), but it bears repeating. The future of media is to stop boring us with news that doesn’t relate to our lives. I’ll start reading my “local” newspaper again when it covers my block.

The Vanishing Point Theory of News

Yet, I feel somewhat unsatisfied with this direction. I’m not sure why I feel separate from my “community.” It could be that my lifestyle is near-nomadic. It could be a generational detachment from culture as a whole. I’m not sold that I need more of here. When I grew up, we had the Rockland Journal News as our local paper. I never read it. I did read the New York Times, however. Why? We were instructed to do so for school. We were made to have the impression it was “better”, whatever that means.

It seems to me there’s a slight gap, let’s call it a blackhole, where the return on hyper local publishing has diminishing returns. Seems the distribution of interest has what resembles a Planck Distribution - does anyone remember these from school?

At the global and national levels, we’re interested and that increases as we get more and more local.  At the other extreme, there’s the “news” as it pertains to our families and friends - our personal news network if you will.  The gap, in the middle, seems to be where there’s a current leap of faith that there is tremendous interest in what we call the “hyper local” news.

Surely, there is evidence that people are willing to create this type of media content.  There’s even evidence that it’s being consumed.  Of course, that evidence is still sparse and, more importantly, not contextualized relative to the other spheres of media influence.

Is hyper local news the Evil Knievel of media?

technorati tags:hyperlocalnews, chris+anderson, longtail, media, influence, news

It’s getting to be late Sunday afternoon, I am avoiding work (I wonder why), and preparing to head down to my good friend Brian Solis‘ home to catch the end of the game and to say “see ya” before running East for the next month.

Brian and I spoke early this morning about the entire dustup that has been going on over the Social Media Release, hRelease, or whatever flag it flies under at the moment. One of the more salient points we discussed was that there was indeed two arguments being made, just piled together.

My partner in crime (and business), Stowe Boyd seemingly sparked this conversation with his post last week, “Enough Already: Getting Social Media All Wrong.” You can read it for yourself, but Stowe touches on the first half of this problem, the PR industry.

As I see the problem, there’s a small issue of mechanics and a large issue of culture. The mechanics issue really boils down to the nuts and bolts of how press releases are presented to the world. Chris Heuer quite aptly refers to the hRelease as the “presentational layer” of the social media release in his post titled “The Social Media Release is about getting the facts right.” However, the mechanics really are nothing to bat an eyelash at - a standard is and will be resolved and anyone who chooses can put it to use.

The problem, as I see it, with the Social Media Release, is the cultural problem. The problems that Stowe outlines initially are pointed at the professionals and institutions that perpetuate a specific line of thinking and mode of operation. There are brave souls, such as Brian, that are willing to stand in the flames and share his knowledge with those that only are starting to get it - or more likely a bit curious about it.

The problem in my eyes is that we are hanging these cultural issues under the banner of the Social Media Release - but it’s simply too much responsibility for a simple specification on how to express a collection of bits and bytes. The hRelease format does not come coupled with a Code of Conduct, Best Practices, or other treatise on HOW to make the content more truthful, honest, and transparent. Unfortunately, and I don’t think it has been intentional, we here these concepts used interchangeably when the are nothing of the sort.

In a followup post, Stowe addresses head on the issues of hRelease and his position on the matter. This sums it up best, I believe:

I applaud any efforts, philosophically, that are an attempt to shake the corporate centroids into a real dialogue with us, the edglings. However, I don’t believe in hedging, over-simplifying, or reusing outdated rhetoric in an attempt to make it easier for the poor, benighted corporate types to make the trip to the promised land without hard work. The core dynamics of webology can’t be put aside for the sake of offering PR agencies’ clients a baby step by baby step path into the new age of interaction. We are putting aside lying, so let’s not even lie to the liers. Let’s not perpetuate false and misleading metaphors, like “audiences” and “crafting messages for our markets”.

/Message

Amen. Despite all the magical powers and abilities we obtain from technology, it cannot replace the need for change - an emergent force that comes from within, often after weathering a significant amount of trauma from without.

If we truly want to effect change on an aging business practice and culture, we need to attack the problem from both within and without. From within, we need to invigorate the various parties as to the “soft”, human rewards. From without, we must present the metrics, case studies, and best practices that compel and propel all business decisions.

technorati tags:stowe+boyd, brian+solis, chris+heuer, hRelease, social+media+release, social+media+club, pr, pr20, press+release

My apologies for the lack of posts here in the last week or so - sometimes life just gets in the way.  We’ve been very busy at Blue Whale Labs in the last few weeks and there seems to be more and more of that in the pipeline.

At the same time, I’ve had to slow my time out at the industry events for more than a few reasons:

1. Frankly, I’m sorta geeked out for the time being.  I’ve been to just so many of these things in the last 6 months that you quickly start to know most everyone in the room (or someone’s with someone you know).  There’s a sense of diminishing returns when this starts to happen and you need to figure out if you get out of it as much as it takes to participate.
2. I’m busy as all heck lately with administrative and client work and it’s been increasingly hard to peel away from the computer for those and many more reasons.
3. I’m tired as all sin.   Maybe I just partied too much last year, but I find myself tired earlier in the day and rising at insanely early times as well.

This week, Stowe and I are hard at work developing a specification for a client (that we can’t name just yet).  Next week, I will be in New York visiting with family and doing the finishing touches on our project work.  The week after that, we’ll present the work and I leave immediately for India to meet with our development team.

Wow. I won’t be back in San Francisco until the middle of February.  That’s sorta nuts.

technorati tags:gregarious+narain

Guy Kawasaki provides us with some insight into his first year blogging:

1. 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.
2. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post.
3. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.
4. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during the year to get my snail mail PIN so that I can get paid, butI’ve never received it. I don’t mind Google getting the float…)

How to Change the World: A Review of My First Year of Blogging

Over the past year, when asked why the SocialRoots Marketplace was needed, I’ve often used Guy Kawasaki as a prime example of just what’s wrong with our advertising-only centric view of social media monetization. Consider Guy’s example: a regularly udated, top 50 blog with significant traffic by a well know speaker and author squeezes out a slim $280 a month. Sounds lovely, no? Sign me up.

Some will be quick to point out that many people are able to monetize their online publications with less traffic and notoriety. I might counter that I am not interested in writing about home theatre, HDTV, mortgages, or other gadgets, but that would just be me making a point.

Chris Anderson points out on his Long Tail Blog:

Just another reminder that the reason to be a Long Tail producer is not direct revenues. Instead, it’s exactly what Guy uses it for: marketing for his books, VC firm, speeches and consulting. For which he’s exceedingly well paid. Indirect revenues rule!

The Long Tail: Don’t quit your day job

Lead generation and referals are definitely another viable option for extracting value from your personal publication. Of course, we’re not all consultants either, but it’s a step in the right direction.

If all goes well, we’ll share another interesting model with the world in the next couple of months.

technorati tags:long+tail, chris+anderson, guy+kawasaki, blogging, monetization

Attention is a theme I’ve covered here numerous times in the 3+ years I have been writing at this site. One of the recurring models that we’ve accepted as fact is the notion of Continuous Partial Attention - a term coined by Linda Stone some time ago.

In case you’re not fresh on how it works, here’s a quick definition:

Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We’re often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch — we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive.

To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.

WikiHome - JotSpot Wiki (continuouspartialattention)

The last night or so, I’ve begun reading an interesting book (recommended by a friend), called Breaking Open the Head. It takes a look at contemporary shamanism - yes, outside my normal sphere, no, not completely crazy. Tonight, I came across a small gem that warranted sharing:

We have sacrificed perpetual capabilities for other mental abilities — to concentrate on a computer screen while sitting in a cubicle for many hours at a stretch […] or to shut off multiple levels of awareness as we drive a car in heavy traffic. In other words, we are brought up in a system that teaches us to postpone, defer and elminate most incoming sense data in favor of a future reward. We live in a feedback loop of perpertual postponement. For the most part, we are not even aware of what we have lost.

Source: Daniel Pincheback on Levi-Strauss, Breaking Open the Head

I must admit, this is somewhat fascinating to read.  Certainly, I find merit in Linda’s portrayal of our mindset, but I can’t help but sense the elegence in this second view.  In many ways, these are two sides of the same coin.  Whereas Linda’s approach takes the “glass-half-full” vantage point and deems our new skill as an optimization, Levi-Strauss takes the more pessimistic persuasion and examines that which has been discarded in exchange.

Technology has always sought out efficiencies - it’s what drives innovation, right?  As we barrel forward at an ever-quickening pace, it becomes more and more evident (from teens and their disposable identities (read Impression Management) to adults and their persistent fear of stolen identity and everything in between) that sometimes we need to allow some distance to grow before we can appreciate the place from which we have just departed.

Could Continuous Partial Postponent be a simple way to remind us of the balance between technology and our humanity?

technorati tags:continuous+partial+postponement, digital+identify, danah+boyd, linda+stone

Kathy Sierra has a very funny, but insightful post regarding the Wisdom of Crowds, or more specifically, the bastardization of the term.

And the most frustrating part for me is how the “Wisdom of Crowds” idea has been twisted and abused to mean virtually the opposite of what New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki says in the book of the same name. He opened a talk at ETech telling us that while ants become smarter as the number of collaborators increases, humans become dumber. In what is potentially the most misleading book/idea title in the history of the world, the “Crowds” in “The Wisdom of Crowds” was never meant to mean “mobs”, “groups acting as one”, “committees”, “consensus” or even “high collaboration”.

By “crowd,”, I think he meant “more people”, sure, but he also defined a big ol’ set of constraints for how much togetherness people can have before the results became dumber. And it turns out, not that much. By “crowd”, he was referring to a collection of individuals. Individuals whose independent knowledge (and “independent” is a key word in what makes the crowd “smart”) is aggregated in some way, not smushed into one amorphous Consensus Result.

Creating Passionate Users: The “Dumbness of Crowds”

Kathy is dead on in her main assertion, I believe. I’m not sure what percentage of folks who reference the term have actually read the book, but I imagine, unfortunately, it’s not a huge number. Of course, the problem stems from even the misinterpretation of the concepts by those who have already ingested the ideas.

As Kathy points out, there are a number of constraints that surround the power of the wisdom of crowds.  One of these key concepts is the presence of diverse, “specialized” knowledge.  Put simply, this is the stuff we know from our life experience and training.  The main problem with this knowledge in the Internet domain is that this knowledge is quickly, and perhaps easily, tainted as we are often exposed to the internal knowledge of the crowd before formulating our own conclusions.

One example used in the post discusses the Amazon Book Reviews.  The purest review, relatively speaking, is the first review (granted there are any number of reasons why this review is not statstically meaningful, but that’s sort of beside the point).  From the second review onwards, every reviewer is presented the reviews of others and prompted to add their own.  There are a number of reasons why we alter our thinking, but ultimately, we are indeed changed as information flows over us.

technorati tags:wisdom+of+crowds, james+surowiecki, kathy+sierra

I know I’ve published my look forward for the New Year, but I’ve neglected to really look backwards much. It’s ironic, and perhaps one of the most difficult things in life, to really see what you’ve done and what you’ve become.

There have been nearly 32 years in my life, so far - last year commands special attention simply for the truly wide range of emotions and experiences that I had. I’ll spare the bloody details, since they are simply too personal and not something I necessarily want to air in the public.

If there was a word for last year, it would be survival. The irony of a word like survival is that it implies a struggle; some friction. I’ve had plenty of that for sure. In reality, we have to survive not just the good times, but the bad. We have to learn how to bottle the most wonderful of moments so we can harness them when we’re the most downtrodden. At the same time, we need to always remember the lows we experience and hold them close to our heart as well - we need them to balance out our lives.

My new life here, well, it’s hard for most to believe - sometimes it’s even hard for me to believe just what I’ve become. Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to reflect more on what I left behind. I’ve had the chance to talk to family, friends, and my most loved ones. I’ve had a chance to see how different I am. I’ve had a chance to see what I wanted to be and what I’ve become. I can’t say it’s for the best or the worst, but most everyone seems happy with the end product.

The only thing certain to me anymore is that I can’t return. Life’s too short and I’ve squandered more than most deserve.

Whenever there is a reaching down into innermost experience, into the nucleus of the personality, most people are overcome by fear and many run away… The risk of inner experience, the adventure of the spirit, is in any case alien to most human beings. The possibility that such experience might have psychic reality is anathema to them.

- Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The bird cage is open and it’s time to fly.

technorati tags:gregarious+narain, greg+narain, personal+growth

I’ve been radio silent for the past couple of weeks, taking a much needed rest and some useful time away from the computer. The New Year is upon us now and there’s so much hope and anticipation for what’s to come. While we never truly know what will happen or how long we’ll have, there’s always those things we would like to do.

I’m starting this year off with a simple post, the things I would like to accomplish this year. My hopes are that by giving them room to breathe a bit, I might find some co-conspirators in the process. I will attempt to add these items to the sidebar and will track them as best I can. Wish me luck.

I have no idea how far I will get in these pursuits this year, if ever. I’m trying to work out a system with myself that gives me some time and resources to poor into each project. Only time will tell if it all works.

Since I don’t value any one more than the other, I’ll list things in the order they were dreamed up. Here’s something of a road map:

Book: Quit Fighting (coming Q4)

Many, many years ago, after having a rough break up with a long-term girlfriend, I was frustrated at how quickly conversation can devolve when we’re angry. While studying in school, we often looked at the role of anger in our lives and the power of language to change the nature of a situation.

As I could best assess the problem, it was hard to come to a “conclusion” when both sides relied on their friends for support - and affirmation. Our fights tend to quickly become polarized into the camps that we set up tent in.

I was inspired, if that’s the right term, to see if there might be a way to turn these disagreements into something more positive - a source of learning. Quit Fighting was born. The basic premise is that by allowing us to ask a third party for advice and guidance, we might be able to see a new perspective. Now, I”m not quite supporting arbitrage here - we’re using the wisdom of crowds in this scenario. Of course, I recognize there’s an opportunity for this to quickly turn into the online version of the Jerry Springer Show, but maybe it’s worth it.

The book will be a compilation of the most common issues that arise, follow-up with the parties involved, and excerpts from the suggestions provided by other contributors to the site with the same name.

Origination Date: November 1999

Book: Fight the Pessimist (coming Q3)

If there ever was a passion that I’ve had, it’s forentrepreneurship. Most people assume that entrepreneurs are in it forthe money. I know that’s the case for many, but respectfully, I willsay that many, if not most, of the people I know that manage their ownship also have a great passion for their work.

I’ve been blessed to be able to pursue the dreamsI have - it’s a freedom most never truly get to relish. That beingsaid, I believe that experience must be shared for it to be maximized. For some time now, I’ve been working and speaking with a number ofdifferent entrepreneurs not as a consultant but as a supporter. Thepath of independence is riddled with traps and other perils and ittakes a lot out of you to stay the course.

The idea for this book originated with my friend Dennis Galbraith. Dennis has always supported my efforts and often encouraged me to sharemy stories. The book will be a reduction of the experiences ofhundreds of entrepreneurs from a central site using a “video diary”model.

Origination Date: November 1999

Book: Quit Filtering (coming Q3)

If you’ve managed to catch me drinking some night (that’s a stretch, but work with me), I’ve probably relayed to you my unifying theory of relationships. You can go back as far as several Beercasts on the topic, to get more insight.

The original idea for this book came from reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. At the time, I was fortunate enough to be given an early copy of the book for review/editing. As I read the book, and considered many of the examples, I also tied this back to my work with the Spark Card and generally to my interest in relationships.

Origination Date: December 2004

Site: SocialRoots.com (coming Q1)

If there’s any one thing that drives me crazy, it’s the lack of launch over at SocialRoots. The basic concept of the SocialRoots Marketplace has been around for close to a year and a half. It’s seem more than its share of refinement over the last year but now the model, and need, is certainly locked in.

I’ve invested tons of time and money already and we’re closing in on the last segment to make the thing happen as desired. I’m still actively seeking a CTO to lead the technical side of things (I am more inclined to avoid technical things lately). If you are that sort of person, let me know.

Origination Date: September 2005

Site: FirstSaid.com (coming Q2)

My closest friends know one thing - I love my nieces and nephews. I was blessed with a total of 3 nephews and 4 nieces. Unfortunately, I was quite young when the first four were born so I didn’t enjoy the experience nearly a much as I could have.

These last few years, I’ve been given the gifts of Brandon, Kaitlin, and Joshua. When I moved to San Francisco, I definitely felt sadness knowing I would miss out on seeing them and hearing them on a daily basis - I lived upstairs from the first two.

As I traveled more and more, I realized that I was calling home often just to see if they had done anything new or said something funny. As a proud uncle, I missed not getting to experience it all first hand. Of course, this was a cause for inspiration.

FirstSaid.com will be a place for parents to capture those precious, and often funny, moments of their child’s life so they can later torture them at family get togethers. More importantly, it will make it possible for people like me, who can’t be around as often as we like, to stay in touch with those rapidly evolving lives.

Origination Date: July 2006

Experiment: Stranger Day (coming Q1)

For the last several years, I have had one personal goal: Speak to at least one stranger per day. Ironically enough, most people would assume me to be, well, gregarious and outgoing to a fault. Truth be told, I’m usually quite shy in a lot of circumstances. A long time ago, however, I realized that shyness was not my friend and that if I wanted to excel at the things I had chosen, I needed to be ready, willing, and capable to engage people without notice. To that end, I have worked to build that “muscle” if you will - it’s true you can train your self away from reclusiveness.

Conversation is a surprisingly difficult thing to master. We tend to be a bit imbalanced - either demanding more attention or not taking enough. My first experiment, Beercasting, was a look at the power of conversation amongst friends and strangers. The show was designed around topics devised to spark conversation. I’m quite happy with the results, though I don’t miss the rigor of the apparatus.

Several months ago, I moved to San Francisco. I was embarking on a new phase of my life and thought there was no better way to memorialize this even than to keep a journal (blog, if you will). One idea that quickly came to mind was to document the encounters I had on a daily basis - considering that I had never attempted to do so before. After sharing the details of this project with some friends, I was surprised to find that more and more people wanted to do it as well. Perhaps, I was on to something.

To date, there are more than 40 people who have verbally committed. To what, you might ask? To meeting new people on a daily basis. The first leg of the experiment will be centered around San Francisco - since I’m here :) Participants will receive a daily e-mail with their topics. They will then have to find a stranger to converse with and capture the results - in text, photos, audio, or video - at their own Stranger Day blog. All answers will be collated, much as they were in Beercasting so individuals can explore topics of interest.

I’m in the process of putting the code together. That being said, I am seeking sponsors and participants alike. I would like to begin the experiment in February or March 2006.

Origination Date: October 2006

---

Of course, all of this comes outside of my already existing commitments, client work and slowly emerging personal life.  Naturally, I’ll still be the ringleader for the bub.blicio.us crowd, pushing buttons and spilling drinks.

An exciting year, for sure.  Gotta run, the clock’s already ticking.

technorati tags:greg+narain, socialroots, new+years+resolutions, sparkcasting, beercasting