Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand
Authors: Shel Holtz and John C. Havens, Foreward by: Lynne d Johnson
(Claim your copy before the folks on Twitter get them all.)
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Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand
Authors: Shel Holtz and John C. Havens, Foreward by: Lynne d Johnson
(Claim your copy before the folks on Twitter get them all.)
]]>In the meantime, you can use my original Summer Time Hiatus post that features a lijit widget linking to all the social media places where I'm pretty active.
Currently, I guess I could say I'm most busy on FriendFeed. FriendFeed is a community where you can input all of your feeds from all of your social media sites and blogs, and it aggregates the content there and shares it with your friends. It also enables you to share images, videos, and other content with people on the site. Here's my FriendFeed profile. Also starting to reactivate my blogging on my Fast Company blog, Digital Media Diva. (Note: there are some posts in there that don't belong to me, and I'm sure you can guess which 3 or 4. somehow when editing others posts, they ended up in my blog flow.) Recent posts include my review, including video, of the T-Mobile G1, the Google powered Android phone.
Anyway, here are the updates I wanted to share on my upcoming speaking engagement and some writing that I've been involved in. As usual, you can always check both my writing and speaking pages for updates (in the future, they'll have their own RSS feeds).
New Writing:
Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand
Authors: Shel Holtz and John C. Havens, Foreward by: Lynne d Johnson
The panelists will include a diverse panel highlighting the breadth of Black Media:
WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday September 16th 2008.
WHERE: 92Y Tribeca - 200 Hudson Street New York, New York
Demand for this event has been extremely high, so please RSVP without delay to avoid disappointment. Seating is limited.
RSVP by emailing: rsvp@youaremedia.com
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Stay up-to-date with my speaking engagements here (RSS Feed coming soon)
* Note: This site is still officially on hiatus. Both this site, and BlackThoughtware are undergoing renovations behind the scenes.
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September 10
"Magazines of the Future: Maximixing your print and web strategies" Moderator
Mediabistro Panel Discussion | New York, NY
September 23-26, 2008
"New media - new business" Keynote
Web Directions South | Sydney, Australia
Stay up-to-date with my speaking engagements here (RSS Feed coming soon)
]]>There seems to have been loads of confusion and misunderstanding about why I was even involved in that interview, especially by people not familiar with my background with NPR or even with the video blogger I discussed with them. There was also some backlash around my recollecting facts about the video in question inappropriately, I published an apology regarding this on FriendFeed the same night that I realized my error. Still I was misunderstood.
"There was context and history to my being on NPR to discuss Feldman. I wasn't chosen to speak bc I work for FC but because I was one of the first ppl (black bloggers) to speak out when the vid first appeared last year and as well had a panel at SXSW called where are the black tech bloggers? that feldman attended. Previously, I've moderated panels called blogging while black there as well, that were similar in nature. I've spoken on NPR News & Notes before, for the record, just as Lynne d Johnson. I wasn't on there representing FC but myself and my experience with this situation.I printed an apology on FriendFeed for whatever I said incorrectly in the interview yesterday. I took it there bc that's where he took it, to social media, calling me out on FF and Twitter. I have no issue with being corrected when I'm wrong and then taking responsibility for it. NPR is going to do their part, I'm sure, to either bring him on the show for his side, or possibly print my apology on their own site."
And here is another response I wrote to someone:
"I was just wondering if you know any of the history -- that I was one of the first (black bloggers) to comment last year when the video first appeared? The series didn't appear all at once, just the one video. The TechNigga piece.Also, I created a panel at SXSW called Where Are the Black Tech Bloggers? Loren attended. I met him. I opened the floor for him to address the panel. There is a podcast of it here.
I realize that I misrepresented his act, and I have posted an apology on FriendFeed. I said he wore a wig, he didn't. I apologized. Blackface, in modern times simply means portraying a stereotypical characterization of a race (and not necessarily another race). A black person can do blackface. It doesn't have to be a white person. It's exactly what I said when I first wrote my response last year.I have not called him racist. I called this one video a racist portrayal or parody. On other blogs, recently, I defended his right to free speech and artistic freedom. I do not wish Loren Feldman any ill will.
NPR contacted me for this story, most likely, because of the Verizon thing and then my personal history with the discussion, as well as my status in the black blogosphere. I have spoken on that show before, as Lynne d Johnson, a blogger. And though FastCompany was mentioned as the company I work for, I was actually there speaking as Lynne d Johnson."
As for the Verizon dealings, I was not even fully aware of them until I started reading news about it the same week I was contacted for the interview, which was the exact same week that the show aired. That week, I did have contact with Najee Ali, executive director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E, who lead a protest against Verizon to have Loren Feldman removed from their video offerings. At that time, I learned that Ali was only recently made aware of the TechNigga video, and though it was not going to be a part of the content offerings on the VCast service, he felt that Verizon had a responsibility to its customers. From my understanding of things, the content being dropped from Verizon happened well before my interview with NPR, as the title of the segment illustrates.
For the record, I spoke with NPR the day after the interview and mentioned to them that I got one of my descriptions of the video incorrect and that I posted a correction out there on a social media site -- FriendFeed already. I sent NPR another version of that correction for their usage. I was told that it was possible they might use it in their letters section. I don't know if they ever did. I was told that they would contact Loren Feldman to invite him on the show to speak on this issue. I don't know if he ever did.
Here is the correction I sent them:
"In response to Loren Feldman's claim that I lied about him in an interview on NPR, I offer the following statement: My recollection of his wearing a wig in his 'Technigga' sketch was incorrect, and for that I apologize. As for the question of inaccuracy around my use of the term blackface, from an historical perspective the term literally means to perform made up in blackface, whereas my usage of the term reflected a modern-day understanding in which non-black performers enact stereotypes of blackness. I accept that my use of the term may have created confusion and mischaraceterization in my description of Loren Feldman's performance."
On reflection, I realize I could have disclosed during that interview that there was some issue in social media and the blogosphere between the video blogger and at least one person related to the company I work for. In my mind, the reason I was there for the interview had nothing to do with this prior issue (or the company I work for) -- an issue that does not directly affect me, though it does indirectly affect me as it is related to the company I am employed by.
Because everything I've ever had to say about 1) the video, and 2) this interview already exists out there on the Web (either here, on other blogs, on FriendFeed, on Twitter, and in video intereviews), I have nothing more to say on the matter, and I'm going back on blogging vacation.
]]>Hope you'll still be around when I come back.
As an aside, I'm all over the Web though, microblogging, sharing stories, listening to music, watching and creating videos, and commenting on blogs, etc. Here's some of the places you can find me:
As well, check out my speaking schedule to see where I'll be, and when.
]]>Here's what I'm considerng:
But then it's really a toss between the Supra Vaider Silver and the Creative Recreation dicoco metallic silver:
What's your kick's obsession?
following jason and cecily, i decided to make a last.fm wordle. make your own here. this is a word graph of my listening habits from last.fm as scrobbled from itunes and my ipod.
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If you've followed me for a while, you may know that I like trying out new apps and webservices. I often try out things until I find the one thing that works for me. Usually, a tool that works for me brings everything together in a method that makes sense in the way that i do work.
I've been using friendfeed for a while now, especially since twitter became so unreliable. For twitter, I was already using Mac dashboard widgets, browser plugins like twitbin, desktop clients like Twitterific, and smartphone apps like CeTwit on my WinMo phone and twibble on my n95. On the phone, I could have been using SMS or the mobile web, but it just wasn't the right experience for me. I needed tools that acted more like the web services themselves.
So that brings me to friendfeed, and what I've done with it lately. (It took a while to catch on for me because I was using alertthingy as an app instead of logging in on the Web. The problem with alertthingy though, was that everything ran together as one stream and it just seemed like a bunch of noise (some complain that happens anyway when you've subsribed to all a-list bloggers). It just didn't work for me, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work for me, so I started trying to get into friendfeed directly from the web.
Once Duncan Riley wrote these Greasemonkey Scripts that add tabs to your friendfeed, I found an even better reason to use the service. The tabs helped me turn friendfeed into a startpage by adding direct links into facebook, techmeme, twitter, readburner, and google reader.
Still on the friendfeed side of things, I often found myself trying to learn how to filter by hiding things so that I could get to the meat of what I really wanted to see in my overall feed. I still wasn't always happy, and still found myself weeding out a lot of noise. But now I found a tool that makes all of that easy for me. It's called Feedalizr. In fact, I was able to upload the above photo to flickr using feedalizr.
But here's what makes feedalizr hot.
1. You can add Twitter
2. You can add Friendfeed
3. You can add flickr
4. You can add jaiku
5. You can directly upload video through feedalizr
What else?
You can select filters. Either by types of content, such as blogs, youtube, twitter, pownce, of you can filter by person - the people you are subscribed to. Finally friendfeed makes sense and has a lot less noise.
This is part of a series of discussions that O'Brien has been hosting in conjunction with "CNN Presents: Black In America." There'll be a special VIP screening at the Essence Music Festival, and if you're a journalist or blogger who will be down there, I can send you name forward to get on the list. Just submit your request on my contact form, and I'll send your name to CNN.
With just my Tmobile Wing, it was impossible to shoot the entire event, or even to shoot it that well, but I did get two clips of the discussion. I mainly spent the rest of my time listening in, and eventually adding commentary to the discussion -- to inform them of who currently owns BlackPlanet, as well as to engage Dr. Perry to better understand his position.
Video: Andre Leon Talley asks Soledad O'Brien about the media's fascination with Tim Russert
It seems, we spend so much time, as a community, worrying about saving our young black males, that we often forget about the young black females. Many of them are just as angry as the young black males that everyone is focusing on. And many of them are being impacted -- greatly -- by the anger of young black males.
I was glad though that West pointed out that we could not, and possibly never will, be sure if all the steps we make will ever seriously have an impact or effect on the total devastation caused by American racism. I was also glad that he brought up that personal responsibility was just as important as community responsibility. Yet, I didn't wholeheartedly buy into most of the panelists belief that their generation left the next generation with a mess, or even that their generation grew up in a more collective effort and networking environment than the next generation. There's always all this talk about what's supposed to be Gen X, being the me generation, the most commodotized generation, and the most apathetic.
I'm often disheartened when I hear a lot of that generational talk, because I sit in a crossfire right dab smack in the middle of two generations. A lot of what the older folks are saying doesn't resonate with me, and then a lot of what the younger folks are saying doesn't necessarily resonate either.
One thing I do know, we can't let how far Obama has gotten fool us into believing that we have entered some transracial era in American history. If that's where we are in our thinking, it's time to remove the blindfold. We can't ignore that Obama is seen as a magical negro , and not an angry black man, as West also pointed out in tonight's discussion.
And though I didn't fully see eye-to-eye with Dr. Perry, author of Man Up!, I heard him loud and clear when he responded to a young man in the audience who said he was extremely angry after the Sean Bell verdict. He first asked the young man why this death meant so much more than any death that happens every day in the hood. He told him to ask himself that question first. And then told him to think about what he was doing as an individual in his community. That point rang clear and true to the young man, who shook is head, earnestly, in agreement. West added, that we are a blues people and that it's alright to sit back for a moment and think -- to turn on Luther, Aretha, James Clevland, and bring it all back together again.
As I hadn't intended on reporting this event, I didn't take notes, and most of what I've written here comes directly from my recollection. Hopefully, some publication out there is getting it right and telling the truth, in full.
Video: Dr. Cornel West on the Obama era
Here are two clips from an interview that Andrew Rasiej conducted with Elizabeth Edwards via skype. John Edwards was coming home, just as the interview was being conducted and joined in.
(Note: This was shot on a Tmobile Wing and not a Video Cam or multimedia phone. Please keep this in mind while viewing. The shots and audio may be a little rough.)
Video: Elizabeth Edwards - PDF 2008
Video: John Edwards - PDF 2008
“List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.”
Kid Cudi
Electro + Jazz version
Bonus Track
Santogold - Your Voice myspace.com/santogold
This playlist somewhat reflects my last.fm profile, as well as my muxtape.
I tag:
]]>“It can never be bad to have a foundation as a man—a black man—in a time when women are dying for men,” he says. “Women have started to become lovers of each other as a result of not having enough men. Are you not studying the stories? Wake up! Black love is a good thing.”
I haven't read the entire story, but only the excerpt online so I can't fully judge. But in reading the excerpt, I wasn't quite sure what the quote had to do with the overall subject. It looks like the piece is about his love with his wife, maintaining his brand, and where his career stands with his new album.
So, I wasn't quite sure where the quote fit in, other than it was a good pull out quote that would stir up some controversy for Vibe. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the article goes deeper into why he says that, but the way the excerpt is set up online -- it goes nowhere. So ok, the setup is that he stood up as a black man to take care of his responsibility and build a foundation, and to be a representative of black love (because it is real and does exist). But I'm still a little unsure of how the quote really fits into the piece. I don't know, call me crazy.
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We've talked about these things before. Radiohead's digital download distribution experiment. Saul Williams follow up to the experiment. Trent Reznor's take on the Saul Williams experiment.
We've even talked about the future of print and even, piracy and the future of the music biz. So when I was over at Chris Brogan's site today, and read that my boy Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Reinvented Capitalism was giving away free digital downloads of the book, I wasn't that surprised. Happy. But not surprised.
The model, much like Radiohead's, leaves the price of the download entirely up to the consumer. The only thing Mason asks for is your email contact info. And he promises not to spam you. And Matt taps into something in they why he's doing this that I tried to present in my "Is Print Dead?" unkeynote back in portland a few weeks ago. Yes, it's been a common trend that perhaps only 20% of the books released each year end up being hits. Mason brings the present-day numbers down even lower when he reports that "The average American is reading just one book a year." But there's of course the long tail that comes into play here, especially with books -- books always have longer shelf life than music. In that I mean, the Times Bestseller list doesn't work in quite the same way as the Billboard charts. Furthermore, books that were hot 20 years ago, are often still hot today. Not always so true with music.
Of course, the electronic book, in and of itself isn't new. But the way Mason has chosen to distribute it is. He's taken the power of the piracy into his on hands. He's offering you a freemium, and if you like his product, he can upsell you at any time by offering you premium content related to the book. Perhaps you'll pay for the audiobook. Or behind-the-scenes info about the making of the book. Whatever his overall business model is here, I'm sure the e-copy is more than just a marketing tool as a hook into selling more books. One thing that's for sure, the next time he writes a book, you're going to remember him and you'll be more likely to purchase his content.
There's an interview with him over at FastCompany.com that you might want to check out: Steal This Idea, in which Mason discusses why and how pirating can be a good thing.
]]>NBC has launched yet another reality show called Celebrity Circus. This one features celebrities attempting circus acts, like trapeze and other Cirque du Soleil feats. One of the celebrities (seen in the video above) is 44-year-old Stacey Dash. You may remember her from her Playboy spread (pun intended) or that timeless teen classic Clueless. Though I'm sure I'm somewhere in the target demographic for watching this show, I seriously doubt that I will be. I was just more interested in (and inspired by) how good Dash still looks and the fact that she's able to perform some of these really difficult circus stunts.
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