A Geek? No Way! Well, Wait A Sec…

 

It’s so bizarre to me. 

 

Following years of being the coolest kid in the working world ’cause I happened to work in TV news, I now work in PR and am occasionally – as lovingly as possible – referred to as a ‘geek.’

 

Eek! How the heck did that happen?

 

Well, when I started out in TV news, I was probably at the height of my coolness. I reported. On air. I was the shiz.

Who’s Really Poor?: Confessions of a Journalist, Turned Peace Corps Volunteer, Turned Journalist Again, Turned Social Media Evangelist

 

Poverty…
 

To write about it is to see it. To experience it. To try to save people from it.

Hopefully.
 

Once upon a time, I was a TV reporter in my hometown. I was known – and to be known -  by anyone and everyone who knew my stories about last-dash Christmas shopping or Sarah McLachlan coming to town.

 
I often covered a different caliber of stories, though.

I covered the cases of hundreds of missing children, who were almost never found alive and were a constant reminder of, perhaps,  how the media lies in wait for tragedy to befall families. Often of little means, these families would wait, hold vigils and allow us access to their lives that would later make them recognized, for the most unsettling of reasons, at the local grocery store or pharmacy for the rest of their lives.

 

Jennifer reporting on the streets of New York City.

That was my early take on the media before I spent more than a decade reporting for the ‘big three’ and going to Columbia for my master’s. Somehow I knew if I didn’t take a break – a break to give back and help the plight of children – I would, by not making a decision to do otherwise, become bitter.

 

At 22, that’s a terrifying prospect.
 

So I searched my soul, looked back at the list I’d made a couple years earlier and embarked on the most testing experience of my life. I gave up being a local celeb to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan. It was one of the richest, most defining experiences of my life. I still remember a local journalist telling me at my going away party that he could never join the Peace Corps because one can’t be promised a working hair dryer.

Dispatches From 2.0… The Web Is Well, Social

Day One – 23rd April 2008
My first day at the conference; and the first full day of Web 2.0 Expo. After syncing with Terre and seeing some familiar faces, I was off to my first talk of the day, Polite, Pertinent, and… Pretty: Designing for the New-wave of Personal Informatics, given by Matt Jones (Dopplr) and Tom Coates (Yahoo! Brickhouse, Fire Eagle, specifically). The discussion mainly centered around the way people are choosing to “instrument our lives” through GPS-tracking shoes and even pills we can swallow that record the soundtrack of our – you guessed it – bowels. Obviously, there are a number of design challenges that come from this 2.0 push to use all the information coming at us to do a better job of being productive human beings. There were a few thought-provoking concepts thrown out for all to digest. Those I found especially interesting:

• The book, Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Voices That Matter) (I bought it).
• Collected thoughts of Mimi Ito, Richert, Matthew Chalmers and Anne Galloway (the IT of self-cognitive psychology).
• Chalmers is said to have given birth to the thought that the web should be seamless to users, but that seamlessness is different than effortlessness.
• Some interesting phrases: “Beautiful Seams” / “The Forgetting Machine” / “Instrumenting Our Lives”

Presenters’ links:

• Tom Coates: http://plasticbag.org/
• Matt Jones (one of the best personal web sites I’ve seen in awhile): http://blackbeltjones.com/ (go to the work blog section)

Next on the agenda was Children of Flickr: Making the Massively Multiplayer Social Web with Justin Hall (GameLayers), Rajat Paharia (Bunchball), Christopher Chapman (Areae) and Gabe Zichermann (rmbr) (perhaps the most vocal, and insightful – at least on stage) where the discussion centered on adding video games to everyday life. Flickr actually started as a gaming site and it was interesting to get the perspectives of the panelists. Unfortunately, it was not as focused as the previous talk, but the speakers did talk generally about the concept of gaming and it seemed to carry over well to our objectives at MediaZone. They stressed the need for points systems or any form of “virtual currency” (see: Virtual Cash Breeds Real Greed) for users to take to gaming in a big way. They pointed to EA points as an example. They also noted a “landmark” study that found that people, especially women, do not like 3D user experiences. Interesting. I’ve tried to track the study down, but if you know of it, please share.

After lunch, it was on to Short Attention Span Theater: The Birth of Microblogging & Micromedia presented by Gregarious Narain (Blue Whale Labs), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester Research), Brian Solis (Future Works and PR 2.0) and Stowe Boyd (The /Messengers) where audience members were invited to Twitter in questions. As a loyal (ardent?) Twitterberry user, I got to work and even had one of my questions addressed – you can check out some of my questions on my Twitter micro-blog at http://twitter.com/jenniferneeley. In a nutshell, Twitter’s as a social, and especially, economic value was discussed with mention of companies that have used it well (H&R Block, Zappos) as well as poorly (lots of links back to your site = disinterest). If you’re very interested in the topic, you might like to take a look at the ramblings on Robert Scoble’s blog, but otherwise it seemed like you got it or you didn’t and without Twitter having a fleshed out business model (their meetings with VCs during the span of the conference were well-dcoumented), there’s still a lot we don’t know. Still, I believe a few of the campaigns we’re trying to run could utilize or be entirely run on Twitter. Please ask me to pontificate, if interested.

On to psychology and a presenter, God bless him, with an unseemly affinity for the word “um.” Web Site Psychology was the name of the lecture, given by Gavin Bell (Nature). If you’re interested, I highly recommended taking a peek at the slides from his presentation. A lot of good, if academically presented, information. Some of my takeaways:

• Usability needs to look at the consistent vs. the coherent.
• Cognitive psychology plays a huge role.
• Web experiences should model human behavior, designing for a good fit and also managing expectations.
• He asserted that Flash makes users uncomfortable if there is no URL – no way to “go back.”
• He also discussed: Schema, Congruence, Adaptation, Measured Stability and Affordances along the way.

After a break, it was on to keynotes, all of which I encourage you to check out online, but before that, Brady and Jennifer from O’Reilly Media explained some of the things they tried to make Web 2.0 Expo an “unconference”:

Making it an “open event” with social tools available to all (see the “stay connected” sidebar on the event home page). Examples:

• Fireballapp.com
• Crowdvine
• Socialtext.net/web20
• Sched.org
• RoamAbout (http://roamabout.vysr.com/webexpo)

Keynotes then began, with Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media starting things off by “reminding us why we’re there” – “Changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.” He also discussed how Web 2.0 is defined, according to VentureSource, it is:

• Internet as platform
• Harnessing the collective intelligence
• Data as the “Intel Inside”
• Software above the level of a single device
• Software as a service

(This is all spelled-out better in another book I bought – Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations).

And, he noted, these are not short-term trends.

For business, one of the ideas he noted as key were:

• Enterprises understanding that Web 2.0 is about turning themselves inside out.

Other thoughts:

• Apps get better the more people use them (I think this could be said of most of Web 2.0).
• The computer is every computer.
• “Cloud Computing.”
• Amazon.com used Web 2.0 to get ahead of the curve in a number of ways.
• The programmable web.
• Ambient computing.

“Big hairy audacious goal”
- Tim O’Reilly

O’Reilly’s examples of how Web 2.0 has been used in this way:

• To change Congress
• EveryBlock.com
• InSTEDD
• Tracking illegal deforestation in Brazil using Google Earth
• Earth Day
• Wattzon.org

O’Reilly concluded with a poem he says he read to hos father on his death bed 20 years ago called “The Man Watching.” Take a read here:
http://www.cdra.org.za/creativity/Rainer%20Maria%20Rilke%20-%20The%20Man%20Watching.htm. Pretty inspiring.

Some other sites of interest:

• http://www.dash.net/
• http://qcn.stanford.edu/
• http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/04/microsoft-clearflow.html

After that, Charlene Li of Forrester interviewed Max Levchin from Slide. It was an interesting interview on his take on the value of social networking. I recommend checking it out online, but some thoughts:

• Levchin defines Slide as a “Social Entertainment Company.”
• He says Slide adds context to social platforms.
• He considers widgets social software.
• Believes the consumer gets “fun” – and that’s the only thing that will keep their products from becoming fads.
• Says Slide will make money through advertising: Levchin says they’ve made strong brand connections from Paramount to Palm. He believes they will sell sponsorships and split ad revenue between ads and consumer service.
• Billions are being made from virtual goods – especially in Asia.
• Content and context are intertwined.
• Engagement levels are close to, but above standard TV.
• Madison Avenue is all about “engagement.”
• Cited the thrown sheep as the thing they’re most known for (via SuperPoke!) and the pregnancy test, tied to a Juno movie campaign, as an example of a successful ad sales example.
• Says Slide is well-liked by users and must have a base of loyal users for business to work.
• Designing with privacy in mind (lessons learned from PayPal).
• In terms of metrics, he says they do not need to know who their users are, but need to know their behavior (in general).
• Says Slide has 170 million users.
• Says their may not be as much conflict between the properties they widgets their products to as you might imagine; it’s all around who “owns”/engages the user.
• Related to engagement, he said it’s more critical for the user to know you (e.g. the brand), than for you to know them.
• Their focus is on something of real value – not easy to replicate – which users have the deepest connection to. He says if you can do that, there’s a lot of opportunity.
• There was some discussion about “application spam.”
• He believes users that uses apps to spam others will “be dealt with” better than it’s been done before with email.
• There’s also the concept of what’s socially accepted, e.g. sheep being thrown vs. something else.
• Talked about being featured on the cover of “Portfolio” with a light bulb over his head.
• He was asked what motivates him to work on startups and said the drive to do so is, well, drive. He noted the first four companies he started destroyed his credit history. Slide is his fifth.
• When he hires people, he basically looks for drive and people who can deal with failure.
• He says he now judges his success by how many people make a million or more on exit.
• He ended with a quote, paraphrased, from Winston Churchill, “never, ever, ever, ever surrender.” (see the full speech here: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=393)

Next up, Microsoft, who showed a nice video, but did not explain the heavy-lifting that may or may not be required to make it work for users, as a means of announcing a new product – Microsoft Mesh (for an explainer, go here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/web2.0/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207401672).

On to the next speaker, Clay Shirky (one-time Colbert Report interviewee: http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=164882) and author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (I bought this one, too) gave an uplifting chat. He used the phrase “information porn.” What can I say?… love, love, LOVE the guy.

“What AIM Knows” was the next talk, given by Edwin Aoki – nothing really memorable to share. Tellme wants to get ahead of the mobile curve using voice commands (I really liked their speaker, Dariusz Paczuski) and there was talk of the “Myth of Innovation” by Scott Berkun (ScottBerkun.com). LOVED his book and bought it, too (The Myths of Innovation).

I encourage you to take a look at all the keynotes on Blip.tv. I plan to post the ones I found most interesting here, individually.

Jennifer Pahlka and Brady Forrest at Web 2.0 Expo

intro to the keynotes the first day… good foundation to understand the context of the event.

video source posted with vodpod

Alex Kingsbury Does The Daily Show

i went to grad school with this guy! (reveal secrets, i won’t!)

video source posted with vodpod

Clips & Articles By Jennifer

Magazine, Newspaper & Web

Lodi Men Suspected Of al-Qaida Links [Originally For wb58tv.com]
A Planet Out Of Gas? [Originally For wb58tv.com]
Yahoo Pulls Plug On Child-Sex Chat Rooms Following Report [Originally For wb58tv.com]
Learning Matters: Decoding Online Lingo [Originally For wb58tv.com]
Paris Hilton Makes A Splash In Controversial New Ad [Originally For wb58tv.com]
Year’s Top Stories: The War At Home [Originally For wb58tv.com]
Justice For All (Fresno Magazine, Dec.-Jan. 2004-2005)
Campus Elections (Student Leader Magazine, Fall 1994)
Stark Reality Op-Ed (Fresno Bee, Jan. 2, 1994)

Ms. Neeley Goes To Washington (Fresno Bee, Sept. 23, 1993)
The Plain Dealer Op-Ed (Metronews, Sept. 9, 1993)

There are many more, but I’d love any feedback on these… !

Video Killed The Radio ‘Star’?

So I’ve done some radio work and l freaking love it. It’s more than an excuse to talk… it’s a chance to report useful information and share. It’s the original user-generated content, if you think about it. And for that, I love the medium.

I’m in the process of deciding if I should find time to prusue more radio work… actually, podcasting. Please take a listen to my pieces and give me your feedback — or job leads, collaborations and the like!

(For those interested, all clips available for license online through Jennifer’s PRX page)

Disabled But Able, 04:41
For the disabled, the weakened economy has lead to layoffs, rejection and difficulty achieving or maintaining independence. Centers like the one in Queens are working to help the disabled use their time as unemployed workers to become better skilled and more competitive job seekers through education and support.

I Report: You Decide?

This was my dream at one point. And now, here it is. My reporting demo reel.

It was all shot when I was working as a reporter for Columbia News Tonight as a student of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. That was the spring of 2004, and since then I have either not pursued the right opportunities to report on-air again, or suck so badly that I can’t get a gig working at it full-time.

You be the judge.

Rev. Al Sharpton Rally (01:30)

Intro: One contender who is still in the running is New York native Reverend Al Sharpton. He took to the pulpit in Harlem this afternoon to back a union locked in a contract battle with the city and to bolster his campaign for the democratic nomination. As Jennifer Neeley reports, even the workers skeptical of his motives were taken by the man they call “The Rev.”

One contender who is still in the running is New York native Reverend Al Sharpton. He took to the pulpit in Harlem this afterno