Photo Credit: Eric Lusion

[EDIT Oct. 3, 2011] – Thanks to @FakhriZina and @OperationLeakS for sharing this humdinger of a video :: Day Trader tells truth live on UK BBCNews 9/26/11

This morning I began my day reading over the messages from those who are showing their support for the #OccupyWallStreet movement by posting pictures of notes that tell their stories on the We are the 99% tumblr blog. I encourage you to pause to read their stories before you judge or accept what you may have heard from main stream media.

Since the #OccupyWallStreet movement took shape on September 17th, 2011 it seems as though there has been growing frustration in how the main stream media is portraying the peaceful, organized and well spoken (and growing) group. Let’s face it – the coverage didn’t really begin until there was violence on peaceful protesters by the NYPD. Major news organizations finally began to cover the story when the rest of the world took notice.

Just to be clear on what the movement is about, please take a moment to read the Declaration of the Occupation of New York City from the The Official Website of the General Assembly at #OccupyWallStreet.

These are not happless hippies or misguided hipsters who are out to inconvenience NYC commuters or waste taxpayers money. There are many older protesters who want change too! Some are even suggesting that people close their accounts with the bail out banks and move all of their money to a credit union.

Read the General Assembly Minutes from 9/29 7PM and you will see that this group is thoughtful in what whey want to accomplish and realize that in order to reach the and gain the support of 99% of America they will have to stick to the main issues of the corruption of Wall Street and the Financial Institutions that have lead us into this recession.

There is even a post on Reddit by HotKariMarx that encourages protesters to wear khaki’s and polos to appeal to the people at home who are watching this developing story on the news. Great idea of a “uniform” to appeal to the masses – but the people are there and protesting because they can barely make ends meet. Who knows, maybe Ralph Lauren or The Gap will donate polos and khakis for a good cause. . . but I doubt it.

This 2004 article by Jack Rasmus lays out some pretty interesting facts about the disparity in earnings in the U.S. between American workers and CEO’s. In 2007 the New York Times even confirmed the widening income gap. I can’t help but agree with the economists who think that the repeal of the Glass – Steagall act aided in our current economic woes.

"Hrmmmmm".

The part that social media is playing in this now nationwide movement is difficult to ignore. The reason international news organizations are reporting on the protests in the US is due largely to the noise being made online. My first glimpse at what was going on in NYC was thanks to my Facebook Friend Eric Lusion who shared an album of photo’s from the streets.

Many, like me, have noticed that Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent) is taking his support of Wall Street / Financial Institutional reform to twitter. I applaud his efforts to educate his followers that 3 out of the 4 largest financial institutions are bigger today than before the financial crisis began. I was some what shocked to learn from the Senator that “Between 1980 and 2005, 80% of all new income created in this country went to the top 1%”

The whole world is watching as the 99% demand real reform.

The Occupy Together movement is growing world wide. Will you join in the movement online via social media or in your nearest city?

Will you risk arrest like MetroFocus Web Editor John Farley did for his piece on citizen journalism?

Are your local representatives addressing this issue?

—

Edit 1:36 pm : the WSJ just posted that there WILL NOT be a Radiohead concert.

Edit 12:56 pm : Confirmed from @occupywallst website that Radiohead, who is in NY as part of their tour, will be playing at 4pm. I can only imagine what this will do for visibility of the movement as well as set the stage for other celebrities to step in and show support for the cause. Hashtag for the event is #RadioheadOccupy

Behind every screen is a person, who wants to connect. We spend hours and hours of each day behind computer screens, mobile devices and televisions.  Sometimes, they are so concerned about connecting in the screens, that they miss can out on real life offline experiences.

“Now is the moment of power.”, or “Manawa“.as they say in the ancient Polynesian philosophy called Huna. I rarely mix my spiritual thinking with my tech thoughts, but in this case, I feel that it is important. Recognize that we only have this moment, and that your walking around with your face in your phone is fucking annoying.

Now, is the only time that we have, so if you are around real people, interact with them! And if you are driving, put down your phone, at LEAST OCCASIONALLY.

How many of you have had the opportunity to go to conferences and meet the amazing people that you’ve connected with online? For those fortunate enough to go to the cool conferences, you can be amazed finally putting a face to the avatar and a real life connection with people you “met” online, 1000s of miles apart.

It’s about the people. At one of these conferences, Web 2.0 expo in San Francisco, I met the director of emerging media from 360i in NYC. We had a great face to face real life discussion. It was funny seeing most people walk around tweeting, updating statuses and texting and not connecting with people right near them. But, we kept in touch. BTW, this guy is the person who hooked me up with my Google+ invitation. [He may have given me my Google Wave invitation, as well, but I won't hold that against him.]

Tonight, I saw one of Tamar Weinberg’s posts, [another TW, I might add], and she mentioned how she met someone offline, and has been helping him online… which is awesome of her. But, he has been too busy tweeting and checking in on foursquare… and not responding to her job assistance. Plus, the dude is currently unemployed. Yeah, he is too concerned about growing his Klout score so he can get a job, than actually talking to someone who is trying to hook him up with a job.

When we blog and tweet and socialize/whore ourselves out there in the interwebz, it’s important to remember, that it’s not the platform, the tools or your online influence score that matter. It is the connecting with the people. Not to sell them, but to authentically connect. To help. To share. To teach. To care.

We are on this Earth for a very short period of time. Let’s not waste it on worrying about Klout scores and what our social stock is worth… let’s connect and help add value where we can.

Are you authentic? Do you care about the people? Because, that’s what matters.

—

San Francisco’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cut cell phone service due to Protestors planning a rally on August 11, 2011 to bring attention to a number of recent BART transit police officer shootings.

In the wake of the havoc in London, where Prime Minister Cameron is considering the role social media had played on the riots it seems as though many cities, world wide, are contemplating how to control or snoop on the masses that are equipped with a cellphone and shared opinion.

Just to be clear – I absolutely do not condone the wanton disregard for others property or safety like what happened in the United Kingdom. You may be surprised to learn that UK youth were offered money by “journalists” to start riots, according to some Tweets).

In an ideal world – if you are pissed at your government or your officials, damaging your neighbors property or putting others lives in danger is NOT the way to change things. As Julian Assange was quoted in TheStar.com post by Foreign Affairs Reporter Olivia Ward “The looters and rioters who torched Britain’s neighbourhoods are “doing Big Brother” a favour by giving the government more latitude to destroy citizens’ rights and freedoms.”

You want to see change? Vote. (I know about voter fraud, but that is another blog post.)

We all deserve the right to gather in peaceful protest to raise pubic awareness about situations or circumstances that need to be changed and often are not covered by traditional ‘Murdoch‘ news.

It’s sad to say that it was no surprise to hear that San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) cut cell phone service to select stations where protestors were planning to raise awareness about the slew of recent BART shootings. BART’s justification for cutting service was that a possible protest at rush hour would endanger lives.

‘Anonymous‘ called this a “Mubarak style” attack on free speech.

What do you think?

Photo Credit Deirdre Reid

Early this morning I was poking around Facebook like many millions of people do each day, when I saw a post by my friend Deirdre Reid aka @deirdrereid.

She commented on how @MrMichael_Smith of @ESPN had posted tweets on how funny he thought the accident of Dutch cyclist Johnny Hoogerland was on twitter.

Yep you heard right. Michael Smith thought it was funny . . . and apparently still does.

Photo Credit Deirdre Reid

If you do a simple twitter search for @MrMichael_Smith you will see a plethora of outraged people demanding that ESPN reprimand him for his unprofessional behavior online.

@TdFLanterne recently posted the response he received from ESPN regarding Michael Smith’s comments on twitter.

Each second that ticks by, and as word is spreading in the cycling community of Michael Smith’s insensitive tweets – he and his flippant responses on twitter are alienating people from the ESPN brand.

Photo Credit: Deirdre Reid

This is a text book example of when a brand representative can quickly become a liability thanks to the world wide reach of social media.

For those of you who may not have heard – Johnny Hoogerland was forced off the road at around 60mph into a barbed wire fence by a French TV camera car during Stage 9 of the Tour de France. You can read the full story here.

Photo Credit REUTERS

I don’t know about you Michael Smith, but I don’t find a single damn thing funny about this.

UPDATE : July 13 10:02am

Since yesterday #firemichaelsmith has gained strength as more and more cyclists across the world have learned of Michael Smith’s tweets.

Though Michael Smith did finally apologize on twitter, it seems that it’s too little to late after all of his very personal tweets defending his right to laugh at Johnny Hoogerland’s crash.

As one twitter user aptly said -

@_steventran: I take @mrmichael_smith‘s comments seriously because they publicly perpetuate a disregard for the lives of cyclists. #firemrmichaelsmith

additional reading :

This post by @simonmacmichael of @roadcc highlights the number of cyclists killed in Brittan alone.

CTC says rate of deaths among cyclists not falling quickly enough as DfT releases casualty stats

Stats from the U.S.

bicyclinginfo.org: Bicycle Crash Facts

—

Do you think Michael Smith should be reprimanded for his lack of sensitivity and remarks on twitter by ESPN?

If you were an ESPN exec. how how would you handle a situation like this?

January is quickly approaching. What does this mean for early adopters and lovers of cool tech gadgetry? Only one thing, CES is nigh. This will be a fun time to go to CES, as many companies are preparing to take on Apple iPad with tablets of their own. I expect internet TV to get some love at CES this year, as well. There will certainly be tons of new smartphones released. Also, I’m expecting solar gadgets to be prevalent as well as increased strength in batteries and in storage devices.

On January 6, Las Vegas will once again play host to the world’s largest gathering of consumer electronics makers. Drooling tech lovers and hordes of journalists will flock to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to see the what’s in store for 2011.

Last year’s four-day conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center attracted about 125,000 attendees and roughly 2,500 exhibitors. To put it in perspective, the first CES took place in New York City in June, 1967 with only 200 exhibitors and about 17,500 attendees. Since then, CES has grown more than ten-fold.

Obviously, I expect to see tablet’s galore. And it really only took 12 months for the iPad to FINALLY get some competition. Being an owner of an iPad, I can’t imagine not having a functional tablet anymore. My kids use this thing all of the time. The educational games are amazing and there are plenty of apps to keep you occupied. Again, Apple got a good head-start on competition, so it will be difficult for other consumer electronics companies to catch up… so their products better be top notch.

Sure there are many ways to make the iPad better, industry pundits have talked about them all year: no camera, no HDMI output, no USB, etc. etc… Apple will certainly fix most of these on iPad 2.0, I’m sure. Sure, Apple will have some competition being exhibited at CES, but, it won’t take long to steal back the thunder, as MacWorld Conference is January 26-29.

Apple likely sold more than 10 million iPads in 2010, with Samsung’s Galaxy emerging as the only real competition for holiday shopping dollars.

Several companies are looking to close the gap, and many are expected to unveil tablets running on Google’s popular Android operating system. Rumor has it that Samsung will respond with an updated Galaxy tablet, while Asus is prepping an ultra-thin 10-inch Android device. Motorola, Research in Motion, Toshiba and the Palm/HP combination are other key tablet players to watch in Vegas.

However, the biggest story in 2011 may be the delivery of Internet-based content to the television set, according to Shawn Dubrovac, CEA’s Chief Economist and Director of Research.

“This won’t be about the technical feasibility of bringing the Internet to the TV, this will be about the meaningfulness for the end-user of marrying the TV with the Internet,” said Dubrovac.

Because consumers do not replace TVs frequently, Dubrovac expects an increasing number of set-top boxes (and accompanying services) launch at the 2011 CES, even though there are rumors that Google is going to hold back releasing Google TV, until the software is ready for primetime.

LG Mobile contacted us and is sending us out to try their new releases, so Mobile Local Social will get to experience LG’s new product line first hand. I look forward to demoing the products and writing reviews on everything that we find at CES.

2011 should be an interesting year for new consumer electronics, and for networking with some of the industries most influential technologists.

Internet bargaineer Woot.com has sent out emails for $5 purchases using the coupon code CHANGEYOURPASSWORD.  The email, pictured above, also refers the reader to a snarky NYTimes article about the fiasco which asks, at one point, “Why would people have a Gawker account?”

Live by the snark, die by the snark.

This new LG Optimus2X is being billed as the world’s first smartphone with a dual-core processor. That is pretty sweet. My Motorola Droid seems REALLY slow now that freaking DUAL CORE Android devices are coming out. Love it. Plus, since I’m going out there, they are giving me a device to try out while Im at CES and give the new device a spin. Not sure if we get to try the Optimus 2X or their Windows 7 phone. I’ve never tried out a Windows 7 smartphone yet, so that would be interesting.

Along with more powerful multimedia features, the LG Optimus 2X’s high-performance Tegra 2 processor is going to make for faster, smoother web browsing and applications and lets users multitask with virtually no screen lag. Screen lag is my least favorite thing about my Droid… this is the one area that keeps me from wanting to stay with Android. iOS is sooo smooth. But I really love Android, as well. This phone sounds smokin’ fast.

My only complaint is that the screen could be larger.  I’m a big fan of the Droid X and EVO sized screens.  It makes my Droid look puny and pathetic, though.

“Dual-core technology is the next leap forward in mobile technology so this is no small achievement to be the first to offer a smartphone utilizing this technology,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, CEO and President of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “With unique features such as HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) mirroring and exceptional graphics performance, the LG Optimus 2X is proof of LG’s
commitment to high-end smartphones in 2011.”

The NVIDIA dual-core Tegra 2 system-on-a-chip found in the LG Optimus 2X runs at a clock speed of 1GHz and boasts low power consumption and high performance for playing video and audio.

LG Mobile states that users will experience faster web browsing and smoother gameplay compared with single-core processors running at the same speed as well as instantaneous touch response and seamless multitasking between applications.

The LG Optimus 2X offers 1080p HD video playback and recording with HDMI mirroring that expands content on external displays to full HD quality. The LG Optimus 2X can connect wirelessly to any DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) compatible digital device such as HD TVs for a console-like gaming experience taking full advantage of the phone’s HDMI mirroring, accelerometer and gyro sensor.

The smartphone also includes both rear- and front-facing cameras, microSD memory expandability, Micro-USB port and a hefty 1500mAh battery.

The LG Optimus 2X will be available in Korea next month with countries in Europe and Asia to follow. The phone will initially be released with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and will be upgradeable to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). The upgrade schedule will be announced in local markets in due course.

Key specifications:
1Ghz Dual-core Processor (NVIDIA Tegra 2)
4-inch WVGA screen

8GB memory (up to 32GB via microSD)

1,500 mAh battery

8 megapixel rear camera and 1.3 megapixel front camera

HDMI mirroring

1080p MPEG-4/H.264 playback and recording

Full Press Release here

Before you tear me apart for a sensationalist title, let me explain.

I do not think that Gawker Media, the multimillion dollar blogging corporation, will fall.  As a general rule, I do not second-guess the business strategies of multi-million dollar companies.  However, the bloom is definitely off the rose as far as Gawker’s standing in the public eye is concerned.

Fair disclosure: For over four years, I have been a commenter on Gawker blogs, most notably on Gizmodo.

I remember when Gizmodo pranked CES.  Which was a pretty bad thing considering that the prank consisted of a Gizmodo blogger screwing with companies’ presentations at a trade show.  The videographer responsible was not fired and still works quite happily under Gawker’s main imprint.

This year, as with every year, Gawker blogs have found themselves in hot water for their practices.  Gawker itself received a takedown notice and the rather disingenuous ire of Facebook celebrity, reality tv show host, and author Sarah Palin for printed large excerpts of one of her books.  But the Gawker story that really took the cake was “iPhone4gate,” in which Gawker/Gizmodo paid $5,000 for a working prototype of the iPhone 4, destroyed it through disassembly, and then wrote about it at length, before sending it back to Apple, Inc.  Whether this was legal I will not opine.

I do think that it was not a major departure from established journalism practices.  Gawker’s bounties for tips and the like are well known and, frankly, paying $5,000 for the iPhone 4 is no different than paying $5,000 to a paparazzo for naked photos of Insert Hollywood Starlet Of Little To Middling Talent.  It was a major development for Gizmodo and got Jason Chen’s face on many news segments.

It also marked a turning point for Gizmodo’s writing and authorship in my opinion as a blog historian of Gizmodo.  For a goodly amount of time, Gizmodo had been a tech news site in the “traditional” sense of the word.  It featured specs, photos, tear-downs and reviews of upcoming consumer electronics.  It favored the big companies – Apple, Microsoft, Google, Motorola, etc. – but it still had a lot of bleeding edge information about the tech world.  To read it today, one would not recognize it.

Last month, Joel Johnson, whose personality tends to raise hackles with the readership, wrote an entire post telling the commentariat in no uncertain terms that they could go to hell (actually, his language was far more harsh than that).  Again, fair disclosure: I am not a fan of Mr. Johnson, or his pretentious writing which, frankly comes across as preening, and was banned for openly criticizing him.  After that, I tended not to comment on Gizmodo.  Several weeks later, Mr. Johnson had angered some other readers and some hacking was their retaliation.  Mr. Johnson’s response was to tell commenters to all f**k off.  It was petulant, counterproductive, and off-putting.

At present, there is an article about a wooden roller coaster someone built in their backyard.  There’s a posting about a YouTube video shot by putting a camera around a cat’s neck.  There’s a story about a girl who got trapped in an arcade claw machine.  There’s a YouTube video about multiplication tables in Japan.  In contrast, Engadget (Gizmodo’s main competitor) has stories about a 100-disc Blu-Ray changer, a useful hack for a portable WiMAX device, Kindle sales data, several upcoming Android handsets, and stories about tablet computers not called the iPad and about patent cases and Senate legislation about technology.

In short, Gizmodo is now US Weekly to Engadget’s Economist.  The Economist has better writing and better serves its readers but US Weekly sells more because it just goes for the low-hanging fruit.

Putting this in perspective, this last week really brought to the fore how the sea change is a real thing and not the product of selective perception.  Last week, Google announced the Chrome laptop.  Engadget liveblogged the event with a dizzying gallery of photos and ample coverage of all the details.  Gizmodo didn’t even attend.  Instead, they posted about an ice hotel decked out like Tron and then wrote about the laptop later on.

Finally, capping out the fiasco was a massive security breach of Gawker’s servers in which all accounts – user, editor, and commenter – were compromised.  The hackers gained access to thousands upon thousands of passwords.  My password was on the list compromised but hackers were not able to decipher the password (which has since been changed).  Gawker had known about the flaws in its securities for months.  In one internal chat exchange, Hamilton Nolan remarked about the hacking of accounts, saying if it was editor accounts, “that’s a problem”, if just the commenters, then it was “unimportant.”  This was reported far and wide.  NPR mentioned the hacking of Gawker accounts on its “Morning Edition” program.  Additionally, Forbes magazine wrote a lengthy detailed piece on its blog, including a screencap of the chat in which Mr. Nolan called the breach of commenter accounts “unimportant.”

For their part, Gawker sites are now having to cover themselves as a story.  Several have had to try to assure readers that they aren’t considered “peasants” by the editors.  While I’m sure that Jason Chen and Kat Hannaford don’t consider the commentariat to be peasants, as someone who was banned by a Gizmodo editor (notorious blowhard Joel Johnson) for disagreeing with him, rote assurances don’t ring true with me.  UPDATE: JASON CHEN JUST BANNED ME FROM GIZMODO AND CALLED ME AN ASS FOR POSTING A REMINDER THAT JOEL JOHNSON WROTE AN ENTIRE FEATURE DEVOTED TO INSULTING THE COMMENTERS.

In the meantime, Gawker sites are to launch a massive redesign next month.  This may be too little too late.  As it is, the software code is on the internet to be compromised, the site itself at present loads somewhat slowly because of all of the scripts embedded in it, and the content, quite frankly, is fairly piss poor.  If the new Gawker empire to be feature the crown jewel of Gizmodo writing more three-sentence stories about jackasses riding skis while being towed behind a truck (another story Gizmodo ran instead of covering the Google Chrome event), then it will lose its title as a place to go for tech news.

And that’s where Gawker stands: as a blog network that is vicious, vindictive, and populated by people who, at best, scoff at their readership and, at worst, are openly hostile to them.

As one who used to post between ten and twenty comments a day on Gizmodo, I cannot say that I will continue to comment on Gizmodo (or Gawker) in the future.  There’s not much to say about a two-sentence story about Android-themed wedding cakes.

How to Survive the Social Buying Bubble

Have your heard of the new bubble in the connected marketing world? Depending on who you ask, social buying is worth nothing, hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in annual sales. But what is social buying, exactly? Who’s doing the buying and who’s doing the selling?

The marketplace has gotten crowded fast. As of July, Experian says the top five are GroupOn, EverSave, Living Social, BuyWithMe and Tippr. There’s a new one popping up every week. Literally. Last week, AOL jumped in with an announced plan to dust off the WOW.com domain.

Read More at AdAge.com

It’s Not Just You: 71 Percent of Tweets Are Ignored

Ever feel like you’re talking to a brick wall on Twitter? That might be because 71 percent of tweets get absolutely no response from the world.

Toronto-based social media analytics company Sysomos scanned 1.2 billion messages that were sent in August and September 2009 to try and get some idea of the kind of conversations that are going on. They discovered that more than seven in every 10 tweets sink without any kind of reaction from the world

Read More at Wired.com

4 Real Challenges to Crowdsourcing for Social Good

For its 40th anniversary, political non-profit Common Cause re-examined its core values and wrote almost 40 theses for theInternet era in the style of The Cluetrain Manifesto. The organization needed to know that these restated values were still in sync with its stake holders and needed its online community to provide feedback.

For a month and half the organization tried to socialize the theses, getting lukewarm responses, but receiving thumbs-up on Facebookposts about individual theses, and the occasional comment. Finally, Common Cause turned the feedback exercise into a contest, creating an effort where the best suggestion from the community would become the 40th theses. Over the next two weeks, Common Cause received 1,200 responses to the contest, and the best five were voted on by the community.

Read More at Mashable.com

R.I.P. Google Keyword Tool. Long Live SEO!

Attendees sat stunned at #SMX East as Baris Gultekin, Group Product Manager, Google AdWords, Google, Inc. clarified that the ubiquitous AdWords Keyword Tool now only provides keywords Google deems “commercial.” It’s been obvious anyway by degraded results over the last few weeks. This represents a shift of seismic proportions to those who utilize the tool for demographic research purposes, in and outside of AdWords. Here’s an overview of what we just lost and how to get the data anyway.

Google Backpedals
Google owns the largest first-hand sampling of query data in many parts of the world. Now, breaking rank with 15+ years of holistic search engine open-source tradition, Google has decided marketers should no longer have easy access to the long, or even mid tail data (search inventory), unless the keyword has demonstrated “commercial” characteristics historically.  Effectively, in tandem with the well-established user-herding “suggest” feature, this move consolidates Google’s semantic semi-monopoly into fewer keyword SKUs.

Read More at AimClearBlog.com

Google Executive Marissa Mayer Takes New Role in Location, Local Services

Marissa Mayer, Google Inc.’s vice president of search products, is taking a new role overseeing location and local services — markets the company is counting on to boost sales.

Mayer, who joined in 1999 as the company’s first female engineer, will run an area that’s crucial to users and Googleitself, the Mountain View, California-based company said today in an e-mail. Mayer also is joining Google’s operating committee, the company’s senior most management group, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the move hasn’t been made public.

Read More at Bloomberg.com

It doesn’t add forum threads, that was my idea… but the new Seesmic Desktop, which runs on Windows Silverlight, is one of the coolest programs that I have ever used. You can have many, many of your favorite streams of real-time information in one place. Also, the new platform will give its users all-in-one access to social media giants, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, but its brand-new plugin marketplace also includes services such as Zappos, Techmeme, Klout, Formspring, YouTube, Last.fm, Techmeme, Ping.fm and many more — around 40 apps and services, so far. With a whole new marketplace for developers to start creating for.

Seesmic's new Desktop 2, the only hub you will ever need. (click to see full picture)

The program runs pretty fast, but Silverlight can be a resource hog. It was still going relatively fast… but my PC is a 3.35Ghz dual core with 4 GB of RAM… so my computer is a bit faster than most. If you have a slower computer, please let us know how well it’s working for you.

This tool will become one of the most utilized tools for Small-Mid businesses to allow them to streamline their social media efforts.

I can’t wait to get this experience on my iPad. I am a total fan-boy for this program, already… it took like 5 minutes to become a total fanboy.

Check out Scobleizer’s video that is hot off the press with less than 100 views on it!

Let me start by saying that my reasons are mine and mine alone. I don’t pretend to know why others are involved; that isn’t a huge concern of mine. And while I am sure there is a certain level of vanity in it all, that level is very, very low.

For me, it’s all about business; and  while I understand that isn’t some altruistic warm and fuzzy reason (I’m not trying to save the world here) it is my reason.

My company started as a web and brand development business eleven years ago and with the onset of social media we have moved more towards the direction of marketing and PR through social media. Plain and simple, this project allows me to show my clients that I can use my reach to help their company to succeed.

And then, when the bills are paid, I can use that reach for some great causes (here is the warm and fuzzy), like the event that we just did with the Wisconsin Humane Society.

One last thing,  I don’t look at this as a competition, but as a project as Fast Company has so aptly named it. We are all in this together,  and to that end I’m listing the people I know who are involved with the project and would love for you to support them by clicking their links and please feel free to comment with people you know and include their links. Let’s see what we can do when we support each other.

Charles Gartland  – http://fcinf.com/v/abnw

George Kasica – http://fcinf.com/v/b7bq

Eric Sforza – http://fcinf.com/v/awud

Jon Kurozawa – http://bit.ly/aoupAQ

Chad Schomber – http://fcinf.com/v/c5pd

Sarah White – http://fcinf.com/v/ahjx

A. Ryan Thompson – http://fcinf.com/v/djjk

Nate St. Pierre – http://fcinf.com/v/bxch

Susi Schuele – http://fcinf.com/v/dokl

Rebecca Bradley – http://fcinf.com/v/doc3

Mia Kurozawa – http://fcinf.com/v/csvg

Charles Gartland – http://fcinf.com/v/abnw

TweetUp Girls – http://fcinf.com/v/br74

Jeanette Pham – http://fcinf.com/v/b24p

And me – Michelle D’Attilio – http://fcinf.com/v/dxub

Harley Davidson has been marketing to women riders since 1920. Can you believe that? Now in 2010, it happens to be their fastest growing demographic. That is with almost 100 years of marketing.  So why is it working now and what can we learn?

I think the reason why it is working now is two-fold. One because I think women are finally ready for it. This to me is a big part.  Women are ready to step into the driver’s seat, and I am thankful to the many generations of women who came before me that have allowed this generation to feel comfortable doing so. Secondly, Harley Davidson stopped marketing to women and actually asked them what they wanted and what their concerns were.  Then they addressed those concerns. Effectively creating a market that may not have been there otherwise.

What I find so interesting is that the biggest concern that Harley Davidson heard from women about owning their own bike was this; “If I am out riding alone, and the bike tips, I can’t pick it up. At 500+ pounds, it is too heavy”.

What I love is that Harley didn’t go back to the shop and create a lighter bike. Instead, they developed  a process to teach  women how to lift the bikes.  (Now maybe they altered the weight of the bike a bit, quite honestly I don’t know but 500+ pounds is a lot.) My point is they opted to empower the woman by developing a plan and then teaching it.

I think what we can learn here is that if we have a market that we are trying to target but for some reason we are not getting the desired response, (even after almost 100 years), maybe we need to step back and talk to that market.  Instead of market to them maybe we should listen to them.  Be willing to hear the feedback and then address the issues. Perhaps then we will see a return from the marketing efforts.

I have to thank Harley Davidson for the chance to meet so many wonderful women who attended the event and for teaching me how to pick up a bike. (Yeah that is me picking up a Harley!) It was very empowering. A wonderful day overall and you can bet that if I ever decide to buy my own bike I’ll be looking at a Harley.

What we have here is the very first podcast / experiment of this project. On the call, which is led by Vince Vaughan AKA @banky who writes at The Vaughan Practice. We have Dan Brady, AKA @ZenInsight who is blogger extraordinaire at MobLoSo. Also rockin the call is The Geek… Jeff Smith, AKA @jeffisageek, who blogs at MobLoSo as well as Jeffisageek.net. [IMO if he was REALLY a geek, he would have snagged jeffisageek.com, but I digress.] Michael Robinson, AKA @michaelr, and who blogs at his personal website, MichaelCRobinson.com. I was also on the call, @teedubya. All you need to know about me is written on a bathroom stall somewhere.

Ok, so this past Monday, we got together to figure out our direction of the podcast… we wanted to talk about how Businesses need to use mobile, local and social technology better to assist them and their business.

If you want more customers, you need to be in more places that these customers can find you. And from the panel’s personal experience, most businesses just don’t get it.

Without further adieu, MobileLocalSocial.com Podcast 001, Introducing Mobile Media Club. 50 minutes and 5 seconds of pure awesomeness.

[podcast]http://mobilelocalsocial.com/assets/podcasts/MobLoSo001_MobileMediaClub.mp3[/podcast]

Again, we are looking for the brightest minds in mobile technology, local geo-targeting and social media, and are creating a mastermind group. We look forward to meeting you and discussing the future of tech with you over the next coming months.

“(CBS) At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.

Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive – like the one on your personal computer – storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.

In the process, it’s turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.

If you’re in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold.

“The type of information we see on these machines with the social security numbers, birth certificates, bank records, income tax forms,” John Juntunen said, “that information would be very valuable.”

Read the full article at CBS News. (Thanks for the tip Mike V.)

This song is “Solar” by Goldfrapp. Have lyrics EVER looked so bad ass?

Have I EVER randomly capitalized this many WORDS in one post before?

Check it out at Flight404

Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.