Mobinar: Power of the Network (in your pocket) Video 1

As promised - and with huge thanks to the efforts of Dan Thornton (for filming) and Angus Farquhar (for putting it somewhere we can all share online) of motorcyclenews.com (hence the logo!).
This is part 1, the intro to the Mobinar day and my presentation on the Power of the Network - and our requirement to embrace it.

Now, before you click the go button - a warning. The quality ain't great. You will probably need headphones on and to turn up the volume to hear it properly. Video was something of an afterthought for the day - next time we'll give the miking up a bit more attention. But, as I'm increasingly fond of saying - relevance trumps quality every time.

And the content of this - and the video presentations that will follow - will be extremely relevant to you if you're interested in understanding how the world has changed and the role of media in it.

Burma: A problem shared is a problem defeated

My good friend Alan Moore has posted about the UGC that's opening the world's eyes to what's going on in Burma. Go and check it out, it's powerful stuff.
I've often raised the question of whether or not Tianenman Square could happen again in today's world of constantly connected communities. Like the Phillipines protests referred to in Smart Mobs (where the people organised against the government via viral text messaging), now it's possible to disrupt the usual media controls that the centre would otherwise impose. Now the media (the power to move minds) is in everyone's hands - Literally with a mobile phone.
So, as the Burmese people shoot video of what's happening - and share it with each other and the world - does this bring true power to the people?
Knowledge is power - information shared is power growing exponentially. Surely Stowe Boyd's Edglings, Alan Moore's We Species, has to win in a battle with the centre, given the tools available?
The Burmese are sharing their problem with the world. But, like all communities of purpose, if we aren't prepared to respond, in real time, then all their sharing is for nothing.

Share the problem. Defeat it.

SceneCaster.com: The moment virtual world's go mainstream?

The virtual world is coming to a facebook page or a blog near you (and as soon as they find a place for me on the beta public test I'll demo it!).

There's a real buzz growing up around SceneCaster.com. I'll resist the urge to add it to my 'one's to watch' until I've actually had a play.

But non-stop-digital-news blogger Robert Scoble is raving - and it does seem to open up some interesting new possibilities.

I have to say I do like the disaggregated, user-distribution model they're using (like youtube's widgets). So SceneCaster should 'play' on this or any other webpage, provided you can paste in a code snippet.

This alone may prove to be the virtual world's mass-market trigger point - in the same way as the I-Phone presses the go button on mobile internet. Virtual worlds go viral.

Imagine a real-time auction for the item you are selling. This may have powerful, and rapidly enabling consequences for the new forms of classified advertising I've been imagining (ie virtual showrooms - now everyone could show off their vehicle for sale and pitch buyers head to head: eBay meets SecondLife...)

It has implications for global niche communities, too. In SecondLife there are limits to the numbers of people (80) who can meet in one place. So replicating a full crowd experience is tough. Now we can have a proper virtual conference.

And I love the possibilities of that when it comes to getting a niche community of shared interest together - 'physically' on a global scale. It really writes large that synchronous communication element that's so important in the most powerful communities of shared purpose.

It should be easier to give directions in Scenecaster because you can link to a location as a separate url. That's been a problem for SecondLife. It's a bonus for those who will use it to promote anything. There's a big marketing play here.

It may not have the complete immersion of SecondLife, but it looks like the advantages (and Robert lists more on his blog) could trump this - particularly for those who prefer to 'live' in the real and virtual space.

UPDATE: Sep 27, 1.30pm:
Having had a play I've found there were more limitations than I initially believed. I can access, update and share my scenes but only (currently) within SceneCaster or Facebook. Not on my blog etc. All I can share on my blog is an image of it. Now that may not be all bad. Combined with the url for the room, it should suffice as an invite to people to come on it... I think.
Come and check out the FasterFuture lounge here.

Emap's Mobinar: The Power of the Network in Your Pocket

Yesterday, I was honoured to host emap's Mobinar: The Power of the Network in Your Pocket .
We had a fantastic line up of speakers: global consultant and high-tech author Tomi Ahonen, Dave Springall (Yospace) and Mike Burgess from emap, Jonathan Macdonald from Blyk (on the day after Blyk launched) and myself on the whole network thing!
And contributing throughout the day we had Jon Williams from bmbagency.com

Everyone attending came because they wanted to. We were a self-formed community of interest - and boy did it show.

The afternoon workshop sessions were amazing. Perhaps they were driven by the commitment that one of these ideas would happen. As people created ideas, they took responsibility for them - we found champions who will help bring them life outside of the Mobinar.

Tomi is a whirlwind of an inspirational speaker and workshop leader. I heard only positive - and I mean really positive - reports about him from the small group attending.

Jonathan blew our minds with the fabulous engagement model that Blyk represents - leaving his audience in shock and awe.

I think I learned three things for a successful event of this kind:

1. Get people to attend who WANT to attend (ie, are not directed to attend)
2. Commit to a really solid output: If it's about ideas - commit to making one a reality.
3. Commit to a follow up. And mean it.

It goes without saying of course, get the right speakers on the right subject. Frankly I don't think I could have found better speakers if I'd scoured the planet with a budget of millions. A huge thank you to you all.

Now, this will all seem a bit esoteric if you weren't in the small group who attended (which was primarily emap people, but we made those silo walls a little permeable by inviting in 'outsiders').

The slides the event generated will be circulated to those who attended - and to those who indicated they had planned to but were let down by last minute circumstance. Can't share that with everyone here, for some pretty obvious IP reasons.

However, Tomi has been kind enough to say he's happy for me to share a video of his morning sessions so expect to find them on this blog soon, along with my own morning presentation.

Finally a giant thank you to every single person who attended. You were awesome.

Two posts you should check out for more. Tomi saw the 'guts' of Blyk for the first time at Mobinar, this is his blog response.

And this is his kind comments about the event.

Choose 'hard to do'

A lesson learned from recent networking:

Choose 'hard to do'. If you're brainstorming, the choice of what to follow up is often driven by the 'low-hanging fruit' philosophy.

The 'hard to do' rarely gets selected for follow up... in ordinary organisations.

Guess what? That's being repeated in most companies. The handful that understand 'hard to do' is where they should aim get calm blue seas to claim for their own.