Digital Paper, eBooks and Multimedia Storytelling

Although I still subscribe to two newspapers and I love to read magazines and books, I am nonetheless excited about all the new eBook readers and digital paper technologies becoming available. With so many newspapers in trouble, many writers and readers are going digital.

The Kindle has really sparked a firestorm of recent interest, but there are a ton of other fascinating projects going on. Soon I hope to be digesting blogs, watching video, and reading articles and novels on a paper-thin, flexible color screen with tiny hi-def speakers. Bring it on!

Check out the links below for info on eBook technology, digital paper and what all this is doing to storytelling.

Watch Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic demonstrate the world's first electronic reader aimed specifically for business users:
(Also see some other video from Plastic Logic.)

Both Plastic Logic and Kindle were recently mentioned on NPR's Marketplace (April 13, 2009): "New e-readers get a big push. E-readers allow users to read books digitally, but sales of the hand-held devices have grown slowly. That may be changing as Amazon and Sony, along with some well-funded start-ups, push a new generation of e-readers. Mitchell Hartman reports." (Listen to the MP3)

Kindle is Cool, But Color Ebook May Save Civilization
Is the digital savior of the sagging magazine industry finally in sight?

Flexible Displays Closer to Reality, Thanks to U.S. ArmyImagine a screen so thin, light and flexible that it can be rolled up and carried in your pocket, while consuming almost zero power. Phillips electronics is also working on a similar epaper technology.

The folks at TechCrunch are working on a great potential product that will be "a very thin and light touch screen computer, sans physical keyboard, that has no hard drive and boots directly to a browser to surf the web." Ladies and gentlemen, The CrunchPad.

Check out the review of the eSlick eBook reader that was announced before the Kindle2.

Samsung ready to roll out Papyrus touchscreen ebook reader Will the touchscreen make this a Kindle killer?

Readers and writers are also starting to develop technologies and communities to adapt and support this new way of publishing (or is it broadcasting?).

Wattpad is called "The World's Most Popular eBook Sharing Community." Self-publishing is also flourishing in this new world at places like WEbook. A company called Vook.tv is in private beta, but promises to be a site to promote and distribute a multimedia hybrid of books and videos.

Is This the Future of the Digital Book? Read about Vook and many other companies in this great NYT article.

The New Storytelling: Multimedia Children's Publishing Kids' publishing houses lead the way in developing multimedia platforms.

Fujitsu shows off colour e-book display. It's new, it's Japanese and it is almost ready for prime time.

My Documentary About Dot Com Culture

I finished editing late last night and here it is - Exit Strategy News Episode One: Bandwagon.

I've been collecting video and photos from over 18 years in the Internet industry. Erik Koto and I have captured many of our friends and colleagues on video and we'll eventually assemble further episodes. Tell us if you have video sitting in a closet somewhere. Also, we'd love to interview you. Everyone has a story.

We want to capture what it's like to work in the Internet industry, both past and present. What are your memories of the dot com bubble? Where will the future lead us?

Also Available: High-Resolution versions.

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder

I hate folders. My files never fit perfectly into a folder structure. Many modern taxonomists are suggesting that we are seeing the demise of folders and the death of buckets. In other words, if all content can be tagged with keywords then why bother sticking it in any particular folder. How often have we all tried to file a document in a particular folder only to realize that it could actually be at home in multiple folders? With tagging, we don’t have to worry about this, just tag a document with a variety of keywords and you’ll be able to find it again one day.

David Weinberger talks about this in a much more eloquent fashion than I do. Check out his new book Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. I especially enjoy his humorous brushing aside of Melvil Dewey, inventor of the stunningly frustrating Dewey Decimal System. Check out the video below where he talks about (among many other things) how Dewey was a man obsessed with the number ten...so much so that he would arrange his travel dates so that he would arrive at his destination only on dates that were divisible by ten.


"Google Tech Talks May 10, 2007 David Weinberger's new book covers the breakdown of the established order of ordering. He explains how methods of categorization designed for physical objects fail when we can instead put things in multiple categories at once, and search them in many ways. This is no dry book on taxonomy, but has the insight and wit you'd expect from the author of The Cluetrain Manifesto, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and a former writer for Woody Allen."

Digital Media Products Store

I've launched a new Amazon Affiliate store featuring products of interest to digital media enthusiasts. Check out the new Exit Strategy News Store. I've included books, DVDs and software that I've found helpful, informative or just plain fun.

Follow-Up to My American Marketing Association Webcast

Below is a version of my presentation from my recent webcast for the American Marketing Association. It doesn't have audio or animation so you won't get the full mind-blowing experience.

To see the full-on presentation with audio and animation, visit the micro-site where you will find the following: the slides below, the full archived webcast from the American Marketing Association and my PDF eBook.

| View | Upload your own

Tiny Mobile LCD Projectors

I remember when digital projectors were giant, bulky and expensive. Soon companies such as 3M, Samsung and SK Telecom will be offering pocket-sized projectors which will hook up to your mobile phone or laptop and cost less than $400. Get ready to project your favorite YouTube video onto the back of the head of the person sitting in front of you on the bus. Check out the article about all this in today's New York Times.

5Min: How to Raise Money From VCs

This hilarious (but kinda true) video is available on 5min.com, "a place to find short video solutions for practical questions and a place for people to share their knowledge."

In the video above, an Israeli entrepreneur shares his theories of how to raise money from venture capital investors. As he smokes his cigar, he suggests inserting the logo of another venture firm at the beginning of your Power Point presentation. Then politely apologize to the VCs you are pitching and pretend it was an accident. The theory is that VCs want to invest in companies that other VCs are interested in. Funny...but also true.

5min believes that everyone is an expert in something. So, either share your knowledge or go to the site to learn something. Where else can you get a 5 minute lesson in belly dancing, drawing and street fighting all in one place?

Nerd TV Video Interview Archives

"NerdTV (Soon re-launching as SuperNerds) was a weekly online TV show from PBS.org technology columnist Robert X. Cringely. NerdTV is essentially Charlie Rose for geeks - a one-hour interview show with a single guest from the world of technology. Guests like Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy or Apple computer inventor Steve Wozniak are household names if your household is nerdy enough, but as historical figures and geniuses in their own right, they have plenty to say to ALL of us. NerdTV is distributed under a Creative Commons license so viewers can legally share the shows with their friends and even edit their own versions. If not THE future of television, NerdTV represents A future of television for niche audiences that have deep interest in certain topics."

Some Guests Have Included:
Macintosh OS programmer Andy Hertzfeld
PayPal co-founder Max Levchin
Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy
Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle
Internet publisher Tim O'Reilly
Father of RSS Dave Winer
Autodesk co-founder Dan Drake
Intel Capital co-founder Avram Miller
Anina High Fashion Meets High Tech
Spreadsheet inventor Dan Bricklin
Computer mouse inventor Doug Engelbart
TCP/IP inventor Bob Kahn
Internet entrepreneur, Judy Estrin

Photoshop. For Free? YES!

It's like some beautiful dream. Adobe Photoshop has released a free online version of their software. Yup, you heard that right. You can go to a web page and use Photoshop Express thru a browser.

So, it's definitely not a "full" version of Photoshop...but it is everything you need to do your basic editing. Crop, hue, sharpen. They also have a neat Gallery feature that allows you to share your artistic creations online. With a free 2 GB of storage.

Dreams really do come true.

Download: The True Story of the Internet

The Science Channel is broadcasting a great documentary chronicling the history of the Internet called Download: The True Story of the Internet. Created by technology journalist John Heileman, this film is full of interviews and insights and behind-the-scenes gossip.

They describe it this way: "From the founders of eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, Netscape, Google and many others, we hear amazing stories of how, in ten short years, the Internet took over our lives. These extraordinary men and women tell us how they went from being geeky, computer obsessed nerds to being 21st-century visionaries in the time it takes most people to get their first promotion. And, how they made untold billions along the way."

Merlin Mann. Worst Website Ever. SXSW 2008

Merlin Mann is one of the big brains behind 43 Folders. He gave a great presentation at this year's SXSW (South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin). He's a writer, speaker and broadcaster and this performance pokes the whole internet industry in the eyeballs. This is a really funny look at the web from a guy who's seen it all from the inside.

My Webcast for the American Marketing Association

TO: Macrom and Creative Contacts
SUBJECT: Aquent/AMA Webcast: Make Your Content a Powerful Asset in 10 Steps

Hi Reader:

How do you ensure that your content is a valued asset within your organization?

I thought you’d be interested in our next webcast, “Make Your Content a Powerful Asset in 10 Steps.” During the webcast, Todd Tibbetts from Aquent’s outsourcing division, Aquent Studios, will illustrate how careful planning, diligent implementation, increased collaboration, and development of success metrics and benchmarks will make your content a powerful asset that delivers the right information to the right audience every time.

Citing real examples from his clients Microsoft, Adobe, T-Mobile, Target, and Starbucks, Todd will address the following key learning objectives:

• Understand the difference between content as an asset and a liability.
• Realize opportunities for making content more powerful.
• Design and create content for maximum organizational impact.
• Learn how quality content can save money and generate more revenue.

I hope you’ll join us!

What: Aquent/AMA webcast presented by Todd Tibbetts: “Make Your Content a Powerful Asset in 10 Steps”

Who: Marketing communications managers and creative services managers who want to successfully create, leverage and manage content.
When: March 27, 2008, at 1:00 PM ET

Registration: https://amaevents.webex.com/amaevents/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=962895360&SourceId=3aquent032708
If you can't make the live broadcast but are interested in the subject, go ahead and register. We always follow up with details about the on-demand version.

Microsoft Silverlight and Expression Studio Training

I am here live at the Microsoft Conference Center at a full-day training seminar for Silverlight and Expression Studio. We have 70 people from our company getting trained by Arturo Toledo who will also be speaking at our Cre8 Summit conference in Florida in April. I'll be there blogging live from Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort.

One of the coolest new features in version 2 of Silverlight is the Seadragon image technology which aims to "change the way we use screens, from wall-sized displays to mobile devices, so that visual information can be smoothly browsed regardless of the amount of data involved or the bandwidth of the network." Check out the amazing demo below.

Presenting Perfectly with PowerPoint

PowerPoint has reached ubiquitous status in most parts of the world. Today anyone can give a multimedia presentation. Although most of these presentations are either mind-numbingly boring or brain-bendingly confusing, there are still artful public speakers who can use this tool to make magic.

David Byrne (formerly of the Talking Heads) created a great book and DVD art project called Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information that is a must see for any serious PowerPoint junkie.


Also, check out Clif Atkinson's seminal guide to presenting, Beyond Bullet Points.


Very Funny: Don McMillan on most common mistakes people make while doing PowerPoint presentations.

Amaznode Visual Relationship Searching

I loved this the first time I saw it a couple years ago and it is still a blast to use. Type in your favorite author, musician or filmmaker and (based on the amazon database) you will see a visual representation of your search results. Lines connect related images and clicking will bring you to the products. This is a great way to discover relationships you never new existed.

"Amaznode is a relation based search engine for amazon which is made with adobe flash9(as3). This search engine visualizes a relation network of products in amazon, from the statistics data "customers who bought this item also bought", by digging related products again and again. Amaznode is not only for searching but also good for researching and making an associate link."

Digital Media Project Surprises

Usually it ain't a good idea to surprise a client. However, an occasional good surprise is ok.

It is best to set initial project expectations and then stick to delivering on those. But as is often said, "under-promise and over-deliver". When you surprise a client with something other than their expectations, use this handy chart to determine if you are offering a good surprise or a bad one.

Good Surprise	Bad Surprise
The project is finishing on time.	We are so totally late, it's ridiculous.
We're under budget.	Yea, let's talk about some budget issues.
We pursued some new design avenues and came up with a stunning interface that plays very well with the focus groups.	We accidentally turned everything purple.
We finished a few extra deliverables.	We haven't really, technically "finished" anything yet.
We found an unexpected revenue stream.	To keep this project alive, we need $10,000 a week.

Zune Arts Digital Music Videos

I love my iPhone, but the marketing efforts surrounding Microsoft's Zune are catching my eye. They are funding the creation of a lot of great mini digital art pieces.

"Zune Arts brings the best creative minds to collaborate on inspiring works of art under themes of sharing, connection, discovery, and friendship. Zune Arts is continuously growing, ever-evolving, and always open to new voices, influences and ideas. Zune is Microsoft's music and entertainment brand that provides an integrated digital entertainment experience. The Zune platform includes a line of portable digital media players, the Zune Marketplace online store, and the Zune Social online music community."

MountainZone.com Early Media Coverage 1997

Here are some more retro flashbacks from the early days of the web. This montage shows how the mainstream media was covering our dot com start-up between 1995 and 1997.



These clips were pulled from the following:

MountainZone TV Commercial series

"Wild Wild Web" syndicated on CBS

CNN Financial

Seattle News on KIRO-TV

ABC Sunday Night Movie "Into Thin Air"

"Up To The Minute" on CBS

Live Update on CNN

Reebok's "PE-TV"

"Playing in Style" on FOX

For more stories from the dot com days, see posts about my personal Internet history.

10 Steps to Make Your Content a Powerful Asset

I often work with clients who are overwhelmed by their content, information and digital assets. For many individuals and companies, their content (pictures, text, video, etc) is a mess, a liability and a cost center. It takes focus and effort to turn the content from a liability into an economic asset, but the path is straight-forward and very achievable. Your organization will benefit internally and externally; creating a smother-running operation on the inside and promoting your message to the outside. You may even create additional revenue streams once you wrangle all those assets.

This is continuous publishing in a global digital media environment. Control your content before someone else does. Today much of your content is digital. And it has escaped your grasp. Below I’ll describe your ten to-do items. You’ll get control of your content and you’ll grow to understand the power and value that content will bring you.

1. Discover. Identify your existing content. What do you have? What format is it in? Perform a content inventory or content audit. Create a content matrix, a spreadsheet of all your pieces and their attributes.

2. Develop your Core. Create the essential main ingredients of your content. This is often called Single Source where a team develops base content that is used in multiple locations or formats. Crystallize your message down into the essential ingredients.

3. Prepare for Community Involvement. Your content will be captured, quoted and manipulated. Plan for it. Make your community plan. Much like a business plan, but it outlines your philosophy, approach and rules for your audience/social network. This is user-centered content creation: know your audience. Give them a voice. Give them tools like widgets or online forums.

4. Architect Your Content. Use information architecture theories and approaches. Put your content into categories that make sense. This is often called bucketing. Try doing a card sort. Your community may begin to add categories and tags to your content if you let them. This “folksonomy” approach can be powerful.

5. Create you Multi-Destinational Plan. We are in a cross-platform world. Your content will live on more than the three screens (TV, computer, mobile). Create a delivery method attribute matrix to predict where your content is most likely to land. Remember we are in the age of the globalization of content. Understand translation and localization.

6. Acquire or Build Your Tools. Content management tools will most likely be needed. Make you build vs. buy decision. Visit the CMS Matrix to get comparison information.

7. Design Your Content. Separate your content from the way it is presented. Determine the base elements of your visual brand and stick to ‘em.

8. Document it. For internal use and the retention of institutional knowledge, please document your content adventures. Develop style guides and knowledge management practices to ensure knowledge transfer to others on your team or others who may follow in the future.

9. Tell your Story Continuously. Assign, hire or rent full-time staff to constantly add new content. Generate Continuous Content. Become thought leaders. Quality content and real content wins. Don’t fill a page with keywords and call it content. Humans and machines can tell what good content is and they seek it out.

10. Track it. Define your metrics for success and document your benchmarks. Analyze your numbers. Watch them change. Modify your behavior based on results, not assumptions.

Pie Charts, Graphs and Humor

Stand-up comedian Demetri Martin gives a great performance aided only by a flip chart and a pointer. And his humor. Those of us who want to improve our public speaking skills could learn a thing or two from this guy.

T-Commerce, Digital TV and the Digitization of Content

In one year, your old TV won't work anymore. Broadcast is going digital. This is the end of the TV antenna.

At midnight on February 17, 2009, all full-power television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting in analog and switch to 100% digital broadcasting. Digital broadcasting promises to provide a clearer picture and more programming options and will free up airwaves for use by emergency responders.

Learn the details from the US Department of Commerce at DTV2009.gov. More info at PC Mag.

We've seen many buzzwords develop from this impending switch-over. One such word makes me simultaneously excited and terrified. T-commerce is the merging of remote-control ease-of-use boob tubes with the instant economic advantages of online ecommerce.

What does this mean for advertisers and the economics of television broadcasting? Accenture, the global technology consultancy, has produced a detailed study on the subject. I actually think it is great news for digital content producers and designers.

"The findings of our Global Digital Advertising Study 2007 represent a resounding call to action for participants throughout the advertising value chain. The survey also shows that the challenges facing them should not be taken lightly. Change is coming, and businesses will have to invest and change radically to get in or to stay in the game. But Accenture believes that the rewards will justify the effort. The long-term future of the advertising business — if we will even be calling it that a decade from now — is bright."

Social Searching and Collaborative Filtering

In the early years of this century, my friends and I finally got what we were half-expecting. We figured that as soon as enough of our friends joined the internet, we would have enough interaction data to begin to realize a true benefit of online communities: filtering on the likes and dislikes of our social circle. We were finally able to discover stuff instantly based on what our friends and family were discovering.

With sites like StumbleUpon and Last.fm stealing the social media headlines, I took some time to explore "social searching". I present this list of search engines that filter results based on things other than keywords; like collaboration and input from social circles or like-minded community behaviors or implied meanings.

hakia
A semantic search engine that brings relevant results based on concept match rather than keyword match or popularity ranking.

Acoona
Accoona's proprietary artificial intelligence algorithms deliver relevant results by merging online and offline information and by analyzing search terms rather than just matching keywords.

bessed
Find websites that are ranked well by your peers. Leave comments about sites or recommend information.

Powerset
Employing technologies that take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language.

ChaCha
Mobile search solutions plus live human guides to help you find what you are looking for.

Squidoo
Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search.

sproose
Sproose is a user powered search engine that allows users to contribute to the ranking of web pages by voting for pages they find useful. Sproose also enables users to browse pages that have been voted and/or tagged by other users making it easy to discover new and interesting pages in a social network environment.

Eurekster
A custom search portal around the topic of your choice powered by your community.

Definition: Grok

To grok is to know. If you really truly understand, then you grok it. You have become one with it and you have enveloped the meaning.

The word comes from the Martian word, "to drink". Yes, Martians. Robert A. Heinlein, the author of "Stranger in a Strange Land" gave us this word back in 1961 and the computer industry later adopted it as our own. Trekkies have used this word, along with Matt Groening so you know it has reached the pinnacle of geekdom.

Comic: Make it Orange

How to Name Your Server

If you've ever worked on a team that shares a file server, you know the importance of naming computers. Especially on local area networks where multiple servers are available. You need to have a way to tell them apart. Otherwise we'd be referring to the computers as "that box".

Server naming tends to be either functional (like PHOTOSTORE1 or Backup3) or whimsical (Ophelia and Hamlet). Production servers seem to take on a personality after a while, either because of the type of files on the box or because of the server's behavior. Does a temperamental computer called Tempest take on the personality associated with the name? I worked on a team where the servers were named after inventors and the Edison and Tesla machines were constantly battling each other just like their namesakes.

I have seen numerous approaches to server naming over my 18 years in the Internet business. Some have been named after Shakespeare characters; Jachimo, Othello and Roderigo. Other times it became all too clear that I was working with geeks when the servers were either named after Star Trek (Kirk, Sulu, Picard) or Monty Python (Throatwobbler, Gilliam, DeadParrot).

Are people who name their servers after Disney fairies just too cute to work with? Are people who name their servers after gangsters ultimately corrupt? When you meet a new team, you can tell a lot about them by how they name their boxes.

I sometimes wish I had 100 servers to name. Or better yet, maybe I could develop a special area of consulting. Yea, I could be a professional server namer. Can I get paid for that? I could come up with a million naming themes. Servers named after action movies. Nine servers named after planets. Seven small server named after dwarves. Call me and I'll solve all your server naming problems.

Top 10 Ways to Create Your Own Business Deals

Sometimes, if you're lucky, the money will come to you. Most of the time, however, you must go get the money. There is no top secret weapon to help you generate business, but if you put in the work then you will begin to notice nice deals coming your way. Here are some of my suggestions on how to generate leads, develop business and keep yourself busy with projects. Remember, the harder you work, the luckier you'll get.

1. Schmooze. See my exploration of schmoozing strategies.

2. Relationship Marketing. Write down 100 people who will take your call, follow up for no reason. Do you know 100 people? Keep a list. Keep that contact list warm and active.

3. The Rags. Follow business and industry publications. Really read them.

4. Become the Expert. Write articles and speak on topics you know the most about. Start a blog. It doesn’t matter if you are the best at what you do, as long as you are better than most. Plus, most people are too lazy to actually get off their ass and become the expert so the competition really ain't that bad.

5. Other People’s Sales Forces. Real partners who help co-sell can multiply your outreach. What you are offering is exciting, but make it more exciting by offering additional value brought by your partners. They'll do the same for you.

6. Walking Billboards. Turn your clients into walking advertisements for your offering. Satisfied clients will share your business card or brochure with leads they run into. Tell them specifically how you want them to help and make it easy. Plus, ask if you can quote them and use them as a reference. Overly document every positive client project with case studies.

7. Cold Calls. If only 1 in 100 will result in work, then you’d better make 100 calls right now.

8. Go Vertical. Choose a niche and dive deep.

9. Competitor's Clients. Watch client lists on the websites of your rivals to learn who's buying.

10. Google It. Search job postings. Who's hiring? Search venture capital lists. Who's got the funding? Who has budget? Find local successes and add them to your target list.

Digital Handel's Messiah, 1994

In 1994 my company won a contract to broadcast the the annual Kennedy Center Handel's Messiah performance live on the web with video. We'd barely just started our company, MediaZones, and the only reason we got the gig was because very few companies were doing live internet video. We'd had some cursory initial success with local Seattle events and that made us the default experts. So, we loaded all our digital gear into travel cases and headed to Washington, DC to try and make it work.

We were hired by a company associated with the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. They'd made all the arrangements to get our crew from Seattle to DC and all we needed to do was make a postage-sized flicker of video appear on their webpage while the live event was going on. We used a now-defunct software-hardware combo called Xing Technologies that required we lug a giant server with us, along with 4 desktops and a laptop. Not to mention our cameras, microphones and cables.

In those days we felt lean and mean when it came to equipment. When we were at events, the TV crews would gawk at us and be amazed that we could broadcast from just seven suitcases. They couldn't take us seriously because we, in their minds, had barely any equipment. We didn't even have a van. How could we be professionals? How indeed.

Back in 1995, I sketched this comic rendering of the whole adventure and I have recently posted it online.

In comming weeks, I'll post some photos of this trip...I just uncovered another box of media from those old early days of the web. Stay tuned!

Idioms, Credos, Sayings and Maxims: Part 2

In October I began collecting helpful little aphorisms, mottoes and adages that many consider "words to live by." Below are a few more to add to the list.

“Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.” Every piece of information we get from another person is filtered thru their unique reality, thus it is tainted. Plus, what we see with our own eyes ain’t always that reliable either.

“When all you have is a hammer then every problem starts looking like a nail.” Artists should experiment with new mediums. Musicians should try other instruments and knowledge workers should broaden their toolsets and approaches.

“Shit in. Shit out.” The end result is a direct product of the effort and talent put in. This also means that a project is only as good as it's initial assets and ideas.

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” This was proven time and again during the early days of desktop publishing when young designers realized that computers rendered 16 million colors…and set about to use every one of them. In a single project.

“Luck favors the prepared.” The harder I work, the luckier I get.


See also: Idioms, Credos, Sayings and Maxims: Part 1

The Restless Phantom Jimmy Leg Syndrome

I was glad to hear that I was not the only one. Recently experts have confirmed the existence of "Phantom Vibration Syndrome." This is when you think your cell phone is vibrating, but in fact it is your imagination.

You pat the pocket that holds the phone and...nada.

It has also been called “vibranxiety."

The good news is that we are not crazy or dying, probably. In fact we are simply oversensitive to that particular sensation. The pleasurable act of receiving a call is punctuated by a stimulus that we learn to anticipate. This is a learned habit. We have re-wired our brains. Scientists call this neuroplasticity. We've hacked ourselves and now we are malfunctioning.

This is not to be confused with Restless Leg Syndrome, Phantom Limb Syndrome or The Jimmy Leg.

Do Not Erase: My Lust for Whiteboards

I have always been pro-whiteboard. I do not miss the days of the chalkboard. I welcome the glossy white surface! I once created a small conference room where all the walls were covered with whiteboard material. We could brainstorm or write notes or just sit there and stare at the wide open expanse of board.

The other day I was driving over the Fremont Bridge in Seattle and saw a billboard for Google. They've been advertising in Seattle a lot lately, doing a bunch of hiring for their Fremont and Kirkland offices. I love the want-ad they created. It's a giant whiteboard with "Do Not Erase" scrawled across it. Sorry for the blurry photo, I was driving by and I snapped the above picture with the iPhone during traffic.

If you too feel the whiteboard lust, then perhaps you should contact Wall Talkers. These high-end, custom dry-erase gurus will create all manner of whiteboard mayhem. They make curved whiteboard walls or they'll paint all surfaces with special dry-erase paint so that literally everything is write-onable!

If you don't have a whiteboard that prints out onto paper, then you'll need to take photos before erasing. Thousands of people have drawn all manner of things on their dry erase boards and posted the photos to a group on Flickr.

Many have been inspired by the mighty whiteboard, including artists and animators who create fun hand-drawn animations like this.

Comic: Digital Bear Bot

Definition: Smoke Test

In the computer industry we use the term "Smoke Test" to mean an initial test of some software or hardware. Y'know, you plug it in and see if it smokes.

The term originally comes from plumbing, where a mini-smoke bomb is tossed inside pipes to see where it leaks out. This determines if water will flow without any drips.

This has nothing to do with last year's exploding laptops from Dell.

Family Friendly Digital Media

I've recently made updates to another web site I created called FamilyMusicParty.com. The site publishes information about family-friendly music including videos, lyrics, artist bios and other fun stuff.

Comic: Making a Cybercast 1997

Back in 1997 I owned a company called MountainZone.com. We published outdoor sporting information on the web. We didn't know it at the time, but we were building a community.

We traveled from Seattle to Stratton, VT to broadcast the US Open Snowboard Championships. Since we were posting our audio, text, pictures and videos to the Internet, we called it "cybercasting" which sounded even sillier in the 90s than it sounds now.

We finagled ourselves into all-access media passes and we bartered a free room in exchange for a banner graphic on the event page. We were doing everything for the first time...breaking ground. Media folk and journalists rarely asked for web connections in the early 90s when we started our cybercasts, but by the late 90s it was becoming more common for press rooms to offer Internet. Although the connections were thru 28.8 modems, definitely not high-bandwidth.

We were serious about the sport and our team knew the riders, event planners and other professionals. By the end of the weekend there was underwear on the lamps, beer on top of the computers and silly string hanging from the ceiling. How we ever published anything is beyond me.

But it worked...and the visitors to the website started streaming in. First there were dozens, then hundreds, then thousands. By the time we sold MountainZone in 1999 we had millions of visitors pouring into the site to learn about mountain biking, skiing, snowboarding and climbing.

Above is a comic I drew on the plane ride home (click it for the full story). The photos are provided as proof (to myself) that it all really happened and it was not a dream. Watch this blog for more of my personal Internet history. I’ll be digging up some great dirt.

TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) Part 2

Back in October I wrote about the Internet industry's particular penchant for acronyms (see original post). As promised, here is an update with more web-speak definitions.

CLM (Career Limiting Move) "His dirty dancing at the company holiday party was a total CLM."

KPI (Key Performance Indicators) These are numbers that we should actually pay attention to.

WAG (Wild Ass Guess) Although clients will always promise that they won't hold you to your initial estimate, beware of publicizing any WAGs.

AYFKM (Are You Freakin' Kidding Me?) I have used this one a lot lately as I see the common everyday atrocities committed by some in the web business.

SME (Subject Matter Experts) Not at all like Smurfs, these know-it-alls are not necessarily cuddly. SMEs have massive currency in the knowledge economy.

ABC (Always Be Closing) In sales, as in your career, always be landing the next deal.

EOD (End Of Day) Always make sure to verify the time zone when someone requires something by EOD. And usually this means 5pm, but in a pinch it can mean midnight.

Check out TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) Part 1.

Definition: SneakerNet

We use the term SneakerNet to mean physically carrying a disc or flash drive from one computer to another. You move the files with your tennis shoes rather than over digital transmission lines. Sometimes, during the chaos of hard-core production, files just need to be carried. Networks break down and internet connections flake out, but the humans can always carry the bits.

Sometimes SneakerNets are the only way. Some files are so huge that it is quicker and cheaper to copy the data to a portable storage device and carry that device to the intended recipient. Scientists and data warehouses do this kinda thing all the time. Other users of SneakerNets are seeking high-security environments which can only be found today by avoiding cyberspace.

So remember, the next time you carry a CD over to a friend’s house to give ‘em a file, you are participating in a long history of file transfer. And one day your children will find it foolish and antiquated.

Definition: CamelCase

CamelCase is used to describe mashing compound words together and capitalizing the first letter of each word. Just like camels, these words have humps. I am noticing that this practice is being used more and more every day. Popular examples are AstroTurf, RadioShack, BlackBerry and QuickTime.

As with many habits of the computer industry, CamelCase comes from computer programming. That's why Microsoft used to be spelled MicroSoft. Rather than introduce spaces or hyphens into long words, programmers started using capitol letters to make variable names human readable. Sometimes CamelCase is actually camelCase (with the initial letter being lowercase, similar to how some variable names are spelled when writing code.)

CamelCase is sometimes called BiCapitalization when referring to marketing practices. I've also heard it called BumpyCase, HumpBackNotation and NerdCaps.

I am officially changing my name to ToddTibbetts and I live in SeattleWashington. I am a DigitalMediaConsultant. ThankYou.

Comic: Digital Power Overload

2007 Year in Review

It has been said that when journalists get lazy at the end of the year, they write “Year in Review” articles. When bloggers get lazy, they link to these retrospectives. So, without further ado, I present my own year-end linking extravaganza.

Reuters Year in Review
The worldwide news service looks at 2007 with photos and video.

The Onion 2007 Year in Review
What the Hell Just happened?

People Magazine Best of 2007
The Bible of pop culture.

KEXP 13 Great Musical Discoveries of 2007
Including Vampire Weekend, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and Yeasayer with audio samles.

NPR Music Top 10 Lists
Tons of great music was birthed this year.

ABC News Top 5 Quotes of 2007
Some things are better left unsaid such as “Don’t tase me, bro”.

The Time Magazine Best Websites of 2007
Including Mozy, StumbleUpon, Etsy, and Weebly. Also a list of the worst sites.

JibJab Remembers 2007
The kings of link fodder wrap it all up.

Best Product Design of 2007 on Business Week
A slideshow of the 2007 International Design Excellence Awards.

Internet TV Year in Review
Mucho movement in the world of Internet TV including Joost, Divx, set top boxes, Zattoo, Hulu, and iTunes.

The CNN Year in Review
A year of tragedy and scandal.

The CNN Top Science & Technology Stories
Facebook, iPhone, crazy astronauts, new planets and Halo 3.

YouTube Year End Video Wrap Up
Including Obama Girl, Chocolate Rain, Nora the piano playing cat, and the Haiti UFO.

Some of the most popular posts on ToddTibbetts.com have been: They Promised Us Convergence, Idioms, Credos, Sayings and Maxims, No Schmooze, You Lose, SWAG Stories, and My Widget Wad.

Those Who Left Us in 2007
Notable deceased include Art Buchwald, Michelangelo Antonioni, Boris Yeltsin, Jerry Falwell, Robert Goulet, Molly Ivins, Norman Mailer, Evel Knievel, Charles Nelson Reilly, Anna Nicole Smith, Don Ho, Oscar Peterson, and Paul Tibbets, commander of the Enola Gay.

Comic: Rumor Mill On Internet Time

Comic: Stealing Office Supplies

Treemo 1.0

Seattle-based Treemo.com graduated to 1.0 status today. Right on, cats. Great new widgets and some slick interface enhancements.

Comic: Well Oiled

They Promised Us Convergence Part 3

There has been plenty of TV-Internet convergence going on since I posted the first two parts of this series. (parts 1 and 2)

On Networks is producing tons of original content.

Mojo is a high-def online site owned by Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner among others.

Vuze is allowing users to upload or watch high-def videos.

Lots of Little Screens: TV Is Changing Shape
By Denise Caruso for the New York Times
"INEXPENSIVE broadband access has done far more for online video than enable the success of services like YouTube and iTunes. By unchaining video watchers from their TV sets, it has opened the floodgates to a generation of TV producers for whom the Internet is their native medium."

However, CastTV and Hulu are still in private beta. I've seen both and they look very promising.

They Promised Us Convergence Part 1
They Promised Us Convergence Part 2

Business Networking Online

My posting from July 2007 listed websites that helped people schmooze and network.(see original post)

Since I posted that, many new web sites are appearing to challenge the mighty LinkedIn for supremecy.

itzbig
Built to serve professionals like you, itzbig puts you in control. Anonymously explore opportunities in real time with instant feedback. Keep tabs on the market in case your dream job appears or a life change pushes you toward a "Plan B."

Jigsaw
Jigsaw is an online directory of more than 7 million business cards. Every card on Jigsaw has an email address and phone number, allowing members to bypass gatekeepers and get directly to decision makers and influencers. Jigsaw has become a required resource for sales people, recruiters, marketers and small business owners.

ZoomInfo
ZoomInfo is the premier business information search engine, with profiles on more than 37 million people and 3.5 million companies. ZoomInfo delivers fresh and organized information on industries, companies, people, products, services and jobs.

Ryze
Ryze helps people make connections and grow their networks. Members get a free networking-oriented home page and can send messages to other members.

Viadeo
Discuss different topics, share your expertise and make new business contacts with over 1,800,000 business professionals in the Viadeo network.

FastPitch
Fast Pitch is the fastest growing business networking community in the world. Their online network provides you with a one-stop shop to network and market your business. Make Connections, Post & Distribute Press, Market Your Company, Market Yourself, Promote Your Blog and more.

IncBizNet
IncBizNet is an online business networking community and database created exclusively for private companies.

The Redemption Room

Business travel often rewards the weary with unbridled surprises. My flight from Richmond (pictured at left) landed late so I missed my connection in Atlanta. They booked me on a flight scheduled to leave the next day and told me to go to the room where I could redeem my hotel and breakfast voucher. The Redemption Room. This is the room where you go if you are crying or angry or tired or cranky. A room full of the bleary-eyed, seeking a new itinerary. Good times.

Looking on the bright side, I did get a complimentary care package with a toothbrush and some toiletries. Plus I got to visit the McDonalds off Airport Road by my Red Roof Inn. Plus, Richmond was lovely.

My Personal Internet History: Mae Phim

Back in the late 1990s, me and fellow Internet junkies in Seattle would occasionally take time away from the computers to eat. A little Thai place in Pioneer Square was always packed with dozens of high-tech knowledge workers. Mae Phim was the place to go if you wanted to pick up secrets, spot entrepreneur rock stars or spread rumors. It is still there today. Order the garlic chicken. Three star.

Definition: Dogfooding

One of the terms I hear all the time in this industry (especially at Microsoft) is "dogfooding". It means to use your own product (eat your own dog food). You can't expect others to use your software if you don't use it yourself. The concept is said to have originated with actor Lorne Green who, in the Alpo dog food commercials of the 1970s, exclaimed that he fed it to his own dog. Yum!