Marc's final note: Dude you're cyber squating here. Your usage of the name is far from fulfilling the destiny of the name. IMHO. The simple aggregation and reblogging of links is coolio - but pretty 2003-ish. IMHO.

What do you think?

Scientists Teach Baffled Diners
Chopstick Tricks (Reuters)

Breakfast between Global Leaders for
Tomorrow, Social Entrepreneurs and
Religious Leaders

This morning, we had a breakfast between the Global Leaders for Tomorrow, Social Entrepreneurs and Religious Leaders. I got a great table with a broad range of people from developing nations, religious leaders, economists, and entrepreneurs.

We started out the discussion talking about the nature of money. We talked about how greed and the idea that more money means more happiness is compulsive behavior and the notion that more money makes you more happy may hold true in developing nations, but is not necessarily true in developed nations. We talked about how this notion of more money means more happiness may be contributing to some of the problems in society. One representative of a global financial organization talked about how similar to the "poverty line", maybe there should be a "greed line". An economist pointed out that there was a book written about economy as a religion where the author asserted that pollution should be moved to developing nations because poor people were worth less in a purely economic model. Obviously, this is not right, and we asked the religious leaders to address some of the issues such as caring, giving and happiness.

Religions are memories of history, rich with ritual and values. They need to create a double language, one for internal dialog and another to share ideas with others. One point I made was that many religions were designed for environments where people were still struggling to survive and the focus was on rituals and believes for such an environment. Many religions focused keeping people alive rather than providing them with a primary religious experience. For environments where the struggle to survive is not as big of an issue, it might be that religions need to help support people more with things such as their obsessions and ethics.

It was noted that people who live in developing nations still needed money and that it was important. However, it was pointed out that many of the economic values have a detrimental effect on developing nations such as promoting crime. It was also noted that many churches in developing nations focus on promotion economic values. (Join the church, get rich.) The notion of sharing and sacrifice which are very important values that religions promote are often subverted to raise money for the churches.

David Green of Project Impact in India talked about how he performs cataract surgery in India. He provides 1/3 of the procedures for free, 1/3 for a low cost and 1/3 for a high price. The rich pay the high price for first class service, but the basic operation is the same. He is able to subsidize the operation for the poor and still make money. He is so successful that instead of paying $300 for the lenses, he was able to create a manufacturing operation and lower the cost to $4 a lens and has become the second largest manufacturer in the world. He provided this as an example of a good economic model can provide a great deal of good.

Live from Davos

WEF meeting in Davos

People have been pinging me about this, so I guess I should post something about it. I'm not going to Davos this year. I wasn't invited this year. Not sure exactly why... But I'm in pretty good company... Anyway, I posted some thoughts on the Forum over on Omidyar Network which I'll post here as well.

Joi Ito

This may sound like sour grapes, but I didn't get invited to Davos this year, but after going for 4 years, I was also planning on possibly not going. It's great fun meeting old friends, but I'm finding many of the smaller conferences more interesting these days. A number of people I know are going to the World Social Forum this year instead. Having said that, I'm sure something will happen this year that makes me wish that I was there. Please say hi to everyone for me.

Lars

Joi, thanks for your insight. I'd be curious about your thoughts in terms of collective: has the WEF been a mechanism that enables actors to work more intelligently and in partnership across sectors? this is something i've been longing to understand better; there is a sense among participants at places like the World Social Forum that the WEF is exclusionary and serves only the interests of the multinationals. What seems most vital about the forum is the capacity to pool intelligence and coordinate action in a way that reduces global risk. is this happening?

Joi Ito

I think that a lot of the good things that happen at the forum on not intentional and not visible. It's bridge building across sectors. Although the forum has tried to be more and more inclusive, I think it has shifted away from its humble, somewhat academic roots to a conference where there is more participation by powerful people. Also, there is the official program, then there are special groups (like the Media Leaders group I spoke to last year) and then there are secret meetings. In many ways, it is more of a meeting place than a "movement" with something concrete to accomplish such as the WTO or G8, although I've never been to either.

I would disagree that it "only serves the interests of the multinationals" but it does have sponsors that allow it to exist and they obviously get special treatment and access. Having said that, the social entrepreneurs, for instance, include many legitimate social entrepreneurs who are doing a lot of great things that the forum enables in many ways.

So net-net, I would say the forum is a good thing, but I think your mileage may vary.

Finally, I would add... looking at the various lists of people who get invited and un-invited... the process, from my perspective, is close to random, athough there are clear biases. If you've never been invited, don't worry about it. Many many important and interesting people have never been invited. If you get invited and you've never been, give it a go, especially if you don't have to pay. If you go for a few years and get tired of it, you're not the only one.

Davos Dispatch #2

Another bl0gger in Davos - billmon

billmon at Whiskey Bar is blogging from Davos. I wonder who he/she is. I looked up "Bill Mon" and last name "Billmon" in the directory and I couldn't find a listing. I couldn't find his/her real name on the blog either. Is Whiskey Bar a pseudonymous blog by a professional journalist?

Thanks for the link Abe. I think billmon is presenting an interesting view. I'm focused primarily on hanging out with people I like and going to sessions that I'm interested in so billmon's view is probably a good way to see another side of Davos.

The bl0gging panel at Davos

Yesterday was the blogging panel at Davos. Jay Rosen was the moderator and the panelists were Orville H. Schell, Loic Le Meur, yours truly and Hubert Burda. You all already know Loic and Jay I'm sure. Orville is the Dean of the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and was at the Media Leaders discussion the day before too. He's got some great perspectives and his positive and insightful view on blogs was encouraging. Hubert Burda is the CEO of Hubert Burda Media, one of the largest media conglomerates in Europe and I was extremely impressed by his positive and open view on blogs and media. In other words, we had a great panel.

Jay kicked it off by saying that we were going to ignore the official title, "Will Mainstream Media Co-Opt Blogs and the Internet". ;-)

I explained that blogging meant a lot of things. There was the technology of blogging, the act of blogging and what journalists were talking about most of the time. I explained the power-law and asserted my position that the head of the curve, or the more popular blogs, were like an amplifier and that I agreed with many people who believe that the "tail" or the more personal blogs was where most of the interesting stuff was going on. I talked about Ross Mayfield's layers and the idea that a lot of interesting sources could be filtered by special interest groups, through a social layer and to the amplifier where maybe they can connect, merge with mass media to a certain extent. Because of the the media orientation of the panel and the audience, we decided to focus on the impact that blogging had on journalism and media.

Loic said he thought blogging was like "open sourcing" himself. Which I thought was an interesting way to look at it. He used his metaphor about how he thought blogging will do to the traditional media what Napster did to the music industry. He clarified that he meant that it would allow people to share information peer to peer instead of going through traditional distribution. The difference was that people could more easily create content for blogs than music.

Mr. Burda had a lot of great insights and talked about how collapsing business models and changes were all part of the game and that he and the others needed to let go and adapt. He made a point that he would be interested to see more blogs focusing on things like science instead of typically popular stuff like politics.

I think we all agreed that the ability for blogs to talk with and become one with the audience was key.

What was interesting was the number of people from the mass media in the audience who still seemed to think that blogs were either just poor quality news or that bloggers were just wannabe journalists. One person from a newspaper said that she thought blogs would just become incubators for journalists. I (emotionally) asserted that the mass media and blogs were not the same. Many bloggers (such as myself) are blogging, not for the money, but for a passion which embodies what I believe is part of the heart and soul of journalism. We are not encumbered by the pressures of advertising, marketing and the burden of having to sell print media. It's insulting to think that all bloggers just want to be journalists for print media. I pointed out that big media had a role and that their ability to protect their journalists from litigation and to fund particularly expensive investigations and stories was something we can't do, but the notion that we're just little versions of them was absurd.

Jay chimed in and pointed out that blogs are much more similar to the spirit of the "freedom of the press" referred to in the US constitution. IE citizens with presses.

I'm on a narrow band connection so I will add links after I get to a wifi connection.

Taking the Pulse of Technology at Davos

With bl0ggers inside, Davos secrets are
out

Thomas Crampton's article in the International Herald Tribune about us blogging Davos just came out. The IHT may be a good blog, but it sure does take a long time to post articles...

Thomas Crampton @ IHT

Tell-all accounts proliferate on the Web
 
DAVOS, SwitzerlandThis year the barbarians were not protesting at the gates of the World Economic Forum; they were inside and blogging.

Transcripts of the Davos bl0gging panel

The World Economic Forum has posted a pdf summary of the blogging panel. As usual, the tone isn't the same as what I experienced and they got most of what I said, but I think my emphasis was a bit different. I hope Loic gets his video transcript up so you can decide interpret it yourself.

Whiskey Bar: Davos Discovers the Blogs

billmon.org/archives/000985.html
track this site | 4 links

Tensions cloud Davos talks

IHT: With bl0ggers inside, Davos secrets
are out

iht.com/articles/126768.html
track this site | 5 links

With bl0ggers inside, Davos secrets are
out - IHT article

Three chief executive officer participants at the World Economic Forum prepare public Internet blogs about their experiences in the ultra-exclusive retreat of the world's wealthy and powerful. Seated from left to right Loic Le Meur, CEO of Ublog, a Paris-based blog company; Yat Siu, CEO of Outblaze, a Hong Kong-based email service company and Joichi Ito, CEO of Neoteny Company Limited, a Japan-based venture capital firm. PHOTO AND CAPTION BY THOMAS CRAMPTON No... I'm not about to punch Loic. My fist is an expression of our solidarity. -- Joi

Thomas Crampton @ IHT

With bloggers inside, Davos secrets are out
Tell-all accounts proliferate on the Web

DAVOS, Switzerland This year the barbarians were not protesting at the gates of the World Economic Forum; they were inside and blogging.

Richard Sambrook of the BBC: What Eason
Jordan Said in Davos

Loic's rant at the European WEF (Davos)
meeting

Loic's rant at the European WEF meeting. With his French accent, Loic criticizes France and is our designated agitator at the Warsaw meeting. Wish I had been there to heckle him. ;-)

Interesting talk. Loic's soliciting comments on his blog.

Joi Ito's Davos critique of Japan's
"democracy"

Loic has posted videos of the Davos
bl0gging panel

Loic has posted videos of the Davos blogging panel.

Thanks Loic and Geraldine!

DAVOS: President General Pervez
Musharraf with Bill Gates, Chairman
Microsoft Of USA, after their meeting in
D

what NRA leaders are saying

Where are the PHP leaders?

New era, new leaders

budding leaders

US leaders call for better use of IT in
healthcare

G8 leaders gather for US summit

FBU leaders opt for strike ballot

Leaders take Africa's case to G8

'The leaders should be there'

Discussion with Media Leaders

I'm in a meeting with the WEF Media Leaders. Its a few dozen people consisting of the editors-in-chief and CEOs of a variety of major media organizations from around the world.

I'm going to talk about the role of blogs and how we might work together. I'm going to talk about how blogs can address the issue of getting people to care about about things by providing a voice to people who don't have a voice and can provide additional resources, which seems to be one of the issues that many of these media companies have.

I will also try to talk to the big media companies about designing their online presence to be more blogger friendly.

I'll try to post notes here. The rules for this meeting are "off the record for background and not for attribution unless explicit permission to quote is granted by each speaker concerned."

I've also gotten the opportunity to hear some of the concerns that are facing these media leaders today and will summarize my notes later.

Leaders gather for D-day ceremony

Leaders brief parties on talks

UK leaders pay tribute to Reagan

Naming the leaders in SOA management

World leaders sum up 2004

Debian Leaders: We Need to Release More
Often

Two GOP Leaders Turn on DeLay

theocracywatch.org/delay_gop_turns_latimes_apr11_05.thm.htm
track this site | 2 links

Rome on guard as leaders fly in

Do you hear it? It's a curious humming
sound that seems to come from inside the
object.

"Instinctually I am listening for the
sound of her breathing or to the sound
of her swallowing, and if those noises
sound okay then I’m listening to the
sounds of the house to make sure
monsters don’t come out of the walls to
hurt her"

Japanese Telecom Carriers, Pioneers Of
Internet-Capable And Picture-Snapping
Handsets, Have Now Come Up With The
World's First Mobile Phone That Enables
Users To Listen To Calls Inside Their
Heads - By Conducting Sound Through Bone

smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2004/ 01/21/1074360813226.html
track this site | 6 links

The Skybox

Maytag SkyBox

Maytag's SkyBox is an example of product marketing done totally right. In and of itself, it's not terribly impressive. It's a beverage vending machine, you see, that keeps 64 12-ounce cans or 32 12-ounce bottles chilled inside - you know, like a refrigerator - for the low low price of $500. So we're not talking value here, but the smart turn is that MayTag knows it, and markets the SkyBox with the tagline "For the Bragging Rights." Add to that a series of customizable sports logo themes (and even pretend robot sports, like Nascar) and it all starts to come together. You don't need a SkyBox, but you might need to get one before your buddy does.

Oh, and it does have one neat trick: each of the four beverages can be child-safety locked to prevent accidental hilarity brain damage. Which speaking of, the design team has a weblog where they defend Gordon Jump from naysaying. Behold the power of personal publishing!

Read - Product Page [SkyBoxByMayTag]
Read - Team Weblog [Ka-Thunk]

XM Radio SKYBOX

XM Satellite Radio has announced the Audiophase SKYBOX, and all-in-one boom box that includes the XM service (duh), AM/FM tuner, and CD/MP3 player. In addition to all the standard features, the SKYBOX will also come with a remote control and the usual two-line XM radio display.

There's no word if the SKYBOX has an audio out, although I would presume it has at least a headphone miniJack, if not a proper line-out. It should be available from Best Buy this fall for $200.

Read - Press Release [XMRadio via DailyGadget]