Sarah Lacy, a superstar blogger and Silicon Valley reporter wrote two scathing articles regarding OpenTable’s service right around the launch of their IPO in January 2009.  Given how clearly unimpressed she was with the company and its technology it came as quite a surprise when I viewed her uncharacteristically softball interview with OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan last month on Yahoo Finance.  This leads to the question – is Lacy’s bark louder than her bite, did she get cold feet in the heat of the moment, or did she feel the need to tone her criticism down in light of OpenTable being one of the only tech stories of the year?

Lacy’s 1st article, titled “OpenTable: So Web 1.0 it Hurts” is a piece lambasting the user experience on OpenTable.com, specifically their rewards program.  She is pretty direct in her analysis and writes the following harsh critique of the service:

OpenTable makes thousands selling reservation software. I spend thousands of dollars in business dinners I book through them dating back to 2003 when I joined. The restaurant doesn’t get much, because I probably would have dined there anyway.  And I get less than $100 in a dining check that I’d probably never actually redeem. Pretty lame as rewards programs go.

She goes on to note:

I’ve long hoped Yelp might get into this game. I know they’d never get in the console/software business, but maybe there’s another way to use the Web to solve the reservation problem.

Actually Sarah, there is.  New reservation software is out there that seamlessly integrates with all social media platforms and portals alike.  Unlike OpenTable 1.0, the user would never have to leave the web page they’re on to make an online reservation.  In reality, Yelp could get into the game very easily – they’d just need to embed the relevant reservation widgets into the participating restaurant’s Yelp page.

Sarah’s next article was posted in Seeking Alpha, a finance site that offers commentary on the stock market.  In her typical no-nonsense fashion, Lacy titled the article “OpenTable: 5 reasons to hesitate before buying it”.  Her 5 reasons for not drinking OpenTable’s IPO Kool-Aid are as follows:

1. The crappy market conditions in early 2009.
2. Lacy interestingly points out that OT is a local business and writes “They have to conquer territory market-by-market, restaurant-by-restaurant. Local is one of the hardest and most expensive things to do well. It’s also one of the only things that the Internet doesn’t particularly make easier.”
3. OpenTable isn’t very profitable selling software-as-a-service.
4. “Restaurants are going to be closing and cutting corners as the recession wears on”.
5. The “Travel Agency Effect”, which she identifies as the notion that “[restaurants] don’t want to pay the fees, and why should they when building and maintaining a Web site isn’t exactly hard in this day and age? OpenTable may have brought restaurants into the online age, the way sites like Expedia and Travelocity did for the airlines, but increasingly vendors hate middlemen. Especially middlemen who control the customer relationship and take a cut of the proceeds.”

Based on these two articles, one from the consumer end and the other from the business end, I believe it would be accurate to say that Sarah Lacy is not a fan of OpenTable.  That being said, Lacy had  the platform to stick it to OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan and instead she threw him an 85 mph fastball right down the middle.  Even a ballplayer not taking steroids can hit that one out of the park. Part of the reason might be due to the audience, which is geared more towards investors than techies. That being said, it would have been nice to see her touch on some of the points she so accurately pointed out in the past.

If you missed it, here’s a link to Sarah Lacy’s interview with Jeff Jordan.  Maybe after she’s done getting chased by baboons in Africa she can let us know why she went so light on a company she seemingly despised just months before..

So it seems TechCrunch is no longer Brazil-bound as the visa for the reporter Sarah Lacy wasn’t ready in time and she had what others are calling a fit on TC about the ordeal. From personal experience, I’d agree with others in saying that number 1 is to get the visa in order (and of course have the funds to buy the plane ticket, etc). I’ve lost quite a lot, for my pocket at least, personally on poor planning last year when I attempted a move to Colombia.

Here’s two small excerpts from her article…

“Brazil was the one place that no one in the Valley was pushing me to visit. In fact, it was the one place my husband had asked me not to visit, having heard many reports of kidnapping and violence.”

…

“I’m not on getting on that plane today though. Entrepreneurs who’d hoped to be written up on TechCrunch: Blame your government.”

It’s amazing how there are people who think, a design journalist named Sarah Lacy spoke ill of Brazil in a post entitled the Brazilian flag emblazoned with the phrase “Epic Fail Ever-Est” on the site TechCrunch.

Where a woman repressed, arrogant and extremely annoying, who can not wait for a travel visa, because she thinks that just by being an American, is entitled to privileges in the other country.

And in her country as it seeks visas of Brazilians. And we have to wait for the bureaucracy to get a U.S. visa? Does she think that only by being an American is entitled to enter our country without a visa?

And if she speaks so badly of Brazil, what she doing here anyway? We do not need you and your comments hyped.

And Brazil does not need to be quoted on TechCrunch, our country is much larger than this site fifth category.

Understand my indignation:

http://tecnologia.terra.com.br/interna/0,,OI3957985-EI4802,00-Blogueira+americana+sem+visto+cria+polemica+no+Brasil.html

É incrível como tem gente que se acha, um projeto de jornalista de nome Sarah Lacy, falou mal do Brasil, num post com direito à bandeira brasileira estampada com a frase “Epic-Est Fail Ever” (ou “a maior falha épica”), no site TechCrunch.

Onde uma mulher recalcada, arrogante e extremamente irritante, que não sabe esperar um visto,  porque  ela se acha que só por ser uma americana, tem direito de ter privilégios no país dos outros.

E no país dela em que se pede vistos dos brasileiros. E nós que temos que esperar a burocracia americana para conseguir um visto?Será que ela acha que só por ser uma americana tem direito, de entrar no nosso país sem visto?

E se ela fala tão mal do Brasil, o que ela veio fazer aqui afinal? Nós não precisamos de você e de seus comentários sensacionalistas.

E o Brasil não precisa ser citado no TechCrunch, o nosso país é muito maior, do que esse site de quinta categoria.

Entendam a minha indignação:

http://tecnologia.terra.com.br/interna/0,,OI3957985-EI4802,00-Blogueira+americana+sem+visto+cria+polemica+no+Brasil.html

On NBC’s Press: Here (airing 8/23), Fortune’s Jon Fortt, TechCrunch’s Sarah Lacy and host Scott McGrew chat with SAP executive board member John Schwarz. For all four video segments online now, check out video on the Press: Here website. (SAP) (IBM) (ORCL) (CRM) (MSFT)

Através de uma pareceria com a Endeavor, o TechCrunch está vindo ao Brasil para garimpar os melhores investidores e empreendedores em território nacional. A representante escolhida foi a repórter e colunista Sarah Lacy que deve chegar a São Paulo nas próximas semanas. Aqui neste post, ela afirma que a ideia é conhecer as startups da capital paulista, mas que dependendo da sugestão, ela está disposta a explorar o país um pouquinho. Quer que ela vá conhencer a sua empresa? Mande um email para sara@techcrunch.com.

Via Results On

What do LeVar Burton, Felicia Day, Steve Wozniak, Marina Orlova and Shaquille O’Neal have in common? They all appear in I AM A GEEK — a collaborative video project bringing together some of the biggest creators, personalities and web celebs in the online world.

I AM A GEEK leverages the power of social media to do good. The video is a project of the Society for Geek Advancement, which was founded upon the principle that we should all embrace our inner and outer geek.

The Society encourages the global geek community to realize its potential to give. This delightful organization is helping Room to Read (one of my favorite charities) build libraries for children in developing countries. Without Room to Read, many of these children would not have access to books.

You can help by spreading the Geek Advancement message through blogs and social media, purchasing an “I AM A GEEK” t-shirt (all proceeds go to Room to Read) and/or making a donation. Lets show the world what it means to be a geek and the power for good of a global geek community!

Home :: GeekAdvancement.com.

THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT was founded upon the principles that we should all embrace our inner and outer geek and have fun while doing it. As individuals who love learning, innovating and believe in possibility as well as change, the second step of responsibility is to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. As a member of SGA, we work together as a global community to provide the tools and help others realise their true potential too!

GAMING

Zynga, the online gaming publisher, is making a ton of money. Just how much? Well, earlier reports put revenue at something around $50 million, but some new numbers obtained by Sarah Lacy suggests that it’s closer to $100 million. And clearly, it’s accelerating. We’re hearing that the run rate for 2009 may even be well above that. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/29/zynga-pushing-nine-figures-in-revenues-thanks-to-micro-transactions/ 4/29)

A few quotes to ponder as we head into the weekend:

“Oh, well. When the Feds surround my place for the big shootout, I hope my home gets described as a ‘compound’ just before it goes up in smoke. Cool.” –Mark Steyn, National Review Online, in response to a Department of Homeland Security report warning of dangerous right-wing extremist activity.

“Make no mistake, dear readers, we are living under tyranny. Especially to those who voted for Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress, you are living in denial if you believe otherwise. This is not hyperbole.” — The Sarasota Observer, in an article un-hyperbolically titled “Live Free or Die.”

“For now, though, one can’t help but note that these ‘conservatives’ seem so very angry about a federal government program designed to do nothing other than protect the glorious Homeland from Terrorists.  And we know that this is the purpose of the DHS program because that’s what the Government said its purpose is.  So what else is there to know?  That’s the lesson we all learned over the last eight years:  Bush said that all of his secret surveillance programs were only directed at Al Qaeda, so how can anyone say otherwise?” — Glenn Greenwald, Slate, in response to right-wing criticism of the Department of Homeland Security

“The white cloth with the blue lettering inched toward the ceiling, shiny and new, and for a moment, it was like watching the first raising of the flag of a new country.” – Gary Shelton, St. Petersburg Times, For Rays, raising of banners buries bad old days

“I fundamentally misunderstood what was going on.” — Ben Affleck, upon discovering that his hometown paper, the Boston Globe, is in danger of going out of business.

“I think everyone has their own style in interacting. I think everyone has their own style in journalism. Look, I’m a girl from the South! Sometimes I laugh.” – Sarah Lacy, responding  to criticism that she laughed when her interviewee called another reporter a “douche bag.”

I’ve been putting together a list of resources for a client (who has a client wanting to upgrade their blog).  This got me thinking… Who are my favorite bloggers these days?

** David Pogue, New York Times (@pogue and @nytimespogue on Twitter)

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/ (written and video blogs)
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/pogue-unplugged/
http://www.davidpogue.com/

** Kirsti Scott (@kirstiscott and @hotdesign on Twitter)

http://blog.hotdesign.com/

** Nina K. Simon (@ninaksimon on Twitter)

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/

** Sarah Lacy, TechCrunch (@sarahcuda on Twitter)

http://www.techcrunch.com/author/sarah-lacy/

** WordPress

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/

** My blog (of course)

http://technicalprojectservices.com/blog (aka http://saraisenberg.com/blog)

]]> http://technicalprojectservices.com/2009/04/16/best-overview-of-santa-cruz-tech-community/ Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:02:54 +0000 saraisenberg http://technicalprojectservices.com/2009/04/16/best-overview-of-santa-cruz-tech-community/

Here is a must read article for anybody who is interested in the state of the Tech Scene in Santa Cruz.  Jeremy Neuner give a great overview here:

http://nextspace.us/2009/04/state-of-the-santa-cruz-tech-scene/

Here is the complete article by Jeremy Neuner:

The other day, I spent the morning hanging out with Margaret Rosas, Founder and Chief Strategist at the strategic web consultancy Quiddities. The Santa Cruz Sentinel had just run a story on Margaret and her team (we lovingly call them The Q-Mamas) about how their company—and our town—thrive on collaboration. As we washed coffee cups (a morning ritual at NextSpace), Margaret and I reminisced about the first time we spoke to each other over the phone in October 2007 and how we both lamented the lack of a vibrant, collaborative tech scene here in Santa Cruz. And then we marveled at how far our town and our amazingly innovative tech community have come lately.

So, inspired by my conversation with Margaret, here’s a quick (okay, not so quick!) run-down of what’s happened over the past 18 months regarding the tech scene in Santa Cruz. Please take a look. And if I’ve missed something, please drop a comment and let me know. Meanwhile, I think you’ll be pretty damn impressed with the state of the tech community in Santa Cruz….

Geek Dinners

It all started on November 30, 2007 with the inaugural Santa Cruz Geek Dinner. Local visionaries Margaret Rosas, Sean Tario, and Sol Lipman decided to put a stake in the ground, gather some talented people, and start building a community. One of the attendees, David Beach, predicted that this dinner would be the first of a series of events that would put Santa Cruz back on the tech map.  Beach’s words proved prophetic.Through the Geek Dinners, Beach met Sol Lipman. Together, along with Jakey Knobel, they started 12seconds.tv, the hottest social media start-up on the planet. I think that counts as “putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.” The Geek Dinners continue to draw dozens of talented Santa Cruzans every month.

Santa Cruz Geeks

Hard on the heels of the Geek Dinners came the Santa Cruz Geeks, a virtual and physical community of local techies. Now over 250 strong, the Geeks form the backbone of the Santa Cruz tech community. Most important, the Geeks prove that this town is chock full of talented, innovative, successful tech professionals who are passionately committed to building great companies in Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center

January 2008 marked the official launch of the Santa Cruz Design + Innovation Center. Recognizing that Santa Cruz is a hub of world-class design talent, the SCD+IC was formed as an advocacy group to promote that talent to the rest of the world. Over 300 people packed into an auditorium at Plantronics for the SCD+IC’s launch event, proving that the design and technology community in Santa Cruz was hungry for opportunities to organize, network, and collaborate. Aside: Plantronics is one of Santa Cruz’s great home-grown companies. They designed the headset that Neil Armstrong wore on the moon in 1969 and have been designing great products in Santa Cruz ever since.Rockstar/Boy-Genius Darrin Caddes is Plantronics VP of Design and is a huge (and remarkably humble) fixture in the Santa Cruz tech scene.

Santa Cruz New Technology Alliance MeetUp

Another local visionary, Doug Erickson, started the Santa Cruz New Tech Alliance MeetUp in February 2008. Like many of us in Santa Cruz, Doug has deep professional connections in Silicon Valley. But he knew very few of his fellow Santa Cruzans. Yet, he had a pretty strong hunch that there was a community-in-waiting of local techies in this town. So Doug started the New Tech MeetUp. He had three goals: create a monthly networking event for Santa Cruz high tech professionals, increase our exposure to new technologies that would tickle our geek gears, and stimulate beachhead startups. With humble beginnings (39 attendees crammed into the police department’s community room with no Internet access), Doug has grown the MeetUp into an organization nearly 600 strong.

Approval of the Delaware Addition

In July 2008, the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved the Delaware Addition project. Designed by local architect Mark Primack and spearheaded by Craig French from Redtree Properties, this 20 acre, LEED-certified, mixed-use, live/work development on the city’s Westside will provide the infrastructure that the next generation of Santa Cruz companies will need. Most important, the approval of Delaware Addition is the first major piece of public policy indicating that this community understands the direction that the local economy is heading: towards smaller, collaborative, environmentally-minded, high-tech businesses.

Freelance Camp

For a long time, the Santa Cruz tech scene has been famously decentralized. Many Santa Cruzans work as consultants, independent contractors, or telecommuters for larger companies in Silicon Valley and throughout the rest of the world. But independents lack opportunities for community, collaboration, and connection. So Shane Pearlman and Peter Chester (they run a company called, you guessed it, Shane & Peter, Inc.) decided to herd the cats. In August 2008, they hosted Freelance Camp for over 125 freelancers and independent consultants. This barcamp-style unconference provided yet another community-building opportunity as local freelancers shared ideas on how to run a one-person shop. Even better, Freelance Camp has become a home-grown national phenomenon, with similar conferences popping up in places like Miami, Houston, and Austin. Hey, just one more step in putting Santa Cruz back on the tech map.

Digital Media Factory

Santa Cruz is building a new digital information industry. And Marty Collins, CEO of the Digital Media Factory and thirty-year industry veteran, is leading the charge. In Marty’s words, “the Digital Media Factory is a multi-business facility for the design, development, production, replication, management, and distribution of digital information products.” In my words, DMF is pure genius. Why? Because Marty believes in community. He’s gathered over a dozen digital media businesses under one roof to share resources, talent, and opportunities. Even more important, Marty is leveraging the immense talent pool at UC Santa Cruz. He’s developed partnerships with UC Santa Cruz’s Digital Arts and New Media program, as well as the UCSC Baskin School of Engineering. Which brings me to…..

UC Santa Cruz/City of Santa Cruz Legal Settlement

Universities are amazing repositories of talents, ideas, and innovations. From an economic perspective, universities are fertile ground for new companies that can boost the economies of their host cities. Heck, Silicon Valley was practically built by Stanford spin-outs. Why can’t that phenomenon happen with UC Santa Cruz and the City of Santa Cruz? It can. And it will, especially now that the UCSC and the City have stopped suing the bejeezus out of each other over UCSC’s long-range development plan. The legal settlement, announced in August 2008, marks the beginning of what I call “The Great Thaw.” It’s high time for the UCSC to show some leadership in using its pool of talent to help build local business and the local economy. And it’s even higher time for the citizens of Santa Cruz to recognize that UCSC is a tremendous asset to the community, rather than a liability. I’m incredibly optimistic.

NextSpace Grand Opening

Amidst all of this excitement, NextSpace Coworking + Innovation, Inc. officially opened its doors on October 1, 2008. We started with a handful of true-believing early adopters.  But in six short months, our community of innovators has grown to over 100 strong.  What’s happening at NextSpace?  A lot.  Take a look at this post on The NextSpace Effect for a quick rundown. Mostly, I want to acknowledge that NextSpace would not be possible without the vision, passion, and hard work of all of the people mentioned in this post.

Radio Engage

New media? Old media? The smart ladies at Quiddities think you can have both.  They received a Knight News Challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to fund their new project Radio Engage.  In their words, Radio Engage is a platform allowing public radio stations to create a web presence that will draw their local community in and invite them to participate through social media.  In my words, Radio Engage will totally revolutionize how public radio stations interact with their listeners.  Quiddities teamed up with Santa Cruz’s own KUSP as a test platform for Radio Engage.  As part of the project, Quiddities hosted Public Media Camp in November 2008, bringing  public media and social media experts from around the country to Santa Cruz to discuss the future of public radio.  Are you catching the themes that we’re building here: high tech, collaborative, community-based business and innovation.

Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? Here’s the first proof point: The Pilot Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Hatched in December 2008 by Bonnie Lipscomb (City of Santa Cruz Director of Economic Development) and Nirvikar Singh (Special Assistant to the Chancellor at UCSC), PPIE brings together undergraduate business teams from UCSC with local business mentors. The first round of projects focused on bicycles and other forms of alternative transportation, a perfect fit for the tech-savvy, sustainability-focused crowd in Santa Cruz.

Launch of CruzBusiness.com

Peter Koht, the economic development coordinator for the City of Santa Cruz, is a man on a mission. Peter knew that the City offered plenty of economic development resources, but those resources were often disparate and hard to find. Seemingly overnight, Peter launched CruzBusiness.com, an interactive, community-based portal for information about starting and sustaining a business in Santa Cruz. Peter’s work is an important step in accomplishing his—and the City’s—mission of recruiting, attracting, and retaining great businesses in Santa Cruz.

The Envision Santa Cruz Summit

In March 2009, Sean Tario (man, that guy is everywhere!) hosted the first Envision Santa Cruz Summit at the UCSC University Center. Sean’s objectives for the Summit were to assemble thought leaders in local entrepreneurship and economic development, to celebrate the amazing companies and resources in Santa Cruz, and to inspire Santa Cruzans to take a more active role in building their local economy. Over 150 people showed up to discuss the economic future of our community. Decades from now, when someone writes a book about the economic history of Santa Cruz, Sean’s summit will definitely be one of the highlights.

Girls in Tech

The latest group on the scene is the Santa Cruz chapter of Girls in Tech.  Founded by Seana Sullivan and Victoria Crimmins, this group focuses on “engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.”  Their first event brought author and journalist Sarah Lacy to town. More important, this group provides a much-needed acknowledgement and celebration of the critical contributions that women make to our local tech scene.

UC Santa Cruz Business Plan Competition

Right now, as I type, as you read, 16 business teams from UCSC are going head-to-head in the first-ever UCSC Business Plan Competition. The semi-finals are on April 17, 2009, and the finals are in late May 2009. Local investors, bankers, and business leaders are judging the competition. Remember how I said a minute ago that I was incredibly optimistic about the emerging relationship between the City of Santa Cruz and UC Santa Cruz? The UCSC Business Plan Competition is proof point #2. Stay tuned….

Right, so, that’s the low-down. This has been a long post, mostly because so many cool things are happening in Santa Cruz around high tech, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and community-based economies. We’ve come a long way as a community in the past 18 months. So where are we now?  I think the best benchmark is the number of companies that have started up or are ready to scale here in Santa Cruz.  Here’s a quick list of just a handful:  12seconds, UserVoice, Pergamum Systems, ProductOps, Intuvo, RideSpring, ZoomPool, Verdafero, Zazengo, Studio Cruz, and Digital Media Factory.  Not too shabby for this beautiful, brilliant, creative, innovative little seaside town.

As I said at the top, please comment if I’ve missed something in this lengthy round-up.Meanwhile, what’s next? I have some ideas. What are yours?

I have waited a while before wading into the debate started by this post as Sarah Lacy’s insufferably smug take on the “can you train journalists?” debate attracted reams of responses when it was posted last week.

My Cardiff colleague Hannah Waldram added her voice to the argument via a guest post on Telegraph Communities editor Shane Richmond’s blog and did a good job articulating the journalism student’s defence.

One of Hannah’s gripes concerns Lacy’s patronising style and, as I said before, utter smugness.

But though I agree with the thrust of Hannah’s argument, I do think Lacy’s (ahem) divisive writing style has deflected attention away from some of the points she makes which might just on closer inspection merit further inspection.

When an article carries such a needlessly aggressive headline, it is not surprising some of the subtleties of her argument might be lost in translation, as the frothing-mouthed Lacy turns her points of view into polarising invective.

This paragraph is a perfect example of this:

Journalism schools are like foot-binding. They force you into a style that a bunch of dinosaurs all agreed was acceptable a zillion years ago. So in an age of blogging, you have no voice. In fact, if I were in J-school now, I’d have my knuckles rapped for using the rhetorical “you” in those last two sentences. 

The foot-binding simile, “dinosaurs”, “zillions”, it all smacks of trying far too hard. Hey this girl’s crazy! Two fingers to the squares who make up the Establishment and no mistake! She doesn’t care who she upsets. 

But hidden within is the kernel of an interesting point. As Hannah points out we are very lucky that Cardiff has embraced the digital future and our multimedia training is first rate.

But in terms of language and style there are rules imposed on us by tutors which I would question. Writing with flair is rarely encouraged in a training environment which is a shame.

On another level BBC Trustee and Director of Cardiff school for journalism Richard Tait gave an excellent lecture last year in which he deplored the slide (as he saw it) from newspapers to viewspapers. Personally I am not convinced this is such a bad thing.

With short, factual news updates available everywhere, from trains to coffee shop screens, it may be that newspapers should now be brave enough to increase their opinion pages. 

Say what you like about Sarah Lacy (and goodness knows people have) but her piece has stimulated a fascinating debate across the blogosphere. Writers with such an ability can only be a good thing for our industry.

Yesterday while reading Tech Crunch, I came upon an appalling post: Who the Hell Is Enrolling in Journalism School Now?

Sarah Lacy reveals that ten years ago she stumbled out of a liberal arts college with a lackluster GPA, but she managed to land a job at a weekly business journal. Her friend that majored in journalism has left the field, but Lacy is having a blast:

I’m not only gainfully employed, but [sic] have managed to make more money every year the industry has declined all around me. I get to travel around the world looking for great stories. I’ve had the privilege of writing one book, and I’m mid-way through another one. Frankly, I’ve gotten farther in ten years than I thought I would in fifty.

Readers were quick to decry Lacy’s self-congratulatory tone and use of the word journalism to describe her brand of fluff. One comment in particular caught my eye:

I’ve never seen an article by Sarah Lacy where she doesn’t compliment herself excessively. I missed her at SXSW this year. Her train wreck of an interview with Zuck last year was the highlight.

Train wreck? I love train wrecks. I decided to investigate.

As a non-geek, I’d never heard of Sarah Lacy, but apparently she is quite famous. Or infamous, depending on your point of view. Last year in the blog Buzz Machine, Jeff Jarvis posted a vivid critique of Lacy’s South by Southwest interview with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook: Zuckerberg Interview: What Went Wrong.

In her effort to charm Zuckerberg, Lacy came off like Mrs. Robinson. That was embarrassing for her and us…She interrupted him…She wasn’t listening…She rambled on to the point that Zuckerberg had to suggest that she ask a question. Definitely not a good sign in an interview.

Buzz Machine commenters echoed the Mrs. Robinson comparison and noted that during the interview Lacy had twirled her hair, giggled and otherwise called attention to herself.

But as uncomfortable as all that was, said one commenter, Lacy’s worst sin had nothing to do with flirtatious demeanor.

[Lacy] failed to become fascinated by the subject….If there’s one attribute across all great writers and interviewers that stands out, it’s that they are insatiably curious about almost any topic that can be opened up and explored. In short, the writer cares much, about everything. And that passion plus the skill they develop for asking the right questions is what makes them great.

Sounds like a journalist. So if Lacy is not a journalist, what is she?

On video I watched a pivotal moment during the Zuckerberg interview in which you can hear the audience turn against her. In a follow-up video Lacy tried to defend herself, but only succeeded in digging deeper.

Under normal circumstances I’d be happy to pile on. Lacy’s Tech Crunch article was not only poorly researched but also insensitive, considering the post date of April 8, 2009, long after thousands of journalists with families to support began losing their jobs (disclosure: I’m married to one who was downsized).

But this time I could not chime in. The bottomless pit of hostility towards Lacy had awakened the contrarian in me.

One comment mentioned the Attractive Woman handicap. I might go a step further and suggest Lacy is an Attractive Woman Raised by Loving, Conscientious, Affluent Parents. Wild guess, but her level of self-confidence is not a given, at least not among the women I know.

Mata Hari in 1906, at age 30

If a pretty girl gets cooed over all her life and she manages to arrive at adulthood without once being beaten, raped, starved or otherwise abused, she’ll probably end up with a personality much like Lacy’s unless her parents work hard to prevent it.

Perhaps Lacy had a way with men that got her a job for which she was unqualified. Should she feel bad about it?

She should definitely tamp down the bragging, but one can’t expect a woman to act against her own interests. While I admire scrupulously honest and fair individuals, if I limited my social circle to just them, I’d get lonely in a hurry and probably bored as well.

When confused by life, the saying goes, look to nature. But if you’re like me, you can’t watch nature documentaries for long before fleeing the room in tears.

No, hyenas! Don’t bring down the little zebra. No, alligators! Give that baby parrot another chance to fly away. No, lions! Don’t kill the cubs just because you’re not the sires. Adopt! Thugs.

If I didn’t grasp the utter futility of the question, every day I’d be asking: Who invented such a cruel world? It’s one big restaurant out there.

Or, you could say, one big brothel.

If playing the coquette works for a woman, she will no doubt continue to act the part until the day it stops working. You’d think last year’s disastrous interview would have been a light-bulb moment for Lacy. Guess not.

But eventually real trouble comes to us all. Author James Lee Burke once said, “I’ve never had to seek humility. It has always found me of its own accord.”

For thousands of years women lived by their wits and any other tools at their disposal, including sexuality. Perhaps natural selection did not favor chaste girls. In any event, today’s women must exude professionalism no matter what their gut tells them. Alas, evolution is slow.

Socialite and suffragist Alva Vanderbilt, who divorced her first husband in 1895, advised her feminine friends and relatives to marry first for money, then for love. Some would call that marrying well, but whatever you call it, the Mata Hari strategy is a time-honored tradition just about everywhere.

As for Margaretha Zelle, the Dutch woman who took the stage name Mata Hari, she was not just a courtesan, but also a double agent. In 1917 she was executed by firing squad. Calm and defiant to the end, she refused a blindfold and looked the soldiers in the eyes as she fell.

While the art of seduction might be a hard-wired survival tactic, the women who practice it don’t always survive.

Who the hell is enrolling in journalism school? That’s the questioned posed recently by Sarah Lacy, upon learning that enrollment in J-schools is on the rise.

To understand the puzzlement behind Lacy’s query, it helps to understand her background. Lacy, who has covered business news for  the past 10 years, writes for BusinessWeek and Tech Ticker.  But she didn’t get to where she is taking classes on media theory or news writing or journalistic ethics:

I like to joke that I’m “unqualified” to do my job. But I think it was precisely that total lack of journalism training that gave me an edge. I never worked the cops-and-courts beat. I don’t know how to write an inverted pyramid story or even really what that is. I do know how to write for different platforms, be scrappy and break news. I’ve had zero important alum connections and never got an internship at a big daily. And, in hindsight, that’s probably the greatest stroke of luck I could have had.

I admire Lacy’s ability to succeed without formal training, but I can personally attest that I probably wouldn’t haven’t gained the experience I have without J-school as a conduit and connection-builder.

When I enrolled in the journalism program at USF St. Petersburg, I did so with the intention of gaining experience that would get my foot in the door with a local news publication. Prior to signing up for classes, I couldn’t conceive of the St. Pete Times or Tampa Tribune giving me an opportunity to work my way up in their respective newsrooms without hands-on reporting experience and a folder of quality clips.

As things turned out, my studies at USF St. Petersburg paid career dividends: Starting in my first semester, I was able to freelance for the Times‘ sports department. The following term, I landed a coveted five-month internship with the Tampa Bay Business Journal that still stands as the best trial-by-fire I could have asked for. Less than a year later, I became editor of the school newspaper and earned recognition for my efforts in that capacity from the journalism faculty.

But for all my diligence, I still couldn’t get my foot in the door with Times or Trib newsrooms. I didn’t have daily paper experience. (Yes, I even applied for a summer internship with the Times; snake eyes.)

It took about three nerve-wracking months following graduation, but I landed my first official gig as a journalist at Creative Loafing, as a copy editor.

Maybe I could have gotten the job without my journalism school education; I’ll never know. But I do know this: Without my training, I might still be waiting for someone to have faith in me and give me that first, all-important break.

Sure, you can learn the cops-and-courts beat, inverted pyramid and media ethics without having to shell out tuition money. Any honest journalist knows that what he or she does isn’t a specialized field of practice. It’s a craft, pure and simple. But in today’s newspaper industry, who has the time or money to groom novices? As much as I may regret having spent money I didn’t have, I look back on my studies as an invaluable crash-course in journalism.

So who’s going to J-school these days? I sincerely hope they are the budding innovators who intend to not only learn journalism’s traditional practices, but also to gain the knowledge to transform an industry in transition.

Ever heard of Ning? In May of 2008 I started an online community on the upstart social media platform. (Ning was officially launched in February 2007.) My community, http://healthcaremarketing.ning.com, was founded to give healthcare marketers a forum for sharing ideas and knowledge online. With roughly 100 regular members from all around the country, I’m pleased with how it has developed. I’m the most regular contributor to the community, adding posts to the blog several times a week, but others have begun contributing posts on a regular basis. There’s now a steady exchange of information between members. The community is slowly becoming what I envisioned and it has been rewarding to watch it transform over the last year.

I bring up Ning because I find that it is not among the best known social media platforms. People have heard of Facebook and MySpace, but not Ning. I often find myself introducing people to Ning (here I go again). Recently I was happy to see that in Sarah Lacy’s relatively new book, Once you’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good, she dedicates some space to Ning and its founders, Marc Andreesen and Gina Bianchini. If you’re interested in the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 and social media, I recommend that you get a copy of Lacy’s book. It tells some interesting stories and gives you a terrific look at the characters behind these Web companies.

So what is Ning? Ning is a platform where you can go and build your own social network. It is free (up to a point) and is highly customizable. If you’re like me, and not highly technical, you can go with one of their templates. Once you’ve created you’re own network, you can post photos, video, links and maintain a blog. You can also host online forums. As people join your community, they can add their own posts, customize their home page, and contribute significantly to the community – but adapt it to meet their own interests and needs. It is very cool and easy to use.

My company has used Ning to create online communities for two of our clients and we’re really pleased with the results. You can check out the community we created for Volvo Trucks North America by clicking here. It will give you a feel fro what you can do with a Ning site. With each site we customize the look to fit the client brand.

Post by Dan Dunlop, The Healthcare Marketer

Ever heard of Ning? In May of 2008 I started an online community on the upstart social media platform. (Ning was officially launched in February 2007.) My community, http://healthcaremarketing.ning.com, was founded to give healthcare marketers a forum for sharing ideas and knowledge online. With roughly 100 regular members from all around the country, I’m pleased with how it has developed. I’m the most regular contributor to the community, adding posts to the blog several times a week, but others have begun contributing posts on a regular basis. There’s now a steady exchange of information between members. The community is slowly becoming what I envisioned and it has been rewarding to watch it transform over the last year.

I bring up Ning because I find that it is not among the best known social media platforms. People have heard of Facebook and MySpace, but not Ning. I often find myself introducing people to Ning (here I go again). Recently I was happy to see that in Sarah Lacy’s relatively new book, Once you’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good, she dedicates some space to Ning and its founders, Marc Andreesen and Gina Bianchini. If you’re interested in the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 and social media, I recommend that you get a copy of Lacy’s book. It tells some interesting stories and gives you a terrific look at the characters behind these Web companies.

So what is Ning? Ning is a platform where you can go and build your own social network. It is free (up to a point) and is highly customizable. If you’re like me, and not highly technical, you can go with one of their templates. Once you’ve created you’re own network, you can post photos, video, links and maintain a blog. You can also host online forums. As people join your community, they can add their own posts, customize their home page, and contribute significantly to the community – but adapt it to meet their own interests and needs. It is very cool and easy to use.

My company has used Ning to create online communities for two of our clients and we’re really pleased with the results. You can check out the community we created for Volvo Trucks North America by clicking here. It will give you a feel fro what you can do with a Ning site. With each site we customize the look to fit the client brand.

Post by Dan Dunlop, Brand Expeditions

You know those creepy Verizon Wireless commercials where it looks like the customers are walking onto a horror movie until the Verizon guy and his crew show up?  I thought they were really clever and kind of funny.  Unfortunately though, I am now a Verizon Wireless customer and my horror story is real.  I am in a dead zone, aka 66 Comm Ave.  My calls get dropped.  It’s like I don’t even exist.  Seriously people, 5/5 calls dropped today.  Now that I think of it, anyone want to make a spoof Verizon commercial in 66?

At least I can still get texts, which means I can Twitter.  Sadly I’m not famous/powerful enough (read Sarah Lacy) to get a major telecom company’s attention via Twitter and fix my problem.  Instead I entertain my TechTrek friends and a couple of creepy random followers with mundane events in my life.  Add that to my list of life goals:

• Fly first class without financial concern
• Write and publish a book
• Start a family
• Be a season ticketholder for my local basketball team
• Establish my own scholarship fund
• Travel to every continent (minus Antarctica)
• Have the power to influence real life events with my Facebook or Twitter

Some pretty sweet visits so far: TiVo, Intel, Digg, Intuit, Genentech, and Linden Lab. Noteable people include Sarah Lacy, Bill Campbell, and Jay Adelson. I even got Sarah Lacy to sign my copy of her book “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good.” I probably shouldn’t say too much more since a lot of things surrounding the trip are sensitive.

This is our last night in San Francisco and I’ve really enjoyed the city and the wonderful Orchard Hotel. Google tomorrow. Cannot wait!