On December 3rd we had a special edition of the Didactic Design Discussion in the MIL course, since both Terry Anderson and Ross McKerlich visited us to talk about the Community of Inquiry (COI) model. The COI model was developed in the late 1990’ies as framework for evaluating educational experience in text-based online environments by D. Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson and Walther Archer. Given the COI model’s wide spread use in different educational settings it is by no means coincidental that one of the original founders, Terry Anderson, has found it important to explore the applicability of the model in new online environments such as the 3D virtual world, Second Life (SL). Together with McKerlich Anderson conducted a preliminary, qualitative exploratory study in SL in 2007 and basically confirmed that the model also can be used in assessing educational experience in 3D virtual environments (McKerlich & Anderson. 2007). Anderson and McKerlich later invited Brad Eastmann and I to participate in the continued study of COI in 3D virtual worlds and as part of this study we record different educational experiences in SL to be used for later analysis.

Terry presenting COI to the MIL students

Besides being an excellent tool with regard to analyzing interaction and communication the COI model, which consists of 3 different  types of presence indicators (cognitive, social and teaching), can also be used as a heuristic tool for designing online educational experiences. The MIL students in this year’s course are all educators involved in course designing within blended learning and they all seemed to find the COI model interesting and relevant to their current work. What I appreciate about the model is the fact that it deals with presence and not immersion which otherwise seems to be the buzz word when studying 3D virtual worlds. Even though both presence and immersion have to do with the user experience, I do find there is an important difference between the two concepts. Based on the fours research cycles I’ve completed in my PhD research so far, my experience is that all users achieve a sense of presence when they enter a virtual environment like SL, which I think above all has to do with the avatar and its ability to move around and meet other avatars, communicate and interact in real time. It is, however not my impression that all users in these types of environments achieve the sense of immersion – at least not if immersion is defined by a sense of “willing suspension of disbelief” as proposed by Dede. 2005 among others.  An important part of this discussion is of course how one chooses to define the concepts and since I intend to use both presence and immersion in my own model this is something I’ll return to.

After the presentation, McKerlich introduced to our survey related to the COI study and we went on to use The Opinionater, which once again proved its worth as a great tool for initiating discussions.

/Mariis

Its customary at this time of year for folks to publish predictions, so, not to be left out here are mine.

The fundamental changes that have come about in everybody’s lives in the last year and which continue to some extent, have demanded a new approach to marketing – “New Model Marketing” – and for a few years now I have been just one of many people propagating four mutually-dependant ideas that are at the heart of this new Paradigm.

1. While short term benefits can be gained by a tactical approach, the evidence proves that sustainable growth and long-term success is dependent upon a strong brand community.
2. We’ve focussed for too long on making promises to consumers through beautifully-crafted, compelling marketing communications, but all too often organisations have failed to deliver and customers have been disappointed.  Its time to walk the talk and deliver those promises.
3. Marketing is the process of matching an organisation’s resources to customer needs. That means its involved in everything an organisation does at every level. Marketing is not a separate department and it isn’t communications (although communications are involved)
4. Efficient businesses are successful businesses.  With the performance bar forever rising and every organisation looking to reduce its costs, the only hope an organisation has to gain ground is to achieve more with its investment.  That means eliminating inconsistency at every level and ensuring that every element of a business works together to achieve synergy.  That’s “integrated marketing”.

Insights and new kinds  of data management and analysis are essential if we are to achieve the necessary levels of efficiency and new ways of communicating with members of our brand community – that’s employees, investors and partners as well as customers – will be essential to the development of these relationships and the growth of any business.  I have always included IT people in my Full Effect project teams, but until recently we have been struggling like everyone else with Heath Robinson adaptations of tools designed for accounting purposes.  Now, at last there are early signs that the IT guys are on-board and applying their skills to the kind of solutions we need.

My predictions for 2010 are:

1 – 2010 will herald the arrival of the first of a new generation of data management tools that will really make a difference.  Its not that the nerds have been slow to do their job, but that marketers failed to get their brief in on time and the direction that the treadmill has taken ever since was dictated by the bean-counters who beat us to the draw.  However, the computer guys have hung around their new marketing mates for long enough now, the penny has dropped, they’re on the job and the potential of the great hardware that we have been developing in recent years will finally be realised with the emergence of a new kind of software that will bring us closer to the reality of delivering unique and compelling messages to individual customers rather than bludgeoning (and frequently pissing-off) broad segments.

I’m not one of those people who believes that there are aspects of marketing that cannot be measured.  I’m looking for a return on every dime my clients invest, which means I don’t get a lot of Xmas cards from the old PR school that seems to me to exist in a kind of mystical, non-accountable fug. This year I’m counting on the arrival of tools that will enable me and other marketers to more clearly understand the influence of every communications tool in our integrated strategies.

2 – This year we’ll see someone new step in and show us what “new media” is really all about. I despair at the failure of traditional media to respond to the opportunities (yes I did say opportunities!) presented by the arrival of on-line.  The paid for v. free debate continues, but we are still at the starting blocks as far as either option is concerned.  Steve Davies’ Skiddmark looks like a promising model, but there’s more out there and the race is on.  Hold on to your hats!

3 – Someone is about to get their act together and deliver a real user-driven experience that combines attractive programming, quality production and quality delivery. I have been very disappointed recently by a few mobile content providers.  Perform Group look as though they might be getting there, but where are the others?.  Let’s see who turns up for the party.

4 – Social networking will come into its own with the first of a new generation of communities driven by intuitive computing that more closely reflects the kind of judgements we all make about the people we mix with – another step closer to the deep and meaningful “Brandships” that have been at the heart of Full Effect Marketing for years.  I  don’t belive that FaceBook is a panacea.  I’m all for social networking (Its what my Brand Discovery programme is all about), but there are millions of businesses for whom the current social networking venues and resources don’t add up to anything, but a distraction from the real game.  Web 2.0 is a blunt instrument, but if you aren’t already involved you’ll not be ready to make the transition to WEb 3.0 which is where the real benefits will emerge.

2010 – new levels of accountability, relevant media, the content we want and real understanding of our customers. – Bring it on!

I might have had an “Oprah-A-ha” moment.  Twitter has given me the ability to follow any entity I like as long as their tweets are not protected.  A few months ago I created my first Twitter account.  Soon, I’m following people and groups that span a diverse group of interests.  Then, I’m tweeting about my equally diverse areas of interest.  Soon my tweets are in the thousands, and I’m wondering if I need separate Twitter accounts to avoid losing one community over another – my techy followers may get bored with my gifted education tweets or my food tweets.  You’re probably familiar with the dilemma.  There are apps for that.

Because introspection is ingrained in my personality, I had to ask myself  “what is the common thread in all these seemingly diverse interests”?  What is it that has me up at night writing and reading about it?  These questions combined with the ever-prevalent question of “what am I going to be when I grow up” has led me (in a very logical manner, of course) to consider what drives me and what will continue to motivate me and excite me in a career for the next 20+ years.  It’s innovation and enabling great minds to develop their ideas and deliver.  Linda Cureton, the CIO of NASA, shares this vision in her blog.   Whether it is one of my own gifted children or a promising colleague or a brilliant artist or chef… The common thread is helping people live up to their potential and building community so that they can help each other.

Does that mean I’m ready to take my hands out of the technical pot?  No way. I love building and creating too.  I want the same things for myself as I do for others who are intelligent and self-motivated.  Detachment from that process diminishes my ability to ultimately enable others and improve upon their processes and methodologies.  Where that puts me in terms of a job title, I have no idea.

Ok… Every step I take, there’s a  mistake I make… no problem.

You know, the biggest mistake I think most people make when they start to learn something new is that they become afraid to make mistakes.  Worse yet, they (like me) even know that the mistakes exist and know they (like me) don’t know how to avoid them completely.  It’s the downside of knowing a little about something.

Let me be clear about the mistakes I’ve discovered I made just recently.

1.) I didn’t clear my email list of all the potential “potholes” on the info superhighway.  To be very clear:  the wrong people getting my email invitation to my webinar.  People like my clients’ employees that I should steer clear of inviting.

2.) I didn’t put my twitter, facebook, linkedin, website, etc. links on my email invitation.  Oooops!  All that work setting up those accounts and making them pretty, and nobody knows to connect to them.

3.) I didn’t put in additional automated sequences to thank folks for registering for the webinar.  Interesting statistic: 14 registrations as of tonight, 25 clicks to the registration page, 320 opened the email.

4.) I didn’t send a follow up email… before the event.  But since it’s the holidays, I decided that it was better to just take learn my lesson for next time.

5.) I didn’t post the invitation link all over my social media network.  I will next time.  It’s probably the best use of my ping.fm account.

6.)  I haven’t learned how to use categories and tags in WordPress very well.  I’m going to attempt to add some tags to this post and see what happens.

That’s all I can think of for now.  I’m sure I’ll figure out some more mistakes that I’ve made.

What mistakes have you made when you first started marketing on the web2.0 platform?

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment.  It helps us both on the rankings.

Best Regards,

Dominic x

The ADD guy

www.LinkedIN.com/in/dominicx
twitter.com/dominicx
facebook.com/dominic.carubba
www.TheADDguy.com (that’s here)

As you all know, I’m big on my “top 10″ lists and think these lists are an important part of my reflection process. So I figured it would be a good idea to continue my trend with my top ten thoughts from my very first semester of teaching!

Here we go…

10. Kids are kids. No matter where you are, where you teach, what you teach, the bottom line is kids are kids. All have some sort of “obstacle” (don’t we all?), all have something they need/want to learn (secretly, perhaps), all have something that makes them unique, individual learners.

I know this may sound stupid, but when I was going over my pro/con list of potential schools I was considering working at, I thought about where I would have the most “effect” on students and their lives. I wanted to be a “Mrs. Gruwell” type teacher…and before anyone jumps on me for my grandiose views of teaching, I would like to say I still want to be that type of teacher! I want to motivate, challenge, open-eyes, etc., and I think this is where my passion for teaching really comes from.

Anyway, after talking with my mentor, I realized that I can be that type of teacher anywhere. Kids are kids. Inner city vs. suburbia. Suburbia vs. rural. High socioeconomic status vs. low socioeconomic status. Public vs. private. KIDS ARE KIDS! It’s up to me to have the “effect” on students I want no matter where I’m teaching. (And, if I do say so myself , I’m making a difference. How do I know? Because my kids have told me which is the best feeling ever!)

9. Listening is one of the most powerful skills a teacher can have. Heck, a powerful skill that anyone can have. I’ve talked about it many times before, but I’ve realized you can learn so much from your students just by listening. When they realize you are hearing them, they realize you are committed to them and their learning. Asking their opinions, walking around the room, you all know what I’m talking about. Getting students to listen to each other whether it is through collaboration or various other learning environments that require listening. And with this in mind, I had a discussion one time talking about how we can “teach” listening? Do we teach respect and with respect listening comes? How can we improve our listening skills (and help our students improve theirs)?

8. Technology is important — rather how technology is used is important. I believe in technology integration in the classroom. You all know that I’m a huge advocate for using 21st century skills to promote the more “traditional” skills that have shaped the English classroom. And besides the fact I feel that technology adds an element in the classroom that hooks kids, I think technology in itself strengthens our problem solving and critical thinking skills. We no longer have a choice to use it, in my opinion. It’s our job to use it and teach our students how to use it effectively and safely.

7. Writing is my strength. I’ve known this. After all my professional writing/publication/rhetoric and composition background helped pave a pretty good foundation for me. I love to teach writing and help students see that they are great writers, too (which by the way is where this might come in the picture next semester). And though I’m a great writer, I know that I am also a great reader. (Love to read, need to make more time for it.) I can analyze and critically read a text with the best of them, ha! However, I find that I have a harder time teaching students reading strategies that work for them. In other words when it comes to writing, I can spout off ideas/strategies immediately that students may find helpful. With reading, it takes me a second to think about…it’s not an automatic for me. I know what works for me, but I know that my students aren’t me. Thus, developing an automatic  repertoire of reading strategies is one of my teaching goals.

6. Student creativity is amazing. I am always floored by some of the ideas my students come up with. I really try to incorporate every opportunity I can to bring their creativity out and thoroughly engage them. (I think this is where multiliteracies plays a huge part.) With this in mind, I need to do a better job of keeping my teaching ideas together (enter: yellow notebook, twitter, gmail task list) that I think would really help bring out my students’ creativity. I also want to work on helping my students see that they are capable of and have already created a lot of awesome things (be it their formal essays, glogs, podcasts, flip videos…the list continues). I want them to be as proud of their work as I am. (Again, where this ties in….and other publishing/contents/etc. that I can come up with for them.) I also need to start making copies of sample student work to reflect back on (any ideas/suggestions on how others are collecting student work?).

5. Keeping an open mind is essential to success today. One thing I really push in class is always keeping an open mind. Respect is key. We aren’t all going to get along; we aren’t all going to agree. But we can have an open mind while respecting our own beliefs, morals, values. (I need to expand this idea more…but it’s another blog post all by itself stemming around Paradise Lost.)

4. Personal Learning Networks! Yep, that’s right PLNs can be a teacher’s best friend(s). I feel very fortunate to have people I can turn to via blogs, twitter, ECN, email, text, phone, next door…you name it, and I have someone! Our classrooms are not an isolation room. And I think it’s important for teachers all over to embrace and welcome the thoughts/inputs/ideas of others…be it right down the hall or across the country!

3. It’s ok to not have all of the answers. I’m still learning. I love learning (a part of why I teach). And I think it is a great attribute of a teacher to always acknowledge that he/she is learning, too. I want my kids to be life long learners…I can’t think of a better way for me to show them what  life long learner is than to be one myself! And I know I’ve said it before, but I think that a classroom that encourages cooperative learning (with me as a “learner” as well) is one that will see a lot of success.

2. Reflection/”me” time is a necessity. Absolutely. An important balance between school and personal life is a necessity. And it’s something I’m working on. I don’t want to feel “blah.” I need to make time to do the things that have shaped me into the teacher I am today. And, as the saying goes, you have to take care of yourself first before you can attempt to take care of others.

And last but not least…if you couldn’t already tell….

1. I love teaching. It really is all about the little things. And I have made a difference even through the tiniest things I would’ve never thought to leave a “footprint” in my students’ minds/lives.

(I love teaching .)

by DAN CALLOWAY
Published 21 December 2009 @ 20:26 UCT

PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA – Privacy groups have asked regulators and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate their claims that recent changes in how Facebook treats customer data violates federal consumer protection laws.

The complaint, which was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) stipulates that recent changes in Facebook’s privacy settings significantly impact the users’ ability to control the privacy of their data by allowing information that was previously controlled by the user to be placed into the public forum without their consent.  If the user wishes to restrict who has access to this data, they must now reset their privacy settings.  User data that is available to the public by default includes the user’s profile picture, current city of residence, gender, and friends and fan pages.  Facebook made this dramatic change in user privacy settings in an apparent attempt to force users to share more customer data with all users on the Internet rather than restricting certain data to only friends and family members.  This is viewed by many as a means by Facebook to compete with other social networking sites, such as Twitter and MIXX.

The complaint is asking the FTC to determine to what extent these new privacy settings negatively impact the consumer’s privacy and safety, and is asking the FTC to require Facebook to return its privacy settings to previously agreed-upon conditions.

EPIC, in its complaint, has been joined by a coalition of privacy interest groups, including the Center for Digital Democracy, the American Library Association, and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

EPIC also alledges that the new privacy settings instituted by Facebook violates user expectations, diminishes user privacy, and contradicts the site’s own user agreements with Facebook.

I will continue to follow this story in the future and let you know whether the FTC files any official action against Facebook or if fines are imposed.  In the meantime, I strongly urge anyone who has a Facebook account to visit the Privacy Settings section on the site and reconfigure it to protect your data rather than relying on previous settings that you may have already enacted on the site.

So I havent updated in awhile. It seems like big changes come in waves when it comes to starting a business. You will get on a big hype and then things will slow down as far as seemingly “making progress”, when in all reality every day is a day closer.

I have realized now that just talking about the business helps. I have the fortune of having a partner with this but some I know are self starters. You must find a peer that just believes in you whole heartedly! There is a difference between having a mentor, which everyone starting a business should have, and a friend who believes in you.

A friend who believes in you will be that person you can go to whether you are feeling confident or low that day and they will tell you that you can do this. That the world is in your hands and what you do with it is up to you. They will let you jsut talk to them about your ideas because like I was saying, just talking about it helps!  But when starting off you cant go talking to everyone about it because you wouldnt want your idea getting scooped up by someone else.

A mentor is someone that you will go to on business decisions. Someone who has been through a business start up or is heavy involved in the business world that you are trying to get involved in.  This person will be willing to meet with you and encourage you as well. Give you constrictive criticism and push you in the right direction if they see you are getting off course. They themselves should have connections and willing to pass them along to you.

Both of these people are essential in the start up process. Someone to vent to…and someone to dream big to.

Tonight though is a very VERY key time in my business start up. We, my business partner Donny and I, have been invited to an event where a mojority of the hostel owners around and people in the Mercy Corp/travel industry will be present. It is a time to meet and greet some very influential people. Most importantly the owner of what we hope is our pilot hostel for the site. Im not exaclty sure how it will go. Whether we will need tos et up a meeting and have him look at a business plan OR if he will just say ok right there. When dealing with HOSTEL owners things are pretty much done by the heart. Haha. The man, Laus, that hooked us up with this said that if the owner, Jim, thought it was a good idea…he would probably jsut say yes right on the spot, no business plan at all. Haha…working in this industry I kind of expect that sort of reaction.

So we shall see. I am STILL waiting to hear back from Laus, he has been in China for a week and was supposed to get back today I think. I don’t want to go without him since we are technically HIS guests. Hmmm…I am sure though that if it doesn’t happen tonight Laus will for sure introduce us before he leaves for Africa.

I will let you know what happens!

-ag

One of the most difficult parts about social networking is how to communicate with the audience or patrons of the social networking technology.  Because of the lack of non-verbal cues and voice inflection and tone, it is very easy to be misinterpreted while communicating with only the written word, especially when the exchanges are very short and in the public realm.

The key to successfully communicating with patrons/customers/fans on social networking sites is to make sure that there is transparency with the communication.  This is not to say that every move that is being made by the company is explained to the customers, but that customer needs/complaints/compliments are addressed in a timely manner.  If an individual communicates publicly in a negative manner, do not react negatively to the individual.  Use good customer service and try and address the comments and fix the problem.  Just deleting the comment so that there is nothing negative on the page will just drive people away because other fans will have seen the negative comment and realized that nothing was being done about it.

Spam, inflammatory comments, and cursing are another story.  There may be good information within these posts, but they cannot remain because a level of professionalism must be maintained.  If these types of posts are made, they must be removed.  Do not just remove them, however, communicate with the poster why they were removed and try and communicate with him or her to help.  If the post is spam, send a warning about the spam, and if it happens again, report the individual.

The ideas contained in this post are not rules and regulations for how to have good customer service, they are just suggestions to help communicate more effectively.  These suggestions may not work for every situation all of the time, but hopefully they would allow for increased visibility and communication with customers/patrons/individuals.

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The Rachel Maddow Show Finds Old McCain C-SPAN Footage
[Via Crooks and Liars]

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Oh lookie here. Apparently Rachel Maddow loves the C-SPAN. As a part time C-SPAN junkie and fellow geek myself I can relate. Apparently after her show contacted them about the missing footage of John McCain cutting off Sen. Mark Dayton and objecting to him having another thirty seconds to debate the Iraq war, they went back to their original analog tapes and reposted the footage on their web site.

Maddow: Either Sen. McCain cannot remember that he objected to a Senator getting an extra thirty seconds to finish his remarks during the Iraq war debate or Sen. McCain knows perfectly well that this stuff happens in the Senate. It happens. And he just said it was unprecedented out of sheer hackitude.

Good for Rachel and her staff for following up on this. John McCain, thy name is hypocrite. Hackitude indeed. Hackitude and anger management problems. My apologies again for thinking Tweety had this and Rachel missed it.

[More]

So, when McCain accused Franken of destroying the comity of the Senate, he was purposefully forgetting that he had done the same thing, that this sort of thing happens. To paraphrase ‘I’ve never seen this before, except I did the same thing 7 years ago.’ Wow! Fake outrage, thy name is McCain.

What is so cool about this story is the way the facts came out. Maddow had found the transcript of the 2002 exchange but the video available ended, just ended, before that happened. She mentioned it on one show and the guys at C-SPAN heard that, went to their old analog tapes and found the missing footage.

For those who care, the internet can fact-check your ass. At least they know that previous records are producible to demonstrate when a politician is lying or not.

And for a bipartisan example of that, look how the left wing sites are demonstrating that Obama did include the public option in his campaign, although he now denies that. While we know that politicians lie all the time, it is so much easier to catch them at it now. It makes life much more fun for those of us living in the reality-based world.

Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0.

The concept of “Web 2.0″ began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O’Reilly VP, noted that far from having “crashed”, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as “Web 2.0″ might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born.

In the year and a half since, the term “Web 2.0″ has clearly taken hold, with more than 9.5 million citations in Google. But there’s still a huge amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people decrying it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom.

In a recent post (Enterprise 2.0 Qua Vadis?) Dennis Howlett stresses that a successful Enterprise 2.0 Initiative can only work “where there is a clearly observed need to do things differently”. This thinking seems to be quite common (Dion Hinchcliffe: Pragmatic Enterprise 2.0 Overview, Niall Cook: Enterprise 2.0: How social software will change the future of work, McAfee, …).  Every Author I know of emphasizes that for effectively introducing Web 2.0 technologies in organizations there has to be an issue that can be solved by social software.

Howlett mentions the case of the CIA-Intellipedia which McAfee uses a s example for an organization with strictest hierarchical structures where an Enterprise 2.0 effort was fruitful. There was the distinct need to shift from an organization with information and knowledge silos (which might have prevented the intelligence agencies to predict 9/11) to an organization where information can flow more freely.

In McAfee book also the concept of “Strength of Weak Ties” (Granovetter 1983) is used to illustrate the benefits of social computing.  I can not imagine an organization where there is no need to improve on communication between those weak linked ties.  Even companies already using E 2.0 can improve their internal communications.

Is it that easy? Find a business problem, align the Enterprise 2.0 effort with it, add a little community management and have a social computing policy in place?

I don´t think so.

Most authors also name culture as one of the crucial factors in deploying social computing.  But there they stop agreeing. There are the ones who say that it needs a certain culture to begin with, and there are the ones who say that you can change culture with these tools.

I´d rather believe that in addition to business needs E2.0 adaptions should also be aligned to the culture of one organization. Either E2.0 supports an already existing open culture of trust and flat hierarchies or governance and policies help with adopting web 2.0 principles in organizations.

The objective behind this presentation (created and presented as part of my final project for Digital Communications) is to give insight on how brand communication and awareness must be done in the social web where people have a voice and seek a dialogue with brands.  Included also is a clear strategy as well as defined actions on how Iberia can reach and engage their customers.  I will let the presentation speak for itself, enjoy!

According to the WorldCat Blog, the information stored in WorldCat will no longer be restricted to paying subscribers – the new WorldCat API (application programming interface) will allow web developers to retrieve information about books, videos, etc. in RSS or Atom format.

This is an exciting development for libraries and other educational institutions, who will now be able to create rich Web 2.0 applications integrating the information found in WorldCat!

One company the Washingtonian techies and VCs should thank to is TECH cocktail DC. They have been around since May of 2006. The company is a community building startup founded by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson that offers events and community-powered projects open to bloggers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs & professionals interested in technology in under served technology communities.

Their mission is to amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it which is right along our mission in Awesome DC for the entire DC and not just our technology sector.

Referring to my recent coverage comparing our Potomac River with California Silicon Valley, not every city has a sense of community seen in technology rich areas like Silicon Valley. TECH cocktail DC hopes to remedy the situation by creating a place for bloggers, technologists, entrepreneurs and other business professionals to meet, share ideas and have some fun. TECH cocktail is not exclusive to Chicago, and is open to the public in hopes people from around the globe will be able to participate. In the past TECH cocktail has also hosted events in Chicago, Boulder and Boston.

As for the two dudes behind the company, ERIC OLSON is a Massachusetts native and Bentley College alumnus who now resides in Chicago. Eric is currently working on TransFS.com – a comparison shopping website for credit card processing (with more financial services to come). Eric is also an MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior to TransFS.com Eric worked as an Associate at DFJ Portage Venture Partners where he worked on evaluating and investing in the top technology startups in the Midwest. Prior to DFJ Portage Eric was in Partner Development at Google and in Business Development for Chicago-based startup FeedBurner, which was acquired by Google in June 2007.

The other co-founder is FRANK GRUBER is a product strategist and evangelist for AOL in the social networking & platforms group. Frank has lead the AIM team to create the AIM Lifestream and was also responsible for the myAOL suite. Frank’s expert analysis on Web 2.0, social media and emerging technologies have been featured in TechCrunch, Read Write Web, iMediaConnection and on SOMEWHAT FRANK. Frank also produces a video podcast called SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. Growing up in the Chicagoland area, Mr. Gruber received his Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Northwestern University, and his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Purdue University. Frank is also the co-founder of Shiny Heart Ventures. Frank was named of the 100 DC Tech Titans by Washingtonian Magazine in May 2009.

Tech cocktail events are open to everyone, You can be blogged or podcast. I have been attending most of their events and they are packed and awesome. They gave away a HP Envy laptop last time I attended their event.

Here is their interview during one of their events. Good luck hearing them.

A little foodie, a little social media, and all Portland.

Just tried my first Korean Burrito from the Koi Fusion food cart in Portland. I’m an unfortunate connoisseur of the quick burrito scarffed down behind the wheel. I know it’s a bad habit, but sometimes when I’m racing between meetings in my car, a Baja Fresh burrito while I’m driving is the only way to get dinner, and I have become a pro at keeping the drippings off of my clothes, particularly at the end of the wrap.

Koi Fusion is a Portland food cart that melds Korean BBQ within the traditional taco delivery mechanism. It’s like the most distinct ethnic meat flavoring choice (Korean)crossed with the most cliche food cart theme imaginable (the taco truck).

They have also successfully leveraged the social media angle, particularly Twitter, to bring in customers. How do you find where the Koi Fusion truck is parked? Your best bet is to follow them on Twitter (where you find them at http://www.twitter.com/koifusionpdx). They will tweet the day’s location, which also serves as a good reminder to visit them.

The burrito itself:

• The meat is the star – short rib meat marinated in spices, cooked in the bol go gi style and finely chopped.
• Other flavors and textures come to the party with onion, cucumber and a bit of cilantro.
• Rice and the surrounding soft tortilla are the only other nods to traditional Mexican cooking.

In other words, a major step up from a Baja Chicken Burrito. Unfortunately they are usually in downtown Portland, which makes it hard for me to nip by for a bite. (They have started a second cart occasionally at Reser’s on the west side, but that’s still a drive from my work home at Intel.)

Back then one of the biggest names around in US TV advertising production was Robert Abel. His company Robert Abel and Associates, best remembered for the Sexy Robert TVC, pioneered a number of significant computer generated visual effects techniques in the early 1980’s. Sadly Robert has since passed away but his ground breaking work is still remembered by aficionados in  Star Trek The Motion Picture and TRON. 

The other legend of special effects from that era is of course George Lucas and his company Industrial Light and Magic. George is of course best known for his original Star Wars Trilogy that dates from the same era. 

Both George and Robert inspired a generation of young filmmakers, including James Cameron, to imagine films as living, breathing comic books. 

When I look back and see just how far special effects and film making have evolved in past 30 years I look back in astonishment and wonder at all what all that energy, enthusiasm, innovation and intelligence has brought to the silver screen. The first Star Wars movie utilised computer controlled camera and model spaceships 15 years later and computers were allowing us to ”Walk with Dinosaurs” in Jurassic Park 

When I look back at the past 15 years of the world wide web and I’m left wondering why has all this energy, enthusiasm, innovation and intelligence delivered so little? 

After all in 1995 we had social networks, search engines, maps, blogs, instant messaging, eCommerce, games, ad servers, browsers, portals, email, SaaS, Killer Mobile Apps (SMS)… the list seems endless. Today we have (yes you guessed it) social networks, search engines, maps, blogs, instant messaging, eCommerce, games, ad servers, browsers, portals, email, SaaS, Killer Mobile Apps (SMS)… 

1995 was the bench mark year for the deskweb. Will 2010 be the benchmark year for the mobile web?

All of which leads me to the iPhone and Michael Arrington’s post last weekend that Avatar is like the iPhone of Movies. 

So is the iPhone really the Avatar of mobile phones? Actually no I don’t think its the Avatar of mobile phones. I think it is more likely the equivalent of Robert Abel’s Sexy Robert TVC. The break through moment when everybody became very, very excited about the unlimited potential of the medium and began dreaming of the future unencumbered by motion controlled cameras, matte lines and model spaceships. 

I think in 15 years time we may well see the Avatar of mobile phones. Certainly we’ll probably be looking back thinking the iPhone was the catalyst for an enormous amount of innovation and investment in the MobCon. For now let’s just be excited about what new wonders this mobile technology may bring us.

Twitter lists were launched in October as a new feature that allows users to organize the people they follow. This prevents important tweets from being lost in the shuffle. It may seem like a tedious task, but it does bring true value to your experience.

Click here to check out our exclusive list of tips and suggestions for making the most of your Twitter feed.

Don’t forget to stay up to date with CPX Interactive by following us on Twitter.

Nun bin ich also auch soweit. Das Web 2.0 hat mich ja schon länger gefressen und ich bin mittendrin.

Ein Blog fehlte bisher komplett in meiner Kommunikationsstruktur und daher hab ich mich nun mal dazu durchgerungen, auch sowas anzufangen.Ich bin noch nicht sicher, worüber ich alles bloggen werde. Es wir vermutlich viel mit FLOSS und Technik zu tun haben und vermutlich kommt die Politik auch zu ihrer verdienten Erwähnung.

Meine Microbloggingaccounts führe ich derzeit so gut wie nur auf Englisch, was die ganze Chose ein wenig kompliziert macht: Englische Subscriber (Follower) können nix mit deutscher Politik anfangen und reagieren bei mehreren deutschen Dents (Tweets) manchmal genervt. Und viele Deutsche haben genauso keine Lust auf Englisches. Irgendwie schade alles. Manchmal würd ich gerne auf Deutsch mit separaten Accounts denten (twittern) aber das ist auch wieder Mehraufwand.

Bei diesem Blog steht diese Entscheidung der Sprache auch noch bevor. Hier wäre der Weg mit 2 Blogs auch denkbar wobei die ja nicht unbedingt redundant sein müssen. Das werd ich alles noch durchdenken. Aber zunächst weiß ich ja noch nichtmal ob sich dieses Blog wirklich mit Inhalt füllen wird bei dem Mangel an Zeit den ich habe

Soweit so gut, alles weitere wird die Zeit bringen.

A self professed twitterati called for an impromptu tweetup, but decided to meet himself instead, as no one turned up.

“This is the power of web 2.0″, he said, talking to KBNN reporter. “Each and every one of us is a virtual celebrity, with a virtual fan club”

How was the experience?

“Fantastic. Web 2.0 is really about you. Err. Me, actually. But you know what I mean? You are the most important person in your web 2.0 experience, and you should meet yourself every now and then, just to be in touch with yourself”, he added. “In the online world, it’s so much more difficult to meet yourself. All this while I’ve been following unknown people, or unknown people have been following me, but have I met myself? So this tweetup was an excellent idea for such impromptu meeting with myself”

But did he really think he was a twitter elite?

“You, from the old media school, will never understand it, will you?” he retorted. “Everyone is a celebrity here. Everyone is an elite”

But wouldn’t the follower count matter?

“Not in the real virtual world, although some poseurs seem to harp on it. In virtual world you can’t tell a difference between a bot and a human, so, naturally, all such metrics are by definition invalid there”

But surely, if no one turns up to meet you, you have no real or virtual fans …

“That’s a gross non-sequitur. All it proves is that I’m my biggest fan. And that’s quintessentially web 2.0″