A short video tour of our team’s booth at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona. Yours truly shows up to add some witty commentary at the :54 mark.
Filed under: Uncategorized , video mwc2010 aludev
February 17, 2010 • 9:29 am 0
Lights! Camera! Action!
February 3, 2010 • 12:08 pm 1
A Personalized Google TV Station
A status update that included a link to a clip of the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” by my friend and Phi Tau fraternity brother, Sam Ceresi, sparked an idea this morning: create a television channel that does a 24×7 loop of the following movies:
Maybe a play for Netflix or Comcast or DirecTV? I don’t know the technical limitations, but it seems to me they already have quite an inventory of spectacularly useless channels already in their lineup. What’s one or a couple million more? Would it be possible to give everyone their own personal channel — like Google does with email. Hmmm, doesn’t Google already own YouTube? If they could figure out a way to compensate the studios — and either create their own or buy their way into an existing network — this could be an interesting play for them.
Think it would could fly? Would there be enough demand? What would you pay? And, most important, what five movies would you loop on your personal Google TV channel?
Filed under: Technology , Comcast, DirecTV, Google, Netflix, Smokey and the Bandit, Television
January 28, 2010 • 4:30 pm 7
Career Update: When Passion and Profession Collide
It’s interesting what you can see when you look back on what as been close to a 20-year career in public relations. I recently took that trip down memory lane. Here’s some of what I learned:
- I’ve worked for some very cool, very prestigious companies and clients.
- I’ve learned from and worked alongside some of the best pros in this business.
- While I’ve done creative, impactful work on everything from Remington razors to underground storage tank removal, my passion and some of my absolute best work can be found in technology; I like to translate tough, geeky, change-the-world science into language and stories normal people can understand and relate to.
- I’m a startup guy in a corporate suit.
Which is why about a month ago I accepted the executive role of Director, Influencer Management at Alcatel-Lucent. It’s an exciting, challenging and wide-ranging role that combines a number of my favorite experiences of the past two decades:
- A love of emerging technology. At IBM, I led the global communications strategy for Big Blue’s pervasive computing and wireless initiative. We’re talking sensors and chips in everything from toasters to cars. During my six years at IBM, I also handled PR for one of the smartest technologists I’ve ever had the honor to know, John Patrick. Working closely with John and his Next Generation Internet team, I promoted IBM’s efforts around Internet2 and its early entry into Linux. While on the PR agency side of the business, I lived every computer geek’s dream: working with some really smart guys out of AT&T’s Bell Labs to launch an embedded operating system called Plan 9 (you may remember the team behind this as the same team behind Unix).
- A disturbing fascination with infrastructure. Go figure. I’m passionate about the gear that makes all of the really cool things work. I had a blast learning about and promoting AT&T’s IP backbone before the entire world ran on Internet protocols. I geeked out to things like Metropolitan Area Networks leading the PSINet account in the days when 28.8 kbps was a huge pipe. I’ve been deep in the bowels of PAIX.
- A need to push beyond the possible. I’ve worked alongside fiery startup CEOs/founders. I helped launch a startup inside one of the world’s largest and most respected technology companies. Both demanded a constant, damn-the-rules, make-it-happen culture.
- A desire to work with great leaders who inspire great work. I’ve seen my share of good, terrible and great leaders in the years I’ve been in this industry. The great ones are few and far between…leaders like IBM’s VP of media relations, Ed Barbini, and MindTouch’s founder/CEO, Aaron Fulkerson — people you would walk through fire for.
My new role at Alcatel-Lucent is a mix of each of these and more. I am working with emerging technologies and business models that change how we communicate. I’m working with a clear leader driving the infrastructure that makes communication happen. The work we are doing is being done at the speed and with the style of a startup, yet with the backing and resources of a large, global corporation. We are helping to change a corporate mindset. Lastly, and most importantly, I’m part of a small, tight team being led by someone I’ve not only worked with in the past, but respect immensely.
I’m excited about the challenges and opportunities ahead…for me, for our team and for the industry we impact.
Filed under: career , Alcatel-Lucent, API, AT&T, Bell Labs, career, IBM
January 27, 2010 • 6:24 pm 0
The Mighty Have (Sadly) Fallen
Years ago, my friends and I would hike the trail to the Lunch Rocks at the foot of the bowl of Mount Washington. One year, my friend Andrew and I strapped our skis to our packs and, after spending the night in a makeshift ski pole-and-tarp tent, skied some of the mountain’s best lines. It was a rite of passage on the home of the world’s highest recorded wind gust and worst weather.
No more. Well, no more is Mount Washington home to the world’s highest recorded wind gust:
First the Old Man, now the Big Wind. New Hampshire’s Mount Washington has lost its distinction as the site of the fastest wind gust ever recorded on Earth, officials at the Mount Washington Observatory said Tuesday.
Here are a few pics from past trips to Mount Washington:
Filed under: Ski
December 12, 2009 • 12:56 pm 1
NSF: Interactive Journalism + Computer Science
I posted earlier about an innovative interactive journalism program called IJIMS. Here’s an update from Kim Pearson:
Here’s a full-blown article from NSF about our Interactive Journalism Institute for Middle Schoolers, for which I’m co-Principal Investigator. Lots of FB folks to shout out -PI Ursula Wolz, co-PI Monisha Pulimood. Amy Gahran and Mitchel Resnick supported our proposal; Shavar Ross, Tony Robinson and Mike Maney helped too. Peter Daou’s continued interest is also much appreciated!
Filed under: Uncategorized , College of New Jersey, computer science, interactive journalism, National Science Foundation, nsf, trenton state
• 4:42 am 1
What’s Old is New Again (Or is It?)
I just read a great post by Ustrategy’s Ravit Lichtenberg on ReadWriteWeb highlighting the 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010. It’s a great read and worthy of being carried under the ReadWriteWeb banner (I have no shame in being an unabashed fanboy of good tech reporting).
However (isn’t there always a “however”?), here’s where I disagree with Ravit. He posits that “Many ‘Old’ Skills Will Be Needed Again.”
An economic downturn coupled with the surge of social media eliminated many traditional marketing and PR roles. But this year, we’ll see the return of professionals to the field. Enterprises will turn back to marketers who specialize in understanding customer psychology and who are experienced in addressing these both offline and online. Research and development divisions will turn to customer experience professionals to draw on user needs and ideation as part of their product improvement and innovation process, and sales and support will continue to deliver services online. Expect to see job postings for social media managers, social media psychologists and social media executive administrators to help manage the infinite tasks involved with communities and social media campaigns.”
The reality is that the good shops, the smart companies, never lost sight of the core functions; they didn’t get blinded by the bright shiny lights. No, they saw the lights and worked them into larger, less tactical strategies.
As marketers, the new tools we have at our disposal couldn’t be greater. But they mean nothing/nada/zip/zero if they aren’t tied into a larger/boring/old school/smart/proven strategy.
Filed under: PR, Public Relations, marketing, strategy
December 11, 2009 • 8:23 pm 1
Futuregeek
This is what the lid of a beat up, old ThinkPad x570 should look like. It’s like the mullet of laptops: business on the lid, Webkinz on the inside
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Filed under: Uncategorized , Technology, family, defrag, MindTouch, thinkpad, mashery, gluecon
November 24, 2009 • 3:52 pm 0
High honors for a PR pro
Know what’s cool? Scrolling through your Twitter feed and seeing a post like this from a reporter you have an amazing amount of respect for:
Know what’s also cool? Seeing your first accepted submission on Slashdot for a great client (if you are a geek, you’ll understand how unbelievably cool this is):
Filed under: Marshall Kirkpatrick, PR, career , career, Marshall Kirkpatrick, MindTouch, PR, Public Relations, ReadWriteWeb, slashdot
November 21, 2009 • 12:25 pm 0
Developers, APIs and Landslide Victories
It’s getting to be that time of year when pundits start making predictions about the hot technologies on tap for 2010. My favorite so far is less a prediction and more a reality that is happening right now. Mashable’s Peter Cashmore points out that Foursquare is the next Twitter-like social technology to break out, however I think his definition of the application programming interface (API) and its role in Twitter’s (and, eventually, Foursquare’s) meteoric success is even more insightful:
“This week Foursquare debuted the singular piece that launched Twitter into the stratosphere: an API. This application programming interface allows third-party developers to build anything they desire on top of Foursquare’s location-based social network.
It’s been shown time and again that once these ecosystems gain momentum, potential competitors face an arduous task. From Flickr to Google Maps to Twitter and beyond, it’s clear that early critical mass — having enough users and applications to make a service invaluable — sets the stage for a landslide victory.”
Filed under: Technology , API, application programming interface, cashmore, mashable, foursquare, developer
November 11, 2009 • 6:36 am 0
Defrag 2009: Day .5
It was arrival day for one of the tech industry’s most brain-straining conferences, Defrag 2009, in Denver. Lots of catching up with old friends like Graeme Thickins and meeting new ones like PostRank CTO/founder Ilya Grigorik. Here’s a quick shot from our table at the John Minnihan/Freepository-sponsored pre-conference dinner hanging with Infectious Greed’s Paul Kedrosky, Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, and the man himself, Robert Scoble.
Filed under: Business, PR, Public Relations, Technology , defragcon, defrag, defrag2009, tech conference, denver, kedrosky, feld, scoble, scobleizer
