Niv Calderon Connected

I am so utterly excited about the upcoming release of Star Trek 11 in May 2009, with a new and young Kirk, a young Spock and a young crew… of actors and of writers with J.J Abrahms at the helm.

I have been a Star Trek fan even before I was a Star Trek Fan… I became a fan when I was 14.
At 16 realized i would love it forever, at 21 I opened a Hebrew website (kinda like a blog) and wrote there about Star Trek Enterprise' s weekly episodes for 4 years, at 25 I led the Israeli campaign to Save Enterprise as a part of the international campaign. Yes, I'm a Trekkie, I'm proud of it.

As you all know, Enterprise never made it after season 4. The TV ratings were low, but the episode downloads were very high. Like many other TV shows, there are more viewers online than there are viewers on TV. you know what I mean, right?

It's almost 2009 now and Trekkie stays a Trekkie, but I'm also into social media and the affect it has on people is astonishing.

Now I wonder, its the social media era, we're all into buzz, socializing and avanglizing the stuff we love, and Star Trek 11-  this one has to succeed this time because if it fails, the suits at Viacom will never give another chance to trek through the stars again and we have to make it work (I hope a successful movie will create a new series, or another movie, or a mini series, or something), and it can work, if we all work together on this, link to the movie site (it's great by the way), link to each other, buzz it, push it higher, beam it up to where no movie has gone before, it's in our hands. Make it so.

Here are some screen shots from the new Star Trek trailer, have fun.

ps- if you're a Trekkie too leave me a msg, its been a while since i've met new Trekkie friends

Yesterday was Wordcamp Israel 2008 and I was asked to be the photographer for this event, so i was, gladly. Many others already wrote about this event, plus, my original post was lost somehow, so this is actually my second post I write about WordpressIsrael2008, the tag for this event in search engines.

So, because so many people already wrote about this, I just wanna share with you that I uploaded 144 photos to my Facebook Albums and that they are available to the public even though my profile is limited to friends only. I have also uploaded something like 30 somthing photos to Flickr.

The fun part in Facebook is that people tag other people, and even people who are not my friends can view and tag photos. It was so much fun getting more than 60 notifications from facebook about tagging, comments, friend requests, wall posts, all that… It made me feel like Facebook is a bit more open, but honestly, it isn't, yet. But in time… you'll see, they'll change.

Wordcamp and my choice to put the photos deliberately in Facebook (and only later on Flickr) thought me another lesson in the power of social networks in the world, not only that, I think every business today, every business, should think how to elevete itself using social networks and establishing a full time social presence on the web. More about that in the future, or you can contact me directly.

links about Wordcamp:
Gili Taguri- Happy Birthday (Hebrew)
Ira Abramov- live blogging from Wordcamp 2008 (Hebrew)
Oren Todoros aka SEOVice with a cool video from Wordcamp and some use of my photos (English)
Raanan Bar-Cohen- with his presentation about Wordpress (English)
Wordpress Garage- about the Wordpress Camp (English)
Compucall- a presentation about SEO in Wordpress (English)
Ring of Blogs- about the Gravatar enabled badges (passport photos in the nametags)

Please visit my photos on Facebook: all Wordcamp photos are licensed creative commons
http://tinyurl.com/6hhb7h
http://tinyurl.com/65qcqx
http://tinyurl.com/5rvvgt

Haven't seen The Muppet Show in years I think, and just when I was looking to write about how social media can change the way we are in school, the way we study, the way we communicate with our fellow students and teachers (it can be in grade school, it can be in university), I found these 3 amazing short videos, each not more than 20 seconds, that made me lough out loud and think of the brilliancy the writers poses and how connected they are to what's happening today in this field. their brilliancy in taking a social phenomenon like YouTube and how people are using it, and drill down on it all the way, all the way to the point where the two characters stick their heads to the webcam. It's hilariously like that. I've never thought of the Muppets as a satire show, but than again, maybe I was too young. This is a satire to how we are when online. It's a replica of us.

The book of what is social media, is not written yet. How to best use it, how can organizations benefit from it and how traditional advertisers can take advantage of it, these are all very big and very good questions and we still don’t have all the answers to. In the mean time, we’re reading blog posts about all of this, watching video clips and participating in social media and networking events. This post is about networking and how to succeed in making it a good one for yourselves and for all the participant.

Jeff Pulver is one of the pioneers in this industry and among other subjects, he is known for his love for networking events. A few months ago, after I've participated in three events in a row I wrote a post about how to create a successful networking event and it was after being in one of Jeff's morning networking events he calls "Breakfasts", for the time they happen (9a.m) and for the informal atmosphere they are created in. Those events are just great, and in Tel Aviv, where i'm from, each breakfast groups more and more people each time. After a few times hosting these morning meetups he recorded a video and took many social media characteristic, specifically from facebook, and brought them down to earth, for people in the process of networking.

This video is better than words

More about social media
Social Media and Marketing: Chris Brogan
Garage Geeks Rock Band Party

The book of what is social media, how to best use it, how can organizations benefit from it and how traditional advertisers can work with it, those are all very big and very good questions and we still don't have all the answers to it (but we're getting there). The book of how to use social media is not written yet, and people, even experts in this field can't say everything about how things become viral.

In the mean time, we're reading blog posts about this, watching video clips and participating in social media and networking events. This post is all about this, but instead of sending you out of here to read, I want to invite you to see a very special video.

I don't know if you know Chris Brogan or not, but in my opinion, he is one of the geniuses of our time (and one of the few people who really understands this phenomenon that is called Social Media). His title is Social Media Strategist, and in this video, if you choose to see it, you will see and hear him talking about how to use social media for advertising (just be first!). The interesting part in this video for me is that this video is probably the sum of his blog posts from the last year or so, so it's a very good video if you don't want to read his entire blog, but, he writes a post a day so there's a lot to learn from him.

Advice for People Attending Conferences