How to Organize Networking Events
In the months that past since July of 2007 I have participated in many networking events in Israel. Some as a blogger, some as a photographer, some to look for a job, some as someone who works in the Internet industry and the rest as someone who knows many of the people already.
Some were effective, some were poor, some were brilliant.
Apart from conventions and cocktail parties which are a natural place for networking (hey, a supermarket line is a natural place for networking for all I'm concerned) I participated in three other unique ways of network events, all happened just recently in Tel Aviv.
2 Breakfasts
One, breakfast with Jeff Pulver. He planned it all to the resolution of pens and stickers. What’s so brilliant about the way it worked was that the stickers emulated the Facebook experience which was proven as working, i.e sticker and stick notes were distributed among the participants and were used as ice breakers, as conversation topics and as creative catalysts (pokes, walls, you name it). On the latter I can say that when people are busy in creative thinking they are not busy with the way they look and it enables them to be free around the other men and women participating.
Second was a VC Cafe breakfast, with Eze Vidra from ask.com at the helm. We sat down after connecting 8-10 round tables together (Eze called it "a round table" meetup) and started telling some things about ourselves, what we do and what we are looking for. We had no name tags but the main thing for me was to know what everyone else are doing at present and what they are looking for. Other than that, there was no agenda.
So, to sum those two breakfasts- Jeff’s was good because stickys were used as tag clouds "on-body" and as conversation catalysts. Vidra’s breakfast was good because you knew from the beginning who interests you and how you can connect one person to the other really fast and without "touring" all the crowd.
1 Meetup
I just came back from a panel meetup called: "Startups and Brand…" which is a monthly meetup organized by Or-Tal Kiriati. This meet up gets experts on different fields and today it was about marketing. The event is not about networking, but it starts later than scheduled, and ends a lot after the panel has said its' last word, so networking gets a big part of the schedule even though it’s a "come listen to experts and ask your questions" kind of event.
The Best of Both worlds
business networking events should be planned for networking experience maximization:
1- Name tags for everyone, guests, participants and organizers
2- If its a round table make everyone speak
3- Make Internet available
4- Noisy places not good, control the volume of the environment, cafes don't always work
5- Tell people to bring cameras. photos make the event last even after it’s over
6- Create a tag or a page where people can post their data (videos, photos, posts), it’s a good way to index and save those events for future reference.
7-Think about what your audience will want to have. Think about the experience you're delivering. If you make it your business to network people on events have an agenda and make it easier for people to network.
VC CAFE, THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL UTILITIES, USER MANAGEMENT and FAKEBOOKING
VC CAFE BREAKFAST
I came from a VCCAFE breakfast* that was held in the port of Tel Aviv where some VC’s, entrepreneurs, and Hi Tech people met in order to meet and share ideas. This good idea was of Eze Vidra of VC cafe.
why am I telling you this, because I had 2 or 3 conversations there I wanted to share with you.
One was about the future of social networks ( I like calling them "social utilities" or "social nets"), the other was about "user management" and "fakebooking" which you'll probably hear more about when security companies or private experts will realize there is a new fraud industry they can "explore".
THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL UTILITIES
In my opinion the future of social utilities like Facebook lies not in making money from ads but from businesses getting into them, once realized the value they can get of it. In my conversation I gave the example of studios opening profiles and other pages and groups to the movies they produce and the stars they promote. They are not there yet because they haven't yet concluded processing the last revolution they had to "undergo" with the P2P inter-connectivity between people. So for them, it may take some more time.The money will come when businesses will join the party.
USER MANAGEMENT
We're headed towards User management systems. Open ID is the first fruit of the garden in what cannot be other than open orchards of open gardens of decentralized ID’s running wild. I don't think it’s going to be a mess, I think it’s going to be a celebration of democracy.
FAKEBOOKING
Fakebooking is opening new usernames on social utilities and creating fake social networks of people which know each other around a persona who does not exist. My opinion about it is that I don't let any fake ID get near me and I report it to whatever address is needed. Fakebookings will open ID’s in networks in order to write blog posts, in order to comment, in order to do guerilla marketing and I think it’s polluting the net in general and social networks specifically.
*The word Breakfast was first used by Jeff Pulver to name his social media face to face gathering for business networking purposes.
Read about the future of blogging
Read about the power of blogging
Read about the evolution of the user, in Hebrew
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The Future of Blogging
As you might understand from the title, the future of blogging itself is the subject of this post, and as I usually do, I’ll start with something personal.
I use Flickr since 2006. I use blog systems since 2003. I had my share in dating websites from 2002 to 2003 when I realized using them made me feel unwanted and looking at girls like in a way I didnt like. I hated that and left the moment I realized it.
One thing they did right. They had a kind of a poking mechanism. Other than that they were oh so boring.
Where are blogs today?
Whether you’re an independent blogger using Wordpress or any other independent system, or whether you’re using one of the big blogospheres, blogs are limited. Blogs give you the ability to write and maybe have some fun with statistics.
What happened to me?
So I’m a blogger. I see some of the people who read my blogs cause I use the Mybloglog thingy and I can see who trackback me. I also comment the comments. Flickr is the same but even more limited. You see photos by others, you see their avatars and the most you can do is to follow your comments and see your friends’ new photos. Ow joy.
The future of blogging
In many fields in the academy, a researcher has to declare the context of where he’s coming from and what are his purposes. This is for making the research as clean and as transparent as possible.
Me, I’m using Facebook for many hours every day, and even when I’m not with my laptop, and I think that the power of Facebook is that it’s an environment, and that the environment creates the community, and that environment creates integration, of people and of the different kinds of communications: posts, photos, videos, audios and status lines. Yes, status lines. Status lines are the ultimate mass messaging system.
It’s almost too weird right now that blogs wouldn’t have a status line system attached to it. Once we thought blogs would be the new newspapers- some of them are. But blogs as a way of communication, although not at war with other social utilities, lost the war with social utilities like Facebook and other social nets cause they give so much more, environmentally. Of course, it’s not a surprise, a net of connections will always be stronger than a one pointer hovering in space. If you don’t know what I mean look at the crowd coming to football matches and you’ll understand.
Conclusion
Although there are blogs that are very successful, none of them have the power a social utility has to create traffic over and over again, and Facebook is now the standard of this. So although I am totally for personal blogs with personal domains, hovering in the vast space of the net, they are just not enough anymore to satisfy the hunger people have for immediate social connections, and this, in my opinion is where the future of blogging is.
האובולוציה של היוזר; יוזר 2.0 הופך ליוזר 3.0
User 0.1
בראשית היתה אנונימיות. ובדממה התהלכו להם יוזרים חסויים בשם בדוי. הימים היו ימי האמצע השני של שנות התשעים, כשהדבר הכי מגניב זה אימייל של הוטמייל, תכנת יודורה והמעבר של כולנו מחלונות 3.11 שהיו החלונות הכי טובים מאז ועד היום.
באותה תקופה היה חשוב לשמור על שם בדוי, ולהמציא שם מגניב ליוזר של האימייל היה משהו שעוד התגאית בו. זו היתה תקופה אחרת; נטסקייפ עוד שלטה בדפדפן עם ההגה של האנייה וגיקים התחילו לצאת מהארון. היה מגניב.
User 1.0
ואז נגמרו שנות התשעים, האינטרנט הולך לעמוד בפני המבול שלו, או אם תרצו, נפילת המניות שלו בבועה. בד בבד, מתחילים להתפתח בקצב מהיר מנגנוני הגנה חדשים; חברה ישראלית ממציאה את חומת האש ומכיוון הים ממציאים את האנטיוירוס ההמוני הראשון: דר‘ נורטון ימציא את סימנטק. זו תקופה של התפתחות התכנים, יותר פורטלים, יותר שירותים, יותר אקשן. ההבנה היא שהתוכן הוא מה שישלוט באינטרנט. עוד מפחדים לדבר על מסחר. לתת את האשראי באינטרנט נראה קצת הזוי, שלא לומר ”מפחיד“ ועוד את השם האמיתי והכתובת. למה מי מת?
נולדים שיתופי הקבצים.
User 1.5
האינטרנט כבר קלט את הכיוון שלו. אנשים מפתחים תכנים ומשתפים אותם. המסחר האלקטרוני מתחיל (רק מתחיל) לתפוס את מקומו בכלכלה העולמית. בדיוק כאן, באבולוציה של היוזר, מתחיל המשתמש להבין שמשהו קצת אינפנטילי בהתנהגות שלו… השם הבדוי שלו. הוא כבר כותב את החיים שלו בבלוג. כבר לפחות שנתיים יש לו אלבום תמונות אינטרנטי שהוא מראה לחברים שלו, הוא כבר קנה פעם אחת באיביי ועוד פעמיים באמאזון, ותכלס… למי לעזאזל כבר איכפת, האינטרנט הוא כבר מזמן שדה חברתי לגיטימי להכיר בו את הדייט הבא שלך, נמאס להעמיד פנים שאתה מישהו אחר.
אתה שם את עצמך מאחורי חומת אש ואנטי וירוס, אתה מוציא את החיידקים מהמחשב פעם ביומיים עם כמה תוכנות שהומלצו לך, אתה קולט שאתה תצטרך לעשות את זה שוב פעם ושוב פעם ושוב פעם ואתה מתחיל לשאול את עצמך למה לעזאזל אתה טורח, גם ככה אתה מחופר עמוק, למה אתה צריך גם להתחבא?
User 2.0
כולך שבע כבר מזה שהאקספולרר הוא הדבר הכי רע שקרה לרשת מעולם. עדכונים באתרים הגדולים מודיעים לך על עוד פירצה. הגירסה כבר בת חמש עוד מעט ועדיין מוצאים בה פרצות, כאילו אין עוד דברים לעשות בעולם חוץ מלחורר את הממוטה הזאת. הדפדפן הזה מגעיל לך את השועלים.
אתה כולך מוגן עם חומת אש, אנטי וירוס ועוד שלוש תוכנות נגד תולעים שיגנו לך על המחשב מפה ומשם. בד בבד אתה מבין שנמאס לך להסתתר ושהשם האמיתי שלך יכול להיות גם אחלה של כינוי; גם ככה חצי רשת כבר מכירה אותך, הרי כבר היית בקופידון למיניהם, אתה כותב בלוג (או שניים), אתה נמצא בלפחות שני פורומים פעילים, אתה משתף תמונות כי זה הדבר החם הנוכחי ואתה הרי תתחיל לשתף גם את המועדפים שלך. לא רק זאת, דבר חדש התחלת לעשות לא מזמן- אתה מודיע לאן אתה יוצא ומזמין את כל העולם ואשתו להצטרף אליך לבילוי, או במילים אחרות, האינטרנט שלך הפך להיות עכבר העיר ואתה הופך למפיץ מידע עצמאי: ”עכבר העיר“ אבל עם אנשים אמיתיים. למה שאתה לא תהיה בנאדם אמיתי אתה שואל את עצמך.
כך זה נמשך ונמשך, יותר אתה מוגן, יותר אתה נחשף. השלב הבא בחיי השיתוף יתקע עוד מסמר בארון הקבורה של האנונימיות, אתה תתחיל להשתמש במצלמת האינטרנט שלך ליותר משיחות במסנג’ר. אתה תמצא תכנה, שתשמע אותך ותצלם אותך באותו זמן ואתה תתחיל לשדרVLogs. הפוסטים שלך יתחילו ב: Captain’s log, stardate… ואתה תרגיש שאתה מגשים את חזון ”מסע בין כוכבים” בימי חייך. הרי תמיד רצית להגיד את המשפט הזה.
פתאום אנשים אנונימיים יצאו מהאנונימיות האחרונה שהיתה להם. הראשונים יהיו כמובן הנודיסטים חולי הפרסום. אחר כך, כמו כל תופעה אקסצנטרית, היא תגיע לקונצנזוס ואנשים יעשו את זה על בסיס יומיומי, עם להסתכל על המצלמה או בלי. אנשים יהיו בפריים וברקע יתנגן שיר. אנשים יהיו מחוץ לפריים וברקע- יתנגן שיר. זו גם תהיה מלחמה חדשה לגמרי עם חברות המוסיקה. הן ירצו לתבוע בלוגרים על הפרת זכויות יוצרים. ממוטות הרי הן חיות מפגרות. תהיה סמטוחה שלמה.
אתה תגיד לעצמך- ”זה מי שאני“ ותהיה בטוח שככה זה היה תמיד.
יוזר 3.0
זה כבר לא עניין של שיתוף, זו הפכה להיות דרך חיים, אתה מתקשר עם אנשים באמצעות האינטרנט ברמה האינטימית ביותר. אתה לא רק מתקשר איתם, אתה מתממשק איתם, באמצעות תוכנה. והם מתממשקים איתך.
אתה נותן לאחרים ואחרים נותנים לך, אתה מציע להם לצאת והם מציעים לך, אתה נותן להם מה לקרא והם נותנים לך, אתה מפרסם הזדמנויות והם גם. אתה נותן לכולם, וכולם נותנים לך.
יכול להיות שלא פגשת אותם עדיין, מצד שני יכול להיות שפגשת אותם רק בחטף, אבל כל זה לא ממש משנה את הפתיחות שלך לשיתוף.
בני אדם מממשקים את עצמם עם האינטרנט ודרך האינטרנט. יותר ממשק, יותר ידע על מה קורה עם האחרים שלך. יותר ממשק יותר אתה מגלה שלאחרים אכפת ממך. פתאום אתה יודע מה קורה מחוץ לשולחן העבודה שלך, יותר מאשר כשכל מה שהיה לך זה טלפון נייד או אימייל. מידע זורם לך בכל הכיוונים, פנימה-החוצה-ולצדדים. מערכת הפעלה זורמת.
יותר מזה, הממשק הופך לכלי העבודה שלך, הופך לשולחן העבודה שלך, הופך למנהל השירות שלך, הופך לתיבת הדואר שלך, הכל על הבית בבית אחד. התוכנה עם הממשק שכולם נמצאים בה מסוגלת להכיל את כל מה שאתה צריך כי הבנאים שלה, היזמים והמפתחים, משכללים ומגדג'טים אותה. אתה עושה איתה עסקים, אתה מתקשר דרכה, אתה קורא בה, אתה מכיר אנשים חדשים ובעתיד הלא רחוק אתה תעשה בה גם קניות. אתה אמנם רגיל, אבל בעתיד הלא כל כך רחוק גם לא תצטרך יותר כרטיסי ביקור . מספיק שתצטלם עם בן שיחך, המערכת כבר תחבר אתכם יחד וכל הפרטים ישמרו ברשימות שלך. הרי תייגת את עצמך איתו, לא?
אתה זמין. אתה בעיקר חברותי. אתה מפתח לך הרגלים של שימוש בתוכנה שלך. זה פותח אותך לאפשרויות שלא יכולת לדמיין קודם. אתה מנהל את קצב החשיפה שלך למידע. אין לך גבולות.
The Power of Blogging
I had a discussion with a friend of mine.
She said she doesn’t understand my motives and my agenda of writing my blogs. She said she doesn’t understand what’s funny in My Let Go (celebrating a year today, by the way) and what do I want to show about myself in my other blogs, as a blogger (and these are not all of my blogs). For me, her punch line about me was that for someone who doesn’t know me, I have some posts where I look as someone who knows very little about a lot of things and in other words, who is this guy, he’s not serious,
but, she said, she knows me and know it’s not so. (Some of you may look at it as a weak point that I show you, some of you may see it as a strength point). Alright.
It got me thinking.
As blogging for me began in August 2003, I have learned a thing or two about how people evolved as users who share their lives on blogs, on IMs, on videos and on other viral social environments. As I am a people’s person by nature and a sociologist by education (cannot separate it from the rest of my identity,
i don't want to either) I was naturally drawn to realize for myself what it means to have a blog, to have an IM, to post personal video logs on a blog and to see where this Facebook revolution goes as the social creatures that we are all.
Not personal is not interesting.
This is something that I realized for myself over the years as a personal preference. Speak about anything, but if you’re a blogger- give a personal flavor to your post, or else you lose me. You don’t have to agree with me on that, but see what makes you let go of blogs and bloggers, could it be the lack of it?
It can be history, it can be physics, I don’t care, but put your ass on the line. Writing in third body is for wimps (not in all cases, but you got my point).
Positioning.
My friend asked me where and how I want to position myself. Her question was intelligent. First thing pro bloggers will teach you in blogging 101 is that before you open a blog you have to think what it is going to be about. That’s what will attract the readers, that’s what will bring them back with every new post, and in essence, that is what will bring order to you writings.
True. Unless you don’t want to follow the “rules” and if you believe your blogs are your own to do whatever
you want with. For me, I’m not talking about chaos, I’m talking about balance. Get the balance between your personal preferences and the “rules” of writing.
Personally.
Personally, I’m in a unique situation as I'm writing, shooting photos and making videos.
I started as an anonymous blogger, became a photojournalist known by real name, continued exploring the blogosphere with different blogs that gave me more hats to wear in social occasions and now, not only that I have all these, people who are my Facebook friends get my daily feeds of what I do and what I write. Moreover, one of the first things you learn as a private personal blogger is that you can't satisfy everyone with you writings. Even more, once you are courageous enough to reveal your guts, i.e what you really think or feel, then comes those milestone posts where you are honored upon by others. It’s something you have got to go through to realize for yourself, it’s a journey you got to go alone, letting go of what others are thinking about you, That is power, that is freedom.
Spotlight.
In a situation like my own (it may be a unique story but I doubt I’m special in this) many people (I try to know most of my Facebook friends personally) are always up to date with what’s happening with me. I get to situations where I introduce myself by name and people say (and I’m not kidding): “Oh, so you’re Niv Calderon, I heard so many people talk about you, I read you on Facebook all the time”, and I tell you this not to glorify my name (it bores me to death when people do it) but to clarify my point- when you put yourself in front of people daily, you choose to let go of some of your privacy, and you choose to give people the opportunity to think about you different thoughts. They can be positive, they can be negative. Most of the time they are positive because people love information, and if it’s in three dimensions (photos, videos
and text) it’s even better.
As a blogger, you open yourself to many possibilities and opportunities unavailable otherwise and that’s what I like.
Also, since I’m blogging and using social utilities, so many big and wonderful things happened in my life, why would I want that to stop them from happening, “it’s like a box of chocolates, you never know what you might get”.
Sharing.
It’s all about sharing. It’s about being open. When you’re open THINGS COME. When you share, your ideas and thoughts are being donated to the community for the rest to use as they please. Sharing makes me grow. You’ll never know till you try.
Garage Geeks Rock Band Party
Last night I went to participate in the Rock Band party of the Garage Geeks. The Garage Geeks events' atmosphere is of social and of business networking. A place where you can meet people you've read about on the internet-business parts in the news papers and in the big sites on the web. It’s an atmosphere where it is fun to meet, great to collect ideas and to get to know people. i'll get back to that later.The last game I seriously spent my time playing was called "Sim City 2000", and it was back in the 90’s. I used to play for hours a day, full days, and I remember once I had nothing else to achieve in a city I built, it was all made of the mega ultra buildings of the 23rd century (with time fast forwarded). I called this city :"The Enterprise". since than I stopped playing games in general, 10-12 years ago.
Now, Guitar Hero and Rock Band are great games to play, alone and togater, but there are few things about them that are counter productive socially, and remember, I'm talking about a party and about a networking event-
First of all, when you're playing Rock Band you need to concentrate, there are rules you need to follow, as in every game. The game makes the player play for the total score of the team, but really, who cares about the score, the most important thing for you is to finish the song. So, it’s not really about being social, it’s about doing the best you can, and handling the hand and eye coordination obviously (except for the singer, of course).
Second, when you're in a party where some of the people are playing computer games and some of the people are eating/talking/dancing than there are two groups in one place that do not communicate.
Few weeks ago I went to another party by FunTactix. About 8-9 people played games all night on the computers there and there were about 30-35 people, maybe less. how much is that in percentages and how do you think 8-9 more people could have donated to the atmosphere of the party???
Third- last night they had 2 sets of Rock Band and one set of Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero is anti social in definition. You might have some fun playing it and becoming better, but giving it in a party where other people are involved is like standing in the corner of the class, as a punishment, where no one can speak with you for the time spent, and if you're standing on the side and want to play, wait in line.
So of course, nothing there was even like punishment, I myself tried to sing Roxanne for 3 times with guys i've never seen or talked before, but really, I think attractions in partties are great, but video games, even when they are meant as a group game (wii included) have anti social elements in them that made me think about all of that last night.
For conclusion, games for me, when I was a teen, were a way to spend my time, they were a way to explore this new thing called computer, there was nothing social about them, nothing. Games for me were something I do with myself, having fun, alone.
Even today, if I play a game with other people, how much of it is really about provoking the interaction afterwards? What interaction will be left after the game is over, after elvis has left the building?
a photo I took of a group of people playing Rock Band at the Garage Geeks party
Last, but not least, my own version of Creep, originaly by Radiohead, with my friends: Oded, Hagai, Roxi and lotem at the camera (creep)
@http://youtube.com/watch?v=wUeGq3vNMnU
Jeff Pulver’s Live Social Networking Breakfast
I went to the Pulver Breakfast this morning in Aroma in the Tel Aviv Port, and although I was there at ten to nine, people were already there, getting their names on tags, already doing live pokes and mingling. I love it when people show up in time.
I think the atmosphere is was great.
Personally, I knew many people there, whom I really enjoy meeting at events like this and getting live updates, which are almost like Facebook updates, but with faces and smiles attached to them. But also, I made it my business to meet and talk to new people and to familiarize myself with what’s going on with them and with their businesses, cause you never know when and where you’ll need this information, so when you make it your business to know about people, whatever they tell you is extremely interesting and your mind (my mind) is getting busy in building puzzles (personal, professional and in general), so I had fun.
Also, in my talks I got exposed to several interesting projects in the social media domain (blogs), in the educational domain (camp) and in the music advertising domain (games). I found them tasteful.
About the live social networking event- it’s a great project that Jeff is doing where he’s travelling; we can and need to learn few things about how to do it and how to create the atmosphere, so:
a- Name tags, personal taglines and “live status notes” are the ice breakers for people to interact. It’s a must.
b- We can make these events more frequently and I think there’s a demand for it as well. Local events like iDrink are perfect, but
1- no need to bring startups to talk in front of the crowd, and
2- they have grown enormously fast and suddenly it became too big and highly crowded. The event today was with about 70-100 people in an open outdoor space and was perfect.
c- It works when people bring their still and video cameras. It makes the event go beyond itself into the virtual.
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- 3 now online
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