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Typical Modern Meeting - Face-to-face or virtual?

4 Jan 2015

The Downside of Meeting Requests

“Expectation is the mother of all frustration.” – Antonio Banderas

Meeting requests are an amazing invention. Pioneered, and standardized, almost 20 years ago by companies like Microsoft (as part of Outlook/Exchange), Novell (Groupwise) and Lotus (now part of IBM Lotus Notes) this innovation had great promise to automate an essential, yet completely routine, aspect of modern life.

The ascendency of meeting request usage, also rides several trends:

In the 1990s, I had an Executive Assistant who scheduled my time, acted as a “gatekeeper” and also worked on many projects. She was a master tactician who managed to keep 3 or more Type A executives productively multi-tasking. In many ways, sadly, such personal assistance is being subsumed by..
Increasing computational power means that automation of routine tasks, personalized to the needs of individuals is much more of a reality,
The mobile revolution has made meetings much more multi-modal and virtual, but also means that most executives must be productive even while being mobile nomads, and
Calendars have migrated from paper – I switched about 20 years ago – to desktop computers using Outlook and the like, and now to the ubiquitous smartphone and tablet devices. Such mobile devices are both convenient for calendars, but also frustratingly fiddly places to enter complex meeting details.

Thus, enter the humble Meeting Request which has swelled in popularity. I received my first such request from an Outlook/Exchange user around 2000 and they remained rare until perhaps the last 5-10 years. Now they seem to be everywhere.

In homage to my friend and colleague, Jim Estill, the quintessential time management guru, I ought to be cheering this time saving invention.

And, yet my enthusiasm is sorely tinged by a frustrating implementation resulting in suboptimal user experience …

Top 10 Meeting Request FAILs:

Trojan Horse: It has always seemed odd to me that a third party inviting me to a meeting could embed their own meeting information in my calendar, and yet I am unable to edit this “foreign” request that has invaded my calendar.
Split Personality: If Jennifer invites me, Randall, to a meeting, then why does my meeting title say “Meeting with Randall” instead of “Meeting with Jennifer”? Computers are designed to automate routine tasks so there is absolutely no excuse for this one.
No Annotation: I write comments in the notes fields of my calendar all the time. Why can’t I say, for example, “Joe is a bit dodgy” or “First met back in 2001”?
Duplication: Many times I receive a meeting request for a meeting that I have already carefully crafted an entry in my own calendar. Again, computers are supposed to be smart enough to figure these things out and merge them in an intelligent way.
Bad Versioning: Many times when meeting information is changed, such as time or venue, the update isn’t seamless. For example, it is common to have both the original and the updated version lingering in my calendar.
No Scheduling: Meeting requests are often used as trial balloons in trying to schedule busy people into meetings. The endless rounds of “Accept”, “Maybe” or “Decline” responses can end up being quite frustrating, especially for many person meetings. These, often fruitless, interchanges underscore the fact that meeting requests don’t automate routine scheduling. Instead, people have to resort to tools like Doodle to vote on alternatives, and then manually schedule the winning result.
Verbosity by having superfluous words in the limited real estate of the meeting subject line. E.g. pre-pending “Invitation:” or “Updated Invitation:” onto the front of a subject, effectively burying the important words. Many times they are put there to increase the impact and readability of the email subject line to ensure opening, but distract in the actual Calendar entry.
Invitations from Google Enterprise Apps or GMail tend to be the most arcane and ugly. Originally, I chalked this up to Google Calendar‘s relative immaturity compared to Outlook, but the brutally long notes and long subject lines continue to stand out as worst in class, almost to the point that I dread getting invited by Google users.
Lack of Anticipatory Computing: in an age where mobile devices know location, existing meetings and other personal habits, the trend to predictive intelligence could be incorporated into smarter meeting requests. For example, combining meeting requests with shared “Free/Busy” data could remove many manual scheduling steps.
No Personalization: Like my contact list, I put a fair bit of thought into crafting a calendar that is both useful now, but also provides a detailed audit trail of my business interactions. To do this, I use conventions, categories and other techniques that, sadly, cannot be injected into these un-editable meeting requests that instead reflect the third party initiator’s preferences.

Do let me know in comments if I missed any major points.

Given the power of networked computing to automate, why is there such a lack of excellence and progress in this particular area?

In fairness, I believe that part of the problem lies in the interplay between competition and the vagaries of formal industry standards. That said, this should be no excuse.

It is admirable that, unlike word processing formats, the various pioneers started to develop standards call iCalendar (and later vCalendar) around 1997 to standardize file formats (like .ical and .ics) and email server interactions. I do know the Microsoft attempted to extend the functionality with some very useful things around that time. But, for some reason, a great idea got off to a good start, but seems frozen at an almost Beta level of functionality.

To conclude, please read this post, not as a gripe, but instead as a call to action to developers to help take the humble meeting request to the next level of user experience. Any takers?

1 Jan 2014

Ice Storms Highlight Canada’s Obsolete Infrastructure

As we enter 2014, well into the 21st Century, one lesson for me from the year just past was that Canada seems to be hobbled with 19th century infrastructure. Let me explain.

During 2013, my home in Ontario was subject to not one, but two, different ice storms – in April and December. Both brought down large chunks of trees and both caused multi-day electrical power outages. In decades, this is the first time I can recall losing power for more than 1 day. To have this occur twice, with a combined 8 days of power outage, in a single year is even more striking.

After the first ice storm in April, I recall discussing this with a European colleague who was surprised by the very notion of a power outage. From a European perspective, he suggested the last power outage, of any length, that he could recall was 30 years ago. This started me thinking about why the difference.

In Canada, we have always prided ourselves on being one of the world’s richest countries, with modern infrastructure. However, much of our infrastructure was built for a different time and need. Much of it is really a testament to truly inventive Victorian design. It was indeed wonderful but no longer makes sense in the 21st Century. So, why indeed do we still have most of our electrical power lines above-ground on poles, while the rest of the (rich) world generally buries them? Why do our railways still rely on switches that freeze in winter and need to be operated by workers with propane torches? Why is a city like Toronto paralyzed by a major rainstorm?

Our homes, utilities, drainage and much more was built for a world predating our current period of rapid climate change. Surprisingly there remain in this world Luddites, who bizarrely continue to deny the fact of climate change. While we still have much to learn, on-the-ground results are here for all to see.

I gained significant insight into these issues when as a Director of Gore Mutual Insurance Company, a leading property insurer, I attended an enlightening presentation by the poignantly named Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR). This industry-funded organization is a world leader, collaborating globally in research and advocacy around the causes and solutions for large scale insurance losses, known in industry jargon as a Catastrophe or even a Cat.

ICLR gathers data and works with many academic researchers to increase both understanding and awareness of what causes insurance losses. The data shows that the last ten years have seen huge increases in the number of severity of large scale losses, particularly from damaging wind, water and ice events, which are all significantly driven by climate change.

For example, with increased wind events (typically tornadoes in this area of Ontario), a call for more homes to be built with windows structurally rated to withstand 200 mph wind events makes sense.

Furthermore, climate change means that rainfall in 1 hour can equal what used to occur over 24 hours or more, with flash floods ensuing. In such an environment, instead of our historic practice of getting rid of water as quickly as possible, it is better to slow it down and buffer the potential for flash flooding.

For me, the power outages are a metaphor for how we in Canadian society need to look at our infrastructure with a sense of long term vision. We really need to invest to upgrade utilities, transportation and drainage for the needs of the 21st century. This in no way takes away from the heroic efforts of Hydro workers over the holiday season. I’m simply surprised that attention has never been focused on the root cause and long term prevention.

In an era of political infighting and embarrassing city Mayors, I’m wondering where the leadership necessary to achieve this will come from?

A GO Train is stranded on flooded tracks in Toronto on Monday, July 8, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/

The ‘Bun Reunion – Celebrating the 1970’s Roots of the Digital Age

If you are in any way connected to this story, see link to event invitation at end of this post.

In August 1972, just before the start of fall classes, a new arrival was causing a stir in the Math & Computer building at University of Waterloo – a brand new Honeywell 6050 mainframe size computer running GCOS (General Comprehensive Operating Supervisor) and TSS (TimeSharing System). The arrival of this computer (which quickly got nicknamed, “HoneyBun” and eventually “The ‘Bun”) set the stage for a whole new generation of computer innovators at University of Waterloo and was the foundation for many a computer and internet innovator.

In retrospect, it was a fortuitous time to be young and engaged in computing. A fluid group of enthusiast programmers, “The Hacks” (a variant of the term “Hackers” popularized by MIT, yet not to be confused with the later “Crackers” who were all about malicious security breaches), revelled in getting these expensive machines (yet by today’s standards underpowered) to do super-human feats. The early 1970’s was the decade when software was coming into its own as a free-standing discipline, for the first time unbundled and unshackled from the underlying hardware. The phenemena of the timing of one’s birth affecting whole careers is eerily (the years are the same as my own) described by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2009 book Outliers.

The Honeywell had a whole culture of operators, SNUMBs, LLINKs, GMAP, MMEs, DRLs, Master Mode and not to mention that infamous pitcher of beer for anyone who could break its security. To do so was remarkably easy. For example, one day the system was down, as was commonplace in those days. As it happened the IBM 2741 terminals were loaded to print on the backs of a listing of the entire GCOS operating system. Without the ‘Bun to amuse us, we challenged each other to find at least one bug on a single page of this GCOS assembler listing. And, remarkably for a system reputed to be secure, each of us found at least one bug that was serious enough to be a security hole. This is pretty troubling for a computer system targeted to mission critical, military applications, including running the World Wide Command and Control System (WWMCCS – ie. the nuclear early warning and decision mechanism).

Shortly after the arrival of the Honeywell, Steve Johnson came to the Math Faculty on sabbatical from Bell Labs. The prolific creator of many iconic UNIX tools such as Yacc, he is also famous for the quote: “Using TSO is like kicking a dead whale down the beach”. I suspect that few people realize his key role in introducing Bell Labs culture to University of Waterloo so early, including B Programming Language, getchar(), putchar(), the beginnings of the notion of software portability and, of course, yacc. It is hard to underestimate the influence on a whole generation at Waterloo of the Bell Labs culture – a refreshing switch from the IBM and Computing Centre hegemony of the time.

The adoption of the high level language B, in addition to the GMAP assembler, unleashed a tremendous amount of hacker creativity, including work in languages, early networking, very early email (1973), the notion of a command and utilities world (even pre-UNIX) and some very high level abstractions, including writing an Easter date calculator in the macros embedded inside the high level editor QED.

Ultimately, Steve’s strong influence led to University of Waterloo being among the first schools worldwide to get the religion that was (and is) UNIX. As recounted in my recent post remembering the late Dennis Ritchie, first CCNG was able to get a tape directly from Ken Thompson to run UNIX in an amazing 1973. That machine is pictured below. A few years later, several of us UNIX converts commandeered, with assistance from several professors, a relatively unused PDP-11/45 on the 6th floor of the Math building. This ultimately became Math/UNIX which provided an almost production system complement to the ‘Bun on the 3rd floor. And, even the subject of several journal papers, we built file transfer, printing and job submission networked applications to connect them.

PDP-11/45 CCNG System A/D — Photo Courtesy Jan Gray

So, whether you were an instigator, quiet observer or just an interested party, we’d love you to join us to commemorate the decade of creativity unleashed by the arrival of the Honeywell 050 years ago. We’ve got a weekend of events planned from August 17-19, 2012, with a special gala celebratory dinner on the 18th. We hope you can join us and do share this with friends so that we don’t miss anyone. Check out the details here at:

BunReunion.EventBrite.ca

And, do try to scrounge around in your memories for anecdotes, photos and other things to bring this important milestone to life. Long before Twitter handles, I was rjhoward, so do include your Honeywell userID if you can recall it.

14 Jun 2012

Who Will Revive Canadian Venture Capital (Part I)

Today was a banner day for announcements involving a reset of the technology funding ecosystem in Canada.

For a long time, the slow demise of Canadian Venture Capital has concerned me deeply, putting us at an international disadvantage in regards to funding and building our next generation of innovative businesses. You may recall my 2009 post Who Killed Canadian Venture Capital? A Peculiarly Canadian Implosion? which recounts the extinction of almost all of the A round investors working in Ontario.

Since then, many of us have worked to bridge the gap by building Angel Networks, including Golden Triangle AngelNet (GTAN), where I chair the Selection process and using extreme syndication and leverage to replace a portion of the missing A rounds.

Today, the launch of Round 13 Capital revealed a new model for venture finance centred around a strong Founder Board whose members are also LPs, each with a “meaningful” investment in the fund. My decision to get involved was based both on this strongly aligned wealth of operating wisdom coupled with the clear strength of the core team.

The launch was widely covered by a range of tech savvy media, including:

Mark Evans gave some background in his post Round 13 Capital Moves to Fill VC Gap, and
David Crow, covered today’s announcement in his post Round 13 Capital Puts Founders First.

To illustrate the both the differentiation of Round 13 and show the depth of founder experience, Bruce Croxon, indicated that the founders board has, measured by aggregate exit value, built over $2.5 billion of wealth in Canada. It is this kind of vision and operational experience that directly addresses the second of my three points that Canadian Venture Capital needs to solve.

It is exciting to be involved with the unfolding next generation funding ecosystem for technology companies of the future. Time will tell the ultimate outcome, but I’m certainly bullish on Round 13.

15 Aug 2009

Gore Mutual Insurance Company Board Appointment

I am extremely pleased to share today’s announcement from Gore Mutual Insurance Company that I have been appointed to their Board of Directors. I was officially appointed at the July 28, 2009 Board meeting and initially, I will serve on the Audit, Pension and Conduct Review & Governance Committees.

Because people may see this diferent from other activities I’m engaged in, I thought I would provide some perspective on what this appointment means for me personally.

Founded in 1839, this venerable Waterloo Region financial services institution is Canada’s oldest insurance company. Such a long and magnificent heritage and time scale is obviously very different from that of the technology startup scene. That said, this company is an object lesson to all in the nature of innovation in a long term business, and that intrigued me. The Gore, as it is affectionately known by most, has survived and thrived, not by resting on its legacy, but through a constant process of change and innovation, to stay ahead of the many curve balls that time throws at any business.

And yet, as a regulated financial services company, through organizations like OSFI (Ontario of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions) and with a mission and obligation to prudently pool and manage risks for their members and clients, the company always walks a much finer line than startups in regards to balancing risk and innovation. That is something that both intrigued me and impressed me at how well this company has navigated that highly tuned path, particularly in recent years. Having reviewed this history as part of my due diligence, I’m absolutely convinced that without innovation and change, the Gore would never have survived on it’s long legacy alone, and that’s a great testimonial when a company can manage that for 170 years.

A second consideration for me is the opportunity to learn more about the whole world of financial insitutions. In my career, I’ve sold enterprise software to some of the largest such companies in the world (e.g. HSBC, UBS, Nations Bank). Success with these customers entailed a detailed understanding of how to make their organizations more effective through better IT productivity and quality. The chance to drill deeper in a highly respected local firm like The Gore and to help shape their forward strategy, was not to be missed. I was warned, and certainly recognize, that the learning curve will be steep, but I’m already relishing that challenge, having just internalized 5 thick binders of briefing materials and background documentation.

Over the years, first as a CEO and more recently as a hands-on investor, I’ve internalized a very important truth — the people you work with (or invest in, or sit on a board with) must be the most important selection factor. In my due diligence, I was absolutely impressed with management. The CEO, Kevin McNeil, has assembled an extremely impressive team that has moved the Gore forward a quantum leap over the last few years. Likewise, the Board members are a diverse, smart and engaged team that complements this excellence in management. It is to be noted that they come from many industries and all had the same learning curve I did, including one from the Life Insurance industry which is a different business from general insurance. Furthermore, each and every employee I have talked to so far seems passionate, committed, yet not afraid to make the difficult suggestions to help shape the company’s execution. This is a company of surprisingly innovative people and in that respect, it isn’t really that different from the culture in a startup.

Finally, I note that 2009 is an interesting time to be joining a financial services company Board. While Property and Casualty insurers haven’t seen the exposure to the excesses of the credit crunch (ie. CDOs and such derivatives), it is clear that the public’s need for transparent and well executed corporate governance has never been more heartfelt. As I mentioned, the Gore is easily one of the best governed companies I’ve encountered.

Currently, I am appointed to serve on the Audit, Pension and Conduct Review & Governance Committees. Particularly in the case of the Audit Committee, my deep background in IT systems will help to balance the risk review and management activities in that important area.

I am happy to share more with people about this appointment over the coming weeks.

1 May 2009

Reverse Corporate Alchemy: Turning Gold into Lead

During the morning of Wednesday 29 April, 2009 I was flatly told, with no recourse, that my CIBC Aerogold Visa for Business card was being cancelled immediately because it, and many other cards, had been compromised by some unspecified third parties.

A quick web search indicates an almost endless litany of incursions by hackers into credit card processors, including Heartland Payment Systems or Another Unspecified Processor. Although perhaps just bad luck for me, shouldn’t I be delighted that CIBC is looking out for my interests using its highly sophisticated fraud detection software and systems? Well, maybe, but …

As an almost 15 year business customer of CIBC Aerogold VISA, I chose this product because it claims to offer the highest level of customer service aimed at a global and sophisticated business travelling clientele. Based on that, my company uses that card heavily for both a travel and payment card, including many monthly recurring payments. As a long term customer, my assessment of the VISA response to a problem inside their own payments ecosystem was inadequate because:

When I asked for further clarification, the VISA Fraud Department representative seemed quite evasive. Surprisingly, there was an apparent inability to give background information which any customer would expect when their service relationship was curtailed. Simply saying “We’re terminating your card immediately, but it’s nothing to do with you” isn’t an acceptable customer response, particularly for a so-called Gold product.
The lack of encryption and other security mechanisms in CIBC’s payment systems has been a longstanding gap. For example, the classic magstripe can be easily cloned. Against these threats, Smart/CHIP cards have been in use in Europe for a long time and by some processors in Canada for over 5 years. Why did CIBC take so long to catch up with the global security benchmark? As a footnote, on last year’s regular card replacement, I had only 1.5 years to expiration date, instead of the normal 3 or 4, presumably to allow CIBC to move to CHIP card technology. Adding insult to injury, when I picked up my new card with new number today, the expiry date remained what is now 5+ months in the future. This, too, is a major customer inconvenience as I will have to, once again, change all of my automated payments yet again, later this year.
Probably the biggest customer service shortcoming was that my card was “shut off” between Wednesday and Friday, a period of almost 3 days that happens to be over the month change when most of my recurring business payments happen. Perhaps the only worse situation I could imagine is if this had occurred while I was travelling. In resolving their internal security problem, clearly CIBC Visa took no steps to escalate card replacements for their best customers. As I mentioned, their idea of customer service was to simply pass the problem onto their customers – in this case to me.
There have been earlier instances of poor service from CIBC. One memorable case occurred at a hotel checkout in Berlin at 6:00 am at the end of an international conference when I was racing to get to the airport. My charge was denied by the hotel. Apparently, the Fair Isaac (now FICO) fraud decision management software went a little hyperactive that day because it didn’t think I was in Berlin. Again, although I almost missed the window to get to the airport, VISA didn’t really give me the choice of a good workaround for a legitimate customer transaction.

To be clear, I support robust security measures and fraud detection in the payments industry. My problem stems from the way that these companies service their customers when things go wrong.

So, after almost 15 years with CIBC Aerogold VISA for Business, I’m looking at alternatives.

Does anyone have any great suggestions? Or perhaps you have your own credit card security horror stories. Feel free to comment…

31 Dec 2008

Who Invented the Dot in Filenames?

Who invented the dot (“.”) that precedes the file type extension, as in document.doc or metal.mp3? As we near the end of what has emerged as a most interesting year, we all could use the diversion of examining the history of something so simple and pervasive, that we all take for granted.

A note from my friend Brad Templeton reminded me that being in the right place at the right time can be profound. In fact, as strange as it sounds, Brad Templeton may well have invented the dot in “.com“, as he discusses here. As he says:

Brad Templeton

“Indeed if it was me, it was simply by virtue of the fact that having been around at the beginning of these things, and taking an interest in these issues. Being in the right place at the right time. But it’s simultaneously mind-boggling, conceit-building and humbling to think that what I said might have sparked something that became so universal.”

This led me to ask myself, who orginated the ubiquitous dot that separates the extension, denoting file type, from the base file name. A much older concept, clearly the use of dot as an internet name separator was influenced, perhaps subconciously, from the longstanding filenaming convention.

The Windows filenames of today are direct descendents of MS-DOS which lacked tree-structured directories and restricted filenames to an 8.3 format, consisting of a maximum of 8 characters of base filename followed by up to 3 characters of an extension connoting the type of data stored in the file. MS-DOS, in turn, directly inherited this convention from CP/M, and indirectly from the UNIX family of operating systems.

I have directly worked with all of the above systems since their early days, but to go back further, I must rely on the oral history I was hearing at the time. CP/M was directly inspired by the Digital Equipment Corporation family of operating systems such as DOS-11 and RSX-11. The dot convention may well have been inherited via TOPS-10 for the DEC PDP-10 line of computers. Can anyone please confirm or deny this? At the very least, the 3 letter limitation of extension length, still common today, came from those systems which stored the extension in a 16-bit word in a format known as RAD50.

However, filename extensions separated by a dot were also a feature of Multics, which dates back to 1964.

Thus it is unclear to me whether Multics or DEC operating systems were the true originator of this concept, or whether there is an even older, perhaps common, ancestor. Can an alert reader, possibly a computing pioneer, help enlighten us on this important question.

Happy New Year to all. Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2009.

8 Aug 2008

Celebrating the Numerically Auspicious Flavius Octavius

Definitely outshining the Olympian brouhaha, today we gathered to celebrate the birthday of hitherto little known Flavius Octavius. We were honoured to have a reading by the eminent historian and raconteur, Peter Scott, who narrated a gripping saga, reflecting his very latest research. An excerpt of that esteemed work by Herr Doctor Professor Scott follows:

Flavius Octavius
Born 641
Cardinal 662
“anti-pope” 669 in Oc, France
Died 721

well known for his bulls, which had many issues
father was an ocarina maker and player
mother, an occultist (also took in laundry)At the time of his papacy there were several antipopes – challengers to the papal authority in Rome – besides Octavius of Oc, there were Sardonicus of Avignon, Herbivorus of Seville and Randy of Burnham on Crouch.

Octavius’ deeds are the stuff of legend.
He is venerated in Oc today as the patron saint of stray cattle. It is said that his bulls often escaped from their enclosure.

On one famous occasion, when a most large and ferocious bull was terrorising the honest citizens of Oc, the saintly Octavius, still in his ceremonial robes, caused his bearers to lower the palanquin in which he was riding. He produced an ocarina from a concealed pocket and, fearlessly facing the raging bull, played an air of such melodic sweetness that the bull became totally incensed. After the merest, most cursory pawing of the earth, it charged the courageous cleric, who turned and fled, His only escape route was down a very narrow alley and Octavius was not a thin, ascetic pope. In fact, he was a substantially built pope (the expression ‘enbonpoint’ comes to mind). However, although he became tightly wedged at the narrowest point of the alley, he continued to play his ocarina. (There is scholarly disagreement concerning whether this was a sign of his courage or the result of all the wind being forced out of his lungs by his confinement.) The bull, his enthusiasm for goring portly popes no wit diminished, pursued Octavius until he too, became wedged. Thanks to a subtle discrepancy in their respective girths, the bull was brought to a halt within snorting distance of the pontiff.

This stalemate was maintained until the pope’s own Corsican Guards were able free each of the wedged, although to do so, they had to wait for the better part of five days until, first the bull, and then the pope had lost sufficient avoirdupois to allow for the careful application of ropes and wedges.

On the eighth of August every year, Oquians re-enact this famous legend with the famous ‘Spectacle du Taureau.’ Be the weather cool or hot, young and old alike don heavily padded suits under clerical robes and parade at noon in the streets, all playing the well-rehearsed ‘Melodie du taureau‘ on their ocarinas. At an unspecified moment a bull is released, and, like the Bulls of Palmplona, it pursues the crowd. But do not be alarmed, gentle listeners, this bull has been so well fattened that it can barely manage a slow, swaying trot.

The same bull makes a second appearance in the town later that evening garnished with Dijon mustard, flavoured with garlic and various ‘herbes de Provence’ and accompanied with Oc’s special edition red wine, ‘Ruelle Entroite du Pape’.

I hope that this little historical excursion has not intruded upon your enjoyment of tonight’s celebration, and that you will be truly edified by the shining example of courage of Pope Flavius Octavius of Oc, who, on this day, 1300 years ago, triumphed in a tight spot.

Now, everyone please exchange the traditional Oquian greeting, Merde des Taureaux!”

Peter Scott, Elora, 8 August, 2008

4 May 2008

Tweets from #TLC Twitterverse

Ever since I attended AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC conference in January 2007, where I witnessed the unfolding of a parallel conference on large side-mounted LCD panels, I’ve been intrigued by the power of social media to enhance the traditional conference experience. That conference pioneered a new delivery approach, which attempts to exploit peer-to-peer discussions and even involve those outside the conference in the event itself. I’m convinced that, in the context of conferences at least, much of the power of the social media lies in creating a whole new back channel of discussion. In that way, conference attendees can network, take notes and make the conference as personal to their needs as they desire.

The same thing was happening at the recent Communitech Tech Leadership Conference (TLC) in Waterloo on May 1st. In fact, when I made the suggestion to Iain Klugman (Communitech President) to consider installing those monitors for the next event, he was most enthusiastic. Nonetheless, while reflecting on the important, high level lessons from this conference, (which I plan to cover in a later blog posting), I did a quick mash-up of the main Twitter posts from TLC. I dug around and herein include a representative sampling, with apologies to anyone missed or anyone not wanting to be so immortalized, which paints an interesting picture of this back channel, including:

most Twitters were from attendees, but surprisingly people outside the conference, both local and some as far away as the UK, got into the conversation.
some speakers (e.g. sacca and markevans) were in also involved in the dialogue – is the back-channel “on message” with carefully prepared presentations?
on that point, follow the link in markevans Twitter for some commentary on perceived “tension” between the “old school” and new style of funding models
sometimes the comments reinforced the points, sometimes they challenged them. Is it true that perhaps, in contrast to the famous Mark Zuckerberg/Sarah Lacy SXSW encounter, people in Waterloo are too polite to mock the speakers?
my Twieets were an attempt to use Twitter for digital note taking. By capturing some key thoughts and ideas, a later Tweetscan could retrieve them easily
and, lastly, is Waterloo as Web 2.0 and social media savvy as we like to think? With around 6 Twitters out of 500 attendees, it’s a question worth asking.

I would suggest that the social media “web” as seen in Twitter, may well be as transformational to the conference as the advent of the web (Web 1.0) was to print media. And, of course, Twitter is really just Social 1.0.

So, enjoy this reverse-chronological peek into the back-channel dialogue from TLC on May 1st.

jimmurphy:Jeff Taylor (founder of Monster.com) rocked the closing keynote #TLC 2008-05-01 16:21:31

lborsato:Now he has people taking their shoes off. I’m very concerned what is next.2008-05-01 16:09:50

lborsato:Jeff Taylor is engaging the audience in some old school evangelism.2008-05-01 15:44:53

jimmurphy:Never more than 100 feet from food on Google campus says @sacca. #TLC2008-05-01 14:02:53

cubicgarden: “the end of control….” I like it, but chris anderson says it should all be free? 2008-05-01 14:01:43

jim murphy:@Google 20% free time frees resources for different groups. Avoids VP-to-VP fiefdom bargaining for resources and makes things happen. #TLC 2008-05-01 14:00:56
jimmurphy: Good Google Culture Dump from @sacca at #TLC2008-05-01 13:57:33
jimmurphy: @sacca Showing the Omid Kordistani email that reduced poor perfroming ads to value attention of users. Put 60% of revenue at risk. #TLC2008-05-01 13:35:53
jimmurphy:@sacca Working with the republican FCC was possible. Saw eye-to-eye on wireless competitiveness #TLC2008-05-01 13:22:57
randallh: How to get out of “the dark ages of the mobile environment” 2008-05-01 13:22:43

randallh: Chris Sacca, crusader to open up mobile platforms 2008-05-01 13:20:15

garywill: @sacca talking Irv Weinstein and Uncle Bobby … two of the region’s icons 2008-05-01 13:16:10

markevans: If Panel Moderating Was Always This Easy http://tinyurl.com/6d5jgl 01:13 PM May 01, 2008

garywill: Finished lunch … tasted like chicken … almost 2008-05-01 13:08:19

sacca: I had a really good time in Waterloo and am psyched my dad came to drive me back over the border to Lockport. 12:32 PM May 01, 2008
garywill: Rick Segal has left the building 2008-05-01 12:13:27
stevepulver: great debate on stage at the TechLeadership conference 12:05 PM May 01, 2008 from fring
lborsato: Chris Anderson says that he builds companies that are distributed because that’s where the best people are.2008-05-01 12:03:02
garywill: Old guys don’t have Twitter … according to Rick 2008-05-01 12:02:50
lborsato: Somebody else is Twittering here after all.2008-05-01 12:01:12
randallh: More people 55+ than 18-34 on the internet #TLC 2008-05-01 11:58:44
garywill: @sacca says the number of Twitter users has doubled in 45 days 2008-05-01 11:48:15
melledotca: Kinda wish I was @ TLC. Ahh well, the tweets help.2008-05-01 11:43:33
garywill: @sacca says Twitter has no marketing budget 2008-05-01 11:43:16
garywill: Rick Segal countering with examples of money being needed 2008-05-01
randallh: Chris Anderson saying he wouldn’t know how to be a VC when you can start a company without maxing pith a credit card 2008-05-01 11:39:36
lborsato:@garywill How many more people do you think are twittering in the audience? 2008-05-01 11:37:30
randallh: Chris Sacca: “traditional VC funds haven’t fathomed how cheap it is now to build a software company” 2008-05-01 11:34:25
lborsato:Chris Sacca, one of Twitter’s investors, is talking about what is happening on the web right now. He’s from Lockport, NY. 2008-05-01 11:32:12
stevepulver: is watching Chris Sacca from twitter speak in Waterloo 2008-05-01 11:31:53
randallh: Wow, only about 6 people of 500 at #TLC are on Twitter 2008-05-01 11:30:34
randallh: Jeff Taylor of Eons: “consumer brands on the east coast are fleeting” #TLC 2008-05-01 11:29:26
randall: watching Mark Evans panel with Chris*2, Rick and Jeff Taylor #TLC 2008-05-01 11:24:21

garywill:Mark Evans starting a panel discussion at TLC 2008-05-01 11:22:00
JeremyAuger:Just saw Chris Anderson, editor of WIRED, and author of The Long Tail present on his ideas, and the economics of ‘Free’. 2008-05-01 11:07:08
s acca: Love how many Twitters from the audience I got while on stage. Should I take Q&A that way during keynote? 10:08 AM May 01, 2008
randallh : “the curse of free – it’s a lot easier for small, new companies than incumbants” #TLC 2008-05-01 09:42:58
randallh: “free is going to be the price of some version of any product” #TLC 2008-05-01 09:41:03
randallh: Chris Anderson: in economics, “FREE is a weirdly under studied price” #TLC 2008-05-01 09:18:28
randallh: The origins of Socialism & Communism in the Pareto curve-fascinating #TLC2008-05-01 09:11:53
lborsato: Chris Anderson says that everyone is in a quest for the average consurmer – but there is no average consumer.2008-05-01 09:09:50
randallh: No wonder Chris Anderson is so good – he started out at The Economist #TLC 2008-05-01 09:01:46
randallh: Waterloo tech industry over 500 companies and revenues grew to $13 #TLC BN2008-05-01 08:52:15
randallh: Enroute to #TLC by Communitech 2008-05-01 07:39:28
jimmurphy: On my way to #TLC. Looking forward to meting Chris Anderson, Chris Sacca, Jeff Taylor and seeing Rick Segal again. http://is.gd/aRZ 2008-05-01 07:08:2
randallh: Finishing up a great tech CEO roundtable at Charbries 2008-04-30 23:27:00