johnwilker.com

Ignite Denver 3 Lineup

I posted the line up for Ignite Denver 3 on the Ignite Blog, but wanted to post here too. Nicole and I went to check out the Irish Snug the other day and meet with the Manager. Very impressed with the Snug. I know the single biggest problem with past Ignites Denver has been the venue, and hopefully I’ve made it clear, it’s an experiment. Denver is too big and too cool a place to settle on a college classroom, when there’s so many great places. Unfortunately that also means we try some ‘less than cool’ places. I think the Snug will make amends for the last two venues!

We’re going to have some seats setup in the front area nearest the screen for folks who just want to sit and watch. Behind the screen will be tables and such for the folks that want to chit chat through the entire event (there’s always a few, and usually they’re also the “this isn’t Ignite Boulder” complainers). The audio is piped through the rooms speakers, so there shouldn’t be an “I can’t hear” problems.

I’m torn on weather to have a brightkite wall. thinking I’ll set it up before we start the presos and during the break, but will learn from Refresh and not have the wall up during presos, LOL. Not a good idea.

• Booze on the Brain! (or the neuropharmacology of alcohol)
• Does This Make My Ass Look Fat?
• Ignite the entrepreneur within: 50 Interviews
• History of Rome (For those have have been to Ignite Denver 1 and 2, RJ promises he will not have family trouble and scheduling conflicts! He swore it on the flying Spaghetti Monster.)
• Trinkets and Nuggets about the Modern Japan
• The Similarities Between Emperor Palpatine & Our History
• Leveraging the Internet To Land a Book Deal
• Pie and the contemporary psyche
• Mucking Out Your Inbox: How to Be More Productive with Email
• Toys for relieving stress in the office
• Slammed Doors and Phones: Or the Saga of a Young Organizer
• How a Video becomes Public Access TV in a Web2.0 World

There’s a few tickets left, and if we sell out I’ll have to actually have some one man the door and check names, and do the whole waiting list thing. Make sure you RSVP, we’re gonna have a good time. Ignite is an excellent time to meet people you might not otherwise meet in your regular circles, which is reat because it opens so many more doors and opportunities.

Tags: community, Ignite Denver

twitter pants (and shirts, and watches)

My pals, Jay, Dave and Kristofer have created something that I know you fashionistas (and fashionistos) will love. Coathangr, merges Twitter with fashion, extending the answer to, “What are you doing?” to include, “What are you wearing?” (Update: It’s not Twitter logos on clothes! It’s a social networking site around fashion, just so we’re clear)

Coathangr is a cool new(ish) social networking site, just for those of us who take more than 10 minutes to get dressed (Which isn’t me, but they still let me join).

It’s in public beta, so feel free to sign up and answer the question, “What are you wearing?”

Oh and if you sign up and post a pic in an update, you can win a Slanket!

Tags: friends

1 failed model leads to another, can we learn?

So apparently the failed Rocky Mtn News, folks decided to try their hand at a purely web play. First things first, I hadn’t even heard about the INDenverTimes until Amy started talking about their fail. So yeah strike one there, it’s called getting the word out, and clearly that flopped.

So from what I’ve gleened, 3 investors got some 30 odd people from the Rocky, and started this onine paper, hoping to get 50,000 subscribers at $5 a piece.

First they started with a press conference, no idea why it warranted that, but you know, whatever.

So basically learningnothing from the old and flawed model of a print newspaper (hordes of reporters and editors), the INDT team chose to try and force that same model into a web site. MMM Uh guys, it’s 2009, no matter how to try to fight the future. Print news is dying because it’s not adapting and learning. You clearly haven’t adapted or learned.

30 people? 30?  I know several web startups that operate with 2 people, and do more. 30 people? Look, I’m as sad as the next guy that the Rocky folks are collecting unemployment, but that’s no reason to prop them up with false hopes. Go find new jobs elsewhere guys! Probably in other industries! Reporting isn’t dead. Print papers are. GO report somewhere online, start a blog on your own, you’d probly get more than 3000 readers.

I’m a big fan of relying on your community to help you, because I believe that if you’re worth helping, people will help you.

“I’m not disappointed,” Preblud insists. “It’s been an amazing ride for the last five weeks, and I think we’ve learned a great deal. Although we didn’t meet our subscription goal, our other online metrics are phenomenal.” He adds that “the heroes in all this are the journalists, and I still have a commitment to journalism. We all do — and this is like any business model. There’s always challenges, and you don’t always know all the answers up front. But we believe professional journalism is a crucial component of not only a community but a democracy, and we’re going to continue to move forward in support of that” — as long as the “business model works. And it works in the immediate term.”

I can only assume the investors and 30 plus “professional journalists” (read out of touch with modern trends, human beings) thought that people would flood the site with subscriptions simply because. Sure Iwantmyrocky was created, why not. Sentiment is cheap, and easy to express. But seeing as how The Rocky closed because no one subscribed, it seems a bit retarded to think sentiment for the old Rocky would make people subscribe to the INDT.

All I can say, is that the INDT failure isn’t even remotely surprising. A complete lack of social media effort, or even reaching out to the community, fail and fail. Sorry Rocky folks, you’re ivory tower of “Professional Journalism” is crumbling around you, and paper mache ain’t gonna patch it.

Tags: Business

Ford is down with social media sorta

I had heard of the Fiesta movement (which to me sounds like a bowel movement after Mexican food, but whatever) from Jeremy. While I’m not a fan of Ford vehicles in the slightest I applauded their efforts to do more than just throw TV commercials at us. I think a ‘Mustang Movement’ woulda been cooler. I mean a free Fiesta? Really? I guss if you had no car, that’s a step up, but otherwise….

Then RJ twittered this article

The one piece that really hit home and kinda (in my head) screamed disingenuous, was Scott Monty saying

“As far as mechanical difficulties, let’s let common sense prevail,” he said. “If you were driving one of our cars as part of this program, wouldn’t you call for assistance first, rather than writing a blog post?”

Uh so you hope social media will move Fiestas but hope that people won’t use it when their Fiesta breaks down? It’s 2009 Scott, you as well as anyone should realize that 1. many people will twitter before calling for assistance, and 2. As soon as they’re done with the call for assistance, and waiting for a tow, they’ll use their iPhone to blog from the drivers seat, about their broke down Fiesta.

It just kinda hit me that, as progressive as Ford seems to be, they’re still a big company hoping that “common sense” prevails when it’s time to say something bad about their product. Hoping that the “agents” (People who’ve been given free Fiesta’s (a 47.99 value)) will not bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak.

“We’ve done a lot of war gaming and we’re prepared for a number of scenarios,” Monty told Wired.com. “Again, we’re looking for their feedback and input on the vehicle — they’re testing the vehicle as much as they’re building buzz about it, and we want to know how to make it the best possible car.”

To paraphrase, “We want their feedback publicly via youTube, Facebook and Twitter about how much they love their cars, but if they have problems, we hope they’ll call us for assistance rather than blog about it.”

Mad props to Scott and Ford for the effort, but in my mind still a ways off of being a really truly, first class citizen in social media. But hey, they’re doing it so they’ll get there before Chrysler, and that is worth something. What exactly, I’m not sure.

Tags: Social Media

Ignite Denver Wrap, up WXMW Party

I always get so wrapped up in blogging elsewhere that johnwilker.com get’s a bit neglected :(

I just finished Ignite Denver a week ago (3/11), and it was a huge success, better than the first for sure (organization wise! Sessions have kicked ass each time). It kinda sucks that people compare it to Ignite Boulder. Well duh, of course it’s not. I don’t have a huge startup community and those types of connections to donate swag and buy beer. I wish I did, and my goal for Ignite Denver 3 is to get some sponsor action, but it sucks that people are so lame they compare at all. Go to Boulder if you’re so in love with it, and don’t waste my time, hater.

I’ve found that, I have a pretty limited social media whick. The night after Ignite there was a tweetup, and I just wasn’t feeling it, not in the slightest. I don’t know what it was, i just wasn’t feeling as social as I was the night before, or at the previous tweetups.

I can’t wait for the next tweetup, since I’ll have a fully charged social-ness tank :)

This coming week, what’s up? Oh a little thing called the West by MidWest (WXMW)

Dave Wiskus and I are throwing a little get together for those who were too cool to go to SXSW (and even those who weren’t and have come back). It’s gonna be a fun time! I’ll have my Flip cam and iPhone to document the party! Since I was too wrapped up in Ignite to get more than a pic per presenter. :(

Oh and 360|Flex’s website is back and better than ever (as a Wordpress blog). Tom and I have changed hosting providers for all the 360Conferences sites.

I’ll also be moving Nicole’s sites from CFDynamics, since not only did they move our sites again with out notice, thereby fucking up nicole’s blog, but have been completely unhelpful. Oh and whatever hole let hackers into our company sites, also let them into my personal sites. I’d be surprised if every site on the box nicole’s blog and lazybear are on weren’t hacked too. I really think CFDynamics not only dropped the ball, but then seems to have ignored the problem.

Tags: Ignite Denver, Tweetup, WXMW

A lesson in 2008, Don’t F with Community

So last night I saw a very powerful example of not doing business like it’s 1980.

I remember as a kid, and even as a young adult, saying, “Wow, I had no idea a Wal-Mart/Starbucks/McDonalds/You name it, was going in there.”

Those days are no more. The internet has changed that, forever. Builders and land barons can no longer simply build something and slap a sign on it, and move on, not caring whether the community approved or not. It was easy, once built it’s hard for the community to stop something that’s already built.

Last night, hopefully taught Focus development that very lesson. They’ve signed a lease with 7-11 to put up a store at Broadway and Larimer, where the old auto repair shop building is. They did this without ever mentioning it to the Ballpark Neighborhood (where I live). Normally that’d be fine, I’m all for business, especially business coming to my neighborhood.

Unfortunately my neighborhood is a bit teetery. We’ve got 2 homeless shelters a block apart, and about 1.5 blocks from the proposed location of the 7-11. The concern isn’t just bringing the homeless further into our neighborhood; they’re already here, lots of them near my house. It’s the crime, the traffic, the impact on the residents of the lofts immediately next to the 7-11. It’s a lot of things, that Focus Development seems to have chosen to ignore.

The alleyway behind the lofts, apparently is frequented (nightly from the sounds of it) by homeless, drug dealers and takers, and apparently prostitutes. Currently a call to police allows the police to take the offenders, or at least drive them away. However with the 7-11 there, the offenders simply have to say they’re on their way inside or have just left, keeping the police from making that area safer.

So where did Focus go wrong? They never told the community, the community that is directly impacted by this 7-11. They seemed to have thought that they could simply set up this 7-11 regardless of the community’s opinions. Sure that’s how business would like it to be, but that’s simply not the case. Not these days. Business owners and residents alike all vowed to do whatever they could to stop the 7-11, and even more so, every future endeavor Focus Development undertakes in the Ballpark Neighborhood. That can’t be good. And How did this all go wrong for Focus? The Internet. Skabber twittered a blog link, that was an Email from someone else. I twittered the event, and blogged it. Word spread fast. In the ‘old days’ word didn’t spread, fast or if at all. Business should keep that in mind. I suspect there won’t be a 7-11 at Broadway and Larimer, just a hunch, but I’m guessing it’s not gonna happen.

Side note. the only two people “for” the 7-11, 1 that lives in Cherry Creek where the 7-11 there is completely nice and there’s no problems. DUH. And the President of our Association (will have to see how long that tenure is) who lives in Congress Park.

Tags: community, neighborhood

iPhone app – get your music on! Ocarina

I probably played a total of 6 hours of any Legend of Zelda game, evar. But Ocarina for the iPhone is damn fun! Fun isn’t really the right word, since Ocarina isn’t a game, it’s a social music…. experiment? App? Experience?

You’ll just have to try it out.

The app has two modes. musical instrument mode (play the Ocarina) and listen mode, (listen to others play their Ocarina).

Both modes are absolutely incredible. In make music mode, you blow into the mic of your iPhone, you hear the music out the speaker. The UI is 4 buttuns, pressing any combination of them, is the same as covering the holes on a flute.

The music is rather eerie, to me at least, almost like a durge, but also kinda mesmorizing, I could probably just sit it on my desk an listen while I work.

The visual representation of listening to the music is simply awesome. Rather than just a stic indicator of where the person you’re listening to is, you actually ’see’ their music. These cool green rings, and blue spirals, leave the location of the person playing, and shoot off past you into space.

Don’t like what the person is playing, jump to another person.

What amazes me, is that this is one of those apps that you think, “How many people will be using it, when i want to listen?” thinking there’ll be one dot at

any given time. That couldn’t be farther from the reality, I fired it up right before writing this post to screen shot it, and just look at how many people were playing their Ocarina on a Sunday around noon MST.  Each dot is an Ocarina being played, truly a world symphony.

Apps like Ocarina really reveal the social power of the iPhone. Sure we can calculate our split of the bill at a dinner party, we can tweet, we can manage our netflix queue, etc, but how cool is it that we can make AND share music with no infrastructure requirements beyond the internet. Hearing the music someone on the opposite side of the planet is making, while sitting at their desk or on their couch.

I don’t know who Pacman186 is, but their music was nice, and I enjoyed being able to listen.

Tags: Apple, iPhone

Earthscape for iPhone, Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup

Tuesday (election day) was a busy one; it was the last day of Defrag ‘08, was election day, and was also a denver meeting of the Boulder Denver new tech meetup.

After Defrag Rob, Adam, Fraser and I spent some time in the bar in the lobby of the Hyatt, talking about twitter, glue, communities, etc. One of the best conversations I’ve had in a while.

After a few drinks, we caught the last two presentations at the meetup. One was a phone thing, that I didn’t quite understand, since we missed probably the first 2 minutes of the 5 alotted per company. We did see all of Earthscape(iTunes Link).

Think google earth, with community photo sharing. it’s pretty cool, and easy to use, photo’s appear as you pan through the map.

There’s two view modes; pan mode (looking straight down on the map), and 3D mode (right there to the right).  Both modes are very fluid and easy on the eyes. Initially I was worried that the graphics would kinda suck, but I had to admit Earthscape (and google earth, since it looks like Earthscape uses google earth) has very good graphics. Looking down on my house, it’s funny to see how old some of Google’s images are. I think I can see straight into the 2nd story of the town home, since there’s no roof.

users can, of course comment on photos, you can see all photo’s from a specific user, etc. You can even see Wikipedia entries, which is really cool! It’s cool to see the pictures people are taking of the places they are. Sure it’s a touch voyeuristic, but that’s human nature, and one of the under pinnings of social media :)

The blue circle thing, that’s my house in the middle, I was watching “The Happening” on Amazon unbox. Good flick.

You can see in this pic that some of the map doesn’t always un-blur. At first I thought I had glaucoma, but realized that some times the maps just don’t fully rez.

It’s a free app, I DL’ed it right there in the meetup, and took my first pic of it’s creator talking about it.

iPhone app aside, I’m definitely hooked on the new tech meetup. I don’t know if it is always Boulder, and the “Denver” part is name only, though I suspect that’s the case. Definitely worth the 20 minute drive into Boulder.

Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mac

Defrag Conference ‘08 Day Two

Charlene Li’s preso, AWESOME. Slides here. Among the best guotes, and there’s a lot of them, “Open will be the new norm”. Charlene did a great job of describing what the next few years in web 2.0/social media are likely to entail. Talking about trusting Google was big for me. I put everything up there in the google cloud, for lack of a better option really. Google is ubiquitous now, sure I could roll my own, use Yahoo, etc, but no one else does. I really do worry that not only could google decide that doing evil is easier and more profitable than not doing evil. A few months ago we all saw what a gSlap would look like when gmail was down for what? 4, 6 hours? People, including me, were freaking out! We’ll see.

Neeraj Mathur from Sun, not so awesome. I think only Sun, could turn Social Media into a rather boring, over equationed, enterprise-ified concept. Not “friends” but contacts. Equity built by some formula, and displayed like a progress meter. Kudo’s to Sun for trying, but I think they’ve taken it too far and made it “too Much”.

Eric did the sponsor bingo card raffle, great prizes. I’ve never been a sponsor bingo’er, but the idea does appeal to me, especially if you have each sponsor pony up a prize valued at $250 or more, awesome idea Eric!

Eventvue was in the house, literally and metaphorically. Defrag used Eventvue’s cool community building site to let all of us defraggers connect, and talk. It was cool to follow the defrag08 twitter stream, and interact with people I’d never metn and never heard of, but who are clearly thought leaders! I do wish Eric had set up a twitter wall, I’ve found that those are hella fun to watch. People invariably end up standing there staring at the screen for a few minutes, seeing the tweets fly by.

So overall, Defrag = good times, great conversations! Thumbs up. Eric did a bang up job, keeping things moving along. An extra special hard task since there weren’t any breaks between sessions.

As is usual for conferences, the best part was the conversations in the hallway. I had a great conversation Jonathan Yarmis about the music industry and the future or lack there of for them. It was cool to sit and throw ideas back and forth, talking about all the ways the RIAA has completely screwed the pooch, by fighting tooth and nail for $1 now rather than work towards the $2 they’d get if they embraced the current technological environment.

I also had a great conversation with Rob, and Adam from Eventvue, and Fraser from Adaptive blue; talking about twitter, Facebook, and Glue over beers. That kind of conversation is just so great and can’t be replaced. I can’t imagine attending a conference and not having these types of conversations with people that I’ve just met.

Tags: Conferences, Defrag, Technology

Defrag Conference ‘08 day one thoughts.

I wrote this after lunch on Monday.

Another freakishly awesome day in Denver! I’m sitting in the main hang out area (long foyer along the two break out rooms) with the sun beating on my back, reflecting on my MB Air’s glossy screen right into my face. It’s like those metal tanning things from the 60’s and 70’s

So far Defrag has been an awesome event, as advertised for sure. A few of the sessions have been a bit too lofty for me, but some have really rocked. I’m looking forward to more! What I find interesting so far is I haven’t taken a single note, like I would at a tech conference. It seems for me it’s more about just absorbing information in more general terms, than scribbling notes frantically as a speaker rambles on. It’s quite refreshing. The short form factor (30 Minute sessions) makes it almost like an Ignite, minus the auto advancing slides. It’s weird to have no “passing” period between sessions, so it’s kinda like a race to get your crap together and get to the next room if you’re changing rooms.

Typical conference problems, are typically happening. Wifi is sketchy, though remarkably not crappy. Kudo’s to Eric. I believe it’s impossible to have 100% fail free wireless internet, though at it’s worst, I’ve only lost my connection a few times, for a very short period, and only had laggy-ness (technical term) a few times too.

The topics around social media are very interesting, it’s good to see so much attention being given to SM topics, especially in the enterprise. Those guys definitely need it for the most part. I’m very interested in reducing the barriers between people (community) and things (companies), so seeing Enterprise take more of an interest in social media, is very promising.

Tags: Conferences, Defrag, Social Media