In honor of Rosh Hashana (that's the Jewish New Year for those who don't know), I'm sharing some insight to what it is that makes my homemade chicken soup so ... damn ... good.
First off, credit where it's due: I got this recipe from my mother ... who got it from her mother ... who ... (well you get the idea).
Basic ingredients aren't any surprise to any who's made chicken soup at any point. There:
- A whole chicken (cut into pieces - and yes, you use the giblets too)
- A whole lotta carrots (peeled and cut into chunky bits)
- A reasonable amount of celery (washed and cut into chunky bits)
- One whole onion (cut into ... you got it ... chunky bits)
- One parsnip (just toss it in whole
And then there are the two ingredients that take this from just plain old chicken soup to something more akin to sublime.
Oh, in this batch I added a handful of white mushrooms - cut into those chunky bits.
No, I didn't move, but I did finally return to doing the very thing that has brought me the most joy ... well ... ever in my career.
Radio.
Thanks to the Internet, radio is alive and well and when my friend Chris Heuer mentioned that he wanted to launch a weekly talk radio show that could serve as a platform for himself and some of the creative catalysts he'd collected at Ad Hocnium, I was all ears.
I had to miss the first episode (which turned out to be more of a public conference call) but on week 2 I hopped in, grabbed the reins and it was off to the races! After some discussion, Chris and I agreed that rather than my being a traditional "catalyst" with the Ad Hocnium group I'd focus solely on Executive Producing and Hosting the weekly show.
Over the months the program has evolved quite a bit, and has evolved into my solo program - though Chris pops in whenever he can as do some of the other catalysts. There are plans underway to evolve the program further, which will include a name change and some format evolution, but for now it's called Social Media Hour.
Our topics: cross-cultural Journalism, evolving architecture and a social media road trip.
The program is broadcast live every Tuesday from 10am to 11am Pacific time at Blog Talk Radio. We take calls and there's a live chat room so you can participate that way too.
I hope you'll come by for a live program some time, but until then, here's a taste from today:
Voices of Courage: Lt. Dan Choi, Cleve Jones & Rick Jacobs
I attended a small Courage Campaign fundraiser in San Francisco on August 17, 2009. I sat down in the living room waiting for Cleve Jones & Rick Jacobs to speak, when I felt someone sit down next to me. I turned. It was Lieutenant Dan Choi.
I'll get to that part in a minute but first some business.
Over the last several weeks, maybe even couple of months, I've been growing distressed. Things seemed to be falling apart. As I've written before, the LGBT community likes to beat up on itself. We're very good at ripping each other to pieces. After the devastating loss on Proposition 8 in November 2008, we seemed to finally have a common goal and an ever-so-tenuous detente seemed to form.
In the last month or so I've watched with dismay as it seemingly started to unravel. As everyone began to debate - 2010 or 2012 - with the lines seeming to draw cleanly between "old guard" (EQCA and co.) and "new guard" (the myriad grassroots organizations) the voices began to raise. Every email list I'm on, every conversation I had - the finger pointing was back and the vitriol more potent than ever.
It made me sick.
But I knew there was hope, and it's mostly due to the Courage Campaign. Now let me be clear - I don't work for them, I don't answer to them, and there are definitely things they do with which I have some issue. That said, I have felt that perhaps because they are not primarily an LGBT group, instead being a general progressive political organization, that somehow they have a bit more credence in my book. They don't have the same kind of agenda, perhaps that other groups do.
So when I had the chance to talk with Rick at this event, I asked him what he thought about what was next. He had this to say:
If you don't know who he is, all you need to do is see the film Milk. Harvey Milk "recruited" Cleve off the streets of San Francisco to lead the charge in community organizing. He is a master.
In this video (the first of two) he talks about Harvey, he talks about reaching across divides and into communities, he talks about why Prop 8 failed, and begins a clarion call:
Then my Kodak Zi-6* ran out of memory. That's what I get for not clearing it out ahead of time. Thankfully I never leave home without at least one back up, and so thanks to my Nokia N97*, I captured this last part ... which really drives home a critical part of the issue that MUST be addressed.
And when he's done ... he introduced Dan, who tells the story of his experiences and his coming out to his family.
(The detail-oriented gal in me must apologize for the "one of these things is not like the other" mismatch on the players. YouTube rejected this particular clip because it was too long)
Nice to know that he can probably also field strip an automatic weapon.
We chatted a bit as the presentation was about to begin and then fell quiet as Cleve stood up and began to talk.
After about 10 minutes, it was Dan's turn. He got up to speak and shared a story about coming out to his family, and how a key component to his 'fessing up was the fact that in not telling them, he was lying. And in lying he was being dishonorable - something that clearly goes against the very grain of his being. His pain is palpable. He relates the story, his eyes alternating between glossy with tears, and slightly contracted in grimace. Then he pauses, breathes, and a smile crosses his face. As palpable as that pain had been a moment before, so too is the evidence of his true courage then seen.
Later,in a quiet moment after he had finished, I asked him, "So when you have those moments when you feel overwhelmed, when you doubt whether or not you can go on... what do you do?"
He talks about that in this video.
What all this says to me is very simple.
No more complaining.
No more finger pointing.
Shut up ... and do the work.
*Disclosure: One of my consulting clients is Nokia. The N97 that I am using was given to me through that work. I do not review products, nor am I obligated by Nokia to promote their products.
The Kodak Zi-6 was part of a "swag bag" given to attendees of an event at the recent BlogHer Conference in Chicago.
For the record, I adore my President. Truly. Actually the affection extends to the entire First Family.
Okay so perhaps that's not precisely a news flash if you read my blog with any sort of regularity. But in the wake of a conversation I had while I was in NYC with my friend Ellen McGirt, in which we discussed this incredible phenomenon that is the cult of Obama, I came back to my hotel and watched the President's turn on The Tonight Show.
For whatever you may say about his politics, it's pretty hard to deny that this man is just ... cool.
I realize, of course, there's a whole lot more to running a nation than just being the cool kid that everyone likes. A lot more. And I'm not suggesting that the hip factor absolves him from receiving sharp scrutiny from his constituents along the way. Far from it. In fact, if anything, being the cool kid means he has that much more responsibility for behaving in a responsible manner.
The morning after watching the Prez with Leno, I had a conversation with someone in which the topic of "the cool kids" came up, and I remembered something. Well, not something so much as someone ... A person with whom I attended school from elementary days right up to high school graduation. This person would definitely fall into the category of "popular" from the get go.
I, on the other hand, was always just a touch too ... well, nerdy.
Not that long ago, I got that familiar email saying "XXXX added you as a friend on Facebook..." One look at the name returned me to 4th Grade. It was Mrs. Levin's class and I'm pretty sure it was late fall. Odd, but for some reason I remember the angle of the light cutting across the open classroom.
(Though not a Montessori school, Merion Elementary School definitely leaned towards a more non-traditional [at the time] classroom format - open floor plans, lots of sitting in circles on the floor, joint classes in which 3rd and 4th grade students learned together, that sort of thing.)
There was a group of students sitting playing a game of some sort. I walked up to join them and was told by one of the kids that I couldn't play with them - because I was ugly.
Ouch.
Fast forward to 2009 and there's that friend request email staring out from my inbox - from that very person who tossed that comment all those years ago.
I immediately posted to Twitter and Facebook (of course) about the experience. Several people replied on both fronts and suggested that perhaps he was trying to make amends. Could be, but truth is I'm pretty sure he doesn't even remember the incident.
Most folks told me to tell this fellow to go away (though the verbiage they all suggested was a bit more salty than that).
I opted to do the adult thing - accept his invitation. However, I did not mention the incident from all those years later. Somehow I felt it silly ... yet somehow it still bothers me ...
But at this moment, I'm thinking about the future of our country as it relates to people being kind to each other. Watching President Obama on The Tonight Show, I'm reminded that though the road ahead for our nation is a rough one, and there will no doubt be mistakes made along the way, at least we have someone leading the charge, who is endeavoring to do so with integrity, accountability and humor.
French Maids + Benny Hill = a novel (and lucrative) business
The musical the students would perform that year was a little known piece called "The Boyfriend".
I got to play a French Maid. Her name was Hortense.
Now I have to say that at the time I certainly didn't appreciate what that opportunity could have brought. Frankly the young woman I was at the time wasn't nearly who I am today so I guess that's not surprising.
But in any case donning that stereotypical costume (no I won't post a picture here, sorry), and fondling a feather duster definitely ... well ... let's say it is a memory that's been seared as brightly into my mind as the fuschia feathers on that duster I carried.
So when I first heard about French Maid TV, once I navigated my way through the whoosh of my memories, I felt the hackles of my not-so-inner feminist begin to rise.
Then I met Tim Street. He's the brains behind the operation, and when he and I first met several years back at an OnHollywood gathering, any concerns I had melted away.
When I was asked several months ago to do an interview for the ADM's "Get the Download" podcast series, I immediately said I'd be happy to - provided I got to interview Tim.
They agreed.
In this podcast, Tim and I begin our casual chat and talk about the background of French Maid TV - and that irksome little "is this insulting to women" topic.
The musical the students would perform that year was a little known piece called "The Boyfriend".
I got to play a French Maid. Her name was Hortense.
Now I have to say that at the time I certainly didn't appreciate what that opportunity could have brought. Frankly the young woman I was at the time wasn't nearly who I am today so I guess that's not surprising.
But in any case donning that stereotypical costume (no I won't post a picture here, sorry), and fondling a feather duster definitely ... well ... let's say it is a memory that's been seared as brightly into my mind as the fuschia feathers on that duster I carried.
So when I first heard about French Maid TV, once I navigated my way through the whoosh of my memories, I felt the hackles of my not-so-inner feminist begin to rise.
Then I met Tim Street. He's the brains behind the operation, and when he and I first met several years back at an OnHollywood gathering, any concerns I had melted away.
When I was asked several months ago to do an interview for the ADM's "Get the Download" podcast series, I immediately said I'd be happy to - provided I got to interview Tim.
"We're going to do this with unprecedented transparency and accountability."
That's what President Obama said when we spoke of how the Administration must in this video (also embedded below). Of course this isn't a new refrain, the President spoke of these things throughout his campaign.
To that end talks about the creation of a Cabinet-level position responsible for oversight of spending and ensuring money is "being spent wisely." But he doesn't stop there. President Obama then engages his constituents and invites everyone to keep a watchful eye.
As of my writing this, the site is not yet live because the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is burbling its way through Congress. But if the execution on-line to-date is any measure, I have no doubt it will go live, on time with a full set of functionality.
There are some who argue that perhaps this unprecedented access to monitoring government activity by its constituents may be problematic. In this blog post by Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, suggests that this could be problematic - for the government workers.
To that, I say this - if you're supposed to be doing a job, and you're doing it, you should have no reason to worry. I do understand his point that issues may arise if, say, there's an organization (like a school) that appears to be using a government grant for something other than what it was originally intended, who gets to decide that the change still fits under the terms for which the grant was given? Certainly there needs to be a process for considering feedback through any public forum, but I feel pretty safe in saying that the Obama Administration gets that. They did, after all, run the most digitally connected campaign in our country's history and did pretty well with managing their information.
If nothing else I have to say that I'm amazed at my own continued engagement with now President Obama. It was one thing to watch the videos and YouTube clips during the campaign, but I find myself drawn to the weekly video address and actually clicking on the links in the emails I receive.
Besides the fact that I feel empowered and informed, there's something nice about the fact that President Obama and his team hav so quickly shredded the shroud of secrecy that enrobed every last move from the previous Administration.
Meeting a legend: Activist and community organizer Cleve Jones
Historically I'm not what you'd call an "engaged" lesbian. I've never been much for the flag waving, rainbow sticker sporting sort of rah rah that always seemed required of participation in the community. In fact there were many times, when attending some event or another made me feel ... well ... straight.
No doubt it has something to do with my having come out rather late in the game (I was 28). More likely, though, is the fact that as a rule I've not generally engaged deeply with "the community." After all, what if Groucho Marx was right? If I was comfortable in my own skin and okay with who I was, what did I need all that marching, sign waving, banner hanging and such?
Of course for anyone who reads this blog even occasionally you're aware that my gay neutrality shattered this past May after the California Supreme Court's landmark decision. Even after that, however, while I attended more events, signed more petitions, made more calls and certainly participated, I was still - as so many - rather late to the game in getting really involved. I'm not talking about writing checks and going to fundraisers, I'm talking about hands-on help. I just didn't. To be blunt - I was complacent.
Tonight I attended a kick-off event for tomorrow's Camp Courage here in LA. Cleve Jones, whose central role as a community organizer is chronicled to letter-perfect detail in Gus Van Sant's Oscar nominated Milk, spoke to the crowd.
No, scratch that, he electrified the crowd.
Screw complacency. It's time for action. Now.
Not sure how I'm going to get to bed, but will endeavor to do so. Tomorrow is going to be a big day.
Today we all have a dream - and tomorrow perhaps the answer begins
Every year on Martin Luther King day I begin by listening to the entire speech given by that remarkable man on that powerful day so many years ago. It's a bit more than 16 minutes in length, and while the excerpts we hear so often deliver a strong impact, there is little to compare with the electric energy of the full speech.
So many of the words uttered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that day ring especially true today - as we look towards tomorrow's inauguration of this nation's first black President. But there is so much more than race that makes tomorrow a powerful day. For the last eight years this nation has struggled against demons - from within and without. The racial divide that has long lived here, grew all the more contentious as red states and blue states fairly clove this country in half.
As I sit bathed in the sunrise that has just broken the horizon in San Francisco, listening to the passionate words with the current of hope running beneath them, I find my vision blurred with the hot tears of hope.
We shall overcome.
Intel Chairman Craig Barrett talks to the Intel Insiders
Some of the Intel Insider posse had a chance to sit down for a one-on-one (well, one on five) conversation on the first afternoon of CES 2009 in advance of his Friday keynote. We talked a bit about what he would say in the keynote but mostly discussed the ways in which technology is truly impacting lives.
Not captured but important tidbits ... Craig has a penchant for milk chocolate and cowboy boots ... I knew I liked him. :)
And I'm referring to that line between passionately extolling the points of a given topic for which one has a deep engagement, and the shrill, irritating as all get-out tone people can (and often do) take when it comes to issues that lay near and dear to the heart (and to the nerve).
I'm speaking in this case of marriage equality. And lest you think I'm heading off on a rant of some sort, rest easy. In fact, the catalyst for this post was a decidedly non-confrontational appearance by Wanda Sykes on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. With all respect I have to say that my biggest issue in general with my own community (and in this case I mean the LGBT one, and not the Jewish one, or San Francisco one, or ...) often lies with the manner in which some of my brothers and sisters choose to force feed people in an attempt to gain acceptance.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't occasions on which to raise voices, shake fists and even perhaps take a more physical stand to make a point. But as a rule, there is a direct and oftentimes inverse reaction to messages that are delivered to an audience the same way some ducks are turned into fois gras factories.
But I digress ... when it comes to marriage equality even my mother - who is staunchly against the simple fact of my being gay - agrees that the concept of one group of people mandating basic civil liberties for another group just isn't right. In fact, while my own family forbids anyone speak on the subject of my being (gasp) a lesbian I am proud to say that all, save my sister and brother-in-law, are firmly set on the side of true civil rights when it comes to this topic.
It would be nice if there were more people like Wanda Sykes (famous or otherwise) who would grow a pair and step up and do so in as thoughtful and articulate a manner as she.
She has inspired me and I know I, for one, will endeavor to do the same.
It's official. I'm funny. Because John Cleese said so.
Ever since I was a kid people have told me that I was funny. Generally I'm able to make folks laugh more often than not, and people frequently ask me if I've ever done stand-up comedy. (The answer to that, btw is no. I may be funny but folks who do stand-up are in a whole different league.)
In any case, there are those comedic gods to whom I pay homage and genuflect (or at least double over laughing, which I'm pretty sure is the humor equivalent on that front).
Among those: Steve Martin ("wild and crazy guy" era), Chevy Chase (I have one word for you, Fletch), Steven Wright (he makes usual dry humor seem positively waterlogged), Sarah Silverman (you have to love someone who insults everyone with such a lovely smile), but the true masters of funny in my world are the brilliant men behind Monty Python and Fawlty Towers.
Their work is hallowed comedic ground for me, and so when my colleague Vinvin told me that John Cleese was going to be on Seesmic I just about passed out.
And then something remarkable happened.
John Cleese said I was funny.
He answered the question I asked him too, but he said I was funny.
The Seesmic conversation player I've posted here opens with John's reply to my question.
But if you wish to watch the whole thread, you can click on the far left thumbnail on the bottom and listen to it all!
Re: cathy/ John Cleese on Seesmic Tuesday 7th at NOON Pacific Time
Craig Manganello - Rest in Peace my Seesmic friend
When I got home tonight I had a note in my personal email inbox from the contact address on my blog. It was from a fellow named Darren. He informed me that someone I knew had died.
In and of itself that's not, perhaps, all too unusual. But in this case, the person who had died is someone who I never met - at least not in person.
Looking at his MySpace video page, you see a concert his did in June. If you look at his Twitter feed, you see as recently as early August a trip to the beach, an outing for steak dinner with the family, and then the return of health issues that he'd thought were, perhaps, under control.
And now, he's gone. Just like that.
The marvelous thing is that he's not really gone. Far from it. Just look at the links listed through this post. Every one of them points to a place where something that Craig created can live on. His carbon print may have moved on, but his digital mark remains - a deeply inked tattoo to which we can all continue to link, refer and connect.
So it is for all of us. While our physical time in this place has a structured in and out point, the radiating connections we grow as we pass along in life remain.
Though Craig wasn't Jewish, there is something I think to be said for giving people an opportunity to express their grief, share their stories and process the loss.
It seems fitting that this process has begun in a place Craig enjoyed. I've included this conversation below and even if you didn't know Craig, hope that you will feel free to share your condolences or, if you wish to share your own stories of coping with loss with the group, please introduce yourself and chime in.
NOTE: IF YOU WISH TO PARTICIPATE, WHEN YOU CLICK ON REPLY YOU WILL BE PROMPTED EITHER TO LOG IN TO SEESMIC OR TO CREATE AN ACCOUNT. CREATING AN ACCOUNT IS VERY SIMPLE - JUST ENTER NAME, USERNAME, PASSWORD AND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND YOU'RE OFF TO THE RACES!
So there I am ... walking around the Seesmic VIP lounge at SXSW when I meet yet another Seesmic user - Roxanne Darling. She's based in Hawaii and was sitting at a table doing Tarot readings!
There's a particular issue that's been on my mind the last week or two, so I looked to the Tarot for guidance.
One of the marvelous things about the world that is Seesmic, is the way in which the community has embraced the platform and is using it for all sorts of creativity.
The fellow who created this video, Hache, is from Colombia. He is a relative newcomer to Seesmic, but already has done some fun stuff.
In this mash-up he shows some of the faces from around the world - including mine!
Nathan Myhrvold - Silicon Valley: Has it become the establishment?
Business Week magazine called him the Master of Innovation, but Nathan Myhrvold prefers to think of himself as more of a Pied Piper where innovation is concerned.
He and the team at Intellectual Ventures are spending their time at the opening of the innovation pipeline, helping bring new technologies to market themselves and supporting others both through development and through purchasing patents. So that's what he does. But what does he think about innovation in Silicon Valley? And what are his thoughts on today's entrepreneurs?
In this interview, Nathan shares his perspectives on how Silicon Valley has moved from its radical roots to being part of Corporate America and the impact that's having both on what technologies are being built as well as the people who are creating them.
It's been a long time since I've been this excited about starting a new gig.
That's right, in a couple of weeks I'll be giving up the glamor and glory of independent consultancy and head for a full-time gig with an incredible new start-up headed by superlative entrepreneur, Loic Le Meur.
At least it's about Truman's appearance on today's episode of Seesmic - a Day in the Life.
This is the web program that started out as Loic's daily video journal of building his business. He's been taking a truly open-source approach, sharing his concerns, questions and ideas with the community at large.
And then, based partly on feedback to his postings, he's continued building and growing the new business. (Which is, by the way, called Seesmic.)
In any case, Loic headed off for Paris today in advance of LeWeb3 and so his partner, Vinvin was left alone to do the show.
I've always found it funny when members of the media are interviewed by members of the media. But in today's everyone-has-a-voice communications landscape, the paradigm shifts a bit.
About three weeks ago I was at a technology industry event (STIRR) and was interviewed by a fellow named Zennnie Abraham. At the time I was standing in the middle of the room showing a demo of Seesmic to a friend.
About a week later I got a Facebook request from Zennie, and in looking at his profile I realized why he'd looked so familiar. We met YEARS ago when he was working with the City of Oakland and I was at TechTV.
Years had passed but interesting for some reason I'd kept his card - even though the contact information was no longer valid.
Fast forward to our reconnection in 2007 and when we linked on Facebook, Zennie sent me a note. He saw by my profile that I was handling the program for this year's LeWeb3 conference and asked if I would do an interview with him about the event.
So we met at Harry's Bar on Fillmore Street one crisp, sunny afternoon (today actually) and chatted. Turned out he was interested not only in talking about LeWeb3, but also about how I'd gotten into the industry and my thoughts on the evolution of media.
While I definitely need a haircut, I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with how these came out.
Here's part one where I talk about my career path (such as it's been) and what I think of bloggers versus Journalists:
Here's part two where I expound on my current and very exciting project - the soon to happen LeWeb3:
As the person perched at the helm of Mozilla Corporation - the subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation responsible for syncing up development of all open source Mozilla Internet applications - Mitchell sits in the catbird seat when it comes to perspective on the open source movement.
Hopefully you can get past the fact that this interview looks a bit like the two of us are sitting inside a cotton ball to talk and hone in on the great points she makes.
The relationship between technology and entertainment epitomizes the dynamic of love/hate.
The high points in this connection can be exhilarating, and the lows swing with equal passion in the converse. These two industries struggle with symbiosis. And they don't have a choice.
They advance because of and often in spite of each other. And in very recent years, say the last three years or so, the linked (and hyperlinked) dynamic has made for some interesting times.
Hollywood's had a bit more of a struggle where technology comes in. This old-school, old boys network industry has grappled (with varying success) strides of innovation. (Just ask anyone who's addressed DRM issues, or perhaps chat with the writers who are now out on strike, partly over digital rights.)
Silicon Valley on the other hand is a place steeped deeply in innovation, and that seems to have little regard, at least where some entrepreneurs are concerned, with building things that have long-term value. For some start-up jockeys it's all about the quick flip and short attention span. After all, there's another innovation to get started.
In grazing through some old interviews I've done, I came across this one with Mike Arrieta from Sony that I conducted at the 2006 AlwaysOn Stanford Innovation Summit.
His take at the time regarding innovation was that established players are forced to innovate in order to stay ahead, because the idea of always banking on young upstarts (translation - kids right out of school) to keep a company fresh doesn't make for a strong, long-term strategy to stay innovative.
He says that companies are now being shoved into a state where they must imbue their culture all the way through with innovation so that as the fresh-faced entrepreneurs become seasoned veterans (translation - turn into corporate citizens), the environment will not stifle their creativity but instead allow it to flourish over time.
Will Silicon Valley take the lesson? Time will tell.
I once heard someone say that if a bomb were to drop on the Four Seasons Aviara in Carlsbad, CA during the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital Conference, Silicon Valley would be in serious trouble.
As one of the most powerful Journalists in technology and business, Walt can make or break a company's success with a review in his column.
His feisty fireball of a partner, Kara, recently left her staff job at the Wall Street Journal to take up the mantle of blogger/vlogger at the D-branded site, AllThingsD. Armed with a tiny video camera and her ever-present sunglasses, Kara charges up and down the hallways of Silicon Valley companies putting Valley influencers on the spot, always with her tongue welded firmly in cheek.
Their mutually platinum Rolodex's, combined with the power of their roles in media allow Walt and Kara to pull together a Who's Who list of speakers to wow the A-list crowd of attendees. From Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Barry Diller, Ivan Seidenburg and Terry Semel, the list of folks who have graced the stage for the last four years of this event represent the creme de la creme of Silicon Valley's elite.
Kara moderated a panel at the 2006 AlwaysOn Innovation Summit and was kind enough to sit down with me for a couple of minutes after coming off the stage. We talked about innovation and how it's largely due to failures from the dot.com bubble bursting that we have as rich and powerful a media landscape as we do today.
The land of geeks, bits and bytes is evolving. Or is it? Silicon Valley was born of chips, code and programmers and in recent years has begun a steady evolution into a place where some of the hottest consumer plays and media companies live.
Companies like Google & Yahoo! didn't intend to be consumer companies, but now that they are, the requirement to look at things through the eyes of regular, everyday people has become paramount.
Depending on who you ask it may or may not be working, but that doesn't mean they're not trying.
Dave Goldberg used to run Yahoo! Music. He's now an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Benchmark Capital. But back when he was in his role at Yahoo! we had a chance to sit down and chat about this very topic.
Although he works in a space the name of which evolved from a phrase in the Hawaiin language meaning "hurry up", there is nothing rushed about Gil Penchina.
As someone who's spent the majority of his career in and around technology and start-ups, I'd say that Gil is in a pretty good position to speak on this subject.
I've had the pleasure of interviewing Gil several times - including a three part chat for Guidewire Group's I of Innovation: Inside Innovators profile series.
It merits mentioning that Gil had the dubious honor of being the first AlwaysOn Innovation Summit speaker with whom I spoke for this interview series. I say dubious because as you'll see by the interview the camera guy was still getting his production legs.
So listen closely ... and no making fun of my hair.
Using the word epicenter for a region that sits atop a maze of fault lines always seems a bit funny to me, but there's no question Silicon Valley is the hub for all things technology. Sure there are other parts of the country where technology thrives - Boston, Austin, Seattle, San Diego - just to name a few. But the truth of the matter is that in spite of myriad efforts to transplant Silicon Valley structure and culture, the heart of the industry remains here.
In this interview with Boston-based Ron Hovsepian, President and CEO of Novell, we touch on this subject. I took the opportunity to also ask this seasoned veteran what he sees as the biggest changes in both the industry and the entrepreneurs who are bringing innovation to market.
Without ruining the punch line here's the gist - Ron suggests that what used to be an industry rife with technologists and scientists coming up with a cool product or idea is now an evolved marketplace with well-rounded entrepreneurs who have not only the technological savvy but the business acumen to launch a business.
And he adds that while during the first bubble it wasn't unusual for half-baked ideas to get boatloads of cash, today's investors are making sure to take their time and put money into things that are more well thought out. Candidly with all the hoopla surrounding most of the Web 2.0 start-ups - which get lots of play but have either no business model or a questionable one - I don't know that I fully agree with Ron. But take a listen and decide for yourself.
He's soft-spoken and thoughtful and when I spoke with Paul Saffo at the AlwaysOn Innovation Summit at Stanford in 2006 I also found out that he wields a big fire axe.
Yep, in addition to being one of Silicon Valley's foremost prognosticators of trends, Paul also participates in emergency preparedness and survival techniques.
Paul and I sat down just before his panel with Steward Brand, Nathan Myhrvold, Danny Hillis and Kevin Kelly. Since the focus of their talk was going to be looking forward, I thought it might be interesting to have this technology pundit glance backwards and share his perspectives on the place from whence we've come.
Right out of the gate Paul makes the point that the reason Silicon Valley is so chock-full of innovation is not because we're successful, but because we're so good at failing. His point being - any culture that allows and even encourages people to take risk and fail is one where great innovation can be born.
I think that sometimes we forget just how lucky we are to be in such an amazing place. Last spring I spent some time in Europe for Guidewire Group'sInnovate!Europe conference. From the myriad entrepreneurs with whom I spoke there came a resounding hurrah for the way in which Silicon Valley supports those who crash and burn while attempting to drive innovation. Consensus among this group was clear - love of risk and acceptance of failure as a badge of honor is a unique characteristic of this Valley we call home.
It's something every company faces at some point - executive transition. After all, no one stays in a job forever and there comes a time when whomever helms the ship must execute on a succession plan. Why is it then, when the inevitability glares so brightly, that almost all companies stagger across this milestone rather than clearing it as just another hurdle on the track?
That topic and related discussion I'll save for another time. But for now, enjoy this conversation with the CEO of a company that serves as an example of how executive succession planning, when properly arranged and executed, should look.
The company is QUALCOMM, and the transition was from more than from a founder to a new executive. It was also a transition from father to son.
In this discussion - Dr. Paul Jacobs, CEO of mobile chip maker QUALCOMM.
It's a dream for many entrepreneurs. You launch a company that catches the attention of a major industry player, and then you get acquired. But just as the odds of your being discovered in a coffee shop in LA by a big film producer and turned into a star are pretty slim, the number of companies to experience this windfall is limited. That, however, doesn't stop the flood of eager entrepreneurs who scramble for the attention of consumers ... and Sand Hill Road.
In times like today, when you can't swing a dead cat without thumping a start-up jockey in the head, there are hundreds or even thousands of companies trying to come to market. Few of them will survive.
In the case of Flickr, the experience was pretty rapid fire. I first saw the company at PC Forum in 2003 and it was actually at that conference when they simultaneously announced that their technology would be joining the Yahoo! stable.
I remember meeting the founders, Catarina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, as we sat outside the conference session in the hot Arizona sunshine during one of the coffee breaks. They were based at the time in Vancouver, and even in those early days it was evident that they were going someplace.
Catarina's is the name most people hear in conjunction with Flickr, and it's not often that her co-founder Stewart Butterfield takes the spotlight. I had a chance to sit down with this unassuming fellow at the 2006 AlwaysOn Stanford Summit.
Any investor worth their salt in Silicon Valley knows that for every 10 investments they make, they're lucky if one strikes gold.
Some investors, however, have a consistent string of success. Call it luck. Call it savvy. By any way you cut it, these are the people to whom the industry looks to see what's next.
In the case of Vinod Khosla, that has meant an increased attention on renewable/green energy and alternative fuel sources. Along with his great success, Vinod carries something even more valuable - sense of humility and perspective about his accomplishments.
Slender and soft-spoken, Khosla doesn't tend to pull focus when he enters a room. Instead he tends to stick to the edges, talking to people with a quietly intense gaze and surprisingly brilliant smile that flashes when the topic turns to his latest passion ...
In this conversation, which took place at the AlwaysOn Stanford Innovation Summit in 2006, we talk about what it means to be a top investor, why the renewable energy space is actually moving at just the right pace, and how Silicon Valley has evolved over time.
Over the last year or so I've been dabbling with video. Mostly on a very irregular basis, because my lack of video editing skill relegated me to the category of pure "meat puppet" (a lovely moniker that I learned is often used by "talent" executives in the TV business in reference to the on-air personalities whose tapes they view). And with my ... well ... control issues ... let's just say the idea of putting anything into the public realm over which I had little to no editing input was ...
But in the last several weeks I've been playing around with video a bit more. And I've even started learning to edit a bit on my own.
So I figure that since I'll be putting some rather humorous and kick ass stuff up in short order, why not at least begin things by letting you see how things were under someone else's editing knife.
And to be honest these aren't all that bad.
Well ... they're okay.
So without further ado here's the first of a series of interviews that I conducted at the AlwaysOn Stanford Innovation Summit in 2006.
In this episode, I speak with George Gilder, noted technology industry pundit and trend watcher. He's known for his strong opinions, and in this conversation he doesn't disappoint.
My question to him is about the many attempts to recreate the culture and vibrancy of Silicon Valley in various other parts of the world. More specifically I ask his take on why, for the most part, these efforts have failed.
What is it about innovation and entrepreneurship that seems so patently American?
In his characteristically dry and sharp tone, George Gilder offers his frank perspective on what innovation means, and why the threat against Israel is a threat against entrepreneurship.
From the first grunts of prehistoric man through the current grunts of Corporate America, human beings struggle to understand each other. As the world grows increasingly divided, sometimes finding common ground between disparate cultures and beliefs seems impossible.
One thing that crosses all borders, all cultures and all social classes - is art. Whether it be music, dance, or any other form of creative expression, every culture has some form of expression.
Living in San Francisco one gets a bit spoiled. The options for art consumption, while not as pervasive as say New York City or London, are certainly impressive. For years I've attended the San Francisco Symphony, caught a couple of performances of San Francisco Opera and belong to pretty much every museum in town.
But I have to be honest. When it comes to the arts, dance - especially ballet - falls pretty low on my list. As a matter-of-fact, when my sister generously offered to buy me season tickets to the San Francisco Ballet as a birthday present several years ago, I punctuated my "no thank you" with an explosive snort of laughter.
So when my friend Maureen Blanc emailed and asked if I would be willing to help out with some activities for Alonzo King's LINES Ballet, it was more about the opportunity to see an old friend and help her out than it was any real love for ballet that I agreed.
One rainy San Francisco evening, Maureen gathered a small group at her home to talk about the LINES' ballet 25th anniversary gala taking place in November 2007. During the gathering I had a chance to meet Alonzo King - and I was thoroughly charmed.
My relative distaste for ballet in general notwithstanding, I found myself riveted as he explained the history of his troupe and talked about where things would be going in the coming year. When he invited me to come see a rehearsal for the company's current performance - I jumped at the chance.
Several days later, I headed for their studio. Of course the first thing I did was email my sister and tell her where I was going. To which I received an email that she wrote after picking herself up off the floor where she had fallen in hysterics upon hearing of my afternoon plans.
I'll truncate the story here.
In short - I'm now hooked.
The performance, a collaboration with the Shaolin monks, was mesmerizing - and it was still in very rough form when I saw it.
Alonzo very kindly agreed to spend some time with me soon thereafter so that I could get a better understanding of his philosophy and get the background on how this remarkable piece came into being.
Some folks think it's a brilliant deal. I think it's a waste of money. But I suppose if you have as much cash in the bank as Google does at some point you need to spend it. So why not fork over $1.65 billion for YouTube, a company that has no business model, no revenue to speak of and the spector of ugly litigation for copyright infringement not to mention slander/libel down the road.
But who am I to say?
I do have to say that whether or not I agree with the deal, I am happy for YouTube founder Chad Hurley. He's a sweet kid. Now he's a very rich, sweet kid. I was lucky enough to catch some time with Chad, back before he was Google-fied.
In late April I embarked on a fantastic journey - my return to life as a working member of the media community.
Two people whose professional acumen and personal integrity rank above most anyone I know, asked me to join them. Their venture, Guidewire Group, is a global analyst firm focused on emerging markets, technologies, products, and companies playing in that that large arena; and they were looking for someone who could provide analysis of the people who drive innovation, like entrepreneurs and venture/angel investors.
It took just north of a nanosecond for me to agree.
So, in late March I launched a weekly podcast talk series called I of Innovation that focuses on ... you guessed it ... people who innovate. More specifically it means that every week I distribute a series of episodes featuring interviews with the people who make innovation possible.
As of today, I have produced & posted nearly 100 episodes - with a veritable tsunami of additional content ready to go and about 8 more hours of raw audio in the queue for production over the weekend.
I've been a bit prolific.
And what would a good plug be, if I didn't provide you with a link to where you can find a full index of episodes.
So here it is - a link to the I of Innovation episode index on Chris Shipley's Guidewire Connection site.
From her days covering retail and entertainment at the Washington Post to her position today as one of the most well-regarded Journalists (note the capital "J") in the technology industry working for The Wall Street Journal, Kara Swisher has always held a healthy skepticism of power.
She took some time from her busy schedule to talk with me about where she goes for credible sources of information, and why she thinks the technology industry doesn't care about consumers.
Okay I was fooled. With her flaxen blonde hair, blue eyes and otherwise arranged exterior, I never would have pegged Barbie as Jewish. Yes, that Barbie. The one created by Mattel.
And why on earth am I raising the point about her being Jewish - and how do I even know this?
Also good questions.
The answer - The Tribe - the latest film from Tiffany Shlain. Probably best known for her role as the founder and steward of the Webby Awards (now in their 10th year), Tiffany's own heritage - besides her Jewish roots - comes from filmmaking.
In this film, Tiffany tackles the thorny issue of what it means to be Jewish, and traces the history of the Jewish people. Her metaphor - the Barbie Doll.
Oh, did I mention she does all this in 15 minutes?
With The Tribe now heading to the prestigious Sundance Film Festival I had to know more. So I sat down with Tiffany to talk about her film, her roots and where she looks for inspiration.
For those who prefer to read ... Here is a complete transcript of my conversation with Tiffany:
Tiffany Shlain: My background, I studied film theory at UC Berkeley and film production at NYU (New York University) and to me, film was this amazing medium to tell stories and have impact. Then I saw the (World Wide) Web and I thought, that is a real way to change the world and make impact. For the Webby's every year, I mean, you've come for many years, I always made films to introduce the show. So what was really fun is that I got to experiment. I made a short (film) every year, um, about a five-minute film that would introduce everything and I, I really felt it pull back to me. For the last election I made a film called "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," that I directed and co-wrote. And it was, um, the first film I had done in years that was outside the Webby's and it got into Sundance. And is has just continued over the last three years to live on. It's been shown at over 200 film festivals, community centers and museums, all the law schools in the country just bought copies to give, to every law school as required for people to ... for students to see it. I'm not sure that it's exactly on the curriculum but that just showed me again the breadth of life that something I worked on for four months, the efficiency of the impact. And as I get older, and I'm a mom, and I do the Webby's and I do lecturing things that I can pour energy into and they can live on is very appealing to me.
My first love is filmmaking and the Web is a new tool to communicate, but the emotional impact of a film is very powerful to me. And I am very excited about marrying my love of film and the Web with some experiments I'm doing with my new film, The Tribe, which is it's not just a film, it comes with a whole kit and then a very potent Web site to support dialogue and facilitate communication with people who have seen the film or who want to talk about it. So this is this new area and I have a new film in the works too where we're really going to expand on this model which is a short film as the appetizer, fun things for discussion and to seed the discussion and the Web to really facilitate that at a large level.
Cathy Brooks: Now the topics that you pick are not exactly ... you know ...
Tiffany Shlain: The one's you're not supposed to talk about at a dinner party ...
Cathy Brooks: Exactly ...
Tiffany Shlain: Politics ... religion ...
Cathy Brooks: You know, abortion ...
Tiffany Shlain: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know and that's ...
Cathy Brooks: ... and you boil them down to 15 minutes.
Tiffany Shlain: That's the ultimate challenge. How do I take a subject that no one wants to talk about, make it funny, and crack it open. And I think you can only crack it open with the humor. So that's the challenge to me and that's exciting ... taking very complicated subjects and kind of opening them up.
But what gets me up in the morning ... I love what I do so much. I love all the different parts of it ... I mean ... I love (the research), I'm working on this new film that I've been collecting articles for, newspaper clippings and things for years. So I've been building this big file, and I know I don't get to work on it yet but I will, and it's kind of marinating in my creative thoughts. And then The Tribe is going to be at Sundance and we just had this big premiere and all that work editing and raising the money and the paperwork and the this and the that is now done and we get to take it all over the country and the world ... I love that part. I like intermixing the film and the event part.
The way I've chosen to live my life ... I am my own boss ... and I look at each week like, 'What am I going to plan for this week?' Because there's no one telling me, it's like ... there's a lot of stuff I have to do but ... I guess designing my own week, I think of that as a very creative process. And I feel so blessed and lucky that I can do that. Because I don’t think that we're ... we're not made to work from nine to five. What gets me up in the morning ... is like everyday, what is this day going to bring? I say to my daughter, 'I get to work now, see you later!' You know, I know a lot of people say 'Well, I have to work now honey.' But to me it's like, I get to do what I love to do!
Cathy Brooks: Now, The Tribe ... Sundance ... You got the news right around the time of the premiere here in San Francisco ...
Tiffany Shlain: Oh my god that was so crazy. That was one of the craziest weeks! It was fantastic! Actually I was ... I was actually in New York because HBO was having a party for the Webby's 10-year anniversary, which was (in itself) a big deal and the night before I got the call (about The Tribe being accepted to the Sundance Film Festival). And it was like all these things were culminating, and it was just ... I still take ... I mean it's ... I ...
Cathy Brooks: Pinch yourself?
Tiffany Shlain: Yeah, I get nervous. I look (both ways) across the street (and think) is someone going to hit me? (laughing)
Cathy Brooks: (chuckling) Make sure you walk outside with a helmet ...
Tiffany Shlain: (laughs) I do feel that way right now, but I also, I don't know ... I think it's a Jewish thing ... I feel like (as good as things are) the rug could also be pulled out from under me you know, it's like (laughs) 'It's all going so well but everything could be pulled out from under me at any moment.' (laughing)
Cathy Brooks: (continued laughter) I think it is a Jewish thing. Of course, that leads us to The Tribe. There are obvious reasons why I would think that this is a subject you would want to tackle from a personal perspective, but the perspective of this story (comparing Jewish people to the Barbie Doll) is a pretty interesting one ... the history of the Jewish people. What did you learn most from it that you perhaps didn't know before?
Tiffany Shlain: I learned so much. I couldn’t believe how much, as an educated person, I knew about so many things ... except my own background. And I really wrestled with what it meant to be Jewish and I, just in the process of researching the film, I mean the context for Israel ... the history of persecution ... and ... beyond the Holocaust which I think everyone knows completely, but nothing really before that. And once you really understand that it's happened for thousands and thousands of years ... We were forced to wear stars in the four hundred ... the four hundreds ... and yellow crowned hats ... and cloaks ... and were forced into curfews and ... you know ... from the beginning of time ... from civilization. It was a pretty powerful thing to think about and I think really understanding the (feeling of being an) outsider. I always felt like an outsider to the Jewish community. The more I explored this film with (my husband) Ken, and all the people working on it ... Gil Gershoni, who did the art direction, you know, you start to realize that it's a part of who we are (as Jewish people) that outsider thing, and then you don't feel as alone any more.
Cathy Brooks: Because there are other people outside with you.
Tiffany Shlain: Yeah, yeah. The whole process was great. I learned a lot. Doing the research ... we had great script meetings. It was a lot of ... It was a great process. It was hard. There were certain times in the script I’d get ... you know to boil down the history of the Jews and the Barbie Doll in 15 minutes ... just imagine what we didn't include. And what's important ...
Cathy Brooks: What ended up on the cutting room floor?
Tiffany Shlain: Oh the rest of civilization ... everything else. (laughs). So you know, knowing what to put in and what not to put in, that's the biggest challenge ... as it always is.
Cathy Brooks: So what was your greatest filter?
Tiffany Shlain: My gut. I had ... that's another thing (I've learned) as I've gotten older. I really listen to (my instinct). I feel like I know ... What's so exciting is that I've made ... this is my eighth film so you know most of the time filmmaking is so expensive it's prohibitive. Now with all the new technologies not so much, but I've really been able to practice a lot and The Tribe is really a culmination of a lot of my experimental films ... the model of Life, Liberty (and the Pursuit of Happiness) ... It's a combination so I feel like I know what I'm doing with this model. I want to keep taking it to the next level but I understand it. And I know where the moments of humor and the moments of seriousness are. I feel like I ... I feel like I found a niche ... I found this way of telling stories and so it's just my gut ... and you know Ken and Carlton, and Romeo the people on my team ... listening to them ... I talked to tons of people ... We had 30 people read the script.
DISCLOSURE: I was honored when Tiffany asked me to be one of the people who reviewed an early draft of the script for The Tribe. I’m even more proud that she acknowledges me in the credits (-:
Having discussions with them ... ferreting out the similar comments and that was also a fun process finally just ... I think it's a subject most people never talk about ... their Jewish identity ... so I got to talk about it in the process.
You know, when I was first looking for heroes when I was in college, um, I was looking for women filmmakers. There were hardly any in the history books. So I made a film called Reel Inspiration, and I interviewed all these women filmmakers in the Bay Area and that's how I got to, you know, talk about it and learn from them was doing this documentary.
Cathy Brooks: There is something very powerful about the kind of work that you do. The ability to extend a message the way you do and impact people.
What does the word "power" mean to you?
Tiffany Shlain: Well, it's so funny, the first time you said it. I've been thinking a lot about power, just how much we are ... I was at the airport the other day and I was searching for (literal) power ... electricity ... to power my technology. So on one level I think of power as this interesting thing we need to tap into. And then I also think of it ... so that's like on a ... That's on one level. And then I also think about it as tapping into the power of a network, which I think I know how to do well and I do. All of my projects are the result of so many people's support and help and all these networks. So that's the other way I think about it. And then lastly, when I think about power, with each project I do it really means that my next project, when I make a call I can make things happen that much (snaps her fingers) quicker. So I ... so it's interesting it just means that I can make things and move mountains and make impact in a more efficient manner and kind of quicker. And that's a powerful thing and I ... I mean ... I like making, so power allows me to make more ... quicker ... to more people.
Cathy Brooks: What advice would you impart to a younger you? If you could step back ... say 15 or 20 years ... what would you tell yourself?
Tiffany Shlain: Well ... yeah ... You know, I think a lot of people look at me and they don't ... I went through ... (sigh) ... In college I won the Eisner Award, this big award in film, and I was valedictorian and speaker and all this stuff ... I was on the top of the world ... You could say ... maybe ... a little bit ... cocky (smiles). And then I went out and tried to make a feature (film) and I kept running out of money. And I went through two depressions over that. My whole life was this film, this feature film, and when it fell down I fell down with it. And I ... I ... from those ... from that very rocky period I really ... I didn't want film to be my only thing. It became very apparent the lifestyle it was (that) too much rose and fell on one project and that's not for me. And I think I've built my life in a way that my film is this thing I get to do but it's not my only thing. So that was an important thing ... So I think telling myself as a younger version of myself that you can wrap yourself into a project but balance is really important to me, creatively, which I've earned. And just for my happiness ...
Cathy Brooks: And sanity ...
Tiffany Shlain: ... and sanity, yeah. So that would be one thing. And the second thing is that ... When I was younger I wanted to take on the biggest projects at such a young age and I really look back now and I think not being ... running out of money on that feature, not being able to finish it, was actually the best thing that ever happened. It really made me understand a lot of business things (that I used later) for the Webby Awards, which allowed me to keep that thing going during the bust and make it out to the boom really well, which is where we are now, in our 10th year. We have our 10 year anniversary this year. So I've been very reflective. But I think with filmmaking and the Webby's you know each year I'd make a new film (to introduce the Webby's), I'd do a new Webby's and learn a little more, I'd perfect it, refine it, see what worked, what didn't work, I'd experiment with new things ... It's one evolving thing. It's like, I look at all my films as if they're evolving from the next one and all the Webby's are evolving ... My lectures even it's almost one lecture that just keeps evolving and growing and I'm really into that part. I know whenever I start a project it's just right here and I know what it looks like when it ends up ... So, patience, I guess is what I'm really talking about, the patience to let yourself do the littler things to lead up to the big thing.
She wrote her first pink vinyl-covered Bad Girl's Guide in the 90s. It's now close to 8 years later, and what started as a "lark" is now a profitable franchise that includes several more books, an array of branded products, a successful on-line community and even a briefly-lived TV sitcom.
On a rain-soaked, San Francisco day just before Christmas 2005, Cameron and I sat down to chat.
Here is a full transcript of the conversation with Cameron:
Cameron Tuttle: I think the word power can be very dangerous actually. I think ... except when you're talking about personal power. And to me personal power is having the freedom to live the kind of life that you really want to live on a daily basis. But it always worries me when people starting talking about power because I don't think it's something that ... I think if you're focusing on the power part then you're missing what’s really supporting that and ...
I guess I would really have to break power down into sort of two categories. It's really a combination of opportunity and responsibility. And whether you're in politics or the arts or if you're a teacher and you've got a classroom of you know, 35 twelve-year-olds or whatever it is ... If you have a voice and access to aspire or influence people there's a certain responsibility that goes with that and I think people often people focus on the power the power the power and that's really missing the opportunity in my view. I certainly encountered a lot of those power hungry people in Hollywood I have to say. Whew!
Cathy Brooks: Let's talk a little bit about your experience of the Bad Girl Guides ... the cult favorites ... being taken to the television screen. What was that experience like for you?
Cameron Tuttle: ... It was the best of times ... it was the worst of times ... (chuckles). I had the opportunity to work with some people in developing a TV show, a 30 minute sitcom based on my books - The Bad Girl Guides - sort of capturing the lifestyle, the attitude, the sense of humor that the books convey. And, it was a really great learning experience for me in many ways. And it was a horrible personal experience.
I learned about writing (for) television, shot a pilot and learned a tremendous amount, but I encountered some people who I think have a real misunderstanding of the word power. I had never seen anybody who was truly drunk with power before I had this experience. So it was a little bizarre. I had to sort of put on my emotional flak jacket and on one level feel excited and proud that the books actually were turned into a TV show. We taped six episodes that did, in fact, air on UPN. And you know that was a major accomplishment. Most authors never get that far. But then I also really had to desensitize myself, and let go and realize that there were some power hungry emotionally unstable people who had a hell of a lot more power in the room than I did and made sure that I knew that on a daily basis. It's funny, when people get involved in television, you have the ability to reach so many people through broadcast television and it can be a very intoxicating experience for some people and that's not always a positive thing.
I think some people are aware of that voice and what power they have and what, I think, responsibility goes with that power, and some people just get high on their own ... it's like they're drinking their own Kool-Aid ... it's scary.
Cathy Brooks: I know that you've been doing a lot of other writing since you've gotten back from Los Angeles. What's that been like for you?
Cameron Tuttle: It's been really freeing. It's been really nice for me to be able to sit down and write some essays in my own voice, and not necessarily write in the Bad Girl voice and as we were talking about before, the whole success of the Bad Girl's Guides really took me by surprise. The first one, the Bad Girl's Guide to the Open Road, was a book that I really just sort of wrote on a lark after seeing the movie Thelma and Louise and really felt inspired by something at the core of that movie. The way that those two characters Thelma and Louise grew and blossomed once they allowed themselves, once they gave themselves permission to break the rules. They got stronger and more gutsy, and there was something really exciting to me about that.
And yet I realized there's got to be a way to tap into this without killing someone or killing yourself. And so I tried to put my own sort of humorous spin on that. And I did a couple of cross-country road trips and just happened to combine the idea of freedom and celebration of like great American past-time ... this road trip and the notion that women really and truly need a time and a place to be bad, to break their own rules - whatever that may mean to them - in order to be happy ... and that a road trip is a perfect place to do it. You're driving through a new town every day, every hour there are no witnesses, at least none that you're likely to see again, so if you do something really crazy, who cares. So it was really just kind of a very personal book for me, and I had no idea that it would resonate with so many women. I had no idea that there was a secret bad girl inside so many women longing to be set free. I never imagined that seven, eight years after the first, after I first started writing the first book, I'd still be doing anything related to, remotely related to bad girls.
Cathy Brooks: Now there’s also the Bad Girl Swirl Web site, which, I remember when that first launched, created a real groundswell of community.
Cameron Tuttle: Yeah. It was another sort of 'who knew' kind of surprise for me. I'd worked in advertising before I'd started writing full time so I knew a little bit about marketing. Also, living in San Francisco around 1999 and 2000 when everybody, including your dog and your cat had their own Web site, it was just the obvious thing to do. So I paid some people to design a Web site and as part of marketing the second book, The Bad Girl’s Guide to Getting What You Want, and it turned into this incredibly active, crazy, online community. Kind of this online clubhouse for bad girls, where we have message boards, what we call the Bad Boards, and we probably get about 2 million, almost 2 million hits a month on those and it's completely unmoderated ... it's probably an accident waiting to happen (laughs) but I think that's part of what makes it work. They could be plotting, you know, all sorts of devious things but it's just a place for women of all ages, including teenagers, to come together and share their stories, share their experiences, ask one another for advice on different things and it's been an incredibly popular, thriving community.
It immediately became much much bigger than my books and much bigger than anything I could have envisioned in the Web site.
Yeah, it's been a really interesting phenomenon that so many people immediately respond and reach out and help out with ideas and answers to difficult life questions. It's this really great, supportive, kind of girl power kind of space. They're really responsive not only to me if I have a question about what book I should write next or what kind of products would you guys like to see or what do you think about Jenny McCarthy starring in the Bad Girl's Guide TV show they immediately get back. There are hundreds of responses in an hour or two ... but everybody on the Bad Boards gets that same type of response if their question is compelling and interesting.
It always just kind of warms my heart when I just read these things. I'm like 'I love you guys. I love you guys. You’re so cool.' I've met very few of the women who hang out on the Web site. I don't know them personally but I know them sort of by name and sort of attitude of their comments and they never cease to amaze me and impress me with the quality of their input and ideas. It's cool. It's a really cool thing.
Cathy Brooks: Your own private focus group.
Cameron Tuttle: My own private out of focus group (laughs). Yeah.
Cathy Brooks: So you were in advertising prior to the Bad Girl Guide happening so this wasn't exactly your career path of choice necessarily.
Cameron Tuttle: Well, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I guess I envisioned myself you know being more of a serious literary novelist or something, but thank God I didn't go there. You know I was working on a cancer novel ... and everybody loves a good cancer novel right? (slightly sarcastic chuckle). So, I just happened to sort of do this one summer, write the first Bad Girl's Guide and ... I think I heard Eve Ensler, the creator of The Vagina Monologues, among other things, interviewed on the radio and she was talking about The Vagina Monologues and that sometimes you don't even realize when you're doing your best work that you are, in fact, doing your best work. That you may be thinking that your serious work is this big project X, and then you kind of do this other little thing on the side, and that turns out to have this unexpected impact on people, and it's really sort of important. That was very much my experience with the Bad Girl's Guides. I thought I was going to be writing serious literary fiction, and I may get around to that at some point, but I may not.
You know I think writing something like the Bad Girl's Guides is ... it's very accessible to people and people like to laugh. They like to learn things, they like to be inspired but I think they also like to laugh. God, if you can't laugh your way through life you're in big trouble ... BIG trouble.
Cathy Brooks: So what's given you your biggest laugh ... so far?
Cameron Tuttle: That's a tough question.
Cathy Brooks: Maybe I should say today ... or maybe in the last hour (laugh).
Cameron Tuttle: That's a tough question. My biggest laugh. Oh God ... Well, I got together with my editor Jay Schaffer last night and we were catching up on a few things and I was talking to him about another one of the unexpected things that's happened as being the author of the Bad Girl's Guides is that people will come up to me with these strange personal confessions. For example my dentist for some reason ... so there I am ... I'm in the chair ... my head is back ... I've got (imitates suction and drill sounds) ... you know suction and I'm helpless with my mouth open and these tools, these high speed tools in my mouth and my dentist, who is a wonderful, lovely woman, for some reason feels compelled to share with me her intimate personal details. And I'm like 'NO NO, no please don't. I don't want to hear how good or bad your husband is in bed. I don't want to know about this that. I don't want to hear about the affair you did or maybe didn’t have.'
And she's not the only person. I've had strangers ... You know I may write something called Confessions to a Bad Girl because for some reason all of these people or many people seem to think that I'm this safe repository for their bad behavior and I'm like 'No, no, no. That's not what it's about. And by the way I'm not a bad girl all the time it's just like acting on paper for me.'
I had a friend from high school who was at one of the Bad Girl parties who apparently had a boob job. And she's like, 'Hey, wanna see my new boobs?' And I was like, 'Um, not really.' And so, she didn't really seem to care what I thought, so midway through the dance floor she literally lifted up her top and flashed her boobs. And I was like 'Oh, yikes no! Yikes, no, please stop, nooooooooo!'
Those are just a couple of the strange things that have happened after ... You know people definitely think that they know you after you write a book and they have a perception of who you are and what you're like. Boy oh boy. People must think I'm a crazy loon! But we had a good laugh about this last night (my editor and I) because it's unbelievable what some people will say when they think you're much badder than they would ever be, and that they couldn’t possibly shock you.
Cathy Brooks: So you do get shocked (chuckle).
Cameron Tuttle: Gosh yes I get shocked. Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy Brooks: So how about role models for you?
Cameron Tuttle: Oh, that's a great question. I wish there were more personal role models (in my life). As you know, my mom died of breast cancer when she was 40 and I was just 14. She was a terrific role model but you know she wasn't around long enough. And I was, unfortunately, really good at pretending like I had it all together. So I don't think I inspired many other women to sort of come into my life to help out and become some sort of surrogate female role model. But women in public ... I really admire Oprah Winfrey, and I realize that's not the most original to say, but I respect her so much for using her power in such a positive way. I mean inspiring women to read books that they might not otherwise even know existed. Just sharing her passion for life and her search for how to be a happier healthier human being. Sharing what she's learned from her search with so many of her viewers. I think she's really cool. Unlike ... well, I probably shouldn't go there, but there are other powerful women in the media who I think it's more about what they're etting out of it. I won't name names but I'm pretty sure you can guess who I'm talking about. And while they have the same access to millions and millions of viewers and readers I don't get that same sense of this person is here giving back to people and using her power in a positive way. I get the feeling like she's jjust using her power to just make more money and get more ...
Cathy Brooks: ... stuff.
Cameron Tuttle: Yeah, more stuff. Which is too bad. It's a bummer. I think Ellen Degeneres is terrific. I mean she's got this quirky, zany sense of humor and she's gone through her ups and downs in her career path like most people but I love the fact that she has found such a wonderful platform in her talk show for her just to be herself. And she's got this great great sense of humor that's not the least bit mean spirited. And I really admire her for sticking with it. You know it's got to be terrifying to live your personal life out in such a public arena. But I think she got through that and has really thrived.
I can't imagine doing something in film or television where every single person would, you know who isn't iving in a cave, would recognize you, I think that would be terrifying and a terrible loss of freedom. So as an author I feel really happy to have a fair amount of anonymity. I mean every now and then if I'm paying at a restaurant for dinner and using a credit card someone, you know the waiter, waitress or hostess will come back and say something. And I'm like, 'Oh gosh ...' And they're like, 'I love your books,' or 'I dumped my boyfriend and moved to Seattle because of you,' or whatever strange story it may be but it's nice for me ... I'm very comfortable with being an author and not ... I don’t need to be recognized. In fact, that's sort of the ... That's one of the things that I'm not that comfortable about with the unexpected success of my books. It never occurred to me that I would mean anything to anybody other than close friends and family. So it's an unexpected pleasure and as I said it comes with some responsibility.
That reminds me of a woman named Mary Buzz who lived up in the Pacific Northwest. She and her friends were really, really connected to my books and they started their own Bad Girl's Club. And Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. One of the things that she and her friends would get together ... They'd put on their pink Bad Girl vests and they'd go out and just be ... be naughty in their own way. And it was a way for them to build on their friendship. It gave them a reason to laugh at a time when I think Mary probably wasn't feeling like laughing. And I exchanged emails with them and really felt like a part of their small community and it was wonderful and beautiful and an unexpected thing to come from the Bad Girl's Guides, you know these pink vinyl books.
I had a chance to talk to Mary just a couple days before she died, unfortunately. It was ... it was ... it was ... hard for me to know what to say and ... because I had been there - as I said my mom died of breast cancer so I ... I know that sort of ... the trivial nature of life is so fluffy and meaningless at that point. But I felt honored that she would even want to talk to me in the last few days of her life. A woman that I've never even met only talked to by phone and traded emails with but somehow what I had written in my books spoke to her that she felt like she knew me. It was wonderful and sad and one of the rich ... one of the many rich and unexpected experiences that I've had a result of writing these books.
Cathy Brooks: If you had an opportunity to hand your books to certain individuals who you thought it might change their perspective on the world are there any people you might put the books in the hands of ...
Cameron Tuttle: Well, I think (President) George Bush could definitely use a little Bad Girl attitude. You know he's taking himself very seriously and that's (laughs) making all of our lives a little difficult. Let's see ...
Cathy Brooks: What do you think about Condaleeza Rice?
Cameron Tuttle: Oh man, I think she may have a Bad Girl's Guide up her butt. Oops, I probably shouldn't say that (laughs). Yeah, Condaleeza Rice should definitely spend a few hours at least, if not a few weeks, curled up with a Bad Girl's Guide. She's great. She's very smart. She's very accomplished, but boy I'd ike to see her laugh about something. And again, not take herself too seriously.
Becky and I worked together at TechTV in the late 90s. I was heading up the guest booking and talent departments; Becky was producing a show. During the years we worked together, I watched Becky go from behind-the-scenes producer to one of the network's top on-air talent j - an unorthodox path by general TV standards.
Recently chosen as the technology correspondent for ABC's Good Morning America, Becky's path to the screen has been anything but a conventional one. And I was pleased when she agreed to sit down over a cup of coffee to talk about how she's gotten to where she is today.
And here is the full transcript of our conversation:
Becky Worley: I started out wanting to be a sports journalist. Originally I wanted my own fishing show. So from fishing show to tech journalism, I'm not quite sure ... Um, I guess what happened is that I started doing television, producing in news and then producing on a daily show, up in Seattle, and I found myself setting up email accounts for people - this was in '94 - trying to help the IT guy figure out how to build a network in the building, trying to figure out how to build a web site for the stations and I was far more intrigued with those jobs than with the actual producing jobs that I was supposed to be doing. And I realized ... you know I think at some point in your life you should pursue the things that switch you on and you should also pursue the things you're good at. And I love technology. It doesn't intimidate me, and it intimidates alot of people, so I figured, I should do this.
Cathy Brooks: Now, the path that you took, however, from producer to ... I hate the word "talent" ...
Becky Worley: (laughs) I remember you used to call us the "on-air posse" at TechTV not the talent (laughs).
Cathy Brooks: Well, you know, it's like, talent - especially since there are so many people in the business who aren't - as you and I both know ... other people call them talking heads but for ...
Becky Worley:(interrupting) I prefer "meat puppet". It's one of the things I've had a producer tell me before, "I just need a meat puppet, I don't need you to produce." ... Okay ... See ya!
Cathy Brooks: Don't think, just talk. Just read the little printed words ... but the path that you have taken from being behind the camera is not a usual path, and if you ask most people in the business, they'd say it doesn't happen.
Becky Worley: Right. Most people say, go to a small market, start reporting, cut your teeth on small stories in small markets and you'll get used to being in front of the camera. And I ... I wasn't ready for that when I started in TV, and I had just started producing, and I've always been a content person. I've always been a writer, and it really helped me to develop, um, more substantive part of the television business (by being behind the camera) and of my own skill set. And I realized after a while that I was writing words for talent and they couldn't do it, not because (the words) were so esoteric or over the top ... You know I wanted to say things in my own voice and I got really frustrated listening to other people screwing them up.
One story is that I was producing this talk show segment about soap operas. My job was to watch all three soap operas and write a synopsis for each show and give it to the talent who would read it. Well, here I am, an American Literature major who graduated from a school back east and I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, I'm doing talk shows.' And suddenly one day on One Life to Live there was a reference to the Cask of the Amontiado by Edgar Allen Poe. And I thought 'Oh this is great! I can bring my worlds together, American Literature, soap operas, I'll write a little thing and make it pithy and fun for the soap opera talent and she can (talk) about Edgar Allen Poe.'
So I write my bit and the woman goes on air and she says, 'Well, today on OLTL - One Life to Live - there was an interesting reference to a writer, an Edger Allen Poo ... ' (laughs). And I just cringed. And then it got worse. (She continues to relate what the on air talent said), 'Yes, he wrote a story called the Cask of the Amantadadidado ...' (Becky laughs again) I just wanted to crawl under the table. And my executive producer came over and hit me on the back and said, 'If you ever try to make Cindy sound smart again, I'll fire you!' That was a real ... realization for me that what I thought was smart and funny and respected the audience, some people didn't think that, and I couldn't always be guaranteed that the talent I was working with could pull it off. And that was the point where I said, 'I gotta get on the other side of this.'
Cathy Brooks: What was your first step?
Becky Worley: I used to go in (to the station) and record myself on betacams, little recorders that were sort of portable recorders that I could manage by myself and I would record myself over and over and over again. That was when I was at KOMO in Seattle. And then when I got to TechTV I would go into the Flashcam, which is that camera that is in the newsroom, you can operate it yourself you can run your own prompter and I would just read the entire newscast. And then I'd watch it. Then I'd read it again. Then I'd watch it. And I'd just keep trying to improve my delivery and my technique and more than anything just try and get used to the sound of my own voice and seeing myself on camera. Prior to starting this process, I couldn't even listen to myself on an answering machine. It just drove me crazy. And in, sort of, desensitizing myself to myself (laughs) that's when I got comfortable on TV.
Cathy Brooks: Now ... so this is how you did the process for yourself, kind of getting yourself psychologically in place, for giving yourself the skills, but that doesn't explain how you bucked the system.
Becky Worley: Yeah. Um, you have to find a need, and weasel your way in. And that's television. I mean, I've always said that in TV, in TV it's not the best (people) who succeed, it's the hungriest. I think that's true of many industries. And if you can do all of that while maintaining your sense of fun and your respect for your co-workers and your respect for yourself I think that you can weasel in and figure out where there's a need and how you can fit it. And just keep parlaying one set of skills into another set of skills until eventually you have a huge set of skills.
Cathy Brooks: Who are your role models?
Archie: WOOF WOOF.
Yes you read that correctly. Right about this moment is when my trusty canine companion, Archie the Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier (whose photos are in the images section of this site), decided he had had enough of our doing all the talking. Actually, Becky and I were sitting at an outdoor café enjoying what was the last stitch sunshine before the California deluge of 2005, and Archie was saying hello to a dog across the street.
Becky Worley: Oh, Archie, he's barking in the background. (Laughs) All dogs. (Laughs, then gets serious.) Um, my mom, you know she's a real working woman and she's always done a good job of just creating opportunities for me to be independent and for herself to be independent. Um, you know she said things to me like, at one point she was working in the publishing industry and she said, 'I don't care what you call me, just pay me double,' when someone asked, you know, if she was a feminist. And I thought that was a great reply. Um, and she's always used humor to diffuse confrontation and solve problems. Um, you know, I think interestingly enough, Robin Roberts has always been a role model for me. When she first started on ESPEN, she and Linda Cohn were there, um, and they were the first women to really hit the sports scene in a big way. They really knew what they were talking about. They could run with the boys. They could spew the facts and the figures and I was always impressed by their integrity.
Um, you know, I think, really right now I love a guy named Mike Rowe. He hosts a show called Dirty Jobs, and he has so much fun and such a great personality, and he teases people but he has an underlying respect for people where you can tell that he's got a lot of compassion and it comes through on TV.
I think, there's this category of tough old broads I really like, like Lauren Bacall. I mean, she's someone who I always look at as having been through it all, done it all and still keeps working and has a great sense of humor. I was lucky enough to interview her back when I was working in Seattle. She was amazing. I've always been a Hemingway buff so I got to talk with her about her interactions with Hemingway, and the stories that I heard, and just the grit that woman has, I love it!
Yeah, I could go on. I think there's just a lot of people for whom you can pick pieces of their grit and their determination and be inspired by them.
Cathy Brooks: You mentioned the word integrity. A word that is highly underutilized and highly underpracticed in today's world. What does integrity mean to you?
Becky Worley: Well, you have to remind yourself it's only television. I mean, especially as we've gone into a 500-channel world. Not only is it only television, it's only television that a small number of people are probably watching (laughs), get over yourself.
I think that, for me, one of the things I'm most proud of is that I've never had an agent. Every job I've gotten has either been because a previous boss or a previous co-worker has recommended me, and I feel like if I can maintain relationships to that level that I'm doing something right. You know as I've climbed the ranks I've seen a lot of people who claw, who claw their way up and they'll do anything to get ahead. And when you first start in this business you think, 'Oh man, those people who claw and gouge and do anything, they're the ones who are going to get to the top.' And you just keep doing your thing, taking a step here and a step there and trying to be patient, and suddenly when you get closer to the top ... It's been interesting for me working at ABC and working in LA on some projects what you actually realize is that you didn't notice but those clawers and those gougers, they blew up and they fell out of the picture. The people who are at the top are the slow movers who walked slowly and got there with all their wits, all their integrity and all their friendships.
And the people who are at the top are really good team players, and they build good teams and that's why they're there. Now, that's not always true, but I've been amazed at how often it's true.
Cathy Brooks: When you think about the word "power" ... Good Morning America reaches millions of people every single day. The platform you have is a pretty vast one and comes with ... power ... what does that mean to you?
Becky Worley: I've never even thought about it. I really come to technology from a user-centric approach. Meaning, I try and think about what I'm saying in terms of how an average consumer, an average user can digest the information. And if they can take away three things from a minute thirty or two-minute piece I do, that they can actually utilize in their life, then I've done a good job. And, I'm not there to sell things. I'm not there to promote a lifestyle. I'm there to help the user. And if I do that right, then the power I exert is bringing about change in a person's life in a positive way. I've never even thought about it in terms of wielding power to change people's perceptions.
Cathy Brooks: So now that I've planted it in your head (laughter). Let's get hypothetical for a minute. I mean, if you had an opportunity ... you know ... and again, the .. you have a specific role with Good Morning America, and with the different projects you have there's a specific role, but if there were a ... a cause ... or is there something that you have such a deep passion about that given the opportunity you would use your platform and ... use your powers for good?
Becky Worley: Powers for good and not for evil (smiling). Yeah, I think what I was just talking about in terms of being user-centric and using your platform to speak to large group of people, they're pretty much the same thing. My goal is for people, specifically women, to understand how powerful technology is and how much it can help them to organize, consolidate and enrich their lives. You know, I think about the things prior to technology that women really struggled with. They lost touch with friends. Cell phones, email, newsgroups, sharing photos on-line, web sites, blogs, that's just another way to stay in touch with people while you're in your own home and can still keep an eye on your kids.
Cathy Brooks: Or in your corner executive office running your corporation but still wanting to keep a human face on yourself.
Becky Worley: Each of those scenarios are equally isolating from the people who remind you of who you are on an every day basis. I think that one of the pushes that I would like to see ... I'd like to see more soccer moms with Blackberry's, because I think that those communications tools are just as important for those who are scheduling corporate events as those who are scheduling play dates. Um, I'd like to see women not be intimidated by technology so that they can take a greater role in the boardroom and don't feel that they need to defer to men in IT situations or engineering situations, because really ... nobody knows it all ... and I'm so sick of hearing people say, 'Oh, I'm a tech idiot ... I'm tech illiterate.'
Well, I know some programmers who spend their entire lifetime coding at a deep deep level in Perl or Java or C and they have no idea how Photoshop (by Adobe) works. They have no idea how to create a web site. Everyone has skills. Technology is a huge umbrella. And I've heard people, especially women, say, 'Oh, I'm a tech illiterate you know I really can’t figure out how to get my site to do an RSS feed.' (Breaks into laughter) ... I mean are you kidding me?! What drugs are you on? Who has put this in your mind? What do you think you have to know to be technologically proficient? And I always go back to - and this is a standard industry analogy - you don't have to know how to change your oil filter to be a good driver, and I would hate to see people not get behind the wheel because they didn't know how to change their oil filter.
Cathy Brooks: So what's next for you?
Becky Worley: Well, I'm hoping to ... one of the projects I'm trying to nail down right now is working with Yahoo! And they are really excited about creating a technology hub for the everyman and they're calling it 'technology for the rest of us.' And you know that's project I'd like to get involved with and whether it's Yahoo! or someone else the goal is to take the boys club out of technology. And I hate to be so gender specific and I'm really not trying to be a man basher it's just that technology, engineering, mathematics have so traditionally been the domain of men. And ... you know, as far as I'm concerned keep your math, I don't want it (laughs) but that's just me (still laughing). But when it comes to tech I'd just love to see it be a little more accessible to third-agers (people over 55 or 60), to women, to minorities, to really people of socio-economic classes that are struggling. And so, bridging the digital divide ... That's a little bit trite but I'd like to see individuals of every flavor, every age and every gender grab a hold of some piece of gear that makes their life better.
Cathy Brooks: What are your thoughts about the social implications of how technology is changing the way we fundamentally interact with each other and fundamentally behave as a species ... or sub-species I suppose in some cases.
Becky Worley: (laughs) Well, it's interesting. You have to wonder if it makes it a more horizontal world in that email allows you to break the chain of command ... which is dangerous as all get out ... (sighs) God, haven't we all learned that the hard way! But it does allow you to make inroads in ways you might not have in the past. So, it does flatten an organization and it flattens social circles as well. I think that our communication styles have become much more casual which is actually more ... You know, you would think it would benefit people of all social skills but in truth it still benefits those who are the most precise and, um, able with their social skills because it feels like you have friendships with people because you're communicating on such a regular basis via email or cell phone. It feels like you have more of a friendship with your co-workers than a straight professional relationship. So, I think again it creates more social complexity in the workplace.
I think that, you know, going back to some of the principles of the late 90s I think that this concept of organizations and customers and their relationship being, the word in the past was disintermediated, meaning that there was real direct contact - in good organizations - between the customer and the organization and that could be done via technological means, traditionally through email or web sites. And I think that's been very powerful for some groups and for some people. And if you know how to work the web, and when I say 'work it' I don't mean just go to Google and find a site, I mean knowing how to go to the "about" page and drill down into the corporate investor or the press room and dig up an actual, live human being's number, you can really permeate certain organizations and get into them.
Um, I think that social networking has certainly broadened people's spheres, but in some senses it makes them much smaller because you're ultimately still sitting in your living room sitting and typing and you're alone. So it's just that, that kind of dichotomy is really interesting. That it has created more ways to communicate and in some ways that's distanced us from the real immediacy of what communication used to be. It used to be these really direct, really intense experiences and now communication is sort of haphazard and as you go. So in terms of one thing that's changed in terms of our social world, our communication ... more communication, less understanding.
Cathy Brooks: Now that's kjind of bleak (chuckle turning to laughter).
Becky Worley: (laughs) Right. Right. Well you know, it's hard, I mean, I have to say that I'm just a huge technology fan. I mean, I think that it can really change our world for the better if we can get it into the hands of the people who can really do something with it. By that I mean, somebody from every caste and every color and every gender ... You have to really applaud organizations like MIT who are trying to create $100 laptops to put in the hands of schools in third-world countries. Yahoo!'s got a project called Good Geeks where they send teams out to do whatever needs to be done technologically for non-profits or people in need. You have to look at what happened during (Hurricane) Katrina where people were hooked up with their family members who'd been lost through the Internet and Craigslist. There are as many opportunities for good as there is for misuse of technology and I really do believe that as we move forward those opportunities for good will expand.
The analogy I always use is when the Xerox machine first came into the office how many people sat on it with their pants down and photocopied their ass? (grins) Well, people don't do that anymore, we're over it, we're over that technology, we're using that for good now (said laughing).
Cathy Brooks: What's today's equivalent of photocopying one's ass?
Becky Worley: Well you know, I actually did a story about this because it was when people put cameras in cell phones and they would go into the bathroom and take photos. And in Japan their solution was 'Oh, you have to put a noise of (camera) shutter on cell phone camera.' ... So it's law in Japan. So that if a picture's being taken it goes 'click click' which is a little MP3 or .WAV file playing in the background obviously there's no shutter noise. But it just cracks me up. There's something for everyone here in terms of how to misuse technology ... gimme a break.
Cathy Brooks: (laughs) On that note, I'm going to let you move off to your day, swill down the last of your latte ... Becky, thank you. I appreciate your talking today.
Becky Worley: My pleasure.
One of the things I like best about my variegated professional path is the incredibly fascinating pool of individuals with whom I have had a chance to speak.
Listed by Vanity Fair on several occasions as one of the New Establishment power players, seen as technology pundit and thought leader, Esther graciously met me over early morning coffee during one of her recent trips to the Bay Area.
Amidst the clinking of silverware and occasional interruption for coffee refills, Esther and I had a rather lengthy chat about power, decentralization and fathers.
Here is the complete transcript of our conversation:
Esther Dyson: It's just a peculiarly American ... and this is what people don't like ... It's an American thing to say that Vancouver (Canada) is remote. For a lot of people, Vancouver is a normal place to be. Or Tunis. Or, where have they had it (ICANN) ... Yokohama or whatever. This is the whole point ... It shouldn't be, 'Oh, well, Boston is normal and the rest of the world is remote.' ...
CB: It's a very American-centric view.
Esther Dyson: Yes. And of course most of ICANN's critics are American. Then there's a fair amount of other ... There are a lot of other critics as well with reason who are in other parts of the world who see it (ICANN) as too American centric but really the most vicious, harshest, most persistent criticism comes from precisely that center, if you like ... the people on the edges are often ... they're often incited to criticize. And they want to be more part of it. But then, the fact that you started out with the criticism that ICANN goes to remote places to me is very telling.
The challenge is that there is no ... the whole point of this is not to be in the center, because it's supposed to be run from the edge.
Why don't I let you ask some questions now (said with a smile).
CB: Well now just to give some context here ... I'm sitting here with Esther Dyson ... of ... So many ... your resume is too long to list it all but certainly known as one of the more influential people in the technology industry ... a visionary ...
Esther Dyson: I'm a decentralized person.
CB: A decentralized person ... (laughs) speaking to the point that we were just discussing about ICANN. One of the things that I wanted to talk with you about today, which is a little outside of technology, per se, is the idea of power. One of the things about ICANN as we were talking about control and keeping things decentralized is the point but ... Power is an interesting thing. Absolute power corrupts absolutely ... what are your thoughts ... what does power mean to you?
Esther Dyson: Well, to start with, power does corrupt, but it also seduces. It's so alluring before you get corrupted you think often in a very nice way, 'If I had this power I could make things much better.' Most of ICANN's critics see it as a locus of power that they could use to better effect than they think it's being used now. The safest thing for ICANN, I believe is to have very little power so that it will seduce less, corrupt less and just not interfere.
Any kind of central power makes people behave badly. So you want to try and reduce the amount of power over others in the world in general and you want to increase the amount of power to, the power to do things as opposed to the power over others to make them do things. Fortunately ICANN doesn't actually have a lot of power but people perceive it as potentially having that power.
CB: Why do you think that is?
Esther Dyson: Because it's global, and so they immediately think if it's global it must have global power where actually it's global and distributed with very little power. But the notion is well if we made this thing legitimate, because right now a lot of people consider it illegitimate and that is, again, to my mind good because ...
AND HERE'S WHERE TECHNOLOGY GAVE ME A SLAP IN THE FACE.
THE SUPPOSEDLY FRESHLY CHARGED BATTERY IN MY MINI DISC DECIDED IT DIDN'T WANT TO PLAY ANY MORE. AND SO BEGAN A SEVERAL MINUTE LONG FREE FOR ALL SCATTER AS WE FOUND A PLACE WHERE I COULD PLUG IN ...
CB: Talking about ICANN and talking about power certainly there is that power aspect to it ... In some of our email exchanges you've talked about how you think the organization is well set up the way it is as a decentralized organization ...
Esther Dyson: It's not ideal, it has a lot of problems, but the thing is ... I think that it's gradually getting better but the point is, if it were too good, it would be scary. The fact that it's considered illegitimate, (that it) doesn't have a lot of (power) ... that's good because strong power is inherently bad .
... strong well-organized power is too seductive it's too alluring. I'd rather see kind of messy, inadequate, badly run power that its very inadequacy makes it much much less dangerous.
CB: Thinking about power in general ... I would say there are people who would call you a powerful person in the technology industry.
Esther Dyson: Right.
CB: So, what does that word mean to you? When you hear something like that. How does that ...
Esther Dyson: I'll tell you actually what's true is that I have a lot of power to make people see things. I have very little power to make them do things that they don't see for themselves. And so what I can do is help open people's eyes to what's really there. And then they will behave according to their own motivations. And I think that's, you know that's really good power. That's the power of transparency, that's the power of insight and enlightenment. The bad power is making them do what they don't see as being in their self-interest because you'll do something bad to them if they don't do it. As one guy told me about the Soviet art of management it's making people do things they think are stupid. And what I want to do is make people get smarter and then do things they think are smart. So that they do them of their own volition once they understand the world better. And I flatter myself that I can help them understand the world better but beyond that I can't force them to do anything, I can only make them see what they want to do more clearly.
Which may mean funding a company or designing a new product or deciding to invest in a certain market but that's kind of ... or ideally see that there's a real need for personal health information and here's different things that different people can do. The whole point of a lot of this is there are some things I'm good at doing, there are a lot of other things that a lot of other people are good at doing and people often say 'I want to get into the health market what should I do?' It's, for me, a really dumb question. Because the first question is: What are you good at doing? And then: How is what you are good at doing relevant to the health market? So, for each individual player there is a different "best" strategy, the view of the world might be the same, but then the question is how do I fit into this world what is it that I can bring to it. So I try and get people to see the whole picture and they can for themselves figure out what's my part in this picture.
CB: My guess is that knowing your history and certainly the genetic lineage ... Looking at ... you come from a very intellectual, academic, well dialed in to the bigger picture of things family. What impact did that have on how you see the world?
Esther Dyson: Well whatever impact it had, of course, I didn't notice (smiles).
CB: (laughing) Of course ...
Esther Dyson: But sort of just taking it for granted that it's important to understand things. Taking it for granted that playing with ideas is fun, that it's creative. There's nothing like ... it's like the last four days (I've had here in California) ... is what I love doing ... and it's what I've just done ... I came up with this idea and people said 'Well, who gave you that idea?' Well, it came. It emerged.
(The idea) is that time and timing are really important - that's not a new insight but that we haven't really focused on them in the software world ... in the way that right now everybody is talking about maps and geo and location based services and all this. Time is so intrinsic we don't even notice it. There's certainly a bunch of people doing calendars and scheduling but beyond that ... so I decided, well, I'm going to look at time. I've now refined it into two sections because you can think in the big picture and then you sort of say well how am I ... what am I doing to do with this? With me I turn it into an event, or a workshop and I turn it into a newsletter.
There's two parts - first there's adding value to time, how do you make calendars and schedulers and event managers and so forth more valuable which turns out right now adding a lot of social network functionality to it and richness and make the objects within a calendar into representable data so that you can put a contact into your calendar and then you can go look at your contact list and see ... 'Well how many times did I meet with this guy and when over the last 29 years.' - which of course is very useful if you're in a lawsuit (smiles) but it's also useful if you're trying to understand how did we make this deal happen or how can I write to him and say '
'Remember the time we did X ...'
CB: And from a sales perspective ... as someone who has worked in sales, being able to see historically how interactions have taken place.
Esther Dyson: Yes. Right. Or if I'm a manager how much time did Fred spend on this project versus that. And the second is adding value with time so you take a non-time application ...
AT THIS POINT WE WERE INTERRUPTED BY A RATHER DISCORDANT CLATTER OF SILVERWARE.
... and you say how can time make this richer? In social networks they haven't done any of it but they need to ...
ESTHER PAUSED FOR A SPLIT SECOND AND I COULD ALMOST SEE HER THINKING OF AN EXAMPLE THAT WOULD ILLUSTRATE HER POINT. IT DIDN'T TAKE TOO MANY SYNAPSES TO FIRE BEFORE SHE CAME UP WITH ONE ...
Will you be my friend? It's like, well you know I'm getting to be your friend but if you ask me that I'm going to back off a little bit ... I'm writing to you every three days, before it was once a week, now we're doing this little thing together so I've written to you fifteen times in the last three days but it was mostly about 8:30 or 9:30 and blah blah blah ... and so ... relationships build and decay and they may build and decay again and go up and down ... If you're in the marketing business, intention to purchase is tremendously important and it's somewhat time dependent but it's also sequence dependent. You get interested in a product, you do research, you check out the competition then you buy. That's both duration of time, but the duration may really vary, the sequence usually is stable. One challenge as a marketer is, well, where is he in the sequence? He may have decided not to do anything because he knows he going to go to a car showroom next week so the duration will be fairly long or it may be very short we don't know. But that's extremely interesting.
In search, relevance, I just ... I really don't really know, I don't really care, if I'm trying to find out more about you ... if I'm really doing a historical survey, yes I'm interested what you were doing in 1988 but chances are I want the most recent bio. I don't want the quote you gave five years ago when you were in another job. Google doesn't do that. I mean it was okay when Google started because there wasn't much stuff on the Web. But now there's huge amounts of stuff that's 10 years old and they still don't have any ... There's the very slow decay because old things are less linked to, but you find that blogs are getting more and more relevant because they're timely versus the Web is relatively static. It's sort of like the average age of stuff on the Web is going up whereas the average age of stuff in the blogosphere is always ... it can't get any younger but it's staying young. So the disparity between the age of stuff in the blogosphere and the age of stuff on the Web is getting worse. So that's a really important time thing.
Anyway, so that is what I do. Now I'm sitting here ... I knew there was some interesting stuff, I didn't know what it was. I kind of had a vague notion of ... well who should I go talk to ... I should talk to people in the blogs. I should talk to people in behavioral targeting. I should talk to the calendar people.
It's like climbing a new mountain every time. You've climbed the mountain before. You don't know the path of this mountain but you know you're pretty good at finding the footholds and then you get ... right now I'm maybe a third of the way up the mountain but I've climbed a bunch and I know this is going to be a good mountain and it's tremendously exciting. So that's what I do.
CB: ... and the view's going to be great from the next plateau.
Esther Dyson: The view's going to be great and it feels both new and exciting in terms of what I'm finding out, but old and familiar and comfortable in terms of the process. And that's what I love. It's sort of this instinct for knowing where to go to discover stuff or find a mountain and that's where I am now. So now on the plane I'm going to spend six hours trying to turn some of this into slightly more defined territory.
CB: You talked with one of my favorite people, Mitch Kapor.
Esther Dyson: Yes.
CB: He and his wife ... Our dogs play together in the park. We live in the same neighborhood so I know the furry kids ... And he's actually one of the topics (people) that is of interest ... evolving ...
Esther Dyson: Yes. Chandler.
CB: Yes about Chandler and this idea of time ... how people interact with each other and the fundamental difference in the way that people are now needing to engage with information and with each other as opposed to being passive recipients of data that's just kind of flowing over them ... and the fundamental behavioral shift that people are just ... People's minds can change but people's behaviors change a little more slowly.
Esther Dyson: Yes.
CB: When you look at this world of social media, and this world of engaging with information as opposed to just ...
Esther Dyson: ... letting it flow over you ...
CB: Yes instead of taking information and letting it flow over you ... how do you think this is going to change ... this is kind of a broad brushstroke ... how is it going to change the world? But how do you think it is going to change, fundamentally, how society evolves? Because I do think we're at a great evolutionary crossroad right now.
Esther Dyson: Yes. I think it will change society. The change in people may simply come through new generations who take stuff for granted that the old generations didn't. Some people will manage to change their behavior but mostly they'll just have kids with different behavior. Probably the most important thing is that people feel they have more choices, which is not always comfortable. Because if you can blame what happened to you on somebody else ... That was really easy. If you were a woman, you had one mission was to find the right husband and then everything else that happened to you, you could blame on him. You could say 'I got lucky, he's great, I have a wonderful life,' or 'I got unlucky he's horrible, I have a crummy life,' but it was no longer your responsibility in some sense. It was your responsibility to deal with it but not ... you weren't responsible for that (sense of) free will I brought it upon myself, G-d gave me this life, gave me this husband and ...
CB: I would say also ... I hate carrying the ... every now and then I say I hate carrying the "woman" flag. Because I think that a lot of women carry it inappropriately, but I think that statement you just made could also be played towards women not necessarily needing a husband per se but being able to blame the male dominated infrastructure for holding them down.
Esther Dyson: True, that too. And ... it's ... What your choices are is always a challenging topic in the first place because one could say well if you're working in a nasty corporation that's holding you down, go somewhere else. You always have that choice. In North Korea you have a choice to go be a dissident and protest and maybe get shot but maybe escape. So there's a ... It's like what do you consider a real choice and what do you consider simply a theoretical choice. A lot of that is in people's heads, but if it was drilled into them from when they were three years old it's not really appropriate to say ...
CB: That would make it a little hard to get away from.
Esther Dyson: So, yes ... it's ... but certainly I think everybody has much more sense that they have many more choices and that they can't simply blame it on the big corporation or male dominated society or being stuck in the Soviet Union or being black you really now, you're much more responsible for the consequences.
CB: Responsibility another aspect of this social media world ... engaging ... transparency ...
Esther Dyson: You get a reputation and you become accountable. And that's the obverse side. As I said it can be very comfortable not having a lot of power because you do your best and you can carve yourself out an easy or at least an untroubled life. Having responsibility means ... you're going to make mistakes and the greatest courage is to make mistakes ... especially to make ... for example ... this is a very teeny but sort of interesting example ... and there are no facts associated with it ...
There was some issue of somebody in Texas putting some people's medical records on-line ... This is after Hurricane Katrina and it really doesn't matter what the facts are. Somebody did. It's not clear to me whether they were completely public or public to certain clinical people who may or may not have had appropriate credentials or whatever ... and somebody there, surely conscious of the issue, said: 'You know there’s a privacy issue here, these are private medical records of people who'd been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and I can put these records up and I can save some of their lives and I can also potentially breach their privacy whether it's breaching it to the public or breaching it to people who may or may not actually be clinicians.' And this person made this decision 'I'm going to put these records up because I think the greater good comes from doing this.' ... I don't know who that person was or what his thought process was but that took a certain amount of moral courage unless the guy was completely blind but assuming he knew what he was doing ... and the world needs more of those ... That's a tough decision to make. It's much easier to say I'm not authorized I won't do it, and that is perhaps the legally safe thing to do but it's not the morally safe thing to do. Yet, then you are then making mistakes you are capable of being, you are putting yourself out for criticism and you are responsible for the person whose privacy you did breach - because you made a decision. Making no decision is much easier. So it's a world in which more people are going to be making more decisions and being held accountable for them.
CB: It's the accountability part I like.
Esther Dyson: Yes.
CB: I was raised to be accountable for my actions. Don't take things that don't belong to you ... share with other people ... do unto others and all those basic precepts ...
Esther Dyson: Would you want to hold a fund-raiser for Hillary (Clinton)? This is a totally different question ...
CB: Um ... that's ... um ... yeah ...
Esther Dyson: She's coming out to (Silicon) Valley on December 17 and ...
DISCLOSURE: I am a registered Democrat in San Francisco. I generally vote Democrat, though it's not a party line that guides me - it's a moral one. I am not, however, endorsing Hillary Clinton, nor could I say that I'd vote for her if that is who the Democrats put forward in 2008.
We spoke briefly about this event, and she followed up with an email introduction to the fellow organizing Hillary's December 17, 2005 Bay Area appearance. I did not engage beyond that email thread. Nor did I attend the event.
Then we did a time check and talked about some logistics (her need to check out, departure time for airport, that sort of thing) ...
Now back to the transcript ...
CB: One more question. This is ... Having had the pleasure of meeting your dad at a couple different ... of your different conferences. He's obviously a big supporter of you. You could see the pride in his face, as well as the pride in yours when he is speaking. Can you tell me just a little about the impact he has had. He seems to be a hero of yours, someone to whom you look for ...
Esther Dyson: Well, he's my father. And we didn't really think he was special. He was special because he was our father. He wasn't special because other people thought he was special. In some sense he had no more or less impact than any reasonably good father has on their kids. That's the person whose standards they adopt, whose judgment they revere, whose favor they curry. The kinds of things that won his favor were perhaps different. It certainly wasn't prowess in sports it was ... (Esther shrugged slightly and gestured outward, as if to take in everything around us and beyond.) It wasn't just good grades it was learning and being curious and having our own opinions and stuff like that.
We were ... like you ... we grew up with a huge amount of freedom and the corollary of responsibility. I never had a curfew. I remember once, I would have been 15, and I went to some party. And stayed very very late, it was probably 1 or 2 (AM) when I came home. And as I said, I had no curfew, but I still felt ... I knew I was out kind of late. So I came home and there was my father in the study reading and he said, "So, I hope you had a good time." And I said "Wow you're up late," and he said, "Yeah I couldn't sleep I was sitting here ..." He clearly had stayed up late to see if I was going to come home and he clearly also did not want to say 'You came in too late,' because there was no rule ... it was just ... it was very much 'There are no rules, I care about you.' and at the same time ... You know, I think we both thought, 'Gee this is really really late.' (but he also probably thought) 'There are no rules and she wasn't doing anything bad, and I’'m not going to say ... '
CB: And you came home safe.
Esther Dyson: Yes, and he wasn't going to say he was waiting up for me, but there he was. So that's sort of an example ...
Our parents were divorced so we traveled across the country on our own a lot ... and just had the benefit really of two ... both of my parents were academics but my father was more establishment than my mother. So we knew both the mathematicians with white socks and the mathematicians with no socks and sandals. And that was a great way to grow up.
CB: (laughing) and the truth lies somewhere in between.
Esther Dyson: Yes. Well, actually there's also the people out there with loafers and dress socks but ...
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