SFNetSquared Recap: Designing a better world with IDEO.ORG

Sean Hewens from IDEO.org in action at TechSoup.

As a co-host for SFNetSquared Meetup group, I get put on official hosting duty every few months.  On May 8th, it was my turn again.

Here is a recap of the event written by our guest Sean Hewens from IDEO.org: SFNetSquared Recap: Designing a better world with IDEO.ORG.   You can read it in full at the link. I posted it on our Tumblr blog last week when I was in NYC, but didn't have time until today to link it here.

Enjoy! If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, feel free to join the SFNetSquared group if you're interested in the intersection of technology and social change. There are groups worldwide though! You can also find out more out NetSquared at their website Thanks to TechSoup for being behind the NetSquared initiative and supporting our Meetups.

Here is the link to the recap of the first SFNetSquared event I hosted with Craig Newmark.

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SFNetSquared Recap: Craig Newmark Talks About Technology for the Common Good

I just wanted to share a link to the post I just did for SFNetSquared.

I'm a new co-organizer of this Meetup.com group.  The event I planned with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and craigconnects, happened this past Tuesday.

Here is an informal recap of the event: SFNetSquared Recap: Craig Newmark Talks About Technology for the Common Good.

Enjoy and feel free to join the SFNetSquared group if you're interested in the intersection of technology and social change.

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Motorola Sucks, part 2 - The Factory Reset

There is only going to be a part 2, and that's great because I don't want this to drag out any longer.  If you slogged through my first rant, Motorola Sucks, part 1, you know that I was lucky and got a free Android phone from Motorola a few weeks ago. Yeah! (And, seriously, thanks...)

However, you also know that after a few weeks the phone went buggy on me.  I called Motorola customer service. They kicked me to T-mo.  T-mo kicked me back to them because it was a free phone. The problem was all of my calls rolled into voicemail (nothing on my end to give me a chance at picking up) and the home button didn't work (so no multiple app fun for me...sheesh, is this an old pre-4.0 iPhone OS?)

In one of my calls to Motorola, I was livid because it was, at least, my third or fourth call.  That rep, however, suggested something else: a factory reset (or hard reset). 

Um, okay.  I'd heard NOTHING about that being a possibility before. It does suck because it wipes everything off the phone and, while I was constantly prompted to backup my Blackberry, this Android phone doesn't seem to have that. However, resetting the phone could very well fix the problem. Plus, I was desperate as my only other option was to mail the phone in and be without a phone for the 5 to 7 days it might take. The phone goes back to its factory state but things like contacts would remain as those are synced with Google, as is anything on the SD or SIM card. Okay, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I asked the rep if the instructions were online.  She told me that they weren't.   That.seemed.odd.  However, I didn't have my laptop in front of me at the time to double check (and I would have).  I wrote the steps down and decided to try it after my move was complete and I was settled.

My plan was to bite the bullet and mail the phone off today if I had to.  However, over the weekend, I decided to go back into the Motorola user forums to search for something, anything that could help me.  I figured I couldn't be the only person with a problem like this.

Sure enough, guess what I found?  A step-by-step guide on the factory reset that I was told by a Motorola phone rep WASN'T online.

Good grief...are you f%^king kidding me?  

Granted, this is a forum, so maybe Motorola is just not keeping up with the content that's going up.  However, I found it with just a couple of targeted searches. It was posted about a month ago by someone tagged as a "MotoXprt".  I'm not sure how one becomes a MotoXprt. What's most pressing is why, after these folks have been tagged as experts, that their posts aren't tracked and archived by Motorola customer service.

Just a big old pot of "argh"! Seriously, I would have done this a few days ago had I known.

So, the phone is working again. Yeah! It's ringing and the home button takes me home. However, Motorola's customer service is horrible.  This is something that ~maybe~ should have taken one call.

The online diagnostic didn't walk me through a factory reset.  The customer service rep who suggested it said there were no guides online when actually there are. The fact remains that if something goes wrong with the phone again, I've still got to mail it in.  At least, now I know how to do a factory reset.

Glad I now have a working phone.  I'm still glad I got it for free because I'd be absolutely livid if I paid for this low level of service.

Signing off.

...and Motorola? Your customer service sucks.  It's not just the hardware that people are paying for.  It's the experience of dealing with your company.  That, unfortunately, needs to seriously be reorganized.

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Motorola Sucks, part 1

Yeah, "intelligence everywhere"
except in their customer service!

Honestly, I'm so exhausted that I just need to write this out to get it off my chest.  There will be a part 2 or even part 3 (hopefully, won't be needed) because the low level of customer service happening here is just insane.

However, MOTOROLA SUCKS.

Why?  I thought that I lucked out when I got a Motorola Cliq XT Android phone for free.  I mean "wow".  My little Blackberry was still holding on and I was going to wait until early next year to do an upgrade.  Yet, I was envying my Android and iPhone carrying friends to some degree.

Initially, the phone worked like a charm.  I'm not sure what happened but the home button stopped working and my calls now immediately roll into voicemail.  It sucks. I'm in matches of phone tag constantly and there isn't a thing I can do about it except apologize profusely to the people that are trying to contact me.

I took it to T-Mobile.  They looked at it and confirmed the phone wasn't working.  They checked it for water damage and they were ready to switch me to a new phone.

But oooops!  Because it was a freebie phone from Motorola, they told me I had to contact them.  (Which, BTW, I HAD.)

This is where the clusterfuckery begins.  I call and their automated system that routes you to the right person is frustrating at best.  I finally get to someone and she tells me my "options" are to mail the phone in.  I stop and I say "and my other option is?"  She repeats that I can mail the phone in to be repaired.  I explain that "options" is plural which, in English, means there are, at least TWO choices.  I point out she's only given me one choice.  She then corrects herself to stay that is my only option.

WTF?  WTF?  (I'm not pleased to hear this).  I've not bothered to get a home phone. The last one I had in Seoul was just a waste of money.  I rarely used it.

Hell, here I'm never home and, when I am, I don't want to talk to you.  I do have Google Voice and I have made calls via my computer, but what?  You can't send me a loner flip phone or something to tide me over?  WTF?  And, let me point out this piece of crap was given to me by this company.

Anyway, I ask to speak to someone else because this is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a long time.  All around the policy is what it is.  No one can help, not even the folks listening to the conversation via social media (yes, their @MotoMobile Twitter account responded).

The customer service for this
phone sucks on so many levels!

The problem is I was moving so there is no way I'm sending my phone to Texas when I'm trying to move.  I call today because having a phone that doesn't ring is so many levels of ridiculous it's not funny. It's to the point that I'm missing IMPORTANT calls and I'm having a hell of a time just getting things done because people really do screen their calls with voicemail now and call back.

I give up and decide, fine. I've got to bite the bullet, send the phone in and be phoneless for a few days.  30 minutes on the phone to get an RMA number to return the damn phone.  I'm also told postage is on me (fine, fine...the piece of crap phone was free) but that it will take 5 to 7 business days to get it back to me.  EXCUSE ME?

I'll update you all on what happens next, but, trust me, had I known their customer service policy was this shitty I wouldn't have accepted the phone.

So, note to self and anyone who reads this: just don't buy Motorola.  I think I'm going to upgrade to a Samsung Galaxy, I'm just going to try to hold out until I get to the T-mo upgrade period (early November for me.)  I'm not that pleased with T-mo's customer service on this issue either but 1) I didn't buy the phone from them and 2) they have no impact on Motorola's crap service policy.

I'm sorry but eff you Motorola.  You suck.

Yes, I know, lesson to me: a living lesson in you get what you pay for.

More Moto hate here:

Opinions on MOTOROLA 

Here is the promised Part 2 that I also linked above.

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Counterfeit Whiskey Detectors in Korean Cell Phones

A wee bit of a mistake happened over at The Next Web Asia blog. My editor posted this piece but somehow linked to the source and is unable to fix it.

Just so that this is forever exhiled to the back page never to be found again, I'm posting it here.

The Next Web Asia is a new blog in The Next Wave family of blogs.  It just went live this week.  You can check out my contributions here (well, for the article below, as I explained, you can't due to a mistake.)  

Counterfeit Whiskey Detectors in Korean Cell Phones

If you keep up with mobile phone technology, it’s pretty well-known that South Korea is high on the list of the most advanced nations.  There is massive competition between the three carriers: SK Telecom, KTF, and LG Telecom.  That keeps the industry innovating to leech customers away from the competition. That benefits the consumer. You can get a signal just about anywhere including when you’re up on the ski slopes or underground in the subway. The phones are sturdy, functional and, in many cases, multilingual.  Plus, your average Korean citizen is very used to using the extended features from text messages to banking.

If you’ve been to or lived in Korea for any amount of time, you know that it’s a drinking culture.  It’s expected that when your boss says “let’s go have dinner and drinks” to the staff that they go and that they drink, to excess (if the boss drinks to excess).  Like many vibrant economies, there is also a love of status objects, including expensive brand name liquors.

That means you’ve got a group of people more than willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for their expensive booze.  In response, there is an industry of fake brand name liquor that has developed to rip these people off.

The problem for the South Korean government is that people taken in by this fraud aren’t paying the taxes levied on genuine brand name bottles of booze. To solve this problem, the South Korean National Tax Service is adding another level of functionality to the Korean cell phone.  They’re going to have detectors that can verify whether a bottle of expensive whiskey is legit or not. The detectors are scheduled to be put into use this month. I think it’s pretty clever to craft the solution around a piece of technology that everyone in Korea uses.
This is how the detectors will solve this problem:

The plan is to attach RFID chips that contain production history data to whiskey bottles, so that anyone with a cellphone can use a plug-in scanner (which is to be stored in major bars and pubs) to see if the costly bottle of liquor he is about to order is real or bogus. National Tax Services is rolling this out to make sure they are collecting liquor taxes to the fullest. They are starting with 2 million bottles of whiskey.

Now I’m not sure who exactly gets busted here.  I’m assuming it’s got to be the establishment or the liquor distributor.  If someone knows what’s supposed to happen when a fake bottle is detected, let me know.

News release from the Hankyoreh (한겨레) website (in Korean): “너 가짜양주지?” 휴대전화로 판별

Source: Web 2.0 Asia

(yes, the code is still buggy...skip the "read more" link)

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Technology Regression

Clearly, months into this and reverse culture shock pain is still an issue.

You see, after living in South Korea for so long, I adjusted to the incredibly high level of technology that was there and adjusted to how people used that technology. In some ways that means my habits have changed. I remember sitting on the Seoul subway watching TV. Here in Manhattan you can't even get a phone signal on the subway. IT.IS.TRAGIC.

I was the teenager who was on the phone forever. Now you're only going to catch me on the phone for a long time if I'm talking to a close friend or something like that. I still have those conversations, but they're much more rare. Who has the time? I'm not going to get on the phone just to give someone a brief message. I'll send you a text or an email, but I'm not calling. I actually think it's less intrusive to send a text or an email. Why make someone pick up the receiver or have to dial into their voicemail? (BTW, Google Voice is awesome...they transcribe voicemails!)

However, I am still very communicative. It's just that you can bet that you're probably going to get a text or an email rather than a phone call.

Anyway, I have an appointment to meet someone tomorrow for a project I might help him with. He emailed me, and I replied. I honestly didn't even think to give him my number. However, he asked for it, so my bad.

His assistant writes me back pretty much stressing that before they'll can lock down a time that they need a number. That's fine. I'm not holding on to it because I don't take phone calls. It just didn't click as I'd just woken up. However, it didn't click for a much deeper reason. It didn't click because talking on the phone for anything isn't my first instinct anymore.

He had my email. For me THAT'S how you find me these days.

I've got a Blackberry and that thing is always on. In fact, I've learned the hard way to always keep it plugged in. I've had nights where I've come in and not taken it out of my purse. I wake up the next morning to a phone completely out of power. I guess there is so much data coming in that the power just drains completely. That little red light is always flashing. (I also heard they're pretty notorious power hogs...eh, it's what I have, so I deal.)

I just thought it odd that for this person having a phone number was so important that before making an appointment he had to have my number.

It led me to think of a recent freelance job I was on. One day the woman who hired me and I were talking. I said I'm not the type to be on the phone when someone can just send me a quick text message or email. That way I don't have to stop what I'm doing for long. I just check it and keep working. She took that as me saying I don't like to talk on the phone. No, I just don't talk on the phone unless it's important. However, for her, she's still very much in the calling people up mode. It works for what she does: sales. Therefore, I get it. But, for me, I see no reason to make a phone call when all I have to say is something I can send to you by text or email.

If this graph is right, and it sure feels right, I'm stuck between "missing other culture" and "adaptation". I'm still much closer to "missing other culture" right now. I'll admit as much.

There is a new age. It's weird being back in a place where they've not caught up, so I've got to recallibrate. I think kids have. I see the shows where they lament the kid who sends text messages all the time or shake their heads over some kid setting a record for sending the quickest text message. I kind of understand those kids more than I want to admit.

Now I have to see how I can get back to using the phone as my primary means of communication.

Do I HAVE to?

Well, I had to adjust when I was abroad, so I'm going to have to readjust. I'm surprised that it's sort of difficult for me to do.

(no more to read, the "read more" is a code glitch that I, clearly, refuse to fix.)

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Web 2.0 Asia :: Wetoku is Interview 2.0

via web20asia.com

I found this on the Web 2.0 Asia blog this morning: wetoku (Konglish. Korean-English, for "we talk").

Since I might start doing interviews again pretty soon, this would be a great way to do it. I wonder if you can also use it to record multiple users and also set it up to record podcasts? (I guess if it records sound, if you edit it, why not?) I have to try this one.

Posted via web from Regina's posterous

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Things You Should Not Twitter: A funny site

Update: Things You Should Not Twitter is a funny site that is no more.

So enjoy the screen shots because that's all that is left.

Here is another site that got one shot I didn't: Stuff I Found
_________________________________________

This is just a hilarious site: Things You Should Not Twitter. I saw the link when Guy Kawasaki sent a tweet about it.

Yes, if you look on the sidebar of my blog, I've been sending out tweets like gangbusters. It happens when you're trying to deny that you're no longer just transitioning but are officially unemployed ;) However, the big move east will happen soon, and in the spirit of "it's rarely let me down before" optimism, I blame my unemployment on that.

However, in the meantime between doing some part-time research for a reporter in NYC (yes, I'm doing something) and looking for something full-time, I get distracted by Twitter.

Earlier today, someone I'm connected to sent out a tweet about what she's not doing at her job. Well, speaking of work, I don't know if that's the wisest tweet to send out. Twitter feeds into the search engines almost immediately. In fact, if I want to find a tweet and can't remember who did it, I'll run a Google search and I almost always find it in the top few search results. (That's exactly how I found the link back to Kawasaki's tweet.)

Twitter places very high in searches people. It's only a matter of time before waves of "busted on Twitter" stories start happening just as the "busted on Facebook" stories, like this or this one, and other social media sites started making headlines.

Maybe it's the fallout of a talk show culture. My generation was around when talk shows were a dime a dozen on TV. Now the Internet provides a platform for people to do the same thing without having to get vetted by a talk show producer and, if selected, spilling your guts in front of a studio audience. Instead, with social media there is no vetting required. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection and then you can do the same. However, when you do, just remember that, just like with TV, anyone can see it.

Click over and check some of these out. This site just started a few days ago and already there are some where you just shake your head and wonder why someone has the need to share that much. I wonder how many are jokes and how many are serious?







These are just a few. Click over to the site for plenty more ;)

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Ashton vs. CNN (well, actually CNNbrk)

Update 1:16am - May 14, 2009

I was on a bus from NYC to Philly. The bus had wifi but wouldn't let me load the USstream.tv website. Odd. Anyway, here it is for those of us who didn't get to see it.

Ashton doing a ding dong ditch. Of course, he had to change it up because you can't just walk up to Ted Turner's front door ;)



__________________________

Update: 11:18pm - It's done, baby, done. Ashton beat CNN and that was pretty bad ass to witness via webcam.

Thanks to anyone who followed my lead and added him! It's a victory for new media. Things are changing.
__________________________________

I don't know if you've been following this madness, but a couple of days ago Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN and Ted Turner to a contest. Basically, if he got to 1,000,000 followers on Twitter before CNNbrk (Breaking News), he'd ding, dong, ditch Ted Turner's house.

However, then he added that he'd donate 10,000 nets to prevent malaria. This cause is something that he tweeted about a couple of days before the challenge. That's also when I decided to take him seriously and urge him on and encourage others to follow him too. Also, today, I realized I was following CNNbrk, so I stopped, for now. I'll follow them again when this is all over.

Now in the land that is the Internet there are a lot of haters out there who don't seem to get it. Brian Solis, however, does. For that his post on the topic is well worth posting here.

BTW, if you're not on Twitter, get on it and follow Ashton Kutcher: http://www.twitter.com/aplusk

Ashton and Evan Williams, one of the founders of Twitter will be on Oprah tomorrow. I'll be in Yosemite, so I'm going to miss all of this, but tune in if you're in the States. It ought to be fun to watch.

However, if this is the first you've heard of this, read what Solis has to say.

Also, folks in the K-blogosphere, if you still pay attention to what I write (and I hope some of you do), get on Twitter and follow Ashton. Thanks ;)

It's close y'all: HuffPo - Twitter Showdown

The Race to 1,000,000 Followers Sends Twitter and Social Media into Relevance and Irrelevance

Source

It started as a simple and seemingly harmless contest. Who would be the first person on Twitter to reach 1,000,000 followers?

This wasn’t yet another follower push open to just anyone on Twitter however, not even the Weblebrities who helped propel the popular micro community to an emerging, iconic pop culture status; it was (and at the moment, still is) a race between the world’s most visible celebrities and prominent media brands.

It started when Ashton Kutcher, a television and movie star who’s also keenly astute and observant to the promise of new media challenged CNN and its founder, Ted Turner to the race.

It was the match heard round the blogosphere, twitterverse and statusphere.

Shortly thereafter, Britney Spears, Will Smith and a bevy of opportunistic celebrities (and their publicists) and media properties (driven by their PR teams) followed suit. Britney’s team offered chances to win free tickets in exchange for followers. Other celebrities (who shall remain anonymous, DM’d followers to ask for help in spreading the word.)

The competition quickly became a media phenomenon.

Ashton and Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams are now expected to appear on the Oprah show tomorrow, which will coincide with almost every leading competitor surpassing 1,000,000 followers on the same day. The publicity was enough to inspire Oprah to start tweeting.


Sarah Ross, Ashton Kutcher, TechCrunch50

At the time of this post, CNNbrk was in the lead with 977,02 followers, with Ashton Kutcher following closely with 973,806, and Britney Spears in third with 944,273.

Initially I questioned the exchange. I couldn’t help but feel as though “we the people” on Twitter were merely viewed as pawns in a personal chess match between the elite.

Think about it. If Twitter had 6-7 million users, we’re talking about 1 in every 6 or so users following one of the contenders.

I threw the question out to Twitter, “How do you feel about the race to 1,000,000?”

The response was almost overwhelming in its volume and vigor, spanning across Twitter and Facebook over the course of several hours.

While the publicity for Twitter and the overall medium that is Social Media is incredible and sprawling, I believe that the purpose and deeper meaning of having 1,000,000 followers on Twitter or any social network, will be lost to the fervor that fuels this “contest” – unless we’re comfortable holding the title of “follower” a.k.a. social pauper. I highly doubt that any brand will view this special achievement of having cultivated 1 million followers as an opportunity to “engage” in “conversations” with their communities. Intention is easily assessable by simply viewing the latest tweets via www.twitter.com/username.

But in Ashton’s case, it’s so much deeper. I believe his intentions are genuine.

Should he win, he’s promised to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to help fight malaria. After promising the nets, he then dedicated the nets either way. Using social media to build a platform for self-promotion or a top-down distribution channel for propaganda and messages is, in the spirit of the social web, anti-social. To demonstrate that any individual can earn influence for which to wield freely and graciously in the name of social good is symbolic of the true spirit of Social Media.

In his own words, Kutcher so passionately defines what has inspired many of us over the last several years in our work to help cultivate the foundation for social media and the very people powering its evolution, “So why is this significant? This is a huge statement for Social Media. For one person to actually have the ability to broadcast to as many people as a major media network, sort of signifies the turning of the tide from tradition news outlets to social news outlets. With our video cameras on cell phones, picture cams, blogging, twittering, posting, and Facebooking, we actually become the source of the news, the broadcasters of the news, and the consumers of the news…we have the potential on this day to turn the tide…where social media and social news outlets can become as powerful as the major news outlets. We’re doing that with the help of you. It’s sort of power to the people and I like that, a lot.”



We participate on social networks to express ourselves and share a piece of who we are in the real world, online, to forge relationships with people we respect, trust, and admire and it inspires us to share, learn, and grow together. With every tweet and update, we reveal a bit of what we stand for and what moves us, forming a unique social graph that contextually connects us to others in an irreproducible network. It’s unique to each one of us, and it’s both empowering and powerful.

We become media.

We become influencers.

We are the source of the social seismographs that spark reverberating tremors that represent the potential to create a webwide social effect.

We’re shifting into a rapid-fire culture that moves at Twitter time. Attention is a precious commodity and requires a personalized engagement strategy in order to consistently vie for it. The laws of attraction and relationships management are driven by the ability to create compelling content and transparently connect it to the people whom you believe benefit.

Twitter and the statusphere have become our attention dashboards, the new ecosystem for sharing, discovering, and publishing updates and micro-sized content that reverberates throughout social networks and syndicated profiles, resulting in a formidable network effect of activity. It is the digital curation of relevant content that binds us contextually and through the statusphere we can connect directly to existing contacts, reach new people, and also forge new friendships through the friends of friends effect (FoFs) in the process.

Is having one million followers sustainable? Better yet, is it engaging or welcoming? Can you genuinely listen to and converse with a community that rivals the population of small countries?

Perhaps it doesn’t matter...not anymore. If you are a curator of highly relevant information, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and motivating substance, then you can potentially flourish into a fountain of inspiration that channels content to the beacons and ambassadors who also represent interconnected human networks. It’s how we communicate now.

Dr. Dunbar, theorized that the size of the human brain allows a stable network of about 148 contacts, which has become known as “the Dunbar number.” In Social Networks however, real world relationships have evolved into something altogether different and perhaps more authoritative. Now, individuals can follow and are followed by thousands or (eventually) millions of "friends" across the Conversation Prism. This is a new breed of personal branding and expert and themed curation tethered to a peer network that exemplifies fandom and creates a platform for peer-to-peer influence. And, we may or may not ever know the people who choose to follow our updates or friend us on these popular and emerging networks. Our human network is defined by reach, not just in one community, but through the syndication of multiple social networks.

For Ashton, reaching one million followers represents the potential of socialized media, the future of information discovery and distribution, and the connectedness of contextual human networks. For the others, collecting followers represents the ability to push information to a faceless list of avatars using a new medium. As followers, we’re simply relegated to subscribers and fans, nothing less, nothing more.

The future of Social Media lies with those who can create, cultivate, and empower individuals to produce and share meaningful content and activity to inspire action, foster education, instigate change and build a more media literate society.

Helpful Posts on PR 2.0:
- The Domino's Effect
- The Conversation Index
- A New Search Engine for Twitter
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Can The Statusphere Save Journalism?
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- Facebook Now 200 Million Strong
- Twitter Traffic Surges to 10 Million
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect
- Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is Now Available
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- The Human Network = The Social Economy
- In the Statusphere, ADD Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- Social Networks Now More Popular than Email; Facebook Surpasses MySpace
- Are Blogs Losing Authority to the Statusphere?
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love - Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- The Battle for Your Social Status
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform

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Blackberry in the house ;)

With one week to go, my Blackberry arrived :) I knew I'd get it today, so I went out and bought an 8GB micro SD card for it yesterday. It's charging now and I'll set it up later. Of course, no calls until I'm back home, but that's going to be in just a few days. Yeah!!!



I'm that much of a geek that I have to be plugged in when I touch down.

Update 1: I went to install the memory card I got for it and saw that it came with, get this, a 256MB card. Hahahahahahahahaha...256MB!!! Yes, I'm geeky enough that 256MB is laughably low memory for me.



The card I have comes with a regular sized SD adapter, so I put the tiny memory card in my camera as a backup.

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We Feel Fine

I don't talk about my feelings much. How I feel when it comes to this or that issue, yes, but my emotions, no, not really. That's true of this blog and it's, pretty much, true in real life.

However, I guess I've talked about it enough to be indexed by the search bots and found by We Feel Fine because they contacted me today via email.

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

That actually made me feel good (and that won't be indexed because it's not written in a way that their system will pick it up.)

Click over and check it out. It's really interesting, not to mention pretty ;)

Searching for everything.

Searching for "happy".

Searching for "loved".

The screen that shows all the feelings.

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Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty and the Microfinance Movement

I got turned on to the idea of microfinance by the man who is famous for it, Professor Muhammad Yunis. He won the Noble Peace Prize along with his organization Grameen Bank in 2006. At the time, I was at Ewha Womans University at the Graduate School of International Studies. Right after he won the Noble Peace Prize, he came to Ewha to speak. I, along with other Ewha students and some people from the general public, got to hear his story about about how he made his idea of microfinance a success in his native country of Bangladesh.

Being a student, I was lucky enough to ask him a question. I asked him about how he envisioned microfinance working in more developed countries like the States. I asked because I come from a working class background. My father was a blue collar worker and my mom was a housewife. My parents figured out the benefit of credit and never had problems. However, in the neighborhood I grew up in, they're the exception rather than the rule it seemed. As a result, I was a lucky (and spoiled) only child, who didn't want for much. Others in my neighborhood weren't so lucky. As a result of white flight, the neighborhood was a mix of working class families and those on public assistance. The working class families, for the most part, did alright as did some on public assistance, I'm sure.

Just across the street there were many who were struggling with unemployment, drugs and goodness knows what else. My neighborhood went from a pretty calm place to a place where the cops showed up way too often and gang members loitered for a bit too long. My mom was very keen on limiting my exposure to all that was going on at that time, so I can't give you many details. I just know it was about getting to school and getting back home safe and sound without incident. We made it like most families there did. However, it did leave me with a keen sense of haves vs. have-nots even on that small scale.

So, what can be done to help people in those situations? Poverty in a developed country is more nuanced in some ways because those in it are often portrayed as shiftless and lazy. However, I know it's not about being shiftless and lazy. I know some shiftless and lazy trust fund babies too. What is more on point is the issue of really feeling powerless, lacking knowledge and being ill equipped. So how can you help those in poverty who are in developed countries?

Yumis said they were planning to get involved in microfinance in the US and sure enough they have. I'm still half a world away, so there isn't much I can do to help right now. But maybe that email I got from a contact I made when I met Dr. Yunis about Grameen America will still be good when I finally choose to return.

In the meantime, I help where I can. I'm a member of Kiva.org and I've helped two entrepreneurs, one in Ghana and the other in Mexico, get the loans they need to expand their business. I don't have much, but it doesn't take much to help someone with microfinance because these are very small loans. I'm proud to say that I just got an email letting me know that one of the two I loaned to has paid back 14% of her loan. I do hope it helps her rise up out of poverty.

With the economic crisis, everyone is concerned about their finances. However, put it in perspective. Languishing over the diminished value of their 401Ks is probably an issue they never wrestle with. It's simply about getting enough money to fund a small business, so they can make a living. Just a few dollars can help someone and, I think, it's worth it.

Even if lending to someone in need is beyond your means right now, you can still get involved in fighting poverty.

Here is a list of what one person can do from the Blog Action Day website: What Can One Person Do?

Here is the accompanying video. The video is tinged with religion, but you can be an atheist or agnostic and recognize that collective action is needed to help eradicate poverty:

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Blog Action Day : October 15th

Blog Action Day is on October 15th this year.

Last year the topic was the environment and my take on it was Koreans needed to be more proactive when it came to environmental issues. I got on that because the topic of Korea's economic development came up constantly in class when I was getting my masters here. And I'd hear the "we're a developing country" excuse a lot, but I'd also see no recycling bins for plastics and pretty much no awareness of wasteful behavior: Koreans Can't Afford to Think Poor. Basically, the point was if every developing country gets to lean on that as an excuse, the world is going to get worse before it gets better and is that really a legacy we want to leave?

This year the topic is poverty. I'm in again this year. Unlike last year, I already know my angle because I'm already involved in it.

If you've got a blog, I just want to ask you one question. Are you in?


Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

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Shoppers - Gmarket in English

Update: May 1, 2008 @ 11:02am
Ohhhhhhhhhhh, update time. After shopping the prices online, I had a general idea of what the price would be for the camera I wanted.

Initially, I wanted the Xacti which had HD. However, the salesman explained that if I didn't have an HD TV or other HD capability it was a waste. Also, if I did have HD capability there were other cameras in the same price point with more features. I actually had a salesman talk me down. Instead of the HD camera, I got the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CA65EX (in the States the model is the VPC-E1). It's waterproof and that will be fun for the summer and when I'm on a certain cruise again next year (if I can make it.)

I got to use it yesterday, and I'm really pleased with it. I did manage to mess up once. I thought I was recording a video but something was wrong. I had to do that again, but live and learn. I'm very happy with my new geek toy.

_______________________



Okay, I'm a shopper. It's a habit that was once a bad one. Now that I'm older and wiser, I've got better control of it.

Right now I've decided it's time for a new digital camera. The Nikon I got a few years ago in Japan I just never mastered. Because of that, I take crap photos when I use it. Anyone in the market for a used camera? It's good. I'm just too lazy to master how it works.

I've been using a friend's Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG65. It's an awesome little camera. During fashion week I loved using it. I even got someone I met who works for WGSN to run off to one of the electronic marts here in Seoul and she got one of her own. I figure it's her full-time job to run around reporting on fashion and what's cool, so that's good cred for these little cameras. I'm still carrying the camera with me. However, it's not my camera, so I need to get my own ASAP.

To that end I looked at some Sanyo Xacti cameras when I was in Fukuoka last week. I didn't get one, although maybe I should have. Now that I'm back here in Seoul, I decided to go to the Korean shopping websites because I've heard that's where you'll get a deal if there is a deal to be had. What I found instead is that Gmarket, a Korean shopping site, now has a mirror site in English.

Oh joy! Oh rapture! I'm serious...this is cool. Now I've yet to buy anything, so I can't comment on how functional it is. But in shopping around to price those cameras it's been pretty easy. Who knows. This probably has been up for awhile as I'd given up with even trying to shop on Korean websites awhile back.

Check it out: Gmarket Korea - English.

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MySpace Korea Launch Party

Last night I had a chance to go to the MySpace Korea launch party. It was held in Hongdae at the aA Design Museum. The space was nice.

The party was nice enough, but what was lacking for me was the reason why MySpace is here in Korea so late in the game.

I've got a MySpace US profile and I use it frequently. However, with social networks like CyWorld and search engines with user-generated content like Naver well established here in South Korea, I'm just wondering what MySpace has to offer in a market that is already pretty saturated.

Maybe those with more Web 2.0 knowledge can help me out: MySpace launches in Korea officially.

Good luck MySpace Korea.

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Death By Blogging? Oh crap!!!

Here is a NY York Times article that talks about the recent deaths of a few prominent bloggers.

Death by blogging did occur to me when I made a post about the death of Steve Gillard. With all due respect to him, the picture showed a guy who didn't get out to do a daily stroll much less a daily jog.

For my own health, I have to say I watch what I eat, but I've been a bit lax on exercise lately myself. I blame on the arctic winters they have here in Korea. I like exercising outdoors. That's easy to do in Los Angeles or San Francisco. It's much more difficult to do in Seoul when it's freezing. I noticed that after almost four weeks in the States, I came back slimmer. Now I've got to maintain it and I'm already loosing ground. Korea is a place where it's a pain to exercise outdoors. I've found it also a pain to exercise indoors. If I'm in the gym and I've got my headphones on DON'T TALK TO ME! However, I think I'll get back on it because I was talking about roller blading out by the river, so roller blading this weekend it is. I'd like to be a blogger that makes it past 60.

K-bloggers? Should we actually start getting paid for this are we be in for the same fate?

NY Times: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

SAN FRANCISCO — They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece — not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.

The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves — and are being well-compensated for it.

“I haven’t died yet,” said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. The site has brought in millions in advertising revenue, but there has been a hefty cost. Mr. Arrington says he has gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen.”

“This is not sustainable,” he said.

It is unclear how many people blog for pay, but there are surely several thousand and maybe even tens of thousands.

The emergence of this class of information worker has paralleled the development of the online economy. Publishing has expanded to the Internet, and advertising has followed.

Even at established companies, the Internet has changed the nature of work, allowing people to set up virtual offices and work from anywhere at any time. That flexibility has a downside, in that workers are always a click away from the burdens of the office. For obsessive information workers, that can mean never leaving the house.

Blogging has been lucrative for some, but those on the lower rungs of the business can earn as little as $10 a post, and in some cases are paid on a sliding bonus scale that rewards success with a demand for even more work.

There are growing legions of online chroniclers, reporting on and reflecting about sports, politics, business, celebrities and every other conceivable niche. Some write for fun, but thousands write for Web publishers — as employees or as contractors — or have started their own online media outlets with profit in mind.

One of the most competitive categories is blogs about technology developments and news. They are in a vicious 24-hour competition to break company news, reveal new products and expose corporate gaffes.

To the victor go the ego points, and, potentially, the advertising. Bloggers for such sites are often paid for each post, though some are paid based on how many people read their material. They build that audience through scoops or volume or both.

Some sites, like those owned by Gawker Media, give bloggers retainers and then bonuses for hitting benchmarks, like if the pages they write are viewed 100,000 times a month. Then the goal is raised, like a sales commission: write more, earn more.

Bloggers at some of the bigger sites say most writers earn about $30,000 a year starting out, and some can make as much as $70,000. A tireless few bloggers reach six figures, and some entrepreneurs in the field have built mini-empires on the Web that are generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Others who are trying to turn blogging into a career say they can end up with just $1,000 a month.

Speed can be of the essence. If a blogger is beaten by a millisecond, someone else’s post on the subject will bring in the audience, the links and the bigger share of the ad revenue.

“There’s no time ever — including when you’re sleeping — when you’re not worried about missing a story,” Mr. Arrington said.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we said no blogger or journalist could write a story between 8 p.m. Pacific time and dawn? Then we could all take a break,” he added. “But that’s never going to happen.”

All that competition puts a premium on staying awake. Matt Buchanan, 22, is the right man for the job. He works for clicks for Gizmodo, a popular Gawker Media site that publishes news about gadgets. Mr. Buchanan lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, where his bedroom doubles as his office.

He says he sleeps about five hours a night and often does not have time to eat proper meals. But he does stay fueled — by regularly consuming a protein supplement mixed into coffee.

But make no mistake: Mr. Buchanan, a recent graduate of New York University, loves his job. He said he gets paid to write (he will not say how much) while interacting with readers in a global conversation about the latest and greatest products.

“The fact I have a few thousand people a day reading what I write — that’s kind of cool,” he said. And, yes, it is exhausting. Sometimes, he said, “I just want to lie down.”

Sometimes he does rest, inadvertently, falling asleep at the computer.

“If I don’t hear from him, I’ll think: Matt’s passed out again,” said Brian Lam, the editor of Gizmodo. “It’s happened four or five times.”

Mr. Lam, who as a manager has a substantially larger income, works even harder. He is known to pull all-nighters at his own home office in San Francisco — hours spent trying to keep his site organized and competitive. He said he was well equipped for the torture; he used to be a Thai-style boxer.

“I’ve got a background getting punched in the face,” he said. “That’s why I’m good at this job.”

Mr. Lam said he has worried his blogging staff might be burning out, and he urges them to take breaks, even vacations. But he said they face tremendous pressure — external, internal and financial. He said the evolution of the “pay-per-click” economy has put the emphasis on reader traffic and financial return, not journalism.

In the case of Mr. Shaw, it is not clear what role stress played in his death. Ellen Green, who had been dating him for 13 months, said the pressure, though self-imposed, was severe. She said she and Mr. Shaw had been talking a lot about how he could create a healthier lifestyle, particularly after the death of his friend, Mr. Orchant.

“The blogger community is looking at this and saying: ‘Oh no, it happened so fast to two really vital people in the field,’ ” she said. They are wondering, “What does that have to do with me?”

For his part, Mr. Shaw did not die at his desk. He died in a hotel in San Jose, Calif., where he had flown to cover a technology conference. He had written a last e-mail dispatch to his editor at ZDNet: “Have come down with something. Resting now posts to resume later today or tomorrow.”

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Drunk Dialing Call Block

Okay, that's it! There are some negatives to being an expatriate. One big one are your fellow expatriates who are often maladjusted in some way. When the weird strikes an expatriate situation it's usually very weird. BTW, I'm not saying I'm free of maladjustments; I know I have my own special selection too. I just think they're minor, but who doesn't?

Anyway, there is someone who is prone to sending me text messages at REALLY inappropriate times. I've tolerated it simply because the messages were so ridiculous they were funny. The subject matter is always some starlet or other - okay, whatever, some lonely dude who is in dire need of friends fixating on some woman on TV or on the Internet. However, the joke grew stale months ago because it's the same damn joke. Unfortunately, he's grown to know my schedule and knows I usually rise early. One morning I he woke me up with this madness and I was livid because I'd had a late night out.

Well, I was snoozing away in my warm bed this morning, and that's very important when the temperature is -3°C, that's 26°F, when I heard my cell phone vibrating. I was thinking "no, way...not again!" Sure enough, there was a message which was time stamped at 4:15am!

Furious, I replied back. That's probably the worst thing I could have done with someone who has lacks to good sense to realize doing this causes people to AVOID you. When it happened a couple of weeks ago and I said he'd woken me up, there was no "I'm sorry", there were only more messages!

So when I awoke this morning to the same ol' shit, I was very much finished with it all.

Done.

Joke delivered. It sucks...still.

NUMBER BLOCKED...GONG!



However, the result is I'm pissed off and awake, and I surf the Internet when I'm up in the wee hours. I found this blog about an LG brand phone that prevents drunk dialing. I only have drunk texting, but it's just as annoying. The offending party has one of those MBA-supported finance jobs, so he can afford a new phone. I think I'll pass this on to someone who can get this to him as I officially have him on ignore now. Okay, I'm going back to sleep.

LG Offers a Phone That Can Tell if You Are Drunk!

Adding new meaning to the term “smart phone”, Korea-based Lucky Goldstar has released a phone in the US this summer with a built-in breathalyzer. 200,000 of the LP4100 model phones had already been sold in Korea before hitting the US market.

When you blow into this phone and it detects you are over the legal limit, it gives a warning and displays a cute little animation of a car swerving off the road and smashing into traffic cones. A wise driver would then stop and hand the wheel over to a friend, or call a taxi. Targeted to hard partying younger people, the phone also has a “Drunk Dialing” call block. You can set certain numbers as blocked at certain times of the night, or if you are too drunk to call.

This is a great feature, there is nothing worse than having a friend replay your voice mails left at 3 AM after one too many. Or getting your phone bill after calling your ex in the middle of the night – when your ex moved to France two years ago!

This is also a great safeguard to keep you from calling your boss or mother while hammered.

The LP4100 has great potential to save lives. Most people will not buy a breathalyzer as a standalone product, but if it comes with a phone, why not?

The phone itself has all the features required by the younger set, and a sleek “sports-car” design. Remember, phones don’t let friends drink and drive!

__________________________________

Update #1 - Dec. 21, 2007 @ 5:34pm

I blocked said fuckwit, but I didn't delete him off my Windows Messenger list.

Woah is me.

Can you believe this fuckwit told me that to avoid such disturbances I should, let me quote this shit "turn ur fone off". To which my reply was "i shouldn't have to...have the common sense NOT to disturb someone". And his reply was "if ur fone is on, ur receiving calls and txts".

Now technically, yes, I am. That's like telling someone to turn off the ringer to their home phone before they go to bed. People have phones for a reason. Should an emergency happen, I want the call, so I keep my phone on. What I don't want is to be disturbed with stupid shit at 4am and most people I know get this. Funny that he doesn't.

I just think it's hilarious that the tried to argue this with me. It just shows that in spite of his education he has no manners and no damn sense. I ended the discussion by informing him it was a non-issue because I call blocked his number immediately after that.

I'm just amused and wanted to share this because I'd NEVER have the gall to take someone on about disturbing them at 4am. The levels of inconsiderate that I've found in the expatriates here is astounding.

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Donations Via Cell Phone

Update 1 (Dec. 26, 2007 @ 11:19am)

I was out this Sunday and I had a chance to snap a picture of one of the holiday Salvation Army donation set-ups. The little black box in the middle of the pink display is a place where you can swipe your T-money metro card to make a donation. Now that's clever.


_________________________________

Pic from the Chosun Ilbo website (click the pic to go to the Chosun Ilbo).

This morning I was clicking around on various Korean newspaper sites when this bit of news caught my eye.

As I mentioned in my post about my new cell phone, Korean cell phone technology is incredibly advanced and you can bank from your phone.

One company, SK Telecom, has made it possible to make donations to the Salvation Army during the holiday season. I think that's great.

SK Telecom will set up a temporary service allowing subscribers to donate money to the Salvation Army through their mobile phones free of charge from Dec. 1 to 24. /Newsis

Considering that I think Koreans need to donate more time, money and attention to various charities, as well as establish a social safety net, this is a great idea. I hope it works and donations in Korea to this great charity increase.

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Are You SERIOUS?!!!

Thanks to my trusty LG-LB2800 DMB cell phone, I'm actually plugging into more Korean broadcasts. At home, I'm strictly a CNN International gal because cable companies are only allowed to carry one English news company (don't ask me why.) The rest of my news is gathered from the Internet. However, with my phone and my commute which consists of a 30 to 45 minute bus ride out of Seoul to Kyonggi-do, I've got time to tune in. Now I find myself firing up my phone and tuning into Korean TV or radio instead or reading or listening to music on my PDA. In fact, I got first hand confirmation that the new Korean pop group the Wonder Girls really do suck because I saw a performance, if you want to call it that.

Anyway, on Friday I was on the school bus heading back to Seoul. I was listening to Arirang radio and heard a story about officers in the Korean military who'd faked Philipino degrees to gain promotions.

What the hell?

Anyway, the reporter said that the military claimed there was no way to check this information. This is the same lame excuse used in the other degree scandals. What the hell do you mean there is no way to check?!!!

You find the school's phone number, pick up the phone, you call the school, you ask for the registrar department and you find out the process for verifying whether someone did or didn't graduate from the damn school. If you don't want to speak to someone, in this day and age you can find that information on the school's website. Again, as I've written before, no legitimate school wants people running around claiming they're graduates when they're not. It's up to employeers to verify this information, period.

Granted, it's best if people don't lie, but Korea is very much a one chance only society in some ways. If you fail the entrance exam or have a bad day when you take whatever test it is you have to take to get a job or even an interview, you're screwed. As a result of this, one strike situation, the temptation to lie is a very serious one. That's going to take Korean society changing and allowing people to move in or move up in different ways. However, that's not something I'm willing to theorize about at this point. That's up to Koreans to recognize and change.

Just don't give me this b.s. that you can't verify credentials. It's done all the time, except in Korea, it seems.

Sources:
AFP: SKorea's fake degree scandal spreads to military
Wake T-Rex: Lovely Just Lovely, Korean Military Officers Fake Filipino University Degrees

JoongAng Ilbo: Fake degree scandals hit the military

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My New Celly

Okay, y'all know I have Graves' Disease. My medication got tweeked about a week ago, but it takes a two or three weeks for it to level out. What that means is I've got insomnia right now, and I won't be sleeping 'cause I just can't.

So what do you do when your your thyroid is pumping enough hormones into you to power a kindergarten class? You blog!

After work I headed to one of my favorite parts of Seoul: Myeongdong.

I went there for dinner. One of my favorite Korean dishes is 갈국수 (kal kuk su), Korean noodles. There is this great restaurant in the area named: 명동교자 (Myeongdong Kyo Ja). They serve great 갈국수 along with incredibly fresh 김치 (kimchee). I won't get into the various of kimchee because I just don't know enough to explain it all, but the kind served at any restaurant that specializes in 갈국수 is the tastiest to me.

Here is a shot of my bowl of 갈국수 with 김치. What's great is they walk around to refill your 김치 because it's THAT tasty.

After dinner the plan was to head to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and study Korean. I eventually made it, but not before I spent an hour buying a new cell phone. That's funny as my intent was just to pay my bill. However, I also had to change some of my account details and they let me know that I had 100,000 won worth of credit towards a new phone. Plus, as I blogged before, it was time to trade in my phone, so I did it.

I'm pretty loyal to the Cyon brand because the first Cyon phone I had I dropped continuously. That was pre Graves' Disease diagnosis, and I'd never been so clumsy. My Cyon phone NEVER stopped working even though the body did get a few scratches and some bad cracks. The phone I got after that was a Cyon and the new one is too. The model is the LG LB-2800.

Here are some of the features:

• TV
• music
• BankOn Service card slot - you can bank from you phone
• pretty high speed Internet
• a high resolution camera and video recorder
• Korean-English/English-Korean dictionary
• currency converter
• dual clock (I've got both Seoul and L.A. time showing)
• Seoul subway map
• SMS text messaging and
• tons of other stuff I'll probably never use

It's just a damn cute phone! They gave me a cute clear cover, but I ran out and bought a blinged out cover after I had my coffee and biscotti.




Here it is with the TV tuned to a cooking show.

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