Friends Talking Podcast

Going through life, most of us are aware that we are part of a generation, a very large group of people that shared similar historical experiences that shaped their behavior, values, and outlook. Boomers, GenX’ers, Millennials, the Silent Generation.

But how do the generations interact with one another? What are the special qualities of each generation that contribute to their strengths and weaknesses? How does this apply to everyday life? The workplace? The marketplace? Congress?

These are questions I ask of Neil Howe, who, with partner Bill Strauss coined the phrase The Millennials to describe the generation born after 1982. He’s the author of Generations, 13th Gen, The Fourth Turning, Millennials Rising and a Sr. Associate for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

There are some interesting things going on here. Like the phenomenon of “iPod Overlap” where Millennial’s iPods share many of the same songs as their parent’s iPods, something that would have been unheard of in the 1960’s — boomer’s sharing their parent’s musical tastes as teenagers.

We talk about:

• GenXer’s distrust of institutions
• Barak Obama’s message strategy
• Millennial’s sense of historical destiny
• Why Disney is now in the bridal dress business
• If we’re sick of boomers

This interview is part of a series I did during my last days at GSD&M. We had the idea of interviewing GSD&M’s Best in Class Partners and making those interviews into a podcast. I did the interviewing and editing; it’s my voice you hear on the tape. GSD&M owns the copyright on this material, not I, so contact them with questions. You can find out more about GSD&M’s Best In Class Partner Program at Free Radical.

(32:24 44.5mb mp3 file.)

Links:

• Strauss & Howe’s Life Courses website.

• GS&M’s Free Radical Website.

I had the good fortune of chatting with Henry Jenkins about convergence culture earlier this spring. Dr. Jenkins is the Director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT and Faculty Investigator at the Convergence Culture Consortium.

He’s the author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, a great introduction to how things are changing in our media world. Some have called him the new Marshall McLuhan. While his peeps are media studies scholars, he writes in a way that makes the changes happening in media understandable to lay people, even Joe Six Pack in marketing. He’s an expansive thinker who makes it clear why understanding fans are important to understanding our society and how fandom is changing how media is produced and “consumed”.
In this interview, we talk about:

• the impact of social media on society
• how we’re moving towards a more complex media culture.
• TV, corporate media living side by side with blogs, amateur film makers, Second Life entrepreneurs, etc.
• how your view of engagement is a clue to whether you’re stuck in the old media framework.

Wondering what happens when “old” media like broadcast TV meets “new” media like blogging? Listen as Henry talks about the profound effects media has on our culture.

This interview is part of a series I did during my last days at GSD&M. We had the idea of interviewing GSD&M’s Best in Class Partners and making those interviews into a podcast. I did the interviewing and editing; it’s my voice you hear on the tape. GSD&M owns the copyright on this material, not I, so contact them with questions. You can find out more about GSD&M’s Best In Class Partner Program at Free Radical.

(28:26 39.1mb mp3 file.)

Links:

• Henry Jenkins’ blog.
• GS&M’s Free Radical Website.

A Selection of Henry Jenkins’ Other Books

KUT, the NPR station in Austin, interviewed me for a short piece on the 2007 SXSW Interactive festival. You can listen to it here.

Because of my work bringing Idea City into Second Life, I’ve been speaking to bloggers, analysts, and journalists about Second Life and the marketing opportunities there. I was very fortunate to be mentioned in an article in USA Today titled, Marketers find a new place to set up shop: Virtual reality..

In celebration, I have put together two interviews I did at the Second Life Community Convention held last August in San Fransisco. I was looking for a good time to release this bonus material and the time is now.

The first interview is with Misty Rhodes, seen to the left. Misty breaks many of the stereotypes people have of participants of Second Life. Oddly, it’s the same stereotype they have of all online gamers: teenage boys who can’t make friends, playing on the computer in their parent’s basement. Misty is about as far from the stereo type as you can get. She talks about why she participates in Second Life. When I saw her at the convention, I knew I had to get an interview with her. Listen and you’ll know why.

In her interview, she says there are 350,000 “residents” in Second Life and how she’ll be surprised if they hit 1 million residents by the end of this year. In mid December, 2006, SL has 1.8 million residents, meaning they may actually hit 2 million by the end of the year!

The second interview is with Reuben Steiger, CEO of Millions of Us, one of the top Second Life development companies around. He spoke to me about how and why Scion entered Second Life. While Scion will have entered Second Life by the time you hear this, in the interview, he’s talking about it happening in the future.

Scion’s particularly intereting because they don’t use much, if any, mass advertising. They prefer to reach their audience using event and community marketing.

Table of Contents
Intro
00:11 Misty Rhodes Interview
06:53 Reuben Steiger Interview
15:22 Outro

Music by Torley Wong. The Promise. Give that man a watermelon!

(16:22 15.7 mb mp3 file.)

For my first story on politics, I covered the League of Techncial Voter’s 48 hour programmer lock-in, October 13-15, 2006 in Austin.

The lock-in was an effort by LOTV founder Silona Bonewald to build the infrastructure for a community of geeks that could advise legislators and their staff on technology issues. The goal of LOTV is to make smarter laws that have to do with technology. The goal of the lock-in was to jump start development so she could get funding to finish it out the web community tools.

I popped in and out of the lock-in the whole weekend, being fortunate that it was down the street from my house. Silona had booked a gaming center in a strip mall because they had the bandwidth. Maybe 40 people showed up, geeks, non-profits, and even an international radio consultant. While Silona had booked a variety of entertainment and distractions for the programmers (fire dancers, zombies, etc.), people came to work. For 48 hrs, they had design conversations about what the software should do and lots of coding sessions. It was serious software development, but in an ad-hoc way.

This was my first pitch to NPR. While I received a positive response from my local affiliate, they really weren’t quite sure what to do with me, because I’m not really a reporter. I just wanted to tell what I thought was a good story, but they struggled with me working for an ad agency for my day job. I asked they judge the story on its own merit, but in the end, they posted the story to their website but didn’t run it on the air. For me, this experience made real the struggle that media is having with the revolution in consumer generated content, especially as us podcasters look around and say, “Hey, with a little more effort, I think I can get on the air!” I felt their concerns about impartiality, reporting, and technical excellence are legitimate, but solvable. The good news is, they’re willing to continue the conversation.

In the story, you’ll also hear expert commentary from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Gary Chapman of the 21st Century Project at UT. Take a listen.

(5:40 5.3mb mp3 file.)

Links:
The League of Technical Voters
LOTV Programmer Lock-in
Video from the Lock-in. Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3.

Lego Mindstorms NXT is the next generation of the popular robotics system. Designed with the help of Lead Users, Mindstorms is a study in innovation. In this podcast, I talk with Soren Lund, Lego Mindstorms and Product & Marketing Development Director about why he turned to his enthusiasts to help him design this version of his product and why viral marketing is more important to him than mass advertising.

I also talk to Ray Almgren, Vice President of Product Marketing and Academic Relations at National Instruments, the company Lego hired to supply the visual programming tools for Mindstorms NXT. Together, Lund and Almgren provide a unique perspective on lead user innovation and word of mouth marketing.

Table of Contents
00:00 Introduction
04:34 Interviews begin
04:45 Customer driven innovation (Lead Users)
05:08 Why Lego turned to their community
07:11 Selling the idea to executive mgmt.
09:24 How do you make something viral?
17:21 Does lead user innovation and innovative marketing go hand in hand?
14:41 What about the laywers?
18:26 Outro

Music by PQ.


(20:57 14.7mb mp3 file.)

Links:
Wired’s Geeks in Toyland.
Lego Mindstorms NXT website.
First Lego Leauge, International website.

OK, admit it. You’ve read her books. You’ve debated her ideas. You got excited about how to serve your customers as individuals and then bam! You hit the brick wall of traditional marketing and “rational” arguments about why implementing Martha Rogers’ ideas on one to one marketing aren’t practical just yet.

Well, there’s now a way out. Dr. Rogers & Mr. Peppers are talking about the notion that Return on Investment needs to be balanced with this idea of Return on Customer and that given a timeframe longer than next quarter, Return on Customer may be more lucrative over the life of the customer. Armed with Return on Customer, marketers have stronger arguments to convince the CFO that a change in business strategy will pay off.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Rogers at the end of a long day of consulting and seeing her talk about her ideas with marketers living in a mass world. She won them over, probably to the pleasant surprise of both they and her. Listen as we sit back in comfortable leather chairs talk about her ideas.

Table of Contents
03:00 What’s Return on Customer?
07:18 Where’s the money coming from to institute 1 to 1 marketing?
08:38 Is this the end of mass advertising?
10:38 Who understands 1 to 1 marketing and why?
16:48 Martha’s take on trends over the next 10-20 years.
24:33 What we should learn from Myspace.

Music by Torley Wong.


(29:25 28.3mb mp3 file.)

I normally don’t tinker with high voltage electricty, so when I was asked to speak at Dorkbot Austin in the parking lot of Cafe Mundi in East Austin, I was hoping there wouldn’t be rain and if there was, everything was well grounded. At the first Dorkbot Austin, I heard there was a guy and his Tesla Coil which is so powerful, it knocked out AM radio for a two mile radius.

Well, it’s Austin in the summer and rain is a rare luxury. So, I was safe to show people how to make a mic zeppelin for under $40. (Click here for online instructions.) Mic Zeppelins are windscreens that look like a fuzzy torpedo, many times hanging at the end of a long pole that you sometimes see in news shots when the sound guy gets in the picture. They cost upwards of $300 normally.

So, I took the opportunity to use my mic zeppelin and talk to people and create this story. After all, it was outside and there was a slight breeze, so my interviews were a practical example of how my mic zeppelin actually worked. Maida Barbour, one of the organizers of the 2007 Southwest Maker’s Fair to be held in Austin, somes up the importance of DIY and makers (the new name for those who tinker) by saying, “It’s all about finding solutions to the specific problem that you have…I want to know that I can fix this thing.” Dorkbot is a playful expression of our desire to regain control of technology and have it serve our own personal needs.

Table of Contents
1:44 Rich LeGrand and his robots with a Gameboy Brain.

2:35 Maida Barbour talks about makers and the 2007 Southwest Makers Fair

3:54 Jamie O’Shay talks about his Wham Cams.

4:35 Eric Lundquist from the Austin Robot Group talking about The Babbeling Head.

6:15 Maida Barbour talks about makers, trends, and implications for society.

9:31 Code Monkey by Jonathon Coulton.

(12:38 8.8mb mp3 file.)

If your remember a time before there was a microsoft.com, then you remember the days about 10-15 years ago when something called Virtual Reality, or VR, was all the rage. In VR, you could have what was called “an immersive experience” flying an airplane, walking around big blocks and pyramids, or moving molecules together to create new drugs. But, you’d have to wear googles and gloves to experience it.

I hadn’t thought about VR in a long time, having had to think about more pressing things like earning a living–which you couldn’t really do in VR back then.

Then, about a year ago, I wandered into Second Life. It hit me like a ton of bricks, “Oh my god!” I said to myself, “VR is here. How did I miss it sneaking up on me?” After all I was part of a little VR “study group” that met a few times over beers in 1992 in Philadelphia. There was a photographer turned programmer, a recent product manager refugee from Intel, a philosopher if I remember correctly, and me. But back then, we had missed something that makes Second Life special: the other people in the world. The in-world economy wasn’t even in our radar screen, let alone “foreign currency” exchanges that convert “Linden” dollars into US dollars and back.

Second Life is about people and the things they create. In one sense, it’s a “place” where you can pioneer a new society, a new life. In another sense, it’s a hook up joint.

Find out about Second Life for yourself as I speak to Philip Rosedale, Founder and CEO of Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. We talk about nightlife in Second Life; business in Second Life and the obvious mistakes real world brands will make entering the world; and many other intriguing ideas about spending time in a virtual world.

Then, you’ll hear from some of the top women gamers in the world, Athena and AthenaTwin, co-founders of the PMS Clan, the largest group of women gamers as they enter Second Life for the first time. You’ll hear them answer the question they first asked me, “What do you do in Second Life?”

John Beck, author of Got Game, rounds out the discussion with insights into gamers.

I hope you’ll find this podcast opens up a new world world of possibilities. If you feel dizzy thinking about Second Life and virtual worlds, stick with it. It sooon becomes familiar because ultimately, it’s about people.

A little trivia: the first offices of the company where on Linden Street in San Francisco, hence the name “Linden Lab.”

Table of Contents

Introduction
Philip Rosedale (4:20)
Athena (Amy Brady) and AthenaTwin (Amber Dalton) (35:07)
John C. Beck (43:42)
Two week followup interview with AthenaTwin (46:34)
Outro (54:42)

(58:00 40mb mp3 file.)

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PMS Clan

Chris Anderson is the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine. He was very gracious to give me a few minutes of his time before a talk he gave in Austin on The Long Tail. I asked him about The Long Tail and how the story came to be.

I think you’ll get more out of my interview if you’re familiar with the idea of the Long Tail. You can read Anderson’s original Wired article here. You can also read his blog, www.thelongtail.com; he’s using his blog to write a book about it.

The song in the piece is Organ Wah by Paul Shuler, from The Internet Archive.

This piece was recorded on 10/14/05 in Austin, Texas.

Listen here:

(18:00 12.7mb mp3 file.)