The very New York Lloyd Grove interviews what he clearly perceives as the very Silicon Valley Mike Arrington (can you say pirate marauder, Lloyd?) in the tony Conde Nast Portfolio, and this little snippet happens.

Lloyd says (referring to the Valley): It's a pretty savage Darwinian environment out there, isn't it?

And Mike responds: Absolutely, except we live in a world where you're not being eaten by a lion when you fail, you just have to go get another job.

Susan sez: The image of Stanford engineers and MBAs, and those folks like me from other parts who come to join their party as savage just cracks me up--seems like only someone who has made their living within the dying confines of big media and magazine land, where the dinosaurs thrash their tails as they fall and can't can't get up, would see Silicon Valley as Darwinian (snort of laughter).

Here's the quick list of conferences I am either speaking at or planning to attend this spring/summer, so far.

• March 14-15, Country Living Women Entrepreneurs , Chicago, IL
• March 20, Under the Radar: The Business of Web Apps, Mountain View, CA
  
• April 22-25, O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo , San Francisco, CA
• April 30- May 2nd, Kelsey Group: Drilling down on local, Seattle, WA

• June 16-18, Supernova, San Francisco, CA
• July 18-20, BlogHer, San Francisco, CA

As you can see I am not doing FOWA(sigh), SXSW, etech, Graphing Social Patterns West (sigh). I also didn't get invited or pay to go to TED, which strikes me as where burners go when they get rich and want to hobnob in comfort(and yes, I'd love to attend.)

I am debating on Sex 2.0 in April, wishing I could sneak into digitalhollywood's March 12-13 NY Media Summit, and considering PaidContent's April 29th conference on the Economics of Content, in LA.

On a related note, I have a ticket to the S ugar/TechCrunch party in LA, and wouldn't miss Scott's LaughingSquid fest on May 31st for the world.

What conferences, meet ups, unconferences, bar camps are you excited about that more people should consider? Post'em here if you feel so inclined.

Via George Kelly, just came across TechSmith's t he jing project, an experiment that seems to take the beloved snagit web capture tool for images and video and turn it into a web app, with hosting, and then easily share what you create. There's a blog and lots of how to, and a note on uploading jing captures directly to flickr (clearly this is one of their success metrics, flickr presence) and lots of calls for community input.

(Note: From a tech perspective, jing is rich because it saves data as an SWF, which means you can embed it using the SWF object, a small Javascript file used for embedding Macromedia Flash content. )

Susan says: What particularly strikes me here is not the product, which is useful, but the smart--and integrated marketing approach. Some of the themes I see that others would do well to replicate:

• Offer something for free to build usage and participation
• Engage the community in refining the project; solicit lots of feedback
• Informal and engaging tone to the marketing
• Treat the audience as one, developers and consumers
• Celebrate the team, suggest authenticity

Ian Kennedy @ MyBlogLog is doing similar things with the news/lifestreaming feature just added to that service(see my page and understand how similar it feels to friendfeed) , but he's more on the one man band tip; you have the sense that the much smaller TechSmith team has carved out support for Jing that MyBlogLog can only dream of.

"Anyone who has been following my work for a while knows that I heart LiveJournal with a passion. I've been on LJ in one form or another since 1999/2000 and it's still the only community that I check in with daily for personal purposes. While I love LJ personally, I also deeply respect its history professionally. From its earliest years, LJ was home to many thriving subcultures: geeks, playa obsessed freaks, queers, goths, fans, camgirls, and even post-structural feminist cultural studies scholars. Because I've identified with or dated members of each of these subcultures, I've ended up back at LJ time and time again. Of course, LJ is much more than its subcultures. LJ is also home to teenagers, Russian activists, literary aficionados, knitters, and many many more. Like the community systems of the early web, LJ brings together communities around shared passions. Like contemporary social network sites, LJ serves as a hangout space for friends. Combined, LJ is one of the most powerful tools for people to gather, share, communicate, connect, and chill."

--danah boyd, speaking out on the news she's joined the new advisory board for LiveJournal

More at danah's new LJ blog, and at the LJ staff site.

Susan sez: I'm not an LJ blogger, but I have many friends there and a log in; there is amazing community.

Paidcontent's got a talk with Chris Johnson, who runs content and biz dev at Hearst Digital and who was my colleague at AOL, back in the day. Chris is great to work with, and clearly having an impact at Hearst.

A quote from the piece: "We are very aware that you can't just create a magazine website and expect people to simply show up. You have to have search engine optimization, search engine marketing, you want to find the right strategic partners who can help you distribute your content and drive traffic back to your site. MSN has been our sole portal partner for about two years and recently renewed that deal for another two years. But we also recognize that we have to find ways to distribute Hearst content on other portals, but in ways that are unique; it doesn't pay to dish out the same thing to everybody at the same time."

Susan sez: Cool, and they even have a Yahoo deal.

Middle of day two, WeMedia, Miami. Some observations:

• This is a conference that wants to be about media, technology, convergence and social justice.
• There's a broad diversity of types of people, industries, ages.
• At moments it is rich and amazing, at other moments, it doesn't gell.

Some of what is working really well for me:

• Connecting with social entrepreneurship and activist colleagues: Using social media for organizing and for community outreach are topics I am passionate about, but I feel my expertise sorely needs some updating. Meeting some of the folks in that space who are here and talking with them has providing lots of follow-up activities to learn more.
• Meeting new people, especially meeting some virtual connections in real time, and meeting media activists(see above).
• Reconnecting with old friends and colleagues--there are lots of media people here I had not seen for at least a year; catching up (and in some cases, asking for advice) has been productive.
• The power of cross-network discussions: crossing lines means interesting talks.

Some things that could have worked better, aka, let's do it differently next time:

• More true tech people sharing the known known of the visible future: not enough voices talking about new tech tools that disrupt markets and shift behavior
• Metrics of success: How do you measure change and engagement? WeMedia is about rich conversations about what's next and where the world is headed, but I'd like to see more discussions--and perhaps a workshop--about how you measure change, change measurements.
• More space for conversations, less talking heads. Why do I find many panels boring? I'm too much of a subversive to want the panel to control all of the discussion. I want the panel to control 40% of it, the audience to control the rest.

Conclusion: Would do it again, would disrupt it more next time if I had the chance. (Or help them make it more disruptive, themselves.)

Oh, make that disruptive and participatory.

"Too many journalists don't respect technology development as a creative activity -- they think developers should just build stuff they want. Too many technologists don't respect journalism as an intellectual activity -- they think journalists just pump out content for their algorithms to process. Too many journalists really don't like technology change; they blame it for hurting media businesses, threatening their livelihoods and diminishing the quality of news available in local communities. Too many technologists think it's not their job to worry about the negative impact of technology innovation on media companies and journalism -- and when they do think about the consequences, think only about information at the national and global level (which is broader, deeper and more accessible than ever) and not at the local level (where online news ventures rarely do the kind of original reporting that newspapers do)."

--Rich Gordon, J School Professor and new media maven, writing at MediaShift

Liveblogging from WeMedia:

Alberto Ibarguen, President, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Diana Wells, President, Ashoka, and Keith Hammond, Ashoka, are talking about the profound social impact of journalism.

Alberto talking about reaching out to community foundations to help them understand how information is an essential community need--you can't run a democracy without information, and how do community orgs take a more active role? (sounds great). There may be some version of the Knight News Challenge for community foundations to propose and fund programs...what is TBD...That focus on community and news really drives Knight Foundation.
The announcement we have to day is about a grant we are making to Ashoka. Last year we made a grant to find social entrepreneurs in our 26 communities--Now, we want Ashoka to find 30 people in the field of journalism, anywhere in the world. We're going to give a $3MM grants to focus the delivery of news and information in communities. (Susan says: Wow, this is great!)

Diana Wells says Ashoka as over 2,000 fellows in over 60 countries and defines its message as building a world where everyone is a change-maker. Ashoka finds leading social entrepreneurs and brings them "into a community of their peers" as a support and sustainability means--and it works--They also create and support institutions that make it easier for people to make this kind of social entrepeneurship a viable choice.

Diana: The Ashoka process is unique--people who meet our criteria will meet it whether or not they are covered by the Knight grant. We are looking for innovation in so many areas; anyone can be nominated and we look at everyone on the ground.

Alberto: We'll have so much opportunity to get many points of view from a world wide perspective of what is journalism and what is appropriate.

Kaliya (audience): How will you actually find and support innovation?

(Discussion about open process for Knight News Challenge and using processes of open source and transparency.

Paula (from audience): Another way to inform this question might me to understand what being an Ashoka fellow would be like for a social entrepenur.

Diana: 3 years of funding, network of fellows, supportive environment

Discussion of program; Alberto says that program will support both established efforts and new efforts in this thread. (Susan says This is exciting).

Susan sez: This is a tremendously smart move on the part of Knight. Not only is Ashoka a great organization, but with the consolidation of media properties, the general paralysis of many newspapers under the pressures they face, and the fragmentation of local media (and the general spottiness of local and community online services), this program can be a tremendous kickstart in linking citizen journalism and civic action, leading to great community health.

There's some chatter about Etsy as a potential successor to eBay--Umair says "Etsy has the potential to be as revolutionary as Google in terms of DNA, and that new DNA might just let it solve a Very Big Problem" but coyly doesn't get into his big insight.

Read/Write web then says "The reason it is so hard for most technologists to see the power of services such as eBay and Etsy when they first come out is that we tend to look at the world through the prism of big companies and consumers." Bernard Lunn say etsy reflects a coming era of mass customization--his comments are excellent, but he missed--or downplayed-- some points I want to make about etsy.

1. Etsy works because it empowers 20-somethings and moms who want to run home based businesses. It is international and local at the same time.

2. Etsy empowers personal brands. Similar jewelry is more attractive when made by someone you know and care about.

3. Etsy empowers social networks around taste and affinity. When you favorite designers and objects, you meet others and see their choices. Likewise, you see what designers favorite.

4. Etsy has a tagging system that supports taxonomy--an issue, since their search sucks--but this is user-supported metadata.

5. Sustainable and quality, feels like a closed circle, but is open. Appears committed to social justice values, non corporate.

An Etsy VP is on my panel at the Country Living Women Entrepreneurs day panel in March.
Why? For the past 2 years, I have been shopping on Etsy--and they are kick-ass, superb, fascinating.

AP's Jim Kennedy, VP Strategy, The Associated Press with Fabrice Florin, NewsTrust, Mary Hodder, Dabble and Josh Cohen, Google News talking about search relevancy, metadata and what needs to be done to move search, news aggregation, filtering, forward.

Question: What about the metadata people and machines need to apply in search?

Mary: The tagging (organizer) class makes metadata you can hook into, but the larger issue is how to harness metadata from people--publishers do not always understand that--it's the World Cup 2007 vs. the head butt video on YouTube. So, how do you match up how people understand things? ...This is a huge problem...

Jim: Is there a standard form all publishers can use?
Mary: That's the problem right there...There is a huge value in microformats, as Kevin Marks says, puing the most basic elements can be a bottoms up way to come at a basic set of metadata, instead of trying to tag everything via a standards body.

Fabrice: At NewsTrust, we look at whether an article is fair, well sourced etc. We also keep track of reputation for sources of content and rate the raters.

Jim: AP is looking to do more text and entity extraction to news stories as a form of taxonomy that drives richer information retrieval and is testing a metadata/tagging structure with a subset of members (Susan says this reminds me of the goal of having web pages fully hyperlinked back around 1996).

Question: So what is Google doing around news metadata, standards?

Josh: Google's challenge is one of scale. We come at it from an algo sandpoint--Google is describing how they geo code their pages and weight that data as part of the relevancy process; publishers will use their own methods.

Jim: It's not about SEO; it's about true relevancy.

Josh: The more data we can get the better, but it's not always feasible.

Fabrice: We also need to know the source of the metadata--who added these tags?

Mary: This kind of sourcing is amazingly tough, especially at the person level. (Susan says: And expensive!) If we have this we can ferret out linkspam, etc. but it is dificult to translate across all stakeholders and to execute.

Amy G(question): In the writing of the content, what can we do to connect better with indexing and metadata?

Jim: There's a need for structure and a data model-headline, dateline, name, all in a specific place.

Others: Type of content (breaking, analysis etc.).

Jim: How do community ranging news systems like Digg help or hinder with data and relevancy?

Josh: No one has cracked the nut, but there is value to it (Susan: translation: Goog not giving greater relevancy to this ype of weighting.)

Fabrice: We need to find out if a person has the expertise to have an opinion on a piece of information, What research have they done? What history? What happy medium tells if you can trust a source or if they are gaming?

Nick, Reuters: Will there ever be a model that rewards revenue against trust?

(Susan says: This is a better panel, but the twitter stream comments on it are also fascinating..that is the backchannel dialogue that should be happening right here in the session.. a projection device could offer that.)

Mary: dataportability.org is something to watch...

Labels: wemedia, WeMedia2008

So, I'm digging the twitter feeds about WeMedia, and the general mass of people, but I think I am tired of the traditional talking heads panel. There's discussion here, but it feels way too slow compared to the frentic commenting by Dave Cohn and Amy Gahran happening in virtual space.

Hmmn.....

Labels: wemedia, WeMedia2008

Talking heads with Andrew Nachison, iFOCOS, Jim Brady, Executive Editor, Washingtonpost.Newsweek.Interactive, Katrin Verclas, MobileActive, Jean Marc Coicaud, Director, United Nations University, The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., CEO, Hip Hop Caucus

and Darya Shaikh, Executive Director, OneVoice--

Questions: What's working to speed growth?

Darya talking about Facebook and YouTube supporting her movement in Israel because they offer tools that are much needed; in Gaza, it's SMS and phone--social media fueling grassroots growth that then turned into organizing--however, as people demanded conflict resolution and use the grassroots to understand what responsibilities people have as a negotiations process is set in place--Darya says "There's a measure of success that's a Catch-22--you have to have enemies to know you are doing your job"..as they grew people realized they would create change, and resistance set it in some places, especially as they moved fron micro-local to a national level of change.

Katrina describing MobileActive as a global community for social change/impact, especially NGOs and citizen groups--3.5 billion cell phones, half the world connected--and using phones to help make the world a better place. (Susan says Wow!) K says "There's mobile in every area, for example, mobile SMS reminds people to go to AA meetings, take meds, whatever."

Now it's Jean Marc on Global Issues--and Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. on HipHopCaucus and organizing--Yearwood says "The media can infuriate the powers to be, but it can also create change;" his group posts information about organizing on mix tapes to get wider distribution,
"When people control the media they control their lives. In order to control the masses, you need to control the media, " and "People who do not have college degrees are not coming out."
and "When the media left, the story left as well." (This man clearly has some powerful rhetoric.)

Susan sez: I want this panel to talk about how media and citizen media--or whatever we call it--can we used to accelerate change, not only to (slowly) try to make the world better.

Labels: wemedia, WeMedia2008

Adam Kazwell, a kick-ass up and comer who worked with me at Yahoo! Personals, just started a tumblr blog about his interest in getting into product management in the Valley. His new blog is about his job search post layoff and his transformation fron analyst/trendspotter to product manager.

He writes: "Before this becomes a blog about product management it will be about me trying to get a job in that field. In general I want to document what it takes to go from idea to reality...what some might call: product management."

Adam is someone I think highly of, and mentored; I know if he keeps writing this, it will be a fascinating read, and a complement to my own layoffs 3.0 story.

(Translation: I wish him all the best, but kinda hope I have something to offer him before any of you snatch him up.)

Labels: layoffs 3.0

WeMedia: Jeff Gomez, author, Print is Dead and Roger Black, Principal, Danilo-Black chatting about next gen media and filters for data....

Roger: "The real question for me is whether the business model for books and magazines will continue to exist, and whether all of us will get through this. The big question is whether people do not need storytelling and non narrative forms as much as they used to."

Jeff: "Participatory journalism shows the needs for stories will continue to exist, but people want to play a part in their own stories...blogs and social networks are so trafficked, because people feel they can interact with them, while books are more passive."

Roger: "You stitch together your own narrative on the web...

Jeff: The web supports niche topics because people want to express themselves and share information...'

Solana Larsen, Global Voices(commentator): "Much of the media and web experiences you describe are such natural experiences for younger people..."

Marvin Pittman,ESPN: "Media has come more corporate and that has filtered down to younger people...people now feel companies have turned away them and so a newspaper, for example, feels less committed to you, more corporate."

Labels: wemedia, WeMedia2008

Opening comments at WeMedia, U Miami--Dale & Andrew at the mike, getting started with this conference on media, tech, convergence. I'll be doing some liveblogging of some of the sesions; leading sessions on using social media tools in business and lessons learned from women in tech and media later this afternoon.

(Oh, and did I mention it's 5:20 am in California right now? Nothing like being awake on the East Coast that first day after the flight in. Groan, groan...oh, well.)

There's no question but that the past three months have seen the acceleration of social network driven information services and info feeds-- twitter's accelerated its growth much like Facebook did last May, and now f riendfeed's received enough funding to scale up, meaning many more users.

The effort, of course, is to find and deliver new forms of relevancy when there's too much data bombarding all of us; these services add a friend filter atop any other relevancy rankings that one individual might use to find useful and interesting information.

The interesting thing, though, is that so many of the active users--the Bay area digerati, for example--add so many people to their feeds --or their friends lists--that the selective filtering device disappears.

And, perhaps more importantly,many of those folks are most interested in having others read THEIR feed, or their notes, or their twitter stream-which means that for 20% of the users, what they're experiencing is a great self marketing vehicle (Yes, I've done this, too.)

So, we could suppose that what we are seeing are two sets of human behaviors--the marketers and promoters who always user relationships to see their ideas/products/values, and the rest of the group, who don't need to reach--or read 600+ people to feel impactful.

I'm thinking that as these services move more into the mainstream--twitter and friendfeed, I mean, we may see the same behaviors replicate--the local thought leaders and the salespeople have big lists, while others have smaller lists.

Either way, it's a fascinating squew of relevancy--that the urge to know, to be current, to hear it first, is one of the biggest torpedos to true social relevancy that we have.

So I left Yahoo! two weeks ago.

There were the moments it just felt so odd to leave something while fully engaged, and those had sadness, mourning.

And then there were the moments of feeling an immense freedom and opportunity, a chance to reinvent my work life in a new form, and the wish to figure out what that might be.

And then there was the worry--what if nothing I wanted panned out?

And the humor, that so short a time into this transition I was letting myself worry.

Transitions are tough.
I think someone from the office, or who used to be from the office, called me every day last week.

At the same time I am adjusting to the loss (particularly of my team), I'm also fully engaged in exploring new opportunities, a fairly diverse lot.

I want to talk to everyone who has something interesting, so I can get a sense of what might be the best next fit--not only in a specific company and role, but with a specific group and people, and in a particular type of environment.

(So yes, if you have something, let me know...the search is on.)

One thing that has delighted me--and made me grateful--is what Blanche duBois called "the kindness of strangers." People have offered to comp me for conferences, invited me to things, and been generally supportive..man, does that make a difference.

At the same time I am talking to people, I am thinking hard about who I want to reach out to, the people I might want to work with, the projects I don't know about yet that might be a great fit.

This week I am at WeMedia Miami; next week, I want to hunker down and talk to folks, take advantage of what feels like momentum.

Mmmmn, lots to read:
NYTimes: GetSatisfaction founders get a big story in the NY Times. "Get Satisfaction, which is backed by venture capital and aims one day to be financially stable, has little if any revenue and has not decided if it will sell ads; rather, its goal is to persuade companies to buy the software it has developed."
VentureBeat(and others): Glam.com raises $84.6 million in latest round, predicts $100 million in 2008/09 in ad revenue. Susan sez: I've always liked this company's vision, but what this says about focus, and targeting and niche as a means to deliver a wide array of advertising, is powerful. Take that, big media.
Marc Canter: This dude's got crabs, big time.

New column up at BlogHer--and this one is kick ass. "Poet and mother, rebel and outlaw, elegant boy and sexual girl, accomplished musician and force and for social change, Patti Smith is someone I am happy to reclaim as my hero, a worthy prism to chart my own change."

Boomtown: super piece by Kara Swisher on who Facebook should hire as a chief exec, with Hilary Schneider and Marc Andressen getting top votes
Paid Content: iVillage shutters healthology; cuts staff again
NYTimes: Reed Elsevier selling off magazines; ad market too *cyclical.*
Forbes: Starbucks cuts 600 jobs (Susan says: Does MSFT want to buy them?)

Stumbled across this today and was thrilled to see a listing for this blog.
Thanks.

Officialanticon, don't ask

More anticon here

I was on the phone this am with a friend who does marketing for lots of big sports companies, talking about whether social media tools, which are clearly successful at driving engagement, can also be used to grow revenue and /or increase conversion.

"There just doesn't seem to be any real money there," my friend said. "Kind of like Second Life."

At the same time as we're having that conversation, I'm getting ready to lead a panel at WeMedia next week about social media and business--The premise there is that social networking, un-conferences, wikis and other web tools can not only strength communities but also build momentum for brands and causes--but their success depend on more than knowing how to use the tools from a tech perspective--what makes using SM lead to desired real world outcomes?

And finally, someone just sent me a link to a SIIA survey that reports on how businesses say they are increasing their use of social media and *Web 2.0* technologies.
Data points

• 92% want to increase user engagement and loyalty.
  
• Nearly 42% of respondents use networks like MySpace and Facebook
• 50% have a blog, but only 15% felt that blogging was critically important.

Asked about issues, respondents said:

• Problem is everyone uses different networks
• Is there real, measurable ROI?
• Need to balance the benefits against impacts on our brands
• Reputation risk management
• Barrier to entry: education and training both workforce and older audiences

This is an interesting question--how SN tools can benefit the business goals (as opposed to the brand goals) of companies who use them.

It's clear there are powerful goals for individuals to use these tools in business, but who is doing the work of institutional integration and articulating value?

So, I've made the decision to blog here about my transition from Yahoo! to the next thing as part of my commitment to transparency, authenticity and social media—and also because I think it could be interesting; it's certainly a way for me to log my journey.

Before I go any farther, tho, I want to make sure that some of the ground rules I am following are clear:

• I will NOT be writing about any recruiters, established companies, or start-ups that approach me. I am treating all discussions as totally confidential.
• I will not be sharing stories and conversations that take place. No one who talks to me about employment, projects, or work-related issues needs to worry they are going to be exposed in this series; again, I see all discussions I have with others as private, totally private.
• What I will talk about freely is me—my shifts in perspective as I move from being an exec and Product Development lead in a big company to being unemployed to the next evolution of my work focus. When necessary I will paraphrase, invent and approximate to give you a sense of where my head is at about what's going on, but I won't be sharing anything that could even remotely compromise privacy or confidentially for anyone else.

How do I know I can successfully write about me and not about anyone else as I cover this transition?

Well, I did something similar when I worked at Yahoo! For the two years I was there, I was careful to never write about the company, about anything confidential we did, or about ideas I had that I considered their intellectual property.

And you know, I did really well with that, there were never any issues, and this is a version of preserving that same trust and discretion, again.

So, it's a week and a half post layoff, and I'm deep into the questions of what to do next.

A lot of what I am thinking about has to do with the kinds of roles, situations and environments in which I do my best work. I'm asking myself whether this is the right time to join a start-up, do a start-up of my own, or actively consult and at the same time work with a small set of other people's start-ups—or whether I'd be happier playing a strong role in another company where my work and my team could have a real impact and where there's more security and infrastructure. I've done enough of each of these—start-up team, consultant, and senior exec/team leader to know I can be effective in each, so environmental fit/size of company isn't the most critical factor.

And that, of course, leads to the big question: What is the best fit and what do I know about myself and the situations in which I am most fully engaged?

Okay, so with the awareness that writing this is partly a dialogue with myself, here's some of the points I'm thinking about:

• I like challenges, solving problems, and using my ability to see things somewhat differently than others to make things happen.
• Building things, rebuilding and fixing things, rethinking and re-launching, or creating and launching move me more than conserving something that already exists.
• I need to feel that my work is adding value, can't be meaningless.
• The working environment and the people I work with are 85% of the value. On one hand, no individual can surpass a mediocre team; on the other hand, these are people you spend 60% + of your time with , so you want to click.
• My most unique strengths are my blend of broad vision/creativity, and the ability to lead teams to execute, to pull people together, communicate a vision and a goal and help them get there.
• Continual learning keeps me engaged, but so do my competitiveness, my feeling for the team, and my desire to provide both business successes ($$ and growth) and user value.

I could go on, but this is enough to give you a sense of the questions I am asking; I'll post more about this as I—over the next few weeks---come to some answers. Right now I am exploring all options that seem appealing, knowing clarity will come over time, along with a sense of what's actually possible.

"Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls."

--Stephanie Rosenbloom, writing a NYTimes piece based on the December 2007 Pew Internet Life study that showed among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35 percent of girls compared with 20 percent of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 percent of girls compared with 22 percent of boys).

Update: Mary Hodder points out, quite rightfully, that this story is in the fashion section in the paper. She says: "...So when they interview people like Doc Searls, Loic Le Meur or David Weinberger, all of whom are very smart about tech, those articles are in the tech section or business, but when they talk to girls, who for the record, are far more technical in this article than these three tech experts, girls are put in Fashion....WTF?"

Article this am about Brad Neuberg--a genius programmer and a wonderful guy-and other folks in the Bay area who've developed shared, open spaces got getting things done. Tara Hunt and Chris Messina are also in there , and Thor Muller, too.

The article rightly points out that co-working is influenced by the shared spaces artists and writersave long created and used; what is nice about the piece is that the sense of community and the generousity of these folks also comes through.

Another point that could have been raised, but wasn't, is that these concepts may also owe something to the strong influence of Burning Man and the gift economy there, as well as the community/tribal nature. However you analyze it, it's cool.

Oh, and one more thing--Chris and Tara and some of the other folks in this article are also also involved in barcamps--another somewhat self-organizing form of community action.

The press is reporting that the Bay Area News Group-East Bay, which includes the Oakland Tribune, the Mercury News and 14 other local newspapers, has offered all 1,100 of its employees the opportunity to apply for buyouts--if there isn't a large enough reduction in force (RIF). Management cites the recession and the housing slump as factors and believes the papers will eventually rebound.

According to the BANG web site, these the web sites for these papers serve up 27.6 million monthly page views per month to 7.1 million unique visitors; web sites include ContraCostaTimes.com, PaloAltoDailyNews.com, MercuryNews.com, SiliconValley.com,
and TimesHeraldOnline.com.

One wonders how many of these web sites will be cut and what the consolidated presence will be--ie will the Merc Web site continue and even expand as the paper itself is cut? Or will Singleton cut it back and cede the Valley to SF Gate?

Susan sez: On one hand, the idea of this region with fewer newspapers, especially stalwarts like the Merc, is frightening; on the other, it offers hope that other media entities will arise, in the online medium and take the place of the old school paper newspapers.

In fact, I'd like t think that the newspapers shrinking could result in more online local and news sites--a depressed economy may actually create greater pent up demand for something fresh and local. In a way, I wonder if reducing Bay area newspapers can replicate conditions in Korea around the launch of OhMyNews--a need for more liberal, cheap and accessible mean outlets that TV and print could not meet.

It'a one week into life post Yahoo! Besides some interesting R&R, lots of focus both on setting myself up in the real world and virtual home office ad starting to talk to people about what's next.

Herewith, some snippets from week 1 and where I am today:

Got a computer
The first stop post layoff was the Apple store, to buy a Mac. I'd needed a new
computer for a while, and was uneasy about running Vista. Now it's been a week and here's the deal: this machine is wonderful. Truly great. Fast, fun, a pleasure. Colorful, easy to navigate interface, no big pain with switching (most) applications...Only wierd thing is that my Firefox desktop icon keeps disappearing.
Next steps with this one: Set up the printer and turn on bluetooth.

Got a phone/transferred numbers
Well, they let me keep the Treo a little longer so I could try to get the phone numbers off it. But they were embedded in the messaging, and it just didn't work--at least, not till I copied out the most relevant ones by hand--all eight pages worth.
Next step: Turn on the bluetooth--and get those damn numbers into the phone.

Getting hosting and a web site
Just signed up for hosting, once the reg goes through, will get a page up at susanmernit.com, then get something more fulsome built. Have spec, need designer/coder--another agenda item to complete today.

Getting the calendars in gear
Bye-bye, Outlook. I've got ical on the Mac, another calendar on my phone and the need to book the day hour by hour so I don't loose those scheduled calls. And then there's my little paper calendar, the low-tech month at a glance I can't live without--spent today with big post-its stuck inside with notes on where I have to be and whom I had to call today.

Getting next week straightened out
Heading to Miami on Tuesday for WeMedia where I am facilitating panels on Women, Media and Technology and Social experiences in business. There are going to be some fascinating talks and people. Hoping to stay on for The Future of Web Apps conference; sounds amazing, and well worth the time....reemergence into a category I care about and a chance to learn alot.

Getting the future straightened out
Still processing what happened last week, looking ahead at other possibilities and asking myself what I really want most. Layoffs are an amazing focusing device, a means to both ask yourself what your greatest strengths are, and where you'd like to apply them.

Welcoming ideas, contacts, opportunities.

Post-Yahoo! layoffs story by Jessica Guynn...

MSNBC: Study shows that online sexual predators target young teens--and are straightforward about wanting sex. ""The great majority of cases we have seen involved young teenagers, mostly 13-, 14-, 15-year-old girls who are targeted by adults on the Internet who are straightforward about being interested in sex."
Susie Gardner and Shane Birley: The brand new Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition ( Amazon)is out--I am buying for newbie friends.

Mitchell Astley: Fail early, fail often--here's why (via Brad Feld)

"In fact, one of the more consistent characteristics of Yahoo over the past few years has been its dithering nature and its not-so-engaged board has been a prime locus of that.

Yahoo is also a conflict averse place, whether collegiality is the rule, even if it is not the best solution (and in deep contrast to the aggressively argumentative folks at both Microsoft and Google)."

-Kara Swisher, discussing Yahoo's board and their possible views of a sale of the company.

Susan sez: It's Monday, but it's also a holiday, so on one hand the number of stories about Yahoo! may slow to a trickle today, inevitably, there will be more--always more.

The eagle landed for former Yahoo VP Jeff Bonforte this week when xobni announced he was joining as CEO.

I know Jeff as a passionate, get it done kind of guy who works hard but doesn't take things too seriously all the time; this team was smart to snap him up and give him something to do that can ship and scale, big time.

I was laid off from Yahoo! 4 days ago. Since then, it feels like things have happened at warp speed: new phone, computer, home office set up, tons of transition planning, lots of thinking about not only what I have to accomplish right now, but what do I want to do next.

With the power of social media, so much of this process is happening transparently, and in what feels like almost real time. Social media tools make sharing information, connecting around situations, and communicating with large and diverse groups of people--both one to one and more broadly--happen amazingly fast.

Here are some of the observations of what's different about how we can use social media to communicate today.

1. Broadcast capabilities have multiplied and improved
2. Tribal affiliations mean peopl