Open up your mind and say, ahh...

These days, we’re running fast…sometimes too fast. Our social networks keep us connected, but in some ways they’re also pulling us away from our center. Our social streams feed us information about our friends, family, events and even the latest viral videos or trends, but the currents too can overwhelm us.

In a time when multitasking is just a way of life and communication is always on, I often wonder how distorted our perspective becomes until we realize clarity is paramount to productivity. Think about it for a moment. We expect immediate responses to our texts, emails, and DMs yet we grumble at having too many messages to which we need to read and respond. We may in fact be our own worst enemy not the technology we often blame. For every message you send, it seems that in an electronic game of hot potato, two always return. Connectedness comes at a very real human cost.

As we stray away from our comfort zone, we by default discover comfort by creating a new center. But that center requires consideration now and over time to ensure that we’re not only centered, but also moving along a path that takes us in a desirable direction. Seeking balance is more important than we might realize. Finding it may prove elusive for many, but pursuing balance and tracking toward a chosen destination is essential.

I spent some time with good friend Esteban Contreras where we discussed of course the latest books and my research at Altimeter Group. But, I also took it as a moment to reflect on the balance between professional and personal aspirations. I wanted to share the conversation with you here…

Esteban Contreras: Your book Engage further established you as a thought leader. What’s the story behind that book?

Brian Solis: Believe it or not, Engage has an interesting back story behind it… one that I rarely tell.

In 2007, I published the original Social Media Manifesto online to show exactly how businesses would benefit from strategic social media initiatives. It was huge.

But my first best-selling book was actually Putting the Public Back in Public Relations with Dierdre Breakenridge. We set out to show businesses how important the role of the public would become in marketing, advertising and customer service. I was about to tackle writing the follow up to the book, but noticed something in the process of promoting the last book…brands were embracing social media in a rather anti-social manner. They were using new tools to market in old ways. It was time to show businesses that social media was about meaningful and beneficial engagement on both sides.

I brought the idea to a good friend of mine and was given the green light to immediately begin writing it. However, it was written under a different title and also featured a different cover. The book was originally called The Social Media Manifesto. At the 11th hour, I changed my mind. I wanted the book to be less about social media and more about engagement where social media became the channel for building relationships, gaining insights, and fostering loyalty and advocacy. Of course, I addressed commerce and ROI as well, but I did so in a way that aligned business objectives with customer expectations. This lead to an entirely new name, cover, and also to the inclusion of Ashton Kutcher for the book’s foreword.

Social Media Manifesto: Original cover design

Another side story about the book is that it actually exists in two unique forms. The first edition was big. It’s size and density neared text book status. That was its goal however, to become the reference manual for social strategists. When it came time to publish the book in paperback form, I was asked if I wanted to make any changes. The publisher probably had a few updates in mind, but instead I took the opportunity to completely revise the book. I cut chapters, I cut blocks of text, I rewrote sentences and I added new experiences and lessons learned. The “revised and updated” edition is now commonly referred to as Engage 2 (note, not 2.0).

EC: The End of Business As Usual, has also been a great success. Do you see yourself following up with a fourth book at this point?

Solis: You never know.

The End of Business as Usual is an important book and I will support it for years to come. It’s not a book about social media. It’s a book for business executives to see how consumer behavior is changing, how technology impacts decision making, and how the rise of connected consumerism will impact the bottom line. Executives don’t care about Facebook or Twitter or smartphones for that matter. They care about objectives and meeting or exceeding them. To engage the connected customer requires a different approach.

Businesses must become adaptive in order to survive what I call Digital Darwinism, the phenomenon where evolution of society and technology evolve faster than the ability to adapt. Businesses are and will continue to fall because they focus on optimization, efficiencies, profits, and not on innovation and transformation to compete for tomorrow’s customer. This is a message that’s more important than ever before and this book shows executives how to recognize new opportunities and lead new and lucrative business strategies from the top down.

It’s also written for new media and social strategists who are fed up with the fear and skepticism that deflates their ballooning ideas. For everyone that asks them about ROI, the answer should be, “here, read this book.”

EC: Tell us about your experience at Altimeter Group and your particular role as Principal.

Solis: My work at Altimeter Group is both rewarding and eye-opening. I often say that we cannot possibly become “gurus” or experts of any medium that evolves faster than the ability to master it. I work with business executives and social strategists to bridge the gap between business objectives and social media strategies. Once the data is collected and analyzed, once internal conversations are transcribed and dissected, you start to see opportunities to bring people, departments, and thinking together. The work then becomes about recognizing new opportunities, direction, and the change necessary to create alignment toward new directions.

The research that we do helps us capture a state of “what is” and when combined with experience and the vision of the other analysts in the firm, you can start to chart a map to what “should be.”

EC: Beyond your work at Altimeter, you continue to be an avid blogger, content producer, speaker and event organizer. What would you say is the secret to maintaining balance in life?

Solis: The strive for balance is a journey and not a destination. Balance is less like spinning plates and more like running your finger around the rim of partially filled crystal bowls with varying depths of liquids. Each singing bowl makes a unique sound and as a result, music to “one’s” ears. When we think about the spinning plate metaphor, we think about how our quest for balance affects those around us as well as our pursuit to keep everything spinning simultaneously without falling and breaking. When you think about the bowls, you make music, the music you like, by bringing together different sounds. And it’s different every time. The point is, balance is a state of what’s important to you and those around you in the moment.

Most iPhone peripherals aim low. They make the case a bit more durable or add a better speaker. They marginally improve a pretty darn good product.

The full Lapka sensor suite, along with its abstract viewing mode. A steel probe checks for nitrates, which are commonly used in chemical fertilizers.

But Lapka is something totally different. It’s an appcessory billed as a “personal environment monitor,” and through its collection of four peripherals, Lapka gathers analog measures of humidity/temperature, radiation, electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) and organicity (whether or not a food is truly organic). And it does so beautifully, with a mix of plastic and wood components–aesthetics that were considered down to the circuit boards, which will also match in white.

“Since this is a healthcare and environmental product, we used organic materials like wood and ivory-like plastic, it will look better with time… it’ll become your very own, personal talisman,” says Creative Director Vadik Marmeladov. “Our aim was to build an native iPhone accessory–not a design copy attempt. All our designs, usage simplicity, attention to detail and quality are based on Apple philosophy and mood, so we don’t have to copy iPhone’s shiny body to fit its aesthetics.”

Each peripheral obviously works a bit differently. The most compelling–the organicity device–uses a steel probe to check for nitrate concentration, which are commonly used in non-organic fertilizers. But the cleverness comes in how Lapka shares this information with the user. A parts per million measurement would make no sense to the average person, just like few of us have any understanding of acceptable radiation levels.

Sensors from left to right, top to bottom: EMF, Radiation, Humidity/Temp, Organicity.

In turn, the UI (which we’re currently unable to test) approaches each measurement at two levels. The first is a simple “is this acceptable” style measurement screen, which can contextualize worries like EMF based upon your predicted environmental exposure, or weather by typical temperatures in your area that time of year.

“For example, you can measure radiation on the plane and little bit higher level will be okay, because app knows that you’re won’t stay there for 24 hours and that higher radiation is common for the planes,” Marmeladov writes. “But with the same level of radiation in your kid’s bedroom it will alarm you and give you explanation to motivate your further actions. So, people don’t have to rely on their knowledge about radiation anymore to protect their family and themselves.”

This environmental snapshot can then be sent to friends.

The second way Lapka visualizes information entirely abstract. Marmeladov likens the experience to an Ambilight television, as onscreen particles accelerate in a red pool as the environment becomes less safe. This environmental snapshot can then be sent to friends, who can view it without purchasing the system. Of course, not having seen the effect in person, it certainly sounds a bit strange. But then again, how else but abstraction are we going to visualize these absurdly tiny details like radiation and nitrates?

As of now, Lapka is in prototype stage, ramping up for mass production soon. (We’ll see if these sensors can really do what they promise.) The collection of four peripherals should be available this December for roughly $220. And following that, Lapka’s team will likely chase all other peripherals, like an allergen sensor, glucometer, blood pressure monitor, oscilloscope, vehicle diagnostics device and fitness tracker. Your iPhone may soon resemble a centipede.

We’ve been hearing Olympic records rattled off for the past week, but it’s hard to grasp just how great these athletes are performing. I mean, we know they’re doing amazing things, but just how amazing? Kevin Quealy and Graham Roberts for The New York Times put it into perspective with two videos, one on the long jump and the other on the 100-meter sprint.

After I watched each, all I could think was, “Oh crap, that’s good.”

The videos frame distances and times in a way that’s immediately relatable, such as a basketball court to show how far medals winners jumped or how far previous sprinters would be behind Usain Bolt. Smooth transitions move you through different perspectives and pauses give focus to the most notable athletes, and although each video covers a lot of information, you never feel disoriented. They cover the overall picture, down to the individual, and back again.

Good stuff. Give ‘em a watch.

Not too long ago I decided to take the plunge and get a puppy. Boy was it the right decision she is cutest most well behaved puppy although as she gets older and gains a little more free thought she’s also gained quite the attitude. Realizing she doesn’t have to listen to me and just staring at me blankly whenever I give her a command. Anyway I bring this up because today’s infogaphic is how to care for your pet in hot weather. Now if your Summer has been anything like the one here in Austin, TX then it has been a hot one. It takes more than a couple of hands to count the number of days the temperature has gotten over 100 degrees.

Needless to say it is hot out there for a pet. So what can you do to ensure your pets safety during this blistering hot Summer? For one if your pet has long hair do them a favor and cut it short if you were covered in fur you would get hot too. If you decide to go out on a run in the middle of the day don’t take your pet with you, remember it is twice as hot for them as it is for you. Wait until it’s past six or take them out early in the morning when it is still cool. Today’s infographic also includes some helpful tips if your pet suffers a heat stroke. The best thing you could do for dog in this situation is just dunk them in some nice cool water to get their body temperature down.

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Studios around the world churn out reams of TV shows. But until now, it’s been inefficient for them to get their shows aired in a large number of markets abroad, which means producers have left piles of money, in the form of international advertising revenue, on the table.

Now that’s changing, thanks to Viki, a Hulu-style video site that was created in 2007 to break down barriers in the international TV trade. A key ingredient in the success of the startup, which raised $20 million in October from heavy hitters like Greylock Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, has been a Wikipedia-style approach to getting shows translated into local languages. Namely, it lets the fans do the subtitling.

The site currently offers thousands shows from producers in over 50 countries to viewers around the world, as well as movies and music videos. Launched almost two years ago, the site now has 12 million users, up from 7 million nine months ago.

The startup’s latest coup, announced today, is a deal to power a video site for Renren, the massive Chinese social network, which will include shows from TNT and the Cartoon Network.

Not all shows on Viki are available in all geographies. Content owners can specify where they want their programs shown, to avoid, for example, series being available in areas where they already have licensing agreements.

Still viewers around the world (Viki CEO and co-founder Razmig Hovaghimian tells Fast Company the site has users in every country on the planet except certain parts of central Africa) now have access to tons more programming than ever before. People in Asia, for example, can finally watch programs like Law & Order, the new Bionic Woman series, and BBC’s David Copperfield, while viewers in the States get not only a wide variety of Asian programming (the company was originally founded in South Korea and is now based in Singapore), but also shows from Greece, India, and Argentina.

Historically, crossing borders has been challenging for the TV industry. Popular U.S. shows tend to get licensed in “tier 1″ countries, like Europe, but not in the rest of the world. And shows from “tier 2″ countries, like those southeast Asia, rarely make it to “tier 1″ markets, like the U.S. and Europe.

That’s because it’s time-consuming and expensive to hammer out licensing agreements for each individual market. And it’s basically cost-prohibitive to get shows translated into languages anywhere but in the most lucrative markets. As a result, libraries of programming around the world have languished on the shelf.

Viki, which is also backed by BBC Worldwide and Korea’s SK Planet (a subsidiary of SK Telecom), is helping with both of those problems. Content owners only have to do business with a single partner, Viki. And the startup is providing the translations for free–by relying on an army of volunteers who have happily pounded out subtitles in 156 languages.

Viki’s community, which includes tens of thousands of people around the world, operates much the way Wikipedia’s does. Volunteers dedicate themselves to the shows or genres they care most about. The community self-polices to ensure that translations are accurate. (“They fight over participles,” Hovaghimian says.) And the strongest and most dedicated volunteers rise to become leaders of individual channels to keep everything humming smoothly.

Part of their motivation is simply their enthusiasm for the content itself, the same way Wikipedia volunteers devote countless hours to maintaining pages on subjects important to them.

“They’re passionate about these shows,” Hovaghimian says. “They want to be the first to discover them. They love the fact that tons of people are watching their translations.”

Another driver is the desire to master new languages. In fact, Viki emerged in part from another project that Hovaghimian, a native of Egypt, started while an MBA and d.school student at Stanford, which involved getting people to create subtitles for YouTube videos in order to foster language learning.

After graduating in 2007, Hovaghimian went to NBC Universal, where he worked on researching new markets and arranging international co-productions for the company’s cable channels. It was there that he learned about the challenges of spreading content overseas and started thinking about ways to knock down barriers.

While the fact that content owners don’t have to pay anything to get their shows translated is a selling point, more important, Hovaghimian says, is the level of quality being generated.

“The toughest part was not getting the content. It was convincing the studios that passionate fans can actually create quality translations and police themselves,” Hovaghimian. “That took forever.”

The community’s dedication is also helping battle piracy. When pirates get a hold of shows, it usually takes them about 72 hours for them to get shows translated into local languages. Hovaghimian says the Viki community can usually do them in a day.

Fans start organizing themselves once they learn about upcoming lineups, deciding “who’s going to translate what,” Hovaghimian says. Then, when the new content goes live on Viki, translations in 10 to 20 languages are usually complete within 24 hours. That takes the wind out of pirates’ sails. “The pirate doesn’t have an incentive to create subtitles for the content,” Hovaghimian says.

All of which means Viki is generating new revenue streams for content owners. CPMs vary per show and market, Hovaghimian says, but can get as high as $50-$100 in the most lucrative instances.

More importantly, however, is the fact that, no matter how much producers earn, it’s all gravy. “For content owners, it’s expanding the size of the pie,” Hovaghimian says. “They’re building new markets for their content in places it wasn’t traveling before.”

Image: Flickr user Americo Nunes

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

Via WSJ: Digg, the social news site and former Web 2.0 darling that was eventually pushed into obsolescence by then-newcomers Facebook and Twitter, has been acquired by Betaworks, the New York tech development behind popular links shortener bit.ly and analytics service Chartbeat, among others. The Wall Street Journal reports the price tag for the deal was just $500,000, though TechCrunch cites a source who disputes that number. That’s a paltry sum for a company that Google reportedly offered $200 million for in 2008, before the deal fell through. However, trouble for Digg started to mount in 2010 after a controversial redesign led to the loss of a quarter of its audience; founder Kevin Rose departed in March of 2011; and the site lost its tech staff to The Washington Post this April. (Rose recently joined Google Ventures as a partner). Betaworks CEO John Borthwick will head Digg and reportedly plans to have the team behind News.me, Betaworks’ news reader service, manage from hereon out. What to expect next? A startup approach to rebuilding Digg, which means smaller budgets and faster cycles for new products, such as a cloud-based Digg in the works.

For more news like this, visit our main Fast Feed page regularly.

It may look like a portable vacuum cleaner, but it’s actually something way more practical: essentially a sporty lunchbox with a built-in water bottle for daytrips–or by the looks of it, intergalactic space flight.

Designed by Mathieu Lehanneur http://www.mathieulehanneur.fr/, the CellBag is based on a concept for water transportation developed by students under the direction of David Edwards (the scientist behind inhalable caffeine) at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. The disc divides into two parts: a rounded, zippered pouch for dry snacks and an accordian-style bottle for holding up to a liter of water. The telescoping tubes can also be strung together for carrying several days’ worth of fluids.

So far, the bags have been available only to the Moretele community in South Africa, but profits from their sale will help fund the Earth Water Foundation and a humanitarian initiative in South Africa to provide sanitary-water transportation solutions. According to Lehanneur’s press release, “The first hopeful months of the experiment in real life conditions will rapidly lead to CellBag improvements and increase its diffusion to populations in need.”

CellBags are available in four different colors from Edwards’s Paris-based Lab Store for €75 (approximately $92).