Image by World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr

I was a guest speaker at the Business Opportunities Conference in Scotland 2011. Here is the summary:

“The growing phenomenon of social networking was tackled by Ana Bakalinova, head of web publishing at Trinity Mirror group. “Social networks and digital media is a big subject,” she said. “Ten years ago it was the dotcom boom – now it is called the social media boom. Nobody knows where it is going. It is probably not going to be the next big thing but is THE big thing.”

Bakalinova said research had shown that the majority of people used their mobile phone rather than their desktops. She said that 44 per cent of over-sixteens have a social networking presence such as a Facebook page or Twitter or Linkedin account. Some 93 per cent of users expected businesses to be on a social network. “They expect you to have a fun page on Facebook or to be on Linkedin.” she said.

Bakalinova also explained that the first and biggest benefits for SMEs from using social media was generating exposure for their brand – use as a marketing tool. The second was increasing traffic to their product and improved search rankings so they are found on Google more easily.

20,000 companies were recently asked in a survey which networks they were using and Twitter was number one as a popular social media channel to talk to their audience, Facebook was second and Linkedin third.

When considering which social network sites to target Bakalinova said businesses should “fish where the fish are” and see where their audience was.”

Julian Assange, Source: Wikipedia

Updated 04 July 2011: It was amazing to see the king of WikiLeaks live in talk with Slavoj Žižek and Amy Goodman on Saturday. In a packed venue in London’s East End they discussed moral ethics, politics, human rights, terrorism, journalism and international law, all spiced up with a philosophical sense of humor by Slavoj. Great minds think alike and if they can fill an arena with 2,000+ people (£25 per ticket) on a Saturday in London than they must be doing something very right. An ex-Hacker, a Journalist and a Philosopher joined together for a great brainstorm on influencing history and changing the media.  Watch the live stream now.

Updated 02 July 2011: official Twitter # for the event is #FCWiki. To watch the broadcast live, tune in to Democracy Now! today at 4 pm London time. Follow me on twitter @AnaBanana for updates.

Saturday 02 July 2011: The editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, Jullian Assange is to speak at an event hosted by Frontline club in London this Saturday. In conversation with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, the talk will focus on the ethics and philosophy of the whistle blowing website and Žižek’s new publication. I hope to be live blogging on Twitter (@AnaBanana) and summarize the event here later. So if you have any questions you’d like me to ask please submit them by commenting on this post and see if you can still find tickets. And hopefully see you there!

If you are a digital product manager or thinking of becoming one, I would recommend signing up to Product Tank MeetUp group. For skilled training and certificates, I believe the U.S. has much more advanced courses. For example, at Pivotal Training you’ll find some great courses you can sign up for, online. Flickr is hiring for a Product Manager.

UPDATED 21 June 2011: Great blog post on Product Management seen from the eyes of Mad Men

Back in the (non-digital) days when I used an Olympus OM4 camera, this was a very portable film SLR with great build quality and simple controls. I wished for a digital camera with similar specs and size, and I can’t understand the trend that Canon and Nikon were driving, which was about improving technology but not decreasing size. Seems that the assumption was that anyone who wanted (semi) professional quality photos also wanted a brick of a camera.

Enter Panasonic GF1, a little gem of an interchangeable lens digital camera:

It has a quality sensor, micro four thirds which is about 30-40% smaller than typical aps DSLR sensor, but much bigger than the typical small point and shoot.

• It has a fast focus, on par with a DSLR.
• Sensible controls that don’t require more than one to two clicks to get to an important camera feature.
• Build quality is excellent, feels very solid.
• There is a 20mm pancake lens that is excellent in low light (stops down to 1.7f)  and does not stick out like a sore thumb.

A direct competitor is the Olympus EP1, with a very similar feature set and arguably better jpeg quality, but the auto-focus on this sexy looking camera is way too slow compared to the Panasonic and this put me off buying it.

This little camera has re-vitalised my interest in photography; I can finally take a camera, pop it in my pocket and expect good results without breaking my back. DPreview.com has an extensive review.

Panasonic gf1 system

Some sample shots (they are quite large, so might take some time to load if you click on them):

Spanish market muffins

Far from the future?

]]> https://anabakalinova.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/producer-and-consumer-prosumer/feed/ 0 Ana Banana https://anabakalinova.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/body-parts-and-medical-cyborgs/ https://anabakalinova.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/body-parts-and-medical-cyborgs/#comments Sun, 11 Apr 2010 12:50:37 +0000 Ana Banana http://anabakalinova.wordpress.com/?p=92 Continue reading »]]>

My mum's unilateral knee replacement scar

In my last post I wrote about my research on Cyborgs, as part of my MA course long time ago. I never thought that I will meet a cyborg one day. And that’s my mother. She recently had a unilateral knee replacement, minimally invasive, but painful.  She now belongs to the category called ‘medical cyborgs’… learning to walk with a titanium knee. The upper part of the leg was swollen after the operation as you can see from the photo.

Here is an animation of a knee replacement surgery. Impressive.

Image credit: litmuse / Flickr

I stumbled upon an old research project which I prepared for a course titled Gender, Photography and New Technologies while studying for my Masters in London 1999. It was published by the then e-magazine called ZAYAC in Macedonia of which I was a contributor. 11 years on and still highly relevant.

“While the science fiction cyborgs are described as strong, powerful, supernatural and artificial human-machines, the phenomenon called online communication has produced new form of disembodied cyborgs. But, this can lead to losing control over the actual ‘self’ and the line between imagination and reality is blurred” says the research.

From Cyber Femme and androids, to Military / Medicine Cyborgs and self-run computers, read the extract on Cyborg in Science Fiction and Cyborg in Social Realm.

Sorry, lost the full copy which was saved on a floppy disk.

Chris Anderson's new book

What if Google, Facebook and your daily online news feeds started charging you for the usage? In the free online world of the ordinary internet consumer, the only thing to pay for is your broadband connection and occasional purchases such as air tickets, shopping etc. Ah yes, and your electronic gadget to be able to view it. Information is (should be?) free. Wikipedia is free. Twitter is free. Blogging services are free. Most of your daily news are free. Horoscopes are free. Flickr basic is free. Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Email is free. Maps and Journey Planners are free…

In the world of democracy, information should be free, no? But how do content creators sustain businesses with direct revenue being rarely generated? Chris Anderson from Wired.com argues that as the marginal cost of supplying processing power, storage and bandwidth gets closer to zero, a whole new economic environment will emerge. While on holiday I read his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. It was a great read.  Would economies of free change towards more freedom or reverse to paid-for?

Answer 1: “I think there are two parts to the answer. A daily edition recapping all the stories prior to printing and all the traditional stuff-sports, classified, etc. And then an online version that updates at least hourly.”

Answer 2: “Local Newspaper needs definition as in the past succesful local media cater to local geographic population
-On line and local seems at odds (re access)
-Refine market segmentation may be needed

Else “local” newspaper would have ALL of he ABOVE. Quick, frequent Updates, Blogs, Local flavor services, features, hot spots reviews local buzz inclu government and civic,discounts and deals etc and hopefully a lot more reader, viewer interaction – Web 2.0.”

Answer 3: “Local events, political news, editorials, readers grievances which should reach the civic body authorities and demand explanations/responses, weather, sports, classifieds, deals/discounts at restaurants…”

Answer 4: “An online local newspaper should have a very need centric approach. It thus needs to provide plethora of home grown information. The news should be of kind and type, should be relevant and drawn out of context as well as prevailing situations. The online mode has to be discussion oriented with discussion boards and contributory features. The online medium should have mass appeal with kaleidoscope of features for people in the entire age bracket. This would only enhance the utility of the newspaper as it would be read by the masses and not just a class or section. The language needs to be simple as the idea should be to provide “informational content and not a fanciful editorial content. The local online daily should have lot of interactivity inbuilt in it. The daily should cover city specific highlights from all the strata’s. It should have the flavor and the material of the city. You should think of incorporating collaborative tools, should also be more open source. Think of a newspaper where “you can create and contribute to the process of news making”. You should also think of using filters and scanners to collect quality news. Also if the local online daily is made accessible to more number of people through various resource channels and touch points, will induce people to amplified consumption.”

Answer 5: “News updated at least hourly, features, editorial, local services, classifieds, offers readers’ comments on news/features and something that makes me want to return to read you rather than buy a local paper. My local paper offers daily news, so I’d want a more frequent update from an on-line paper. I’d expect more interactive (web 2.0) type features as well such as being able to comment on news and features, maybe a connected forum to discuss local issues or the opportunity to contribute comment pieces myself perhaps via a blog (draft comment pieces could go to an editor for approval first).”

Anyway, thanks to all who wrote back with very detailed answers, and yes, check out the ‘journalism in the changing world‘.