MY URBAN KVETCH

What I Learned at Google (on the PICZ Geek Tiyul)

One of the geek highlights of the Geek Tiyul was our visit to Google, which made all of the PresenTense Institute innovators immediately think we were in the wrong business (we could "not be evil" by working at a multi-billion-dollar company with offices everywhere...plus--did I mention--free snacks? Oh, I guess I did.)

At Google's Haifa office, which shares a technology park plaza with companies like Yahooo and Microsoft, we met with Yoelle Maarek, originally from France, who opened the Google Haifa Engineering Center in July 2006, and is now its Director. "I assume you are all Google users," she said matter-of-factly, causing me to reflect on what it must be like to be able to correctly assume that everyone knows your product and is a user. (Personally, I know I would never say "Oh, I assume you all read MyUrbanKvetch.com," unless I were talking to my parents.)

Yoelle gave us a very enthusiastic presentation about what search provides, how Google works, and gave us some advice in terms of our approach to individual and team work. She explained the Google work ethic, which encourages employees to work on their own projects one day a week, noted that the biblical concordance was the ancestor of the contemporary search engine and told us that the Google search autocomplete function was created at Google Haifa. (Makes sense, since Jews have been finishing other people's sentences for years.)

So here are some of those lessons, followed by some of my elaborations/comments. (Plus your scrolling bonus after the jump, videos--not taken by me--that further explain what working at Google is like.)

• "You have to trust in the ecosystem."/"Know who your users are and make them happy." (Google as a company of users rely on their users to tell them what's working and what's not working--through usage, you troubleshoot, mend, and improve the final product. Because really, if the user's not using it, what's the point?)
• "Give trust to people of quality, and you get it back." (Having an idea is one thing, but trusting others to help you achieve your vision is another. By bringing on people who care about the product and have the skills to make things happen, you give them a personal investment in the company or product and empower them to speak in an authentic "we" voice, which creates an atmosphere of mutual commitment.)
• "Be funny and cool, and break the routine--that's part of the culture." (A culture of iconoclasts, against a background of chill humor. I'm in.)
• "We're a company of geeks, we really don't care about money." (Say no more...I shall rescue you, O Google, by removing said troublesome money henceforth and forthwith. No, no--you don't even have to worry about where it's going. I'll take care of it. You're welcome.)

Geek Tiyul: PICZ Goes North

Going on tiyul (trip) to the north is something that Israelis love to do, as they visit beautiful scenery, go on picturesque hikes and dip their city toes into clear, refreshing grottoes. It's a welcome respite from the day-to-day life of work, eat, sleep, start over.

On Monday, a group of intrepid Zionist innovators left their pied a terre in the somewhat-remote Jerusalem neighborhood of Arnona and headed north for a slightly different type of tiyul: infused with the spirit of innovation, the young group of 20-somethings were on a pilgrimage to a different type of holy site, where new ideas find life and search engines reign supreme.

First stop was what I called a "hikelet," a small hike along a nature path that ended at a grotto, where pasty computer-addicted youngsters stripped off as much clothing as they were comfortable and waded into the refreshing waters. After this relaxing start, they took some group pictures and photos of the beautiful scenery, before heading to the first real stop of the day: Tefen Industrial Park's Open Museum, where they visited one of the companies that had been incubated in the park, Savta Jamila's soap company.

Then the group headed slightly south to Haifa, to visit the Golden Temple of Google and pay homage to colorful cafeteria/engineer play rooms, while liquidating the company of its bounty of holy, free snacks and developing a group case of job envy. Even a visit to the bathroom was different at Google: the "Testing on the Toilet" program (no, I'm not making that up) provides specific bathroom reading to employees, posting it on the inside of bathroom stall doors so that no moment is, um, wasted.

Back on the bus, they headed north to Rosh Hanikra, close to the border of Lebanon, visiting the home of a friend of the PresenTense Institute and enjoying a lovely reception and views of the ocean before heading back to Jerusalem.

But pictures are worth a thousand Google searches. (OK, they're not. But you get the point.) And therefore, I present the Geek Tiyul: A day in pictures.

Tagged in TA: Defining Yourself at the Pulver Networking Breakfast

It's embarrassing that it took me so long to post about attending this networking breakfast in Tel Aviv, but I guess better late than never.

Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture, of a person I don't know? It's always hard to define yourself to other people, but at Jeff Pulver's networking breakfasts, they've found a way: name tags with your mantra or motto on them, and additional smaller tags that work the way tagging does on the internet.

At the breakfast, I met a few interesting people, including some whose names I knew but whose faces were new. Of course, there was Jeff himself, plus Israluv, Brian Blum (whose blog I read back before I was a blogger, if you can imagine such an epoch), and of course, Nir Kouris networking at the event with another one of his young CEOs from ecampIsrael.

Want a closer look at the whole tagging situation? Another photo plus additional explanation after the jump.

President's Conference Update/Rumor Mill-Updated

So, here's what I heard...

There was supposed to be this "crowned heads of internet" type panel at the President's Conference, featuring Sergey Brin from Google, Sue Decker from Yahoo and Mark Zuckerberg (not Zuckerman, as many of the press releases indicated) from Facebook. Note my use of the term "supposed to be." Rumor has it that Zuckerberg has canceled and will not appear. Speculation is that he's a little uncomfortable with my "Weekly Zuckerberg" category. Or perhaps this is a reflection of the recent migration of several of Google's top people to Facebook? Or more likely, that he's really just too busy. Although I don't see why Sergey can't just pick him up in his private jet on the way east. (UPDATED MAY 7: This release lists Brin and Decker, but not Zuckerberg, so I guess it's official.)

So to recap: Zuckerberg out. But Voight in. Angelina's dad, actor Jon Voight,  is coming to Israel to attend the conference and to pay a solidarity visit to the city of Sderot, as well as welcome Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl’s (CCOC) 80th rescue mission airlifting children from irradiated regions in Ukraine, Belarus and Western Russia.

Seinfeld fans remember the episode about Jon Voight's car...here's Voight on the episode:

Israel Loving Tech-Geeks, Rejoice

If you're a fan of both technology/blogging and Israel, you're going to love Traveling Geeks, which chronicles the journeys of a bunch of SF social media gurus and tech-heads as they journey through Israel and beyond. If you read Wired, Fast Company and other tech-savvy publications, the names--Robert Scoble (Naked Conversations), Craig Newmark (craigslist)--are nothing new. And I have friends there myself, most notably Blogmama Deborah Schultz and Susan Mernit. But what's new is the environment for the trip: a series of tech conferences and gatherings in Israel--Kinnernet, the Marker's .comvention, and various breakfast meetings (a la Pulver) and Garage Geeks parties.

For instance, you might get a post like "My New Roommate: Craig Newmark," courtesy of Robert Scoble.
Or read Deborah Schultz. Or Sarah Lacy. The bloggers on the trip are blogging on the blog. (Blog. There, I said it again.)

I'm fascinated by the experience of those who are relative newbies to traveling in Israel, but I'll be more interested to see the after-effects: the partnerships that emerge, and of course, the posts that are put up after the bloggers have returned to their respective communities.

I believe my voyage to the geek side is now complete. Blog.

More April Foolin', Webgeek Style

In case you're looking for more April Fool's webhumor...beyond Google's little joke about Google CustomTime...check out "April Fools' Day on the Web." (Dot com!!)

Engaged for a Day: The April Fool's Facebook Experiment

Did you ever wonder how much technology was taking over your life, and if your online persona was capable of doing things that your offline persona would never do? The one-step-removed aspect of online interaction is one that I find endlessly fascinating, as is the culture of Facebook, which allows people to follow my moves with as much information as I give them (and as much time/inclination as they have to do so).

I've mused before about the numbers of "friends" we all have on Facebook. The likelihood that most of them are actually friends of the sort you'd invite to your birthday dinner or to seder with the family is very low. I mean, people have hundreds of them. I tried to keep my list down, but it was fruitless. Even the restriction of "only accept friend requests from people you know in real life" doesn't help: I meet 120 people each summer. I went on tour with Coolooloosh and Subliminal/the TACT Family. I go to conferences with hundreds or thousands of people in attendance. I live on the Upper West Side. I think I just met five new "friends" while writing this post drinking my coffee in my apartment. Keeping my magic number down is not an option. And I realize that's a blessing.

But the question remains. How much do those people really know me? And how finely tuned in to my status update are they? If I suddenly became the opposite of my public persona, on April 1, no less, would people realize it was a joke, or assume that because they read it online it must be true? Or would people think it was a technical error? Or am I just suffering from blazing egomania in even thinking that people stay tuned to as silly a mechanism as the status feed?

Facebook Fools' Day Experiment: Change "Relationship Status" from "Single" to "Engaged"

Duration: 18 hours: 12:30am-6:30pm April 1

Findings: 35 respondents=15 email messages, 20 wall posts in a 18-hour period. About 70% of responses understood that the status change was a joke. About 25% of responses wished me mazal tov and wanted to know who the lucky guy was or why they were first hearing about this now. And 5% were threatened marriage proposals. From guys who are already in relationships. (Just to give you an idea of what's out there.) Most of my regular posse of New Yorkers knew better than to even respond. Or maybe they're too busy.

Analysis/Conclusions: I was expecting a few people to fall for it, and for most to understand that it was a joke because it was April 1. That my expectations were met proves that people (even my non dinner party friends) actually know me a bit better than perhaps I might have thought. I did think that someone might think it was a technical glitch, like when the JDate site redesign reset all women's profiles to read "I do not plan on having any children."

It did teach me that with over a thousand friends, I can't stay in close contact with all of them, and as a consequence, so much of the public perception of me is based on the information I share online. That's a power I need to continue to wield responsibly and accurately.

Still, some people need to get out more.

I have to admit that being engaged for a day was pretty fun--I'd like to do it for real someday, maybe with someone else to share the joy with.

Other resources: today's Urban Dictionary definition.

Any great April Fool's jokes to share? If you fell for it, admit it here and feel all better. (UPDATED: Here's one I fell for. Those darned Googlers are so funny...)

Twitter: My Big "Why"

So, I've been Twittering for a while, mostly because my tech friends told me I had to, that I'd find it rewarding, that it's a community, yada, yada, yada. I was ok with it, because I do update my Facebook status every three seconds or so, so I accepted the concept that my friends might want to know what I'm doing.

Now, some of my Facebook "friends," aren't really friends in the "going out for sushi" definition--they're people who know people I know and who have for some reason decided I'm interesting. (Let's for a minute just accept that without questioning it too much.) It puzzles me that they're interested enough to comment when my status changes, but again, I accept that they enjoy my pithy self-descriptive wordsmithery.

But lately the people who have started "following me" on Twitter are strangers--not in the "don't take candy from them" sense (although, maybe...) but in the "who are you? do you even have any kind of friend-of-a-friend context?" sense. Some may be looking to "up the numbers" of the people they follow so they can become some sort of Twitter power broker (although I'm not sure how that works or what prize you get when you "win"), and others may have found me through my friends. Is there any kind of business reason--self-promotion, advertising for a product, etc--to add random people to your Twitter? I'm looking to someone Twitter-wiser than I to explain.

Why do people follow people they don't know? A helpless curiosity about the human condition? Psycho-social research? Random acts of stalking? Aspirations of becoming Jewish writer paparazzi? Anyone?

Keynote Address Gone Mad: Zuckerberg at SXSW

On any given day there are any given number of reasons that it's good to be Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook king has enough cabbage to not worry about rent for a while, employees who like their jobs, a company that is only increasing in use despite any glitches or unwise decisions (hello, Beacon?), and a cool sister profiled in the pages of PresenTense Magazine. Plus, Zuckerberg had the plum keynote slot of the year (yes, even surpassing my role at the GA) at SXSW.

But at today's keynote, something went horribly wrong, at least as far as SXSW was concerned. Apparently, the packed room "turned" on the interviewee, but especially on his interviewtrix, journalistrix (I just like the suffix and will begin using it regularly) Sarah Lacy, turning a tame interview into a raucous group of rabble-rousers. (Report is from Wired.)

"Talk about something interesting," one attendee yelled about half way through the keynote. The remark was met with waves of cheering and applause. Meanwhile, members of the audience participated in a backchannel discussion on Twitter, with users of the microblogging site directing most of their animosity at Lacy's unorthodox interview technique. "Never, ever have I seen such a train wreck of an interview," said Jason Pontin on Twitter. "Poor girl, flirtatiously awful tho' she was."

Crunchgear live-blogged the whole thing, also noting the interviewer's flirtatious behavior, and objecting minute-by-chronicled-minute. In this series, Z=Zuckerberg and "chick"=Lacy:

2:10. Facebook and terrorism. Lots of users in Lebanon. Z just said that terrorism is caused by lack of communication and empathy. So… Facebook will also end terrorism. Aren’t journalists supposed to question things and not take them at face value? I don’t know, I’m crazy.

2:53. Holy shit! OK, this is the highlight. Chick asks some rambling nonsense question. Z gives her the wtf are you talking about look. She says, another leslie stahl moment. Then Z says, you have to ask questions. Crowd goes wild like the rock just walked in. Dudes stand up, applaud Z’s calling her out on being a dunce.

Mediabistro chimes in by somehow snagging a few minutes with the Facebook founder and asking for his response, which he provides, and then challenging him to accept their invitation to Mediabistro Circus, another seemingly awesome tech/media conference that few freelancer/bloggers will be able to afford.

And so concludes the Weekly Zuckerberg. Unless any of you have first-person reactions from the floor at SXSW?

What's a Wiki? Why Should I Blog? What's Photosharing?

Geez, you people have a lot of questions. But luckily, the internet provides all, in this case a website that explains "in plain English" what this technology thing is all about. It's another example of one of those "I wish I'd thought of this first" internet things. Because now this company, CommonCraft, and its founders, Lee Lefever and Sachi Lefever, are likely raking in the moolah for this kind of elementary tech education that makes technology understandable by virtually anyone. And what's double-awesome about this is that it's technology, which is supposed to eliminate paper, explained on paper, through components that work like technology, and conveyed through video. Oooh.

Here's the one about blogging.