MashedPotato Tech

I've seen a lot of information recently in social media spaces and RSS feeds I follow that portends a bit of a change in the way people approach social media, and the inevitable ' information overload ' we've all heard so much about. A lot of people compare today's information environment to a stream, and I think that's a very apt analogy. There are two primary ways that people seem to be reacting to this glut of information: more filtering or scaling back who they attempt to have 'relationships' with online. I honestly believe the answer to this dilemma is to incorporate both approaches. In a nutshell, the way I've always approached 'social media' is to remember first and foremost, it's about people and relationships, not about how high you can drive your Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, or Facebook follower count. It's also important to utilize tools to help you filter out the most important pieces of information. One of the most...

The concept of a 'back-channel' during presentations, meetings, classes and similar events has been around for a while (the analog version was called 'passing notes', and who knows, maybe even the cavemen did that during boring recitations on hunting/gathering strategy :)). The modern equivalents started with email, but now even that quaint old service is derided as 'too slow' in the world of instant messaging, and more recently, Twitter . There are two types of back-channel - private (usually in instant messaging), and public (Twitter). I know very few people who don't utilize the former during long conference calls (especially if they are with clients, and you need to address something that came up during the call privately with a colleague). This can be a huge advantage if someone can go off and get an answer/research an issue while the call continues. I can easily see a role for junior-level associates to perform this function, as I think it makes go...

I recently attended the Churchill Club's annual ' Top 10 Tech Trends ' event at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, CA. I had been looking forward to this night, since I've attended previous club events, but never this one. I wasn't disappointed, as the panel of tech prognosticators that they brought in was informative, entertaining, and had a good mix of opinions. I'll lay out all of the trends below, and comment on a select few that interested me the most. This was a panel format, with each panelist getting time for two trends that they could put forth as their top thoughts on the future. After each presentation, the panel got to 'vote' ('red' or 'green'), and explain their reasons. An audience poll was also taken after the panelists were finished discussing, and this was recorded as well. The panel was a 'Who's Who' of Silicon Valley tech experts, venture capitalists, and technologists. The panelists for this evening ...