I am so happy to announce that Don Tapscott’s latest book “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is changing your world” is available on Amazon! As a collaborator, I am very proud of the finished product, and ecstatic that this book is hitting the shelves.

I was fed up with the negative attitudes people have expressed towards our generation. A few weeks ago, I did an interview on the CBC withauthor Mark Bauerlein about his book “The Dumbest Generation.” He wrote:

For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.

That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.

Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.

Lazy, uneducated and apathetic was how he summed up my generation, and I took a lot of offense to that categorization. You can listen to the interview, and read my response to Mark here.

I’m pleased (and relieved) to say that Don’s research yielded more encouraging results. Based on a $4 million research study, Don surveyed more then 11,000 “Net Geners,” and quickly realized that The Net Generation is the world’s first global digital generation, and we are collaborating, creating and innovating in unprecedented ways. We are impacting every institution from government and education to the workplace and the marketplace. Everything is changing.

Grown Up Digital reveals:

How the brain of the Net Generation processes information

Seven ways to attract and engage young talent in the workforce

Seven guidelines for educators to tap the Net Gen potential

Parenting 2.0: There’s no place like the new home

Citizen Net: How young people and the Internet are transforming democracy

Watch Don’s video, “Hey Moron” since he can probably tell it better then I can!

The slow but steady adoption of Twitter into the mainstream continues to fascinate me.  As the microblogging site continues to get  news coverage and more corporate accounts pop up, it’s pretty safe to say that Twitter has enabled companies to engage in  deeper and more personal conversations without being overly imposing. For the companies that do it right, it has become a powerful tool to connect to consumers and promote brands, one tweet at a time.

The problem with Twitter…

I was intrigued to see and Ad for Twitter Moms on one of my recent internet jaunts. As I curiously poked around the site, I quickly realized that this community, (I’m sure the first of many) has popped up in direct response to one of Twitter’s biggest flaws: figuring out who to follow.

Currently Twitter lets you search for contacts you already know who are either on one of your other social networks, or who you can invite via email. Which is fine, but what about the great people out there who you don’t know, the friends you just haven’t met yet?  The majority of people on my list are people that I’ve never met in person but who I’ve discovered to be funny, intelligent and generally all around wonderful. Since the technology industry has some well-established names, I found it easy to build up a base list. For non-tech enthusiasts who just want to meet new friends with similar interests, I can see the current system as being a huge barrier to adoption.

An end-user solution

Twitter Moms fills this void by allowing users to search for other moms based on interests ranging from motherhood to fashion, technology and business. Hosted on Ning, the community already has grown to over 2,300 members. Members gain access to groups, discussions and events. They even have a growing collection of videos that cover everything from humerous youtube videos, to technical tutorials for members who want learn more about web based tools.

I think it astutely addresses the intimidation factor of randomly following someone you don’t know by giving users the opportunity to ease into a new digital relationship, for example by contributing to a group discussion or commenting on  site content. That way, by the time you follow each other on twitter you’ve already established a burgeoning online friendship that lays the foundation for future dialogue.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and I can definitely see similar communities emerging as more and more people start microblogging. I hope Twitter improves their search data base. Write now you can search via terms in people’s bios, but I still don’t think that’s enough. I mean if i search for “technology” I get hundreds of users, but how do I know which ones would be a good choice to follow?

Corporate Application?

I think organizations will see tremendous value by participating in these types of communities. I mean if you market to moms, you should definitely be watching twittermoms.com.  There will be great opportunities to build relationships through sponsorships and marketing. I mean if I marketed stuff to moms, I would probably give away tons of free products to this group: they’re tech savvy, on twitter and like to engage with other moms online. A good product experience can go a long way, and it would provide plenty of opportunities for feedback and improvements.

The Final Word…

I like how social media empowers people by giving them the tools they need to fill in the gaps in their favorite services. Kudos to the founders of Twittermom who recognized a need and then went ahead and addressed it themselves.

As an avid reader, I’m always on the look out for that next great book to lose myself in. While many authors have embraced social media and have incorporated blogs and personal websites into their marketing strategy, I had often felt that there was a lot of untapped potential for social media to really captivate potential readers and connect them to new stories. I was intrigued and pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon We Tell Stories, an initiative by the UK division of Penguin Books.

The premise is this:

Over six weeks, Penguin enlisted critically acclaimed authors to create stories that are made specifically for the internet to promote these six  Penguin classics.

The 39 Steps

by John Buchan

The Haunted Dolls House

by M R James

Fairy Tales

by Hans Christian Andersen

Thérèse Raquin

by Émile Zola

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens

Tales from the 1001 Nights

The results have been really cool.

21 Steps

The 21 Steps was inspired by The 39 Steps and uses a Google Maps Mashup to tell the story of a man who finds himself embroiled in a murder. Readers follow his journey around the city as he tries to put the pieces together to figure out what was going on. This was a really cool use of map mashup technology as it gave a unique perspective of the character running all around town.

Slice

Slice by Toby Litt, tells the story of an American girl named Lisa (aka Slice) who moves in to a creepy old house in London with her parents. Strange occurrences lead her to believe the house might be haunted, and she decides to investigate. You can connect with Slice and her parents by reading their respective blogs or following them on twitter. It’s a new take on The Haunted Dolls House.

Read Slice’s blog

A teenage girl, a haunted house, a ghost story for digital natives

Follow Ray and Lynn on Twitter

• “If anything it’ll put my mind to rest. Wish us luck. God bless. xxx”

• “@mbhulo I’ll show Ray Lisa’s journal when we get back. We’re going to look in the hole at the bottom of the garden.”

• “Ray’s back. He’s got the batteries. I told him about the hare and he’s right, I’m overwrought with worry.”

Fairy Tales

Fairy Tales (a tribute to the Hans Christian Andersen Tome) is an interactive choose-you-own-adventure type story where readers get to pick out the elements that shape the plot.

Your Place and Mine

In Your place and mine, authors Nicci Gerrard and Sean French wrote their story in real time. For a one week, they spent an hour each day writing the story in real time. Readers could watch the story unfold, as each sentence was created before their eyes. (A tribute to Therese Raquin by Emile Zola)

Hard Times

Matt Mason’s Hard Times is told via online slide presentation, it’s a wonderfully visual interpretation of Charles Dickens’ book of the same name.

The (former) General

The (Former) General let’s you choose the direction of the story literally - by choosing which way you want to either left or right. This one is an ode to 1001 Nights, the famous Arabian tale.

My Two Cents

I loved going through these stories as it showed the evolution of story telling blended with technology. As we continue to get more digital in our every day lives I am eager to see the direction in which interactivity will shape new content. My thirst for stories is never ending, and while I will always love curling up with a good book, these digital experiments captured my imagination in a new way, by putting a technological spin on an old classic.

I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. I should also add that I found this experiment to be successful as I ordered three of the books off of Amazon.

A couple of weeks ago I chatted with Giovanni Galluci one the awesome people who works on Viewzi,  my  favorite visual search engine. I played around with this one day, and instantly fell in love. I’ve been an unoffical evangelist ever since.

As the amount of information available on the web continues to increase exponentially in both size AND type (Mp3, videos, recipes, books, newspaper articles, etc) it’s only natural that the way we search evolves to compensate. Personally, I know how frustrating it can be to be looking for a specific type of information and have to wade through lists of Google  results in order to get to it.

The Texas start-up is looking to fill that need by providing “views” or “filters” that can dramatically change the type of results as well as how they are presented.

But seeing is believing so let’s take a generic term say, Britney Spears, and see how what we can do with Viewzi. I’m only going to showcase a small sample of some Viewzi’s views, they have so many great ones, that it’s definitely worth exploring on your own.

After typing in the search word, I am taken to the “View Mix Page” that let’s me pick the view that will yield them most relevant results to me.

Now watch how the results change based on the view that I pick. Note that I can seamlessly shift between views without having to re-enter the search word.

Celebrity Photo View:

This view scans celebrity sites like JustJared.com and shows you a selection of photographs.

Web Screen Shot View

This view let’s you scroll through images of websites that contain your search word, in the same way that you would browse album covers in iTunes.

Album view

let’s you visually see all of album covers in one place.There is a link that pops up when you hover your mouse over a cover giving you the option to buy it. It also provides a list of related artists, in case you’re in the mood to discover new music.

Mp3 view

This lets yor search specifically for Mp3 files, and you can play them right from the search results page. Very handy if you’re trying to find a particular song.

x3 Video View:

Searches YouTube, Vimeo and Blinxx to get any videos tagged with the search term.

The 3d picture tagcloud

This view is one my favorites, it searches photo sites and let’s you visually see photos that relate to your tag term. You can move the cloud around and add or edit additional tags to your search. Sexy!

All of that data versatility in one place. Viewzi has an impressive list of views that also tackle recipes, weather, books and movies.

I like it because it makes search fun, interactive and visual. It’s a lot more interesting then just a list.

Try it out, and let me know what you think.

Sorry for the lack of posting! I’m in the midsts of planning the logistics of my move to Chicago and am rushing to meet a few final project deadlines before I go.

Since I am immersing myself in all things election for the next few weeks, I thought I’d share some of the cool sites I’ve come across while researching online.

1) Perspctv.com

Amber covered this on one of our last CommandN podcasts but I hadn’t gotten around to playing with it until a few days ago and I was really impressed. Perspectv collects over 14 visual web apps to monitor the election news. It not only monitors CNN national polls, but also listens to online news coverage, mentions in the blogsphere and twitter.

You can easily scroll to check out an electoral map, see a timeline of mentions and even get a handy widget, so that you can quickly scan and monitor everything from the convenience of your own blog.

2) CSPAN.org

CSPAN is doing a great job of covering the Democratic and Republican conventions. They have a great list of video highlights for anyone who missed any of the speeches.

I also like their live twitter coverage. It is definitely a great place to stop by especially if you are sad that you missed the convention like I am!

3) Huffington Post- FundRace

This cool google mash up lets you search by name or address to see which candidate your friends/enemies/coworkers/that creepy guy who says he’s a democrat but is clearly lying/ are supporting. You can zoom in quite close and see a list of addresses and contribution amounts that a particular person has donated. You can even transpose a 2004 map so you can see if there are any differences.

4) Google Power Readers:

As a self-proclaimed news junkie I love reading anything and everything about hot issues, and the election is no exception. I’ve often wondered Barack Obama or John McCain read, and thanks to Google I now know the answer! Google has recently introduced Political Power Readers, which allow you to subscribe to the shared items feed from big political movers and shakers. You can now get a glimpse into what catches the interest Obama, McCain (or at least their teams) as well as a slew of political journalist heavy hitters like Arianna Huffington and more!

Straight from Google’s Blog:

Today we’re announcing Google Power Readers in Politics: leading political journalists and both U.S. presidential campaigns using Reader to read and share news. You can read what they read, and see what’s on their minds as they share and discuss news. Each participant has created a reading list with a feed you can subscribe to in Reader (or any other feed reader), and is also publishing shared items. Here’s the list of participants:

• Obama and McCain campaigns
• Mike Allen, POLITICO
• Chuck DeFeo, Townhall
• John Dickerson, Slate
• Mark Halperin, TIME
• Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post
• Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
• Jon Meacham, Newsweek
• Patrick Ruffini, The Next Right

Enjoy the coverage! I’ll be posting more soon. Are there any news sources in particular that you can’t live without? Leave them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list!

I just wanted to share this funny photograph that was taken by Brady Sewall in California who emailed me saying he had spotted this in a local coffee shop and wanted to pass it along. Thanks so much Brady!

Short post today, I had actually written this post last week, but had some huge WordPress problems with uploading images. Problem fixed thanks to some blind blog surgery on my part, which isn’t usually recommended but sometimes you just have to close your eyes and hope for the best. I’ve got some awesome posts coming up filled with glorious, colorful images, so check back in soon!

Obama surpasses Kevin Rose on Twitter

Wired reports that Barack Obama has surpassed Digg founder Kevin Rose as Twitter’s most followed person. Over 56,000 follow the tweet updates from the campaign, and more are expected as the announcement of Obama’s running mate is announced.

In celebration, I also give a “well played” to the guy who made this video. Well played sir, well played.

“Unnecessary Quotations”

My friend Dan Smith over at Smithereen’s Blog shared this with me the other day. It’s a blog that tracks and shares the wonder of people who use unnecessary quotations. It’s laugh out loud funny, and I can see this becoming the next stuff white people like.

A sample:

I first heard about this story from New Media Jim via Twitter. Blogger Noel Hidalgo, also known as Noneck, was in Beijing as an independent journalist and blogger when he came across a protest in Tiananmen Square by a group called Free Tibet 2008.

When he was spotted filming the protest, he found himself shoved up against the wall and detained by Chinese security. Five hours later he was deported, with the flight home credited on his credit card courtesy of the Chinese Police. Here is his video below, which already has over forty thousand views. As you can see, the protest seems pretty tame with some of the other events that have unfolded over there, but apparently, it was enough to make the Chinese police nervous.

I had the chance to speak with Noel about his experiences, particularly the four hours spent with Chinese police officials (the topic of human rights comes up) as well as some rather odd technological glitches that have plagued him since his return. His Facebook and twitter updates have been mysteriously replaced with some cryptic codes.

Some notes before you view:

1) This is raw footage, I was going to play around with it and make it all shiny and new, but I chose to upload the information in a timely manner instead. So apologies in advance for the gritty quality that is iChat.

2) It’s a bit long at just under 13 minutes, but I also wanted to dig deeper into some questions that would not have been addressed by other sources. I think Noel’s story is an excellent highlight of the situation over in China that is getting glossed over in favor of Olympic news, and that’s it’s really important to educate ourselves about the state of human rights in countries all over the world.

If anything, this incident shows me the actual scope of how important it is for China to keep these incidents under wraps- a troubling realization. We’re all on this rock in space together, so we might as well make an effort to make the ride more pleasant for everyone.

Ironically, once again it seems that trying to suppress an issue will in fact, only highlight it. I wonder how many of us would have seen the protest video had Noel NOT been deported?

I have some exciting news, as of September I will be relocating to Chicago for three months to work on some cool projects- which I’ll be able to talk about very soon!

Now I’ve never been to Chicago and was faced with the daunting task of figuring out a place to live, etc. Thankfully, the Internet came to my rescue, and I found some pretty great sites that I thought I’d pass along to anyone who finds themselves destined for an unfamiliar city.

I’m going to be writing about my experiences in moving to a new city in terms of leveraging social media to find a place, meet new people, get informed, etc. So stay tuned for more of those posts as we get closer to September, I’ll be tagging them with “My 2.0 Life”

1) Housing Maps.com

A great mash-up combining Craig’s List with Google Maps. You can filter search results by price and search for properties to rent or buy. This was how I found my new place within a few days. For someone who doesn’t know the geography of a city that well, this is a great insurance policy to ensure you’re not responding to an ad that’s out in the boonies somewhere, and saves you the effort of having to Google Map each individual listing.

2) WalkScore.com - The Search for a walkable neighbourhood

Since I won’t have a car in Chicago, it was important for me to find a place that had all the amenities I needed close by. Here’s how it works: you input your address and it calculates the “walkability” based on the availability of nearby stores, restaurants, bookstores, cafes, schools & parks. Scores range from Car Dependent to Walker’s paradise, and the map helpfully points out all the amenities by name and distance.

A neat feature about this mash-up is you can use Google’s Street view to virtually check out your new digs. Especially useful for those of us that can’t go down beforehand in real life.

3. Chicago Explorer

This one is city-specific but I’m sure similar things exist for whatever city you’re looking for. I’ve been really impressed by how some realtors have upped their game in terms of providing potential buyers with the right information needed to make a decision. This mash-up contains the city of Chicago with various options that you can overlay on the map including transit routes, hospitals, pharmacies and more. It also provides some great demographic maps that break down the types of people living there (young professionals vs. families)

I also found a great Google Map showing the Chicago with an overlay of neighborhood boundaries. This helped me out as it gave me a visual idea of the different areas within each city.

4) Every block - Crime Mash Up

Again, you can find these for pretty much any city (Everyblock also has maps for SF, Charlotte, New York City and Philadelphia) but Chicago was one of the first cities to do this, and very helpful for a certain New Media Maverick in making sure she stays out of Murderville and finds a nice place in Hip&Ecclectic Town. It was a pretty close call actually, I was about to choose a place and then I realized that there had been a little too many murders/assaults/robberies/house invasions for my liking.

5) Walk/Jog/Run

Another Google Mashup if you like to walk/run/jog or in my case stroll/skip/saunter this is a great site that can help you find the best routes. You can map your own route or check out routes that other people have created. It even has a nifty distance filter that lets you pick search for routes that are a particular distance.

I think this would make a great Foush Reports Episode! Maybe I’ll have some time to shoot it tomorrow, we’ll see.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Alltop.com, a really kick ass content aggregator that groups collections of stories across a variety of topics into individual alltop sites. (So for example: environment.alltop.com or marketing.alltop.com)

I am pleased to announce that The Foush, will available on SocialMedia.alltop.com!

What is AllTop?

They have an extensive listing of categories, just about anything your information-addicted little soul could dream of. You can see the headlines from all of these sites at a glance, giving you, the time-restricted reader, the ability to quickly take a broad look at a particular topic of interest.

But wait! There’s more! By moving your mouse over the headlines, a wonderful little box appears that gives you a more in-depth glance - usually the first paragraph or so- of the blog post without having to leave the page.

But I have an RSS Reader or I like searching things via Google

Now some people might equate this with using their RSS reader, but I would disagree. My RSS reader contains blogs that I wish to deep dive, meaning I find the majority of their posts useful, I trust them, and I check back daily if not every other day. As for Google, I usually need to to a bit of digging in order to find the information that I need from a reliable source. That takes time, and energy.

For Nuggets of Information:

I look at Alltop as a remarkable opportunity to take into account an entire category at a glance. I often start my morning just perusing the various categories trying to get a feel for what people are talking and thinking about. This is more akin to skimming the seas, and it’s a great tool for exploration, to step beyond the confines of the RSS feed and find some new perspectives to examine. Alltop is all about nuggets.

[Images courtesy of Alltop.com]