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The “Twitter culture” and the end of attention

The classes we’re having down here at Singularity University are really amazing. It’s a unique opportunity to listen to speakers who blow your mind off. I must confess, however, that there’s something I’m quite worried about: When taking some distance from what is going on at the classes, you can notice that, hard as we may try, we students don’t manage to pay attention for an extended period of time.

It seems as if the culture of brevity reflected on Twitter or TED (the shorter the better) had destructed our capacity to stay focused for more than just a couple of minutes.

Posted by Palindromic at 22 Jul 10 | Leave your comment

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At the precise distance from the unknown(s)

The use of the Web 2.0 opens new doors as it gives us the chance to meet a lot of unknown people. For a phobic like me, this is enough to crisp my hair.

Getting acquainted with strangers is not an easy task for me. For instance, I would never chat with someone I don’t know. But, you know what? In my 2.0 life I was twice surprised by this subject.

Posted by Santiago B. at 17 Dec 08 | Leave your comment

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The risks of social networks

Recently, I gave two conferences at Wordcamp and Buenos Aires 2.0 offering some of my ideas concerning social networks and the Web 2.0. In this post and in a few more to come I will try to share with you the main points I made there. First, a question: Is the use of social networks dangerous?

We frequently hear from those who are reluctant to the use of web 2.0 tools that they do not do so because they find them dangerous. Don’t upload your pictures to Flickr!, they say. Don’t publicize your activities on Facebook, Twitter or Friendfeed! -they add- as someone might use that information to harm you or even kidnap you!

In my opinion, this argument is senseless. At least in Argentina, where the probability of dying in a car crash is MUCH HIGHER than the chance to be kidnapped, let alone die as a result of a kidnapping. We all know that, yet nobody gives up using cars.

Posted by Santiago B. at 03 Dec 08 | Leave your comment

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Silicon Valley’s fault and other shameless comments

As anticipated in my previous post, last week I made one of the best trips of my life: I went to the Silicon Valley Tour organized by Endeavor.

Although for business or pleasure I have traveled a lot to the United States since I started Officenet, absurdly I had never been to the West Coast. Therefore this was the first time I went to San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

In the introduction to the first speaker of the event, Wences Casares, the founder of Patagon, Lemon Bank and BlingNation, began by saying that since he was a bit over 20 years-old he set as a rule to, at least once a year, find an excuse to go there. Then I realized that, being myself an entrepreneur, it is absurd that I’ve waited 37 years to go. Because Silicon Valley is THE mecca of entrepreneurship. It’s where the Major Leagues are played. Where most of the main new innovative companies in the world are built.

What am I going to do now is to write a series of posts trying to share with you the most important ideas and learnings from this trip. In the days ahead I’m going to write about:

- How Silicon Valley looks like

- How Venture Capital firms work there

- What was discussed regarding the global financial crisis we are experiencing and how to take advantage of the difficult context

- The visits we made to Electronic Arts, Ebay, Facebook and Google

- The most interesting business concepts I heard for entrepreneurs

- The Endeavor companies that I did not know me and impresses me the most

But first let’s devote this post to my frivolous, irrelevant and / or fun comments:

Posted by Santiago B. at 20 Oct 08 | Leave your comment

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Visiting Silicon Valley

At this moment I am for the first time in my life at Silicon Valley, in a tour organized by Endeavor. It is very difficult to tell you in the 10 minutes I have right now the unbelievable experience this is. It will take many posts to digest what I am seeing and learning in this trip.

The agenda starts every day at 7:20AM and goes non stop until 10PM at night. Yesterday we visited Electronic Arts, the largest videogame company in the World. My digital camera did not work, but I took a few pics with my cell phone. The quality is very poor (damned Blackberry ) but for whoever wants to take a look, I ulploaded them to Facebook.