ouroboros

people get a hold of tools and use them to create new vehicles of value

SMS was originally defined in 1985.  Originally envisioned as a notification system to announce email or voicemail receipt, the tool hit kids, they ingested the capability and spat back out a new form of communication - TXT.  It became an $80 Billion dollar industry.  Here in the village below Devi Garh, a silversmith in a storefront uses a piece of brass pipe tubing (into which he blows) and a lamp to create a blowtorch.

Below, his shop, wife, counter display and end-aisle.

India Continued

for all the helpful folks who reminded me that this blog "isn't flickr", I really appreciate your support.  And just in time - a few more images of the shenanigans:

Morning:

Nusrat, Claudia and Iris:

a Royal Enfield motorcycle - still being made the same way after decades,

Tom in the streets:

Ganesh getting ready for dinner

MindSet

Interactive isn't a capability, it's a mindset. Blow up everything and think ground zero. When you compete with companies - and individuals - unencumbered by legacy, superfueled by global connectivity and with no investment in the status quo, be afraid AND embrace it - Fear to do + Confidence in Self = Courage. Digital services and 'interactivity' aren't just some new tools for the kit - they change the kit. No company needs a "digital vision". They need a vision. The world has changed. Who are you now?

Tuesday Devi Garh

Why is the blog covered with sweeeeeeet pictures of India?  Because the heads of each office get together once a year to talk about the current and future state of W+K.  And this year we're outside Udaipur at the Devi Garh. 

Below, Shanghai supertroopers Iris Lo, Kel Hook and Frank Hahn ponder presentations on the parapet.

The recently installed fire supression system:

The back porch:

The side porch, looking down, mid-afternoon:

Sunset, upper back porch:

We are incredibly lucky to be here.  Boggling place. 

The rooms are cheaper than the carbon credits we had to buy to offset our air travel.

 

Tuesday Morning, Devi Garh

Morning in Devi - Dave Luhr arrives...

Monday in Davi Garh

Kel goes local.  Frank non-plussed.

PB+J

Driving back, from the temple to Devi Garh

These young folks chased our car asking for my kidney.

The ceremony in which Jelly was anointed God-King of Udaipur. 

A surprising twist for the evening's end.

 

Around Devi Garh

xThe hil.  Note temple atop.  Hilarious hijinks ensue

View from the climb (above). Entrance to the temple at the summit (below)

Descending down though the last touches of this symphony

Mumbai to Udaipur

Boarding at 5:55AM local

Takeoff

Udaipur airport, 7:55 AM

5:55AM local, Mumbai Domestic airport

Our flight to Udaipur was scheduled to leave at 5:55AM.  After spending four sleepless hours in the lounge, home of delicious muffins and loudly snoring folks, it was off to the boarding area.  Notice how tired and blurry everyone looks.  Except John.

Airport Wall Carving

Jelly, learning there's a chance he might have had to sit next to me for the Mumbai/Udaipur flight.

Mumbai Domestic

Dan, John, Me, Tom and Jelly, after flowers grew from our chests in the 18th hour of travel.

Mumbai domestic was under construction only weeks ago.  New rooms, gleaming marble, fresh concrete and paint.  And at 3:15AM local, some parts of the place are pretty dark and freaky.

Mumbai Airport, Pt.2

We made our way through the post-midnight dark to the minibus.

Jelly loads up some bags:

Then Tom gets lei-d by the driver:

Mumbai Airport

We arrived in Mumbai at 1:55am local time to catch a minibus to the domestic airport, where our next flight out was to Udaipur, at 5:55am.  A local Indian "crotch rocket".

Jelly at Passport Control

Jelly awaits his turn, unaware of the tragic error he has already committed by using a red pen to complete the immigration documents. FYI - you can only fill out the document using a blue or black pen Hilarious hijinks ensue.

First snap, Mumbai

Arriving in the passport control area from the Franfort to Mombai flight, and Claudia looks like she's just driven in to the W+K portland office from home.  Dan isn't tired here - his face just shows the strain of having sat beside me for the 8 and a half hour flight.

Jelly smiles for the multimedia computing device, Frankfort airport, 1PM local

Frankfort bus high muckety-muck confab

Tom Blessington, Dan Wieden and Claudia Villareal on the Frankfort terminal tram.

  How Claudia looks this fresh after 10 hrs and 58 minutes in the belly of Lufthansa's finest is beyond me.  A secret known to her alone.  And John Jay.

Frankfort Airport - John Jay on the move

Don't even try to keep up with John.  Because you can't.  You just can't.  Here he is moving at just below the speed of light on his way to (a) the exclusive launch of a new Lufthansa scented manfume at a Frankfort airport duty-free shop, (b) take in the opening of a young undiscovered german artist/designer who crafts busts from his own bellybutton lint and shredded birken bags, or (c) open up an ultra-exclusive underground dance club near terminal B.  Or all three.  And he'll do it ALL before you catch up.  And he'll look better than you doing it.  trust me.

Trip to India: PDX, dan checks his N95

Flight to India

jelly and steve, pdx, 1:45pm pst

Ready for their bollywood close-up.

CTIA - Nokia Pavilion

CTIA has two regular SF mobbing events annually - the fall confab is a notably more sedate affair than the spring shenanigans.  I went down to see what was happening - and what folks were talking about.  Here is a quick snap of the Nokia pavilion:

Got to hear from Will Hodgman of M:Metrics (below)

One of the shows most ironic product placements (below) finds Motorola on a car bumper.  Car wreck analogies aside, what may have seemed like a good idea at the time becomes poetic when you consider that if there's any company that's suffered from the impact of the vagaries of the mobile industry, its poor Motorola.  Putting them on a car bumper is just too damn poetic.

Gene Keenan, Global head of Isobar Mobile:

Erica Chriss, from Greystripe:

More to come!

 

Jelly in SF goes off on HSPA

Jelly Helm discussing the finer points of open source protocols and interoperability standards over coffee.  Here he lays out key structural and philosophical differentiation points between HSDPA, HSUPA and the proposed HSOPA standards.  "Without clarity, this becomes alphabet soup as far as the user is concerned."

Fraudvertising - Phishing 2.0

Give a man a fish, he'll eat it for lunch, but teach a man to phish and he'll eat yours.

This email one arrived in my mailbox today from "Paypal", subject line "Urgent Message".

       

Your Debit Card must receive a refund worth 288.40$ USD from Oregon Community Credit Union.After the last annual calculations of your account activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $288.44 credit. Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days in order to process it. To get your Tax Refund Money please click the link below:

https://www.oregoncommunitycu.org/login.cgi?section=signin&refund

 Regards, Oregon Community Credit Union Customer Service

 Copyright © 2007 - Oregon Community Credit Union - All rights reserved.  

This smelled bad, but rather than just delete it, I figured I'd do a little digging.  And with a logo like that?  Got to be fake.

But it's not.  There is an OCCU.  The first giveaway for me was the copy, which felt like a digital ransom note.   The website address looks pretty innocuous, but it's bullshit.  But good bullshit - the customer service # was actually correct, and for the heck of it, I tried the rep.  She was a good sport about it and shared with me that OCCU had been hit with a raft of these things in the past week.  4-5 Phishing attacks had been shut down or cut off YESTERDAY alone.  They don't the source, but it's been getting pretty hectic.

Add to this a new form of spam - bogus MP3-vertising.

How does it work?  You get a blank email with an MP3 file  attached - something like "mychemicalromance.mp3" or "justintimberlake.mp3".  They look like mobile ringtones, but if you launch it you get an audio file with a come-on to purchase crap stocks.  Imagine opening up "bartsimpson.mp3" on the crowded cubicle floor and hearing a digital sideshow barker shouting about improving your sex life and you can see where this might go.

With fraudvertising becomes more efficient (better designed, co-opting realworld logos/brands/customer service and technologies), muddy water gets murkier, and the need to deliver real value as a brand, not just ads, becomes even more critical.   

"Digital Korea" - mobile facts

[from textually.org]

Where are we going as a mobile culture?  Informative lessons can be taken from more tech forward Asian countries, including South Korea.  Tomi Ahonen's book "Digital Korea" discusses digital convergence in South Korea. Here are some excerpted statistics: [ via CNN.com/asia]

Over 50% of South Koreans have migrated their cell-phone account to 3G

• South Korean youth replace cell phones every 11 months   
• 99% of phones sold in South Korea in 2005 were camera phones 
• 40% of South Korean youth send SMS text messages in class
• 37% of South Koreans download cell-phone games
• 15% of South Koreans play video games on their cell phones every day
• Over 30% of South Korean students send 100 text messages a day
• 20% of South Korean cell-phone owners use Internet search on their cell phones
• 30% of South Koreans upload pictures from camera phones to social-networking sites
• 42% of South Korean cell-phone owners send picture messages
• Average amount of daily consumption of DMB digital TV on cell phones in South Korea is 129 minutes per day
• 43% of South Koreans use cell-phone-based Internet
• 20% of South Korean DMB cell-phone owners watch digital TV in the car
• 63% of South Korean cell-phone owners use mobile payment 
• 25% of all VISA cards in South Korea are provided via cell phone
• 45% of South Koreans buy MP3 files to phones
• 97% of South Koreans buy ring tones
• 45% of all music sold in South Korea is sold to cell phones
• 26% of South Koreans listened to MP3 songs on their cell phones in 2005