Pierre Vandeginste is an independent journalist who has been writing about science and new technologies for 24 years in science magazines such as La Recherche as well as news magazines like Marianne or L’Evénement du jeudi, trade magazines (01 Informatique, SVM) and at times for newspapers such as Le Monde or Libération and recently the business newspaper Les Échos. Three months ago, he started his Aïe! Tech blog focused on the same subjects and which rapidly became one of the best resources available in French. I was intrigued by the name of his blog, which sounds like ‘High-tech,’ but really means ‘Ouch! Tech.’ So I’ve asked him why he chose this name — and many other things. Below are selected excerpts of the long conversation we had together (in French).

Source: Conversation between Pierre Vandeginste and Roland Piquepaille, December 2006

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Viviane Champalaune is a 26-year-old woman who likes the sun and decided to live in Nice instead of Paris. With her partner, Sylvain Briant, a 28-year-old guy who also prefers to live on the Riviera, they built a ‘webmarketing’ agency named Wizz-U. And when they discovered the potential of blogs, they decided to create a service named Blogmarketing. In fact, they want to help companies which don’t have the time to run their own business blogs. And as this kind of service is still in its infancy in France, I’ve asked Viviane if she could give me more details about it. You can find below our exchange conducted via e-mail (in French).

Sources: Conversation between Viviane Champalaune and Roland Piquepaille, November 2006

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As Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence for HP, Eric Kintz leads HP’s marketing strategy worldwide. He’s also the author of The Marketing Excellence blog where he openly discusses industry trends and writes about the future of the marketing function in the high-tech industry. Despite his busy schedule, Eric was nice enough to answer my questions about blogging at HP and elsewhere. Below is this long interview conducted via e-mail.

Roland: IBM, Sun or Microsoft had legions of bloggers a long time before HP. Who took the decision to catch up these other companies and to start the blogging initiative at HP?

Eric: The way you’ve phrased your question is a bit leading. Most tech companies had legions of bloggers communicating with their peer groups. HP was no different. Employees from HP hosted blogs both internally and externally. In 2004 HP decided to provide a formal space within HP.com for those conversations to take place. I believe IBM made a similar decision later in 2005.

On HP’s side, we opened the formal blog platform because our business leaders saw an opportunity to extend the conversations they were having with customers to a much broader distribution. Our enterprise businesses took the lead with a number of executives launching their own blogs on hp.com. From there, platform use expanded to other business groups within the company.

Roland: As this is your job, you’re writing mainly about marketing: how people react to your posts inside and outside HP? Are you pleased by their comments?

Eric: I have been surprised at how positively people have reacted to my blog both externally and internally. Externally I think bloggers have been appreciative of the fact that I have blogged about the future direction of marketing and how HP is responding to these trends vs. blogging about how great HP is. They also have appreciated that I was willing to engage in the blogosphere and learn from other bloggers, this is a humbling experience and I learn every day.

Internally, my blog has spread through word of mouth and has given me the opportunity to connect throughout the world with HP people who have a passion for web 2.0 and are driving innovation in all corners and levels of the organization. Here is one recent example of a HP viral marketing campaign that I discovered through my blog. I have also connected with HP Labs and discovered the great research they were conducting around word of mouth and social networks.

Roland: When did you start your blog? And can you give me some numbers (posts per month, number of visitors from inside and outside HP)?

Eric: I started my blog in April and my traffic has been increasing every month since. I have approximately 10,000 visitors every month, mostly from outside of HP. I post on average once a week, which allows me to focus on going deeper in the topics/insights vs. just reporting news or what other bloggers say. My blog was recently recognized as the #3 CMO blog by the Daily Fix Blog published by MarketingProfs.

Roland: Has this blog changed your work by reducing the ‘distance’ between you and your customers?

Eric: It has not changed my work per se, but it has allowed me to keep up to speed in a much more effective manner with the most critical marketing innovation developments by writing about new concepts, putting them to the test of the blogosphere and engaging with fellow bloggers.

One of the most interesting and rewarding experiences was getting recently together with leading marketing bloggers and sharing thoughts around the opportunities and challenges of blogging –- we wrote a joint post and cross-posted on all our blogs and it was really well received.

Roland: How many HP executives have a blog now?

Eric: Nine executives have a HP hosted blog but many more have their own blogs outside of the HP platform. A great example is Phil Mckinney, the Chief Technology Officer for our PC business[, who writes the Killer Innovations blog.]

Roland: And how many HP employees blog outside from the official platform?

Eric: It is difficult to say as many have personal blogs talking about their family or hobbies. Clearly many employees have their own blog outside of the HP hosted platform; I think it is a great thing as it helps employees better understand what blogging is about and how they can use these new communication platforms in their work.

Roland: Is there a corporate blogging policy?

Eric: Yes, we do have a corporate blogging policy and guidelines in place. I strongly recommend that every large company have one, even if they don’t want to start their own blogging platform. The blogging policy is structured around 6 key guidelines and best practices to help HP employees make the most of blogging’s potential.

Roland: Time is often an issue with blogging: how do you find the time to do it? and how much time do you spend between reading, researching and writing? Is is part of your official job?

Eric: Time is clearly a very difficult issue, which I personally struggle with a lot. I tend to write on planes or in the evening. I usually take a few weeks to write a post, coming up with the initial idea though reading or by connecting with somebody and develop my thoughts over a period of time. Each post takes approximately 2-3 hours to write if you add up the various pieces. Blogging is not part of my official job but driving marketing innovation is and I view blogging as an enabler of that responsibility.

Roland: Besides writing about marketing issues, do you use your blog to stay in touch with other French people living in Silicon Valley?

Eric: Not really… Most people do not know that I am French! Shhhh… But it’s a great idea!

Roland: Besides that, are you happy to live in the U.S? And do you plan to return to France one day?

Eric: I really enjoy living in California. It has an amazing combination of business innovation and great outdoor lifestyle. I would have a hard time living elsewhere…

Roland: Are you hooked to blogs? Could you stop blogging tomorrow?

Eric: I am definitely hooked; I have come to realize how much quicker I get the information I need and learn about new trends. More and more mainstream media journalists get their news from blogs and it is already old news when I read it in the newspaper. I think I could stop blogging but I cannot stop reading blogs.

Roland: Do you plan to use sometimes your blog as a promotional tool, like Jonathan Schwartz does implicitly for Sun from time to time?

Eric: Do you mean for example when Jonathan blogs about publicity stunts (read my answer)? :) I do blog about HP initiatives when I think that we are doing something cool in marketing.

Roland: Where is going HP now that IBM sold its PC division to IBM? Do you want to be #1 and replace IBM?

Eric: According to financial analysts and some media, HP may well be the largest technology company by the end of this year. [For example, you can read “Tech Has A New Top Dog” (BusinessWeek Magazine, June 19, 2006 issue).]

Roland: Finally, do you have a message to deliver to my readers?

Eric: Learn more about the blogosphere (personally and as marketer), understand its power as well as its shortcomings. Is there too much hype? OF COURSE! However remember the hype surrounding the first wave of dot-coms, remember the craze, remember the crash but remember also that Google came out of this period and changed for ever the landscape of advertising.

Roland: Eric, thank you for taking the time for this conversation.

Sources: Eric Kintz, September-November 2006; and various websites

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Taraneh Razavi is not your ordinary physician. She’s the doctor at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, where she’s in charge of maintaining the Googlers in good health. But she’s also interested in how tech trends affect our health and preventive care in general. A few months ago, she started a very well-done and informative blog about these subjects, Dr. Razavi’s Good to Know Info. And she was nice enough to answer my questions about her multiple activities and how she feels about blogging while working at Google. Below is a transcript of the long exchange I had with Taraneh, who wants to make the world a better place.

Roland: Why did you start your blog? Did you only want to help Google employees or other people in the world?

Taraneh: When I started working at Google, I realized that I had a “captive” audience (that is, I could reach out to employees via general email) whom I could update on health information. It was easy to see that Googlers — and every one else in this industry — works very hard.

Despite our best efforts at Google to create options for balancing work and play, sometimes Googlers neglect preventative measures to health — that can take a back seat to their work because they are so engaged. So they need reminders to take care of themselves. I also realized that those who go to the Internet for medical information often came to me with invalid or confusing information.

So I started by sending general health advice — about ergonomics at work, dealing with stress, advice for people who fly a lot, and so on — to employees via general email. Sergey Brin is the one who suggested writing the blog so that others could benefit from it.

Roland: Did you start your blog just after being hired by Google or after several months?

Taraneh: I started it after a year. I didn’t even know what a blog was when I started at Google. I felt like Dr. McCoy on the Starship Enterprise, a little out of place. However, a Googler named Simon Field helped get me started, and now I rely on three others in the company when I have questions about the high-tech aspects of the blog: Karen Wickre, Eric Case, and Todd Markelz. Initially my posts were featured on the official Google Blog, but as I started writing more posts, then I created my own blog under my own name.

I was glad to have started with the official company blog as the legal department made me aware of the possible liabilities involved with offering health advice to the general public. I was fairly naive about those implications, but now I know about the importance of making the right disclaimer in the blog itself.

Roland: Blogging takes time, especially when you have to deal with health and to check your sources of information. Do you blog on your own time or during the 20% of the working time allowed by Google to its employees to work on personal projects?

Taraneh: You are so right about the heavy time requirement especially for health topics. I reference everything so that takes even more time. (Apparently this is not done too frequently on health and medical blogs — backing up opinions with current research is more labor-intensive for sure.) I do it on my own time.

When Sergey first suggested blogging to me, my response was half jokingly, “What, more work?” But now I’m hooked. Not to be a “company woman,” but what makes me willing to spend the extra personal time is the genuine idealism of our founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and their goal of making the world a better place. It’s easy to be on board with that. Unfortunately I’m too busy at work to have that extra 20% time.

Roland: Are you happy with your blog’s traffic (inside and outside Google)?

Taraneh: I didn’t have any expectations when I started the blog. I am happy to have any one read it, even one person, although I put so much work into it that it would be nice to have as many people as possible read the information.

At this point I know that I’m reaching more people on a daily basis via the blog than I can reach by seeing patients at my office. Sometimes I check Google Blog Search and other blog search engines to see how far and wide my posts are being linked – that’s exciting. I believe I have had about 60,000 hits since April.

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Taraneh: Yes, I have been overwhelmed by the amount of positive feedbacks that I have received. That also helps to motivate me. Here are a few comments.

• “Hello, I have been reading your blog for a few months and felt that perhaps I should let you know that I appreciate it. Thank you for taking the time to inform those of us who may not have knowledge of the information you blog. I enjoy reading your blog and look forward to move to come.”
• “As a former public health nurse epidemiologist…I am thrilled to see this type of info online. Way to go Dr. Razavi! …”
• “It’s so awesome to have a real doctor amoung [sic] us!”
• “I too am new to your site and it is wonderful! Such awesome info! I wish I would have had this info when my family was camping last year. My husband had a “tick attack” and it was pretty scary when you don’t know what to do. Great job!”

Roland: As people don’t read a blog for a long time (15 seconds according to Jakob Nielsen), how can you be sure that people REALLY read your advises?

Taraneh: This is a good question. I was not aware of this 15 second rule. I will have to make the blogs even shorter which is very hard to do when I’m trying to explain medical information in layman’s terms. I suppose that most of the regular readers are going to the site because they are interested in this particular type of information so they are more likely to read the complete blog.

Then again, even in my office, I’m not sure that all of the advice is heard. There is a study that says patients in doctor’s offices (even if they are physicians themselves) only hear 20% of the information that is given to them. At least with a blog they can always go back to it.

When you receive Google employees in your medical office, do you hear people telling you “Don’t talk about what I have on your blog”?

Taraneh: No, no one has asked me that. Googlers seem to be all for sharing information — as long as it’s done anonymously, in the case of medical information, of course.

Roland: Are there any particular health problems at Google because of long working hours or because of the food now that the star cook has left?

Taraneh: Actually we have a number of chefs now, not just one, and many cafes. All of them focus on healthy food now, less junk food, less salt, etc. I have found the chefs to be very responsive to any suggestions that I’ve had. There is also a nutritionist on staff with whom I discuss the menu occasionally.

I think that the long working hours is the plague of the Bay Area, and possibly all technology companies, and not just of Google. As mentioned earlier it often leads to neglect of preventive health measures and a more sedentary lifestyle. I think that one of the reasons that Sergey wanted me to start this blog is that the health problems Googlers may be developing are shared by other companies.

Roland: I’ve seen on your blog that you seem to enjoy quizzes. Are these posts more popular than regular advises?

Taraneh: It depends on the topic. I think people — especially those who are in this industry or in the blog world — may pay a little more attention to this format.

Roland: Speaking of quizzes, did you have to solve some math puzzles or riddles before being hired?

Taraneh: No, I did not, although I know that some people are asked these types of questions. If I were asked a riddle then I would have had to ask them a medical question :)

I have to say that I have also benefited from having a blog. By writing the posts, I reinforce the information that I have read, and I am more motivated to read after a long hard day at work.

Roland: Taraneh, I want to thank you for the time you spent with me — and for the long hours of work you put to publish your excellent work.

[Note: if you want to subscribe to Taraneh’s news feeds, here are the links to her RSS feed and to her Atom feed.]

[Disclaimer: As I didn’t want Taraneh to get into trouble for publishing her views outside Google, I’ve asked her to be sure our exchange would be approved by her company. So this interview has been read by Google PR department.]

Source: Taraneh Razavi, August 3, 2006

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Howard Rheingold is the well-known author of Smart Mobs and many other books describing the evolution of our societies. His last book predicted the transformation of our society into a mobile one. Four years later, and with thousands of posts published on the collective blog organized around this theme, his forecast is more than confirmed. As one of the futurologists who can detect the emerging technology trends behind our daily lives, I wanted to know what Howard is thinking in 2006. And he was kind enough to agree for an interview which was conducted by e-mail in mid-June. Below are large excerpts from our exchange.

Before starting this interview, you need to know Howard. Here is a recent picture of him talking with his students (Credit for photo: Justin Hall).

Now, let’s listen to Howard.

Roland: Can you tell us about the major changes you saw during these four years?

Howard: On the mobile front, we’re seeing explosive diffusion of the basic technology, the mobile phone — close to three billion of them now, in a world with six billion people. More than 100 million of the phones are also cameras. A trillion SMS messages in 2005.

And of course the use of these technologies to mobilize collective action continued after my book was published — the citizen journalist service OhmyNews coordinated a last-minute online get-out-the-vote campaign that tipped the Korean presidential election, and the Spanish elections were also tipped by a phone-to-phone text message campaign.

The rise of the blogosphere, the Howard Dean campaign, the emergence of Wikipedia, continued growth of open source software, the success of James Surowiecki’s book “The Wisdom of Crowds,” the publication of Steve Weber’s “The Success of Open Source,” Pierre Levy’s “Collective Intelligence,” Yochai Benkler’s “The Wealth of Networks,” the rise of citizen journalist and citizen news-sharing sites like Digg and Reddit, the role of text-messages in breaking news of the SARS epidemic in China, the dramatic cameraphone images sent directly to the Web from the site of the London tube bombing, the collective emergence response online to the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina disasters, the role of blogs and SMS in the civil disturbances across France in 2005, the success of YouTube and Google Video, del.icio.us and Flickr, are all evidence that smartmob phenomena continues to grow.

The power of the technologies packed into mobile devices continues to multiply, the diffusion of devices to all parts of the world and socioeconomic strata broadens, the spread of knowledge about how to use technologies to organize political, economic, social, cultural collective action quickens.

It is in the convergence of the technical, cognitive, and social forces generates that the real power of smart mobs — for both constructive and destructive.

Roland: Do you think that some parts of the world are left behind this (r)evolution? And is there anything we can do with things such as $100 PCs or $20 phones?

Howard: Inexpensive phones and pay-as-you go services are already spreading mobile phone technology to many parts of that world that never had a wired infrastructure. In terms of the people who had been left behind by previous technology revolutions, the mobile phone has already reached more people from more different walks of life than the PC or Internet did. As chips grow more powerful, even the least expensive phones will become cameras and Internet terminals.

The most important benefit of affordable PCs, phones, and bandwidth is encouraging the growth of literacies in the use of ICTs for the purposes of the poorest people in the world. The diffusion of the physical technologies is already being driven by the market.

Roland: Do you have any recipes for a better world, regarding such issues as energy, environment, education or even politics?

Howard: Pay attention. Practice compassion. ;-)

Of course, I believe that open technologies like the Internet promote innovation and provide political, economic, and cultural opportunities to entire populations that used to be reserved for elites, and I fear that the current efforts by incumbent wealth and power holders might successfully enclose what was once open.

Extension of copyright into every realm, digital rights management building control into cultural products, trusted computing baking control into the hardware itself, the death of net neutrality recentralizing control of the formerly radically decentralized network — all these battles in political arenas, financed by huge amounts of money, are going the way of the powers-that-be.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently democratic in new media. Many-to-many communication and commons based peer production will produce social and economic capital only if large numbers of people understand what is at stake in these esoteric techno-regulatory conflicts and take the power that is temporarily theirs into their hands and do something with it.

Roland: Where will we be in 2010? Do you see a new massive trend emerging (or more than one) affecting the whole world?

Howard: This business with climate change is going to be a lot more obvious, the odds of very big terrorist or natural disasters goes up, and it isn’t at all clear whether authoritarian states will be able to use the surveillance powers of our otherwise wonderfully empowering and democratic communication network to institute systems of control far more effective than Orwell’s obsolete visions. Much will depend upon which way the battle for open systems goes.Openness and participation are antidotes to surveillance and control.

Roland: What is the future of your blog? and of the blogs in general? Do you see something new coming?

Howard: I maintain more and more blogs every year. ;-) I am the cheerleader for two communities of bloggers (including yourself, of course): smartmobs and cooperationcommons. I use wikis for the courses I teach in participatory media at University of California and Stanford. I use social bookmarking and phototagging and video sharing services every day. I certainly hope something new doesn’t come along too quickly. I still need to get into podcasting and web video. Anything more will require doubling the number of hours in my day.

Roland: Can you give us some tips or advises about the immediate future?

Howard: The enlightenment is under attack. Wake up to the necessity for preserving democracy, science, and open access to the means of cultural production and distribution.

Roland: Do you plan another book? If yes, what will be the subject?

Howard: Not yet. I’m concentrating on continuing to catalyze an interdisciplinary study of cooperation and collective action, and creating curricula for teaching young people about civic engagement through the use of participatory media. I think I have another couple of years to go before I’m satisfied in either of those realms. But you never know!

Roland: Thank you Howard. And I sure hope to read your next book before 2010!!

[Disclaimer: I’m a member of the editorial board of the Smart Mobs blog where I wrote a weekly press review.]

Sources: Howard Rheingold, June 15, 2006; and additional links

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Marie Cousin is a journalist for L’Express, one of the most prestigious French weekly news magazines. And for three years now, she has been part of a team of five journalists writing the section “Réussir”, which talks about the working world as seen by employees. In August 2005, the team decided to start the collective blog of Réussir with the ambition to deliver fresh information not available in the paper version and to open a conversation with its readers. I recently met Marie to ask her if this collective effort was running smoothly. Here are some excerpts of this conversation (in French).

Jérôme Colombain is a journalist at France Info, one of the stations of Radio France, the French public broadcasting service, where he handles several audio columns focused on new technologies, such as Nouveau monde. Of course, he’s perfectly aware about the existence of blogs and this is why I wanted to ask him what a veteran journalist thought about this phenomenon. Here are some excerpts from our conversation (in French).

After a break of several weeks, here is a new interview with a woman who also is a blogger. Nawal Zerrouni writes a culinary blog, Les Casseroles de Nawal and also teaches biology (’blogogy’?) while having a background in biochemistry. Her blog is not specialized in French cooking. You’ll find Indian, Tibetan or Algerian recipes there, depending on her mood or what’s available on the market where she does her shopping. I’ve spent a long moment with this explorer of the cooking world and here are some selected excerpts from this conversation (in French).

Jean-Michel Billaut was a major contributor behind the adoption of new technologies — including Internet — in the French banking industry. Here are some details about the man who founded L’Atelier twenty years ago. Jean-Michel is now promoting the usage of broadband technologies for communication. For example, he’s actively counseling the Pau Pyrénées community. Besides that, he has a very live blog. I met him at the beginning of August to ask him about his projects. Read below some excerpts of the conversation I had with him (in French).

Christophe is a well-known French consultant and expert in communication and in new technologies. He was one of the founders of initiatives such as elanceur or Crao Wiki. He also has a blog named Encore un nouveau WikiBlog! Here are some selected excerpts of a conversation I had with Christophe this week and which was particularly focused on wikis. Read more (in French).