To Be Black: Don’t Miss the Forest for the Trees

I have not really said much about the whole TechNigga ‘controversy’ and now I will throw in my 2 cents into the shuffle, lost in the din and clatter of all the ‘racist’ and ‘anti-racist’ speak. If you’ve had your head in the rocks, or have just been avoiding the situation, TechNigga was a video-parody by 1938media’s Loren Feldman, who, because of the video, Valleywag called ‘The Don Imus of Silicon Valley.’

I’d like to preface this by three simple statements.

1. Perception = Reality, especially in the United States of America. The way you perceive yourself, is exactly the reality you have then created, altering your paradigm to be viewed through that lens. Your perception is your reality, but it is not necessarily the reality of the situation.

2. You can’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes. I don’t understand how people all over the tech blogosphere are arguing about the integrity or character of a few choice individuals. This concept to me, is actually quite laughable, the idea that you can accurately have a bead on a man or woman based on one video, one blog post, one photo, one e-mail conversation is frankly quite absurd. Relationships are very dynamic and complex. People, are very dynamic and complex, and it often times takes several days — but more often months and years — to truly get to know somebody.

3. As a good friend of mine used to say — ‘I am very racist. I believe in the human race, and very much prefer humans over any other race or species.’

I was recently moved to speak after reading Hank Williams ‘The 2008 Definition of Racism‘ and also ‘Self-righteous protesters kill video blogger’s deal with Verizon‘ written by the Industry Standard’s Jason Golson.

Both of them, while clearly passionate, both miss the marks of what I believe to be their common goal — moving the ball forward, honestly and opaquely in a calm, collected, open dialogue.

Hank, who writes from the perspective as an older, wiser blogger who has been around during the civil rights movement, argues that racists are now anonymous and underground, and that the term racist has been sanded down such that only an act of extreme and palpable racism can be called such:

Unlike in 1964, the year I was born, today few people are comfortable being labeled as racist. The successful tactics of protesting, boycotting, and social and pressure have been incredibly effective in applying shame to the label.

Unfortunately, in demonizing, racism, we have done two things. First we have driven the unrepentant racists underground, and into anonymity. And second, we have sanded down the meaning of the term so substantially that almost no acts committed by those outside the underground anonymous can be categorized as such.

He’s also concerned about those who say that the video was not ‘a big deal:’

But the most troubling group to me, as I discussed on Monday, are the ones that just don’t think this kind of material is a big deal. They believe blacks are too “thin skinned” about this stuff. “What’s the big deal, it’s all in fun.” Or to protest is violating Feldman’s right to free speech. This group fascinates me, and as far as I can tell, it a not inconsequential percentage of the tech blogosphere.

And although he is right when he says ‘words matter,’ he concludes that racism is more than the obvious hate, but the subtle words and actions, accepted and defended by his peers and fellow countrymen.

This was my (first) response:

Hank,

At the end of the day, I feel this article does nothing to push the conversation forward.

There are two reactions to be had to this — affirmative or negative, and for obvious reasons one would expect there to be a lot more affirmations than negations.

This whole racism meme is well overplayed — it’s not that it does not matter, it’s just that it doesn’t, won’t, and shouldn’t have that great effect on anyone.

In this epoch of human history, it is a times painful (and at the low point in the last several hundred years, VERY painful) to be a black. The recent era in the years ensuing the civil rights movement, it is very livable in the United States as a black. The internet is no exception — you can start a web business, you can earn money, you can profit, you can secure a liquidity event, you can blog, you can comment, you can generate user content, you can connect with friends, you can peruse, you can browse, you can learn.

The internet is not restrictive to black people, just as it is not restricted to most of the western world.

What new pain point are you solving for then? You personally have been very irritated by a) the actions of a few and b) the reactions of many who felt that the actions of the few were not a big deal.

The pain point to me seems to be your emotions and reactions and does precious little to generate noteworthy conversation that will move the buck forward. It is simply a type of discussion where the ‘good’ people affirm, and the ‘bad’ people (probably anonymously) negate whatever you have said.

There is no idea generation, no problem to be solved, just one man of one color with a big axe to grind in light of the personal context of his history.

In an interesting action, Jason posted a comment on Friendfeed, that incited some interesting dialogue, asking ‘where are the prominent black tech bloggers,’ the Scobles and Arringtons of the tech world

To this I replied:

“I think the most important thing is in fact not to distinguish by skin color, gender, eye color, or any other physical characteristic.

Om Malik is a well-known blogger. Is he a well-known Indian (guessing) blogger, or is he just a well-known blogger. Mike Arrington is a well-known blogger. Not a well-known WHITE blogger, but just a well-known blogger and entrepreneur.

Is Will Smith a well-known actor, or a well-known black actor? Judging by the success of all his movies (he has the $100 million golden touch) I would say he is a well-known actor, regardless of his skin color.

The more you focus on any physical or genetic distinction, the more you miss the big picture. America is about equal opportunity. Not just on websites and employer contracts, but that for many from all over the world of whatever background, America levels the playing field. Is it perfectly level? Of course not. Never in history has everyone been born into an equal situation, even in all-white societies, all-red societies, or all-black societies and cultures.

We don’t focus on color except when it comes to blacks. I rarely see commenting or post concerning Om being Indian, Jeremiy Owyang being Korean (i’m guessing), or Loic being French.

Don’t miss the forest for the trees.”

And Hank tells me:

I fear you are too young, too sheltered, and too “internationalized” given your family background, to have an accurate perspective on what race really means in this country. Like Clarence Thomas, inadvertently or otherwise, you serve here as an apologist for those who wish to make racially (or religiously, or sexually) driven policy or perspectives acceptable, which is truly unfortunate.

To which I respond as such:

Hank,

I’ve been discriminated against by parents of a white girlfriend, friends and family of a Puerto Rican girlfriend, slandered and spited in my travels to the Dominican Republic, and singled out in the Army — all for the color of my skin.

I’m young, sure, and I’ve been to a few countries, black, white, Latino, and others, and have seen a few things in the World, as well in this country.

I’ve stayed in Camden, NJ — the worst city in the US a few years running — Baltimore, and also towns where the make-up was mostly White — Boulder and my home town.

While it’s great for you to presume that you understand where I’m coming from given a post you read and a brief meeting, you are far off the mark.

For a black to tell a black who has lived his whole life in this country that he does not understand ‘what race really means’ in this country is absolutely absurd. Do you think people look at me and think ‘here comes an African — his parents flew on a plane and didn’t come in slave ships.’

For 99% of the American populous, black=black, and for this reason I am speaking out. I fear many will take your words as the words of ‘the black guy’ — the Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton who sits on Fox News or CNN, and is the voice of the black people. I want to make it clear to those on the web that you are not the voice of the black people, but rather the voice of one man, deeply conflicted who has seen much through a certain taint, good or bad.

I will say that in this flick, you are the angry black man that every movie-goer knows to watch for — the one who is easily offended, defiant, rebellious, and generally violent.

Physically, maybe not so, but it is clear that this issue wears deep to your soul.

The more you talk about ‘race’ the deeper the hole you are digging. Instead of being defined as American, or as an entrepreneur, or as a blogger, you are caging yourself in, being defined by the color of your skin, something so inherent and hereditary, it takes generations to strike from your line.

It’s not about being a ‘black tech blogger’ or a ‘tech black blogger who happens to be black’ it’s about the inability to see the forest for the trees.

When you think about Obama, do you think about him as the democratic nominee for President of the United States, or do you think of him as the BLACK candidate for President of the United States.

The distinction is very important. Your perception defines your reality, and I believe, unfortunately, that in this case your perception, your paradigm, is severely tilted.

One of his technology advisors is an advisor for my startup. He is White, probably of Polish descent for his last name. When he became an advisor as a startup for my team (which also features another black guy) it wasn’t about charity, it wasn’t about his color, and it most certainly was not about my color.

That is the whole point I’m trying to make, the forest I want to paint for you, that you miss for the trees.

It’s not about being black, and the more you make it so, the worse it is for blacks everywhere. The more people think of Obama as a ‘black’ President and not just the ‘President’ (if he were to be elected) is worse for this country.

As one who has grown up around racists and race-neutral people alike, I can guarantee you the best multi-cultural relationships that foster community, collaboration, and friendship happen from those who are color-blind.

Oh they may realize you are black, or I may realize they are white, yellow, or red, but it’s not the White Elephant in the room, it’s simply not an issue. It’s about who you are and what you bring to the table as a human being.

I understand your zeal, I understand that you were raised in a time that may have pre-dated some of the commenters and writers (including myself), and I certainly understand that you come from a different paradigm and worldview than many of us –including me myself.

This is why I say your conversation is not moving the buck forward — it is not moving the buck forward for black people, or any other minority or ‘oppressed’ group that suffers for a pre-determined physical, hereditary, or social characteristic.

I don’t know Loren Feldman. He could be racist, he could not be racist. His friends suggest that it was satire to prove a point — and I think by the discussion this has generated, his point was well taken. I’d like to give people the benefit of the doubt and think that he is a good guy who likes to poke fun at people, and like anyone who likes to poke fun at people will oft do, some of those he pokes fun of do not like it at all.

My reaction to the video?

My point is that it does not matter. It does not change my life for the better or for the worse. His words matter. My words matter. All our words matter. But watching the video I thought it a ridiculous caricature given by the point of view of someone who either a) doesn’t like black people or b) doesn’t know that many black people, or c) knows black people and doesn’t realize that some (possibly many) will be offended..

Thought I often talk about certain issues from the point of view of a black person (such as my most popular writing, ‘Why Black Nerds are Unpopular.’ but I like to speak from the educational point of view. I think that is what I find so disappointing about Hank’s post.

While I completely understand his sentiments, I don’t see how taking a hardline stance against a video like this is a long-term win for anybody. I’ve always found, that when dealing with those who have a predisposed paradigm that causes them to view (insert here___________ ; black people, homosexuals, females, Indians, Mexicans, illegal immigrants, et. al) in a negative light, usually one around intelligence and the ability to put out top-notch work, whether in business, a certain field, or school…(deep breath) the best thing to do is to shut them up.

I strongly believe that in America, unless someone is visibly infringing upon your right to pursue your own endeavors, dreams, and goals, the best practice is just to let it go.

Let.It.Go.

We, black men and white woman, brown gay and red atheist, yellow muslim and pink Christian — we are all one human race.

It’s my hope, that as one of the nations that so violently adheres to the ‘one nation’ principle, we would bury our axes, and live our own lives without the distraction to the left or to the right…

and try to walk a mile in each other’s shoes’.

Why Black Nerds are Unpopular

I recently purchased the book Hackers and Painters, a collection of essays written by Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham.

The first chapter,‘Why nerds are unpopular,’ is probably the single, most cogent analysis I have ever read on the social hierarchy of middle and high schools across America (although, as I will point out later, this is definitely not unique to the United States).

Paul’s experiences mostly correlate with American ’suburbia,’ and as my high school — located in Central Pennsylvania — is actually a short trip away from his, I can’t imagine the two are entirely different.

While many have posted responses that both affirm and challenge Paul’s experiences, I decided, however, to take a different approach with my reflection on his essay; instead drawing out some of the more pertinent points, and applying them to the Black Nerd culture.

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular…in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?

I would say, as a young black male, there is a strong inverse correlation between being a nerd and black, and being popular. I’ve seen many black friends who are fairly intelligent that were mediocre students in high school, and either failed out or were equally mediocre at the University level. Why? Popularity is, as Paul mentions, often times a choice of priorities — some sacrifice intelligence for popularity — and for blacks, this probably happens for 9 out of every 10.

Despite our different sets of diagnostics to accurately peg intelligence, the term is generally ambiguous, but at least on the Paul Graham scale of smart, I would put myself on the lower end of the super nerds. I was a National Merit scholar, easily figured out how to beat the standardized tests (don’t we all), and in the military scored a perfect score on the ASVAB, the Armed Force’s versions of the SATs, and twice was offered appointments to West Point, the US military academy. Intelligent, but by no means one of the brightest of the people I’ve met — I’m not even the smartest in my own family.

But my intelligence didn’t make me popular, in fact, in the black sub-culture of my high school and town, any sign of great intelligence is to be avoided like the plague.

So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don’t really want to be popular…But in fact I didn’t, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Nerds serve two masters. They want to be popular, certainly, but they want even more to be smart. And popularity is not something you can do in your spare time, not in the fiercely competitive environment of an American secondary school.

In the black culture, popularity may be even more important than in the typical American secondary school that Paul describes. I would say this is due to numbers — because black people are so few in comparison, the number of popular ’spots’ available, greatly declines, and there is little to no chance of slipping through the cracks unnoticed, blending in, as there might be at a typical suburban American high school. In a white school, a black will stick out obviously for the color of their skin, and even in an urban, pre-dominantly black school there is a higher degree of emphasis based on popularity than their white counterparts.

For blacks, it goes above and beyond just clothes — sneakers (Air Force ones, Jordans, etc.), jewelry, hairstyle, shape ups, belt buckles, chains, tattoos, diamond studs, do rags, fitted caps — which makes popularity that much more exclusive and more difficult to attain. If you ever watch a black family (and this holds trues from Latinos whom I’ve spent time with as well) they spend much more time worrying about the material and outwardly appearance — driving the right car, clothes, accessories, hair, etc. Paul alludes several times throughout the essay (and indeed, in his response, ‘Re: Why Nerds are Unpopular’) that these experiences are more present in American high schools, but I would beg to differ.

My dad, born and raised in Nigeria, once told me a story. When he was growing up, his family was poor, really poor. So poor, in fact, that he did not receive his first pair of sandals until he was 14-years-old, which, ‘even’ by Nigerian standards signifies near abject poverty. He missed more than a few years of school working on farms in order to raise money just to complete high school. The schools, still adhering to the British system, enforced a uniform dress code. My father’s family only had enough money for him to own one uniform, which he wore day in and day out for an entire school year. With a bit of wear and tear, he developed a hole in the bottom of his school shorts roughly two hands across.

Needless to say, not only was my father not popular in high school, but he was, of course, picked on for not having adequate clothing. One would think that in a uniformed high school society, such as an Anglican school like my father’s, the dress code would make clothes less important, but I’ve actually found the inverse to be true. In travels to Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Nigeria, Kenya, and the Bahamas, I’ve seen the school clothing emphasis devolve into belt buckles, shoes, jewelry, hairstyles, tattoo, headgear, etc. The dress code is only a pretense at uniformity, kids will just spend several hundreds of dollar on accessories instead of clothes.

My grandfather gave my dad a piece of advice: ‘Don’t waste your time chasing girls, just focus on your studies, score high marks and when you are successful, the girls will come chasing after you.’ Sure enough, when he aced the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), scoring what was thought to be the highest mark in the entire region, he was offered full scholarships … and the girls came chasing.

So even in some countries outside the US (and I could give more examples), being popular and being intelligent are usually mutually exclusive, and popularity is just as important and time-consuming as it is in America.

The popular kids learned to be popular, and to want to be popular, the same way the nerds learned to be smart, and to want to be smart: from their parents. While the nerds were being trained to get the right answers, the popular kids were being trained to please.

An interesting phenomenon I’ve witnessed in the lives of my black friends, is that their parents give much lip service to the importance of education, graduating from high school, college, and graduate school, yet they do not reinforce this with their actions. The black kids who are trying to be popular did indeed learn it from their parents (or older siblings, who themselves learned it from their parents). One of my best friends’ dad takes him shopping one or two times a month — shoes, clothes, suits, accessories — he wants to make sure his son is dressed to impress.

I’ve never once seen his dad invest in a book, or some other apparatus that would lend itself to learning — yet his dad will claim with his words that education is the most important thing for a young black male. While I have not grown up with this particular kid since childhood, it’s hard for me to imagine he was reading books, playing with flash cards, or engaging in other educational experiences at an early age. Most likely he was given the hottest action figure toys, sat down in front of a TV, and dressed up to be a handsome little tyke.

In fact, he, like most of my black friends, looks at me askance whenever I talk about reading books. You might think that reading were an incurable virus from the way they look at me with a book in my hand.

This would seem to reinforce an article that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly comparing consumption expenses of blacks and whites.

On race, the folk wisdom turns out to be true. An African American family with the same income, family size, and other demographics as a white family will spend about 25 percent more of its income on jewelry, cars, personal care, and apparel. For the average black family, making about $40,000 a year, that amounts to $1,900 more a year than for a comparable white family. To make up the difference, African Americans spend much less on education, health care, entertainment, and home furnishings. (The same is true of Latinos.)

For my family, however, it has been a different story. When my dad was growing up, there was a keen emphasis on perfection in education. If he scored a 99 on an exam, his father would not congratulate him, instead ask him why he was lazy and missed the last point. He was however, the first and only of 10 siblings to graduate from high school, subsequently university, all the way through Ph.D. While my dad was not that stringent and overly-concerned about 1 grade point with his own sons and daughters, both parents have made it absolutely clear my whole life that high marks in school is top priority. My older brother and sister taught me to read when I was very little, and we didn’t play with action figures or watch Barney, we read books, practiced flash cards, and did word problems with my dad. For my next door neighbors, also Africans, they never owned a video game system, didn’t watch much TV, while instead were encouraged to do mathematics, science, and reading from an early age — as both hobby and school.

Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they’ll tend to become nerds.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) this is where my path diverges somewhat from Paul’s. While I wouldn’t consider myself to be possessed with a movie star-like appearance (and I wasn’t the sibling of popular kids), I was what many would call a ‘natural athlete.’ Personally, I detest the term natural athlete, as it implies, as Paul refers to in his comment about drawing, that it is something innate, that I was born with, upon which I have nothing to improve. Conversely, I have spent hundreds of hours honing my skills and abilities in various sports, and was fortunately able to draw fruit from my labor while still in high school.

For example, most people seem to consider the ability to draw as some kind of innate quality, like being tall. In fact, most people who “can draw” like drawing, and have spent many hours doing it; that’s why they’re good at it. Likewise, popular isn’t just something you are or you aren’t, but something you make yourself.

My athletic prowess, looking back on my high school years now, was probably one of the few things that allowed me to attain a fair measure of popularity. As a junior I started on the varsity football team, and, even though a grade ahead and therefore a year younger than most of my comrades, I anchored my high school relay team to one of the fastest times in the nation, for which we were recognized as National High School All Americans. I was even lucky enough to get recruited by some Division I schools for athletics.

That, however, was high school. As Paul writes, the worst stretch for most kids is junior high, somewhere between eleven and fourteen years of age. And so it was for me as well.

Because I didn’t fit into this world, I thought that something must be wrong with me. I didn’t realize that the reason we nerds didn’t fit in was that in some ways we were a step ahead. We were already thinking about the kind of things that matter in the real world, instead of spending all our time playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the others.

This, too, could be said about black nerds. We’ve been trained by our parents — or come to the realization ourselves– that the current system is severely broken, and we’re merely biding our time, working the system, while not focused on our immediate surroundings (popularity) but rather on future gain (learning from other really smart people and/or most likely figuring things out on our on.)

Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it’s damaging even to the winners.

Very much so (damaging) to the black, non-nerd counterparts I know. Sure, some of them will become professional athletes, although only one or two I know, and neither success nor happiness in life is determined by one’s intelligence,however, of what I witnessed, mediocrity is a shell that few break out of.

Many of the popular kids, having sacrificed learning and building on their intelligent nature, are set back for years, from which many never catch up. What Paul doesn’t mention, is how the emphasis on popularity can be cyclical — if the desire to be popular, or conversely intelligent, is mostly learned from one’s parents, than logically if you weren’t a nerd than your kids won’t be either, and this is what I’ve seen amongst my black friends.

Realistically, I should have used the term ‘African nerds,’ because almost all of the smartest black people I know were either born in Africa or are first-generation Africans. On my neighborhood street alone, there were 8 black kids — all first generation African — and between us eight, 5 or 6 of us were National Merit scholars, two went to MIT for computer science, one to U Chicago, four others offered full scholarships to a number of universities across the country, and one even got a perfect score on her SATs, the only one to do so from my high school in recent years (that I”m aware of at least.) Between our four parents, three have attained a Ph.D in their respective fields.Keep in mind there were maybe 50 to 60 blacks in a graduating class of about 650, in a high school that has roughly 2800 people.

I’d like to think that there are black nerds whose families have been raised in the US generation after generation, but personally, I just don’t know of many. The only other black girl in my graduating class that was fairly intelligent — a nerd — was also first-generation American, although her parents were from Jamaica. Even that one guy running for President is a first-generation black nerd. This isn’t to say that aren’t many generational black Americans in the US, I just haven’t come across many –from Camden to Baltimore, and Colorado to Pennsylvania.

I would go so far as to say that the lack of black nerds is probably a cause for major concern, but within the scope of this writing, possibly too large a problem to properly address, although certainly an interesting one.

Logically, this discussion might lead to the question ‘Where are all the Black Entrepreneurs?,’ but I think that’s better left for another day.

(Some interesting discussion on Reddit and Hacker News).

Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Ken Robinson on TED

“Why don’t we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. “We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. It’s a message with deep resonance. Robinson’s TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? “Everyone should watch this.”

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government’s 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.”

Road Not Traveled.

After talking with a friend who had a tough decision in front of her, I was reminded of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not traveled” an excerpt from “Mountain Interval.”

1. The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

The iPhone Rapture: Apple Bias in the Media

(Disclosure: I own an iPhone and am extremely satisified with the device; so much so, in fact, that I have considered purchasing a MBP in the near future. It is my first Apple device ever — no, I never owned even an iPod.)

Not too long ago, I wrote a post exploring whether or not there exists an apple bias in the media (loosely defined as bloggers, journalists, TV anchors, etc.):

The media at large are enthralled with Macs and all things Apple — a major media outlet like the NewYork Times, a tech blog like Techcrunch or VentureBeat, or even a college newspaper.
Mac seems to represent not only the hip and elite, but smart, intelligent, and free-spirited — all superlatives we as writers love to associate ourselves with, even if only by brand.

Or as Stuff White People Like humorously remarks:

On the surface, you would ask yourself, how is that white people love a multi-billion dollar company with manufacturing plants in China, mass production, and that contributes to global pollution through the manufacture of consumer electronic devices?
Simple answer: Apple products tell the world you are creative and unique. They are an exclusive product line only used by every white college student, designer, writer, English teacher, and hipster on the planet.

You’ll see post, post, after post, after post, after post, after post, after post, after post by the devout and faithful Apple fans, but none of them are as honest as Mike Arrington:

So while I agree with Charles Cooper that Apple may sometimes get more press, and more compliant press, than they “should,” I think he and others miss the (much) larger point: Apple, and Steve Jobs, stoke our imagination in a way that no other technology company has ever done. Apple is about elegance, design, and potential, and we love them for it.

And he knows he’s got drunk on that Apple kool-aid:

I’ve been to enough Steve Jobs keynotes now to know that the man is able to take a crowd and bend it to his will. Every time, I’ve been a willing subject - sometimes (but not every time) to find myself in a hangover-like state a day later when I try to remember exactly why I thought that whatever he was pitching would change my life forever.

That’s why I like reading Mike’s writing: if you’re gonna be biased, be open and honest about it, and people will love you for it:

I love the iPhone for the same reason I love technology in general, and loved Disneyland as a child - it drives my imagination and makes me wonder what kind of magic to expect next. Also, it just works

This may be akin to those olds Apple Jacks commercials where the kids would always say “we eat what we like.”

The perfect reason for having an Apple bias? Nope.

An open and honest answer? Yes, sir.

For the rest of you Apple-toting fanboy press, tsk, tsk, tsk, try a full disclosure.

Is There an Apple Bias in the Media?

There was an interesting discussion today on Hacker News, generated by a post by Matt Maroon, simply titled, ‘Vista is Good.’

He certainly has an interesting lede:

As Apple fanboyism has spread throughout the tech publications, so too has Vista-bashing. In short order it went from being the Windows operating system that even Mac users were digging to the biggest mistake Microsoft ever made. The major media outlets who in tech, as with a lot of niches, take their cues from the blogs these days, have slowly followed suit, though they’ve been much more guarded about calling it a disaster.

Considering that most of the hackers (or at least those who comment) use OSX, Ubuntu, or some other variation of Mac or Linux-based OS, it’s not surprising that the general reaction was so hostile.

Partially because so many are drinking a bit too much haterade, but Matt brings up an interesting point that some consider “trolling”:

I am of the opinion that much of the tech media is held in thrall by Steve Jobs and is abandoning their job of fair and balanced reporting because they want to have early access to new iPhones and iPods. (In fairness, I blame Jobs as much for having that policy as I do for them abiding by it.)

Is there a bias favoring Apple in the Media?

Absolutely, positively, yes, in both the tech blogosphere and the mainstream media.

While covering tech for my school’s newspaper, I had an interesting conversation with my editors. I had asked them if I could cover CES, and they blankly stared at me asking “is it local — how does it affect our students.”

I tried to explain to them that it’s the biggest electronics show on the entire continent, and they gently rebutted me for its lack of local relevance.

The very next week, I get a breathless call from my editor, advising that I follow the MacWorld expo keynote by who else, but Steve Jobs. The next day, as soon as Jobs unveiled the MacBook air I was immediately buzzed by my editors, frantically asking that I round up a few student quotes and get into the office pronto to start hacking an article together on the earth-shattering news.

CES? No go. Not local enough.

Macbook Air released? Top priority. Also not local.Macbook Air

What was the difference? Why my editors, of course, are Mac Fangirls. They simply love and adore Mac. One of the pair got an iPhone for Christmas and was as attached to it as Gollum was to the ring.

But, you say, ‘it’s just one college newspaper — how does that demonstrate an apple bias in the media?’

For the weeks following the Macbook Air release, I could hardly go to the NYT website without seeing three or four articles PER DAY about Steve Jobs, Macbook Air, Apple, or all of the above. It was, in a word, digusting.

Even with all the ridiculous amounts of hype and coverage, I doubt a random person on the street would have any idea what a Macbook Air is.

‘A Macbook what?,’ they’d say.

But of course, an $1800 laptop isn’t targeted at the average person, because the average person is not stupid enough to pay nearly two thousand dollars for a product with the functionality more aptly valued at $500. So even with all the fawning coverage (and not as much advertising as, say, the iPhone) the Macbook Air is still, to the vast majority of Americans, an unknown quantity.

When I was at the O’Reilly Money:Tech conference in New York, I was more likely to see a blogger or journalist with an XO than a Windows-powered computer. Most all, of course, were sporting the glowing apple.

To my knowledge, not one of my VentureBeat cohorts owns anything but a Mac. I’m not positive about Matt Marshall, but Eric, MG, and Anthony seem to be hard-core Mac users.
Young, Hip, Intelligent. Using a Mac in a cafe.

How, then, can you ever expect an unbiased article when referring to Microsoft or Apple’s products or OS’s?

You can’t and you shouldn’t. (which, imho, is why I think each biased article should be preceded by a disclosure, unless, of course, if you’re reading TC which is thankfully openly biased.)

The media at large are enthralled with Macs and all things Apple — a major media outlet like the NewYork Times, a tech blog like Techcrunch or VentureBeat, or even a college newspaper.

Mac seems to represent not only the hip and elite, but smart, intelligent, and free-spirited — all superlatives we as writers love to associate ourselves with, even if only by brand.

Or, as Stuff White People Like puts it:

On the surface, you would ask yourself, how is that white people love a multi-billion dollar company with manufacturing plants in China, mass production, and that contributes to global pollution through the manufacture of consumer electronic devices?

Simple answer: Apple products tell the world you are creative and unique. They are an exclusive product line only used by every white college student, designer, writer, English teacher, and hipster on the planet.

The issue at hand is not MSFT OS vs MAC OS or Linux OS, the issue is the unfair bias towards Apple in the media.

There are certainly worse bias’ to have, and from someone who has an iPhone, I’m not an Apple-hater by any means, but as a writer, I must be perfectly honest … the bias is not only prevalent, but annoying and a bit irresponsible.

But hey, whoever said the media is fair?

What? 53,651 Early adopters traction DNE main stream adoption?

A very insightful post by Dare Obasanjo (a fellow Nigerian).

In his post, reminiscent of the book that he cites, Crossing the Chasm, he lays out a few points why targeting and solving problems for the early adopter crowd does not ensure success, nor mainstream adoption.

First, let’s define the audiences.

Early Adopters are risk takers who actually like to try new things.

Pragmatists might be willing to use new technology, if it’s the only way to get their problem solved.

Conservatives dislike new technology and try to avoid it.

Laggards pride themselves on the fact that they are the last to try anything new.

This drawing reflects the fact that there is no smooth or logical transition between the Early Adopters and the Pragmatists. In between the Early Adopters and the Pragmatists there is a chasm. To successfully sell your product to the Pragmatists, you must “cross the chasm

Some technology trends that haven’t reached mainstream adoption:

*Blog Search: A few years ago, blog search engines were all the rage. You had people like Marc Cuban talking up IceRocket and Robert Scoble harranguing Web search companies to build dedicated blog search engines. Since then the products in that space have either given up the ghost (e.g. PubSub, Feedster), turned out to be irrelevant (e.g. Technorati, IceRocket) or were sidelined (e.g. Google Blog Search, Yahoo! Blog Search). The problem with this product category is that except for journalists, marketers and ego surfing A-list bloggers there aren’t many people who need a specialized feature set around searching blogs.

Social bookmarking: Although del.icio.us popularized a number of “Web 2.0″ trends such as tagging, REST APIs and adding social features to a previously individual task, it has never really taken off as a mainstream product. According to the former VC behind the service it seems to have peaked at 2 million unique visitors last year and is now seeing about half that number of unique users. Compare that to Yahoo! bookmarks which was seeing 20 million active users a year and a half ago.

RSS Readers: I’ve lost track of all of the this is the year RSS goes mainstream articles I’ve read over the past few years. Although RSS has turned out to be a key technology which powers a number of interesting functionality behind the scenes (e.g. podcasting) actually subscribing and reading news feeds in an RSS reader has not become a mainstream activity of Web users. When you think about it, it is kind of obvious. The problem an RSS reader solves is “I read so many blogs and news sites on daily basis, I need a tool to help me keep them all straight”. How many people who aren’t enthusiastic early adopters (i) have this problem and (ii) think they need a tool to deal with it?

Here’s an excerpt reminiscent of what I wrote in my post, Blogger v. Reality: Crossing the Chasm:

1. Just because you wish something to be true, does not make it so.

If you think I’m referring to the great twitter debate, it’s probably because I am. (Don’t know what Twitter is?)

However the one overriding theme is that all of these recent entrants is that they solve problems that everyone [or at least a large section of the populace] has. Everyone likes to communicate with their social circle. Everyone likes watching funny videos and looking at couple pics. Everyone wants to find information about topics they interested in or find out what’s going on around them. Everybody wants to get laid.

If you are a Web 2.0 company in today’s Web you really need to ask yourselves, “Are we solving a problem that everybody has or are we building a product for Robert Scoble?”

That also reminds me of a famed Josh Kopelman quote:

Too many companies are targeting an audience (Techcrunch circa May 2006) of 53,651.

Startup Community: The Chicken or the Egg?

(This is completely unrelated to Kara Swisher’s Chicken or Egg post today.)

A few days ago, I wrote a post that generated a bit of very insightful, relevant discussion to this ongoing push towards innovation, community, and entrpreneurship within IST and the greater Penn State area.

I’d like to talk about what has been accomplished.

1. Several Penn State companies have launched within the past few years and are on their way to being successful.

2. In the last year, the formal entrepreneurial community has had a big boost via Lion Launch Pad, Blue Lion Networks, Invention 2 Venture, Ideablob, Ideapitch, and a few news-worthy events for Penn State co-founded teams.

3. In the past few months, the informal entrepreneurial community has had a big boost via blogs like IST Building, Matt Maisel, PSU startups, and get-togethers, like the one we had at the Indian Pavilion. With ideas like one Varun has been tossing around about informal TED gatherings to watch and discuss the videos, I’m sure this will only grow in the next months.

4. Next year will kick off with not one, but two, major startup events for the community.

5. A major VC firm is opening up an office in State College.

(Just kidding on no. 5)

No doubt about it, for a ship this big, no matter how hard you tug on the sails, it takes a long time to get it moving in a different direction, but I believe the steps are being made.

It’s important, however, that we not point to the small successes as proof Penn State is headed in the right direction. I often find, the more you lean on past successes, the more complacent you get, thinking that you’ve done enough already, when that is rarely and hardly the case.

That said, one interesting discussion point is the Chicken vs. Egg debate.

Does the chicken — (this case a Venture Capital firm/ major business plan competiton, and in general, an entrepreneurial platform that can support and help create sustainable businesses)– come first, or is it the egg? (Egg being a successful company that launches).

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, of which I’d like to share snippets before I provide my own thoughts.

The title, interestingly enough, is “Facebook Ignites Entrepreneurial Spirit at Harvard” and here are some excerpts:

Egg:

Mr. Adler is just one of the Harvard students who have caught start-up fever since Facebook, founded when Mr. Zuckerberg was at Harvard in 2004, exploded in popularity. Other recent Harvard-born start-ups include Internet companies Kirkland North Inc., Drop.io Inc. and Labmeeting Inc. And Facebook has become a model for these start-ups on many fronts, from the look of company Web sites to their corporate strategies.

“I would not hesitate for a second to say Facebook’s a motivator,” says Paul Bottino, director of Harvard’s Technology & Entrepreneurship Center. “Facebook creates would-be Facebooks.” He says a start-up contest this year attracted 55 entries, up from 10 to 18 for past contests.

It takes time …

And the idea of a college start-up culture isn’t new to Silicon Valley. Stanford University leased land to Hewlett-Packard Co., started by Stanford alums, as far back as the 1950s. Today, Stanford President John Hennessy is a board member at Cisco Systems Inc. and Google Inc., two companies that began as projects at Stanford. Yahoo also began as a Stanford project.

Harvard, though, has long had a relatively sleepy start-up culture and has shunned a cozy relationship between academics and industry. “Harvard is very noticeably behind,” says Paul Graham, a partner at Y Combinator, a Cambridge, Mass., and Mountain View, Calif., company that invests in start-ups, including Scribd and Kirkland North.

Chicken:

Now, Harvard is taking steps to get ahead. In 2000, the university loosened a rule prohibiting students from running companies from dorm rooms, but it still required that start-ups notify the university of their existence and “gain approval.” Last year, it discarded the notification-and-approval rule, although some restrictions still exist.

In the past eight years, Harvard has introduced more classes, clubs and contests for entrepreneurs. Mr. Bottino says those decisions weren’t directly related to Facebook, but he acknowledges that Facebook’s success has given Harvard students a more-entrepreneurial bent.

I personally believe the process runs in parallel; that is, it’s not a case of the Chicken or the egg, but rather a bit of both.

The push to entrepreneurship happens, from within the student community, graduate community, faculty community, and general region community meanwhile the entrepreneurs themselves, like Boxtr founder and PSU student Rory Spangler, continue to build successful companies.

Without a doubt, a college-focused world-wide product like Facebook would increase interest at Penn State, but I argue 10 successful smaller-scale companies would have the same impact, if not the same use.

All that said, and I must say I am not particularly concerned for selfish reasons whether or not PSU engenders a successful enterpreneurship jumping pad — I plan on turning the company I recently co-founded into a successful, sustainable business, whether or not a single Penn State company ever forms.

That being said, I believe firmly in an equal playing field (although I realize the world is not a fair place); I believe every person, and most definitely every Penn State student, should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams, and more importantly be encouraged to reach those dreams and have a platform to do so.

For those particular ones with the entrepreneurship bent, let’s hope we can all keep building a community that will see that platform be built.

You Could Hear a Pin Drop

If any of you know me personally, you probably know my feelings for the army run pretty deep. While I don’t necessarily agree with the implicit reasoning of most of the material below, the last statement should blow you away, and at least give you a deeper understanding for why I have so much respect for Armed Forces.

A friend at the Air Force academy, whose two parents are both Lt.Cols in the Army, forwarded me this from an email her dad sent:

When in England at a large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of ‘empire building’ by George Bush. He answered by saying, ‘Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying ‘Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?’ A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: ‘Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have? ‘

You could have heard a pin drop.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, ‘whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.’ He then asked, ‘Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?’ Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied ‘Maybe it’s because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn’t have to speak German?’

You could have heard a pin drop.

AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE…

A group of Americans, retired teachers, recently went to France on a tour. Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane.. At French Customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. ‘You have been to France before, monsieur?’ the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. ‘Then you should know enough to have your passport ready.’ The American said, ‘The last time I was here, I didn’t have to show it.’ ‘Impossible. Americans always have to show your passports on arrival in France!’ The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained. ‘Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in ‘44 to help liberate this country, I couldn’t find any Frenchmen to show it to.’

You could have heard a pin drop

What Is A Veteran?

A “Veteran” — whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve — is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount of “up to, and including his life.” That is honor, and there are excessively many people in this country today, who no longer understand that fact.

Full Disclosure

Let’s start with a Wikipedia definition.

Phrase: Full Disclosure

[In] Journalism, full disclosure refers to disclosing the interests of the writer which may bear on the subject being written about, for example, if the writer has worked with an interview subject in the past.

There is nothing that bothers me more than bloggers, journalists and writers who don’t do full disclosures. Even at VentureBeat, disclosures are inserted at the bottom of the article.

That’s why I was pretty excited to see Fred Wilson’s post: “Three Reasons to use Disqus”:


First, I’d like to be perfectly clear that our firm, Union Square Ventures, is an investor in Disqus. So I am clearly biased about what I am about to say. Second, I’d like to point out that the reason we made the investment is largely based on my experience as a Disqus user for the past 10 months and the result it has had on my blog/community. Sometimes seeing is believing and it certainly was in this case.

So, with that disclosure out of the way, here are three reasons I think every blogger, certainly every serious blogger, should consider switching to Disqus.

What’s the point of a full disclosure if its at the end of the article/blog post? The reader will read an entire article not knowing that the writer has any reason NOT to be objective.

Then at the end of the article WHAM!

“This post was actually anything but objective, I have a million reasons to be biased about this, but the main reason is because I am an (investor, advisor, user, lover, etc.).”

I wrote an article for the Collegian on the MacBook Air and Steve Jobs’ Keynote. My editors had me ready to go hours before the announcement, hungrily awaiting the Chief Fanboy’s words. No sooner did the Macbook Air show up on the screen than I got a call from my editor telling me to track down some students and get some responses.

Why?

They were Mac fan(girls) of course.

I felt that the article should have led: “Full Disclosure: I wrote this article not because of the momentous announcement of the MacBook Air (because it wasn’t), but because my editors happen to love Apple — one of them got an iPhone for Christmas and can’t live without it.”

I’m sure I’ve written posts on here that don’t need Full Disclosures.

Why?

Because on a personal blog it’s EXPECTED to be unobjective. It’s inherently subjective to my personal thoughts, opinions, feelings, and sometimes irrational judgments voiced in text.

But for a media outlet, be it print, digital, or TV media, all biased writers should start out with the simple “Full Disclosure” at the beginning of an article where they are unduly biased.

If you love Facebook for example (I dunno, maybe your best friends work there), when you write an article about Facebook, you should write why you’re biased, so that readers know to enjoy your article with a grain of salt, knowing you’d defend Facebook to the death.

If you’re an investor, advisor, competitor, or have any reason to be unduly biased outside the bounds of a normal person, you should probably state that in the beginning. If not, don’t pretend to have objective reporting and writing.

I look at Techcrunch, and would never assume that any of the writing is objective. Most of the writers have very strong feelings about the material they’re covering. That’s fine because it’s the general attitude of the entire publication, but imagine reading an article in the NYT by an Obama supporter who is trashing Clinton, or a Clinton supporter who is writing about Rev. Wright controversy.

Shouldn’t they disclose to the readers that they’re in no way objective (not many are, after all) and that you should know they have strong opinions against John Doe candidate.

(Disclosure: This blog is written by a passionate writer, who is objective about very few subjects posted on here.)