Ross Mayfield's Weblog

The Speed of Language

Academics will tell you that language not only evolves, but at an accelerated pace in smaller groups.  They should know, look to any arcane discipline for multi-syllabic excess.  Or just read on with blogs and podcasting and whatever else we invent and adopt tomorrow.

This presents a problem for linguists and search engineers.  Estonia is a small country of 1.5 million residents who have preserved their language despite English, Russian and Finnish.  Language changes so fast that my wife has to make a point of explicitly asking her friends about new cool words.  Now imagine engineering a translation engine in this context.  The market for the product is relatively small, uh, by definition.  There are no authoritative sources for what is new.  What you define can be an artifact of history by the time its enshrined in code. 

Now there is Old Estonian, in which many epic tales were written like Kalev, and New Estonian, the formal modern language.  They barely resemble each other, an evidence of change.  At some point there needs to be a release numbering system for small languages 2.0.

Smaller languages don't have the benefit of Google Translate and Bablefish services that are bringing the world together faster than ever.  Some in Estonia have been working on this problem, first by measuring and identifying the speed of language.  The approach is to anonymously mine streams of SMS and other text traffic, isolate and measure new language.  In order to fund this core technology, some initial development was supported by PR and advertising firms, of similar value to new startup that track meme propogation.

Markets.  Conversations.  'Natch.

Globalization was supposed to gradually meld all languages and English was to rule the world.  This is partially true with the English-centric Internet.  Especially as the market of language flocks to liquidity, as Google and others are commoditizing language.  But the countervailing force is our desire in groups of all kinds to create our own language for sake of efficiency and expression.

Because we make markets in words these days there is an opportunity for public/private/non-profit sector collaboration to aid global understanding while supporting native languages.  Major Search companies have made an effort to localize which is directly in their market interest.  But I happen to believe that if you simply give greater relevance to native language search results you are not doing the world or user a favor.  It very well be that a blog post in Esperanto is exactly what you are looking for, today you will never know, and a long tail advertiser would be happy to help you along your way. 

But while those in the long tail of language invent their own at increasing pace, the top 20% homogenizes.  Foundations and eelemosynary individuals (philanthropic) could contribute to the development of, say, Google Translate between Estonian and English, but the fundraising cost and IP issues may never allow this to happen.

So for now, its the domain of smaller more nimble and perhaps self interested social entrepreneurs to do it themselves.  They will invent their own language, which you will surely be speaking one day.

Dinner in London

Care to join me and some great people in London for dinner November 16th?

Big and Small Tallinn

Further proof that Tallinn is the ultimate blend of a capital city and a small town. When I had two hours before a dinner, I strolled through Old-town to Nimeta Baar. Nimeta, or "No Name" is a Scottish expat bar I frequented some ten years ago and played on their soccer team when the ground wasn't frozen solid. Ran into an American who I probably last saw at the same bar. He had moved back to the States sometime in-between to work with a software company for a year and a half. What's great is his company let him move back to work remotely by broadband and help cover European time zones. Then ran into another American who originally came here on a business school exchange program and a Scot I knew who was just visiting as well. Somewhere around eighty percent of the expats I knew ten years ago are still here, for darn good reasons.

Apparently, despite the weather, I am here at a good time. Tourism exploded in recent years, and in the summer Old-town becomes a suburb of London or something. This summer should be even more extreme, with Easyjet.com offering $50 round trip tickets out of London and Berlin. Prices are noticeably different than ten years ago because of tourism, EU entry and uneven growth.

While Old-town has managed to curb development to retain its medieval feel, the changes in the Skyline and streets are dramatic. The good people are still largely the same and living a great life.

Microfiments

When in a hotel in Helsinki, Sonera's wifi service required you to pay by credit card by the hour for wifi. That doesn't sound so bad, except when your hour is up it terminates you without warning, say in mid-Skype. You have to fill in a form and your credit card info again. And again. And again. And...you get the idea.

Leaving Helsinki

Had a wonderful short trip in Helsinki. Was mostly work, although I did get to stroll through the City center in the dark. People often think that the Finnish and Estonians are a closed and cold people, but when you have gained their trust, they can be the warmest friends you could have. Possibly its because they live in cold climes, but its mostly a reflection of their history.

Estonia was caught on the wrong side of history for 50 years. A false line drawn by FDR, Stalin and Churchill at the close of WWII as a concession that turned a Scandinavian people into a Soviet colony. Actually, Estonia's history is marked as being between world powers with the fact that despite their roots as a people extend further back than almost any other culture (5,000 years), they have been occupied by the Russians, Germans, Swedes, Lithuanians repetitively. It will take years before the physchological impact of living within a system that turns even family members against each other. But there is a certain modesty that perhaps precedes the extension of trust that many cultures can learn from. Before regaining their independence, many hacked together antennas to receive Finnish TV signals, so when they had an opportunity for capitalism they knew what they wanted.

Finland had its own shocks to deal with. They have had to live with the threat of Soviet invasion during the same period, but also had to cede territory and war debt that burdened the economy. This burden forced significant changes from what was an agricultural nation into an industrial and now information age state. They had to develop their own military capabilities in absence of of explicit defense by the West. Today both nations require military service, mostly training they call a "walk in the woods," that has luckily remained peaceful.

Both nations have glommed on to technology as a path for the future and have some of the highest rates of internet and mobile penetration in the world. Again, this may be because its so cold. The view technology as a social mechanism to bring people together on dark nights and days.

Its an odd time to visit, even my wife from Estonia passed on the trip. Not just because of the weather, but because people have a yearly mood cycle that gets worse until Christmas and peaks on mid-summer's day. I am unsure what my brief trip to Tallinn, where I once called home, holds for me. But I am already awash with strong feelings as I recall the things I loved.

Perhaps the most disturbing scientific discovery I learned of this year makes me fear memories. Every time you recall the past you rewrite it, layering on some impressions from your current context. I treasure my memories, but oddly feel that when I use them I may loose as much as I gain. Sometimes I find myself even hesitating to take pictures as they frame what I will be able to recall so vividly.

Now neurotechnologies hold the distant promise of being able to have perfect memory. This of course may be undesireable, specifically if it is not able to block out memories of pain as a side effect, which is a wonderful attribute of how the mind works. But as the cognitive capability extends itself, the emotive capacity to process it needs to evolve as well.

For now, I'll risk my memories with fresh experience. Its been far too long.

Serendipilights

Just before I boarded the plane from London to Helsinki, I updated my Treo RSS newsreader.  I was reading Doc's post about how visible the Northern Lights (Look for Auroras NOW) were and then the captain of the plane said something about how he was dimming the lights and to look outside to the left.

Lo and behold, there were the Northern lights at 30,000 feet somewhere above Sweden.  Grabbed my camera and took a picture.

Then realized turning the flash off would be a good idea.

 

Ed points to the Flickr northernlights tag

Cal-IT

Cal-IT is the leading Europe-Silicon Valley technology event. Hosted by the State of California in association with the European Technology forumand produced by C-net, it brings select startups to meet potential European private and public sector customers, partners and investors. The format is a combination of a couple of primary session track, showcase company presentations and intensive back-to-back 1/2 hour meetings. Most of my time will be spent in meetings and providing a showcase, so I will not blog the whole event, but I thought I would blog the opening Keynote.

Barry Sedlik, Undersecretary, BTHA, State of California

Its called Cal-IT, not Oklahoma-IT or Arkansas-IT, for obvious reasons. Shwarzanegger due to come next year (apparently busy on a trade delegation to Japan). Talks of the need for reduced regulation, particularly for startups, specifically workers comp regulations which increase the cost of business. The ability to keep and attract the key asset of an IT business, its people. Housing costs in excess of $400k median costs makes it difficult to recruit. Governor's approach is to systemically address housing and transportation together. Trying to encourage onvergence of industries, such as the entertainment and aerospace/military for advanced visualization for example. Califronia is open for business, for technology the place to be. Basically, there isn't that much that he could say specifically, but you have to love his conculsion: Please take a look at these companies, buy their stuff, which will help put money in the tax register, something we need right now.

Eric Benhamou, Chairman of Palm Computing

I've had the opportunity to hear Eric talk at two other conferences before, usually on Palm. Eric also runs Benhamou Global Ventures The topic was the dynamics of the global IT industry for the past few years and looking forward. A journey from sharks to opportunities. Churchill: the opportunity behind every difficulty.

The Market shock. Short Palm and Long on 3com was a good trade when the market collapsed, but meant things were crazy. Most of the crash was in the telecom industry: wrong infrastructure capacity and products. Led to a tarnishing of the image of technology and luddites have had their revenge. IT managers focused on cost reduction, less innovation concerns not only in large companies but with VCs. Started a movement of offshoring and outsourcing, driven by cost reduction concern. Most who outsourced and offshored for cost reduction, but the best result is opening markets. In the process of close encounter with these markets we discovered an emergence of a large middle class eager to consume.

The Enron shock. A breach in trust. Dramatically altering a way of life for public companies, compliance reform (SarBox, led to a raft of new companies), running companies requires competence.

The Terrorism shock. Added insecurity, desire to behave conservatively, transaction costs in general (not just lines in airports, privacy/security tradeoff, need for every company to contribute resources to the effort). The rise in terrorism coincides with the rise of cyberterrorism, created opportunities, but changed how people viewed their IT assets.

Beyond the shocks, new equilibrium and prospects for growth. Prospects for enterprise IT spending are on their way up. A week ago, Gary Beech survey 8.7% spending increase. Last 12 months of the survey have shown incremental increase. Some segments are going through double digit growth, some with shrink

Cyclical upgrade of our IT investments. First since Y2K. This time, faster 1G switched inseead of 100Mbps. Shifting to voice and video.

Security undergoing dramatic growth. Shift from broad based solutions to special purpose purchase. Fragmented landscape and a long time until security infrastrutures get put in plac 2003 80% more attacks than in 2002, in 2004 should be as steep in rate of increase. Budgets will increase 40-50%.

Storage not just for compliance, but full information economy requires. Network attached. Fundamental change with i-scuzzy to allow disks to be network attached.

WAN optimization. LAN and the core of our public networks have been optimized, while WAN lagged. Pressure to accelerate applications across WAN links.

Insatiable appetite of the consumer has powered us for the last four years, as everything has become digital. Now mostly broadband connected. Continued growth because we are increasingly mobile.

Mobility and communication are the two most foremost characteristics of IT going forward. This year we will have found more Smartphones produced than PDAs. Selling more Treos than PDAs. Full music collection while on the go, iPod is a revolution, full solution that triggers a lifestyle change is becoming available. Consumption of digital music will be a $2B market in 2006, more through subscriptions (hello Podcasters!) than track purchase.

Carriers have suffered the most from cap-ex debauchery. Used to spend 15-17% of budget on cap-ex, 25-30% during the boom on the wrong things. This created opportunities for others, and just now recovering, now they are investing in infrastructure again for two reasons: Triple play (voice, video and data) & Wireless infrastructures. Wifi, WiMax, WiMedia has broadbase grassroots acceptance, integrated by standard bodies. End point cost is already paid for. Phones will support it, carriers don't have to worry about it. They have a 10x advantage.

Innovation is back. In large companies, but mostly in small companies like the ones presenting here. Back in a different way, the business models have changed, the geographies of interest have shifted outside the valley. China and India can teach you about adoption. Good balance betwen top and bottom line growth. Better business people and entrepreneurs.

Why don't we feel better about this? Danny Camelon (sp?), psychology of economic agents. Losses loom longer than gains. Sometimes its good to take a step back and look at where we have come from as the prospects look better today.

One of the best moments of the conference for me so far was talking with Eric last night. Especially when he demoed his Treo 650 for me. Compared to my Treo 600, the camera is substantially better, keyboard more usable and Bluetooth is supported.

Buying Differences Between the US & Europe
* Moderator: Allyson Stewart-Allen
* William Archer, AT&T
* Mike Kaul, diCarta
* Don LeBeau, Aruba Networks
* JP Rangaswami, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
* Lee Roberts, FileNet

What do European clients value most? Is it location, length of years in business, price/value, IP, marketing?

William: combination of factors, not unlike the US. they value scale of capabilities, presence infrastructure, depth of capabilities. Value IP when its applied.

Mike: as a smaller company, the question is if you can support the software? Does the software accommodate how things work differently here? Slight reluctance to be the first one to adopt. Just because it has been done 10 times in the US, doesn't mean it works here.

Lee: Europe is heterogeneous. Wants lots and lots of pilots.

Don: Relationships. When building Cisco worldwide in early 90s he lived here for a year as a message to the market and to learn the market. Certain trust developed. Awareness of the need to be present.

Lee: 80% of technology migrates from US to UK to Europe. SAP is an example of an exception.

William: willingness here to try some different things. Whereas IP and managed services are hot topics in the US, receptivity to try and invest in services that we see in the US. Engaging the network industry in more than connectivity, but services. Opportunity to extend your proposition.

JP: While people have indicated heterogeneity and risk e, there is a growing sense that things are changing. A removal of two classes that stood in the way of the buyer, used to be reseller and consultant driven. Can you support it? If you can, come and show us, then lets work on a pilot. Difference is less willingness to accept hype. We are a much larger show me state. The intermediate class is being driven out.

Lee: Rate of absorption varies by country. Interrelated but different markets. In the US its the land of marketing and hype. Here there is less hype and more delivery. Customers focused on facts.

Don: Historically relationships were with intermediaries. Some of that influence is declining. Channel or distribution partners still matter, but it requires more of direct presence. When you win over these relationships they are longer lasting.

Mike: Getting established in Europe has been more challenging because we are not the incumbent. We have learned by evolving, have to have presence here. Have to have people familiar with the markets and customers. Genuine investment in infrastructure and presence. Element of a global firm that has invested here and is committed to being here. Sensitive to things like pace, cultural dimensions.

Lee: 35% of Global 1000s are European, a different market that needs to be addressed differently.Companies are demanding not just the software, but the service being delivered directly themselves. A major shift from 5 years ag

JP: Markets are conversations, many times between nationalities. Once we allow for disintermediation aspect, people in Europe require more patience. If you are a startup in Europe, only trade sale was SAP. People need time, not because they are dumb, but their own transitions. Consumption model isn;'t entirely stable yet. The outcome may be more tangible and longer term That patience isn't always present.

Mike: The Show Me in the US and Europe is still based on relationships. Time spent with you and confidence in you is just as much of a factor in lots of dinners and more scotch than I had cared to drink to close our first deals. We are smaller and deal with F100s. They say our software works, but a certain sense that I need to look you in the eye and hold you responsible. Building and retaining is hard for a 150 person company because its resources. Everyone wants the CEO to be the executive sponsor, but others need to take responsibility. I have to make it seem there is an entorage behind me, but there isn't. I can only choose so many relationships.

Lee: Not that much of a difference between larger and small, European companies want to be more conservative, but when they make a bet it gets sticky. A rate of time of progression. Financial strength and viability. Reducing number of vendors. Not a radical difference between countries either.

Don: Retaining customers has to do with service and support. You win loyalty when there are problems. The harder it is to respond, the better it is when you do. Tech wins you the relationship, the support builds the relationships.

JP: Europe is constructed with a large number of relatively small market. Negative inference of the market can spread. Speed at which non-delivery spreads. Reputation through delivery.

Don: Bootstrapping. High end product with a unique support requirement led us to look for partners that are an extension of the service and support model. Otherwise I have to replicate what others have. Partners with the local market to extend your presence

Mike: Grow the market or penetrate in partnership with customers that are in accordance with your strategy.

Don: Having local presence instead of trying to replicate your US sales culture in a local market. Can start in the UK and service other markets. Would be difficult to do that from France. But beyond the pilot organization, you need to build local presence and have them translate American requirements such as time cycles.

William: local, local, local. Demonstrate you are investing and committed. Every detail: collateral, using language, translation, presenting as a global firm or an appendage to a US firm, 4Ps.

Lee: Operate globally, think locally. US quarterly sales pressure needs to translate. Don't over extend yourself trying to be IBM when you are a startup. Over committing and under delivering is bad. Establish a beachhead.

JP: Historically the reliance on the partner and local footprint and channel, hardware required it. Today, I need merit to be the sale. I will find ways of consuming the merit. The accents of the people on the panel (5 US and an Indian) would not have happened five years ago. Consuming post Internet generation, what I am buying is merit. If something is good, you can change the rules. Make sure your product is great, everything else follows.

Mike: Centralized control and decentralized execution has to be balance, but as you expand globally its mostly the latter. In enterprise software, the complex sale and solution, bringing forth the merit is a difficult task. In the trenches is where it all works.

Question: If you were a company of 200 people in CA with one bridgehead possibility into Europe, where would you place that salesforce?

Mike: If not, UK, translate from Northern and Southern Europe

Lee: If manufacturing based solution, go to Germany, If more universal or horizontal, start in the UK as is traditional. What are you trying to sell and who is your target market.

Question: American advantage/disadvantage. The character of the company is more starkly visible. They wear their hearts on their sleeve.

JP: It is of value to me that I can understand the culture of the firm Company ethos helps select if the company is congruent with my objectives as much as my management styles. Relationship not just a contract. Easier with US companies.

On to meetings, may not blog much more about this event.

Exit Shock

The shock of exit poll data mid-voting in voter choice implied a Kerry lead moved the markets on November 2nd. The traditional media value chain had oligopolized exit polling to a single contractor. The end product enabled competition between a handful of outlets to compete on risk-taking analysis of their call (the shock of early calls four years ago on public opinion told them to focus on their models) and a blend of entertainment and crisis communication. Each owned their broadcast distribution leaving little competition and innovation.

What they didn't anticipate is bloggers arbitraging their market of information, by acquiring what was scarce to replicate and distribute without cost. The economies of speed, span and scale blew right through the proprietary editorial gateways of traditional media. Expect the next election to have us focused on citizen to citizen polling, and the media business diversifying its information portfolio. Regardless of if you think the result this time was good or ill, it happened -- twice.

The exit poll on voter rationale framed the mandate. "The top issue (21%) was "moral values"; 78% of those who cared about that went for Bush, 19% for Kerry."

Jeff Jarvis:

First, the exit polls are proven now to be utterly, laughably discredited.

Second, know that in polls such as this, who the hell is not going to say that "moral values" are important? If you say that taxes are more important than "moral values" then you'll fear that Jesus is going to come into the polling place smashing the tables of the vote counters.

Third, if they'd asked what "moral values" means, they would have found a nation divided; it's a vague as air.

Jeff goes on to discuss moral values, the role of government, separation of church and state, Postrel's point of duty-based voting, and puts the liberty back in libertarian and liberal

I believe until the left (and center) can define its moral values, at this point -- pragmatic principles -- Bush will have his moral mandate.

The other shrinking half of voters now are faced with how to live under mandatory means. Some will fight, some will flee. Some will remain undecided, or at worst, indifferent.

Political exit has people running to Canada, where we are warmly invited. At a certain point of its a rational choice to be a political refuge. This is why our nation has harbored so many, why at will employment is humane and conversely, why we should value resignation by leaders.

But fighting, without obstructing, on the principles we stand and within the rule of law is our democratic and American political duty.

Looking back at what just happened, barring media reform, what's really at stake is the structure of parties. Bush won on message with top-down imposition. Kerry lost with outsourced organization targeting messages at polled affinity groups.

Note clearly that Kerry did not loose with grassroots self-organization. That energy faded into entropy with only its attention economics left in an active state. The Bottom-up base never had its day.

David Weinberger:

Who would have thought that such a young technology [blogs] would rise so fast to such prominence?...

1. Let's not let the energy of these new democratic muscles were flexing just dissipate; let's keep at it;

2. Blogging the truth about your life and being there to inspire or give permission to other people to be do that, or simply giving them the encouragement to be BRAVE and try things is what the blogging infrastructure we're building is all about;

3. We need to study what happened with all that momentum towards citizen democracy in the Dean campaign, understand why it wasn't channeled into electing Kerry and not let that ever happen again.

The Kerry Campaign was a failure of middlespace. The Dean Campaign broadened participation with conviction. In a moment of weakness, the Democratic party co-opted it into what they thought they could manage and package. All social movements dissipate, some connections remain, but without renewal they are easy to suppress by appealing to a more consistent and empowered national identity.

Now, in a shock, the party will revisit closing the ranks under a message with conviction. The good thing is this will give some think tanks some good work and we may develop some language to explain ourselves. Party organization is another potentially more open matter. The leadership has left the building and those that can build a following, nay, a network, have an opportunity.

Shock is good, as it gives us new history to model and it prompts decisive action.

Individuals react poorly to shock. It clouds their decision making as overreactive fear prevents taking risks. This is why it critical for traders who deal with turbulence regularly to separate their cognitive and emotive selves. Entrepreneurs learn from failure, make do with resources and experiment at the margin.

Groups can react well to shock. One time shock like 9/11 provides and enemy to rally around, develops social capital (parlayed adeptly by Rove into political capital) and actually strengthen communities.

Shock is not good is when it is sustained. The seminal field work with an Appalachian community dealing with a dam burst and Yale Sociologist Kai Erikson's subsequent work, showed how sustained tragedy tears apart social fabric. I have always wondered how much the difference between common shock and sustained suffering is a matter of the pattern of pain inflicted, or if communities adapt.

I fundamentally believe that democracies, markets and organizations learn from what you could call mistakes or fat tails or exceptions. I am optimistic that will make us better, the question is when.

Homeland

Four years from now, in all likelihood, abortion will be banned, there will be a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, stem cell research will be outlawed and the right to privacy will have no underpinning in federal policy. We will have regressed our civil rights while our society and science fails to advance. Theocrats will swiftly end the separation of church and state.

Regressive taxation, health care and other policies will widen the income gap. Not only making working class Americans poorer, but harming our longer term economic interest.

But social and economic issues were only campaign issues in disguise, covered in a shroud of fear.

Carl Rove masterfully awoke the nationalist strain of America. He made foreign policy a domestic issue in the heartland with a single word, Homeland. This isn't your mother or father's land, it strikes at the heart of all your fears of change. Turning fear into fight against devils and evil. Solidarity trumps social issues and economic self-interest. This was a stunning defeat not just for the left, but a mislead center.

So I'm leaving the country.

Not expatriating quite yet, however tempting to give up, but going to Europe this weekend. And I will have a lot of explaining to do. Europeans understand nationalism and have largely resisted its temptations for some time now. Now I wonder if if its Europe's time for manifest destiny of social progression as an economic superpower. After all, they do not have over-extension of empire and a defense burden on their economies, so Europe can continue to peacefully address structural issues of their economies. Perhaps the war economy will catch up with the US and global economic competitiveness will be a domestic issue again.

The details are yet to be known about how votes were counted, how ineffective the outsourcing of the ground war by the Democratic party relative to other forms of organization, and why youth and blacks didn't get to the polls. More importantly, why doesn't the left have a base?

I have faith, nay, conviction that Americans in the Heartland support civil rights, liberties and well-being when they are not framed as Northeastern Liberalism. Progressives have moral values, we just fail to communicate them. Perhaps it will take a sustained attack on our women and our wallets to open minds to change and find ourselves. There we may find a base to actually mobilize.

Change doesn't have to wait for elections. While the polity is engaged there is an opportunity to enable civic discourse and sustained pressure on those on power. Issue by issue. Building a base is not an exercise for every four years, it requires turning voters into activists so you can count on them when it matters most. The only hope for politics in America is participation.

Bah