(Image by Stirwise)

I recently interviewed Social Media Evangelist/Consultant and woman-about-town Monica Hamburg about one of her areas of expertise: Crowdsourcing. Check it out here in the YouTube version:

One thing this video doesn’t convey is Monica’s terrific sense of humour. You can find out more about that side of her through her blogsite(s). Contact Monica here.

(This post is being submitted to the social media megaproject, started by Vivien at InspirationBit. The Twitter section is hosted by none other than myself at Change Therapy)

Teens not so cyber-obsessed after all – but they’re more social than oldsters

Judging by the results of an Ipsos Reid study released yesterday, Canadian teens aren’t the Internet hogs they’re generally assumed to be.

Findings from Inter@ctive Teens: The Impact of the Internet on Canada’s Next Generation – include the eyebrow raiser that the average weekly time spent online by the 12-17 demographic is a mere 13 hours – a number that hasn’t increased since Ipsos last measured online teen behaviour in 2004. By comparison, Canadian adults are logging onto the Internet for an average of 19 hours per week.

Find out more here at Media in Canada.

Profy, a new player in the blogging arena, provides users with a one-stop web platform for all things blogging. The Profy solution provides a single point of comprehensive access to the full range of activities involved in blogging, from reading and sharing news to publishing posts and networking with other bloggers and readers. Profy’s vision is to provide bloggers with all the creative tools they could possibly want – in one place.

Svetlana and I had been chatting casually in cyberspace for a little while (you won’t be surprised to hear that we talk on Twitter and StumbleUpon, will you?) and had been sympatico right away. The interview was just like that – a warm and friendly chat on Skype, all across the oceans and timelines: Svetlana in Siberia, I here in good ol’ Vancouver.

We talked about culture, learning, the IT gap and other things. Here is the interview:

It’s not about location

IM: What’s it like to be a netizen (“blogospherian”, Anthony said yesterday) in Siberia and be so much at the pulse of leading edge in social media?

SG: This is the only question people are ever interested in asking me usually though I still love answering it again and again

As far as I know it is only after getting to know me at least a dozen of people bothered to take a look at the map and find the city of Novosibirsk, which they otherwise never heard of before you know, it is not very difficult to be a web 2.0 person now, I think – all it takes is a laptop, some place to work, and flexibility because to be able to talk to people you need to be online either early in the morning, or late in the evening (preferably both which I rarely manage myself ) After all, Internet is available in the majority of towns and even small villages here in Russia

It is not exactly about location, being a geek is more a state of mind – as I’m sure you know yourself better than me

Networking: A Different Culture

IM: Last night we had our monthly bloggers meetup here in Vancouver. I really like meetup because it facilitates the “social” in social media BOTH online and face-to-face. Do you have any opportunity to be social with IT people/geeks in your area?

SG: Well, that’s a tough question. You know, Novosibirsk actually is a very big scientific center and we have lots of web developers graduating every year. But the best of them prefer to move to Moscow looking for higher salaries – thus people that stay here usually prefer to establish their own small businesses, like web design studios – there are dozens of them here but they do not have any common interests and goals.

I only know 2 web 2.0 projects (besides Profy) here in Novosibirsk. Other IT people specialize in software development outsourcing – thus they have even more different goals than we.

And this lack of common interests affects negatively the offline communications here. Only recently we have had the first meeting of a Novosibirsk web club – mostly intended for people to finally get to know each other here. But I cannot say it was successful – people are much less open here than in the Western communities. Besides, we are not as good in networking – the habit of networking is only emerging and people often feel uncomfortable with lots of people they don’t know.

And nothing of the Open Coffee type exists here – I tried to offer this format for meetings but it is very difficult to bring bloggers to the same place for a talk – mostly because bloggers often prefer to stay anonymous and use nicknames here.

IM: So it’s a different culture?

SG: Yes, very different culture – very young and only emerging. The IT people mostly started as software and web design outsourcers – things as social media, professional blogging and networking are extremely unusual here.

I guess this is mostly due to the fact that we are pretty much behind you in terms of time – we are here where you used to be some 10 years ago so it is only starting here. So internet is still a rather geeky place in Russia and general mainstream users are only arriving now

IT in Siberia

IM: So what does this do to your sense of location? Where does most of your life take place?

SG: Well, I am mostly here in Novosibirsk – this is where Profy development team is located so my place is here as well. But as any marketing person I love travelling and participating in various events. For example, I thouroughly enjoyed Le Web 3 last December and now that we have launched Profy in alpha I’ll be traveling a lot this year. But still most of my work happens either in the office or on a sofa at home

IM: I bet there’s lots of people in Siberia who don’t know that there is such a thing as a blog and don’t even have email.

SG: You are not particularly right here there are tons of people that have never heard the word blog (imagine how difficult it is to explain to my older family members what my job is) but all the internet users here start by creating an email account. mostly mainstream users use internet for 2 things: checking emails and searching for something.

The IT Gap

IM: You’re obviously quite the pioneer. Were you always like that?

SG: well, now that you ask it, I think yes – though I never considered myself to be a geek here. Though I really was the first among the students of my faculty to buy a cell phone (when they first emerged here in Russia), then I was the first to start using a pocket OC, the first to buy a laptop, etc. This does not mean it was because I had more money than my counterparts – I just preferred gadgets to clothes at the time. Not a very girly behavior

IM: … and how do you explain to your older family members what your job is?

SG: well, I use some traditional categories – like publishing news on a website for blogging and giving people the place to create their own blogs (here I usually need to explain what a blog is finally) for the Profy blogging platform. But usually I prefer to explain that I have an internet business that is pretty difficult to explain

IM: The reason I’m asking this is because I’m quite fascinated by the very wide range of experience and interest people have in IT; this is an issue here, too. Have you ever successfully explained to someone at least the rudiments of what you do, and if so, do you remember what you said?

SG: yes, I once had a whole free evening in a country house and the entire family gathered together. So I used an hour explaining 1) what a blog is and why people blog, 2) how a blog can be a job, 3) how you can create a website for thousands of people to blog, 4) how we are going to make money off it. So it took about an hour but I finally managed to explain it to the entire family all at once. I don’t think there is anything extraordinary in this – provided that you use simple common language and have enough time for explanations. After all, if I don’t explain this to my mother, she will never know what a blog is. And I have so many older online friends from US, Europe and Canada that I think my own mother deserves understanding

IT People Are Lifelong Learners

IM: What’s the most out-there, futuristic thing you’ve ever done, even in IT terms?

SG: I don’t think I have ever done anything extraordinary in IT terms myself (at least nothing that would seem extraordinary to any reader from North America). But I remember once I learned how to edit videos to produce TV commercials using some very complex software I don’t even remember the name now. It took me about a month and I was absolutely happy I learned it – though it turned out I soon changed my job and never used the skill again

IM: I guess that’s part of being a pioneer – being willing to put lots of effort into something that you don’t know whether it’s going to pan out. A lot of IT people are like that, don’t you think? Learn lots of programming languages, applications, etc. – and you end up using only a few. It takes a certain personality for that – what do you think?

SG: I think you are 100% right here – IT people are very different in their willingness to learn constantly. You can always see a developer (even a successful one) reading new books, looking for useful information online, studying new languages, discussing new approaches in forums. Chances are they will never use many of the skills they gain in such a way but if they ever get a chance to apply them, they will feel superior and they won’t need to spend some extra time learning. This is a very special type of mentality – the learning developer

IM: Okay, very last thing then: what’s your learning edge right now?

SG: Well, right now I am too focused on marketing and networking (alpha launch, after all) to be able to get myself any time for learning anything I don’t need right now. My major learning now is in terms of marketing – I read books and blogs focused on internet marketing and promotion and consume tons of information that I need right now to do my job well. But when I do have some free time for learning, I think I would have preferred some offline activity for a change – learning Spanish language, for example. Nothing very geeky

And honestly, I hardly even know HTML, let alone any complex programming languages and tools: I consume web 2.0 as a user and I understand it mainly as a user

IM: Wow, that was an interesting revelation, Svetlana! Is there anything you’d like to add before we say goodbye?

SG: no, I think I would only like to thank you for asking me about the interview. In fact, for me web 2.0 is all about people (not AJAX) – people and the closeness it allows. I have lots of friends around the world I would never have met otherwise and to many of them I actually talk much more than I do to some of my real-life friends. This is what really is precious about web 2.0 and the tools it provides – we are all so very close now it is absolutely amazing. So thank you very much!

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

I’ve read that most of this is great stuff for the early blogger, and only a little of their content is a bit out of date – particularly the reference to paid links and article duplication. However, watch this space and I’ll have a report for you soon!

Meanwhile, you have to give credit to Mark Joyner, once again, for really leveraging the blog universe to draw people to his Simpleology site!

This is a scam. If you get a letter like this, do not pay them any money! The only company you need to be in touch with in regard to your domain registration is the company who you’ve paid originally. Confused who this is? Go to WhoIs.

Now what’s Domain Registration of Canada (or “of America”, “of Europe”) up to? They’re basically a scam, skating extremely close to legality. It appears they have some automated system that goes to WhoIs, finds out whose domain registry is about to expire in the next few months, and then pretends that it’s through THEM that you need to renew – when actually what you’re doing is moving away from you host and to Domain Registry of Hell Canada/America/Europe. In the US they’ve been barred from sending these letters (whether they’ve actually stopped is another question).

They’re pretty clever, with their neat little maple leaf that makes it look like it’s coming from The Government. All you need to do is get out your VISA card, pay them an exorbitant amount of money (way more than you’d pay for most other comparable services), send your registration form back in the convenient return envelope, and off you go. That is, off your money goes. Oh, and you have to deal with all the hassle that can come with switching hosts, plus you’ll be stuck with a dishonest host.

When you google “Domain Registry of Canada”, only the first result will give you the company. The rest on the first page are all complaints about the scam. Not a good recommendation. (Btw, when I get an offer or solicitation from someone I don’t know – I always immediately google them to see what they’re up to. With that technique, I can honestly say that I have not once fallen for or passed on a hoax).

If you’ve gotten a letter from these people, feel free to follow Mitch Joel’s advice to call them at 1-866-434-0212 and tell them what you think.

Perhaps you’re like me and you secretly wanted to become a private detective when you were a kid. Then you’ll find interesting what Peter has ferreted out regarding all the names associated with this organization, and Broadbandreports’ detailed explanation of how the Domain Registry of Canada scam works.

(Image by Nebularis)