Now This is Authentic: Using YouTube to Mea Culpa

When it comes to newspapers, I'm still a print kinda girl.

I'm good about reading Scott Kirsner's Innovation Economy column in print every week, but I have to confess that I sometimes forget to pop onto his blog to watch the accompanying videos. (If I do this at work, I always worry that my colleagues will think I'm watching TMZ videos.) But I finally caught up today with the videos associated with Scott's story last week on Nuance. In this video from the Globe site, a Nuance executive, Peter Mahoney, demos the Tom Tom 920 GPS system, which uses Nuance's speech-recognition technology. But when Scott gives him "Morrissey Boulevard" (the Globe's address) as a test address for the GPS, the Tom Tom can't find it. So the demo casts a little cloud over an otherwise positive article.

YouTube to the rescue! Mahoney posted a follow-on video, which Scott in turn posted on his blog, wherein Mahoney endearingly says something like, "I did a pretty horrible demo of this Tom Tom device, really one of the worst ones I've done in my 20+ years of doing technology demos. After my wife got done laughing at me, she said that when she used to work at the Globe in the early 90s, she saw the full address on letterhead, and it's really William T. Morrissey Boulevard."

Mahoney goes on to repeat the demo, using the full name of Morrissey Boulevard, and of course it works like a charm. But he also acknowledges that this type of snafu points out that the industry still has some work to do.

Kudos to Mahoney and his PR brethren at Nuance. This is a textbook and cutting edge way of repairing a demo damage. (We've all been there.) Points to Mahoney for being funny, honest and self deprecating. We're smiling and cheering for Nuance by the time we finish listening.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead + Battle of the Bands!

Everyone is doing year-end retrospective articles. I'm enjoying getting to know the Xconomy site, and its laser focus on local innovation. Because the site launched mid-year, it is featuring the whimsically titled: "Half-Dozen-Stories-of-the Half-Year Awards."

The awards lead with the "Who Knew? Story of the Half Year," which highlights the rockin' music scene around Boston. The article provided the inspiration for the site's Battle of the Tech Bands, which will be held at the Middle East in Cambridge on the evening of January 22nd. (At least one member of each featured band must be working at a New England tech, life sciences or tech investment firm.) What a fun idea. Audience members will pick their favorite band, and so will the Xconomy editors. More here.

Meanwhile, over at Scott Kirsner's Innovation Economy blog, he's offering suggestions for what we can do to goose the local economy in '08. Amen to this one:

Culture is created by the beliefs and actions of individuals. Can we stop repeating the old trope that the culture here is somehow closed, or unfriendly to new ideas and people, and act in ways that make it feel more open and welcoming?

For a broader view of the tech scene, check out:

The Most Bookmarked TechCrunch Posts of 2007 here
or
Engadget's Top Posts here

And since we know there's life beyond tech, check out Newsweek's 2007's best in "microculture": viral videos, podcasts, blogs, advertisements. If you've somehow missed the YouTubing of poor Miss South Carolina Teen USA explaining why Americans can't find the U.S. on a map (which somehow takes us to South Africa and Iraq), you'll find it leading the article. You know it's a great article because Fake Steve is named as one of just two breakout blogs of the year.

Happy New Year!

Tech Blogs with Scott Kirsner: The Convo Continues

Scott Kirsner is going to moderate a discussion on October 23rd at the Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC- very cool space I might add). CHEN PR is sponsoring, along with our esteemed law firm Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton, coopetitor Schwartz Communications and the CIC.

I'm on Scott's panel along with a host of more distinguished bloggers (see below). Scott envisions a few questions to kick things off, followed by lots of Qs from the audience and open discussion.

The bad news: We hit the attendee limit in the room in just three days after Scott posted. But I'll blog about it and I'm sure the others will, so you can get the essence.

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Tech Blogs: How are Blogs Changing the Way Technology is Covered?

Entrepreneurs, CEOs, VCs, journalists, and PR professionals are increasingly cranking out blogs, podcasts, and video dispatches. How does this change the way the tech sector gets covered? What does it mean for CEOs trying to get their stories out, PR firms trying to get coverage for their clients, VC firms touting their investments, journalists trying to cover important news, and customers tracking the market? (Not to mention the relationships between all of these players.)

We'll bring together representatives from all four camps for a wide-ranging conversation (definitely *not* a panel) about the way blogs are changing the game in the tech world.

Participants will include:

- Don Dodge, Director of Business Development, Microsoft Emerging Business Team, and blogger, http://dondodge.typepad.com/

- Jimmy Guterman, Editor of Release 2.0 and blogger, O'Reilly Radar

- Barbara Heffner, partner at CHEN PR and blogger, http://clarklane.blogspot.com

- Nabeel Hyatt, CEO at Conduit Labs and blogger, http://nabeel.typepad.com/

- Bijan Sabet, venture capitalist at Spark Capital and blogger, http://sabet.typepad.com/bijanblog/

- Chuck Tanowitz, director, Schwartz Communicatons and blogger, http://mediametamorphosis.blogspot.com/