Reality TV that TRULY Matters!

Tonight while I was watching "Black In America: The New Promised Land Silicon Valley, I was re-energized in my quest to encourage African Americans to embrace technology. After actively tweeting my thoughts on the special and taking notes of my interviews with Wayne Sutton and Anthony Frasier I headed over to Mario Armstrong's Innovation Nation.

Innovation Nation was a live webcast that aired tonight, November 13th, at 9:00pm EDT immediately after the end of Black in America 4 on CNN. The webcast featured entrepreneurs from the CNN special. Mario's event was excellent. I also joined the live chat which was full of thought leaders. Hopefully I can get a copy of the transcript because there was a great deal of information and ideas shared during this chat.

marioarmstrongshow on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Thanks Mario!

Facebook Marketing

A couple of weeks ago I was having breakfast with a friend at a restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. The food was delicious. I remember thinking to myself I can’t wait to tell my friends about this place. So after we finished eating I decided to ask the proprietor if he had a Facebook page.

His answer was “Yes, but it is more trouble that it’s worth”. Translation; He does have a Facebook page but he does not do anything to manage the content. How tragic! I was so shocked by this statement that I could not stop ranting to my friend on the drive home about how we continue to miss out on opportunities in business because we are not taking advantage of important technologies like social media.

How can one think that Facebook is a waste of time when practically every business in the world has a Facebook page? Does he know something that companies like Honda, Coke, Wal-Mart and other Fortune 500 companies don’t? Perhaps the number one thing businesses use Facebook for is marketing.

What company large or small feels that marketing is more trouble than it’s worth? During my visit we patronized several Black-owned businesses none of which had a Facebook page. I could not believe this. Here is brief list of the businesses we visited that I noticed were not utilizing this powerful tool:

• Churches
• Barber shops
• Beauty salons
• Restaurants
• Day cares

This is not only a great opportunity for these businesses to create new business, but it is also an opportunity to serve their current customers better. Moreover, it is an opportunity for the young men and women in our communities to master Facebook and other social media tools and market their services to the community in ways that provide income and strengthen the community at the same time.

At the very least, purchase a book on Facebook marketing, or take a class at your local community college and create your own opportunity instead of waiting for the economy to improve.

Get Inky With It

Inky-Apps is one of Americas first webstores dedicated to the promotion, advertisement and development of mobile applications for the undeveloped and undiscovered mobile markets. The site was created by Richard Fields, a true African American technology pioneer.

If you are unfamiliar with Richard's story and his mission I interviewed him recently on two separate occasions on my BlogTalkRadio Show. You can find those on-demand episodes here. Inky-Apps is looking for college interns with experience in Android programming.

Recently, I spoke with Richard regarding their search for interns and he had this to say:

"What I am trying to do is to pull in a couple of students of African American, or Africans from the continent, or the African diaspora to intern for inky-apps. Inky-apps is now beginning to generate interest and traffic so I would like to pull in some folks.

They do not have to be ivy, in fact; they can even be from a local J.C. I don't care. I am interested in folks who share the same 'vision' and direction as inky-apps' does coupled with some experience with Android development or Java, web design (HTML,XML,) and internet marketing.
I am trying to find those who are majoring in either computer science, or a related field like Internet marketing.

I applaud Mr. Fields efforts. This is exactly what is needed to not only develop future African American software engineering talent, but also to instill a sense of entrepreneurship. It is high time young African Americans begin to develop software that helps to solve the problems and and address the needs of our community.

I for one can not wait to see the creativity of African Americans emerge in the realm of software applications. The details on the position as well as the eligibility criteria for each position, will be posted next Wednesday at inky-apps.com in the form of an android mobile app.

For more information you visit the Inky-Apps site at http://www.Inky-Apps.com

BiTWiSE YouTube Channel

The project that I am working on with Microsoft, now has a YouTube Channel. You can check out the first video here. Search YouTube for the channel 'WeAreBiTWiSE'. We will be posting video footage from our big launch event in Austin on June 24 shortly after the event. This is going to be big. You don't want to miss it!

Like BiTWiSE on Facebook

Hello everyone. I am helping to build an organization called BiTWiSE. We are just getting started. We are having our first event on June 24th in Austin, Texas. The focus of this organization is to help to ensure the development of African Americans in information technology as well as grow the next generation of Black technology talent. We are sponsored by Microsoft and we are looking forward to doing great things over the course of the next five years. As part of this effort we have setup our page on Facebook. Please help us to grow by "Liking Us" on Facebook. I have setup the link here to use. I will post the event flyer here on the blog later in the day. Please have anyone that you know who is interested in closing the digital divide to like this button for us.

Are you BiTWiSE?

The Ugly Truth About Jobs

My previous post on Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr's remarks regarding the iPad produced a few very interesting comments. I enjoyed reading them very much and I invite others to join as I think this is the conversation we need to have.

At at time that we are constantly hearing from the Urban League that unemployment among African Americans are at record highs, and that President Obama needs to focus on jobs and job creation we need to understand what job creation means in the 21st century.

It means closing the digital divide It means ensuring digital equity. It means learning science, education, engineering and math. Recently President Obama during a town-hall meeting on the campus of Facebook in Palo, Alto California had this to say regarding STEM education: "Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education is of utmost importance to all students and is critical to U.S. competitiveness."

He went on to say: "Emphasizing STEM education especially to girls and minority students, is one of the most important efforts IF (emphasis mine) it hopes to produce college-and-career-ready students".

As the good scientist says "create new economies". The iPad has created a new economy. We need to get a good STEM education whether you wish to be a scientist or technologist or not. Then you don't have to worry about iPads being made outside of the country. You can create your own economy or your own job for that matter.

The good folks at Apple who created those devices had a solid STEM education. We need to obtain the education and then we can create our own jobs. Soledad O'brien talks with Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson in this video and he breaks it down beautifully. Check out the video.

Ask Not What The iPad Can Do for You, Ask What You Can Do for The iPad

Recently Congressman Jessie Jackson Jr. blamed the iPad for American unemployment.  Jackson stated the iPad is "probably responsible for eliminating thousand of American jobs."  I don't doubt that is a true statement.  My response is so.  The personal computer is responsible for eliminating thousands of jobs.  The same is true of devices such as self-check out kiosks in grocery stores and ATM machines in banks. Cashiers and bank tellers lost their jobs!


This is what technology does.  But it is only one side of the equation.  Such was also the case during the industrial age and the agricultural age before that.  Jackson expanded on his statement by saying "Why do you need to go to Borders anymore?  Why do you need to go to Barnes and Noble?  Just buy an iPad and download your book, download your newspaper, download your magazine."


As we like to say in Texas.  You betcha!  This is called progress.  What are we to do?  Halt progress so folks can keep their jobs.  Where would the country be today with such a philosophy?  When Amazon came online in the early 90's I was thrilled.  Before I had to drive 30 miles accross town to get to the only bookstore in the Dallas metroplex that carried the books that I wanted.  And there was a Borders and a Barnes and Noble store closer but they did not stock the quantity or quality of black history books that I seeked.


Because of Amazon, I stopped driving 30 miles across town to and began using Amazon and enjoying a better price, the ability to search inventory from my home, and have the books delivered to my front door.  Amazon is bad?


Should I have continued to be inconvenienced so folks can keep their jobs?  By the way, to my knowledge no one was stopping Borders and Barnes and Noble from carrying a wider selection of books by African American authors nor stopping them from creating an electronic book reader.


Amazon created the Kindle and Borders and Barnes and Noble were selling books before Amazon ever came online.  Innovation is a good thing.  For some reason the iPad has not put Amazon out of business.  Sure jobs have been eliminated as we have produced digital technologies.
This has always been the case.


Although technically he has a point that jobs have indeed been lost as a result of the iPad, he fails to mention the jobs that the iPad has created.  There is a now an entire app industry for the iPhone and iPad devices not to mention the cottage industries of accessories such as cases and car adapters, that have been spawned.  There are also the jobs that have been created as competitors develop similar devices.  Companies like Google and Dell come to mind.


I found these comments especially disturbing coming from an African American leader at at time when Black unemployment has been reported to be as high as 16%.  African Americans, and all Americans for that matter, need to come to grips with the idea that future jobs will be technology jobs.


The sooner we grasp this concept and begin to study and learn in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), the sooner we can start taking advantages of the economy of the 21st century instead of holding on to an outdate mode of doing things.  All industries will come under the same stress as the music and now the publishing industries have experienced as technologies pervade their processes.


Do you think the work of auto mechanics is the same today as it was before the advent of computers?  The answer is no.  Adapt or die.  Don't cry about losing your job at Border's books.  Reinvent yourself.  Take the time to learn the new skills and land a job as an iPad developer or better yet, start your own firm designing iPad applications.


We need leadership that helps us to understand how to navigate the future not cling to the past.