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Launching a new Internet startup? Wondering what are the key things to worry about before it’s too late? Do you need a business plan or do you need a great team and a cool idea to run with?

Photo credit: Leli456

When launching a new Internet startup, that is a company proposing to the market a new product or service, are there definitive priorities and must-do steps to follow or just having a bright and useful idea is the only thing that really counts?

Here my simple suggestions:

How To Put Your Small New Startup On The Right Track From The Very Start

If you are just about to launch your first small start-up with a bright idea and a bunch of friends who are passionate about launching a new technology product, here is my personal advice on what to lookout for:

1) Have Clarity of Intent

• Synthesize what your new product / service is all about. Then go to the corner snack bar and tell the barman your synthetic definition. Can he understand it? Can she repeat it meaningfully to someone else?
• Don’t try something too complex or ambitious. Stay with your feet on the ground.
• Go after an idea where you personal contribution can be very significant. If your idea relies all on someone else making it possible, I’d suggest not to pursue it.

2) Go After Monetizable Markets

• Identify markets that are already active and growing, and in which your product / service can fulfill a specific niche / need.
• Make sure, that the market niche you have identified is made up by a majority of people who have both the need and possibility to spend.
• Don’t go after a great idea that caters to a marketplace of bankrupt people with very little money to spend.
• Look around and consider adopting some of the alternative monetization approaches available to you. Don’t go the advertising way by default.

3) Find Affordable Customers

• Choose a niche in which your potential customers are willing to pay higher prices for a product / service like yours.
• Make sure your product / service offers them a benefit that is worth the cost you are going to charge them many times over.

4) Have Focus

• Keep in mind that customers mostly buy a simple product / service with a unique value proposition.
• Identify what that product is and create a unique value proposition for it early in the process.

5) Relieve Your Customer Pain

• Identify the key one “pain” that hurts the most your potential customers and go after it.
• Design and deliver a truly effective and reliable pain killer.

6) Be Unique

• Constantly challenge conventional wisdom.
• Embrace innovation and breakign away from conformity.
• Invite your customers and stakeholders into the design process.
• Stay ahead of the game by knowing well your competitors and following major trends.

7) Build A Passionate Team

• A company’s DNA is set in the first 90 days.
• Build a team based on passion and affinity for collaborative work.
• Build a team that shares the same ethics, values and life goals.

Be Swift

• Rapid action, clarity of plans and an invisible landing strategy can often guarantee success over more potentially capable competitors.

9) Be VERY Cost-Conscious

• Limit your expenses on what’s really critical.
• Spend only on what is high-priority and think always about profitability.

10) Don’t Fall Prey of Startups Spending Spree Temptations

• Start with only a little money.
• Limit your spending to what directly impact your productivity bottom line

Preparing A Business Plan For Your Start-Up

A good business plan for a startup should be as simple as possible and it should communicate very clearly:

a) what the nature of the business is,

b) who are the customers and

c) what are they key strengths and advantages of your new product / service.

The simpler and more straightforward the above information, the better.

Here is a basic guideline to follow to start creating your own.

1) Define Your Goals

• Define the company/business in a single declarative sentence.

2) Identify The Problem(s) You Are Going To Solve

• Identify with surgical precision your customer pain(s).
• Uncover key customer frustrations in trying to resolve it.

3) Create The Solution

• Demonstrate your company’s value proposition to make the customer’s life better.
• Create a solution based exactly on what your taret audience asks you.
• Showcase specific uses and applications.

4) Lay Out Your Time Plan

• Set-up the historical evolution of your category.
• Analyze recent market trends and results from similar companies
• Evaluate time to market required for your new product / service.

5) Invest In Market Analysis

• Identify the customer profile your product caters to.
• Learn everything about your competitors communication and marketing strategy

6) Do Competition Research

• Know everything about your competitors product
• Learn and research their key competitive advantages
• Uncover and analyze their key weaknesses
• Identify your key competitive advantages realtive to theirs early in the game

7) Define Your New Product / Service

• Survey your potential customers
• Look closely at your competition
• Make it unique and identifiable

Select Your Business Model

• Revenue model
• Give before asking
• List building forever
• Set pricing after distribution is well defined
• Make your customers your best marketing agents

9) Make Your Team Work Efficiently

• Adopt a sport team’s communication approach
• Enable everyone to participate
• Go open - all communications are shared - Everyone is a leader.

10) Secure The Economic Side

• Learn to use a balance sheet
• Keep your cash flow under tabs
• Prepare yourself to go without financial backers
• Make it sustainable before making it cool

Originally written by Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on August 26th 2008 as “Business Planning: Key Action Steps To Build A Successful Internet Startup“.

Co-browsing systems, file sharing tools, polling and feedback services are just some of the great services Robin and I have hand-picked and tested for you in this new issue of our weekly online collaboration Sharewood guide.

Photo credit: Jenny Solomon

Here all of the online collaboration tools we have selected for you:

1. Clavardon: Browse pages with other people in real-time while chatting
2. Wiki-Site: Create free wikis for your projects without registering
3. Fotoll: Build online polls and gather immediate feedback on your doubts
4. Joodo: Communicate with messages, chat in real-time, and share files and folders
5. A.nnotate: Upload a document or provide a page URL and start adding notes with other people
6. NameThis: Use collecrive intelligence to find or get suggestions for the perfect name for a start-up company
7. Netopi: Read and give reviews of any website easily
8. SwarmSketch: Draw together with other people and see what masses can create

Here all the details:

1. Clavardon
   
   Clavardon is a co-browsing service that allows you to browse pages with other people simultaneously. After you enter a URL, you can start inviting your friends and, while you chat with them, they will be able to see your movements on any site: you can scroll, highlight any part of text and input any other URL and be sure that people will look at the same things as you do. Free to use for up to 100 sessions per month.
   http://www.clavardon.com/
2. Wiki-Site
   
   Wiki-Site is a service that allows you to create free wikis for your projects. Provide a name, URL, administrator password and you’re done: your new wiki, which will look exactly like a Wikipedia page, will be accessible to anyone of your colleagues, who will be able to edit and create pages, have discussions and more. Free to use, no registration is needed.
   http://www.wiki-site.com/
3. Fotoll
   
   Fotoll is a polling system that you can use to ask opinions and gather immediate feedback. Here’s how it works: just register for free, type a question (for example which service is better than the other) and upload the images of the candidates. People can then just click on their favorite one, and also type a comment explaining their vote. Free to use, registration needed.
   http://fotoll.com/
4. Joodo
   
   Joodo is a file sharing P2P software, still in alpha, that you can use to communicate with your friends. After you install it and register, you can invite your friends and add them to your contact list: you can then share any folder on your PC with different levels of access, create torrent files to share, send messages, text-chat, and even monitor your friends’ activities. The service is free to download and use.
   http://www.joodo.com/
5. A.nnotate
   
   A.nnotate is a web based service that you can use to add notes to documents or web pages. Just upload any PDF, .doc, .ppt, .xls or OpenOffice document, or simply enter a page URL, and start adding notes to it. You can then enter anyone’s email address and invite them to give you feedback and collaborate with their notes. Free to use, pro versions available.
   http://a.nnotate.com/
6. NameThis
   
   NameThis is a collaboration service that start-up companies can use to find a market-ready name. After you submit a request, people have 48 hours to comment and provide you feedback. When the name is selected, $80 dollars of your $99 name fee will be distributed to the first three people, and their supporters. Free to join and suggest.
   https://namethis.com/
7. Netopi
   
   Netopi is a collaboration tool that lets users give reviews of websites, so that other people can read them and post their own. To start, just paste the URL into the box and, if present, you will be shown all of the reviews that users made of that site. To make your own review, type your name, your comment, give a positive or negative vote, provide tags and, if you want, a list of similar sites. Free to use, no signup required.
   http://www.netopi.com/
8. SwarmSketch
   
   SwarmSketch is an ongoing online canvas that explores the possibilities of distributed design by the masses. Each week it randomly chooses a popular search term: users can contribute a small amount of line per visit, then they are given the opportunity to vote on the opacity of lines submitted by other users. When the canvas reaches one thousand lines, or one week of life, a new one starts. Free.
   http://swarmsketch.com/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on August 24th 2008 as “Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Aug24 08”

How can the educational system we pay for via our taxes change and transform itself into a new way to prepare our young people for an even faster-changing future? Are there alternatives out there?

Photo credit: Stephan Mosel

As I have promised you last week, George Siemens has made himself available for a short, informal video conversation in which we have discussed several interesting topics that some of you had also suggested. [I was not able to bring in all of your suggested questions, both because of the limited time available in this conversation (the video runs about 32 mins) and also because I have gotten some of your suggested queries way too late to use them in this videoconference.]

If you are interested in seeing me and George talk about the state of education and schooling today and the down-to-the-ground issues a parent of any teenager meets today you may find this enjoyable to watch. The other topics we cover include a simplified explanation of connectivism and its relevance to non academics, as well as education future direction and social media hype.

Here the video interview and, right after it, George’s habitual quality selection of issues, topics and resources to keep an eye on while trying to make sense of it all.

Robin Good interviews George Siemens on connectivism, learning, social media and the future of education.

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

20 Free Ebooks On Social Media

I haven’t read all of the ebooks listed… but this is a useful listing of 20 free ebooks on social media.

The list includes resources on podcasting, blogging, usability and related subjects. I’m not entirely convinced I like the term social media anymore. In the sense that all media (whether creation/production, transmission, reception…and even when media is treated as storage, it still aspires to be viewed) require a producer and consumer, doesn’t the notion of media have an inherent social trait?

NSF and The Birth Of The Internet

Ray Schroeder provides a link to a great resource: NSF and the Birth of the Internet. The site includes a mix of timelines, images, videos, interviews, etc.

As prominent as the internet is in our lives, it’s worth having at least a functional understanding of the stages of development as well as future directions. We need something similar for the development of educational technology…

Social Media Classroom

Howard Rheingold has been working on a project called Social Media Classroom to incorporate emerging technologies into classrooms. An instantiation of his platform can be seen here for an upcoming course he is teaching.

The software - SMC - pulls together wikis, blogs, tagging, media sharing, and other tools familiar to the read/write web crowd. This type of centralized tool set is important for introducing the next wave of adopters to distributed social media.

I’m unsure at this stage whether Rheingold’s software allows for incorporation of learners blogs that exist outside of the software - i.e. if I have an existing blog, can I post there? Or do I have to use the course software exclusively? I’m of the mindset that developers of software, such as LMS‘, need to design for two groups: the majority who are just starting to adopt social media and the minority who are well on the journey and want to keep their existing space and identity.

Rheingold provides a short introduction to the software in this 8 minute presentation.

Key quote: don’t worry about keeping up with the technologies so much as keeping up with the literacies the technologies enable.

Explaining Leads To Information

I’ve been trying to gain a better sense of the role universities will play in society in the future. At one point, we thought content was the value point of universities. Wrong. MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative changed that. Ok, then the interaction with faculty is the value point. And wrong again. Open communication and collaboration in online environments with networks of peers and experts gave us control over our interactions. Fine.

Then the value point is accreditation. Yes, for now. Our ability to rate, review, comment, and provide feedback has increased with the development of the read/write web. I’m not sure how long we can build education’s value on the concept of accreditation. As I’ve frequently suggested, we can glean much insight from a field that has spent more time journeying down the path of shifting value from content to something else: the news/journalism/media industry.

Jay Rosen, in National Explainer, advocates a new role for journalists. Instead of presenting information, the objective is to assist readers and viewers in making sense of complex subject areas. The ability to do this rests on the journalists ability to provide coherent, memorable explanations.

In my presentation at Madison a few weeks ago, I emphasized that the role of university may well become one of being a coherence-maker, helping learners make sense of information abundance and change. Sure, universities have always done this… but they have done so from a perspective of authority rather than engagement.

Facebook In Education

I was interviewed by a radio program today on the role of Facebook in education. My view: very little research has been conducted on whether the high communicative value of Facebook translates into academic value.

Do students want educators to integrate Facebook into instructional activities? Or do students prefer to use these tools for more social purposes? As educators we are often drawn to tools in popular use, assuming we can co-opt them for academic purposes. “Oh look, everyone has a mobile phone/Facebook account/Second Life avatar…let’s use that for educational purposes“.

InsideHigher Ed asks the key question: Will Colleges Friend Facebook?

In a related vein - the term creepy treehouse has acquired a fair bit of traction to draw attention to differences of intention in the use of popular technologies and processes for teaching/learning.

Web 2.0

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One of my favorite past times is to whine about the term web 2.0. I don’t like it. It turns what is inherently a process in to a product. It’s a marketers dream. It smacks of hype. And so on. Yet the term appears with increasing frequency in books, articles, and conference themes.

Don Hinchcliffe states that web 2.0 is the more popular “new internet” term. He then provides a good overview of how the term evolved, how Gartner presents it in their hype cycle, and how “2.0” is impacting the development of concepts such as enterprise 2.0.

Location-Based Learning and Working

For some reason, we like to do certain things in certain places. It’s not as comical a statement as it first appears. Consider work: we go to work, sit at a desk, or lecture in a classroom. We have a habit of eating dinner at the table (well, for some, in front of the TV).

We have a “go to” mentality. Why? I haven’t a clue. But that mentality is changing in a few areas.

Consider business - many workplaces are moving away from the traditional “go to work” mentality. Distributed workforces, increased travel, and internet connectivity leave many professionals with only a limited presence at a particular physical location.

Consider another perspective: “we go to classrooms to learn“. It may have been more valuable at one time, but with meetups and internet connectivity, I wonder if classrooms are going to go the way of business offices: distributed, open, mobile.

Are Social Networking Sites Good For Business?

I often encounter this type of question with regards to education: Are social networking sites good for business? The question assumes that SNS possess some intrinsic value in themselves.

Simply put, social networking services are good for communicating and connecting with others. If that’s your aim - in education, business, or whatever - then, yes, these tools can be useful. Outside of an aim, in keeping with Gibson’s concept of the need of an agent to perceive affordances or action potential of a tool, SNS have no value.

Presentation: Designing New Learning Landscapes

If you are looking for web-based collaboration tools to manage your team projects and tasks, create wiki pages or interactive message boards, Robin and I have picked some really cool new online collaboration apps for this new issue of this weekly Sharewood Guide.

Photo credit: Michael Osterrieder

Here the selected online collaboration tools we have selected for you this time:

1. Task2Gather: Manage all of your projects and assign tasks to your team members
2. Kluster: Discuss on ideas and projects with your team
3. On-Wiki.net: Create free wiki pages without signing up
4. Userplane Boards Create message boards and interact with other people in real-time
5. Text The Mob: Build polls and message boards for any event
6. BookGoo: Annotate, highlight and share documents with others
7. Kiobo: Discover and share interesting sites with other people in real-time
8. Tell-a-Friend: Let your visitors share your site via email, IM and social networks

Here all the details:

1. Task2Gather
   
   Task2Gather is an online project management application that allows you to manage all of your tasks from one place, just using an Internet connection. You can create as many projects as you want, and invite an unlimited number of people in the group and assign them tasks. Task2Gather is completely web based and free to use.
   http://task2gather.com/
2. Kluster
   
   Kluster is a group decision-making platform that anyone can use to discuss on ideas and project with his own team. After a free sign up, you can start you own kluster: give it a name, type questions and ideas, set answers criteria, wait for your colleagues’ feedback and then see detailed results of what they voted and suggested. Free to use.
   http://www.kluster.com/
3. On-Wiki.net
   
   On-Wiki.net is a free service to create wiki pages. To start a new wiki, just type your desired name, click OK, and then start creating and editing your own wiki:you can create as many pages as you want, invite unlimited people to join you, add attachments, track changes and more. Free to use, no registration is needed.
   http://www.on-wiki.net/
4. Userplane Boards
   
   Userplane Boards is an advanced Flash based bulletin board platform that combines the benefits of persistent forums with the real-time interactivity of chat. After you sign up for free, you can create as many boards as you want, personalize them, embed them on every site, and people can then start posting messages, which will appear in real-time like a normal text chat. Free.
   http://www.userplane.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=apps.boards
5. Text The Mob
   
   Text The Mob is a web based service that you can use to build polls and message boards for any event. After you create a poll or message board, people can start sending responses, feedback and normal text messages via SMS or web and you can then see results in real time. Text The Mob is free to use, premium version is also available.
   http://textthemob.com/
6. BookGoo
   
   BookGoo is an online annotation tool that lets you annotate, highlight and share documents with others. Just upload files in pdf, html, doc, xls, jpg and gif format, annotate any part of it as if you were writing on a paper, and wait for other people to provide comments and feedback. BookGoo is free to use, registration is needed.
   http://www.bookgoo.com/
7. Kiobo
   
   Kiobo is a Firefox toolbar that allows users to discover and share interesting sites with friends or the entire community as a whole. Through a simple interface, you can see in real time what your friends and all the other people are currently browsing, and make filtered researches to find what you are really interested in. Kiobo is free to download and use. Registration is needed.
   http://kiobo.com/
8. Tell-a-Friend
   
   Tell-a-Friend is a Java based script for your blog that users can use to share your website without even leaving it. With a simple HTML code, you can embed a small button that users can click to easily share your website with others via email, IM (GTalk, Yahoo, MSN and AIM) or social network (Facebook, Twitter). The service is completely free to use, with no registration needed.
   http://tellafriend.socialtwist.com/index.jsp

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on August 18th 2008 as “Online Collaboration Technologies - New Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Guide Aug18 08”

The more I proceed, the more I see how badly it is needed: media literacy. Understanding what information is, making sense of the different communication paradigms, from interpersonal to mass and social media, the creation of reality and consensus, the role and use of new technologies are all very critical elements of the puzzle we all are trying to solve: Communicating and understanding better the world we live in.

Photo credit: D’Arcy Norman

George Siemens, Master New Media official guest guide on media literacy, not only takes you through another fascinating journey to the issues, tools and content resources that can stretch and bend your present technology and media view, but has also accepted my invitation to be a special guest inside a one-on-one short video interview I will do with him in the coming days.

This is a great opportunity to hear George in first person and to ask him directly the toughest questions you may have. In fact, the best contribution and thank you you can provide to the work he has so kindly contributed here, is for you to add some relevant questions in the comments section at the end of this article, so that I will be able to throw them at him directly in our next week video interview.

Here another fascinating journey into making sense of media and new technologies around you:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends

by George Siemens

Workplace Learning

I try and follow a diverse range of blogs - in particular between academic and corporate environments. For some reason, I have an easier time finding academic blogs. A group of corporate bloggers recently launched a new service that I hope will offer much to correct this imbalance: Workplace Learning Today. A great initiative.

The Future Of Science

What are important directions in science? Michael Nielsen tackles this question in The Future of Science. He considers the importance of openness in science, but provides a useful overview of why academics so often do not share resources and information:

“These failures of science online are all examples where scientists show a surprising reluctance to share knowledge that could be useful to others.

This is ironic, for the value of cultural openness was understood centuries ago by many of the founders of modern science; indeed, the journal system is perhaps the most open system for the transmission of knowledge that could be built with 17th century media…

We should aim to create an open scientific culture where as much information as possible is moved out of people’s heads and labs, onto the network, and into tools which can help us structure and filter the information. This means everything - data, scientific opinions, questions, ideas, folk knowledge, workflows, and everything else - the works.

Information not on the network can’t do any good. Ideally, we’ll achieve a kind of extreme openness.“

I applaud the vision. I’m less convinced of the possible reality. Universities are still contributing significantly to development of new knowledge, but corporations are playing a greater and greater role. And Universities are aggressively building commercialization strategies for new inventions/patents. Some knowledge will be open. Much of it will be closed.

Do we end up with a tiered system? Really important (however that’s defined) cutting-edge knowledge is closed, the less important stuff is open?

Online Universities

It’s a good time to be in education. Especially online education. Numerous factors - multiple careers, distributed workforce, non-sequential learners, fuel prices, convenience, and degree creep - influence growing acceptance of online universities.

The Chronicle comments on a new book evaluating perceptions of online learning:

“Higher education, he said in the interview, needs to take notice and adapt. These days, he said, students are much more likely to have experienced other cultures firsthand, either as tourists or because they have immigrated from someplace else. Whether college for them is a traditional complex of buildings or an interactive online message board, said Mr. Zogby, “there is a different student on campus.”“

Sloan-C reported similar results in Online Nation (.pdf). Online learning is gaining acceptance and continuing to experience significant growth.

Facebook

According to a recent report, Facebook continues its rapid growth, overtaking MySpace. Overall, social networking shows stronger growth than the rest of the internet.

I’m somewhat surprised at Facebook’s growth. The company has stumbled significantly and yet continues to gain users.

Much like Microsoft introduced word processing and spreadsheets to non-techies through ease of use (ok, ease of use is debatable) and integration with other tools, Facebook pulls together many previously separate applications into an easy to use platform.

Presentation: Madison

Last week, I was in Madison for the 24th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning. Most conferences I attend have only been around for a few years, so it was rather neat to see a conference with this type of longevity. I discovered a person who rivals Jay Cross‘ ability to network and know roughly everyone: Curt Bonk. Great conference.

My presentation is available: Connectivism: A vision for education. I’m going to put a new disclaimer on speaking arrangements: I reserve the right to absolutely change the focus of my talk if I find something more relevant than when I put the abstract together six months ago :).

A concept map of the presentation topics is available. As are resources tagged in delicious.

Six Degrees

It’s official: just over 40 years after Milgram conducted his famous Six Degrees of Separation experiment, we are once again informed that the world is small. Or, perhaps more accurately, the world is a series of small worlds.

A recent large-scale social network analysis by Microsoft researchers revealed that we are separated from almost anyone else by only about 6.6 hops or connections. The study was confined to instant message interactions.

I’ve never quite understood the appeal of the six-degrees experiment. Yes, it’s cool to know that I can connect with anyone in the world in about six steps. But, then again, with email, I can connect to anyone in the world with one step (assuming they have an email address as well). How many of us are actually introduced to others through six or more connections?

“Hi Jane, this is Bob. My friend Mary knows someone named John who knows someone named Edgar who knows someone name Susan who knows someone name PeggySue who would really like to meet with you.“

Does that ever happen? Hasn’t happened to me.

Science Dissemination Using Open Access

Get your own - Open publication

Science Dissemination using Open Access is a book I would have liked to encounter before my panel with Curt Bonk on Web 2.0 and Scholarship.

The topics in the book are reflective of the major changes impacting traditional dissemination of research, including tools such as webcasting, Open Journal System, and DSpace. Some parts are a bit soft - such as the discussion on using Google Ads to generate revenue for your journal - but overall, it’s a good introduction to open access.

How News Shapes The Way We View The World

This is a fascinating video How the news shapes the way we view the world. The video was posted sometime in March, but the message is interesting. I personally don’t fully equate the news we encounter with the way we see the world.

I engage in very limited viewing of traditional news sources. However, for the sake of original reporting, the dramatic reduction of foreign news bureaus is obviously a problem.

But I wonder if William Dutton’s notion of the Fifth Estate isn’t partly the solution.

Why do we need foreign offices when we can get the information directly from people who are in the situation and can present activities from a non-filtered view. News is changing…but I’m not fully convinced it is entirely for the worse.

Exceptionally well-written articles (especially in investigative journalism) may be under challenge in this model - and that would be a significant loss.

But the numerous other opportunities for people to learn about world events through less centralized means are a significant addition to our potential to remain informed about the world.

On Being Connected

Being connected provides great opportunities. And carries challenges. Some suggest a debilitating aspect to connectivity: “I’m so connected that I’m paralysed!“. Others suggest connectivity creates homophily.

Being connected doesn’t change human nature by itself. If anything, connectedness holds up a mirror to humanity and provides an image of what really exists.

Connectedness in itself if not capable of solving the broader concerns that assail humanity. But, being able to connected with individuals from around the world can create a new level of complex thought and interaction that gives us a better chance of solving those complex problems…

YouTube

YouTube appears to the be new metric or determinant of success (i.e. number of hits, presence). Having a YouTube channel is now as necessary as having a blog was 3 or 4 years ago. I was reviewing the new OpenUniversity channel when I came across this link to OpenLearn.

OpenLearn has the ambitious goal of not just making learning resources available, but also providing the tools that enable learners to remix and reuse existing content. An exciting prospect. As we discovered with the web, access is step 1. All the fun stuff happens when we have the ability to create and recreate.

Originally written by George Siemens and published as weekly email digest on eLearning Resources and News. First published on August 15th 2008.

To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book “Knowing Knowledge“.

If you know someone who has the talent, will and true desire to get a professional web publishing experience and credential like no other, while creating the foundations for earning a good revenue in the future, this is the right time to apply for one of the several Master New Media apprentices positions.

Photo credit: Michele Piacquadio

After almost a year, and following the unstoppable demand coming from tens of your emails, Master New Media is opening again its doors to a number of apprentices who are interested in learning all it takes to become effective and sustainable professional web publishers. Yes, here at Master New Media this is the time of the year when I open up again the opportunity for online internship applicants to put forth their best skills and presentation letters.

Here all the details:

MasterNewMedia Internship Overview

What is a MasterNewMedia internship all about? What’s the focus, objective and daily activities?

A MasterNewMedia internship is a practical learning camp in which to learn everything about professional web publishing, blogs, RSS, collaborative work, video production, interface and information design and the many other disciplines connected to becoming effective and commercially profitable new media publishers.

This internship is a serious opportunity to enter the world of new media by joining an online production team of media and marketing specialists that cover a great variety of skills and competencies.

In the spirit of bioteams, all communications within the team are shared and open so that most everyone knows about what is going on and can easily contribute his skill when appropriate.

This is not a school. It is an apprentice’s shop where one learns by doing and by working closely together with a team and a personal coach. Assignments are all real, and well-executed work gets to be published. The earlier an intern learns to execute a newly learned role reliably and without additional support from others, the earlier she can move from learner to paid collaborator. Results count, not time.

The focus of this internship is specifically the one of providing a fast track “digital media literacy” learning path for the very people I would like to see working here at Master New Media. This is the truth.

In reality, and as I have clearly reported above, many of these talented people have and will go on to even more prestigious careers in bigger companies or as individual entrepreneurs. I can’t really stop them and I am in fact happy that they can do what they really like.

But the experience of seeing talented individuals go on to bigger careers, sometimes thanks in good part to what they had learned here, made me rethink of the value and appropriate relationship that I want to have with those participating in the internship program.

I am in fact the one who takes the more risks in this relationship. I share openly all that I know about media publishing, invest significant personal time with my students and provide lots of tangible feedback to their learning experience. I share access to the services I use and to our newsroom accounts. I take personal time to do live voice and screen-sharing sessions to explain in detail how to specific tasks and take all of the time needed to explain the why behind each strategy and task.

In some cases I can’t avoid running into smarter types who take in as much as they can, behave themselves as would-be great potential collaborators only to suddenly disappear as soon as they know enough secrets to start their own online publishing venture. (Yes, these are part of what makes that 1:8 ratio in finding good reliable people to work with. Many go on to do their things.)

So, the why I put up these internships is quite simple. I am a small growing company and just like any healthy organization out there, I too, need to continuously recruit good, talented individuals to make it grow. I don’t want lots of turnaround because the skills needed to be learned are quite unique and the typical freelancer would normally take a lot of our energies while leaving little of value to us. My strategy is therefore is to grow and educate my own staff as much as possible. Go out there, find them, test them and then train them.

Internships: A Bit of History

Here at Master New Media, a few former interns, apprentices and professional collaborators have left some trace of their presence and contributions. Mostly in the form of great published content, but many times in the spirit and attitude that they bring to this fast expanding team.

In general, the largest part of internship candidates fails after a few weeks, discovering they are uncut for the task and learning at hand. Many times it is a communication problem limiting the opportunity to work together, while the clear winner in terms of what candidates fail to do properly is a lack of humbleness and of a true learning spirit.

Still too many individuals think, even before being accepted in this program, that they already know quite a bit of how web publishing needs to be done. They are not very inquisitive. They ask few questions. They are after getting in control, but not so much about learning the individual things that can make web publishing successful. And that is why they do not last very long.

As I have long learned from my good and wise adviser Susan, it takes the going through of eight to ten people before you can land a good new team member. It seems a big number, yes, but if you are out to find individuals with whom you can work for a very long time, that is indeed the ratio. Talented, honest, hard-working, passionate individuals are hard to find.

Past Glories

But there have been some good stories as well.

In 2007 two former “interns” graduated out of MasterNewMedia have landed new prestigious new media positions.

Michael Pick, first successfully launched SmaschCut Media, a small production boutique devoted to create video animations, screencasts and clips to promote, market and introduce new 2.0 technologies, and then, in less than a year went on to become part of the marketing and visual communication unit at Automattic, the company behind Wordpress! His new official title is “lightbulb engineer” and his responsibility is to create visual communication so effective that people will “get the idea” of how things work and how they can be best used in a fraction of the time. Compliments Michael.

This is what Michael says of the impact of his experience at MasterNewMedia on his following successful stints:

“Oh, huge - not sure you could assign a number to that.

Besides the realization that it was possible to live and work outside of the 9-5 ratrace and travel freely around the world while doing something I was passionate about, I got to meet some great people, was given the chance to explore the new (especially at the time) and exciting screencast medium (which went on to pretty much become my career), and learned an enormous amount about technologies, tools and culture surrounding them I had previously only touched the iceberg of.

At Master New Media I was given the chance to explore cutting edge communication media, and the guidance and training to use them effectively in the brave new world of web publishing - something that has - beyond any doubt - completely changed the direction of my life since.

With Robin we were working with video and screencasts way ahead of the curve. In the couple of years since we started, I’ve seen things live web video streaming become increasingly popular, and screencasts become not only a hugely popular way of getting things across online, but also a very profitable business niche. Robin was way ahead of the curve on both fronts.“

Livia Iacolare, one of Master New Media best article editors ever, has also landed a great position of Online Community Coordinator at Current TV Italy.

Livia says:

“…working at MasterNewMedia was one of the most important opportunities in my life, since it paved the way to my professional career.

I had the possibility to learn in a very stimulating and open minded environment, which eventually helped me develop my skills and discover what I really wanted to do in my life.

Moreover, it nurtured my desire to challenge myself and experiment new things without fear of failure, which at the end brought me where I am now.“

An earlier MasterNewMedia graduate, Nicole Neuberger, has just been hired by Ericsson in Sweden to look over product design and usability of new mobile technologies.

… And More Recent Ones

In the last 12 months, I have accepted a number of new interns at Master New Media and while a few have not lasted very long, a few them have already completed their initial learning path and have now earned for themselves a professional responsibility position inside the network.

Gaetano Costa has finished his internship at the beginning of July 2008. Gaetano is a newly graduated student of Information Technology from the University of Salerno and after having worked hard at learning all of the basic newsroom roles has received an official assignment as Article Editor and Supervisor and AdSense Optimization specialist.

Massimiliano Badolati is another good recent success story. A biology “senior”, Max has broken all the internship records making his contribution so valuable and unique to earn himself a paid position in our ranks in the arc of a few months. Max is now MasterNewMedia official AdSense Marketing and Optimization Manager as well as one of my most valued Article Editors now in charge of editorial content quality control. He continuously tests new ad positions and layouts and makes sure that MasterNewMedia can extract the best value from all advertising opportunities offered by our key advertising partner: Google.

Giulio Gaudiano is the one who really made the fastest career of all. Giulio joined MasterNewMedia right after the OpenCamp 2007 where I first met him. Completed his internship, (which lasted only about five months as he chose to do it intensively by working daily with me at the Rome office), Giulio went on to become Master New Media Italia Chief Editor and Partner (I share with him 50-50 the advertising revenues of the Italian edition as I do with the editors of my other international language editions). Giulio works also on the Direct Advertising front and has already been able to close multiple direct advertising contracts on which he makes extra commissions. Finally, he has been working on coordinating the relaunch of the Latino (Spanish) and Brazilian (Portuguese) Editions of MasterNewMedia (still looking for valid editors and contributors), and has been training and coaching the new editors that are already working on these.

Who Can Become A MasterNewMedia Apprentice?

Just about anyone can become a Master New Media apprentice. Whatever your nationality, culture, religion, or location you are welcome to apply to become part of this team. The recommended traits for applicants are:

• a true, passionate interest for communication, publishing and new media,
• good ability to listen and to memorize,
• significant availability in terms of time,
• ability to plan and report in writing,
• predisposition to work and communicate often with others,
• curiosity in asking and
• willingness to master all the skills / tasks required by the selected role/position.

If I had to say it in simpler words I would say: “I am looking for individuals who have the time and will to learn how become media publishing masters. If your first need is to make money now, learning is not the right road to take. Go do something you already know. But if you are very serious about placing your footprint in the future of media publishing I have created a place where you can be exposed, immersed and guided to discover how this all works in a way that you will not get even by going to the most expensive universities out there.

It takes time, hard work and good will, but if you have these, and a good understanding media and technology are all about, you do have a career to be exploited right in your hands.”

Key Benefits

What are the key benefits of doing an internship at MasterNewMedia?

1) Learn by Doing

Everything you learn during this internship is generally achieved by having me or someone in my team sit down online with you and demonstrating to you hw to do something or reviewing together with you how you have executed a specific assignment. Learning in this internship is mostly achieved by doing not by reading books and manuals.

2) Have Me as Your Personal Coach

I am an extremely passionate, funny and enjoyable coach. I spend all of the time needed with my students and I share in every single detail what I know about the different skills I teach. I can guarantee you that having me as a personal coach is certainly something you will not forget easily. I may not be always distributing compliments if your work is not well above the average but you can be sure that I will tell you exactly where and how you could make it a lot better next time.

3) Work in a Friendly Team

The MasterNewMedia team is made up of about 10-12 people, and you will be working in close touch with at least two or three of these people. Inside the team there are regular online weekly meetings to review plans, progress, new assignments, issues and problems. Team members are a bunch of fun guys too and they do not lose any opportunity to send email puns to each other while pro-actively helping each other in in their assigned tasks.

4) Participate From Anywhere

MasterNewMedia interns (and collaborators) connect in from all parts of the world and I make no discrimination between those that I can meet physically and those I get to work with online only. Here is a good example: My tech and webmaster chief is a guy that I have never met physically. We work together online six days out of seven and he has been getting a $2000plus /monthly check from me for over two years now. He lives across the Adriatic sea in Croatia, a few thousand miles away from where I am, but he is probably the highest trusted and most respected team member I have. So, as you can see, distance or working online only, are in no way an handicap anymore. On the other hand having the opportunity to work physically side by side with me does offer very significant advantages, but yes, unless you already in Rome, it does cost significant extra money to come and live in a city like this. It’s an option for the Schumacher’s out there.

5) Use Daily Cutting Edge Communication and Collaboration Technologies

In this internship you get to learn and use many of the best web 2.0 technologies that you have been reading so much about. RSS, P2P, wikis, VoIP, videoconferencing, screen-sharing, instant messaging, mindmapping are just some of the many cool tools I and my team use in our daily work here at MasterNewMedia. So the one to be preoccupied should be you: do you have a working headset and webcam and a good connection or are you running a sloppy old computer that hangs up everytime you run more than a few things together? Think about it before applying.

What Apprentice Roles / Positions Are Available?

Here the internship positions open now:

1) Newsmaster

Role / description: News scouting, selection and publishing.

2) Article Editor

Role / description: Reviews, edit and prepares content for publication.

3) Technology and Media Reviewer

Role / description: Writes in-depth technology reviews about software tools and web-based applications.

4) Web Designer

Role / description: Conceptualizes, prototypes and executes XHTML/CSS code for the designs of our web pages, while supporting the creation of materials for specific marketing initiatives.

5) Web Master

Role / description: Maintains, edits and continuously upgrades our web infrastructure, including page templates, scripts, and back end systems, by coding new solutions, troubleshooting publishing problems and guaranteeing impeccable display and compatibility of our site across different browser and operating systems.

6) Community Manager

Role / description: Supports, facilitates and enables the growth and nurturing of a new upcoming online social community.

Video Producer

Role / description: Creates, edits, remixes, add subtitles and logos and opening titles to our own produced videos and interviews. Does video transcriptions, capture, encoding, conversion and video publishing in multiple formats. Maintains an organized library of digital content for re-use.

Guide Editor

Role / description: Edits, compiles, publishes and maintains in depth tech guides on specific topics or technology applications.

General Internship Requirements

• Education: any education level is OK, no formal academic degree required. Better if has studied information technology, media, journalism or other communication related degree.
• Language: You do need to have excellent English language skills: reading, speaking, writing.
• Internet connectivity: A broadband Internet connection is highly advised. Dial-up connectivity is not OK. You need to be able to talk via Skype and see easily video content.
• Technology: Any computer in good order or operating system is OK.
• Tech skills: Strong familiarity with web 2.0 services and tools. Foundations of HTML, blogs, RSS, wiki, and collaboration tools. Basic digital image editing.
• Other skills: Excellent writing skills. Planning and reporting.
• Time availability: At least 5 to 6 hours per day, six days a week. Minimum apprentice period is nine months.
• Character traits: Key interest: learning. Humble, curious, precise, organized, honest, direct and upfront, ironic, open-minded, open-to-criticism, team-worker, passionate.
• Location of internship: fully online (two positions available in Rome - side by side with me and Giulio)
• Number of internship positions available: 6 - 8
• Cost: free
• Scholarship and admission tests: Six full scholarships covering all of the costs for participating in this internship program are offered and paid by our educational sponsor RGU. To get to these you need to apply by writing to Giulio.Gaudiano@masternewmedia.org and you then need to pass a demanding test consisting in article writing and formatting and in a demonstration of your competency in the use of typical web 2.0 tools and technologies (RSS, wikis, P2P, blogs, etc.)

How To Get More Information

Interested?

To find out more about Master New Media internships read these articles written by those who actually went through it:

Nicole Neuberger

Michael Pick

Applications for internships are open now. To get in, write your request by sending already some information about yourself and why you want to join directly to Giulio.Gaudiano [at] masternewmedia.org and cc: me Robin.Good [at] masternewmedia.org.

Hurry up, applications are open only for a limited time.

Large files sending web services are a category of online collaboration tools that is made up of those applications that allow you to send huge files, even larger than 1GB, to one or more people, and without resorting to email attachments. In this week’s Sharewood Guide, Robin Good and I have selected for you the best free tools that you can use to send very large files to your contacts and workmates.

Photo credit: Mipan

To help you select which service may best fit your large file sending needs, I am listing here the key characteristics of the services that allow you to send very large files to someone else at zero cost. Here they are:

• File size: The maximum file size that the service accepts
• File transmission method: Most of these services let you upload files to a server, so that they can be sent to more people at once. In some other cases, rather than uploading a file to a centralize server, P2P-like services provide direct connectivity so that you can send unlimited size files, requiring you and your recipients to be online at the same time
• Time before deletion: Lets you decide how many days (or how many downloads) the file will stay online before it gets deleted
• Registration: Informs you whether you need to to be registered or not in order to start sending large files

Here the tools I selected for you:

How To Send Files Larger Than 1GB Services - Comparison Table

go to the table!

1. StreamFile
   
   StreamFile is a web based file sharing system that you can use to send files to any email address. Just input as many email addresses you want, pick a file up to 2GB, and click send. People will receive a download link to get the file, which you can also share via IM or as you wish.
   http://www.streamfile.com/
2. Fileai
   
   Fileai is a file sharing service that lets you send huge files to anyone. Just select the file you want to send, with no size limit, get the link, and share it with other people: the file will be sent directly from your PC to other people’s, with no upload process. The service does not need any registration and it is free to use.
   http://fileai.com/
3. Eatlime
   
   
   Eatlime, previously called YouSwap, is a free online service that allows you to upload and share files online. Without any registration process, you can upload any type of file up to 1GB, and share it with anyone through a public download URL. If you register, you can also download a free utility that lets you upload files to your account with a simple combination of keys. Plus, they just added a new features which lets you upload videos up to 100MB, and embed them in customizable players. Free to use.
   http://www.eatlime.com/files/
4. DropSend
   
   DropSend is a free website that anyone can use to store and share files online. With a simple registration and no software to install, you can easily upload any type of file up to 1GB and share with everyone by typing their email address. A message with the download link will be sent automatically to that person. Plus it can also be used to store your files online and carry them with you wherever you are. Free to use.
   http://www.dropsend.com/
5. File Dropper
   
   File Dropper is an online file hosting website that you can use to send large files with anyone. With no registration you can upload any file up to 5GB and, after the upload progress bar has finished, you will be given a sharing link for other people to get the file. Apart from the basic free version, other paid versions are available for password-protected sharing and up to 25GB of space per file. Free to use.
   http://www.filedropper.com/
6. PipeBytes
   
   
   PipeBytes in a web-based tool that anyone can use to share files, with no size limitation. If you want to send a file, just click the “Send” button, browse for you file, and click “Upload”. You will be provided with a pick-up code, or simply with a pick-up URL, that will connect your and your friend’s computer to send the file directly, with no uploading process. Free to use, no registration needed.
   http://www.pipebytes.com/
7. Filemail
   
   
   Filemail is a web-based file sharing system that you can use to send an unlimited number of files, up to 2GB each, to anyone who has an email address. With no registration needed, you can send any file just by selecting it from your PC through the Flash-based interface, set the options, such as the number of days the file will be available for, type the receiver’s email, and click send. When the progress bar will finish, an email will be sent to your friend with the download link. Free.
   http://www.filemail.com/
8. ADrive
   
   
   ADrive is a new web-base file hosting solution which gives you 50 GB of online free storage for free. After you create an account, you are able to upload all of your files online through a web-upload, but a new uploading solution will be available soon. You can use ADrive as your online backup hard-drive, but you can click the button “Share”, and make your files public so that anyone can access them anytime. Completely web-based and free.
   http://www.adrive.com/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi and Robin Good for Master New Media and first published on August 11th 2008 as “How To Send Files Larger Than 1GB - Sharewood Guide”