Best Practices Not Included

The Use Of Social Media In Real Time Events

If there was ever any doubt about how game changing social media would be in societal communication, it's been put to bed.  Not trying to sound like a broken record but what's going on right now in Tehran is maybe the most demonstrative example of social media's influence and far reaching impact to date.

As I'm writing this, the Iranian government has for the most part blocked and censored the traditional media's coverage of protests in Tehran and people are turning to the internet and specifically Twitter, despite government efforts to stop it.  Even more impressive, than the tweets, pictures, and video's being sent in is the what's going on with proxy servers.  The protesters are winning the numbers game and the rest of the world is lending a hand!

By that I mean, people on Twitter all over the world are out setting up proxy servers specifically for Iran IP addresses in an effort to keep the information from Iran proliferated and flowing.  The beauty of this is the power of collectivism.  Everyday people are working together, taking 5-10 minutes of their time and creating new proxy addresses faster than the Iran government can shut down the current ones.  True power will always lie in the hands of numbers, especially when those numbers are mobilized and connected.  Here are some great links:

Proxy address posts on Twitter: here

Internet brings events in Iran to life: here

Also, my favorite.  San Fransisco based Twazzup has built this Twitter tool to compile/aggregate tweets, pictures, video's coming in from live events.  Check out the Iran page.  The real time pictures and videos coming in from tweeters and bloggers in Iran are pretty incredible.

Mark my word, this will be text book Communication/PR material down the road.

Venture Capital A Systemic Risk?

I came across an article in TechCrunch on how the U.S. Treasury is also targeting Venture Capital (VC) in the plans to increase regulatory oversight on all private investment vehicles.  The rationale for this of course is in the name of systemic risk.   Systemic risk?  The entire 30 Billion invested from all Venture Capital nationwide is too small to pose any sort of systemic risk to the U.S. economy at large, not to mention Venture Capital investing involves little leveraging unlike the kind that went on in big financials.  We need to remember the structure of VC has made it one of the most effective and thereby important investment vehicles ever created. 

VC's put up equity under the knowing realization that they could lose it all.  The SEC is clearly moving in the direction of regulating risk taking being made for purpose of economic self interest.  The new administration needs to wake up and smell the roses, for when we examine history, we find that self interested investing aka 'greed' has been the economic growth engine in this country from day one.  How ever socially un-virtuous that my sound, it's the truth and the sooner we stop berating it as "unnoble" and segmenting everyone into two categories (Wall Street and Main Street). Regulating Venture Capital could have the same unfortunate affect as it had on Bernie Madoff's investors by creating illusions of safety in endeavors that are ultimately risky ventures.

But let's not forgot the societal benefits private sector risk taking through Venture Capital has yielded.  Companies like: Intel, Apple, Genentech, Cisco, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter would not be what they are today if they hadn't found funding from Venture Capital along the way.  Not to mention, the millions of jobs and economic growth spawned from this risky investing.  Let's think about, would the government have invested in any of these companies in their early stages?  And how would our lives be different without the innovation that's come out of these organizations.

As far as I can see, the only systemic risk the U.S. Economy faces going forward is for the government to convince the general public that we should let the SEC, Treasury, and Banking Committee put their hands in every privately organized financial decision made going forward. Thus lets continue to expand the size of public regulatory agencies like the SEC, an organization that has done nothing more than create a false sense of security as the suposed umbrella over the financial industry.  Tim Geithner, keep the government's business out of Venture Capital, I don't want the government's hand in innovation.