DLD Conference Maps for the 21st Century. Part II: Videos

Meanwhile the DLD Conference - Digital, Life, Design - took place in Munich and the session "Maps for the 21st Century" has been a refreshing, creative addition to the program. For details please refer to previous post from January 23 or visit www.dld-conference.com

Here is the video "Maps for the 21st Century". It is more than two hours long so you may want to make yourself comfortable before joining in:



Click here to view all DLD videos

If you like to flexibly visualize the world based on your criteria you may want to dive into 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, www.8W8.com

Ouch!

Ouch! The US deficit is to hit a record of $1,556 billion – 10.6% of GDP – this year. While the deficit is an enormous amount, the % puts it a bit more in perspective. How does it compare to other countries and to the past, how does it compare to savings, assets, know-how, research, investment vs cost and more? This is why 8W8, the world modeling engine, renders such data, weightens the data based on a user's view or opinion and ultimately visualizes the state of a country in this case or a global space tribe based on other elements chosen.

Anyone interested in some of the aspects is able to find an extract of the definitions in the 8W8 - Global Space Tribes glossary . Otherwise 8W8 - Global Space Tribes can be read on Google Books for free; Amazon.com has it as print and Kindle edition.

Maps for the 21st Century - DLD Conference

As every year just before the World Economic Forum is held in Davos, Switzerland, innovative minds meet at the DLD Conference (Digital Life and Design), www.dld-conference.com, in Munich, Germany.

DLD is an inspiring community for the 21st century which features digital innovation, science and culture and brings together thought leaders, creators, entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world.

This year's fantastic program includes the session "Maps for the 21st Century" (DLD Version) curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist in collaboration with Johannes Fricke Waldthausen. For details please visit http://www.dld-conference.com/2010/01/maps-for-the-21st-century.php

Speakers include:

* Julieta Aranda (artist New York, Berlin)
* Rosa Barba (artist, Berlin)
* Peter Hirshberg (The Communication Group, San Francisco)
* Qiu Zhi Jie (artist, Beijing)
* Alexander Kluge (fIlmmaker, dtcp.tv, Munich)
* Aaron Koblin (artist, Google Creative Lab, San Francisco)
* Philippe Parreno (artist, Paris)
* Josef Penninger (Gen-Mapping Biologist, Scientist of the Year 2003, Vienna)
* Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen Design, San Francisco, Wired Magazine)
* Anri Sala (artist, Berlin)
* Dimitar Sasselov (Harvard Astrophysician, Boston)

Since in 8W8 - Global Space Tribes the fictive think-tank "The Golden Sky" developed the world modeling engine 8W8 to visualize the world of the 21st century from all aspects and angles, views and and opinions, this session above certainly will be of interest for all the readers.

Sonic Boom - Globalization at Mach Speed

"Sonic Boom is the business book you must read"—Eric Schmidt, Chairman/CEO of Google Inc.

"I strongly recommend this book to everyone who wants deep insights into the future without either excessive optimism or pessimism."—Gary Becker, University of Chicago economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and Presidential Medal of Freedom
"Better than any other, this book explains why the future of our world is still a globalized future, one in which the increasing speed of change will directly affect us all. If you read Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, you must read Sonic Boom, because this book is the next step."—Tyler Cowen, Holbert C. Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and co-Founder, Marginalrevolution.com

Newly released Sonic Boom is in the top ten sales ranks of the Amazon Kindle Globalization category.

The Emirate State Building?

Today the world's tallest building has been officially opened: Burj Dubai. Impressive architecture no doubt. Especially in recent volatile times navigating through the Emirates with the visualized view through the eyes of the world modeling engine 8W8 might be an interesting experience. In 8W8 - Global Space Tribes a plane trip to New York City and the Empire State Building has been described by Oskar Kiernan Fellow "OK Fellow". A tower is and is not what you get. For those interested in understanding realities this might be an enjoyable read.

Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Chapter X - It Feels Good

...

“Then, as I continued east, I could see miles of geometric geography, manmade of course. Again, I couldn’t see the real elements that I knew existed in those great checkered squares. Where were the motorcycle freaks or journalists? I asked myself the question, ‘If the plane landed on the highway below, where would I find those people with whom I could share a sense of commonality?’ Further, the majestic snowcapped Rocky Mountains began to become inverted. They were tall, but were as empty as paper bags. I think that’s when I began to see the world differently. When I reached the Mississippi Valley, it was like looking at the earth with mirrored glasses.

“Instead of a valley I saw a chain of mountains rising, reaching its tallest point in the middle of St. Louis. I was aware that I was only seeing wealth, population and activity. I was frustrated because I couldn’t discern the various elements that made up the vision I was having. Where were the BMW folks, the writers, the people online? Later that day, as we flew into New York City’s airspace, I could see the slopes of a giant mountain getting taller and taller. I could see miles of streams of cars and other vehicles going up and down the mountain. The Hudson Valley suddenly became rolling hills growing in heights they got closer to Manhattan. When the Empire State Building became visible it looked like a tower on top of the mountain.

...


For more: 8W8 - Global Space Tribes is available on Amazon in print and Kindle edition as well as on Google books for free.

A Whole New World

Last month The Economist looked into the increasingly globalized art markets. Event though the arts have been a global subject for millenniums what is happening now and in the future is driven by many more aspects starting from the creation of arts with the global customer in mind.

'What is art?' has been a question since ever, but now you need to consider additionally 'What is the reality actually?".

Extract from The Economist

... Part of the problem, explains Colin Sheaf, Bonhams’s deputy chairman and head of its Asian art department, is that much of it has been “Chinese art produced by Chinese artists who think they’re producing things to Western taste. And it is bought by Westerners who think they’re buying Chinese taste.” Mainland Chinese collectors prefer more traditional 20th-century masters such as Chen Chengbo and Wu Guanzhong. Once those collectors begin turning their attention to buying contemporary art, they may look towards the global contemporary market rather than these “made for the West” pieces, which might then drop in price.


Either way. Now for enjoyment only:


Ofili’s African apparition



Yue Minyun’s demons



Ghadirian’s face of modern Iran

Huge Shift

Certainly a milestone in how we read books worldwide:

Extract from Amazon Press Release

Amazon Kindle is the Most Gifted Item Ever on Amazon.com. On Christmas Day, for the First Time Ever, Customers Purchased More Kindle Books Than Physical Books.

SEATTLE, Dec 26, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that Kindle has become the most gifted item in Amazon's history. On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases.

"We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "On behalf of Amazon.com employees around the world, we wish everyone happy holidays and happy reading!"

On Amazon's peak day, Dec. 14, 2009, customers ordered over 9.5 million items worldwide, which is a record-breaking 110 items per second.

Last-minute free X-mas Gift: Give a Link to Google Books '8W8 - Global Space Tribes'

In the spirit of making knowledge available to everyone worldwide this is a small contribution.

Just in time for X-mas 8W8 - Global Space Tribes is now available for free on Google Books; instant delivery and ecologically correct...



8W8 - Global Space Tribes on Google Books

If you like to read it on your Kindle or in print it is still available on Amazon.com and Booksurge.com as well.

8W8 - Global Space Tribes has been released two years ago and since then has been an Amazon Kindle Bestseller in the Globalization category.

Carbon Emissions Simulator by FT.com

Amongst the world stake holding factors the world modeling engine 8W8 renders there is also an environmental level.

Now The Financial Times has released an interactive graph on Carbon Emissions. If you are interested here is the link: www.ft.com

For the link to Going Green on 8W8 please click here: 8W8.com or read below ...


8W8 - Global Space Tribes, extract from Chapter X - It Feels Good

...

"Take Sonja, whose business interest focuses on the production and distribution of naturally and locally grown foods, 'Bio' for short: her Global Space Tribe might be named Bio Foods Distribution and Production Global Space Tribe, or, BFDPgst. Sonja, like Hans, is a member of the Green Business Tribe, 'GreenBucks,' for short, which would include any business from environementally proactive automobile manufacturers to energy producing businesses. We could call their tribe, which would also include our hooky playing colleague, Antonio, the GBTgst, or simply, GBgst.


“But, you don’t have to be Green, or be in a Green business to be able to use 8W8. For Charles, Michael or Priyanka, it would allow them to run scenarios on business opportunities depending on weighting and relevancy of criterion. Based on the scenario they want to take the bet on or split a risk proportionally, they can see the world and invest or develop business plans. Am I making myself clear, Stephen?” she said almost condescendingly, as a college professor would inquire of a student who was having difficulty understanding a simple point.

Mann nodded affirmatively, feeling a little less confident in his intellecutal prowess. All of a sudden, he remembered that he was in a room with two individuals who had been mentioned for a Nobel Prize and 13 others, including Madam Chee, who were giants in their respective fields.

...

Wow: Amazon Kindle is Amazon's Bestselling Item

Amazon Inc. announced impressive Q3/09 results. 5 billion $ in revenues, guidance for Q4 are 8 - 9 billion $.

In the Amazon press release, Jeff Bezos says the "Kindle has become the #1 bestselling item by both unit sales and dollars – not just in our electronics store but across all product categories on Amazon.com."

This is quite a milestone. I guess here it goes:

WSJ on Kindle: The Book That Contains All Books

From the Wall Street Journal ...

The Book That Contains All Books
The globally available Kindle could mark as big a shift for reading as the printing press and the codex

On Monday, the Kindle 2 will become the first e-reader available globally. The only other events as important to the history of the book are the birth of print and the shift from the scroll to bound pages. The e-reader, now widely available, will likely change our thinking and our being as profoundly as the two previous pre-digital manifestations of text. The question is how. And the answer can be found in the history of earlier book forms.



read the entire article

America for Sale by Dr. Jerome Corsi

Many things are invisible for the naked eye. A scenario that could be modeled with 8W8, the world modeling engine developed by the Internet think-tank The Golden Sky in 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, would be "America for Sale' written by Dr. Jerome Corsi. Btw. it could apply for any other country also, of course. America for Sale is an Amazon Kindle bestseller in the globalization category. An introduction below:

From Amazon:

Product Description

A RESOUNDING CALL TO DEFEND AMERICA'S SOVEREIGNTY AND SAVE OUR NATION FROM GLOBAL ECONOMIC TAKEOVER -- FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE OBAMA NATION AND THE LATE GREAT USA

Between President George W. Bush's "new world order" and the unprecedented governmental growth and massive redistribution of wealth under President Barack Obama, the United States risks losing the greatest middle class ever created in the history of the world. In his groundbreaking new book, Dr. Jerome R. Corsi blows the whistle on a movement to undercut the fundamental principles of limited government that our Founding Fathers fought for and died for trying to establish. As policy-makers manipulate the economic panic of our times to advance a globalist agenda that threatens American sovereignty, we must protect our independent and self-governing nation and preserve the decades of economic power and military strength we have enjoyed since the end of World War II .

In America for Sale, Corsi explains the globalists' plan to put America on the chopping block. While the radical Left promotes socialism and the radical Right champions unbridled free trade, valuable jobs are being outsourced, our national borders erased, and our dollar destroyed before our very eyes. Foreign investors are buying up U.S. assets, from financial-services firms to public infrastructure such as highways. We are on our way to a European Union-type North American common market and a one-world government.

With constructive solutions for resisting the global New Deal, reversing our dependence on foreign oil, and strengthening our middle class, Corsi shares important and practical strategies to help American families survive an imminent economic depression. The United States can be a major player in the world economy without sacrificing our sovereignty, the strength of our national domestic economy, or the dollar. America is for sale -- unless taxpayers stand up and say "NO!" to the globalist political agenda that threatens our great nation's freedom.


About the Author
Dr. Jerome Corsi received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. His latest best-seller was The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada. He is a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily.com and the author of two books on contemporary Iran: Atomic Iran and Showdown with Nuclear Iran. In his 2005 book Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil, which he co-authored with Craig. R. Smith, Dr. Corsi predicted oil prices at over $100 a barrel.

John Lloyd Inventories the Invisibility, Ted Conference

The world modeling engine 8W8 helps to understand and visualize the invisibilities of the world and its stake holding factors. John Lloyd takes an interesting approach also. You will enjoy!




Actually, Rene Seifert, www.reneseifert.com, brought this enjoyable clip to my attention, hence kudos go to him.

Amazon Kindle Goes Global

Amazon announced that it would begin selling an international version of its popular e-reader Kindle that will work in more than 100 countries on October 19, 2009.

Jeff Bezos promotes the international Kindle on all local Amazon sites with a personal note:



It is Amazon Kindle time worldwide.

Facebook's Gross National Happiness Index

A Facebook tool on Happiness. One of the elements the world modeling engine 8W8 is rendering to visualize the world based on an individual's point of view and opinions is the inclusion of Happiness. Now the "Happiness Ranking Industry" has a real-time player also: Facebook.


http://blog.facebook.com

How Happy Are We?

by Adam D. I. Kramer


Every day, through Facebook status updates, people share how they feel with those who matter most in their lives. These updates are tiny windows into how people are doing. They're brief, to the point, and descriptive of what's going on this week, today or right now.

Grouped together, these updates are indicative of how we are collectively feeling. At Facebook, we're always looking for ways to help people better understand the world around them, and we're interested in how people express their emotions with one other and the world. So earlier this year, data scientists at Facebook started a project to measure the overall mood of people from the United States on Facebook, based on the sentiment expressed in status updates.

The result was an index that measures how happy people on Facebook are from day-to-day by looking at the number of positive and negative words they're using when updating their status. When people in their status updates use more positive words—or fewer negative words—then that day as a whole is counted as happier than usual.

Though more countries or languages may be added later, the current result is notable since it is based on the updates of all English-speaking U.S. Facebook users. In this sense, it can count as an indicator of "Gross National Happiness," a metric only measured currently via Gallup polls and national surveys in countries such as France and Bhutan. To protect your privacy, no one at Facebook actually reads the status updates in the process of doing this research; instead, our computers do the word counting after all personally identifiable information has been removed.

For our Gross National Happiness index, we adapted a collection of positive and negative emotion words built by social psychologists. Examples of positive or happy words include "happy," "yay" and "awesome," while negative, or unhappy words, include "sad," "doubt" and "tragic." We also did a brief survey of some Facebook users, which showed that people who use more positive words, relative to the number of negative words, reported higher satisfaction with their lives.

Over time, we've seen spikes in the index for different days of the year. Some of the happiest days include U.S. national holidays like Thanksgiving and Fourth of July, social holidays like Halloween and religious holidays including Christmas and Easter. Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008—when the U.S. was celebrating the election of President Barack Obama—was over twice as happy as the average Wednesday.

It's not all rosy, though: The index also shows two remarkably unhappy days. The lowest was Jan. 22, 2008, which was the day the Asian stock market crashed and coincidentally the same day as the tragic death of actor Heath Ledger. The recent death of cultural icon Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009, came in as the second least happy day in the past two years.

How happy will all of us be tomorrow, on our birthdays or during the World Cup? It depends on you and what you decide to share about how you're feeling with your friends through your status updates.

Adam, a Ph.D. student in social psychology at the University of Oregon and an intern on Facebook's data team, is 72 percent happier than the average person on Facebook.

8W8 - #2 in Globalization; Kindle Reader's favorite for 20 months

8W8 - Global Space Tribes, which was released twenty months ago, is still a Kindle reader's favorite amongst people with a passion for globalization, travel and the Internet.

Currently it is ranked as of the below:

# 2 in Kindle Store Globalization
#12 in Kindle Store Essays & Travelogues
#12 in Kindle Store Computers & Internet

Kindle Globalization Top 10

1. The World Is Flat (Updated and Expanded) by Thomas L. Friedman

2. 8W8 - Global Space Tribes by Ralf Hirt

3. Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations by Paul Blustein

4. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

5. Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Counterfeiters are Hijacking the Global Economy by Moises Naim

6. How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin, Foer

7. Stephen Roach on the Next Asia: Opportunities and Challenges for a New Globalization by Stephen Roach

8. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

9. Making Globalization Work by Joseph E. Stiglitz

10. God Is Back by John Micklethwait

Rio de Janeiro Olympics: Viva Brazil. Brazil, Brazil!

Obrigado IOC! Rio de Janeiro hosting the 2016 Olympics is a nice move distributing and trying to balance gravity further. It will give Brazil a boost and make it ramp up its digital and mobile infrastructure to the next level; hopefully totally on world standards by then. Independent from this it will be a great celebration by its wonderful people. In 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, Antonio Montes Rordriguez, represents as part of the Internet think-tank The Golden Sky not only Brazil and its music, but also world stake holding factors including environmental issues, national resources, rain forrest protection and more. Those are being entered in the world modeling engine 8W8, rendered into visualized world views. Back to Brazil: What would the Olympic party be without Samba, Capoiera and classic and latest tunes? You may want to start enjoying Beth Carvalho right here ...



Rio de Janeiro 2016 it is. Viva Brazil, viva Olympics!

Jay-Z & Alicia Keys MTV Video Music Awards - Empire State of Mind

Did you attend or watch the MTV Video Awards in New York City? If not the highlight at the end was certainly Jay-Z together with Alica Keys performing their homage to New York City "Empire State of Mind". 8W8 - Global Space Tribes,
Chapter VII – Approaching New York City, introduces new views of the world's capitol powered by the world modeling engine 8W8. What Jay-Z and Alicia describe as the "djungle" is not so different from understanding the diversity of elements and connections; digitally inbound and outbound, too. Just a different language. Here you go. Enjoy the music; lyrics below.


http://www.mtvmusic.com/jay_z/videos/435686/empire_state_of_mind_live_.jhtml





Yeah,
Yeah, Imma up at Brooklyn,
Now Im down in Tribeca,
Right next to DeNiro,
But i’ll be hood forever,
I’m the new Sinatra,
And since I made it here,
I can make it anywhere,
Yeah they love me everywhere,
I used to cop in Harlem,
All of my Dominicanos
Right there up on Broadway,
Brought me back to that McDonalds,
Took it to my stash spot,
Five Sixty Stage street,
Catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons whipping pastry,
Cruising down 8th street,
Off white Lexus,
Driving so slow but BK is from Texas,
Me I’m up at Bedsty,
Home of that boy Biggie,
Now I live on billboard,
And I brought my boys with me,
Say wat up to Ty Ty, still sipping Malta
Sitting courtside Knicks and Nets give me high fives,
N-gga I be spiked out, I can trip a referee,
Tell by my attitude that I most definitely from…

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
The lights will inspire you,
Lets here it for New York, New York, New York

[Jay-Z]
I made you hot n-gga,
Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game,
Sh-t I made the Yankee hat more famous than a yankee can,
You should know I bleed Blue, but I aint a crip tho,
But I got a gang of n-ggas walking with my click though,
Welcome to the melting pot,
Corners where we selling rocks,
Afrika bambaataa sh-t,
Home of the hip hop,
Yellow cap, gypsy cap, dollar cab, holla back,
For foreigners it aint fitted they forgot how to act,
8 million stories out there and their naked,
Cities is a pity half of y’all won’t make it,
Me I gotta plug a special and I got it made,
If Jesus payin LeBron, I’m paying Dwayne Wade,
3 dice cee-lo
3 card marley,
Labor day parade, rest in peace Bob Marley,
Statue of Liberty, long live the World trade,
Long live the king yo,
I’m from the empire state thats…

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
The lights will inspire you,
Lets here it for New York, New York, New York
Welcome to the bright light..

Lights is blinding,
Girls need blinders
So they can step out of bounds quick,
The side lines is blind with casualties,
Who sipping life casually, then gradually become worse,
Don’t bite the apple Eve,
Caught up in the in crowd,
Now your in-style,
And in the winter gets cold en vogue with your skin out,
The city of sin is a pity on a whim,
Good girls gone bad, the cities filled with them,
Mommy took a bus trip and now she got her bust out,
Everybody ride her, just like a bus route,
Hail Mary to the city your a Virgin,
And Jesus can’t save you life starts when the church ends,
Came here for school, graduated to the high life,
Ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight,
MDMA got you feeling like a champion,
The city never sleeps better slip you a Ambien

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
The lights will inspire you,
Lets here it for New York, New York, New York

One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty,
No place in the World that can compare,
Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeaaahh
Come on, come,
Yeah,

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
These streets will make you feel brand new,
The lights will inspire you,
Lets here it for New York, New York, New York

France To Add Happiness to GDP

Voila! Today it has been in the news that France will be adding happiness to GDP. Paris adopts Nobel laureates' ideas on data. Full article: ft.com

This is great and had already been implemented by The Golden Sky - the Internet think-tank developing the world modeling engine 8W8, simulating the invisible realities of the world.




Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Chapter V - The Emergence of the Global Space Tribes.


“What on earth do you think those boys are doing?” muttered Hans under his breath.

“It’s a big toy for them,” replied Theresa, “I think that both of them are fixated on helicopters. For the last year, Fellow and Tony have been talking about nothing else than being up in a plane and looking down and reconfiguring geography in a way that they could see what they were looking for in terms of invisible factors like GNP/PPP, happiness and like-mindedness. Tony has often talked about finding the elements and streams that coalesce and come together in terms of environmental consciousness. Did you get his thesis, last year, on what he felt was necessary to save the Brazilian rain forest? If not, I still have it saved on my Inraxx.”

Hans nodded, “Oh yes; not only did I receive it, but I was at a Green conference in the Netherlands last June, when he delivered a white paper on the subject. I agree with him one hundred per cent on that subject. Sometimes, I find his views a little too radical, but we seem to come together more often than not.” Turning to Sonja and Rebecca, who had just joined them on the brass rail buffer in front of the golden mirror, he said, “We were just talking about Tony’s idea, that national borders are slowly disappearing as a result of the Internet, and that soon governments will be simple service agencies maintaining highways, disposing of garbage and running the health services of their population.”

Chapter X - It Feels Good

This time, it was Michael who raised his hand. “What you have to understand, Stephen, is that 8W8, while technically a program that makes it results visible is, fundamentally, a new concept for seeing and perceiving the world from both an Earth Level and a Sky Level. I brought up Maria not just to mention the esteem that I have for her but because—in a very real way—her work and both sides of the happiness spectrum can be measured and weighted with 8W8.”

Michael looked at Maria and asked for her pardon if anything that he said would cause her any discomfort. Maria shook her head and waved at him to continue. She seemed to be amused by what he had just said about her and appeared curious about what he would say next.

“Our tool has a way of measuring the intangibles: substances and actions on both and earth and Sky Level. Using the 8W8 helicopter, the pilot can see the world in colors representing these intangibles.”

Growing Up Global: Where is aborad?

Generation Global Space Tribes:




"Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World" by Homa Sabet Tavanger.

“The single greatest gift you can give your child today is to raise them with a global mind-set. If you read only one book this year about child rearing, make it Growing Up Global. It is relevant for today’s families, and long overdue.” —Perry Yeatman, author of Get Ahead by Going Abroad

Nice book.

So where is abroad then in a global world? Since our children will all be digital natives at one point let us welcome them as the Generation Global Space Tribes. Yes, and local matters, too, in a world that is multi-polar.

Zhou Jin Hua

Paintings from latest exhibition at Lake of Constance "Everything was alright, until the unforeseen happened". For details please read previous posts Zhou Jin Hua in Constance and Spotty Series No.1

I hope you appreciate his perspective; a partial idea of the world modeling engine 8W8.

Die Multipolare Salonkultur - The Multi-Polar Saloon Culture

The other day I was asked by "Werben und Verkaufen - www.wuv.de" to contribute an article on the future of communication. If anyone is interested here is the German version of it. It ties in quite nicely with my work at Glam Media and 8W8 - Global Space Tribes. I wonder if it comes across well if you use Google Translate.

http://www.wuv.de/w_v_infocenter/specials/die_zukunft_der_kommunikation/ralf_hirt_die_multipolare_salonkultur

Ralf Hirt: "Die multipolare Salonkultur"
veröffentlicht am 26.08.2009 um 09:00 Uhr · Die Zukunft der Kommunikation · Artikel

Die Zukunft wird uns Elemente der Vergangenheit zurückbringen. Die digitale Vernetzung und Technologie-Evolution ist dabei, die Strukturierung von Informationen durch herkömmliche Kanäle aufzulösen. Spezialisten und Kompetenzpole sind heute Publisher und lassen die Fülle der Inhalte anschwellen. Sie wird jedoch wohl nicht so unorganisiert wie heute bleiben. Denn nach dem Shift zur Mediensouveränität des Einzelnen sucht dieser zunehmend wieder nach Gebündeltem, nach der kollektiven Erfahrung aus unterschiedlichen Quellen.

Das neue Kollektive erschafft er dabei selbst: Seine Interaktion mit Inhalten und Menschen formt die Strukturierung von Informationen. Solche „Tribes“, zusammengehalten von Themen und persönlichen Verbindungen, sind zu klein und zu instabil für das Wort „Zielgruppe“. Außerdem zielen die Tribe-Angehörigen selbst auf etwas ab: Die erfolgreiche Organisation ihrer medialen Identität, ihrer Überzeugungen und nicht zuletzt ihres Konsums.

Erfolgreiche Markenkommunikation 2020 wird sich wohl genauso organisieren müssen. So wird die Kommunikation für Premiummarken zwar weiterhin von Medienmarken geschaffenen Content einrahmen. Darüber hinaus wird sie aber zunehmend nach Clustern organisch gewachsener Inhalte suchen, um sich mit den Themen darin zu verbinden und sie sogar zu moderieren.

Interessant wird dabei sein, wie sich Kooperation als Tugend monetarisiert, sprich: wie Unternehmen mit den Einflussnehmern der weltweit nomadisierenden Tribes kommunizieren werden. Wie schaffen sie die Brücke vom Globalen zum Lokalen? Wie kommen sie mit Influencern ins Gespräch und wie machen sie sich und ihre Marken zu multipolaren Akteuren? Antworten auf diese Fragen könnte das Marketing in der gesellschaftlichen Salonkultur finden, wenn es sie dann wieder gibt.

Copyright: Werben und Verkaufen. www.wuv.de

8W8 - Global Space Tribes is currently ranked #4 in the Amazon Kindle Globalization bestseller list. For non-Kindle users there is a promotion for 8W8 - Global Space Tribes together with Freakonomics for appox. 30 USD on Amazon.com at the moment.

World Wide Rave

According to Amazon customers, who bought 8W8 - Global Space Tribes (Kindle edition), bought also World Wide Rave (Kindle edition). If you are interested in learning more about how communicate with the Global Space Tribes please find below the Amazon description of it:



Product Description
A World Wide Rave!

What the heck is that?

A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. It's when communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It's when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. It's when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.

Rules of the Rave:

* Nobody cares about your products (except you).
* No coercion required.
* Lose control.
* Put down roots.
* Point the world to your (virtual) doorstep.

You can trigger a World Wide Rave: Just create something valuable that people want to share and make it easy for them to do so.

What happens when people can't stop talking online about you, your company, and your products? A World Wide Rave is born that can propel a brand or company to seemingly instant fame and fortune. How do you create one? By learning the secret to getting links, YouTube, Facebook, and blog buzz to drive eager buyers to your virtual doorstep. For free.

In World Wide Rave, David Meerman Scott, author of the award-winning hit book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, reveals the most exciting and powerful ways to build a giant audience from scratch.

www.amazon.com World Wide Rave

www.amazon.com 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Levi’s India to sell blue jeans on instalment plan

Nice move and also case study on why it is important to understand local dynamics from a marketers point of view. In 8W8 - Global Space Tribes the Internet think-tank The Golden Sky tries to model environments, financial considerations and market opportunities, but here it is now up to the consumers in India if they will feel the need for paying a Levi's over time. When it is paid they then may need their next one. It may turn out to be a Levi's Jeans subscription so to speak.


From the Financial Times:

www.ft.com


Levi’s India to sell blue jeans on instalment plan

By Amy Kazmin in New Delhi

Published: August 21 2009 20:46 | Last updated: August 21 2009 20:46

Want a new refrigerator, washing machine or oven? A new car or perhaps an iPhone?

India’s middle-classes have been lapping up such pricey goods for some time due to deals that allow them to pay in monthly instalments.
EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: India Outlook - Jul-20

Now, Levi Strauss & Co has decided to offer the same deal to people wanting to buy a pair of its famous blue jeans.

“Levi’s is an extremely aspirational life-style brand in India,” said Shumone Chatterjee, managing director of Levi Strauss India.

“A large portion of our consumers would love to access Levi’s more frequently than they currently do.”

Under the scheme, customers will be able to pay for Levi’s priced at Rs1,599 ($33) and above in three instalments. The move comes after a two-month experiment at 10 Levi’s stores in the software hub of Bangalore, where consumers offered the instalment option spent an average of 50 per cent more than normal, Mr Chatterjee said. Buoyed by that success, Levi Strauss is extending the offer to shops in nine cities.

As well as boosting purchases from existing customers, the scheme “opens up the brand to a significant number of new users who today already know and aspire to Levi’s”, Mr Chatterjee said.

While popular among urban youth, Levi’s has acquired strong caché among working men, especially those from rural India, helped by billboards featuring Akshay Kumar, the macho Bollywood action film star.

“For guys in a village, a pair of Levi’s jeans is arrival and it marks a certain sense of equality with urban India,” said Suhel Seth, managing partner of Counselage, a brand advisory agency. “A pair of Levi’s can immediately catapult you on a social level.”

Levi’s arrived in India in 1994, just as the country was opening up its markets, and now has more than 230 dedicated Levi’s boutiques among its roughly 700 Indian points of sale.

In a country where a pair of unbranded blue jeans can sell for as little as Rs200, Levi’s are priced from Rs1,599 up to Rs10,000 per pair for specialised lines.

Mr Seth said Levi’s interest-free instalment scheme fits a pattern of companies looking downmarket for growth.

“Most marketeers in India today are looking at market creation, not market share,” he said. “It’s about giving these guys stuff they couldn’t otherwise own in one shot.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.

Zhou Jin Hua Exhibition, Constance

Until September 27 a trip to lake of Constance might be worthwhile. Art-club Constance holds an exciting exhibition: Zhou Jin Hua, painter and shooting star of Chinese contemporary art, shows his latest work: "Everything was fine until the unforeseen happened". There were also a few well written reviews in German language. Simply Google Zhou Jin Hua. The way of seeing and showing things from different perspectives was also one inspiring element when creating the world modeling engine 8W8.




Some more paintings can be found here: Ministryofart.de

Read more on Zhou Jin Hua on the 8W8 - Global Space Tribes blog

Recession Smile

Tribe Spotting

Nice picture spotting the elements of the world of the global space tribes? (copyright Bergen, New York Times)

8W8 is the name of the world modeling engine developed by the Internet think-tank The Golden Sky. The 8W8 Helicopter enables the group to enter virtual rides seeing a world never seen before. If you like to find out more: www.8W8.com

Seth Godin on Tribes at Ted Conference

Seth Godin, author of "Tribes" amongst other best selling books on marketing as well as a passionate blogger, here live on stage at the Ted Conference 2009 (17 minutes)



Enjoyed it? Now you are a triber, too. Welcome to the world of the Global Space Tribes.

Most livable Cities: The case for 8W8, the world modeling engine

Last months, The Financial Times, ft.com, published the Monocle city ranking taking livability aspects into account. In the Top 25 there was only one US city, in fact Honolulu, Hawaii. The Economist Intelligence Unit's survey as well as Mercer's come to similar conclusions.


The most ‘liveable’ FT/Monocle / Economist / Mercer

1 Zürich Vancouver Vienna
2 Copenhagen Vienna Zuerich
3 Tokyo Melbourne Geneva
4 Munich Toronto Vancouver
5 Helsinki Perth Auckland
6 Stockholm Calgary Duesseldorf
7 Vienna Helsinki Munich
8 Paris Geneva Frankfurt
9 Melbourne Sydney Bern
10 Berlin Zuerich Sydney

In some cases the results seem one might expect, in others you may wonder a little. Either way there is no right or wrong, but if you do like people you do not end up in Perth and if you like a laugh you better go the UK than Bern. So at the end of the day an individual may pick her or his most important criteria and enter it in the 8W8 world modeling engine to render it with many more aspects the world is made an interesting place out of.

Green E-Commerce Report by emarketer.com

eMarketer today has published a report on Green E-Commerce. A crop of green shopping sites has emerged to help consumers find eco-friendly products and get tips on how to incorporate green practices into their lives. Savvy consumers use the Internet to evaluate the legitimacy of brands’ eco-friendly product claims. And social network sites are becoming hubs for a wide range of environmental causes.

The Green E-Commerce report traces the many ways the Internet is spurring eco-consumerism—and how brand marketers are responding.

For details: www.emarketer.com

8W8 - Global Space has addressed the importance and related opportunities of "Going Green" in several chapters. Therefore readers of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes may find eMarketers report as interesting as eMarketer subscribers the read of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes.


Extract from Chapter X - It Feels Good

...

"Take Sonja, whose business interest focuses on the production and distribution of naturally and locally grown foods, 'Bio' for short: her Global Space Tribe might be named Bio Foods Distribution and Production Global Space Tribe, or, BFDPgst. Sonja, like Hans, is a member of the Green Business Tribe, 'GreenBucks,' for short, which would include any business from environmentally proactive automobile manufacturers to energy producing businesses. We could call their tribe, which would also include our hooky playing colleague, Antonio, the GBTgst, or simply, GBgst.

For more: www.8W8.com and www.amazon.com

#25 Amazon Travel China: 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

8W8 - Global Space Tribes, released 18 months ago and since then an Amazon Kindle category bestseller, has also entered the Top 25 Amazon Book Rankings in the category "Travel / China". 8W8 - Global Space Tribes covers various aspects of China through both virtual helicopter rides and modeling China's impact in a globalized and fragmented world.

As members of the Internet think tank The Golden Sky Mr. and Mrs. Chee are the representative voices of China's stake in the world of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes.


Winston Chee
Chinese Internet entrepreneur from Shanghai / Hong Kong, who took his globally expanding social network platform 51societies.com and 51societies.com.cn public at NASDAQ the day it had reached its all time high. He owns the beautiful mountain home EA-RA on Hawaii.

Madam Chee
Winston Chee's wife. The hidden power behind Winston and her involvement in his business dealings is not exactly known. She wears western dress outside of China, but at home and in China prefers Chinese dresses. She is a wonderful host and surprises their guests with creative and holistic cuisine.


For more information please visit www.8W8.com or www.Amazon.com

Kindle 35 % of Amazon Book Sales

This week Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon (AMZN), announced this week that Kindle sales are now 35 % of Amazon book sales when Kindle editions are available. The world is turning digital.



8W8 - Global Space Tribes is in the Kindle charts ranked #3 in the Globalization category, #8 in Travelogues and Essays, #43 in Computers and Internet.

8W8 - Global Space Tribes entered the Kindle bestseller lists more than one year ago.

Kindle Top 10 in Globalization: 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

8W8 - Global Space Tribes meanwhile has been in the Amazon Kindle Globalization bestseller list for five consecutive quarters. Currently it is ranked number four - right between Thomas Friedman and Adolf Hitler; kind of a strange squeeze :-)

Here are the latest Amazon Kindle Globalization Bestsellers:

1. The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein
2. The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
3. God is Back by John Micklethwait
4. 8W8 - Global Space Tribes by Ralf Hirt
5. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
6. How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer
7. Making Globalization Work by Jospeh E. Steglitz
8. One Economics, Many Recipies by Dani Rodrik
9. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Globalization by Noam Chomsky
10. The Last Days of Europe by Walter Laqueur

Frequently Bought Together: Freakonomics and 8W8 - Global Space Tribes on Amazon

In the Amazon.com section "Frequently Bought Togehter" there is currently a promotion to buy "Freakonomics" and "8W8 - Global Space Tribes" together for US$ 39.77.

Freakonomics + 8W8 - Global Space Tribes on Amazon

For visiting the Freakonomics' blog, these days part of The New York Times, please click here.

"Ecological Debt" through the eyes of nef - the new economics foundation

In the fiction work and Amazon Kindle Globalization Bestseller "8W8 - Global Space Tribes" green, environmental issues and opportunities have been made visible and explored; simply by applying the world modeling engine 8W8. Now there is a new book on the market that looks into the real case of the United Kingdom: New calculations from nef (the new economics foundation) reveal that on Easter Sunday this year, 12 April, the UK in effect stops relying on its own natural resources to support itself and starts to 'live off' the rest of the world.

At a time when the UK is claiming to show international leadership, it represents a deeply unsustainable model for the world to follow according to a new and fully updated edition of nef policy director Andrew Simms' book Ecological Debt: Global Warming and the Wealth of Nations, published the same day.

At current UK levels of consumption our 'ecological debt day' - the day we begin living beyond our environmental means - falls only a third of the way through the year. The calculation is made from a projected trend based on ten years worth of the latest data on the UK's ecological footprint.

You find the full review right here: http://www.neweconomics.org

The book is available on on Amazon.co.uk



Most certainly the Internet think tank The Golden Sky would be pleased to read and discuss this fine piece of work further ... on EA-RA, Hilo, Hawaii. You may like the extract of Chapter II - Hilo Y'All! Aloha Golden Sky!

Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat & Crowded and 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

According to Amazon 36 % of users that visit the Amazon 8W8 - Global Space Tribes books section buy also Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why we need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America. www.thomasfriedman.com

Kindle Sales up 300 %: 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

While Amazon has not been disclosing Kindle device sales yet, sales of the 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, Kindle edition, is up by more than 300 % comparing March 2008 to 2009. 8W8 - Global Space Tribes entered the Kindle globalization bestseller list at the beginning of 2008 and since then has been in the charts; currently on # 10.

Global Jazz Tribe meets at Montreux Jazz Festival. Space in!

Winter is over in the Northern hemisphere and it is time that music enthusiasts from all over the world hit the festival track. One of the finest and most traditional ones on the European continent will take place at lake of Geneva, Switzerland. Here is where the Global Jazz and Music Tribe comes together for the 43th time.

Surely, one Golden Skyer - Golden Sky is the name of the Internet Think Tank that developed the world modeling engine 8W8 - would love to meet you there:

Antônio Montes Rordrigues
He stands at nearly 6’ 6” . The "Walking Mountain" a musician and extreme environmentalist from Manaus and Sao Paulo, Brazil, was invited to take part in a Millennium IT Conference in Rio de Janeiro. As a member of the panel, he became acquainted with other members of The Golden Sky and since the participated in every single activity of the group.

For those of you, who can not travel to Switzerland you can live up the 8W8 - Global Space Tribes world by hooking up to the Global Montreux Jazz Space Tribe on:

www.montreuxjazz.com


www.liveatmontreux.ch (2008 extracts, pretty nice)

or you-tube it. Have fun! It is summertime.

Chris Brinkworth goes integratred: LinkedIn Graffiti

Nice example of building a tribe of followers. If anyone wants to join his journey:

Brinkworth LinkedIn
Brinkworth Facebook

Safe travels everyone.

8W8 for iPhone and iPod Touch: Kindle Application

Now you can read Kindle books without actually having a Kindle! As of today Kindle is a format rather than an electronic device only.

From Amazon.com:

Read Kindle books on your iPhone or iPod Touch

* No Kindle required
* Get the best reading experience available on your iPhone or iPod touch
* Access your Kindle books even if you don't have your Kindle with you
* Automatically synchronizes your last page read between devices with Amazon Whispersync
* Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle

If you like to test 8W8 - Global Space Tribes Kindle Edition on your iPhone or iPod Touch simply click here for the apps and here for the globalization bestseller

The Inraxx is coming more and more true.

Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" and 8W8 - Global Space Tribes Kindle Edition

According to Amazon 37 % of users that visit the Amazon Kindle 8W8 - Global Space Tribes books section buy also Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers - The Story of Success".




Source: Amazon.com

Thomas Friedman on "Kindles"

Extract from an interview with Thomas Friedman on www.spiegel.de

SPIEGEL: Will there still be printed news papers in 30 years?

Friedman: No. We will have "Kindles", reading devices, as we have for books. Unless someone finances printed news papers, hence those will then be non-profit-organizations or foundations similar to doctors without borders. Journalists without borders!



Thomas Friedman is the author of The World is Flat; Hot, Flat and Crowded; a New York Times columnist and three times Pulitzer prize winner.

Obama Inauguration: Digitally impacting ... CNN, Facebook, 8W8.com

Today the digital world climbs to new heights. The inauguration of the 44th President of the United States is watched and followed globally on Facebook and many community platforms more. Moreover, Barack Obama's campaign understood leveraging digital marketing tactics during the election better than any other party before. Integrated with conventional methods and a strong message built the momentum to enable today's inauguration of Barack Obama.


The Internet think-tank The Golden Sky had looked into leadership and politics from a global point of view. A short extract you find below.



Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Chapter IX - Aerially Shaped Opportunities


“Global Space Tribes contain voters, although it is difficult to determine without a new world modeling engine like 8W8 what percentage within a specific tribe actually vote and what their political leanings might be without examining the relevant criteria. In this case, the criteria would include country of origin, region and their identification using geographical tribal DNA. Politicians need to understand the tribes in their area of responsibility and political mission. Those who do understand their respective Global Space Tribes listen and interact with them, use the right communication medium to get their message out, and will have an extraordinary advantage over their political competitors running traditional mainstream campaigns.

“When Global Space Tribe understanding becomes even more important is when specific tribes move in new or simply unconventional directions. Governments can recognize future or emerging problems as well as a new Zeitgeist or trends early and prepare and act accordingly. As Global Space Tribes expand beyond their own geographical region, politicians will find that they have a golden opportunity to learn tribal behaviors in other geographical areas since most developments happen in same-time.

Theresa paused to take another sip from her glass, which Oskar had just refilled for her, then looked at Sonja. “Now, let’s move away from politics ...

Obama Sneaker: The Run of Change is on

The sneaker for all political, fashion minded "Tribers" for the next four or eight years. 8W8, the world modeling engine, visualizes the Global Space Tribes of this world; www.8W8.com.

Happy inauguration, Mr. President!

DLD-Conference: Digital, Life, Design, Munich 2009, "New Realities "

Since 2005 the DLD-Conference has developed and shaped an open community around the digital world, life and design. This summit of like-minded people was originated out of Munich and has now friends and followers around the globe. A fine event to attend, a fine event to enjoy digitally as well. Meet the "New Realities"; the theme of the 2009 event.

The 2009 program can be found here: DLD-program

If you want to get a feel for the last DLD please dive in:




For more DLD video coverage you simply click here.

Stay tuned for the 2009 video uploads.


8W8, the world modeling engine, makes visualizes the invisible and therefore the "New Realities" as well. You may enjoy this extract of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes available both in print and Amazon Kindle.


Chapter VII - Approaching New York City

…

“We have to employ our tool with special goggles similar to the multiple eyelids that allow the frog to close his eyes while on land. However, when it is diving beneath the water level, it uses a second transparent set of eye lids that protects its eyes and allows it to see underwater. What the frog sees underwater is a totally different world than the one it might see sitting on its lily pad. Before it jumps into the water and breaks the surface tension, another reality takes hold. Below are fishes, a variety of different plant and animal life with sundry old tires and other human detritus spread along the bottom of the pond. With its extra eyelids, it can differentiate between human garbage and yummy mosquito larvae.

“For our purposes, 8W8 is our extra set of eyelids enabling us to see below the visible surface tension. A simple way of looking at it would be to imagine Fellow sitting in an ordinary helicopter a thousand feet above a motorcycle rally where 200,000 motorcyclists have gathered. Consider O.K.’s frustration trying to distinguish members of his classic BMWs Global Space Tribe from among that sea of machines. Using only his eyes with only one eyelid would be nearly impossible.

“Sitting in the cockpit of the 8W8 heli, however, he is able to get a three-dimensional aerial picture of the chaos below. After entering the necessary criteria like tribal DNA and the relevant benchmarks, he would be able to see his tribal fellows.”

Theresa didn’t mean it, but immediately recognized that she had something funny, and laughed along with the others. But she didn’t want to lose her own train of thought and quickly recovered, repeating the last few words of her previous sentence. “…out of the visible but chaotic intensity below he would be able to recognize his fellow tribers.



8W8 - Global Space Tribes is an Amazon Kindle Bestseller since January 2008.

There Is Probably No God; modelled by 8W8

www.guardian.co.uk


There you go or not ... ?!


Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes
Chapter VII - Don't get Pizza on the Dashboard

“Traveling and intersecting with the GBT, Green Bucks Tribe, are the Health and Peace tribes whose streams are entwined. I call these two streams the Sunrise Tribe or ST. Their streams are interlaced from Africa to Latin America and to every valley of low economic volume whether it is in the Bronx or Bangladesh. These two streams, or just one, if you like, flow together to gray areas like parts of today’s Middle East. Then, clearing her voice and looking directly at Emanuel, she said, “There would be no balance in the world, without the Taoist, or ‘T’ tribe,” at which point, Emanuel noticeably shifted his body in his chair.

“The Taoist Tribe, or TT, is a philosophy or religion, depending on interpretation. Although its founder was the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu, whose views were classically Chinese, it has spread around the globe. The central belief of this tribe is the concept of the Tao or ‘Way,’ which in itself is mysterious, cannot be explained and is full of contradictions. On the one hand, it teaches that the sage or teacher can treat people as nothing more than dogs, but on the other hand it teaches that the sage is the one who excels in saving people. It teaches that if people are hungry, it is because their leaders eat up too much of the wealth. This Global Space Tribe is found around the globe wherever there are intellectually inspired philosophers who stand above politics and governance and seek truth through self-denial and love of humanity. They shun wealth, although they can have it merely by snapping their fingers. They shun honors because they believe that the only honorable thing one can do is to be modest and self-effacing.”

Theresa like the rest of her colleagues looked at Emanuel, who appeared to be lost in deepest thoughts; Oskar looked at Theresa, shook his head and smiled.

“Let’s take a break,” she said.

For more: 8W8 - Global Space Tribes on Amazon

Graffiti Tribe: De La Vega "Become your Dream". From Harlem to 8W8.com ...

Harlem Artist James De La Vega.

True for what human beings can scope with. For everything else a tool like 8W8 - the world modeling engine - might be helpful. From Harlem to 8W8.com so to speak.

More about De La Vega can be found on delavegainternational.com or visit his East Village shop in NYC. The Wikipedia summary is right here:

James De La Vega is an artist who lives and works in New York City’s Spanish Harlem (AKA East Harlem/El Barrio); he has a store on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village. He is known primarily for his murals and the chalk drawings he creates on public surfaces such as sidewalks. His murals can be found all over East Harlem, and his chalk drawings may show up anywhere in the city. His street drawings, almost always chalk, are usually accompanied by aphoristic messages such as “Become Your Dream.” Legally, much of his work qualifies as graffiti, although many put them in a separate genre. In 2004, Salon.com called him "probably the most revered street artist in New York." In July 2003, De La Vega was charged with vandalism for a mural he painted on a blank wall in the Bronx. He was offered one year’s probation in exchange for a guilty plea, but that would have required him to state that his intent was to “damage” property. He refused to say this. As a result, in June 2004, he faced trial for the offense, and a judge found him guilty. After apologizing to the building’s owner, De La Vega was sentenced to 50 hours of community service. De La Vega is a Cornell University-educated[2] former teacher.While at Cornell, De la Vega also became a member of the Latino community service organization La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Incorporated.

One Year in Amazon Kindle Bestseller List : 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Meanwhile for 52 weeks 8W8 - Global Space Tribes has been in the Amazon Kindle bestseller charts in the categories of globalization, travelogues & essays, computer & internet. The Golden Sky would be pleased ... and thank all Amazon Kindle users.

Russia halts gas to Ukraine, ft.com: 8W8: The Invisible World

Russia halts gas to Ukraine
For full article please visit www.ft.com


Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, Chapter I - The Invisible World

...

“A lousy sensor,” replied, Oskar, feeling a little embarrassed by the reference, “A lousy sensor and a long flight, that’s all, but I did notice something flying over Europe that would be of interest to Dmi.”

“What’s that?” inquired Rabinovich.

“I noticed where much of the oil imported into Europe from Russia was going. I don’t know the percentage of Russian oil in Europe, but I could see it in the lights in houses, from cars and street lamps. If I knew that exact figure, then I could change the color of the lights in my mind or on a computer to, say, red, and then I would be able to see Russian influence in Western Europe.”

“Green,” said Rabinovich.

“Excuse me,” said Oskar, “Why ‘green’?”

“Green, like money,” laughed Rabinovich. “That way you could see the money that’s flowing to Russia.”

...

About Dmitri Rabinovich: Dmitri was born in Ekaterinburg, Russia, on the day, the siege of Leningrad was lifted, January 22, 1943. From 1972 to 1991, he worked for the Russian oil and gas company rising up to be Chairman of the Production and Development Committee. In 1992, with a few other colleagues, he started a technology consulting firm in Moscow. Today he is an adviser to the Kremlin.

...

8W8, the world modeling engine developed by the Internet think-tank the Golden Sky models dynamically the invisibilities of the world including factors such as political stability, risks, potential issues, the flow of money and much more. More information can be found on 8W8.com or in the fiction work 8W8 - Global Space Tribes both in print and for Kindle (8W8 - Global Space Tribes is a Kindle globalization, travel & epilogues best-seller since March 2008).

Jeff Jarvis: What would Google do?

At the end of this months "What would Google do?" by Jeff Jarvis will be released. Readers of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes might find this of interest I suppose. You can pre-order on Amazon and download to your Kindle already.

About the Author

Jeff Jarvis is the proprietor of one of the Web's most popular and respected blogs about the internet and media, Buzzmachine.com. He also writes the new media column for the Guardian in London. He was named one of 100 worldwide media leaders by the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2007 and 2008, and he was the creator and founding editor of Entertainment Weekly. He is on the faculty of the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.

Product Description


A bold and vital book that asks and answers the most urgent question of today: What Would Google Do?

In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google—the fastest-growing company in history—to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era.

Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book's central question.

The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It's about you.

Happy New Year

A Happy and Prosperous New Year to all readers of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, Kindle users, visitors of 8W8.com and the 8W8 - Global Space Tribes Blog right here!

From OZ: Bondi FM - Enjoy the Music and Surf Tribe

Internet radio live from Sydney's famous Bondi beach. Check out Bondi FM

Cool grooves from the Southern hemisphere. Join the surfers and ravers. Have fun. It is summer there.

Ralf Hirt Interview @ Internet World Munich

Link:

Video in German language only. To view all interviews please visit media-treff.de

Panda Diplomacy: China's Gift to Taiwan

Nice Panda bears, right? Wanna know how they have been being used ... You can model political trends and conditions by weighten parameters in 8W8 - the world modeling engine.



China's Panda Diplomacy With Taiwan
By Natalie Tso / Taipei Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2008

A pair of giant pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan eat at a panda breeding center in Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008
Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan dine at a panda breeding center in Sichuan province, China, while they wait to be sent to Taiwan

In its latest move to win over Taiwan, the democratic island China claims as its own, Beijing has sent the island a gift for the holidays: pandas. Flying in on a private EVA jet loaded with their favorite snacks — bamboo, apples and a special kind of bread — the charming ambassadors Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan are arriving at the Taipei Zoo on Dec. 23 just as relations between Taiwan and China are making historical breakthroughs.

Since Ma Ying-jeou took office as Taiwan's new president in May, the two sides have put aside their ongoing sovereignty dispute to forge new economic ties, starting with key transportation links. On Dec.15, Taiwan and China began direct daily flights, shipping and postal links for the first time in 60 years. Previously, planes and ships had to stop over in a third city, adding needless hours to the routes used by some 5 million Taiwanese a year. Now to get from Taipei to Shanghai — a trip that used to take over 6 hours — is an 80-minute flight.

"The pandas are yet another leg in a series of events that show Beijing has a clear plan to win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese," says Professor Lin Chong-Pin of Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies. Lin says that Beijing's disposition towards Taiwan has become more steadfast and confident. No longer does it get irritated by Taiwanese independence voices, such as the mass protests held by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) during a landmark visit by a top Chinese envoy last month. The Chinese official faced the chaos graciously and promised to meet regularly to ink more economic accords. Just last weekend, China offered $19 billion in financing for Taiwanese investors in China.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan may symbolize a growing friendship between Taiwan and China, but the gift is not without controversy. Together, their names, chosen by a national online survey in China, mean "reunion" — China's longstanding goal with Taiwan, an island that treasures its hard-won democracy. To many, the fact that the pair is a "gift" implies that China considers Taiwan a province, since the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species specifies China can only give pandas to domestic zoos. (Foreign zoos can only receive the rare animals on loan; even progeny born on foreign soil eventually goes back to China.) In 2006, during the Chen Shui-bian administration, Taiwan rejected China's offer of the exotic bears.

Ma, however, is not concerned with such technicalities. "I don't think Ma connects pandas with sovereignty," says political scientist Yang Tai-shuenn of Taipei's Chinese Culture University. Ma, rather, is trying to capitalize on the warming ties. "The practical issue is we need closer ties with China to get over this economic crisis," Yang says. "Nobody can deny this." To China's further delight, Ma also recently rejected an overture by the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, to visit Taiwan. The Dalai Lama had mentioned he would like to visit Taiwan again next year, but Ma said the timing was not appropriate.

Ma's chumminess with Beijing has been attacked by the opposition DPP, which, as part of its pro-independence platform, is wary of any moves to draw close to China. But the DPP is also preoccupied with internal problems, such as division over their former leader Chen Shui-bian. Former President Chen, his wife, son and daughter-in-law were indicted this month for bribery, embezzlement, forgery and money laundering. As Taiwan's first opposition president who led the island towards greater autonomy, Chen still has loyalists, but others want to keep a distance from his scandals and trial. The Chen scandal has even diverted attention away from the current government's economic troubles. "Ma's lucky," says Yang.

The pandas are another amusement. After their flight, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan were whisked to the Taipei Zoo — with traffic control that eliminated red lights — to rest at their $9 million four-story house and playground complete with a pond, waterfall, and walls painted with Sichuan scenery. The four-year-old pandas were shocked by the earthquake in May that damaged their Wolong Nature Reserve, but have since been deemed healthy and, through daily exercises, prepped to produce the ultimate charmer — a baby panda.

But even an adorable panda cub would not resolve the issues that divide Taiwan and China. "What would really help is progress on Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization and removing the missiles [aimed at Taiwan]," says Lin. That's what Taiwan really wants for Christmas.

Time to Reboot America. By Thomas Friedmann, New York Times

On December 23, New York Times publicist Thomas Friedman (The World is Flat; Hot, Flat and Crowded) wrote the column 'Time to Reboot America'. His good summary received right away 750 comments over the holidays.

While his observations were echoed by the majority, the case for the need of rebooting America seems even stronger; some go as far as re-inventing it. This looks like the right choice especially if you look deeper into the lack of mission and related commitment as well as directional motivation. America was the winner of the 20th century, but the race for the 21st has just started. Hopefully, there will not be one winner this century, but more of a general increase of the volumes of both the substance and the activity levels across the world as modeled by 8W8 - the world modeling engine. Global Space Tribes may drive already many trends that local politicians are discussing only now if they are not are already left behind. Good news for the world that there is no concrete regulation in cyberspace linking bricks and clicks regionally.

Amazon Kindle 2.0. Need a X-mas Gift?

While Amazon Kindle 1.0 is already sold out for the holiday season this year, you can already surprise your dearest with the Amazon Kindle 2.0 gift card.



www.amazon.com

Glam Japan - Local Universe for the Fashion, Beauty & Lifestyle Tribe

The Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle Tribe has a new universe in Japan as well. After launching earlier in the year in London, UK, and Berlin / Munich, Germany, Tokyo has been next.

Live on November 25th (JST): www.glam.jp


Also nice: Mount Fuji hiding behind the golden sun




As well as the next morning arising early at jetlag time:

Amazon Kindle's share. Happy Birthday

Amazon's CFO Thomas J. Szkutak stated during the Q3 earnings call "Kindle titles already account for more than 10% of unit sales for books that are available in both digital and print formats."

It is 10, it will be 20, 30 and so on.

Kindle also just turned one. Happy Birthday to the perfect device for frequent travelers.

8W8 - Global Space Tribes currently ranks #3 in the Kindle best selling books list in the globalization category.

Kindle review by c-net:

Tokyo - Penguin House and the MBA Jazz Wireless Tribe

Just returned from Tokyo after attending a panel at the
FIPP Digital Conference. Each time I go to Tokyo I am impressed by its architecture and the culture of perfection; this is amongst many other aspects. Have a look at the Penguin House - Space is tight but the illusion is not.



Tomichi Murayama, a member of The Golden Sky in 8W8 - Global Space Tribes
Japanese, former pilot, visionary, Buddhist and environmentally aware would have loved this little, smart place.

Did you know that there is also a lot of passion for Jazz in Japan? Take a little 8W8 Heli ride:

“Even more fun for the more adventurous among us,” she humorously remarked, “we can do ‘Tower Hopping’ or “Valley Hopping,’ or ‘Mountain Touring.’ Tonight, however, I thought that it was time to do some of our own flying around on the 8W8 Heli, viewing tribe streams. Call it ‘Tribe Spotting.’” Theresa looked into the faces of her colleagues, except for Emanuel. She wasn’t perturbed by his lack of obvious attention; she had something special planned for him.

Extract from 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

“So, here we are on the 8W8 Heli flying through the world with its aerial view spotting all tribe streams and views—those from above the volumes, or within the volumes. It not only goes through the new valleys, towers, hills, and mountains, it spots the connected elements in its area, action and intensity context. On this global ride, we come across some interesting Global Space Tribes, the first,” she said looking at Tomichi, “we will call the ‘MBA Jazz Wireless Tribe,’ or MBAJWT, for short.

“You can first spot it on Japan’s premier Mountain, the city of Tokyo. The sky is bright due to the high standard of living, with few clouds representing the risk of earthquakes. It also is not as colorful due to its lack of an ethnic, cultural or intellectual mix. The community of the MBAJWT is rather small compared to the scale of the Tokyo Mountain. The tribal streams spread out around the world, but the streams always find their intensity in the competence center on the mountains and tall hills of the world, which are mostly the hearts of cities with a strong business presence. The MBAJWT, like the majority of Global Space Tribes, has no leader other than the main influencers from within and outside the tribe. The tribe communicates through the Internet, alumni chat rooms and other social platforms. The tribe is driven by its shared interest in business news, jazz and Japanese culture, combined with some impact from high-tech geeks and techno-lovers. From a contextual point of view, the background of this Global Space Tribe suggests an interest in investment, career progression, travel, luxury brands, fashion, music or art. In other words,” she laughed, “Tomichi and his pals.”

Meet Miles Davis, live in Tokyo, 1973, right here if you now feel like.

Cem Oezdemir the German-Turkish Barack Obama?

It may need a little while until Germany will have its first Chancellor / President, who has got a background other than "purely" German in the traditional sense, but this week Cem Oezdemir, a German-Turkish Swabian, has been elected to run the Green party. Whether it will be Cem or not (most likely he will not anyways) does not really matter, but it shows that the world is becoming a more diverse place - everywhere, step by step. In the US diversity is already on the strategic road map of the best universities and business schools. In the age of the Obama-factor it will be embraced more than ever. In cyberspace there are not any countries in the conventional sense, so only good that local life follows globally inspired facts. Welcome to the world of the Global Space Tribes on the ground.

It will need quite some time in other countries also. Imagine the first Asian leaders of none-Asian background. Again, that time will come.

No. 44: The World President Barack Obama

"Der Spiegel" referred to the 44th President Barack Obama as the President of the World due to his diverse background.

How will No. 88 look like?

Applied 8W8: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Craigslist, Glam. Foothills and New Mountains …

8W8 – Global Space Tribes is fiction work about visualizing the invisibilities of the world and putting those in context – by applying the world modeling engine 8W8 the world does look differently. The real-life example using Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Craigslist, AOL, Glam Media and others demonstrates this nicely, but before you see new mountains, let us dive in right here …

Extracts of 8W8 – Global Space Tribes

Chapter II – Hilo Y’All! Aloha Golden Sky!

“Look at the way the way you look at lights, they are ‘diamonds,’ ‘Christmas’ lights and then, over Belgium, they are reduced to ‘dots.’ You finally had reduced everything to ‘dots,’ the basic elements. At one point, you had volumized, segmented, and saw elements becoming streams. Later, you created your own topography, envisioning hills, slopes and mountains.”

Chapter III - Birth

“What I think he is saying,” explained Oskar, “is that he would like to convert population, a given area size and the GNP into some kind of volume: suddenly, a country like the US would be transformed into a volume instead of a land with mountains, rivers and people going about their business, which is really all that you can see from an airplane. However, if we were to fly over or through volumes, the world would look quite different. Imagine if we could break everything down to the last element.”

Oskar was about to continue but Terri raised her hand up to stop him, indicating that she wanted to get in a word edgewise. She, like Tomichi, had clearly become excited.

“I get it,” she said. “I can visualize the structure and data from my new world modeling engine going into the volumes. I see the picture very clearly already. Wow, this is absolutely amazing! How big is America’s volume and how high would it be?”

It was obvious to all: Oskar, Tomichi, and the rest of the group that had begun listening in earnest while Terri had evolved back to being Professor Theresa Raffles. “Imagine the volumes for say, Singapore, or Mexico, or India or even China.” Then she nodded at Maria, “or from the Ivory Coast where Maria had been.”

“Would my global Chinese community also get a volume?” interrupted Winston. His question went unanswered, as the deep sound of a Chinese gong reverberated throughout EA-RA indicating that it was time for dinner. The summons to break bread halted their deliberations temporarily, leaving Terri and Oskar feeling a little deflated and disappointed. However, one of the unspoken rules of the Golden Sky is to respect food and to take their meals together.

An Example: Internet Traffic

Pictures Source: Kieth Teare, Fred Wilson
Copyright Samir Arora, Glam Media
Data: ComScore



Web Properties of the Web 1.0 era



Fragmented Internet emerges



Fragmented Internet emerges further and further



Fragmented Internet is becoming organized. New mountains arise




Chapter IV - Soup and Volumizing the World


“All that came back to me yesterday, when Tony and O.K. were talking about their helicopter ride from the airport to EA-RA. It sounded so similar that I almost interrupted their conversation to tell them that I had been there, too. I didn’t, however, because at that moment I thought it would be rude, but I haven’t been able to think about anything else since. Imagine, for a moment, sitting in a helicopter with a device like our 8W8 and being able to see the world in terms of colors, mountains, valleys and streams. We could see the world from a new perspective, not just as a three-dimensional world, but a world filled with a myriad of dimensional possibilities that we could navigate from our helicopter, never leaving the ground.” Emanuel seemed exhausted as he sat back in his chair.

Again, it was Oskar who spoke first. “E., 8W8 should also be the instrument panel and dashboard for our heli.”



Enjoy your personal 8W8 Heli ride!

Clay: Hip-Hop meets Shakespeare. The Hip-Hop Musical not only for the Hip-Hop Tribe

An excellent musical is currently on Broadway: "Clay" the one-man-show and Hip-Hop musical written and performed by upcoming artist Matt Sax. It is loosely based on Shakespeare's Henry IV and Falstaff. Hip-Hop meets Shakespeare. Wow.

The Internet think-tank The Golden Sky looks into the global footprint of the Hip-Hop community in 8W8 - Global Space Tribes.

Antônio Montes Rordrigues: “There has been much talk here of tribes. I think somebody mentioned ‘global tribes,’ and somebody else, I don’t remember which one of us said it, mentioned Global Space Tribes. I like that concept because that’s the way I see those people who do Capoeira. They are like a large global family. Yeah, that fits, like a Global Space Tribe. I feel the same way about my music. I try and stay in contact with likeminded fellow musicians. More than that, although I would not describe myself as a hip-hopper, I try and follow the vibe and hype of that particular global community to see where they are in the world. I have tracked the growth of the hip-hop tribe from the Bronx to Brazil to Belarus to Botswana and Beijing to Berlin and back to the Bronx again. Hey, I like Bs. It’s my favorite note.” Antônio turned his head and looked out of the golden mirror and exclaimed, “Yiiiiiiiiiii, have I been talking that long, it looks like nighttime?”

Hip-Hop meets Shakespeare. Watch Clay on YouTube

Hidden in Plain Sight by Erich Joachimsthaler

"Hidden in Plain Sight" by Erich Joachimsthaler is another fine piece of work for everyone interested in understanding the invisible - in this case caused by being hidden in plain sight. If you like to learn more about it here is the link: "Hidden in Plain Sight" on Amazon

Executives in business, marketing, strategy or consulting may find this a valuable read. And of course, it is also available for your Kindle.

Congratulations Mr. President. Barack Obama the Mikhail Gorbachev of the US?

Obamamania has been peaking and expectations setting is taking place. A long way to go on the path to deliver on hope and change. Mr. Gorbachev can tell - currently mostly visible on Louis Vuitton commercials sitting in a luxury sedan passing by the Berlin Wall or what is left. Now we are on the Barack-Obama-Journey; watching the change through the eyes of the 8W8 world modeling engine will allow to see what politician's words can not express. Wishing everyone an enjoyable 8W8-Heli-Ride.

Oprah Winfrey endorses Amazon Kindle months after Barack Obama. Downloaded 8W8 - Global Space Tribes?

Popular talk-show host Oprah Winfrey endorsed the Amazon Kindle e-book reader during her show on Friday. She called it her favorite new gadget, life-changing for her and the wave of the future.

The endorsement by the media mogul is the gold ring coveted by many consumer-product companies. Winfrey has proven her star power through the popularity of her book club, which has catapulted many authors to The New York Times best-seller list. When Winfrey endorsed Obama for president, a study by University of Maryland economists Craig Garthwaite and Tim Moore showed that Winfrey's nod would add 1 million votes to the Democratic nominee.

Will this boost Amazon Kindle sales in the same way? It surely will have a strong impact on the holiday season to come. Amazon leveraging her endorsement on Amazon.com. Not a coincident I suppose.

The books on Oprah's Kindle include The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, The Audacity Of Hope by Barack Obama, Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones by Suzanne Somers, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, and Crack The Fat-Loss Code: Outsmart Your Metabolism And Conquer The Diet Plateau by Wendy Chant. What is next? If she wants to develop a global audience she may download 8W8 - Global Space Tribes right here.

Amazon Top 10 Globalization - Kindle Bestsellers

Updated Amazon Kindle Bestseller List - Globalization Category

1. The World Is Flat (Updated and Expanded)
by Thomas L. Friedman

2. Making Globalization Work
by Joseph E. Stiglitz

3. 8W8 - Global Space Tribes
by Ralf Hirt

4. How Soccer Explains the World
by Franklin Foer

5. Dangerous Business
by Pat Choate

6. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
by Amy Chua

7. Mein Kampf
by Adolf Hitler

8. A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption
by Steven Hiatt

9. Africa Rising
by Vijay Mahajan

10. In Defense of Globalization
by Jagdish Bhagwati


Just wondering how #7 made it into this category.

Seth Godin's 'Tribes' meets 8W8 - Global Space Tribes by Ralf Hirt

This months Seth Godin's 'Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us' is on the book shelves and Kindle's. Another great piece of work for everyone with an interest in marketing, the fragmented Internet world, global changes caused and opportunities created.

So this is a great manual for anyone, who is in marketing or enjoyed the world of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes.

Like the Tribes cover? You may like the painting of my previous post on Spotty Series.

Crisis: Danger and Opportunity

When a crisis comes up it is often referred to the Chinese symbol for it, which actually exists out of the two symbols "danger" and "opportunity". This one is the one when it already turns to the better:



Focusing on the opportunities may help navigating through a world full of change.

Financial Crises No Surprise For 8W8 and The Golden Sky

Oops, the National Debt Clock near Times Square, NYC, yesterday: The '1' can be seen squashed in to the same space as the dollar sign. The electronic billboard in Times Square was erected in 1989 to highlight America’s $2.7 trillion level of debt. Now it seems like a small figure.

This single source of information seems lost and lonely in a place like Manhattan. The Internet think-tank The Golden Sky has embedded such information in the world modeling engine 8W8. Anyone interested please view this previous post. In any case needless to say that on 8W8's substance level numbers like that do not add any health to it. If more knew it, less would be surprised this week. Sorry.

Amazon's Kindle Starting To Pass The Subway Test?

from www.alleyinsider.com

by Dan Frommer

It's not just us: Real people are seeing real Amazon (AMZN) Kindle e-readers
on subways, on the bus, in airports, all over the place!

We're getting close to the one-year mark on Amazon's gadget -- Nov. 19, to
be exact. And while we can't say for sure that it's the "Future of Reading" --
as Steven Levy's Newsweek cover proclaimed on launch day -- it's certainly
feeling less like a UFO sighting when someone pulls one out.


Well, I think every Kindle owner can confirm that you get a lot of attention when pulling out the Kindle device and the number of Kindle-tribes on Facebook and the alike are steadily growing. Do not expect people carrying many printed books in 50 years from now or should I better say the digital age is here right now? 200,000 ebooks are available on Kindle now and all the latest anyways. That should do for most of us already I reckon.

Seth Godin: Tribe Management. Brand management is so 1999

This is an extract from Seth Godin's blog published at the beginning of this year.

Tribe Management

Brand management is so 1999.

Brand management was top down, internally focused, political and money based. It involved an MBA managing the brand, the ads, the shelf space, etc. The MBA argued with product development and manufacturing to get decent stuff, and with the CFO to get more cash to spend on ads.

Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world.

It starts with permission, the understanding that the real asset most organizations can build isn't an amorphous brand but is in fact the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them.

It adds to that the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.

And of course, since this is so important, product development and manufacturing and the CFO work for the tribal manager. Everything the organization does is to feed and grow and satisfy the tribe.

Instead of looking for customers for your products, you seek out products (and services) for the tribe. Jerry Garcia understood this. Do you?

Who does this work for? Try record companies and bloggers, real estate agents and recruiters, book publishers and insurance companies. It works for Andrew Weil and for Rickie Lee Jones and for Rupert at the WSJ... But it also works for a small web development firm or a venture capitalist.

People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the tribe and make it something even better.

Click here to visit Seth Godin's blog.

Eco-nomics (New York Times)

By JONATHAN FREEDLAND
Published: October 3, 2008, New York Times

Thet environmental movement reserves a hallowed place for those books or films that have stirred people from their slumber and awoken them to the fragility of the planet: Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” Bill McKibben’s “End of Nature” and, most recently, Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Thomas L. Friedman’s new book, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” may lack the soaring, elegiac qualities of those others. But it conceivably just might goad America’s wealthiest to face the threat of climate change and do something about it.

Read more on nytimes.com


Great to see some awareness finally. The subprime mess and Wall-Street pain may help to accelerate this, hopefully. The internet think-tank The Golden Sky has modeled green aspects amongst other world
stake holding factors using 8W8, the world modeling engine.

Would you like to have visualized all this? The colorful theme of the flag included:

On Google Books: 8W8 – Global Space Tribes

Are you a user of Google Book Preview? Nope? You should. Check it out by clicking on the Google Books icon. 8W8 – Global Space Tribes can be largely read for free. Also plenty of other books can be previewed to get an initial idea. Pretty cool.

New York City: The 8W8 Heli Ride Through NYC (Extract from 8W8 – Global Space Tribes, Chapter VIII)

Talking about Heli rides in the previous post - thought of sharing the New York City ride with you



… Charles indicated that he had stopped speaking extemporaneously when he began to upload his notes from his Inraxx into the EA-RA computer. The first image to appear on the screen was a map of Manhattan.

“I came up with this after listening to different versions of Fellows’s trip over New York City. I don’t want to sound redundant, but some items are worth repeating. For one, Manhattan is unique in that it is an island surrounded by the North American land mass with the Hudson River forking around it from the north and entering the harbor at its southern tip. Incidentally, that view is visible from my office on lower Broadway.

“Manhattan is indisputably the financial and cultural capital of the world. Much of its preeminence is based on its deep glacially carved harbor. But, it wasn’t always that way. Originally, Philadelphia was the commercial capital of the United States. However, insurance companies in London determined that New York’s harbor was deeper and therefore presumably a safer bet for shipping than Philly. When the insurers lowered the insurance premiums to ships sailing into New York, the immediate result was that shipping commerce abandoned Philadelphia and moved to New York.

“One doesn’t have had to live in Manhattan to be fascinated by its international allure, a tacit acknowledgement of its comprehensive position as the cultural, ethnic and religious center of the world. Further, it is the global headquarters of international business and finance centered on Wall Street, although it will be facing some tough competition in the future from emerging dynamic cities like Shanghai, which still needs several decades to see if it can deliver on present expectations.

“The conventional view of Manhattan resembles the picture of its skyline that is burnt in all our memories: a condensed cluster of glass and steel skyscrapers reaching up to the heavens, surrounded by its workforce neighborhoods and connected by a vast and complex infrastructure.

“So far so good. However, in the world of the Global Space Tribes, an 8W8 Heli ride looks very different. The neighborhoods of Manhattan’s population, as I just mentioned, are filled with people from every global cultural and ethnic persuasion and are members of different Global Space Tribes. Physically, their tribal signatures are only made visible by the large number of differing ethnic restaurants and competing religious edifices. Totally invisible, however, are their connection with their Global Space Tribe members living in other parts of the US, or in any other country for that matter. From the neighborhoods of New York City, there are global streams emerging in an invisible ebb and flow. From the cockpit of the 8W8 Helicopter, one can see this extra-national uncontrolled and uncoordinated information flow; the global interactivity, knowledge and file sharing; there is Internet money flow, greetings sent for every cultural and religious occasion to family and friends around this flattened world.

“The neighborhoods of New York City are of specific heights relative to their Action volume specific to individual neighborhoods. Tribers live within their volume based on a fixed geography. Depending on with whom they are communicating, they may send their information up from the mountain of New York City to the tower of Lake Geneva in Switzerland or down to the valley of Uzbekistan. The streams in which the tribal information is delivered—in or out, up or down—are of different volumes, but it all travels through the neighborhoods. If colors are added to the streams, they would be viewed as colorful landscape subject to diversity; benchmarked and weighted heavily in the 8W8 Dashboard. From the perspective the 8W8 Helicopter pilot, Manhattan would appear as a blue mountain of colors.

“When viewing the New York City Mountain from any angle, the pilot would see a tower rising above it. That tower is called Manhattan. It is on the summit of the New York City peak, and it is built on diversity, knowledge and power. It is a transactional world business tower in which corporate board room decisions are made, their tentacles reaching out and impacting on the entire world. The information ebb and flow becomes compressed within the streams of the largest volume which network the entire world. The tower radiates a kaleidoscope of color more radiant than the Blue Mountain of Colors. It is composed of diverse layers and is all inclusive.

“As a virtual focus, it is a pot de font of vertical and horizontal stakeholders of every persuasion. This is adding a lot of yellow to its color and is weighted heavily as it surpasses the global benchmark. It exists out of a confluence of the element driven streams generating highly influential Global Space Tribes whether they represent the arts, business, science, politics or the entertainment industry. The Broadway stage floor or the concert hall is where the theatrical and musical tribes emanate their color and light. By the same token, Manhattan’s art museums and galleries radiate colors, as do the trading floors of the Wall Street financial institutions, whose transactions network around the flattened globe. The Central Park Sky Garden is the floor where the Tower of Colors inhabitants enjoy their breaks from their lives in the Tower of Colors on the blue Mountain of Colors.

“After we have explored the earth volume’s manifoldness, we now fly up to New York City’s sky volume, which is one of the most voluminous of its kind. Some of the colors of the Earth Level volumes translate into the soft values of the Sky Level volume, while others do not. The sky volume has a bright blue for its overall purchasing power parity and related accessible diversity if it is appreciably weighted. The sun is shining very yellow, too, as it is a place of competences, education and a melting pot of culture. While there are some smaller gray-greenish clouds for its environmental condition caused by its intensity of population, consumption habits, limited natural spaces and immense traffic, we also see some clouds with a red sheen and a little gray. Many of its inhabitants came to New York to make something happen in their lives and succeed. At the same time, a small number of people are caught in a never-ending struggle to survive, victims of the material and psychological stresses resulting from the extreme competitiveness of Manhattan Island.

“When the 8W8 Heli leaves the Tower of Colors going down the blue Mountain of Colors towards the east, it flies over the Atlantic all the way to the diverse landscapes of Europe continuing further through many valleys of Russia and Central Asia, ultimately arriving in the diverse landscapes of Asia. From there, the 8W8 Heli continues its ride towards the southern hemisphere, all the way from Australia to Africa and South America. While this sounds like a long but conventional route around the world the 8W8 Heli pilot has discovered new valley or mountain shaped volumes that shine blue, yellow, gray or black, but also has come across: red clouds of happiness; thunderstorms for dictatorships and human rights infringements; bright blue skies for wealth enabling quality, together with yellow for excellence in the defined fields. Now, the 8W8 pilot has been able to map out some routes to go through the world of the Global Space Tribes, which will be a new adventure for the entire world’s population globally. “

Jens Lehmann vs. Lehman Brothers: Heli, Investment, Collapse

Lehman Brothers has dominated the Wall Street headlines this week. Not related at all,
Jens Lehmann, previous soccer goal keeper of the German
national team, Arsenal London and now with VFB Stuttgart back in Germany, is in the press these days for commuting to the training pitch by helicopter. On the 170 miles heli commute from his home at lake Starnberg, just south of Munich, Mr. Lehmann uses the heli as a convenient way of transport, but what can he see other than the beautiful scenery of Southern Germany?

If Mr. Lehmann, who in contrast to most other soccer players has a post graduate degree in business, would be using the 8W8 Heli, he could have seen in advance what Emmanuel and Mayer Lehman, who helped launching the Lehman Brothers business, would not have wanted to see: The collapse of Lehman Brothers set up by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844.

The world modeling engine 8W8 contains varius macro economic layers in its substance level, while at the same time it shows the volume of the action level of the environment the business operated in was increasing sharply, the substance went the other way. As a result at one stage the substance could not carry the inflated volume anymore. As 8W8 can model these parameters both subjectively and objectively the concept of visualizing certain invisibilities and heli-rides can be used for investment and financial analysis.
Charles Berkowitz and Michael Currie, part of The Golden Sky of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, where representing the stakes of the financial tribes.
Mr. Lehmann may could do better and find his commutes more interesting, Lehman Brothers could have done better for sure.

Viacom's MTV goes Global Space Tribes: MTV Networks Expands Vertical Ad Network Strategy with 'Tribes'

Earlier this week MTV's new positioning and branding was communicated to the public via the press release below. My guess would be that the Internet think tank 'The Golden Sky" that created the world modeling engine 8W8 in the fiction work 8W8 - Global Space Tribes would be extremely pleased with MTV's marketing and naming approach ... Here it is:

'MTV Generation Tribe' Launches with Pepsi as Charter Advertiser and Dozens of Artist and Entertainment Web Sites from echo, a Ticketmaster Company.

NEW YORK, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- MTV Networks (MTVN), a division of Viacom, today expanded its vertical ad network strategy with "Tribes," a series of demographic-focused vertical ad networks built around the company's core online properties. The youth-targeted "MTV Generation Tribe" launches today with Pepsi as its charter advertiser and will include a network of publishers focused on music, movies, teen sports, gaming and style. Among its launch publishers is echo, a Ticketmaster company which hosts the official Web sites of artists including Alicia Keys, Kanye West and KoRn.

Tribes from CMT, Spike and VH1 are also set to launch this month, with a COMEDY CENTRAL Tribe launching in the first quarter of 2009. The new ad networks join MTV Networks' Parenting Tribe, which launched in February and is anchored by ParentsConnect.com.

"The heart of MTV Networks' success lies in connecting targeted, niche audiences with content that speaks to their unique passions, interests and lifestyles," said Nada Stirratt, Executive Vice President, Digital Advertising, MTV Networks. "Through Tribes, we're giving marketers the opportunity to reach an even greater number of relevant consumers in a targeted and efficient way."

"The new MTV Tribes network provides us with reach and relevancy along with granular targeting and reporting," said John Vail, director, Interactive Marketing Group, Pepsi-Cola North America.

MTVN's Tribes are anchored by the company's core digital properties and extend to sites beyond its online portfolio. Each Tribe focuses on a specific demographic group and its shared interests and passions. MTVN hand-selects all partner sites and sells premium, advertising inventory and packages across each Tribe, utilizing extensive capabilities including demo-targeting, geo- targeting, day-parting and contextual targeting. Moving forward, MTVN will extend its integrated marketing promotions and syndicate video content to Tribes' partner sites, and seek to integrate them into the Flux social media platform's publisher network.

Launching today with sponsorship from Pepsi, the MTV Generation Tribe is anchored by MTV.com and its growing network includes dozens of official artist and fan club sites, via MTVN's partner echo, a Ticketmaster company.

"echo's sites open a powerful channel for the conversation between entertainment brands and their consumers and, by joining the MTV Generation Tribe, we're in an even stronger position to help marketers tap into that conversation," said Mark Montgomery, chief executive officer, echo.

As part of the announcement, MTVN named Heather Hopkins Senior Vice President and General Manager of Tribes. Hopkins joins MTVN from Digitas, where she served most recently as Senior Vice President, working in leadership roles on the Nike, American Express and Barnes & Noble accounts.

"Tribes is about leveraging the power of the Web to connect the right marketer to the right consumer at the right time and place," said Hopkins. "This initiative plays perfectly to MTV Networks' strength in reaching highly targeted and valuable demos, and I'm excited to bring Tribes and the opportunities it holds for advertisers to the marketplace."

To power Tribes, MTVN has partnered with Burst AdConductor for ad-serving, as well as publisher recruitment and management.

Global Fashion Tribe eyeing NYC

The spring 2009 Zac Posen collection is modeled. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Seth Wenig

Here in New York City the place has turned fashion for more than one week. It is exciting to see how the world comes together in its - some say - capital. Not only models, designers and journalists have had the chance to meet in and around Bryant Park in the heart of Manhattan, the events have gone global by default as bloggers from all over the globe spread their comments, opinions and photos. Glad to see the global fashion scene has so many more people, who can participate, and creative minds, who contribute. Welcome to the fragmented fashion world from wherever you read this little post right now.

8W8 Views: Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded or The World Without US

Thomas Friedman has taken the World is Flat to the next level and has drawn some concrete and useful conclusions based on various issues discovered and solution proposals mapped against. Good stuff. Actually, 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, was written to visualize what is happening in a flat world incorporating all kinds of issues and parameters including intensity of elements (world people's DNA's in a location or tribe in cyberspace) and the need for going green. Hot, Flat and Crowded is certainly a true view of some of the world's most important challenges and opportunities. And if you do not think so, Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is already on the shelves and Kindle's for more than a year or so.

Kevin Ryan: "Hey, Guys, Amazon's Kindle Rocks!"

I have just read Silicon Alley Insider and thought I share with you what Henry Blodget wrote yesterday. Good if you want to understand tomorrow ... you will enjoy.

"Hey, Guys, Amazon's Kindle Rocks!"

Henry Blodget | September 5, 2008 10:01 AM

SAI Chairman Kevin Ryan, the globe-trotting former CEO of online ad powerhouse Doubleclick, weighs in on the Kindle debate. Also on Hulu:

I bought the kindle for my 13 year old son for our trip to india - he LOVED it. He bought 13 books, read them all, did not have to carry any of them, and we saved over $80.

Worth noting that at least in our case, we would have purchased those books at Barnes and noble for about $200 and instead spent $120 at Amazon (just in the the last 2 weeks) I have not started using it yet.

also - I really like Hulu for watching Jon Stewart

Hmm... We can understand why your son might have TOLD you he read those 13 books on his awesome summer vacation, Kevin. But did you actually SEE this voracious scholarship...or could the Kindle have sat unused in his bag?

Actually, never mind. If the Kindle turns out to be the best way ever for kids to fool their parents into think they're doing something constructive, it will be a massive global hit. Especially if Amazon can figure out a way to put a little TV tuner in there.

Spotty Series No. 1 - A Different Perspective

It was in May 2005 when I was still living in Hong Kong and about to move to New York City. Walking home from the office located in IFC I - International Finance Center - up the escalator through Central to the Mid-Levels (yes there is actually an outdoor escalator that goes through the city), when many people stood in front of the Schoeni Art Gallery on Hollywood Road looking astonishedly at two paintings from Zhou Jin Hua. The next day again: people, who were passing by stopped suddenly to have a look at those paintings. They were kind of different, kind of weird at first glance. Something appeared odd to some. I was one of them.

Spotty Series No. 1 by Zhou Jin Hua

What do you see? How do you like it?

Zhou Jin Hua describes his painting as follows ...

Spotty Series - It does not conform to the conventional observation about "Us", neither does it conform to a conventional picture.

Since I began painting, I had thought that my own way of observation was normal. Since I had my start in photography is a crystallization of science. I had assumed that my compositions would be considered normal. But afterwards I slowly began to think that is wasn't normal after all, first of all when I paint, I am not as precise and careful as it would turn out in a photograph, in addition, I realized that once I took the people out of the center of my painting it became similar to an ancient painting I had seen of trees around a pound. (This painting has left a deep impression on me, because the composition was indeed strange: the trees were at the four corners of the square-shaped pond, which was in the middle of the painting, and the trees faced the direction of the east, south, west and north. Art Historians believed that this was due to the limited knowledge of things, and only with this limited understanding could they produce such strange kind of imagery which lacks scientific sense.

Everybody has their own method of observing things, some people like to look through colored spectacles to look at the world, some people like to look at the world through a crack in a door, and so my method of observation does nto conform to conventional thought and I am able to find the reasons why, I hope to obtain a broader field of vision, and a continuous picture, with an artistic language that solves two conventional photography methods and ultra wide-angle lens: and the tremor of a wide angle picture.

But there are still limitations with these methods, so I carry on painting by continuously expanding the four corners of the canvas, and until finally it becomes the end product. Therefore, when I paint in such a way, it isn't because I want it to be strange but instead it comes out intentionally and must develop naturally. At the same time, I understand that the ancient painting I mentioned is similar in this way: the painting was not painted for modern people to think it is strange, natural development. '

- Zhou Jin Hua

You can enjoy more of his paintings on Schoeni, his first exhibition as well as his second. I am sure there is more to come.

How do you visualize what you can see, how do you visualize what you can not see with the naked eye? 8W8 - Global Space Tribes, www.8W8.com, enables you to look into exactly this and more.

I hope you will hear more from Zhou Jin Hua in the future. Chinese contemporary art has been on the rise for several years and is just at the beginning.

8W8's Fuel: World Econmic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report

In '8W8 - Global Space Tribes' the Internet think-tank The Golden Sky fuels the world modeling engine 8W8 with intelligence and information from various sources. The key source and most important structural element that has been opted for you can find in extracts online: The Global Competitiveness Report issued by the World Economic Forum can be considered the finest information source of its kind. While The Global Competitiveness Report is largely based on countries, 8W8 takes likeminded people with their respective local gravity but more importantly cyber-activities into account so that readers learn about new structures in a local yet global or global yet local world. Whether someone is interested in and what is behind the LOHAS - the lifestyle of health of sustainability 'tribe' - around the world or any other demographic applying 8W8 might open eyes.

The Olympics' Bird's Nest Soup: Beijing - London by bus or 8W8 Heli?

What a show. What a spectacle. What a controversy. What, what, what. There has been a lot being reported, commented, discussed, admired and condemned over the last couple of weeks when the Beijing Olympics took place. Who is right, who is wrong, who knows a lot, who is short of knowledge? Who, who, who? The Beijing Olympic stadium, called Bird's Nest for its architecture, was the place where the world came together and media technology allowed to connect inbound and outbound as there were invisible streams around the globe. Eyes from all over the world looked into the global summit and connected with their own opinions and views. A lot of communication was, is and will be going on. A communication on a subject that can hardly be judged and certainly not be visualized, unless you have a tool. The Internet think-tank 'The Golden Sky', which developed the world modeling engine 8W8, referenced to both bird's nest and soup in 8W8 - Global Space Tribes. Basically, it considers the world broken down in a maximum of elements and connects subjectively these via the world's digital backbone to the beholders and participants or simply Internet users. As a result what is being expressed by an individual or the masses can be measured, quantified and visualized. Therefore communication and understandings is much more effective. At the end of this year's Olympics the next hosts - this time from Great Britain - showed their little red bus from the last century: London - Beijing - London. Not a bad journey if you want to see the world's surface and people, but if you like to see the direct impact of an event as the one in the Bird's Nest or anything else that is going on in the world, you may consider a virtual ride with the 8W8 Helicopter instead. May be both is actually the most fun. Hope you can make it work one day.

Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year 2008

8W8 - Global Space Tribes is participating in the 2008 Financial Times & Goldman Sachs Book Awards. The winners will be announced at a Gala Dinner held at The Plaza, Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, New York City on October 14, 2008. Anyone interested in being considered for invitation can apply directly on www.ft.com

Winner 2007: The Last Tycoons by William Cohan

Winner 2006: China Shakes the World by James Kynge

Winner 2005: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Shortlisted in 2007 were:

• The Age of Turbulence, by Alan Greenspan
Published on September 17, the book is already creating a stir in political and economic circles.

• The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Taleb’s latest bestseller about how we underestimate at our peril the risk of highly improbable events.

• Immigrants, by Philippe Legrain
Arguing for freer migration, the book takes on one of the most emotive topics in the political and business world.

• The Last Tycoons, William D Cohan
A no-holds-barred account of the rise of Lazard Frères, the investment bank.

• Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D Williams
An explanation of how internet-based collaboration can be harnessed to produce even more innovative content, products and services.

• Zoom, by Iain Carson and Vijay V Vaitheeswaran
The book describes how Big Oil and the world’s carmarkers are striving to meet the challenge of developing new fuels and technologies.

The Geography of Thoughts: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently ...and Why

Also in light of the Beijing Olympics starting today the timing of posting this seems to me appropriate. Professor Richard E. Nisbett's 'The Geography of Thought: How Asian's and Westerners Think Differently ...and Why' was one of my inspirations when developing the world modeling engine 8W8. Basically, the result of thinking differently results into perceiving and seeing things differently, too. This has encouraged me to let the Golden Sky think-tank of '8W8 - Global Space Tribes' add the subjective weightening options as one of the flexible dynamics. The book is available on Amazon both in print and Kindle edition.

About Professor Nisbet: Richard E. Nisbett has taught psychology at Yale University and the University of Michigan, where he is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished University Professor. He has received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the William James Fellow Award of the American Psychological Society, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2002, he became the first social psychologist in a generation to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The coauthor of Culture of Honor and numerous other books and articles, he lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Beijing 2008: 08.08. - Global Sports Tribe

Today the Beijing Olympics Grand Opening Celebrations are taking place. This is a great example on how one of the largest Global Space Tribes - The Sports Tribe - is expressing its like-mindedness by connecting to Olympics related websites all over the globe. I am one of them hooking up from my hotel in Tokyo.

The coming weeks will significantly increase Internet traffic all over the world and contribute again to the World's People coming closer together in a globalized yet fragmented world. The number of people connecting and communicating is a real life case for the ideas and concept of 8W8, the world modeling engine, which then can visualize what is not visible for the naked eye.

For those of you who do not remember the 8W8 logo was developed based on the Chinese sign for People, which are the two strings in the middle, and 'W' for World (World People) as well as the number '8' for good fortune and prosperity.

800,000 Kindle's by the end of 2008?

Well, there has been quite some speculations on how many Kindle's are meanwhile in the market.
If anyone is interested in finding out if "Kindle is to books what the iPod is to tunes" you may find this an interesting read: www.SFGate.com

The other day, thanks to my broken Lufthansa seat, I got an upgrade to first-class when going from Munich to San Francisco and to my surprise already 25 % (4 out of 16) were using an electronic book reading device (Kindle and Sony). What do you think the ratio will be in 2018?

Triple #1 on Amazon.de

This month 8W8 - Global Space Tribes has made it into the top spots on Amazon.de (English language books) in several categories:

# 1 Marketing
# 1 Internet Marketing
# 1 e-commerce
# 2 Business & Culture

Rene Seifert reviews 8W8: Taking Globalization and the Internet to the next Level

Extract from www.reneseifert.com

...

Anyway, in case someone is interested on more vision and foresight in terms of "what's next" on the global scene, being addressed from an entirely different angle in the shape of a novel, I happily recommend 8W8. The author is Ralf Hirt whom I met in January after moderating the India-panel at the DLD-conference in Munich. It's instrumental to understand the background of Ralf to become clear on both his motivation and insight: He has held leadership positions in the internet industry for a decade and has lived all over the world, in his home town Stuttgart, Hong Kong, Sydney, London and currently New York. In crossing these two lines of experience extrapolating their status-quo plus visioning with lots of foresight, he conceived his first book 8W8. It is worthwhile mentioning that the book is indeed fiction, yet the concept of a "new world modelling engine" are not so far away that this book would fall into the category of "science fiction".

Well, what is it about? The storyline deals with 15 high calibre people from of the "Golden Sky", a community committed with the aspiration to change the world for the sake of good. These 15 people come from a whole array of diverse backgrounds, like Oskar Feller, an editor for a leading internet magazine, Maria who is a doctor developing high-scale programmes to fight HIV/AIDS, Priyanka from India who is an IT-crack working for a global media company or Emanuel, a philosopher and Taoist who has been named for the Nobel Prize. All the characters of the story are here on the 8W8-blog. This group of people is hosted by Winston Chee, a billionaire internet-entrepreneur from China in his island on Hawaii EA-RA.

In this serene and secluded environment, the 15 brains spend a whole week picking each other brains and inspiring each other to solve one crucial problem: How to make the interrelations of economies and people visible in a sort of virtual map-overlay on top of the existing geography. What they come up with is the new world modelling engine "8W8" which can be pictured as a virtual helicopter the "pilot" would use to fly over the terrain of the earth to make these invisible connections visible. Delving even deeper into the concept it transcends into a new form of radical constructivism as the vision the pilot would receive on his dashboard would be a crossover between absolute measurable truths and his set of values/selective perception. What the pilot would get to see is both on “earth level” and on “sky level” the “volumes” of a whole set of parameters. The former range from hard factors like population, GNP, metrics on infrastructure, public institutions to innovation, the latter comprise for example metrics for democracy, human rights, quality of living, level of terrorism and such.

Yet, what is more that beyond statistics on GNP or PPP which are available as top-level data today, 8W8 equally entails a bottom-up approach from the level of the “element” (individual) which will aggregate in “streams” into “Global Space Tribes” according to its interest, e.g. “MBA Jazz Wireless Tribe (MBAJWT)”, “Catholic Fast Food Blue Collar Single Mother of Four (CFFBCSMF)” or the “Taoist Tribe (TT)”. These become even more interesting if one looks at actual vertically positioned Web 2.0 platforms which either try to bring a community of like-minded people together like “Dogster” or provide a tool to define and organize a target group of any shape like Ning. Yet, both of these platforms have in common that they require someone to become a “member” by “registration” and do all these various steps actively online. In that context I do believe that there will be not in too far future a kind of “ambient computing” where the unconscious behaviour patterns will be able to bring people in a meaningful way together. Hence, aggregating this sort of behaviour and making it somehow visible is not that far away from 8W8’s concept of the “Global Space Tribe”.

One thing I had hoped throughout the whole story to occur, is a bit more of conflict, friction, sex: As Oskar and Theresa, a computer scientist, seem to come along very well, I waited for that forbidden kiss, the clandestine quickie to happen under the waterfall of perfectly pristine EA-RA. Not for the sake of sensation, but to portray people regardless of their brains and social status when they become most human: emotional to the extent of irrational. The figures appear prim and proper, and at best tease each other lightly in order to surely succumb to perfect harmony. Irrespective of that, what I liked from a storytelling point of view is the ability to portray a broad set of global citizens who find a common denominator to discuss a topic, be focussed in defining a goal, accepting each other’s variety of viewpoints, being non-judgemental and fully embark on the beneficial concept of diversity.

Altogether, I liked the book a lot as it is coherently able to explain the road ahead in globalization by the force of the internet and the road ahead of the internet by the force of globalization. What gave me food for thought via the concepts of “Global Space Tribes” was the decreasing influence of governments, because free people in a free world are able to cross-pollinate their ideas and aspirations regardless of the strangulating rigidity of what we call a country today. For someone like me who happily articulates his despise of today’s governments, the vision of 8W8 is one which deserves active pursuit.

Who is interested in buying the book, Amazon has it, either in print or for the Kindle.

Please visit www.reneseifert.com for more information and feel free to enjoy Mr. Seifert's blog sharing views and experiences first hand from a global citizen and entrepreneur.

Amazon English Books in Germany: Top 10 in Marketing

After 8W8 - Global Space Tribes' print edition has become available via Amazon resellers on Amazon.de at the beginning of June 08, it has made it into the top 10 in various categories:

English Language Books in Germany

#3 Internet Marketing
#3 E-commerce
#7 Marketing
#38 Business & Culture

Right now 8W8 - Global Space Tribes is available on Amazon.de for 143 Euro (yes, exactly one hundred forty three), so you better get it on Amazon.com for honest 20 Dollars and a little shipping if you are based in Germany.

The world is flat, so you better pay only the flat-world-price for it.

Amazon Picks Ralf Hirt's '8W8 – Global Space Tribes' for New & Notable in Business and Investing Category

Ralf Hirt’s novel "8W8 – Global Space Tribes" has been picked by Amazon for the New & Notable section of the Business and Investing category. "8W8 – Global Space Tribes" looks at a future in a flattened world and beyond the digital natives of Facebook and Google. Its Amazon Kindle Edition has already become a bestseller in three categories: Globalization, Travel, Computer and Internet.

New York, NY (PRWEB) June 14, 2008 -- The newly released novel “8W8 – Global Space Tribes” (8W8.com), which climbed into the top ranks in three categories of the Amazon Kindle’s bestseller list, has been picked by Amazon for the New & Notable section in the Business and Investing category.

To create a more inclusive worldview for the 21st Century Internet philosopher and business man, Ralf Hirt, has released this provocative novel, exploring the unrealized potential of the Internet to deliver a voice and visibility to all Internet participants. It is written for everyone interested in the digital space, traveling, globalization, business and investing, which is not only the profile of many Amazon Kindle users today, but of everyone open for progress inside and outside of America.

...

For full press release please visit:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/8W8_Global_Space_Tribes/Amazon/prweb1023854.htm

Global Footprint Part II: 8W8.com Visitors by Country

As suggested by Vikram N. ... www.8W8.com visitors by country:

1 United States
2 China
3 Germany
4 Sweden
5 Canada
6 United Kingdom
7 India
8 Brazil
9 Russian Federation
10 Australia
11 Romania
12 Netherlands
13 France
14 Hong Kong
15 Japan

Global Footprint: Top 25 8W8.com Visitors by City

Due to 8W8 - Global Space Tribes' nature of combining many aspects of the world in the 21 century in the context of the digital age the visitor by city analysis of 8W8.com might be interesting for some of the readers. Please find it below:

Rank	City
1	SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
2	MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
3	NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
4	BEIJING, BEIJING, CHINA
5	STOCKHOLM, STOCKHOLMS LAN, SWEDEN
6	DALLAS, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
7	WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES
8	MIAMI, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
9	SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
10	MUNICH, BAYERN, GERMANY
11	DELHI, DELHI, INDIA
12	STERLING, VIRGINIA, UNITED STATES
13	GRAHAMSVILLE, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
14	TEMPE, ARIZONA, UNITED STATES
15	GUANGZHOU, GUANGDONG, CHINA
16	BERLIN, BERLIN, GERMANY
17	HAMILTON, ONTARIO, CANADA
18	SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES
19	SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA
20	HONG KONG, HONG KONG (SAR), HONG KONG
21	SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
22	PLANO, TEXAS, UNITED STATES
23	DENVER, COLORADO, UNITED STATES
24	LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
25	SHANGHAI, SHANGHAI, CHINA

Nielsen's Kirkus Reviews on 8W8 - Global Space Tribes

Fifteen of globalization’s children collaborate to design a piece of software that renders visible the invisible networks of the Internet Age.

Readers should be warned at the outset that this is no novel in the conventional sense, but a Socratic dialogue for the early 21st century of globalization. That dialogue is sparked when Oskar Feller, an IT journalist and international jet-setter, gazes out of an airplane window at the nighttime lights of the cities of Belgium far below. Oskar, or “OK Fellow” as his friends call him, feels a sense of frustration that those city lights can’t tell him much about the people they serve: What are their incomes? Where do they work? What do they believe in? How many are BMW-motorcycle enthusiasts like him? To get answers to questions like these on a global scale, Oskar enlists help from his 14 fellow members of the Golden Sky, a loosely coalesced think-tank whose membership represents various economic, political, scientific and cultural professions. At the palatial Hawaiian home of Internet entrepreneur Winston Chee, the 15 “Golden Skyers” collaboratively give birth to the computer-modeling program dubbed “8W8” (a strange-seeming
choice of name, until they explain that “eight” is an auspicious number in Chinese numerology and “W” stands for “world people”). The notional 8W8 program allows the user to enter the cockpit of a virtual helicopter and tour a dynamic landscape representing not Earth’s geography, but its invisible demographic, economic, environmental and even religious characteristics. The author’s decision to present this intriguing concept as a novel is an idiosyncratic one, making the book feel at times like a tug-of-war between an inventor and a novelist.

At its best, 8W8-Global Space Tribes provides a gentle, relatively harmless way to introduce the reader to a bevy of interesting new terms and concepts; at its worst, it comes off as the novelization of a software user’s manual.

More reviews can be found on the www.kirkusreviews.com - A Nielsen Business Media service

Preview on Google Books Live

As of this week '8W8 - Global Space Tribes' is available for preview on Google Books.

Please simply visit www.8W8.com and click on Google Book Preview or alternatively go directly to
http://books.google.com/ and search for '8W8' for instance.

Apart from the preview option you also will be able to see the world map with all locations mentioned or made reference to on the many rides on the planes and the 8W8 Helicopter.

Have fun.

8W8.com for Travel and Internet Enthusiasts: Browsing Through the Novel '8W8 – Global Space Tribes' by Ralf Hirt (Amazon Books Kindle Bestseller)

8W8 - Global Space Tribes is a new way to see the world. It is written for everyone who uses the Internet, travels and is interested in any aspect of the world in the 21st century. It is a fast and enjoyable read which takes the reader from point 'A' to the world of the Global Space Tribes. Extracts of the futuristic and visionary novel by Internet Globalist Ralf Hirt are available on www.8W8.com. 8W8 – Global Space Tribes has climbed into top ranks in various Amazon Kindle categories including Travel, Globalization, Computer & Internet. It is available in both print and as Kindle edition.

New York (PRWEB) April 14, 2008 -- The new fiction work '8W8 – Global Space Tribes' begins and ends on an airplane flight which serves as bookends to a fantastic journey. It is difficult to tell if the story begins with the central character, O.K. Fellow staring out of the cabin window musing about his inability to see the world as he knows it must exist. Although the elements he wants to see don't manifest themselves in our traditional three-dimensional world, he intuitively knows that they are there, albeit invisible to the naked eye. Or, does the novel begin when the 15 members of the Golden Sky, an IT think tank, in their break out meeting in a mountain palace on the Big Island, Hawaii?

Like Hirt's vision, the mountain palace is a metaphor, invisible to the outside world. All one can see from the outside is a six-story reflection of the sun during the day, and in the evening, the moon and stars. Yet, behind this golden mirror an entire world exists: a mountain stream navigates from floor to floor, an entire self-sustaining farm functions on the bottom floor and our band of 15 IT thinkers amble about from floor to floor, from high tech conference rooms, to dining rooms, to fitness rooms, to swimming pools; all invisible outside the golden mirror.

Like modern travelers, today, they set out from point 'A' and plan to reach point 'B' within a predetermined amount of time. What our travelers don't know is how they are going to get there and where, exactly, they are going. The group is heavily weighted by business people with above average understanding of the Internet and IT technology and a visceral belief that what was needed is a new world modeling engine. Among them is a blind philosopher, who, through cunning, had been able to hide his blindness from his companions, but it is he who first sees the direction in which they are going.

However, it was Theresa Raffles who began to unravel the conundrum by interpreting messages sent to her by O.K. Fellow on his flight from San Francisco to Berlin where the story begins:

"Look at the way you look at lights. They are diamonds. Christmas lights and then, over Belgium, they are reduced to dots. You had finally reduced everything to dots, the basic elements. At one point, you had volumized, segmented and saw elements becoming streams. Later on, you create your own topography, envisioning hills, slopes and mountains."

Slowly, the group begins to assemble the pieces. They stumble upon the idea of using a virtual helicopter which contains a computerized system, a new world modeling engine, which they call "8W8." From this platform they are able to look down on the world and see business opportunities, the state of the environment, wealth and resources and, ultimately, intangibles such as human emotions.

This is a book for every business traveler; a fast and enjoyable read which takes the reader from point 'A' to the world of the Global Space Tribes. Extracts are available on www.8W8.com.

To access full press release please vist:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/8W8/Travel-Internet/prweb854874.htm

8W8 - Global Space Tribes and New York Times Bestseller Freakonomics: Best Value on Amazon Books

New York Times Bestseller Freakonomics and Ralf Hirt's novel 8W8 - Global Space Tribes are now available as "Best Value" on Amazon Books. 8W8 - Global Space Tribes looks at a future in a flattened world and beyond the digital natives of Facebook and Google. Its Amazon Kindle Edition has become a bestseller in three categories: Globalization, Travel, Computer and Internet.

New York, NY (PRWEB) April 3, 2008 - The print edition of newly released novel "8W8 - Global Space Tribes", www.8W8.com, which climbed into the top ranks in three categories of the Amazon Kindle's bestseller list, is now available together with the New York Times Bestseller "Freakonomics" as "Best Value" on Amazon.com.

To access full press release please visit:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/4/prweb824564.htm

Forevergeek.com - Review: 8W8 Offers a Glimpse into the Future

Simply click below to read the review:

http://forevergeek.com/books/8w8_offers_a_glimpse_into_the_future.php

No. 1 Best-Selling Book on Amazon (Kindle): '8W8 - Global Space Tribes' by R. Hirt

Ralf Hirt's newly released novel that looks at a future in a flattened world and beyond the digital natives of Facebook and Google now top on Amazon in three Kindle categories: #1 in Globalization, # 3 in Essays and Travelogues, # 25 in Computer and Internet

8W8 - Global Space Tribes

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 27, 2008 -- Newly released novel "8W8 - Global Space Tribes" climbed to top spots in three categories on Amazon Kindle's bestseller list: # 1 Globalization, # 3 in Essays and Travelogues and # 25 in Computer and Internet category.

8W8 - Global Space Tribes is available on Amazon.com both for the Kindle electronic book reading device and as print edition.

To create a more inclusive worldview for the 21st Century Internet philosopher and business man, Ralf Hirt, has released this provocative novel, exploring the unrealized potential of the Internet to deliver a voice and visibility to all Internet participants. It is written for everyone interested in the digital space, traveling and globalization, which is not only the profile of many Amazon Kindle users today, but of everyone open for progress inside and outside of America.

"8W8-Global Space Tribes" takes New York Times' columnist and bestselling author Thomas Friedman's concept of "The World is Flat" one step further to lay down a blueprint for the post-social-network-generation. Set in modern times the book follows a group of technology activists as they use the globalizing power of the Internet to develop a new world modeling engine that delivers voice and visibility to all. Through "8W8 - Global Space Tribes", Hirt offers a glimpse of a new, multi-dimensional way of perceiving the world.

To view full press release access:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/8W8-Global/Amazon_bestseller/prweb807284.htm

#1 Globalization, #3 Essays and Travelogues, #25 Computers & Internet

Updated Amazon Kindle rankings.

A big thank you to all Amazon Kindle users for making 8W8 - Global Space Tribes the #1 in the Globalization category and a top 25 Kindle book in three categories. Considering that Amazon Kindle is a new device the playing field is leveled - to speak in "The Wold is Flat" terms - and that Kindle users are at the forefront of developments their appreciation and choice are defining trends. Globalization, Travel and Internet, this is what the enjoyable story of 8W8 - Global Space Tribes is about and the results are a nice reflection. Thanks again. More to come.

http://www.8w8.com/Kindle_Bestseller.html

If you do not have a Kindle device you also can go the traditional route on www.amazon.com