Here’s a link to the Mojofiti Groups : Winter Olympics where you can blog, or reblog any content associated with any of the events. What’s really sweet is that whatever you write is automagically translated into 27 languages.
alpine-skiing-2010-winter-olympics
bobsleigh-2010-winter-olympics
cross-country-2010-winter-olympics
figure-skating-2010-winter-olympics
freestyle-skiing-2010-winter-olympics
ice-hockey-2010-winter-olympics
nordic-combined-skiing-2010-winter-olympics
short-track-speed-skating-2010-winter-olympics
ski-jumping-2010-winter-olympics
snowboard-2010-winter-olympics
speed-skating-2010-winter-olympics
Here’s a form letter that we’re circulating around the world to get people involved, if you want to use it to send to your contacts or address book please be obliged.
Some close friends of mine have launched Mojofiti, a new company based in Denver. This company is on a mission to create a global community by using technology to break down language barriers. At the beginning of this month, they launched the current version of their beta site http://mojofiti.com/ This is a social networking and publishing platform available in 27 different languages. The platform uses blogs, messaging, wires, and groups to facilitate interaction between people living in different countries who speak different languages. The system automatically translates postings into the native language of the user.
For example, those of us who speak English automatically see live content at the website in English and people in Germany see the site in German.
Already, since launching the current site on January 1, 2010, artists, musicians, photographers, cultural lovers, students, scientists and philanthropists from the U.S. and more than twenty countries have signed up.
The user base has been growing at 3%-5% per day during January, which tells me there is something special starting to happen at Mojofiti.
Mojofiti resonates with me. For those of us who value artistic expression and desire a better, more positive and peaceful world, this seems like a good place to work toward those goals. Please go to the site http://mojofiti.com/ sign up, look for me there and let me know what you think. The account is free. I believe you will find this approach (multilingual globalism) to be the next wave in social networking and also a way to make our world a better place.
Bill Gian, friend of Mojofiti and Tucker Wakabayashi
By · CommentsFrom the Guggenheim Museum to galleries in Zurich, Bill Gian has inspired people with his architectural wonders and abstract canvases.
What inspired us at the Mojofiti Launch party in the fall of 2009 was that this Internationally known artist introduced Tucker Wakabayashi to his world of art. Tucker was standing in awe of Gian’s work during his live performance. Gian noticing this young fan, asked him to join the performance.
Hours of colors and splattering paint on dress clothes, wide eyed baby Modignliani or more appropriately a young GIAN painted in the spotlight.
And more on a personal note, I’ve known Bill for more than a decade and have had a chance to work with him on projects in the advertising industry. This guy is pure heart and soul – obviously. Bill’s stays true to art and to artists. His studio packed with artwork – not for mass consumption but for mass appreciation, giving of himself, his symbology, his love of color and shape to the people.
I ask you, what kind of artist sacrifices his limelight for his friends kids? Some may have an answer but they might be wrong. The real answer is that this guy, loves art, wants kids to imbibe in it, and cultivates it with his being, careless, of pretension.
Maybe next time it will be your kid watching with wide eyes as an artist performs on stage. Then you’ll hope it’s Gian.
Thanks Bill.
Public Relations 101 or should we say 104
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Thank you 104 West.
Obviously we had a need for someone to connect us with media in our local market as we launched on October 22nd 2009. I’d worked at some public relations firms earlier in my career and reached out to them for help. They were either too big for us or didn’t have capacity to help our little start up.
Thankfully, I was introduced to 104 West by my partner Alan. Alan had done some work with them and spoke highly of their shop.
Our first “get to know you meeting” was over some soggy theme food at a local restaurant close to my house. Steeped in technological experience their agency seemed like a distraction to our cause of breaking down language barriers. From my perspective we’re using technology to eliminate confusion, miscommunication, or inefficiencies for businesses and end users – we don’t need to talk technology to accomplish our relations with the public.
Alan and I deliberated, and came to the conclusion that it could be a fit, in light of the recent revelations, that, whenever I started to describe our offering to other outfits, they were lost in the phases Buddypress, Transposh, Crowdsource, API, and social network. At best, most agencies wanted to file us under “social network” and couldn’t grasp the concept anymore than to ask us the standard questions like “what’s your revenue model?” (as if eliminating language barriers for the 3rd rock from the sun was some dot-com pothole to avoid while going down the streets of our careers).
We circled back. 104 held a level setting meeting with key members of their staff.
We broke it down…..We’re using machine translations, Google APIs, crowdsourcing along with BuddyPress and WordpressMU to create a foundation from where – we’ll break down language barriers for anyone worldwide, who is ready to take advantage of this new era.
It was a fit.
Over the next few weeks, Kathryn and Elaine inquired “ How does your offering become coherent to users? How do we craft messages that explore the technological benefits like your API vs fundamentally communicating this new combination of software as a distinct benefit to an end user or for that matter, mankind? WOW. Conference call after conference call, it became clear to me that they were coaching our brand. They were nurturing our thoughts and teeing up questions that allowed us to have epiphanies.
In short order we’d sort out our internal communications enough to start the real work of our launch.
So, how did we go from API assets to a three story concert at a local nightclub with Deborah Takahara: host from Fox31 and evangelism from the Godfather of hip-hop himself : Afrika Bambaataa? 104 took our launch messages and wrapped them up into standard press releases, tidied up as much as they could “our tech and philanthropic notions” then dropped them on the wire. Kathryn and Elaine worked around the clock, coaching our ideas in stride with 11:45pm emails and 7am conference calls – it was the kind of relentlessness that creates confidence.
From PR coaching to scripts, dry runs and coordinating with famous hip-hip stars, everything went well. On the day of the event, several curve balls were coming, weather issues, sound issues, and in fact, at the event, the top floor continued to black out – no lights, no sound, during a buffet, live performance art from internationally renowned artist Bill Gian, and set by nationally famous Break Beat DJ “MLE” – that’s right…intermittent BLACK OUT. At one point I gave a radio interview in the glow of iphone flashlights.
It was no phase as Elaine guided me to the radio interview in the dark, whipping out her phone to cast enough light for us to have the conversation with the talk show host. Meanwhile Kathryn was ushering in TV crews to grab live feeds from the main stage with Afrika, and prepping every – next moment of the evening.
At the end we were all in a gush of blur, happy that we’d launched, made new friends and that we were able to conceive of the business, develop the software and launch within 5 months. (and yes true story, the next day I went directly to Disneyland – but that’s another blog entry.)
Since October we’ve worked side by side with 104, developing our strategy and clarifying our memes with a partner who understands the tech inside and out, from the software to the industry at large. It’s safe to say they also understand tenacity, perseverance, dedications, rolling up their sleeves and discipline. We’ve benefitted on so many levels from this relationship no reporting could do it justice.
As we move forward and outward – globally, we’ve begun speaking to Edleman to work with us on a global scale, and to our excitement, Edleman being the class act that they are, have let us know they share our appreciation of dedication and perseverance and further- they are collaborators who are happy to work with 104, Mojofiti and anyone else who wants to break down language barriers worldwide.
We’re all in this together that’s what we’re all about. Let’s Do this!.
Inspiration from a master.
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Sometimes just being in the right place at the right time is how it happens. That’s how I met Michael Cronan.
There I was learning the ropes with another friend and mentor, Lawrence Phipps when he let me know that we’d be working with Cronan Design based in San Francisco – Little did I know what was about to happen.
During my first stint at Verio, Lawrence engaged Michael’s crew to brand our fledgling ISP.This process was to entail, a logo, some online assets and positioning work.
We met several times in S.F. and in Denver. Each meeting carving away the hyped, dot comish, rhetoric to reveal a path that we could follow – from now until forever.
The logo – simple, elegant and inspired by the core “1″ and “o” and the “i/o” impersonating as a empty vessel now chock full of memes – genius in a brand – that’s what he creates.
Then again, it is what it is,right? Michael has a way of isolating the value in ideas, segregating them, and then prioritizing with such epicurean pureness that Epicurus himself would have had to call Michael “fearless”. Don’t take my word for it, google him, the web will show you how many great people follow the piper.
Anyway, Verio finally had a brand and we were finished with this chapter!
The next years revealed a distant but constant respect for each others lives. I guess the working relationship somehow left us all with a thankfulness for having done this work together, and for meeting one another.
Fast forward to now, 2009. Michael and Karin have joined the Mojofiti idea.
Of course they’ll be distilling every important thought, creating inspirations all the while helping to convey the meme to corporate analysts, capitalists or the everyday believer, but the thing that will be the gem, is the interactions and lessons I’ll get along the way from a person who could be spending time with anyone, anywhere in the world, from CEOs of major brands, to his family.
Thanks Cronan.
