The New Media Diva

That’s CSS Researcher Daniel Möckli and me preparing to record the podcast on Switzerland’s Middle East policy and the controversy surrounding it:

A Swiss company’s recent signing of a gas deal with Iran - a move supported by the Swiss Foreign Ministry - is just the latest in a number of measures that have irked an international community intent on isolating the Islamic Republic. The deal, along with Switzerland’s record of diplomacy concerning militant Islamic organizations, highlights the gap between its Middle East policy and that of the EU and the US.

Even though Switzerland’s reasons for its approach are noble, some believe that its willingness to engage controversial actors in the Middle East has led to an incoherent policy.

In the latest edition of CSS Analyses, Daniel Möckli examines Switzerland’s Middle East policy, the issues surrounding it and whether its method of bridge-building does more harm than good, as the critics would have us believe.

Check it out here. The first podcast, Superdelegates explained, is here.

I have a dear friend named Mat. We took the CELTA course together in 2003 and were part of a rag-tag group of expats who hung out at Lady Hamilton’s pub just off of Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. Our group did the usual commiserating (and joy sharing) about life in Switzerland, culture, politics, music, family life and so on.

Mat moved back to Australia, but kept contact with everyone over Skype and Facebook. He’d hit me up on Skype when our time differences worked out. The last time I saw Mat was in August 2007. He was in Switzerland and called me up out of the blue for lunch.

About month later he was dead. An athlete (marathoner) for most of his adult life, Mat collapsed and passed over while on a morning run back in Australia. He was 39.

Every time I open Skype, I still see him on my contact list. I’ve never had the heart to delete him. Today, just out of curiosity, I double-clicked on his name to call him, just to see if anyone would pick up. Of course, no one did, but the account still seems to be active.

This made me wonder about my own online history. What if I got hit by a bus (or tram in Zurich’s case)? Who would close out my Skype, Facebook, Yahoo, Friendfeed, Seesmic and the other accounts all over the Web?

Who would notify the folks hosting my websites? Would my husband even know who to contact?

Would I turn into some weird, static, internet ghost?

In addition to Mat’s Skype account, his Facebook page, at least the listing (we hadn’t “friended” each other there), still seems to be active.

Perhaps this is the modern world’s answer to immortality.

From the inbox:

We would like to introduce you to an exciting initiative on our network – Governance Village (GV). This online collaborative project brings Canadians and their global partners together to discuss the governance practices, policies and challenges driving international development.

GV users now benefit from :

* The latest in governance news, research, job opportunities and coming events.
* Our free, full-text library containing over 7,000 documents
* Interactive e-Dialogue discussions with governance experts
* Our free online tool kits and other useful governance resources
* A user-friendly intuitive interface

Using only a just-before-dinner-glance, the site looks cool.

Speaking of international relations and such, my extremely brainy and (extremely) beautiful co-worker, Linda, and I have a running back-and-forth going on at her blog New Risks on a priori/a posteriori approaches, the US Constitution and the Patriot Act.

She’s gonna spank my booty for posting this.:-)

J Phil has a wonderful post on his site about full-time blogging. He shares his thought patterns on why he’s “sticking to his day job.” He cites criticism as one of the reasons. I can totally understand that.

But, another thing stood out in his post that I’ve been wanting to touch on for a while. He mentioned this dude named Louis Gray. I’ve seen this name quite a bit on Twitter feeds (especially Corvida’s) and his quotes, but could you help a sister out? What is the power behind Louis Gray? Why is he so influential and how did he get that way? (I guess I *could* Google him ‘eh?). I read his bio on this site, but I guess I’m looking for some type of timeline on him.

I’m not being antagonistic, it’s just that I really feel out of the loop about this dude…and I’ve been blogging since 1999-2000. That’s sad on my part. It also makes me feel quite…uh…old:-).

Additional confession: Another person I missed the boat on was Robert Scoble. I’d heard of him but didn’t realize how much of a blog star he was until LIFT. I was having a conversation with someone when they saw him, freaked out, excused themselves and ran over to him. I laughed my butt off. Then I saw folks surrounding him, trying to get their pictures taken with him and such. It was surreal, like someone giving out government cheese. I now know to get my camera and put him in a choke hold the next time I see him.:-)

Another post that Phil linked to also got me thinking: Cyndy Aleo-Carreira’s article Does the Silicon Valley Economy Drive a Luxury Bus?. She preached the truth there and said something that I’ve always thought. There seems to be a divide between SV folks and those of us who don’t have the cash or the connections in the blogosphere.

During LIFT and Going Solo I saw folks walking around with Macs, new Nokia phones and other cool gadgets. In terms of GS, some of them had flown in from the US and were on their way to other parts of Europe after the conference. I soooo wanted to ask: “How the heck can you afford all this?” My laptop crapped out on me a few weeks ago. I can’t afford to get a new one right now (I’m starting an MA program in the fall. Also, the Swiss tax man is pointing his sharpened pencil at us.:-)). I’d love one of those new-fangled Nokia phones. I peeped Stowe Boyd’s at GS and salivated (I thought he had an N95 but I guess it was a newer model than the N95). But I can’t shell anything out for that either (I paid CHF600 for an HTC Touch last year. I’ll never, ever do that again).

And let’s not mention the iPhone. The possible hidden rates give me the willies.

Side note: During her speech at GS, Laura Fitton discussed how a friend ran into Bob Geldof in the middle of Africa (or somewhere) and did a live streaming video interview with him using, I guess, a Nokia phone and qik. Who paid for the bandwidth and how much did it cost?

I remember years ago sending a popular blogger a bold note asking her how could she afford to do all of the flying she did. Her blog entries seemed to reveal the extremely cool, artsy, jet-set life of a blogger. She told me “frequent flyer miles.” That was great, but you have to *buy* flight tickets to earn frequent flyer miles.:-)

So, I guess this post asks two questions: What’s behind the rise of Louis Gray…and (unrelated, I guess) how can A-list bloggers afford their lifestyles? Revenue from Google Ads? Secret sponsors? These are serious questions.

Can anyone answer them?

Note: I guess following Mr Gray on Twitter would be a start at finding out eh?:-)

Well here’s a headscratcher: The Annenberg School of Journalism is shutting down the Online Journalism Review. Editor Robert Niles posted the announcement today:

After a decade, the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication has suspended publication of OJR.

One of OJR’s goals over the years has been to help mid-career journalists make a successful transition from other media to online reporting and production. I’m pleased to say that USC Annenberg will continue to provide support in that area, through the Knight Digital Media Center. I encourage OJR readers to click over to the KDMC website and its blogs, if you are not already a regular reader there.

The decision to suspend OJR for now means that I have left the University of Southern California. But I am not going offline. I will continue to write, daily, about new media and journalism at my new website, SensibleTalk.com. I hope that many of you will click over and visit me there.

No reason for the shut down was posted. Shoot, this has me more upset than the eXile story.