2009 was a fun year.  I graduated with a degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, made great progress on Entrustet, made some good friends and traveled to Europe with one of my best friends to visit another.  I was in another great friend’s wedding, got my consulting company off the ground, saw some amazing sporting events and got more involved in Madison.  I even stuck with my blog.

My Best Posts (in no order)

The Business School Way of Life

Is the Dollar America’s Achilles Heel?

America Doesn’t Plan for the Future

The Entrepreneurial Push

Every Startup Needs a Mentor Team

My Decade in Review

My Favorite Books (read, not written in 2009)

Infidel

Three Cups of Tea

Outliers

Always Running

The White Tiger

I’m looking forward to going to South Africa for the World Cup this summer, attending South By Southwest and continuing to work on Entrustet.  I think 2010 will be another fun and interesting year for me.  I hope your 2010 is too!

Predictions for 2010s

I know it’s just about impossible to look forward a few months, much less a year or even a decade, but here’s some guesses as to where we are headed.

2010

1. Gold will continue its rise in response to more US government debt creation
2. Developing countries continue to grow more quickly than developed countries.
3. Unemployment will become the biggest political problem next year, but entrepreneurs will be somewhat sheltered

Longer Term

1. The Reserve Status of US dollar will be called into question.  Look for China and the rest of the world to continue to diversify away from US government debt.  I don’t know when this will happen, but I can’t see any other solution to the US’s massive debt and unfunded liabilities.
2. At some point, bubbles in China, US debt and others may pop.  This could lead to lower stock values and a resumption of the bear market.
3. China will move from manufacturer to the world toward one of the leading innovators.  China will continue to assert itself on the political and economic stages. Look for their dominance in rare earth metals.
4. Entrepreneurs around the world will be successful, as large companies do not want to invest in new technologies and talent is cheap.

                          

The classic definition of gotcha journalism usually refers to an interview style where the interviewer tries to trap the interviewee into saying something that would be damaging to themselves or their cause.  It has been around since the early 80s and became firmly rooted into our political and popular culture since then.

With the rise of the Internet, journalists, bloggers and citizens have taken gotcha journalism to new levels.  The barrier to entry is much lower:  instead of having to secure an interview with someone in order to trap the interviewee, the new breed of gotcha journalism uses the Internet to sift through all of the statements that a person has made in their entire life to try to paint them in a bad light.

Now, bloggers go through politicians’ every public statement for any misspeak or inaccuracy and then try to crucify them.  It started with John Kerry being labeled a “flip-flopper,” moved to George Bush‘s butchering of the English language and more recently, led President Obama’s Green Energy Czar to quit because of statements he made almost ten years ago.  When President Obama misspoke on the campaign trail, saying that he had visited all 57 states, right wing bloggers tried to make it seem like Obama was stupid.  When Sarah Palin burst onto the national scene, left wing bloggers and some in the media sifted through her previous public statements to search for any inaccuracy.

It seems like 75% of the news stories I read about each day have to do with some politician getting raked over the coals for some statement he just made that is different from a statement he made a long time ago.  Many times, the person leveling the charge is a fellow politician, along with the media and the blogosphere.

My generation is the first generation to be online from an early age.  We first interacted with email, then instant messaging, then social networks and now blogs.  We created (and are still creating) vast amounts of data about ourselves, much of which is stored online.  We have archived AIM conversations from when we were in 6th grade,  digital pictures from high school and college that are online and we all have our dumb Facebook wall posts that we made throughout our college years.

Many of us have blogs on wordpress or blogger and many more have microblogging accounts on services like Twitter where we make observations and pithy comments about our daily lives.  I know I’ve changed alot since I was in 6th grade and I assume I will change almost as much between now and the end of the 2010s.  During the next decade, as people in my generation get older and become leaders in business, politics and culture, will we still be subjected to gotcha journalism like our public figures are today?

One argument is that since everyone has all of this content online, we will become desensitized to people’s dumb or incorrect statements from when they were young.  Everyone has pictures of themselves on Facebook that they wished never made it online.  Everyone is going to have a poorly thought out wall post that could be taken out of context, or a pithy remark on Twitter that does not stand the test of time.  Anyone who blogs about anything interesting will be majorly wrong about something.  Will millennials become bored by the new gotcha journalism because everyone has something online that could make them look bad?

On the other hand, millennials may just make gotcha journalism even worse than it is today.  Since everyone has created gigabytes of online content, bloggers and the media will have an easier time digging up dirt on anyone who enters the public eye.  Imagine being able to see the new candidate for Governor at a boozy college party or getting a transcript of his AIM conversations with his best friend or girlfriend from high school.  The media, bloggers and most of all, the citizens will eat this stuff up.  Ratings will go up and everyone will be happy, execpt for the public feature.

I hope that my generation helps start the shift away from gotcha journalism.  I can’t imagine being shocked by the vast majority of the dirt that someone would dig up about a public figure online.  I hope that millennials are willing to allow people to change their opinion and not be called a flip-flopper.  I hope we will cut public figures some slack when their college photos get published to the major blogs and their old blog posts come back to haunt them.  I’m not optimistic, but I am hopeful.  If not, we will have some really boring politicians, business leaders and public figures!

Do you think millenials will help stop gotcha journalism or do you think the problem will get worse?

                          

Back in April, I questioned whether the US Dollar is America’s Achilles Heel.  Each day, I am more and more convinced that it is.  Back when leaders like Chavez were the only ones questioning dollar hegemony, most of the rest of the would could safely ignore his statements as the ramblings of a dictator blinded by anti-Americanism.  Most people did.  When developing countries complained about the devaluation of the dollar, people could brush the complaints off as jealousy.  When Russia started rumbling about moving away from the US dollar, some people started to take notice, but were not concerned, as they viewed Russian statements as posturing to reassert itself on the global stage.

Finally, when China’s central bank head made statements that he was not happy with the huge increase of the money supply, people began to take notice, but were still not convinced that there was a problem.  Next, China signed currency swaps with countries like Argentina, Brazil, Thailand and others that allowed businesses to do deals in Yuan, rather than relying on the US dollar.  This was a clear shot across the bow at US dollar hegemony.  China has also stopped buying longer term US securities, prefering short term notes that they can roll over more quickly, while stockpiling raw materials, rare earth metals and precious metals.

Yesterday, the world had to take notice when the Middle East oil states held secret meetings with China, Russia, Brazil, France, Japan and others to discuss selling oil against a basket of currencies and gold, rather than US dollars.  The US was left on the sidelines.  Pretty much everyone is denying that these meetings took place, but where there is smoke, there is fire.  It is the logical progression for the rest of the world.

They cannot attack the US militarily and win, so they have to attack the US’s biggest asset and its biggest weakness: the reserve status of the dollar.   It is America’s soft underbelly.  I don’t believe that these countries are moving away from the dollar because they do not like the US or want to see the US fail.  They are moving away from the dollar because they are scared.  They are scared that the US will continue to print huge amounts of money to inflate away its massive $90T+ unfunded liabilities (yes, T=trillion) and national debt, making their dollar denominated securities go down in value.  I have seen people say that America’s unfunded liabilities between the debt, medicare and social security is over $120T, or about 10 years of GDP.  You can see their fear in skyrocketing gold, which hit a record high of $1,045 per ounce today.  The oil producing nations are tired of pumping their tangible, natural resources in exchange for dollars that are not backed by anything.  They are simply looking out for themselves.

Taken together, these country’s actions are a frontal assault.  They are saying “enough is enough.”  They do not want to accept our paper, which is backed by nothing, in exchange for their manufactured goods or natural resources.   Unless the US takes decisive action to stop the erosion of the dollar, I fear that the US will lose its biggest competitive advantage: the reserve status of the dollar.  If this happens, our standard of living is fated to go down.

                          

Worse, the plans have usually ended up running away from tough decisions. With the stimulus bill the flaws were forgivable: there was an urgent need to give the economy a boost. But the House of Representatives has produced a cap-and-trade bill that is protectionist, riddled with exemptions and which gives away the permits that are supposed to force carbon-emitters to change their ways. There is a growing danger that this bill will not be passed through the Senate and reconciled with the House version in time for the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December.

With health care, Mr Obama’s preference for vague statements of principle rather than detailed specification has led to a House proposal that loads taxes onto the rich, sets up a state-run insurance scheme that many fear will put private-sector providers out of business and fails to contain, let alone reverse, the escalating costs of treatment while adding an expensive requirement that everyone have health insurance, with large subsidies where needed. Barely any Republicans could support this proposal as it stands. Frantic efforts to save the reform effort are under way in the Senate, but it is distinctly odd to note that the president’s signature policy is now being devised for him by a gang of six senators. Financial regulation is also stuck.

President Obama has allowed the Democrats in Congress, especially the House, to run the country, outsourcing the details, and arguably the Presidency, to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  This is not what most centrists and even some Democrats voted for.  Right now, Obama is risking his Presidency by allowing the rest of his party to trot him out to support poorly thought out, unpopular legislation.

On health care, Obama has allowed the Democrats in Congress to take the easy way out (and protect their supporters): soaking the rich, refusing to touch tort reform (trial lawyers) and ruling out taxing health benefits (unions).  He has made deals with Big Pharma and the insurance companies that do not address the rising costs of health care.  These plans only try to bring the uninsured into the current system.  While a noble goal, it could well bankrupt the country.  Instead of truly trying to rise above partisan politics and making touch decisions to both cover all Americans and stem the rising costs of health care, Obama has outsourced his responsibilities and is risking his presidency.  Until yesterday, Obama was silent when Democrats bashed real concerns about the competing plans voiced by Americans, causing his approval ratings to sink.

The Republicans are no better and possibly worse.  Instead of trying to reach across the aisle or propose any solutions of their own, they are simply saying “no.”  Its almost like the end of Rome when out of touch, rich, elites did everything they could to stay in power at the expense of the rest of the population.  Both sides seem out of touch and angry whenever there is disagreement.  Obama would be well served to tell Pelosi and Reid who’s boss and come forward with a detail oriented, innovative plan that cuts across constituencies and addresses both cutting costs and covering everyone.

What do you think?  Do you agree that Obama has outsourced the tough decision to Congress?  Should he confront Pelosi/Reid?

                          

My friend Pat and I left from Chicago and flew into Shannon, a town that is pretty much only an airport, on the west coast of Ireland.  We talked to a guy on the plane, Liam, who was from the area who told us that the Shannon airport is a holdover from when planes from North America had to stop on the west coast of Ireland to refuel as they continued on to the rest of Europe.  It really is only an airport in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by green, rolling hills.  Liam told us that the hotel there “is only used by dumb tourists who do not know any better and book on the Internet.”  We thought it was pretty funny and he ended up giving us a ride to our first town, Ennis, about 20 minutes from the airport.  All of the towns we went to had live, traditional Irish music in most of their pubs and Ennis was no exception.

From Ennis, we went north west along the coast toward Doolin, a small town right on the sea.  We spent two days exploring the town, which is about 6 miles from the Cliffs of Moher, one of the most amazing natural wonders of the world.  We biked from Doolin with the plan of going 10k straight up hill to see the cliffs, but we ended up getting lost and biking closer to 20k up, then down then back up again.  It was completely worth it.  It was even more rewarding when we got to the visitors center because we were the only people who had biked to the cliffs.  Everyone else had taken huge buses or cars.  The cliffs themselves are stunning.  If you get a chance to go to the west coast of Ireland, the Cliffs of Moher are a must see.

After Doolin, we took a ferry to the Aran Islands, a group of three small islands that are unique for their rocky terrain and the unbelievable amount of pastures fenced in with stones piled on each other.  About 300 people continue to live on the small island where we stayed, making the time after the last ferry leaves a cross between extreme peacefulness with a bit of an undercurrent of “this would be an amazing place for a horror movie.”

After the Aran Islands, we took another ferry to Galway, Ireland’s artsy, third biggest city.  We happened to be traveling during the Galway Arts Festival, which meant that the entire city was packed with people and just about every bar had live music.  During the second day, we went to a pub to watch a hurling match between Galway and Cork.  We had never seen an entire match before, but we met two locals who explained the game to us and ended up showing us all around the city.  Our Irleand adventure ended the next day when we flew out of Dublin on our way to the Netherlands.

We met some great people in Ireland: Liam (Ireland), Kate (New Jersey), Sarah (Canada), Christine (Canada), Steve (Austrailia) and Jenny (Ireland) in Doolin, Sean and his wife (Ireland),  and Sarah (Ohio) in Galway and a ton more people who were incredibly interesting and fun to hang out with.

In Doolin, one of the people I met asked me why I liked to travel in Europe and if I could see myself living there some day.  I said that I could see myself living in Europe and really enjoying myself, but I could only come up with the food, soccer and a little more laid back lifestyle.  

I continued to think about this conversation and realized that the biggest draw for me to living in Europe is the cities.  The following is an excerpt from what I wrote during our stay in Galway:

There are so many more places in Europe where cities are amazing, fun place to live.  Kids can go to decent schools and there is little crime.  Bars, restaurants, shops and other cultural activities are all within walking distance and if not walking distance, they can be accessed by good, reliable public transportation.  In Europe, most well to do people live in cities, whereas most middle and upper class people in the US move to the suburbs as soon as they have families.  For example, the city center of Paris (and most other European cities) is where the well to do live and the suburbs or the Banlieues, is where the poor and immigrants live.  These areas experience many of the same problems as American central cities, but since they are farther away, they do not gain the same publicity as their American counterparts.

In the US, most families end up moving to the suburbs to avoid crime and find better schools for their kids.  I believe that this process leads to isolation and a focus on work, rather than family and culture.  Many people in the US get up, get in the their cars, go to work, get in their cars and then go home.  They may go days at a time without seeing or talking to anyone who isn’t a family  member or a coworker.

I have a feeling that many in my generation has started to reject McMansions, long commutes and the isolation that this lifestyle can breed.  I think that the biggest obstacle to more people staying is good, quality public schools.  Most people leave cities in the US when they have children because they want to give their children the best education possible and many cities have terrible pubic schools.  I would love to see more livable American cities in my lifetime, but the first step is getting better schools.  I am not optimistic, but am very hopeful that we will see some change in the future.

                          

GeoBuzz is a really cool idea.  It allows you to post Buzzes, or messages similar to tweets on Twitter, to its platform that is visible t the people with the GeoBuzz application the area around you.  From their website:

GeoBuzz is a location-based, cross platform chat application that puts you in touch with the people around your geographic location. You can share thoughts on speakers or performances at live events, post restaurant specials, or get people together to meet.

All of what you see is narrowed down from people in your area. GeoBuzz brings back the idea of community and will help you connect with people that are literally around you. It is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and Windows Mobile phones.

Forrest Woolworth, head of the GeoBuzz project, says that the goal is to bring people together in their own community.  ”The internet has allowed people to connect instantly with others all around the globe, but it has pretty much ignored local connections.  GeoBuzz aims to change that and connect people, via social media, to others in their own community.”  You can follow their trials and tribulations on their blog, here.

GeoBuzz is especially innovative because it is cross-platform, meaning that the GeoBuzz application can be used across multiple mobile devices.  It brings together the fragmented mobile device market and allows all of these people to connect, regardless of their mobile device.  Its similar to Twitter, but location based and is divided into multiple channels where people can organize events, check out bar atmospheres before going and “live buzz” local event.  Its a really cool idea, and will be interesting to see how they promote it and expand to more users, as there is huge room for innovation with their platform.

I was also struck by how GeoBuzz could be used in the recent Iranian protests after the elections.  I wrote about the role of social media and the new media’s response to the unrest compared to the traditional media in previous posts and was thinking about how GeoBuzz or a service like it, could have been used to organize protests, disseminate information and show safe and unsafe areas.  The protestors could have buzzed about friendly locations, where riot police and basij were most angry and allowed people another outlet to connect.  Most likely, the regime would have tried to block a service like GeoBuzz from the start, but it would have been interesting to see.  As GeoBuzz and others catch on, and I believe they will, it will be interesting to see what they are used for.   I think it can be used like Twitter, but for more real time, location based information that can turn into action more quickly.

What do you think?  Would you use GeoBuzz?  What would you Buzz about and what situations would GeoBuzz be most useful to you?

                          

CNN broke the mold and became one of the world’s most respected news sources during the first Persian Gulf War, as they were able to deliver amazing pictures and video of events on the ground, much more quickly than anyone else.  The tables are turning with the Iranian election and the subsequent protests.  I think we may be seeing a watershed moment in news gathering: a final, permanent switch from the old media to the new media.

Andrew Sullivan’s blog is probably the world’s leading source of news coming out of Iran right now.  Sullivan and his team have been aggregating video, twitter feeds, photos and comments from people inside and outside Iran, as is Nico Pitney’s blog on the Huffington Post.  I wrote about it yesterday and its fascinating.  The cable news networks are mostly useless, still debating Palin vs. Letterman and other useless drivel, while spending a few minutes on Iran, but not really digging deeper.  Another article in the Atlantic talks about the information disparity between people who are getting their news from blogs, Twitter and YouTube, while this exchange from Fox and Friends is pretty representative of what most mainstream media outlets are talking about on the air.

The Obama Administration and the State Department realize that the new, social media is incredibly important to the coverage and organization of the protests, prevailing on Twitter and its hosting company to stop scheduled maintenance that would have brought Twitter down.  Part of the reason this uprising is so digital is that Iran boasts the 3rd most bloggers in the world.

As I said, I think we may be at a watershed moment in media history, similar to CNN’s huge surge in popularity during the Persian Gulf War.  The information divide between what is available online, both from primary and secondary sources is so much greater and more informative than what is available on the news and in newspapers, its astounding.  Newspapers and radio have been struggling with news gathering and Iran’s  uprising might be the last straw, especially if the old media does not adapt.

Do you think this is a watershed moment in the development of new media?  What do you think about the coverage of the Iranian election?