What Mattered on YouTube in 2013 (It's Not The Harlem Shake)

Last week, YouTube released its much-anticipated countdown of the top 10 trending videos of 2013, along with a year-end tribute produced by our company (which you should watch at least a few times). These mega-hits, boasting a combined 879 million views, were at the center of some of the biggest cultural moments of 2013.

But as we bask in the ubiquity of "The Fox," "Wrecking Ball," and "The Harlem Shake," it's important to remember that there's so much more that happened on YouTube this year outside of the top 10. With a billion unique visitors a month and 100+ hours of content uploaded to the site every minute, YouTube has become a media behemoth that is difficult to categorize. It's a social network, a television with 500 million channels, a music discovery site, an advertising platform, an education portal and a launching pad for the next Bieber -- all rolled into one.

While we can only scrape the surface of what really went down on YouTube in 2013, here are six videos that reveal some of the biggest stories on the platform -- and provide a glimpse into where it's all headed.

1) The World Is Here

(VIDEO: "Los Hermanos" - Hola Soy German)

2012 may have been the year Psy galloped his way to international celebrity, but YouTube truly became a global platform in 2013. A year ago, there was only one international channel in YouTube's top 10 most subscribed, but if you look same list today, half of the top ten creator channels hail from outside the U.S. There's a Swede at #1 (Pewdiepie), a Chilean at #3 (HolaSoyGerman), a Mexican at #8 (Werevertumorrow) and a Brazillian at #10 (Porta Dos Fundos).

2) Brands â†' Creators

(VIDEO: "Dove Real Beauty" - doveunitedstates)

Brands finally started to crack the code of YouTube in 2013. The secret, as many of them discovered, is to create original and meaningful content -- stuff that people actually want to watch and share -- rather than beating viewers over the head with the same 30-second ads. As a result, we were treated a string of buzzworthy content from brands, including "Real Beauty Sketches" from Dove, to "Epic Splits" from Volvo, to "Scarecrow" from Chipotle.

For YouTube's next trick, it is hoping to empower brands to be creating channels full of content. Imagine 100 of the top brands creating a original content on the level of Red Bull (3.1MM subscribers) or GoPro (1.4MM subscribers), and you'll start to see a revolution playing out.

3) Youth Movement

(VIDEO: "Funny Gaming Montage" - PewDiePie)

Earlier this year, Variety published a review of Pewdiepie, the Swedish gaming creator whose videos have been viewed over 3 billion times, and whose subscriber base just surpassed 18 million. In it, the author described him "blathering like a blithering idiot" and his videos as "psycho babble." But the truth is that Pewdiepie doesn't exist to appeal to Variety writers; Pewdiepie is for the kids.

While YouTube has content for all ages, its popular stars tend to skew their content towards teens and pre-teens, because that's where the real fans are. Recent studies revealed that 93 percent of kids aged 13-19 were checking the site at least once a week and young people aged 13-24 spend an average of 16.7 hours a week online, compared to 13.6 hours watching TV. Ask your little cousin what she watches after school and, more than ever, the answer is going to be a YouTube personality.

4) YouTube Goes Mobile

(VIDEO: "I Forgot My Phone" - charstarleneTV)

To point out the centrality of phones to our everyday lives is a cliché, but nowhere is it reflected more clearly than on YouTube. In the past year alone, mobile views on the site rose 15 percent and now constitute more than a third of total viewership. When you think about watching a video on a 5-by-3 inch screen, some of the most popular creators' creative decisions (short-form content, big faces, extreme emotions, sudden noises) become more obvious. While YouTube's rivals like Amazon and Netflix challenge the market for TV content, YouTube is busy preparing itself for a mobile age.

5) Let's Throw A Party

(VIDEO: "Arcade Fire - Afterlife" - YouTube)

As a company, YouTube has always played an active role in the way users experience the platform, and 2013 was no exception. One of their biggest bets of the year was a series of programming initiatives designed to promote live and concentrated viewership, which can be more attractive to advertisers. There was Comedy Week in May, Geek Week in July and then a star-studded Music Awards show in November. And while it's unclear whether these "tent-pole events" will become a mainstay of the site, they're evidence to the fact that that YouTube is more than willing to experiment with their formula to figure out what people really want.

6) But What About...

(VIDEO: "Space Oddity" - Chris Hadfield)

I know what you're thinking. "But what about the video of that astronaut or this awesome dog or that crazy acapella group or this dude catching a trout with his bare hands. How do those fit into your little system?" The answer is: I don't know! YouTube is like a great rock band: as soon as you think you understand it, it becomes something totally different. It's also mind-bogglingly massive and always changing in a very weird (but perfect) way.

So while we pay attention to these trends, we should also sit back and enjoy it, because what we're witnessing right now might just be the beginning of YouTube's golden age.

Nate Houghteling is a partner and executive producer at Portal A, which produces and distributes video content for a digital world.

Follow Portal A on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PortalA

5 Ways Outer Space Taught Us About Earth in 2013

Another year of the Internet has come to a close, which can only mean one thing: time for more lists! The science magazines will undoubtedly create exciting top 10's of the most awesome things to happen in space in 2013. But some of the stories that most need telling are not the big-ticket tales of human spaceflight and new exoplanet discoveries. For most people, it's the less flashy things that can mean the most in the lives of people right down here on Earth. And these benefits are not limited to spinoffs like microelectronics and high-tech medical technologies that people from rich countries enjoy; from human rights to food security, space assets provide incredibly meaningful humanitarian contributions to the planet. Here are five of the many ways in which space touched us down here on Earth in 2013:

1. Space assets helped human rights workers uncover war crimes in the Central African Republic

Since the March 2013 coup and ousting of President François Bozizé by the rebel Seleka Coalition, more than a thousand people have been killed, over 100,000 displaced, and the situation is growing worse by the day with reports of rape, torture, executions, and other atrocities. In the CAR, space-based intelligence gathering, along with the stories and research from people on the ground, lead to the United Nations' decision in November to unanimously authorize the deployment of peacekeeping troops into the region.

Satellite imagery becomes particularly useful in conflict zones where it is too dangerous to send in reporters and aid workers, and when affected villages are too remote to reach by vehicle. In response, Human Rights Watch has used satellite imagery to collect detailed evidence of tell-tale signs of humans rights abuses. For example, viewing arson attacks on multiple civilian villages (considered a war crime by international humanitarian law) in the CAR, such as the gold mining village of Camp Bangui, where "black burn" scars indicate around half of the village has been destroyed. In other areas, satellite imagery detailing new tent-like structures indicate mass displacement of people -- another common indicator of abuses.

In addition, the escalating violence between Christians and Muslims has incited the very real fear that genocide is imminent. In other conflicts such as those in the Sudan and in Kosovo, human rights abuse investigators have used satellites to look for mass graves -- a feature commonly correlated with genocide. In fact, a mass grave was discovered by Red Cross workers a few days ago in Bengui, the CAR capital. Let us hope that this is one use satellites will not need to serve.

2) Space assets were used in search and rescue operations in the Philippines


We all saw the harrowing images of Typhoon Haiyan, which left 6,111 people dead, 1,799 missing, and 4.4 million homeless -- a disaster so devastating and disruptive that weeks after the storm, over a thousand bodies still remain unburied.

During the immediate aftermath of the storm, rescue workers used space assets to help to coordinate the search, rescue, and relief efforts. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) deployed satellite phones and broadband satellite terminals for data to many of the regions most affected. This allowed for those conducting humanitarian assistance to coordinate logistics when deploying medical assistance, food, and water to those in need; allowed rescue workers to figure out how to reach victims when roads and landmarks are destroyed, rendering maps useless; and helped people contact their loved ones after being separated. In addition, companies like DigitalGlobe and Astrium have already (at no charge) provided emergency workers with imagery that detail the devastating before and after images. As the country rebuilds, images such as these will be critical in assessing the damage and prioritizing recovery efforts. The United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) has collected and made available several images, all accessible to the general public.

3) Satellites helped map the density of the world's vegetation


More than 800 million people worldwide suffer from malnutrition and chronic hunger. According to the World Health Organization, one of the key pillars to food security is food availability -- that is, having sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis. In an effort to better understand where this is most challenging, Earth observation satellites provide detailed mapping of agriculture activities, including the distribution and condition of crops.

In November 2103, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released a set of stunning color images detailing the places on Earth that are green vegetation rich, and the places that were lacking due to stress conditions such as drought. By compiling data gathered over the course of a year, the Suomi NPP satellite allowed us yet another way to visualize the Earth that was both data rich and beautiful. A particularly stunning view: images of the of vast North African dryness, with the green colored banks of the river Nile -- the agricultural lifeblood of the regions through which it flows.

Another valuable mapping contribution came from the European Space Agency's Proba-V satellite, which in July after a month in space captured its own snapshot of Earth's vegetation density. This is only one of the latest in satellites orbiting the Earth that are producing data that when combined with other information such as weather satellites, can be used for drought monitoring and mitigation, and precise early warning forecasting for regions at risk for food insecurity.

4) Space satellites provided climate scientists with information on the record lows of Arctic sea ice

Every year the arctic sea ice melts to its summer minimum. But on September 13, 2013, analysis of satellite data by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed sea ice had reached the 6th lowest level in the 35-year history of satellite measurement (1.97 million square miles). Now, this was an increase over the previous year, which was the all-time record low (1.32 million square miles); but it was still consistent with the long-term downward trend, a decline that has accelerated since 2007, and lead to a 40 percent loss of sea ice since 1980.

The loss of sea ice cover is a leading indicator of climate change, and many scientists believe that within decades, the Arctic will be entirely ice-free in the summer months. Why does this matter? Not only do many animals depend on the ice for their homes, but native peoples of the Arctic depend on these animals for food. The ice also reflects sunlight back out into space, which helps prevent the Earth from getting too warm. Less ice means less reflection; less reflection means a warmer planet and -- you guessed it -- even more ice melting. Several space satellites are orbiting our poles and observing these phenomena, and will continue to report back down on Earth in 2104. Sadly, the predictions indicate the results will not be good.


5) O3B launched a microsatellite constellation to provide affordable broadband internet to the developing world

The ability to communicate vital information, provide education in an increasingly paperless world, and provide a platform for free speech is becoming more and more dependent on the ability to access the Internet. A 2009 World Bank study estimated that a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration in low and middle income countries yielded an additional 1.38 percent in GDP growth. And many -- including the United Nations -- have declared universal access to the internet to be a human right.

In developed countries, ground-based fiber has become the dominant technology for delivering broadband internet. But in developing nations, laying ground-based infrastructure can be cost-prohibitive due to geography, rural and remote populations, and low purchasing power of users. And before recently, satellite internet access was also costly, as countries would have to rely on telecommunications giants and their often steep fees to provide high-speed services to their citizens.

The last decade has seen the popularization of small, cost-effective satellites "microsatellites" that can be combined into networks or "constellations," which use their collective capability to deliver high-speed data, which can be an excellent lower-cost solution for emerging markets.

One such company that is revolution this space is O3b Networks, a start-up founded in 2007. Their goal: provide broadband connectivity to the "other 3 billion" people on the planet who do not have internet access. In June 2013, O3b successfully launched its first 4 satellites (of a constellation that will reach 16), and in 2014 will begin to provide its first services. And they've already got users signed up: some of O3b's first customers include governments and companies servicing Papua New Guinea, Somalia, and Peru. The company has plans to continue to extend services across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific.

Now, I would not be a proper space geek if I didn't at least mention the incredible feats that have been accomplished in 2013 from a high technology and exploration standpoint, such as SpaceX's Dragon Capsule docking to the International Space Station, China landing on the Moon, or my personal favorite, finding water geysers on Europa. However, sometimes it's valuable to look beyond the razzle dazzle, and reflect on how some of the more tangible benefits of investing in space -- especially those that are improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable of us. To those who value protecting the child suffering from malnutrition or the refugees fleeing war, it is these stories that will connect our hearts when the money gets tight, our imaginations demand a pause from the wonder, and reality requires from us full on confrontation of the real wounds of humanity that need healing.

Geoengineering The Sky is Not 'Normal'

In the wake of the climate negotiations in Warsaw, the consensus appears near universal: the international process is not going to deliver, and it is up to countries and communities to go it on their own. For some, that means taking serious and dramatic steps to reduce emissions. For others, like Bangladesh or the island nations, it means finding a way to survive the consequences of climate change with little help from the international community. For all of us, it means facing a future of weather extremes, crop failures and potential disruption of virtually everything on an unprecedented scale. For advocates of climate geoengineering, the failure of global agreement is wind in their sails: "More reasons" why drastic measures such as spewing sulphate particles into the stratosphere, or "fertilizing" the ocean with iron filings, or burning and burying billions of tons biomass (as biochar or "bioenergy with carbon capture and storage") should be seriously considered and research should be gloriously funded.

Of course the converse argument is that if global agreement on addressing climate change cannot be achieved, how can we possibly expect any global consensus on, or governance of "technomanagement" of the atmosphere where the risks of serious negative consequences, for some people in some places, at least, are so grave?

This worries me profoundly, and apparently others as well. It is why faculty from Johns Hopkins University and American University recently launched a new, Washington DC based "Climate Geoengineering Consortium".The stated goal of the consortium, perhaps laudable, is "to generate space for perspectives from civil society actors and the wider public, to produce a heightened level of engagement around issues of justice, agency, and inclusion." Perhaps I am too skeptical, but "generating space" for a debate seems a bit vague. This new consortium recently organized a meeting, slated as a "closed door" meeting of civil society representatives. Closed meetings for civil society always make me a little nervous. Especially when the topic is planetary scale interference with the global commons -- the life support systems of our planet!

I'm not sure really how I ended up on the list of invitees, but I decided to attend. The meeting was held in a stark space at Johns Hopkins, with the requisite sleek furnishings and snack plates wrapped securely in sparkling plastic. Nobody in attendance was a shade darker than a bowl of oatmeal, all were dressed in drab, illuminated by glowing computers, tablets and smartphones. Represented were staff from Johns Hopkins and American University, as well as the conservative American Enterprise Institute (Lee Lane), Bipartisan Policy Center, NASA (Mike McCracken), the renowned blogger, Joe Romm, and long time (but now retired) Friends of the Earth director, Brent Blackwelder. There were representatives from U.S. Climate Action Network, Greenpeace, Food and Water Watch and various others. Certainly more diverse than some meetings, but even I could not avoid the sensation of being sort of a token.

Strikingly absent from the event was the single organization (ETC Group) that has been for years already working to raise awareness of climate geoengineering proposals among civil society via their "Hands Off Mother Earth" campaign, and also via their dogged and successful effort to promote a defacto ban on geoengineering through the Convention on Biodiversity. No other NGO has devoted anywhere near the attention to the issue, and yet oddly they were not behind these closed doors.

As expected, the opening remarks focused on reconfirming for us a sense of desperation, as we face global warming already on track to utter catastrophe. No disagreement there. We were told that climate scientists are running scared and so they are increasingly, even if reluctantly, turning to a "Plan B" for the planet. Plan B of course, being none other than, say, dumping sulphate particles into the stratosphere, pouring iron filings into the ocean, or perhaps charring and burying vast quantities of "biomass".

After a brief review of the various technologies proposed and their potential to make things worse rather than better, one member of the audience asked: "If there is no silver lining to any of these approaches, then why are we even holding this conversation?" The organizers and most in the audience giggled, made jokes about adjourning the meeting right off the bat and heading home, and then settled in to discuss what were apparently more realistic questions, such as, "how do we get civil society more engaged in the discussion of geoengineering?" and "what form of governance would be most appropriate?"

But hang on! We are being shepherded into believing that it's too late to seriously consider dropping consideration of geoengineering altogether? We are to assume that "the train has already left the station" and we now are obliged to engage in serious discussions about such outrageous proposals -- or else just quietly disengage and accept the consequences.

Whose ideas are these anyway? Why are we being railroaded into accepting them as feasible and perhaps even desirable options? Are we somehow required to entertain and engage every nutty technofix idea that someone happens to dream up? If so, there are plenty out there and we could keep busy for all eternity if that is the case, meanwhile diverting our attention from implementing the straightforward, proven, low tech, low risk approaches to saving the planet. (Like halting deforestation, protecting biodiversity, putting a halt to overconsumption, ending the mining, fracking, clear cutting and burning of the planet, and providing real support to those coping with impacts of climate change, for example.)

This insistence that we engage in debate over climate geoengineering is part of the process of "normalization" that seems orchestrated -- perhaps deliberately -- with the intent of habituating people to the whole idea of climate geoengineering as an option.

It does in fact seem that we have commenced an out-of-control and ill-considered flight down the slippery slope, with a near dizzying onslaught of events, meetings, reports and debates on the topic where the more fundamental question is avoided and we are invited graciously to step right up and... go get lost in the weeds.

In a recent interview, Vandana Shiva, when asked her opinion on one proposed approach to climate geoengineering-spraying nanoparticles into the stratosphere, responded: "Each of these issues [geoengineering technologies] has a particular aspect that's different but I think those particular aspects are very small compared to the overall damage and the overall irresponsibility. For me the first issue is, how dare you do this. How dare you. That has to be humanity's response. Then the rest of the little things of how nano particles can harm or having too much sulphur in the atmosphere can harm -- those are specific details but this is a civilizational issue. And in civilizational issues you don't look at the tiny details as the debate. You have to look at the big picture!"

I personally have spent quite a lot of time in the weeds, critiquing the "particular aspects" of various technologies proposed for geoengineering (see for example our Biofuelwatch reports on biochar and bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration). But I must agree with Vandana. To a very large degree we only assist to "normalize" the issue by focusing on critique of the particular details.

What is clear is that climate geoengineering is opening new doors for many career seekers. From scientists with superman complexes, eager to be seen as doing "cutting edge" work with big important global consequence, to various environmental and other NGO careerists seeking grant support, status and a place at the table.

Moving forward, it will be necessary to keep our feet on the ground and adroitly steer clear of being led about by our collective nose on this issue. We will have to meticulously examine underlying assumptions when we sit down to discuss climate and geoengineering, and we will need to bolster immunity to the process of "normalization" because there is certainly nothing "normal" about geoengineering Earth's climate!

How to Create an Online Book Tour With Social Media

You thought that writing your book was going to be hard work, right? Well, the work begins when you publish. Whether you are a traditionally published author, hybrid author or independently self-publishing, you will need to market your book and online is the place to do it. Social media marketing is the hip version of the old book tours where authors trekked from city to city selling their books. Today, publishers don't have the budget and only the biggest authors get this treatment. Have no fear, you can recreate this with less money and some elbow grease.

In the months leading up to your book launch, you will need to be planning for what I call the modern-day book tour. Hopefully, you've spent time building your author platform and boosting your online presence so people are going to be interested when you launch your book.

Some of the tools you can use to build your book tour:

• YouTube videos


• Twitter


• Facebook


• Instagram


• Pinterest


• Articles for your blog and guest posts


• Google+ posts and Hangouts


• Slideshare presentations


• Tumblr


• Podcasts


• Mailing list

You want people to hear about your book in as many ways as possible. Create a media blitz with as many of these as you can so people can share them with their networks.

These are a few examples of what you can do to make a big splash on your launch day.

Be ready to work hard

Working with Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch on APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to Publish a Book, we planned many events online for the post-launch social media marketing. Guy and Shawn were guests on Google+ Hangouts and were interviewed about the self-publishing process sharing what they learned writing the book and self-publishing it. We were guests on Twitter chats and hosted our own Twitter chats. We chose the #ApetheBook hashtag and used that consistently since the book launch. Guy did up to three interviews per day via Skype, phone, or Google+ Hangout for months.

How you can do this:

• Find people who host Twitter chats and contact them to let them know you'd like to be a guest.

• Check to see if there are any regular Google+ Hangout shows that are related to your topic and connect with the host.

• Let people know that you are available for interviews, Hangouts, chats and any other online media.

• Use an easy to remember, relevant hashtag for your book. This will tie your content together across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+.

• Be prepared to put in the time to get the word out about your book.

Build your own buzz

Another way to build buzz is to create your own event. Jennifer Miller, author of The Year of the Gadfly, has created several unique marketing events for her book. Jennifer is a traditionally published author who is building the buzz for her books with social media. She created the month of the Gadfly and her goal was to hit 100 book clubs in thirty days to break a world record. She got a lot of great press for this. Jennifer was my guest for #MyBookClub chat  on Twitter and wrote about it on The Huffington Post in an article called Savvy Authors Surfing the Web to Bridge the Digital Divide.

How you can do this:

• Brainstorm and come up with something unique for your book. Then do it!

• Use online tools such as Togather to organize your event. Togather connects authors and readers online and in person.

Create a media blitz

Jay Baer did a fantastic job with his book: Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is about Help not Hype. Jay, although traditionally published, built a team of people to work on his marketing pre-book launch. Full disclosure, I worked on a project with Jay for Youtility, but I learned post launch that Jay had a whole crew. This was very smart. This gave Jay a whole crew of people ready to cheer on his project and want to it be successful.

Jay used the following marketing pieces (and probably more) a book trailer, a SlideShare presentation, and at least twenty-five articles excerpted from his book that were published on high-profile blogs. Jay has spent time building a network of friends who are at the same level in their career as he is: published authors, high-profile speaker and fully vested in their social media platforms. He also built trust and readership with his popular blog: Convince and Convert.

How you can do this:

• Put in the time needed to build a strong online persona that people trust and look to for information. No short cut here.

• Blog regularly on your niche topic to build your base audience.

•  Network with authors in your genre.

• Work with others to help you get your social media marketing assets built prelaunch so you are ready post-launch to hit the ground running.

Share your adventure

New York Times best-selling author Hugh Howey started as an indie writer and is now a hybrid author. He has built an enviable fan base online that is watching the progress meters on this current writing projects with bated breath. How does he do this? He is 100% himself and shares interesting content. He creates fun unboxing videos when he gets copies of his books or products, shares photos from his travels at book signings and events as well as truly engaging with his fans.

How you can do this:

• Create media by taking photos and share them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Build a Pinterest presence to catalog your writer's life. More about how writers can use Pinterest here.

(Disclosure: I work with Hugh's on his Pinterest account)

• Post questions, share reviews and let people learn about your journey as an author

• Have fun! You can tell that Hugh is living his dream and truly enjoying being a writer.

Make a media kit

You'll need to build your digital assets prior to your launch so you are ready when people want to interview you. Sarah Robinson did a great job on her book website and media kit for her self-published book Fierce Loyalty: Unlocking the DNA of Wildly Successful Communities. You'll need:

1. A short and long bio


2. High resolution photo


3. Links to your social media profiles


4. High resolution book covers

How you can do this:

• Make it easy for people to spread the word about your book.

• Create a media kit at least a month prior to your launch.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can prep for your big day when your book launches. A book launch is a marathon not a sprint and doesn't stop the day after your book is released. Invest the time in your social media marketing to create an interesting presence. You'll notice that none of these are hard sell methods of marketing or sales pitches. Social media marketing is not a sales pitch, as a writer your goal is to help people find your books and learn about you as a writer.

What are you waiting for? Get started!

Photo credit: Big Stock Photos

Article by Peg Fitzpatrick

CIO Magazine's Editor-In-Chief Answers the Top 5 Questions on Every CIO's Mind

In her role as the Editor in Chief of the printed CIO Magazine and the event division, Maryfran Johnson spends 90% of her time in conversation with CIOs. In addition, she has had the privilege of meeting 2,600 of the most innovative IT leaders who have been recognized at the CIO 100 Symposium & Award Ceremony each year. Her interactions with hundreds of CIOs each year and the findings of the State of the CIO survey which the magazine conducts each year all sums up to a 360 degree view of CIOs and IT leaders. Johnson shared her insights with me on the issues that are most important to CIOs today and even gave our CXOTalk viewers a sneak peak at some of the 2014 State of the CIO survey results (full results to be released in January). If you are a CIO or IT leader, keep reading.


Maryfran Johnson, CIO Magazine

The Top 5 CIO Questions Answered

What are the key traits of a word-class CIO?
An excellent CIO has many traits including having an entrepreneurial spirit, a knack for building great relationships, a focus on building great IT organizations by bringing in top talent and thinking about the future. But the most important trait in a world-class CIO is an unrelenting focus outside the organization. Johnson tells us that having an external and not an internal focus is the most important attribute of the best CIOs; everything else is table stakes. World-class CIOs think about customers and the customer experience. Johnson says that the best CIOs get out there and see how the technology is being used.

Will the CIO role be displaced by the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) role?
The incredible growth of the new CDO role cannot be ignored. A recent MIT Sloane article said that in 2011 there were only 75 CDOs, yet we will exit the year 2013 with 500. According to Gartner, 1 out of every 4 enterprises will appoint a CDO within two years. With so many CDOs coming in it's no wonder CIOs fear being displaced, especially in light of the fact that often times the CDO reports directly to the CEO while the CIO usually reports to the CFO. However there is a silver lining. The results of CIO Magazine's 2014 State of the CIO survey reveal that we are at the point now where 44% of CIOs are reporting to the CEO and only 18% are reporting to CFOs - good news for CIOs. This finding indicates that CIOs are defining themselves by the value that they can bring to the business by helping to accelerate growth.

Additionally, the fact that 61% of CIOs compensation is tied to company profits is a huge indicator that they are seen as senior business leaders in their companies, which according to Johnson is where CIOs are all headed, regardless of the title. Johnson also predicts that the title of CDO may not matter in the future because everything will be digital anyway. The fact that the WSJ launched CIO Journal on its website last year further makes the case for the continued need for the role of the CIO.

What factors define CIO success?
Johnson tells us bluntly that, "CIOs lose their jobs a lot." Having asked CIOs about tenure for the last 13 years, she has found that it has ranged from 3 to 6 years. The good news is that the number is on the rise with CIO tenure being around 6 years today. So how can a CIO increase their lifespan on the job? Successful CIOs will experience longevity in their role when they are deeply involved in the business and don't just want to align the IT organization with business growth but want to accelerate it.

CIOs also need to tell CEOs the things they want to hear, like how they can make better use of analytics and find new ways to slice and dice information and turn out more customer information to figure out new ways to drive more business and to serve customers better. Johnson is onboard with Forrester Research who says that customer experience will be the biggest buzz word in 2014. So for 2014, CIO success will be defined by how well they can answer the question, "What has IT done for customer experience lately?"

What is the optimum relationship between IT and the business?
Johnson says it's when you are at a meeting and you can't tell who the IT person is because they are so embedded in the business. This is why the relationship between the CIO and the CMO are the closest and most beneficial. Successful CIOs no longer look at Shadow IT as a threat but as a consultative opportunity where they can open people's eyes to what the IT organization can provide. CIOs should heed the advice from Adriana Karaboutis, VP and Global CIO of Dell who said in a recent Huffington Post article, "instead of being the organization that is avoided, business partners come to IT and ask for their help and support." These types of business conversations that happen between business people and IT people reflect positively on the CIO. The best CIOs take these conversations and their knowledge of the importance of soft skills back to the IT organization and groom successors. Intel's Kim Stevenson said it best: "There are no IT projects, just business projects."

Will today's technology mega trends marginalize IT?
Johnson sees technology megatrends as a huge opportunity for IT to keep rising up the stack instead of being pigeon-holed as just a functional department. These mega trends give CIOs the opportunity to place IT front and center in terms of product development and engineering. Dane Anderson, vice president, research director and region manager for Forrester Research, says that megatrends are fast changing the role of CIOs. According to Anderson, "Organizations now look for CIOs who move beyond concentrating on IT as a force for operational automation, integration and control to seeing how technology can serve as a business amplifier and source of innovation. In fact, 80% of CIOs acknowledge that they should actually be spending two-thirds of their time with the business."



According to Johnson there is always something that comes along where everyone thinks it will marginalize IT, like cloud, but with that there comes a whole new complex set of skills to manage these vendors and these are the types of skills that good CIOs are bringing into their organization. CIOs are happy to go to the cloud for the infrastructure, because it enables them to be focused on the delivery of business applications and strategic moves for the company going forward. Johnson says that it's not so much the tools, but what you are doing with the tools that matters most to CIOs.

Stay tuned for the full 2014 State of the CIO survey results which will appear in the January print issue of CIO Magazine and online on January 1st.

You can watch the full interview with Maryfran Johnson here. Please join me and Michael Krigsman every Friday at 3PM ET as we host CXOTalk - connecting with thought leaders and innovative executives who are pushing the boundaries within their companies and their fields

The Scary And Amazing Future Of Work

By Vivek Wadhwa
Vice President of Academics and Innovation, Singularity University.



Cubicles with low walls, open collaboration areas, desks and computers assigned as you show up for work. If you need to hold a private meeting or make a personal phone call, you reserve a conference room in advance. This is what the offices of some companies are like today--and what most companies will be like in the future. But that's nothing. There is much more change to come.



The nature of work itself is changing for knowledge workers. During this decade, location will cease to be a barrier; many types of work will done as micro-tasks; and we will be collaborating in new ways. Not only will our employers take our offices away, but they will also expect us to be at their beck and call--and live balanced and healthy lives according to corporate standards.

I know this isn't all great, but that is the future we are headed into--whether we like it or not.

Note how much has already changed. We check email as soon as we reach home, and sneak a peek at our inboxes along the way. We respond to calls, texts, and messages even while on vacation. At work, we use Cisco Telepresence or Skype to confer with colleagues all over the world. Some companies let employees work from home for one or two days a week; some let them live in remote locations.

A decade ago, we could not have imagined being always on, always connected, with work following us wherever we go.

For our grandparents, "work" was almost always in a factory or on a farm. Today, the farm and factory jobs are performed by a shrinking minority. There are still many jobs in the services sector that require physical work. But increasingly our workforce is performing tasks that are done with the mind--that require knowledge and skill. These knowledge jobs can be assisted by technology.

Accounting firms routinely outsource grunt work, as do lawyers, and as do doctors, for tasks such as medical transcription. Not long ago, small and midsized projects were outsourced through websites such as oDesk, Freelancer, and Elance--not just to India but also to remote workers in the U.S. and Europe. A micro-task economy is now flourishing on sites such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Samasource, and CrowdFlower, in which smaller tasks are farmed out. Big and small tasks such as data handling, website development, design, and transcription are commonly done by workers in diverse locations.

Crowdsourcing is making it possible for work to be done simultaneously by many people--no matter where they are. It is becoming possible to solve big problems by using the power of the collective as I just have for Innovating Women--a book on how to enable more women to participate in the innovation economy.

While research entrepreneurship, I realized there was a serious problem: women were facing discrimination and exclusion in the technology industry. I wanted to write a book that inspired, motivated, and educated women to surmount the hurdles. But I am no expert in this field. And interviewing women and researching solutions would have taken me years. So I asked women all over the world to crowdcreate this book with me--by sharing their stories and ideas on how to fix the problem. We did this on a social-media-style website.

I was able to tap into the collective knowledge of more than 500 women. Within six weeks, we had gathered enough information and anecdotes to publish not one but several books. And we learned from each other.

Businesses are beginning to do this as well. Rather than locking workers in departmental silos, companies on the cutting edge are encouraging employees to start communicating with each other on internal social-media sites. What used to be the quarterly email from the CEO has become a torrent of information-sharing within companies--at all levels. Watch this transform into the same type of crowdsouring of ideas to solve problems as I did with Innovating Women. Companies will start designing and developing new products and services by engaging their entire employee base.

Telepresence robots are taking video conferencing to a new level. There are several products on the market, such as Beam by Suitable Technologies and Fellow Robots, that allow a screen mounted on a mobile platform to move around the office and experience what is happening in a more human way. Imagine walking into your boss's office while you are at home, stepping into a conference room to join a meeting, or chit-chatting with your peers around the water fountain.

Watch this video of a holographic talk I gave to entrepreneurs in Uruguay--from Stanford University. They literally beamed a live image of me to a stage in Montevideo. This was developed by a Uruguayan company, Holograam. There are also video-conferencing technologies in development such as Mezzanine by Oblong Industries which uses multiple screens and spatial user interfaces to allow people in different locations to collaborate and share electronic information in a science fiction-like setting. Mezzanine is being developed by John Underkoffler, chief computer visionary behind the 2002 film Minority Report.

We can expect Google Glass-type devices to bring the computer display to our body--so that we view the screen on our glasses and don't need to sit at a desk any more. I expect future versions to provide immersive 3D experiences which are more like the holodecks we saw in Start Trek. And who knows, we may well have holodecks that make it feel as though we are together--but that is getting too far into the future. During this decade, we'll have to settle for 2D interfaces and 3D simulations.

This is all exciting--and terrifying enough. But what worries me is the intrusion that companies will increasingly make into our lives and the burnout we will suffer from always being at the beck and call of our employers. I know from personal experience how hard it is to turn off email and disconnect from social media. This will only get worse for all of us as we become more connected.

And then there will be demands by our employers for us to better manage our lifestyles--so that they can reduce their health bills and get more out of us. Just as companies reward workers who join health clubs and stop smoking, we will see them making greater demands. They will be able to measure what we do because we will increasingly be wearing biometric-monitoring devices such as the Nike FuelBand and Fitbit Flex and our smartphones will be adding new sensors. The new generation of sensor-based devices will continually gather data about our movement, heart rate, weight, sleep, and other health-related matters and upload these to the cloud. Before giving you more sick leave, employers will probably demand that you improve your lifestyle and habits.

All of this may seem like science fiction, but it isn't. The future is happening faster than we think and changing important parts of our existence.



Image credit: Shutterstock


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This material published courtesy of Singularity University.

Software Takes Command: An Interview With New Media Theorist Lev Manovich, Part 2

This is part 2 of my interview with Lev Manovich, author of the new book Software Takes Command; part 1 can be read here.



Still from Jeremy Blake's digital animation, Sodium Fox (2005), courtesy Kinz Fine Art

These media, being extensions of ourselves, also depend upon us for their interplay and their evolution. The fact that they do interact and spawn new progeny has been a source of wonder over the ages. It need baffle us no longer if we trouble to scrutinize their action. We can, if we choose, think things out before we put them out.
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964)

Indeed, if after the death of God (Nietzsche), the end of grand Narratives of Enlightenment (Lyotard) and the arrival of the Web (Tim Berners-Lee) the world appears to us as an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts, and other data records, it is only appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database. But it is also appropriate that we would want to develops poetics, aesthetics, and ethics of this database.
Lev Manovich, "Database as Symbolic Form" (1998)

Unsuprisingly, given Manovich's stated desire to avoid generalizations about technology, Software Takes Command is most successful when offering a detailed analysis of specific media software. Using the motion graphics application After Effects as an example, Manovich explores "hybridity," a concept first put forth by McLuhan. He suggests that rather than attempt to "divide the extremely diverse media species of software culture into a small number of categories (i.e. mediums), we adopt "a model of multiple species related via evolutionary development that we can borrow from biology....The key advantages of this 'species model' over a medium model (for analysis) are their large numbers..., their genetic links... and the concept of evolution..."

Manovich distinguishes between remix practice, or "multimedia" which combines content from discrete media and "deep remix" which takes advantage of the compatibility between files generated by different programs to remix the techniques of individual media such as painting, collage, and animation.


Takeshi Murata's Pink Dot, an example of "deep remix"

Szilak: You differentiate between the typical mashup, a form of multimedia, and what you call "successful artistic hybrids" such as Takeshi Murata's Pink Dot, and Joachim Sauter's The Invisible Shape of Things Past which "increases the representational and aesthetic value" offered by each media type used. Moreover, you suggest "choosing from the same set of web sources and data sources available to everybody else may not be the right solution." I wonder, however, if you think failure, meagerness, smallness can be a viable aesthetic, one that resists the totalizing tendency of After Effects, and points out and critiques this hegemony? (Glitch aesthetics is one possible take on this, but perhaps there are others?)

Manovich:
Given this variety, I don't want to use words like "hegemony" in relation to After Effects or other media software. So when I analyze certain tendencies such as ""constant change on many visual dimensions," I am not saying that they dominate (the way for example particular ways of editing and structuring narratives were dominating mid 20th century Hollywood cinema). Rather, I was trying to find any "islands" of coherence in the "sea" of endless variety, so this feature is one of them.

Szilak: Perhaps "hegemonic" is not the right word, but most people do not code, thus, they use the software available, which, as you point out, promotes certain kinds of aesthetics. In the "variable form" section, you noted that "we can connect this preference for constant change to the particulars of software used in media design" Can you say something more about this, specifically commenting on how some art, such as glitch, purposefully avoids the seamless, convergent aesthetics promoted by software, and the relevance of this?

Manovich: I don't want to make an argument that "(some) artists subvert / resist the dominant cultural / visual forms in software culture." Interesting things with software are done by programmers, designers, big and small companies and not just by artists. Also, today most talented digital artists are working in big companies (for example, Aaron Koblin and all top people in data visualization.)

Software allows us to invent new forms of vision, memory, communication and knowledge making, Google (from search to Street View and Google Earth) is more avant-garde than any artist. I proposed this a long time in my article "Avant-Garde as Software," (1999), and I continue to support this. This is one of the key things about software and networks - we no longer are limited to subverting/ making fun of/critiquing within the limited and isolated art world realm (like media art of the 20th century). Instead, we can create alternative systems, which can really affect society and be used by (the) masses. So putting code on GitHub is progressive. Making "glitch art" shown in galleries is not.

Manovich, himself an artist working primarily with database, cinema and software, does a good job of "illustrating" his arguments with examples of individual artworks that successfully use hybrid visual language. Given his preference for hybrid over multimedia work, it surprised me that he praised artist Jeremy Blake whose visual aesthetic can be read as "an implicit statement against the popular idea of 'convergence'."


Jeremy Blake's Chemical Sundown (2001), courtesy Kinz Fine Art

Szilak: You point out that although in Blake's films "different media have become compatible, this does not mean their distinct identities have collapsed." What is the importance, if any, of recognizing the distinct identities of media? Are there certain media--I am thinking especially of text here--which resist integration more than others?

Manovich: I think the importance is that different media represent things differently, have different effects on our senses and minds, and, maybe most importantly, evoke different cultural histories. If everything looks like a photo, I will think of history of photography. But if an image (still or moving) invokes photography, cinematography, drawing, painting, collage, etc. - this activates all these histories. So their memories are preserved, despite the era of convergence.

And you are right that text is harder to integrate than all visual media - because it's structured and communicates differently. (Text consist of discrete elements and has defined units of meaning, while visual media typically does not.) To evoke motion graphics once again, in the 1990s endless works made text more visual by animating, giving it third dimension, etc. (I am describing this in the book). But it's still processed by humans quite differently, so it remains separate.

Of course, we can also recall the experiments with text in early 20th century by Futurists, including Russian writers and artists, and later concrete poetry. Maybe these experiments were more radical than motion graphics. The latter usually preserves conventional text structure - normal words and phrases. But in the earlier period, writers and artists worked to make meaningless text/speech effects, thus bringing text closer to images.

In the final chapter of Software Takes Command, Manovich explores "software epistemologies," ways of knowing that are mediated by software such as big data and data fusion. Although elsewhere Manovich has acknowledged the limits of these, here, he again focuses on the unbounded potential of software to expand and enhance human perception without considering how inequalities in political and economic power will inevitably limit and shape this knowledge.

It would be facile to accuse Manovich of being seduced by technology, the promise of "value-free" analysis un-muddied by the complexities of embodied human existence. Rather, I would argue that the shortcomings of Software Takes Command arise from the medium in which his arguments are presented. By using the book form, Manovich is forced to rely on text, which necessarily emphasizes story. This makes arguments that might operate well in an interactive network or database of concepts appear artificially or arbitrarily truncated (the role of social media in cultural production is one such omission.) The very structure of Software Takes Command suggests that it is caught between two competing logics: one narrative and one database. Whereas the introduction explicitly lays out a narrative trajectory for the book, the conclusion summarizes it as a list of important points.

Manovich developed this important concept of a shift from narrative to database logic in his first book, The Language of New Media.

"As a cultural form, database represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural
enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world."

I asked him how this shift from narrative to database will effect writing.

Szilak: In Software Takes Command, you make an interesting statement: "So while simulated depth of field, maintains the memory of the particular physical media (lens based photo, film recording) from which it came, it became essentially a new technique which functioned as 'character' in its own right."

Reading this, I was reminded of cultural critic Hiroki Azuma's assertion in Otaku: Japan's Database Animals that "independently and without relation to an original narrative, (some) consumers consume only such fragmentary illustrations or settings." He describes this as "chare-moe" --a consumption of and search for database characteristics, which, by fulfilling some desire in the user, substitute for story and significance. Do you think that the use of particular media species for particular effect/affect, a move that uncouples it from the physical apparatus, parallels or will parallel a move away from narrative in writing?

Manovich: Its interesting that you bring up Database Animals - I think it's one of the best books of cultural theory published in the new century. It was also very interesting that apparently in the same time (late 1990s) both Azuma and I turned to "database" as a concept, which can explain some new cultural phenomena. I think that there is a real parallel in what we describe, in the following way. Azuma says that at a certain stage of the development of Japanese popular culture, it's no longer driven by narratives or by characters ("properties" in US entertainment language); instead, the "elements" of manga/anime/games are now separate parts of characters. These parts/elements become separated from the narratives and the complete characters. My argument (already present in The Language of New Media but more fully developed in the new book) is that softwarization liberates effects and techniques previously hard wired to particular media technologies; now they can be applied to any content. The designer operates with a pallet of hundreds of such effects (think Photoshop tools and filters.) So here as well, the parts are "virtualized" and they acquire new status.

Software Takes Command succeeds, not as a comprehensive evaluation of media software, which was not Manovich's goal, but as a starting point for the process of scrutiny which McLuhan and he, himself, counseled. I hope that Lev Manovich's next "book" will not be a book, but a hybrid form that will serve as an example of how we might harness the pluripotency of software to explore the crucial questions of our software-mediated existence.

For Girls in STEM, Belonging, Not Brain Structure, Makes the Difference

This post is part of a series sponsored by Cisco and its partners promoting women in STEM. Check out more stories about women in STEM here. Find out even more on HuffPost ImpactX, where people, technology, and social impact converge.

Little real evidence is available to indicate that the brains of men and women are "hardwired" differently, yet, perhaps due to lingering stereotypes, women remain underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

In her book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain, Lise Eliot writes, "What I found, after an exhaustive search, was surprisingly little solid evidence of sex differences in children's brains."

This appears to run contrary to common claims that women somehow are less adept at STEM, a conclusion that would seem to follow from their marked underrepresentation in university science and technology programs. (See the statistics below for more information.)

Eliot, who is a neuroscience professor, notes, "Only two facts have been reliably proven." The first is that boys' brains are larger than girls' -- "somewhere between 8 and 11 percent larger, depending on the study," which is a difference similar to gender differences in height and weight.

The second is the difference that shows up around the onset of puberty: "Girls' brains finish growing about one to two years earlier than boys'," she writes. That also mirrors the differences in children's physical growth -- girls enter puberty a year or two before boys do.

So, according to Eliot, "the reality, judging by current research, is that the brains of boys and girls are more similar than their well-described behavioral differences would indicate."


Linda Billings, director of science communication at the Center for Integrative STEM Education at the National Institute of Aerospace, is similarly skeptical of neuroscientific theories that male and female brains are built differently.

"Based on my readings of secondary literature and 60-plus years of observation and experience, I lean hard toward thinking that male-female differences in cognitive ability and style [are] primarily the product of socialization--that is, learned," she says.

Billings, who volunteers as a "scientist in the classroom" with second and fourth graders, says she observes "noticeable gender-based differences in social behavior but no noticeable gender-based differences in cognitive ability or style."

"I do see differences in cognitive ability and style from individual to individual, which is in line with the literature on the topic," she says.

Helping Girls Find a Sense of Belonging

Both science and women lose when stereotypes "serve as unnecessary gatekeepers" to educational pursuits, writes Cordelia Fine in the book, Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Differences. She points to work by psychologist Catherine Good and others that shows that "a sense of belonging" is an important factor in women's intentions to continue in the field of math.

"This feeling of belonging, however, can be eroded by an environment that communicates that math ability is a fixed trait and not something that hard work can increase," especially in combination with the often accompanying message that women are naturally less talented than men, according to Fine. Several nonprofit organizations and companies are devoting themselves in a number of ways to increasing girls' sense of belonging in STEM:

• The National Girls Collaborative Project works with girl-serving STEM organizations across the United States, receiving funding from the National Science Foundation to reach high-need priority areas.


• NASA, through Women@NASA, offers middle school girls one-on-one mentoring from women working at the agency.


• The Girl Scouts of the USA and Mocha Moms, Inc., a national support network for mothers of color, partner to provide mentorship and adult volunteer support for girls' STEM projects and activities.


• Corporations such as Cisco, Microsoft, and Intel provide money and mentors to help girls learn about STEM subjects.

Joni Blakeslee, senior manager in corporate affairs at Cisco, has long experience as a volunteer helping girls find that sense of belonging.

"I feel it's my responsibility to get girls interested. And it's a way to build a pipeline to Cisco. There has to be that talent pool," says Blakeslee, a 17-year Cisco veteran who has a degree in computer science and engineering.

Over the years Blakeslee says she has seen what doesn't work in STEM education: "a couple of girls in a class with a bunch of boys. It's intimidating. I was in that situation" in a remote school in Alaska.

"Girls need to be in settings where they feel more comfortable. A lot of times girls do better than boys, they just don't think they can," Blakeslee says.

Sometimes girls "have assumptions that you have to be rich, have to be a certain skin color," to succeed in science and math, she says, so it's especially helpful when the girls "are able to see people who look like them" acting as mentors.

She's found that girls are interested in doing well in society and making a difference. For example, the veterinary field "is probably 85 percent female," Blakeslee notes, perhaps because girls have a good idea of what a veterinarian does and how the work contributes to society.

Her goal is "building awareness, getting girls to understand at an early age that technology can be rewarding, can be fun, can be social," Blakeslee says.

Oftentimes "girls say they want to help people. We want to show them that having a background in technology will help them solve the world's problems more easily."



Ashley Covington was introduced to Cisco's efforts to encourage girls' participation in STEM education in 2005 when she attended Edmondson-Westside High School, a technical school in Baltimore.

"I love to see how things work. I took apart radios and put them back together," says Covington, who found that "a lot of times learning from the book is tiresome, it's not as interesting."

So she was especially impressed that, as part of Cisco's program, "they gave us equipment, like routers. Learning hands-on really inspired me to want to do IT."

Today, Covington is a system administrator with Baltimore City Public Schools and volunteers to talk to high schools girls about STEM careers because she believes that if girls "talk to someone close to their age and see it's not that hard and it's the worth the work, more would get into the field."




By The Numbers

Women remain underrepresented in science and engineering, although to a lesser degree than in the past, according to the National Girls Collaborative Project report, "The State of Girls and Women in STEM."

Girls and boys in kindergarten through 12th grade "do not significantly differ in their abilities in mathematics and science, but they do differ in their interest and confidence in STEM subjects," according to the report, which was issued in June. Here are some more pertinent facts:

• Male students are more than three times more likely to be interested in STEM majors and careers, compared to female students.


• At the college level, men earn 82 percent of engineering degrees, 82 percent of computer science degrees and 81 percent of physics degrees.


• Women make up 47 percent of the overall workforce and constitute only 27 percent of the science and engineering workforce.


• Fewer than 1 in 10 employed scientists and engineers are minority women.

Every year, the Cisco Networking Academy program teaches hundreds of thousands of students worldwide the skills needed to build, design and maintain networks--improving their career prospects, while filling the global demand for networking professionals. With 10,000 academies in 165 countries, the Cisco Networking Academy helps individuals prepare for industry-recognized certifications and entry-level information and communication technology (ICT) careers in virtually every type of industry.

Why Should a Girl in Nigeria Learn to Code?

Editor's Note: This post is part of a series produced by HuffPost's Girls In STEM Mentorship Program. Join the community as we discuss issues affecting women in science, technology, engineering and math.

What do Pinterest, Uber and Instagram have in common? They were created by men from Silicon Valley. What would happen if girls from around the world created apps? To solve problems that they saw in their communities?

You would get these: An app to help Nigerian policemen rapidly submit traffic offenders' information through their phone, an app to educate girls about teenage pregnancy, an app to virtually dissect frogs, to measure blood pressure AND Pinterest, Uber and Instagram!





Teenage girls are some of the most active users of mobile phones. But they don't see themselves as inventors of technology. They do not interact with mobile technology and think "I can build something better". Girls are regularly exposed to messages that reinforce the stereotype that programming is innately "for boys" -- from the way media and film portray members of the profession, to gendered toys that exclusively market engineering and building-related toys only to boys. While this is a complex issue with outliers and variances, the majority of messages that girls are exposed to reinforce the incorrect stereotype that computer science and technology is not a career option for women.

Technovation Challenge is the largest global technology entrepreneurship program for girls. Participants work with professional mentors to research, design, build, and launch mobile apps that solve real problems in their communities over the course of 3 months. Technovation was created to inspire girls be the next generation of innovators and problem solvers using technology.

Over the past four years Technovation has introduced 1,374 girls worldwide to programming and entrepreneurship. Data from 2011 shows that 94 percent of participating girls believe a technology career is good career for women and 75 percent of participating girls are more interested in working in a career in technology.

From the start, our vision was to introduce thousands of girls worldwide to technology and entrepreneurship and bring a completely new and diverse set of inventors onto the playing field.
We have learned a lot about the core components of creating a long running, high-touch, scalable program. These are:

* Girls need to work in all girls teams for the greatest gains in confidence and learning
* High quality curriculum can be delivered through technology platforms (instead of through in-person instructors)
* Programming alone is not going to be enough to retain girls through a 3 month program. Girls need to solve a pressing problem and see themselves as the agents of change. The combination of programming and entrepreneurship is what causes a shift in perspective. Girls realize that they can be problem solvers, inventors.

"[I learned] how to make apps, that not all computer people are geeks, [and that] you can have fun while doing something to further your education." - Technovation alumni

"Before the Technovation Challenge I was not even aware that there existed majors in technology and now I am a second year at the University of California, Irvine majoring in Computer Science." - Kenia Rioja



The Technovation curriculum follows this outline each spring:

* Week 1: Introduction: Teams meet their mentors, work on basic App Inventor tutorials and begin brainstorming app ideas.
* Week 2: Market Research: Teams learn about basic market research and customer development and survey techniques. Teams create a basic app prototype plan and learn about conditionals and logic statements.
* Week 3: User-Centered Design: Teams learn about the concepts of lists and loops, they perform usability testing of competitor apps and complete paper prototyping to explore user interface and the prototyping life cycle.
* Week 4: Incorporating Feedback: Teams of girls learn how to constructively incorporate user feedback into their overall app design. Teams also learn about database functions and database-related concepts like keys and values. With paper prototyping nearing completion, girls prepare to build their app prototype.
* Week 5: Entrepreneurship: Teams learn about the basics of a profitable business model, including value propositions, market size, revenue streams, cost structure and distribution channels. Teams examine existing businesses to discuss these concepts in real-world applications and begin creating their prototype business model.
* Week 6: Business Planning: Teams learn the basic components of a business plan, including executive and company summaries, product descriptions, market analysis, strategy and implementation planning and financial analysis. Teams begin writing their business plan while adding functionality to their prototype apps.
* Week 7: Career Exploration: girls talk to their mentors about what it is like to work as a tech professional, and explore a variety of girl-centric career resources. Teams complete their business plan.
* Week 8: Pitch Materials: girls learn how to craft a compelling slide deck and presentation, practicing their presentations with peers. They also continue building the functionality of their prototype app.
* Week 9: Project submission: girls prepare their project for submission by addressing each required component. They also use this week to troubleshoot any prototype development issues.
* Week 10: Effective Presentations: Girls learn how to deliver effective and compelling presentations; prototypes are finalized and girls prepare their pitch.
* Week 11: Pitch Coaching: Mentors and teachers work with teams to improve their pitch; girls film pitches or prepare to attend regional pitch nights where they demonstrate their prototype and business plans.
* Week 12: Reflection and Wrap-up: Teams submit their final materials, reflect on the three-month program and complete assessment post-surveys. Regional winners are chosen by judging panels.

World Pitch Night: Finalists are announced, and they travel to World Pitch Night hosted at a tech company in Silicon Valley. Top teams demo projects and pitch live to a panel of expert judges; the winning team is selected and awarded $10,000 to complete their prototype app and take it to market.



Over the past four years, the Technovation girls have invented hundreds of innovative mobile app prototypes.



Our three year goal is to engage 10,000 girls worldwide and bring a completely new and diverse set of inventors and problem solvers onto the technology stage.

There is much talk about the lack of women in technology and leadership. As Susan Faludi correctly points out, platitudes will not change the reality. There are some very concrete steps that the technology community can take to change the status quo:
* build a strong base - invest significant amounts in programs that bring technology and computer science education to girls. It takes a lot of resources to move humans far outside their comfort zone. It cannot happen through "viral videos". It happens through blood, sweat and tears - and slowly.
* retain your star players - provide professional development opportunities for women employees and reward them for learning.

We strongly believe that we need to invest in the future so that it will look different from today.

"I want every girl and every woman to have that confidence that they can lead, that they can create something out of nothing." - Dr. Anu Tewary, Technovation Challenge Founder

Rooftops to Deserts: How Policy Directs the Growth of Renewables

Dropping costs and increasing consumer demand are expanding the market for renewable energy. Policy is shaping it.

Specific policies are designed to drive growth of particular types of renewable projects. This piece will provide an overview of the major policies that impact the three different types of grid-connected projects: retail distributed generation, wholesale distributed generation, and central generation.

Globally, the most effective market-based policy to bring cost-effective renewable energy online focuses on wholesale distributed generation. In the U.S., well-known federal tax credits, like the Investment Tax Credit (ITC), apply across these market segments. Most of our energy policies, however, focus either on retail distributed generation or central generation.

Retail Distributed Generation ('Retail DG')

Retail DG refers to small renewable projects installed by utility customers to reduce the amount of power they purchase from the utility. Residential rooftop solar is the best example of this market segment.

To promote the growth of retail DG, 43 states and the District of Columbia have instituted net metering policies. Net metering applies to energy systems that connect "behind the meter" and serve on-site electrical demand. Under this policy, a system owner's meter spins backwards if more energy is produced than is being used on-site, providing a credit against electricity consumed. Therefore, the system owner only pays for their 'net' energy use.

Net metering has proven an effective policy for deploying retail DG projects across the country. In fact, 99 out of 100 solar systems installed in 2012 were net metered, and these systems comprised nearly 50% of total installed solar capacity. Net metering policy works best for residential installations as it avoids tax complications for system owners and credits customers at full retail rates, which are generally higher than wholesale rates.

The success of net metering has not been without controversy. Over the past year, debates over this policy raged around the country as more and more utility customers have installed retail DG systems. Utilities, worried by an eroding customer base, are arguing that net metering allows customers with renewable systems to avoid paying their fair share for use of the grid. Under this logic, the costs for building, operating, and maintaining the power grid are shifted onto non-net metered customers. Contrary to this 'cost-shifting' argument, numerous independent studies have shown that the value of distributed generation outweighs the costs -- generating net benefits for all energy consumers including those without net metered systems. Nonetheless, Arizona energy regulators recently instituted a small monthly fee for solar owners as part of a deal to preserve net metering. This ruling may set a precedent as other states determine the future of their net metering policies.

Outside of the U.S., net metering has been successful in Denmark and the Netherlands. Yet, net metered projects are responsible for only 2% of installed solar capacity worldwide.

Central Generation

On the opposite end of the spectrum from retail DG is central generation. This market segment includes facilities like Alta Wind Energy Center -- a huge wind farm located in Kern County, California. These types of projects generate up to hundreds of megawatts (MW), or in the case of Alta Wind, more than a 1,000 MW. Like net metering, current polices support the development of this segment.

Alta Wind Energy Center

Competitive solicitations for new electrical generation, which utilities and states use often, tend to favor central generation over distributed generation (both retail and wholesale). Due to their sheer size, central generation projects offer significant economies of scale - meaning they can generate electricity at a lower cost per kilowatt. To determine winning projects, many competitive solicitations consider only the cost of generation. The significant costs of transmitting energy to where it is used are frequently ignored in the solicitation process, even though consumers ultimately pay for all transmission-related investments through regulated energy rates. As a result, central generation renewables excel in competitive solicitations.

Central generation projects were responsible for more than 46% of all new U.S. solar capacity in 2012, as well as the majority of wind capacity installed nationwide.

Wholesale Distributed Generation ('Wholesale DG')

Nestled between central generation and retail DG is wholesale DG. This market segment refers to distributed generation projects that connect to the local distribution grid and sell the electricity they produce to the local utility. The energy produced from wholesale DG projects serves local energy demand, rather than on-site load like retail DG.

Wholesale DG projects offer significant benefits for both consumers and utilities. Typically bigger than residential-scale projects, wholesale DG projects can generate electricity more cheaply. Yet, wholesale DG projects are located close to where energy is needed -- avoiding the expensive and inefficient long-distance transmission of energy that is inherent with central generation projects.

Once the costs of transmission and distribution (T&D) are factored in, wholesale DG solar is the most cost-effective.

CLEAN Programs, which are feed-in tariffs with streamlined interconnection procedures, are the world's most effective policy for bringing wholesale DG online. This policy enables anyone -- individuals, farmers, small business, community organizations, etc. -- to participate in energy generation by making it easier to build renewable projects, connect to the grid, and sell all the energy produced to the local utility.

Wholesale DG dominates the global market. More than 70% of worldwide solar PV installed capacity is wholesale DG. Despite global success, this segment has been largely overlooked in the United States. Less than 7% of all new solar capacity installed in the U.S. last year was wholesale DG. It's a similar story for wind power.

Looking Ahead

Over the past few years, the U.S. has seen tremendous growth of renewable energy capacity -- mostly from retail DG and central generation projects. While policies must continue to support this development, new policies are needed to open the wholesale DG market.

Forward-thinking utilities, recognizing that local renewable generation is a smart economic investment, are voluntarily opening the wholesale DG market segment. Over the past year, utilities in California, Colorado, Georgia and New York have created hundreds of megawatts of wholesale DG market opportunity.

Sacramento's municipal utility brought 100 MW of local solar online -- enough to power over 21,000 homes -- at no additional cost to its customers. Now, Los Angeles' utility is also embracing local solar through its 100 MW CLEAN LA Solar Program. Across the country, Georgia Power will bring at least 190 MW of local solar online, while Long Island Power Authority is guiding the development of wholesale DG solar projects to critical points on its grid. By utilizing wholesale DG (rather than new centralized generation and transmission) to meet rising demand for electricity, the New York utility will save its customers nearly $84 million by 2020. Utilities elsewhere should follow suit.

To accelerate wider adoption of wholesale DG, the Clean Coalition recently launched its CLEAN Resource Hub. The Hub offers a wealth of free tools to ensure that policymakers, utilities, and advocates design the best wholesale DG policies available.

As renewables continue to meet an increasing share of the nation's electrical demands, the right policies will ensure a quick, cost-effective transformation on our power system.