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South America: The Travel Journals - Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile

One more personal post to close out the year - following up on my book recommendations for South America, I've also publicly shared my travel journal, embedded below and freely downloadable if you're at all interested in more than just the photo or book highlights.

If you do check it out, let me know what you think.

The Other Americas Journal: Travels through South America

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A Mobile, Eventful, App-Filled Year in Review

 

The Ten Plagues of Social Media

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A Mobile, Eventful, App-Filled Year in Review
Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

After writing 44 Social Media Insider columns this year, this 320^th contribution to MediaPost offers a good time to reflect on what happened in 2010. Several themes emerged, with mobile social media standing out among all the rest. Here’s the year in review.

Mobile social media

In 27 of the previous 44 columns, I mentioned mobile. In 2011, I may well push that higher than the 61% rate from 2010. If you’re planning a social media marketing program and aren’t considering mobile angles, you’re missing a huge part of consumer usage today and an even bigger part of where it’s heading.

This year, some of the posts that focused on this most extensively are “All Mobile is Social” that showed how mobile devices are all about communication, and the role of mobile in Facebook’s push to connect everyone in the world. In February, I noted that “Marketers Sit on Facebook’s Mobile Sidelines.” This has changed slightly with the launch of Places and Deals, but there’s a lot more that can and likely will happen here in 2011.

I was at times obsessed with mobile social media this year, recounting “20 Confessions of a Super Mayor” and waxing on how I can’t quit Foursquare. Yet one of the more important posts I wrote showed how mobile social media is about so much more than Facebook and Foursquare, something everyone – myself included – should constantly remember. Finally, if you’re still not convinced about how big this is, read “Ten Reasons to Love Mobile Social Media.”

The danger zone

I’m hardly an alarmist, but I will look at what marketers, technologists, and consumers are doing wrong so we can learn from others’ mistakes. I had fun with one such piece in the spring with “The Ten Plagues of Social Media.” It was one of two columns I turned into a downloadable presentation on SlideShare, along with the one on Five Reminders about Social Media Marketing.

As for other warnings, a post in May described “The Motivation Bubble,” where marketers are relying too heavily on incentivizing users for social actions, and this is one bubble I’m even more convinced is due to burst. In “Six Steps for an Epic Promoted Tweet Fail,” for whatever reason I inverted a how-to guide for Twitter ads and turned it negative. Maybe I was dealing with some personal crisis, like Sprinkles Cupcakes withdrawal.

It’s an app app app app world

You can’t write about social media without trying out new apps daily. Foodspotting, which I deconstructed in March, continues to gain traction, though I’m still torn on when to use it. Some of my favorite meals are those where I’d never take out my camera. Stickybits is my favorite example of a ‘weird’ technology that I love. Really, can and should barcodes become social networks? There are new marketing opportunities, but it’s a long way from going mainstream. Also up there among my favorite apps that rank high on the weird factor: Barcode Hero.

Facebook apps had a big year too. One post reviewed Bing’s integration with Farmville to rack up fans. Three things happened since. First, Bing grew from about 600,000 fans after the FarmVille buy to 1.2 million today. Second, Google went from just over 500,000 fans to 2.4 million today, even without a marketing stunt. Third, typical posts from Bing racked up 50-100 “likes” before the FarmVille buy, and they still do now that it has 12 times as many fans. True fans apparently don’t grow on farms after all.

Events

At the most geek-heavy conferences, you can get a great sense of what technologies are on the minds and mobile devices of early adopters. The list of top technologies from SXSW didn’t have great predictive value as the year went on. Gowalla and Plancast were both on the hot list, but the former couldn’t keep up with Foursquare and the latter never approached its usage peak from the March event. As for CES, it proved to be especially leading edge, as it will be awhile before the masses adopt TV-based videoconferencing and remote control vehicles navigating via augmented reality, but the technologies mentioned there are good longer term bets.

One of the more ambitious posts of the year was a selection of lessons from the more than 100 events I’ve attended over the past several years. It’s a work in progress, so feel free to add to it.

Checking out

One of the first columns this year explored eight mobile social check-in apps and concluded, “I won't need to check in at every place at every venue, as I'd rather make the most of the time with the people in front of me rather than earning points for broadcasting my whereabouts to others.” By the end of the year, I managed to spend nine days without a single Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare update. For me, it’s a good year when I can follow some of my own advice and live up to a public promise.

I can only hope I fulfilled my contract with you, so that these weekly musings are a worthwhile use of your time. Any time and attention you’ve given these posts have been more meaningful than I can possibly express. I wish you a fulfilling and prosperous 2011, with countless highlights you’ll want to tell the world about through social media, or savor quietly with your loved ones.

 

 

20+ Reading Recommendations for South America - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru

When I travel internationally, I try to read a fair amount of non-fiction and literature about the country, including works by many indigenous authors. Last year, for instance, I published areading list for Egypt. 

This year, I wound up taking two trips to South America, covering sixcountries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay. My biggest trip of the year was to Peru and Ecuador, and then spent shorter amounts of time in the other countries (Uruguay was a last minute day trip from Argentina).

Below are my favorites from each country. I note the specific country that the book relates to if it's not obvious from the title. Others that don't list a country are about the continent or region as a whole.

Links go to Amazon. Especially if you’re in New York City, I’d also highly recommend visiting Idlewild Books for their selection and suggestions on books relating to anywhere you might travel: http://www.idlewildbooks.com/ .

Feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments.

Anthologies

• The Peru Reader edited by Orin Starn, Ivan Degregori and Robin Kirk
  • If you’re going to Peru and really want a taste of the history and literature, start with this, a sweeping compilation of historical essays, fictional excerpts, poetry, and other entries to give a sense of the breadth of Peruvian culture. It’s a great starting point to discover what else you’ll want to read, and I discovered several authors here whose works are in this list.
• The Ecuador Reader edited by Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler
  • See the Peru Reader description. It’s just as good, just Ecuadorian.
• Additional Readers (I haven’t read any of these others):
  • You can find many other readers listed on the Duke University Press site for travel books (including Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica, Cuba, Russia, Mexico, Czech, Sri Lanka, and Alaska Native). Oddly Peru isn’t listed there, but it’s easily available on Amazon. You can find Peru in the Latin American Reader section and others in the World Reader section.

Fiction

• The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina)
  • The mysteries of the universe are revealed under a staircase. A prisoner discovers the power of God. A man embarks on a quest for immortality. These are some of the thought puzzles Borges plays with in this collection. Even as some stories failed to grab me, others ended with dazzling flashes of light.
• At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen
  • One of the best known books on the list thanks to the feature film based on it (let alone the author’s two National Book Awards), it’s a very dark piece of fiction exploring a series of awakenings, some on the part of Christian missionaries seeking converts in the South American jungle, as well as that of a local who finds a sense of purpose when he joins a native tribe. At its best, this book is a twisted exploration of human nature when people are torn from their usual surroundings.
• Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
  • If you read any Peruvian literature, you have to start with Vargas Llosa, the prolific national novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010. Death in the Andes is dark and bizarre, and it will help to read up on the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) for context beforehand. For a very different read, I’d recommend trying Vargas Llosa’s Conversation in the Cathedral, but it’s so sweeping that it kept losing me (for instance, people would refer to some characters separately by their first and last names and never clarify it’s the same person). It made more sense when I skimmed it again after reading it.
• Deep Rivers by Jose Maria Arguedas (Peru)
  • A teenage boy heads to boarding school in the outskirts of Cusco as he tries to figure out to what extent he identifies with his elite, Christian classmates versus the indigenous population. A semi-autobiographical perspective, there’s poetry on every page especially when the protagonist continually reconnects with his natural surroundings. This was one of my favorites.
• Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado (Brazil)
  • A 1920s Brazilian town is torn asunder by a series of events, from homicide to the arrival of a beautiful woman. It’s a wonderful read, but one of the least memorable for me among those here. Part of my problem with it is that I couldn’t stop comparing it to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of my favorite writers, and it just made me want to read 100 Years of Solitude again.
• Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon (Peru)
  • Norma’s the voice of Peru for those who lost loved ones during the military clashes with domestic terrorists in the 1980, and she’s lost someone herself. A young boy who arrives at the radio station makes her mission all the more personal. Norma’s one of the best protagonists I’ve read about in fiction in some time, and this novel stuck with me more than most others.
• Peruvian Traditions by Ricardo Palma
  • Palma used a form of storytelling dubbed a “tradition” to combine history with allegory. Some stories can be considered folklore that incorporates elements of Peru’s history, while other stories can be considered historical sketches with touches of folklore. It is useful to be more familiar with Peruvian history before reading this book, but it’s still easy to appreciate how Palma’s a master of his craft.
• Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda (Chile)
  • Want a taste of why Neruda won the Nobel Prize for Literature? This is a great way to start the exploration, and the book’s available with the original Spanish and the English translation side by side, so those who know at least a bit of Spanish will appreciate glancing at the original text. Most surprising: this book was published when the author was 20. Beyond the wonders of Neruda’s talent, how could he know so much about passion, love, and longing at such a young age?
• The Villagers (Huasipungo) by Jorge Icaza (Ecuador)
  • In the novel, Icaza describes what was a familiar scenario for many native inhabitants of Ecuador when Spanish or half-Spanish hacienda owners sought new territory and labor. In this story, neither the landlord nor the native protagonist are totally sure what roles they need to play, and it leads to increasingly dire outcomes. It wasn’t my favorite read from a South American author, but it is a quick and often heartbreaking perspective.

Non-Fiction

• The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir by Fernando Henrique Cardoso
  • Cardoso led a number of lives before becoming president: sociology professor, exile, and finance minister, to name a few. He was hardly groomed to be the leader of the country but dove headfirst into challenges of stabilizing the economy and improving the quality of life. He’s candid about himself and others, especially regarding his roller coaster relationship with Lula, who succeeded him, so it’s not the typical watered down bore of a memoir we’ve come to expect from our leaders in the US.
• And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) by Paul Blustein (Argentina)
  • This book is partially about Argentina’s financial crisis and partially about the inner workings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Neither gets off easy here, and it won’t bolster confidence in how decisions are made to attempt to prop up economies.
• Four Years among the Ecuadorians by Friedrick Hassaurek
  • Abraham Lincoln’s ambassador to Ecuador provides one of the best glimpses into the country in the 19^th century. It’s unintentionally funny, as he’s constantly miserable (his first choice was to go to Switzerland), and he claims most of what he admires about the country came from the United States. This proved to be one of my favorite books, as it’s a thrill that we have access to such writing today.
• The Heart That Bleeds by Alma Guillermoprieto
  • This internationally acclaimed journalist collects her writings for The New Yorker in this anthology spanning the late 1980s and early 1990s. She discusses Escobar’s terrorism of Colombia, political scandals in Argentina, garbage pickers in Mexico City, the rise and fall of the Shining Path in Peru, Panama City’s love-hate relationship with the United States, and other pivotal moments in modern Latin American history. It’s a crash course from a gifted writer.
• The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie
  • This was the first book I read about Peru, a gripping story of the Inca empire and its downfall largely since the day Francisco Pizarro arrived. It was also when I first appreciated that tragic as the Inca story was, it was largely a case of one warring empire trumping another. For those who haven’t read it, it’s worth reading Guns, Germs and Steel for some added context.
• Long After Midnight at the Nino Bien: A Yanqui’s Missteps in Argentina  by Brian Winter
  • Take a fun romp through Buenos Aires as a young American visits Argentina, tries to learn the tango, and shares the history of various prominent elements of the country’s culture and people. His personal story is entertaining enough, and the history adds more substance, so together it proves to be a good balance.
• Man of Ashes by Salomon Isacovici (Ecuador)
  • A Romanian Holocaust survivor recounts life before and during the horrors, and then picks up his story afterwards in Ecuador. It’s often reminiscent of Primo Levi, and nearly as well written.
• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin (Ecuador)
  • Admittedly this wasn’t my favorite read. When Darwin goes on for five pages about some species that I’m not sure whether it’s a bird or plant, it’s tough to stay with him. Yet by reading the original text, you get a sense of all the various disciplines of study Darwin mastered, and all the leading experts around the globe he communicated with to further his own research. Going to the Galapagos is a good excuse to dive into this if you haven’t read it.
• Santiago’s Children by Steve Reifenberg (Chile)
  • Reifenberg spent two years in the 1980s working at a small Chilean orphanage. Told as a series of short essays, this fairly short book makes you feel like you know many of the dozen-plus children of the orphanage. An epilogue mentions how they fared twenty years later.
• Viva South America! A Journey Through a Restless Continent by Oliver Balch
  • A reporter travels across the continent, often well off the beaten path, to hear stories of those from all walks of life, with a focus on those who haven’t fared as well from the imprisoned to tortured to abused. The breadth he covers is tremendous, and compared with many other books I’ve read lately from reporters traveling internationally, he keeps his subjects at the center and minimizes his own role in the story.
• The White Rock by Hugh Thomson (Peru)
  • An aimless, young Brit took up archaeology and emerged as one of the more accomplished explorers of recent decades. He’s also a gifted storyteller, tying together the Inca history with his own modern adventures.

 

Nine Days of Social Silence

In Buenos Aires, I made some new friends, but not through social media

Nine days of Social Silence
originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider 

For nine days, I was silent. The world heard not a tweet, not a Facebook post, not an email from me. This is the story of one man who went to four South American countries with nothing but an iPhone, two digital cameras, a Kindle, and a couple suitcases, and survived without social media in even the darkest of times, like when I really could have used restaurant recommendations.

I didn't expect to be as disconnected as I was earlier this month while on vacation. I like to occasionally share updates from other countries, even if I'm not actively monitoring all the responses. Reviewing the travel journal I penned longhand while away, my first entry mentioned, "No phone for me (well, iPhone, but that's more for games and Foursquare)."

Then something miraculous happened. When I arrived at the hotel in Rio de Janeiro, there was no open Internet access. The idea of pay-per-minute Internet usage just to claim Foursquare mayorship bragging rights seemed ludicrous when I was trying to get away from my daily routine. Friends could wait for me to return to see my photos of Christ the Redeemer and the city's favelas (slums).

Early on, it was tough to resist temptation. Lunch spots in the Copacabana neighborhood where we stayed all seemed to serve the same food, and I was tempted to tweet out a request for help. Thanks to certain articles getting republished in Brazilian trade publications, I even have a disproportionate number of Portuguese-speaking Twitter followers. Yet with the Frommer's guide to Rio, asking hotel concierges and other locals, and simply walking around exploring, I hardly went hungry.

The week progressed. My wife and I made it to Buenos Aires, where we knew about the best restaurants and biggest attractions. Advice we'd received before we left both from guidebooks and friends converged on the same places. Some spots underwhelmed -- really, avoid dinner theater-type tango shows at all costs even if someone swears it's authentic. Other tips couldn't have been better, such as when the city shut down for the Immaculate Conception holiday and we chose to spend the day in Uruguay. It would have been fun to post about the Uruguay jaunt on Facebook, but again, it could wait.

In Santiago, Chile, serendipity played an especially prominent role. As I led us in the wrong direction trying to find the subway, my wife spotted a tourism office and picked up information on a free four-hour walking tour covering a large swath of the city's colonial and bohemian neighborhoods. Being disoriented can pay off, as long as you keep your eyes open.

That final Sunday night, while waiting in Santiago's airport lounge for the return flight home, I resisted going back online. If I had any urgent business to attend to at work Monday morning, I could find out once I landed at JFK. Sure enough, when I arrived, there was plenty waiting for me:

·     652 emails in my work inbox

·     342 emails in my personal Gmail account

·     13 Facebook friend requests (only one from someone I clearly knew), plus five emails there and 11 event invitations

·     32 connection requests on LinkedIn (the vast majority from people I don't know)

·     22 friend requests on Foursquare

·     A handful of tweets and direct messages I had to respond to, plus some new Twitter followers to check out

And then there were all the updates I had to share, from the photos on Facebook and Flickr to a few blog posts I haven't written yet. All of it could have waited a few days more.

Foursquare wound up being the hardest social service to disconnect from for several reasons. For social media geeks like me, it's fun to get mayorships in other countries. I also love that on the Weeplaces visualization of my check-in history, it darts around to other countries, and I miss having four more additions to that map. Lastly, and more practically, food always plays a prominent role in my vacations, and it's helpful to access local tips, especially when you can do so passively, rather than by actively asking your friends.

I managed, though. Sure, it's not exactly the kind of survival story that James Franco will want to option. As a social media addict personally and professionally, I was able to disconnect and have at least as good a time abroad as I would have had I brought my social graph along for the ride. Completely disconnecting is possible -- a lesson I'm happy to both learn and share. I did miss it, though, and on my next trip I probably won't hold back from social media entirely. It will be that much easier to use it in moderation.