Guy Kawasaki is the Jackie Chan of VC

It's been incredible how many people have been begging me for a recording of Guy Kawasaki's recent guest appearance at Web Wednesday in Hong Kong. I've been hit on from Twitter, email, Facebook...you name it.

So, here it is. The moment you've all been waiting for...Guy Kawasaki in action!

He spoke for two hours so Belle Liu of Beansbox had to chop her recording (filmed on a Flip video recorder) into two sections. Thanks for your help with this, Belle.

Impromptu Gathering at Web Wednesday Hong Kong - Guy Kawasaki (Part 1)



Impromptu Gathering at Web Wednesday Hong Kong - Guy Kawasaki (Part 2)



I'd like to personally thank Guy for being such a great sport and sparing two full hours of his valuable time to come and share his life experiences and quick wit with the Hong Kong Digerati!

Star Appearance: Guy Kawasaki at Web Wednesday Hong Kong

Calling all Hong Kong Digerati!

Apologies for the short notice but I've only today confirmed that we will have the pleasure of speaking with Guy Kawasaki, Start-up / Marketing / Tech / Blog / VC star, who happens to be in Hong Kong for a few days.

On Wednesday 16th September at 6:30pm, we'll meet at the usual place, Volar Bar & Club, Basement, 38-44 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Central. So please turn up early if you want to put your questions directly to Guy. Within half a day, we already have 100 confirmations, so please let us know you're coming by signing up on Facebook or this blog.

My friend, the ever astute Belle Liu of Beansbox says:

Definitely a must-go event! Especially if you're interested in these topics:
* Innovation and product development.
* Entrepreneurship
* Intrapreneurship
* Evangelism, sales, and marketing
* Technology trends
* Competition (how to drive your competition crazy)

Here's his official (more formal) bio:

"Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College".

But I prefer the more personal way he introduces himself, under "My Real Story". Some poignant extracts that will ring true with anyone who lives in Asia:

"I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1954. My family lived in a tough part of Honolulu called Kalihi Valley. We weren’t rich, but I never felt poor-because my mother and father made many sacrifices for my sister and me. My mother was a housewife, and my father was, at various times, a fireman, real estate broker, state senator, and government official.

...After Stanford, I attended the law school at UC Davis because, like all Asian American parents, my folks wanted me to be a “doctor, lawyer, or dentist.” I only lasted one week because I couldn’t deal with the law school teachers telling me that I was crap and that they were going to remake me.

...Luckily, my Stanford roommate, Mike Boich, got me a job at Apple. When I saw what a Macintosh could do, the clouds parted and the angels started singing.

...In 1995 I returned to Apple as an Apple fellow. At the time, according to the pundits, Apple was supposed to die again. (Apple should have died about ten times in the past twenty years according to the pundits.) My job on this tour of duty was to maintain and rejuvenate the Macintosh cult.

...Currently, I’m a founding partner at Garage and co-founder of Alltop as well as a husband, father, author, speaker, and hockey addict. Alltop is an online magazine rack that I hope you’ll check out—you’ll probably enjoy Innovation.alltop, for example. I’ve also written nine books. My latest is Reality Check. You can read about my other eight books here."

More on Wikipedia and his blog. Guy also regularly tweets and has over 170,000 followers on Twitter (@guykawasaki). He humbly describes himself on his Twitter profile as "I am a firehose that answers the question: What's interesting? Co-founder of Alltop".

I've been a fan of Alltop for a while and have used the China News Page (below) for a while.

Barcamp HK 2009 - Grass Roots Internet Event

As a co-organiser of Barcamp Hong Kong (#barcamphk), I am proud to say that we successfully brought together a wide cross-section of the tech, design and start-up community for our 3rd annual unconference in Hong Kong. My tagline for this event was "dip into the grass-roots net community in Hong Kong". I should have said "dive" as we were truly consumated by the talks and all the fascinating people you get to meet at such a laid-back event.

I was going to devote time to writing a long blog post but then my fellow co-organiser, Aaron Farr (CubicleMuses.com), invited me to work from his summary. In following with true Creative Commons principles, I've provided a slightly altered ("mashed-up") version below. (Thanks, Aaron!)

This year over 300 campers attended 35 sessions on 12 September at Turner International’s beautiful offices in Quarry Bay. Topics ranged from iPhones to ethics in social media. Microsoft provided an XBox which went to the most popular presenter of the day, Kin Ko for his session on mobile gaming in China. River Ho walked away with an iPhone 3GS from Pinpoint Asia.

But prizes aside, the whole day was fantastic and left me (us all!) exhausted. This was definitely our best barcamp yet. Read on for links, photos, and notes from the day.

Google Wave

Aaron did a packed session on Google Wave, for which I got to play around with live! For those who want more info, check out:

• Sign up for Google Wave (includes video)


• Wave Protocol website


• Wave APIs & code


• Aaron's diagram of wave protocols

If you have a Wave account, you can find this tech guru at jaaron@wavesandbox.com

Links

We’ll add more as I find them:

• Facebook event with photos


• BarCamp Wiki


• Photos on Flickr


• Tweets


• Belle’s videos on Blip.TV
  
  
  
  • the Lumina session [Lumina website]
  
  
  • the iPhone forum
  
  
  • Bill’s Go Indie video
  
  
  • River’s Analytics session
  
  
  • William’s iPhone developer session
  
  
  • Google Wave Part 1 and Part 2


• Andrei’s slides from his HK Government funding for startups session


• Ben’s slides on Pylons + Tokyo Cabinet


• Video of Kin Ko’s winning talk on Mobile games in China


• Andy’s links from his session on open source design


• Hitchhiker’s Guide to Startup Survival slides


• Poken made a splash


• Preetam Rai’s Travel 4 Web 2.0 slides


• Bill’s blog on his Go Indie session


• Alan Knowles’ review on his blog, “Smoking toooooo much PHP”


• Sammy Fung wrote about his session on GoGoGo (English Version)

Sessions

Here’s a copy of the final schedule for the day.

Many, many thanks to all those who made BarCamp HK possible, especially the other organizers, Aaron, Belle, Ben and Henry, and to all the sponsors who generously gave us support: Turner, Microsoft, Adobe, Net Dimensions, Cyberport, Pinpoint Asia, DediPower, Dookas and Socialutions.

And of course, barcamp couldn’t exist if it weren’t for everyone who attended and participated. Thanks to everyone who shared a session and put up with me moving sessions around.

Get Involved

If you know of any other barcamp hk links please add them in the comments.

If you’re interested in getting involved in barcamp hk next year, then please add your name to the wiki. We’re always looking for more volunteers and sponsors. And please leave feedback (here or on the wiki). What would you like to see next year? What worked well? What didn’t? Personally, I’d love to see barcamp reach a broader audience of participants from film, art, and music industries.And if you liked barcamp hk, then don’t forget to attend other barcamps in Asia. Preetam Rai has a great weblog featuring barcamps in south east Asia. BarCamp Phnom Penh is coming up next month.

And a picture of me with my Flip video recorded taken by the lovely Ryanne (@laihui), who blogs at NiceSoda.com.

Digital Life Balance

You gotta love the way Thai Twitterer, @navikn, sums up a balanced week steeped in digital! How do we fit Barcamp and Twestival in there?



Check out his site (Navik.net).

Fleishman-Hillard: My New Role

Today is a very special day. After 12 years riding the rollercoaster life of Internet start-ups, I'm starting a new job as Vice President of Digital Integration in Asia Pacific for Fleishman-Hillard, a leading global communications consultancy.

My role is to:

• Encourage my colleagues and clients to practice the art of conversation, be it online or offline.
• Help companies and governments embrace social media as part of their communications strategy.
• Listen to the myriad of voices online and engage the ones that matter.
• Continue being a thought leader and evangelist, hosting "Web Wednesday”, Asia's premier Internet community.

The best part of this new position is that I can continue to be a pioneer in the digital sphere, but with the support of a global network of talented communication specialists.

Help Poor People Help Themselves

As a follow up from our previous donations to Oxfam, we will be giving 10% of the entrance fees from Web Wednesday Version 28.0, held on Sept. 2nd, to this charity's new programme, Oxfam Unwrapped.
The money goes to "help poor people help themselves" and buys useful, basic things like a skeep, water pipes or methane gas tank.

Here's a short video introduction (in Cantonese) from Oxfam's ambassador on a trip to Gansu Province in China.

Twitter: you ask @jayoatway

As the topic for this month's social mixer (2nd Sept) is Twitter, we're going to try out something new: A live feed of questions posed over the Twitter directly to @jayoatway. (It may get rowdy in which case I'll jump in to pick and chose the juiciest questions).

The folks at Volar have set up Wifi especially for this event and we'll have a big screen with a live stream of questions for the audience to view. To get heard, the rules are simple. Just add "askjay" to your tweet and it'll pop up on the screen. Click here to see the live results page on Twitter.

Warning: technology may prevent us from offering this on the night. So be kind.