Online publishing and skylines

So finally my paper on The newsroom of tomorrow is online - you can read it here. And my encounter with ex-Terminator and governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt is live and kicking at Podtech.net - here (it's ruff and raw but we thought it was better to get it out fast that beautiful...).
It's always nice to publish things. In the old days it used to mean you could not do any more changes and that the piece was - well - done. I try to live by that lesson, to let go of things when I publish - although with the internet it's difficult (since you can make changes over and over again). Very often the first thing you write is as good as something you've spent hours and hours on (but again - not always - so there are no rules).
On a whole other subject: American cities are most beautiful at night and at distance, when you actually see the skyline. Crossing the looong Oakland-bridge towards San Francisco the other night was breathtaking, especially while listening to As favorite radio channel smooth jazz :) I'll never lose my love for big cities and the energy in them.

Conversations with O

My fine and very beloved father finally came to visit. When he got off the plane he had a bit of a beard and was groggy from the jetleg, but now - a few days into the visit - he is his very own self (going on about very large and very small things at the same time, always with a list of things to do or to buy in his hand...). The first weekend we took him around Palo Alto, to the PowWow-festival at Stanford (oh yes - hundrads of indians dancing and drumming). We also went through the magical mountains of the peninsula to the beautiful driftwood-beach.
My dad, or O (we call him O since his name is Omar), has been a journalist with Svenska Dagbladet for more than 40 years. Sitting there at the beach he started telling me about how difficult it was to deliver texts from the six day-war in Israel, due to censorship all his conversations with the newspaper had to be in English. Today he told us about the reality of covering the nuclear mealtdown at Harrisburgh in 1978 - when you got different versions of the "thruth" from every official you talked to.
His stories gave me some perspective on the journalistic work I do - having all modern tools in the world, transfering media over the globe in seconds, having access to information and people through the webb. It's always good to have a larger picture. And its also good to remember that most of the time nothing beats the human story.
I keep telling O he should write a book, but he says that he likes to be lazy and that he prefers to play with our kids. For now I'm thinking about giving him a blog - then he can´t get away...
The ongoing week is intense. I've shoot a few podcasts (desperatly trying to get some space in the editing-studio), gone to a seminare on the future of news-media (that didn´t provide any bright visions), prepared for the innovation journalism-conference, done research on design and covered Swedish prime minister Reindfeldts meeting with ex-Terminator and govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger in Sacramento for TT. I´ve also seen some lovely friends and had nice dinners with O and the family.
Things I have not done that I want to do: Drink wine in the garden with A when the kids are sleeping. Paint with the girls. Bake bread. Write to people I love. Spend more time with our fabolous roomie Leo. Put up our new lamp. Hike with the family. See the Vivien Westwood-exibition at the De Young-museum. Discover San Fransisco. Paint my toe-nails.
Theres always a tomorrow - but the challange is to capture the essence of now.

Smile - You´re writing a paper

So I had to write a paper for my session at the international conference on Innovation Journalism. I thought I picked something easy when I decided to write a case study on PodTech where I do my fellowship.
I was wrong.
To understand a Silicon Valley start-up with all its levels of new technology, new media products, new business models, new ethics is - eh - not easy. The paper has followed me in my dreams and kept me buzy every night for over a week now. But I think it is getting ready, I´ll link to it as soon as it is up.
I´ve also discovered that working in Silicon Valley a lot follows this principle: "You wanna learn how to swim? Sure I´ll push you into the Atlantic". I´ve struggled to get a (very small) video-piece, an interview I did with the US ambassador to Sweden Michael Wood on clean tech, done and up. In the end I had to figure out how to edit the piece myself. Its very, very ruff but you can look at it here.
People at PodTech still are extremly nice, I just need to learn how to navigate I guess.
We´ve also done som nice things this last week - we hung with friends at their pool, had coffe at my favorite café in Palo Alto, visited a breathtaking beach - and I went shopping in San Fransisco with a friend from work. I must confess I ended up with three pair of shoes - only to balance the tech-world.

The issue of air condition

The weather is starting to get really nice - outside. Inside, at my office, its rather freezing. I dont think I´ll ever adjust to the American way of using air condition. The whole point of living in a nice climate is to enjoy the warmth - or am I wrong?
Our afternoons/evenings now go like this: A and the children come to pick me up at the office. I come out, wrapped in a big scarf or a sweater, freezing. The sit all relaxed in their t-shirts after having spent a sunny day in the park or at the beach. I immediatly throw myself on the buttons in the car, trying to adjust the aircondition down. They scream at me not to, because they´re all warm.
I guess I have to find my inner thermostat.