Nestor's Space

I would like to open a space to discuss key topics around community in particular the influencer space, content and voice of the customer. As you know I have been involved in the influencer business since 5 years by managing one of top influencer programs in the market: The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Americas (Canada, US and Latin America) and Japan.

During this 5 years I also got involved with other influencers programs such as MSDN Regional Director (RD), International .NET Association (INETA) and Culminis because many of the MVPs are also active participant at those programs and by observing behaviors and types of contributions I identified a natural segmentation among the participants regardless the fact that in one or another way they are influencing the technical communities.

After this exposure several questions came to my mind and I will address each one later in order to see if I can get feedback from the community to properly define and measure instead of continue working in an isolated bubble. As a “microsoftie” the first question was: Metrics; which are the right metrics and how to measure the influencer power.

By trying to answer that question I realized that I started wrong, what I need is to define what an influencer is before identify which the right metrics are. I went to different sources such as Wikipedia, couple of dictionaries and some books and I didn’t like the definitions provided.

Here is my first attempt to define what an influencer is in terms of communities:

1.       An individual with enough independence and credibility that developed enough expertise in a specific subject to be considered an expert by others. While I like this definition, I found some holes in terms of the scope because you can be an expert very independent but if you are not accessible the span of influence is limited or inexistent.

2.       I introduced the accessibility piece because it is key to really reach the mass however I challenged again my definition by making a comparison with the fashion world. I was at the supermarket and I saw a bunch of teenager dressed in a very particular way, later I found that they were influenced by a teenager TV show (High School Musical) and suddenly a new world came to my mind: Exposure. Here is my second attempt: An influencer is an independent and accessible individual with high credibility that is considered an expert by their peers in a specific subject or area.

3.       Reading engadget I started to think about a friend of mine who is a MVP in mobile devices. This guy is what ordinary people will call “a Geek” because he is always on top of the latest gadget available in the market in or out his area of expertise. Thinking about him a third word raise: “Reference”. Every time that I am planning to buy a gadget I use to check with him in order to get some insights about convenience, compatibility, etc. Back to the definition, I tried to include the reference and this is what I got: An influencer is an independent and accessible individual with high credibility that is considered an expert or a reference by their peers in a specific subject or area.

4.       Rethinking the definition in terms of the fashion analogy, another word came and it was “Behavior”. A person gets influenced because the influencer behaves in a way that is fully aligned or compatible with that person believes. There is an affinity component between the influencer and the influenced that allows people to be influenced. Thinking about that I challenged myself in different areas such as values (commonality is key), style, taste, etc. A fourth attempt came: An influencer is an independent and accessible individual with high credibility that shares same values and is considered an expert or a reference by their peers in a specific subject or area.

While I will continue refining and refining my influencer definition I would like to hear your definition or your opinion about what an influencer is…

Nestor.-

This time the destination was Tokyo (Japan). It is my 3^rd trip to this city and always is an exciting adventure for me because its cosmopolite environment, the culture, the food and the people. My trip started at Seattle airport with an unusual delay at the security checkpoint due to a security breach; not less of 300 people was in line waiting for the TSA security screening, was very interesting to see how the whole airport got freeze (not landings or departures) and flight crews (Asiana) in line waiting for TSA personnel. I had to get some Japanese Yens and the guy at the currency exchange Travelex stand was unable to sell those to me because he ran out of Yens and the other location was at the gates area and he couldn’t get in. By the way he offered to me a nice deal; they call it “Currency Return Guarantee”. If you buy the equivalent of US$ 650 or more Travelex offers: a competitive exchange rate, waive commission and services fees and you have up to ninety (90) days to return the Yens at the best rate possible (minimum what you got during the transaction).

I also save US$2 because they took my debit card and I had not to take the cash from an ATM.

The flight is quite long 10+ hrs and Northwest flight attendants were not the best this time in fact I hate when flight attendants are rude with passengers just because they don’t speak English. In my case the person sat beside me was an old Japanese man who didn’t speak English. The flight attendant was offering beverages and asked him for his selection, the guy was unable to tell her what he wanted and she just moved away when was very evident that the problem was the language barrier. I don’t speak Japanese but the signs language worked and I asked her for glass of water. Northwest had a Japanese peaking person onboard because several of the announcements were also translated into Japanese however I do not know why the flight attendant didn’t call that person?

Getting into Narita is an experience because it is the 1^st point of contact with Japan and its culture, if you go there I recommend you to take the orange buses (Bus limousines) that are reliable and offer the indications in English.

My hotel (Hilton Tokyo) was located in Shinjuku-ku neighborhood, Shinjuku is a famous business district in Tokyo. With its skyscrapers and it train/metro station (Shinjuku station) this is a portion of Tokyo that never sleeps. The Hilton is located close to a very nice park which has a very beautiful temple on the side. If you are in town you may want to spend visiting this park, something that you will find out of order is a small homeless village inside the park. I was reading while ago some stories about an in crescendo number of people who lives at cyber coffee shop because they offer beds and restrooms but as a vibrant metropolis this must be normal.

The next day was at the office. 12 hours running from one meeting to another but living the excitement of our open day, the team in Japan is very methodic and experienced organizing large scale events, all the details are covered with precision; for example agenda and venue.

A colleague adjusted my presentation for me and after his adjustment I learned that: ”… Japanese culture is very well described in terms of “low context culture”.  Japanese people are brought up in MANGA culture and use hydrographic, which by and large are responsible for engraving the habit of skimming rather than really reading what is presented to them.   Audience tends to perceive the slides as PICTURES, so highlighting the stress point works…” 

At night I went to have a dinner at a Sukiyaki restaurant in Shinjuku called “Tori-gen”; I tried this restaurant the last time and it was very good because the restaurant offer is mainly based on chicken prepared on the grill. I had chicken hearts, wings, liver, neck, breast and a delicious Japanese green pepper on the grill.

If you are in the area I’ll recommend you to try it because is very good and the best is that it tastes as you are expecting. In my opinion the big challenge with the Japanese food for non Japanese people is expectations, what you see and what you think it will taste is not what you will get. For example I tried some baby crabs and I was expecting a normal seafood taste and what I got was a sweetened seafood taste J. Something funny that I saw during the night was the advertisement of a bar, they have a small display of the spirit and alcohol served and one of the bottles was Ron Zacapa (Guatemalan famous rum); I took a picture and I sent it to my Guatemalan friend Jose Chasjon saying that the run is famous also in Tokyo, he is planning to start his own travel blog and the 1^st entry will be about Zacapa.

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine

Next day was my customer event, I meet some colleagues and we moved over Tokyo Conference Center, Shinagawa area to the convention center where the event took place, we just took a train at Shinjuku station and reading about this train/metro station I found that it is the railroad/metro station that moves more people in the world (3.47 M people per day). I spent the day at the convention center and returned to Shinjuku around 9:00 PM. For diner I decided to have some Tempura, there is a nice tempura place called Tsunahachi close to Isetan store which serves a delicious tempura. The place obviously smells a lot (everything there is deep fried) however I recommend you to sit at the bar because the service is very fast and you get your tempura hot.

Sunday was my free day and I debated between stay hanging around in Tokyo or visit Kamakura. Kamakura won and I rented a tour with Sunrise tour. I left Tokyo very early (7:45 PM) and we took a train to Kamakura (around1 hr raid) to the south. Kamakura was the 2^nd capital of Japan during the Minamoto Shogun rule. In Kamakura I visited three beautiful places: the first stop was the Hase temple, famous for its eleven heads statue; this temple is located at the south of the city and it host a cave, the Kyozo Sutra Archive which is very heavy to move (but legend say that by turning the rinzo 360º, it is said that you can earn the same merit as from reading all the sutras J), other buildings and beautiful gardens.

Then we moved into the Kamakura Buddha’s park to see the Great Buddha of Kamakura. Just get there is simply amazing, the Buddha is at the center of the park and it is the second largest Buddha in Japan after the great Buddha located at Nara’s prefecture. This Buddha is located outdoor and you can get inside through a very narrow stair. This Buddha is unique because its construction came from public donations and took almost 40 years to complete it. The Buddha is also famous because it survived earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters; in fact is outdoor because the temple surrounding it was devastated by an earthquake.

Then the last portion of the walking tour was the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu shrine and the young princess.

It is a very small boulevard built by the Shogun to honor his son called Wakamiya-oji dori ; the boulevard is not that long but the architect played with a visual effect by narrowing it at the end which is very interesting. At the temple we saw a traditional Japanese wedding and a couple prying with a monk. In my way back to the hotel I stopped by Akihabara or “the electric street” as is very well known. Akihabara has not less than 500 shops and all the gadgets that you can imagine, from tiny computers up to sophisticated sound systems. Japan is very expensive and in several areas they lead on technology so be careful and check if whatever you buy works in your town because cell phones (3G technology) or portable TV systems (10 nsec) may not be available in your area.

At night I went to a Turkish restaurant called ÜSKÜDAR that I’ve visited in my previous trip with some colleagues, however I found that the diner’s menu is way better and I had Acile Ezme and Adana Kebabi which are an excellent representation of the Turkish cuisine in my opinion.

The restaurant is not fancy and in fact it is very small (6-8 tables) and it is located on the 3^rd floor of a small business which has 3 other Japanese restaurants. If you want to get there, just look for the Turkish flag.

On Monday, after my work I went to Kappabashi street. This street is located in Asakusa area (famous because its entrance called Kaminarimon, the temples, the pagoda and the Sanja festival in May). Kappabashi has everything you need for a restaurant since wood chopsticks up to commercial ranges. There you can also find the traditional Japanese plastic food; which is very expensive and is gaining sophistication to a level that is very hard to distinguish if it is not real food when you see it at the display.

To eat I had Okonomiyaki at Sometaro restaurant in Asakusa. I had this kind of food in Osaka with some colleagues. The restaurant was a very traditional one because its tatami and the decoration (including the dojo and the building). The difference with Okonomiyaki vs other Japanese food is that you have to cook it yourself over a pan located at the center of your table. I had 3 types of Okonomiyaki (Pork, vegetables and Octopus) and the menu included a drink called Ramune which was very good, it is a sweet drink very similar to a Venezuelan famous drink called “Frescolita”  but transparent and it is served almost chilled. If you have an opportunity try this drink because tastes very good.

I have two (2) years living in this area and I never attended any of the previous Salmon Days festival here in Issaquah so this year I decided to do not miss it regardless the weather. The 2 days festival takes place in a small town called Issaquah at the east side of Seattle once a year.

The main street called front street is closed and a huge number of artists and craftspeople show their special skills and talents at the booths located at each side of the street. Also there is a gastronomic festival whit food from all over the world including exotic places like Kenya, Pakistan or Vietnam.

Another nice activity is the “Grande Parade” which features more than 100 entries, including fabulous floats from around the Northwest, clowns, bands, equestrian entries, school groups, dance teams, etc.

However the main attraction in my opinion is the annual return of the salmon to Issaquah streams and to the downtown hatchery.

When I was at the elementary school I used to read about the Salmon ritual coming from ocean back to their born place and sorting all kind of perils along the journey (e.g.: sea lions at the Puget sound or wild animals including bears and bobcats along the streams).

My memories were around several pictures showing the salmon jumping and swimming against the river/streams current. Today I was able to see it by myself at the downtown hatchery. Is amazing to see how persistent those salmons are jumping to overcome any obstacle along the route.

I saw big Chinook salmons jumping like a crazy to sort the natural stream ladder. At Issaquah downtown I counted not less than 100 salmons jumping and I was wondering how good any of those would look like in a sashimi plate at night J

 If you are in town at the beginning of October and have some free time I will strongly recommend you to visit Issaquah during the festival, regardless the weather is a nice experience to live at least once.

This time the destination was Guatemala City, Guatemala

After 8 years without visit Guatemala but connected to it through Ron Zacapa thanks to my friend José Chasjon, I went to the beautiful Guatemala again last week and spent there 2 days. Since landing at the Aurora's airport I started to experience the magic connection with my Latin America roots. The airport is the best airport in Central America, the chapines are investing a lot of money in this airport and I can say it will compete with T-4 Barajas.

I decided to split my unique free day in Guatemala between Guatemala City (mainly downtown) and the beautiful former capital of Guatemala called Antigua (located at 30 miles).

This time I went to the main square to visit La Catedral and the government palace, also I visited the main market and a very nice place called "Mapa en relieve" which is a 3D map of the whole country.

La Catedral (Main church) is very nice and crowded on Sundays, people in Guatemala is very religious and captured my attention the fact that many of them were wearing their typical Indian clothes but prying as good Catholics. Te market is also a nice experience because it is underground (3 floors) and it has almost everything (food, clothes, handcraft, etc)

Guatemala is very famous because its textile (colorful and completely organic), the coffee, the bananas and its run (at least for me), the market offers all of this in one place but you need to negotiate a lot because when they smell that you are a tourist they will charge you 50%-75% of the real price J regardless the fact that you speak Spanish; a trick that I use to apply is the following: I use to change my money into local currency before go to places like this because they do not take credit cards and the exchange rate for your dollars is not the best, I also use to ask for lower denomination bank notes (bills) in order to always have the exact amount (e.

g.: 5, 10 and 20 bills are the best). Also I use to distribute the money along all my pockets because after negotiation I use to lower the agreed amount by saying: “.. oops I am short by 10 or 20…”. Another trick is to negotiate in volume, this worked for me very well this time; I used to ask for the unit price and then made a lower offer for 2-3.

From there I went to Antigua which was the 3^rd capital of Guatemala and faced a huge earthquake last century. There are some landmarks that you must visit if you go to Antigua. The first one is ‘El convento de Santo Domingo’ (Sn Domingo convent) which was the bastion of one of the most grand convents of America:  the one that sheltered the followers of the order of Santo Domingo de Guzmán. Then you have to go to the main square and visit the new and the old cathedral. I paid one dollar to a old guy (late 70s) for a guided tour and it was fantastic.

He showed me almost everything and explained to me the mix between cultures (Maya’s culture and catholic) represented almost everywhere (e.g.: arcs, walls, altar, etc). The I went to La Plaza (“The Square”) and had my lunch at La fonda de la calle real where I had a Pepian de Pollo and Tamales. I also tried a hot chili called “Chiltepe” and another called “Chili Guaska” and I had to go to local supermarkets for more because it was delicious!

Summary if you go to Guatemala, you must try to visit Antigua, you must eat Pepian, tamales and Kakik, you should drink Zacapa or Gallo beer and get some colorful clothes at the local artisan market.  

This time the destination was San Luis Obispo, California.

San Luis is a small town located at the middle of nowhere, is exactly at the middle because you need to spend almost 3 hrs driving from San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) to get there; there is a small airport served by United and American Eagle from LAX or SFO but the schedule offers is not their best and business required a different approach.

We arrived to San Jose around 10 PM and we spend few hours in the city because we were eating at a local Mexican restaurant called “La Victoria”, we found this place very well ranked at city search but it is not true, La Victoria is a small restaurant with a limited offer in its menu and quite ugly in my opinion.

 After this unpleasant start we decided to go to San Luis Obispo and we arrived there at 2:00 AM to our Bed & Breakfast lodge called Garden Street Inn which was way below our expectations. This “hotel” hadn’t any of the basic lodging services (e.g.: parking, front desk, TV, Internet connection, etc). Decorated with a very bad taste, this place was our home base for 3 days.

San Luis is very famous because this was the fifth mission founded by father Junipero Serra called “San Luis Obispo de Tolosa” and because is the home of the California Polytechnic State University. We finished our business meetings around 6 Pm and we decided to join a fabulous farmer market that takes place every Thursday on Higuera Street. We walked the whole market and we finished our day in a very nice French-basque restaurant called “Fandango Bistro” which called my attention because it had a big flag of Euskadi (a Spain separatist region). We were right when we decided to have a dinner at Fandango because the menu was awesome, specially the squids in their own ink and the lamb with white beans!.

We went to bed early because our next meeting was programmed for 4:00 am next day.

We finished our 2nd day meeting and we went to Pismo Beach trying to have some sun bath and swim in an open sea but the day was very foggy and only local surfers with a 3 mm neoprene suits were there riding waves. We had a lunch at Brad’s Restaurant where we had a delicious Clam chowder and fish&Chips.

On Saturday we decided to go to Carmel and Monterey and we spend most of the day at the fisherman wharf in Monterey which had a Turkish festival (Food, Music, Dances and souvenirs). We saw a beautiful Sufi performance as well as several Turkish bands playing Turkish music. We had our lunch at Isabella’s which I will recommend only to my enemies, this was the typical tourist restaurant with poor service, crappy food and high prices. I f you go there, do not try this restaurant.

We finish our trip at San Jose Airport waiting our fly to Seattle.

Once the boarding process was complete, the Alaska pilot shared with us some good and bad news, the good news was that they were expecting a tail wind which would reduce the flight time from the standard 2hrs into 1:35 min but the bad news was that they discovered an oil leak in one of the engines and we had to wait until the maintenance guys reviewed the engine to make sure if the leak was because a previous maintenance or a real problem. I do not know why the airlines shares this kind of information with their customers that is not actionable for us.

San Luis is a nice place to visit, has the perfect mix between history, nightlife, sun and beaches. Try it out 

 

Well, here we go … Destination: The sunny and always magic city of Orlando, Florida

This year our annual convention was in Orlando again. Orlando is a city that you can love or deeply hate based on your mood and travel reason. If you go to Orlando on vacations mode or mood, Orlando is a lovely city offering all kind of entertainment regardless your age; from thematic parks that may easily take 24 hrs of your time all the way down until nice nightlife at Disney Downtown or Universal City Walk  where a nice beer or a glass of wine can outline your night. As you can expect Orlando is very crowded at summer time but without a schedule/clock pressure is enjoyable, also is warm and wet so the proper outfit (Shorts & T-Shirt) is require to properly deal with the weather.

A completely different story is when you go there in a business trip, like me this time. The nightmare begins trying to find a decent (because convenient is unthinkable) flight schedule; doesn’t matter how far in advance you book it, it will sucks at the end. There is a logical reason for this, you compete with hundred of thousand of tourist from almost all over the world and another 10,000 employees trying to get there to attend the same summit J

Coming from the west coast adds some complexity because you need a connection somewhere (Chicago, Dallas, LA, etc) which is a risk factor because flight delays and/or weather conditions. The flight itself is also challenging because the planes are full of kids and traditional questions such as: Are we there dad/mom? How much time left? Etc are recurrent among the kids. For me this is a very entertained flight because I use to observe the dynamics of the flight, e.g.: kids running, kids crying, Moms/Dads trying to read a book/magazine and often interrupted, people trying to sleep or trying to complete some work in summary a non standard or bored flight.

Then after you land at the intl airport, the rally starts. From get out of the plane (people is on vacation and by nature they are not in a hurry so takes time to get out of the plane) to pray that your luggage first make it and second is not the last one in the belt. Then the 2md rally starts, the rental… Everybody rents a car so you can expect long lines regardless if you are “preferred” customer or not.

Because the convention, I stayed at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort sharing a room with a friend from Spain. If you are planning to go to Orlando on vacations I will not recommend you to pick this hotel unless is the last hotel in Orlando with vacancies. The Hotel is really bad in my opinion, poorly managed as a hotel (Housekeeping, bell services, front desk, etc), ugly (a Mexican/southwest decoration style) and expensive. I got there like a 11:30 AM hungry and tired, after almost 20 min of check in because the front desk agent was trying to charge me a full fare instead of convention fare I finally got my key; the room assigned was very far (1/4 mile) from the front desk and I had to walk with my backpack and carry one because the internal transportation service was closed.

After the initial settle in my assigned room, I realized that all the restaurants were closed, that the room service operates until 11 PM and my unique option was order a Pizza at Domino’s but due to security polices I had to go back to the front desk because the management doesn’t allows delivery inside the room complex. I went to bed at 2:30 AM thinking on my meeting next morning.

The whole week was very good but very intensive (from 7:00 AM – 10:00 PM), I had the chance to reconnect with people from Ft. Lauderdale, from my countries and from other latam/Europe countries which is very valuable. I attended several sessions during the convention that allowed me to understand the company strategy for this upcoming year as well as do some networking and meet new people.

I visit some places that I want to recommend if you visit Orlando. If you are connecting through Dallas, you can stop by Dickeys BBQ and have a nice hot links & Brisket sandwich. In Orlando you can go to Texas de Brazil and have the traditional Picanha. Another nice BBQ place is Smokey Bones with a delicious Brisket or a true Ramen in a Japanese Restaurant called Hanamizuke close to the convention center. A colleague organized a group dinner at Fulton’s Crab House but coming from Seattle we have better seafood in this side of the country.

In summary this was an excellent trip, I got deep understanding of my company strategy, I reconnected with old colleagues, I meet new ones and I won a new cellular phone thanks to my colleague Karen who encouraged me to participate in a “pick the winner key” contest at the convention expo. 

Finally the poll results were announced today in Lisbon, Portugal. The new 7 wonders are: The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Jordan's Petra, Peru's Machu Picchu, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid.

About 100 million votes were cast and I voted for 4 of these, my selection was Taj Mahal, Colosseum, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza pyramid however the Acropolis, The Kiyomizu Temple and the Sydney Opera House didn't made the cut.

I'm happy that Latin America got 3 of the 7 however I'm not that attracted for the Christ because it is the result of very well knwom engineering techniques rather than breath taking places like the Acropolis or Kiyomizu.

I had the opportunity to visit 4 of them (Colosseum, Machu Pichu, Chichen Itza and the Christ) so I need to plan to visit the other 3 (Petram The wall and Taj Mahal) before I die :)

More info and pictures here: http://www.new7wonders.com/index.php?id=633