Global X was recently enjoying some of the gifts offered by his generous colleagues (picture here) when he made his first decision for 2007. After hearing so many hesitations about his text blog and his photo Flickr (“It’s unsafe. What if something goes wrong?”), Global X decided to back up.

Yes, he is backing up all the data on his various Mac computers (picture here).

That decision was in large part prompted by a tragic accident that happened last summer to his son. A very cool dude (he was even interviewed on US television – see picture here), his son had bought himself a shiny new MacBook (picture here) with the money he had been saving for several years. A few weeks later, while having a drink with Global X, he dropped a glass full of orange juice on this brand new laptop. Global X rushed to the nearest Apple Store only to hear a sad verdict (picture here). All data was lost, including the young man’s compilation of dreadful, vulgar songs full of four-letter words, thus prompting Global X to think that, in truth, there is always a silver lining to every disaster.

Last week, Global X bought a cute portable hard drive and copied all his data (picture here), including his collection of over 2,000 pieces of music –exactly a whole week of uninterrupted music, without a single four-letter word (which is not surprising considering that the most contemporary musician Global X tolerates passed away in 1791). He also copied the pictures he has taken around the globe.

And reluctantly, he agreed to copy his son’s revived compilation of dreadful, vulgar songs full of four-letter words.


Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Before going to Cambodia, Global X did some research on the Khmer Rouge regime, which is mainly remembered for killing at least a million people between 1975 and 1979, and possibly as many as 3 million (at a time when only 7 million people lived in Cambodia). One of the Khmer Rouge mottos was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss."

While in Cambodia, Global X visited Tuol Sleng (picture here), the Khmer Rouge Security 21 prison, which now serves as the Genocide Museum.

Tuol Sleng was built to extract confessions (picture here) from prisoners who, in large part, had nothing to confess. They were tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging. Global X had a chance to view the torture instruments in display in the museum.

Prisoners were then killed with iron bars (picture here) pickaxes or machetes, but rarely shot because using bullets for this purpose was considered a waste. As Global X could witness, there were exceptions (picture here). Approximately 15,000 prisoners sojourned (picture here) at Tuol Sleng. Only seven survived.

Initially, Global X found it easier to concentrate on semantics rather than on the horror standing before his eyes (Rule #6: (picture here) While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all). According to Wikipedia, the word genocide should be applied only when violent acts are committed “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Civil war doesn’t belong to this category, thought Global X, nor does eliminating political opponents (even in the millions). This museum should not be called the Genocide Museum, because it otherwise implies that an ethnic or religious group was trying to eliminate another. Which is not true.

This made Global X think about who should be held responsible for torture and other crimes against mankind. Indeed, Global X noticed that the people who were responsible for these barbaric acts were described, in the media and in the museum, as belonging to the “Khmer Rouge clique,” as if they were invaders from another country. The truth is, they were regular Cambodians.

A series of recent color pictures (picture here) actually shows middle-aged Cambodian farmers, carpenters, fathers and mothers, along with black and white portraits taken when they were “working” at S-21 a few decades before. They were just regular citizens then, as they are now. It just happened that during a short period of their lives, they were working as Tuol Sleng “employees,” along with another 1,700 prison staff.

It is proper to say that the Nazis were responsible for the Shoah. The truth is, they were Germans, who even elected Adolf Hitler to power. And, presumably, when Guantánamo Bay guards and those who made the decisions to hold captive human beings without trial or send them to other countries to be tortured are in turn brought in front of an international tribunal, the American people will not be implicated. Only the Bush Administration will be considered guilty of such acts.

The first lesson to learn here is that in order to deal with an ugly past, it is easier for a country to blame a minority, even when (and especially if) the majority went along with its crimes.

Global X also noticed that before being turned into a jail, Tuol Sleng was a high school. The buildings were first enclosed in electrified barbed wire. The classrooms were converted into prison (picture here) and torture chambers (picture here) and the windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent prisoner escapes. Only birds could go through the wires (picture here).

After doing some research, Global X also noticed that several top level Khmer Rouge politicians were, in their previous lives, teachers or professors. Tuol Sleng’s chief interrogator and commandant, known as Comrade Duch, was a former mathematics teacher. He worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had studied in the exclusive Lycée Sisowath and later received a scholarship to study in France before teaching French literature and history at a private school.

Second lesson from this visit: education does not bring wisdom, and people with the highest level of education can commit the most barbaric acts. After all, Stalin graduated first in his class at the age of 14, and Mao Zedong worked as an assistant librarian at Beijing University.

As Jawaharlal Nehru said:

It is well for us to realize that the great increase in knowledge in the world does not necessarily make us better or wiser ... A clever monkey may learn to drive a car, but he is hardly a safe chauffeur.

And Theodore Roosevelt:

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

As he was leaving Phnom Penh, Global X bought a book, Le Portail (The Gate), in which the author, French archeologist and anthropologist François Bizot, tells what happened when he was arrested in 1971 not far from the Angkor Wat temples by young Khmer Rouge fighters. His captor: Comrade Duch, who was to become Tuol Sleng’s chief interrogator. He told Bizot: "It's better to have a sparsely populated Cambodia than a country full of incompetents!"

François Bizot survived to tell his story to the French and international media. They simply decided to ignore him. The West had lost all interest in Southeast Asia, what with the Indochina debacle and the humiliation in Viet Nam. The few westerners who paid attention to him were leftist students who demonstrated in the streets their support for Chairman Mao, Unclo Ho (Chi Minh) and the Khmer Rouge’s Democratic Kampuchea...

Third lesson learned: As Global X remembers from his Latin class, Vultu an natura sapiens sis, multum interest (To appear wise is not the same as being born wise).


Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Yes, Global X ran away from a Court of Justice (see previous post) to get on several airplanes, first to Boston, then back to San Francisco, then off to Hong Kong for a brief stopover, then to Singapore for a longer stopover, to arrive finally in Phnom Penh a few hours ago, exhausted but so happy to be on solid grounds again.

It is unclear what Global X is really doing in Cambodia. The rumor has it that he has been seen on a motorcycle and reading trashy French novels by the swimming pool of his fancy hotel.

The truth is slightly different. Yes, he has been cruising Phnom Penh on a motorbike, but it is to follow a fabulous French social entrepreneur, Sebastien Marot, head of Friends International.

And the novel he has been reading (a bit trashy, it is true) is about the Holocaust, denial, survival and forgiveness. Global X thinks that it is the best way to prepare himself to the visit to the Cambodian Genocide Museum, which he will relate in a later post.


Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X was very flattered when many faithful readers wrote personal notes wondering why he had not posted last week:

Global X, are you OK?

Global X, where are you?

Global X, we miss you!

A few fans even started an online rumor:

Maybe Global X has lost his Tréo. Or worse –he traded is iMac for a Dell and doesn’t know how to use it.

Global X needs to explain that he was simply dealing with the justice of his adopted nation. Yes, he went to court. No, not as a defendant (Global X hardly gets a parking ticket a year), but as a potential member of a jury.

A true citizen of the world, Global X recently took on a new citizenship, which came with a few benefits. Being able to vote and being invited to serve justice are certainly among the most interesting features. And he carries a shiny new passport in his left jacket pocket, close to his heart, the old passport being in the right pocket, for memory’s sake.

So... Global X was recently invited to sit on a jury for an interesting trial. A poor fellow was taking his previous company to court. He claims that he was sacked because he had complained to authorities that his company (a transportation outfit) was not fulfilling its safety obligations. Eager to side with the oppressed, Global X listened carefully to the description of the case only to realize that he possibly had a conflict of interest: Global X knew the CEO of the company. Which is not surprising, as Global X knows everybody.

The Judge’s verdict was clear:

Monsieur X, you shall not serve on that trial.

Still eager to perform his citizen’s duties, Global X volunteered to sit on another jury. This time, a poor fellow was being judged for driving under the influence of illegal substances without a driver’s license, as it had been revoked when he was previously arrested for driving under the influence of similar illegal substances.

In that case, Global X had to disclose to the presiding Judge that he had been previously the victim of a car accident, provoked by a driver who had ingurgitated far too much strong liquids of a kind clearly inappropriate for safe driving. Once again, the Judge’s verdict was clear, albeit a bit more casual:

Global, you will not serve in my court.

Do not despair –Global X will be invited again to serve after the new year.


When he is not in Court, Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog

The past two weeks have been extremely eventful for Global X.

First, as you may remember, he ran into Esther Dyson in a café, while he was drinking hot cocoa and she was eating chocolate (too spicy, she said).

Then Global X had lunch with a fellow blogger who had just returned from Afghanistan. Over vegetarian curry she offered him three land mines (yes, land mines), which he carefully pushed towards the 19-year old Berkeley student who had joined them for lunch.

Then Global X went to Berkeley where he ran into Mickipedia, the diva from Hollywood who lives the most interesting life. Highlight: while most people drive to Burning Man across the desert in the blistering heat, she flies there in a private plane.

And if that were enough, Global X ran into Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Brazil who was a finalist at the Tech Museum Awards. Global X wrote about her just a year ago as he knew she would do very well. He also met the Tech Museum's new director, Peter Friess.

Finally, Global X had dinner with Bill Gates, a fairly well known tech entrepreneur who is now trying to become a philanthropist. Nothing to report on this dinner, except that the chocolate was not too spicy. And that no land mines were given away.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

For a few minutes last week, Global X escaped the virtual world in which he is so comfortable and met a few human beings in the real world. As he was having a cup of hot cocoa in a trendy dot.com café in the San Francisco Bay Area, he noticed a woman eating chocolate with several would-be entrepreneurs: Esther Dyson.

Yes, Esther Dyson!

According to Wikipedia (Global X is SO jealous –he doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry yet), Esther Dyson is the daughter of a physicist and a mathematician, and the sister of a digital technology historian. After graduating from Harvard, she worked for Forbes and in investment banking, and is now the head of EDventure where she evaluates the impact of emerging technologies on societies.

Global X will forever cherish their conversation, which was almost as deep as the one he had with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus:

You are Esther Dyson?
Yes.
I am Global X.
Oh! Global X. So that’s YOU?

Of course, one can’t convey with words the tone in which she whispered these last three words. Global X heard passion, but several witnesses mentioned boredom and lack of interest instead. Global X thought they might be jealous...

Encouraged by such a positive adventure in the real world, Global X had lunch with Heidi Kühn, the social entrepreneur who recently kept a fascinating blog when she was traveling to Afghanistan, where she met President Hamid Karzai.

After ordering lunch (vegetarian curry for Global X), Heidi Kühn mentioned that she had brought a few souvenirs from Afghanistan. Never one to turn down a bribe, Global X was expecting a bag of white powder straight from the poppy fields of Afghanistan.

Instead, Heidi Kühn reached deep into her purse and proudly extracted three mines. Yes, land mines –explosive devices that are usually buried into the ground and will explode when triggered by a vehicle, a person or an animal. Not the kind of souvenirs to be shared with friends over lunch, thought Global X.

As Heidi Kühn mentioned that one of these mines could go off with only 4 kg of pressure (“That’s the weight of a baby”) and that there were currently 70 million such mines buried in 70 countries around the world, Global X carefully pushed the three mines towards Heidi’s daughter, Kyleigh, a 19-year old Berkeley student who had joined them for lunch, and took a picture. Then he retreated back to the virtual world.

Yesterday, Global X was attending Mobile 2.0, a conference that brought together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of mobile application development and web technologies.

He had a chance to reflect on the Next Phase of the Internet, one where computers (as we know them) are not the main link to the Web but mobile devices that one carries into one’s pocket, purse or backpack. Two billion mobile phones are currently in use, most of them in industrialized countries and in the most developed areas of China. However, the next billion will be sold in developing countries, where the infrastructure doesn’t allow for reliable Internet connection. This is how the next billion human beings will discover the Internet –on a mobile device.

Global X is already convinced of that, he who already spends most of his non-sleeping hours attached to his Tréo (luckily, his wife has not yet discovered that he hides his electronic device under his pillow).

At Mobile 2.0, Global X met with Tony Fish, author of Mobile Web 2.0. His 21st century mantra: “Attention is Queen, and Metadata is King.” Which tells you the level of the conversation at the Mobile 2.0 conference –hermetic and far-reaching.

He also heard about the Mystery of the Cross-Eyed ShoZu Chihuahua. A poor fellow, a self-professed design geek from Berkeley, lost his fancy Nokia 6682 mobile phone on a train between San Francisco and San Jose. The person who found it (and who didn’t return it despite the owner’s frequent vocal and SMS pleas) started taking pictures, not realizing that this phone was equipped with ShoZu, a cool application that automatically uploads all pictures to a Flickr account. That’s how the whole world discovered “pictures of the family of the person” who stole a cell phone, including a picture of a cross-eyed Chihuahua.

A similar adventure happened to a fellow who stole a Sidekick, another model of smartphone. His friends and relatives can be seen by the whole world.

Is there a lesson for social entrepreneurs (besides being careful with their mobile phones)? Yes. They should give away these devices so that all citizens can report on the world's misdeeds.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Barely recovering after his 15 seconds of glory (Global X knows Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus!), Global X went on with his glamorous life and had lunch with CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

She shared with him her passion for solid, facts-based reporting. Journalists are very much like social entrepreneurs, as they share the same mandate –to change the world. However, journalists should do so without an agenda: “The truth by itself can change the world.”

Passionate about her mission, she is convinced that “journalism has a unique role in education. It should help us maintain a community, build a consensus, and above all, help us understand global news.”

But like most reporters coming from traditional media, Christiane Amanpour doesn’t fully understand the passion the younger generation brings to digital media, especially their unlimited taste for those small video clips they find on You Tube or on her own network.

She complains that an Internet video player’s small size cannot bring the emotions, the sounds or the visual cues that a large screen can bring. “But didn’t we complain about that when we started watching movies on TV sets with VCRs and DVDs rather than on large screens in movie theaters?” thought Global X as he was taking notes on his minuscule Tréo.

Size doesn’t always matter –the art of story telling is what counts. One just needs to observe teenagers as they watch videos on their iPods the size of a business card to realize that the message goes through. Whether it’s in Time magazine or on time.com, whether it’s on CNN or on cnn.com, new technology can bridge the gap between generations and help us understand the world (should we try in the first place).

Global X and Christiane Amanpour talked about other very important topics. For example, they compared notes on their favorite cafés in Paris. Global X claims to be an expert in that field. He noticed that Christiane Amanpour was very knowledgeable as well.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Not so long ago, Global X was bragging that he personally knew two MacArthur “Genius” Fellows –Jim Fruchterman and Victoria Hale. Looking for another opportunity to drop famous names on his blog, he was carefully watching the news to see what his next topic of conversation would be.

The big news came on Friday morning. As he was conducting his usual board-related business over breakfast (yes, Global X is on the board of a few social benefit organizations), he was interrupted by two txts, also called SMS, received on his mobile phone.

The first one came from Untangled to announce that Apple was launching a (Product) Red iPod to help eradicate AIDS in Africa. Excellent, thought Global X, as it gave him an excuse to buy a new iPod and appear socially conscious at the same time.

The second message came from France and simply said MY a le Nobel. It was pretty clear to Global X that MY was Muhammad Yunus and that the Nobel Prize had to be about peace.

Global X knows Muhamamd Yunus very well. They met once for approximately two minutes. They exchanged 14 words. Here is the whole conversation, as well as Global X remembers it:

- May I take a picture of you?
- But of course.
- Thank you very much.

How did this meaningful, deep, conversation occur? Global X was at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford last spring when he noticed that Muhammad Yunus was having lunch by himself on a bench in the main lobby. Eager to strike a conversation about the positive impact of micro-lending ventures on poverty in Bangladesh (a country X knows quite well), Global X convinced Rachel, his google.org friend, to pose with the Master. She didn’t need to be asked twice, as she has always been a great fan of his.

Then Global X noticed a few other well-known social entrepreneurs who were too shy to ask but obviously were eager to have their picture taken with their idol. That’s how Global X took pictures of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus with Sakeena Yacoobi, Vera Cordeiro and Albina Ruiz.

Global X is now eagerly checking his Tréo to see what the next big news will be. He already knows that he didn’t get this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, despite his grandiose and epic blog. Global X checked his Flickr: no, he doesn’t know Orhan Pamuk personally.



Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The other day, Global X received a pleasant e-mail form the other side of the Earth. The writer, a social entrepreneur based in Paris, was asking very nicely if she could meet him to discuss her social benefit venture next time he is in the City of All Lights.

Even though Global X receives many similar requests, he thinks of himself as a gentleman and immediately responded to let the social entrepreneur know that he would be delighted to listen to her story. He even provided a couple of dates when they could meet face-to-face.

The response, which was almost immediate (taking into account the time-zone difference), shocked him. It said:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s exactly what we wanted from this guy!!!! He understood that he MUST meet us!!!

Good for us!!!!!

We successfully passed the first hurdle!!! Yesss!!

Next: let’s ask him for a couple of dates where we could meet him (let’s make it clear that we shouldn’t wait too long to meet...!!!!) (In truth, let’s give him only one date, and he will manage, right?)

What do you think?

Hugs and kisses!!!

PS –Let’s not wait too long before writing him back!!! Let’s make sure he remains hot on us.

Global X had to read this message several times to understand what had happened. Obviously, this social entrepreneur was so excited to have caught his attention that she wrote an e-mail to her colleagues, not realizing that she was actually sending it straight to Global X’s e-mail box.

It is fair to say that Global X has gotten cold feet since receiving this message. This French social entrepreneur will have a difficult time warming him up to her venture.

The lesson is clear: beware the send button!


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X first met John Wood in United Airlines’ Red Carpet Club in Chicago. Actually, he only noticed a profile on him in the New York Times Magazine, but he knew that the opportunity to meet face-to-face would present itself very soon. That happened last week when Global X and John Wood had lunch together (with another 20 guests).

Before becoming a leading social entrepreneur, John Wood received his MBA at Kellogg and worked as a marketing manager at Microsoft in Australia. As he was trekking in Nepal, he discovered that school children had access to very few books (if at all). He left his cushy corporate job to become the “Andrew Carnegie of the Developing World.” Through Room to Read, his social benefit organization, he built 3,000 libraries, compared with 2,800 for Andrew Carnegie. He has also published 77 children’s books in seven languages that were of no interest to traditional publishers.

John Wood likes to describe his mission in six words: "World change starts with educated children." Such accurate branding didn’t come naturally to him. His social venture was initially called “Books for Nepal,” which didn’t leave much room to grow and scale. As he likes to put it, “branding is just like dating: all the good ones are taken!” The organization’s very low overhead (5%) didn’t help either.

Room to Read now has overhead close to 10% (still quite low), and its goal is “to help 10 million children gain the lifelong gift of education” and become the Oxfam of global education. Global X wishes he had watched those school children as they discovered giraffes, sharks and human beings on the moon in the books brought by Room to Read.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X was shocked (shocked!) when he noticed what Newsweek’s editors had selected for their cover stories this week.

[Disclaimer: In the past century, Global X went on several assignments for Newsweek’s international editions, including a voyage to Cameroon where he made a fool of himself as he insisted on interviewing the Prime Minister in French when the politician was eager to speak English instead. Global X learned that day that even in bilingual countries like Cameroon, one prefers to speak one’s maternal language. Next time he goes to Quebec, Global X will remember to speak French.]

Newsweek’s cover story in Europe, Asia and Latin America (that covers a large part of the world) is “Losing Afghanistan.” The feature, actually titled The Rise of Jihadistan, starts with:

Five years after the Afghan invasion, the Taliban are fighting back hard, carving out a sanctuary where they—and Al Qaeda's leaders—can operate freely.

Newsweek reporters Ron Moreau, Sami Yousafzai and Michael Hirsh write that as they were getting closer

to a mud-brick village within sight of the highway, [...] a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.

They conclude:

It is an all too familiar story. Ridge by ridge and valley by valley, the religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11—and who suffered devastating losses in the U.S. invasion that began five years ago next week—are surging back into the country's center.

In the meantime, the US edition (also dated Oct. 2, 2006) has a cover story on Annie Leibovitz, the contemporary photographer who has produced “many indelible images of American pop culture.” Pop culture indeed.

Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. [...] Jolie, a pilot, suggested shooting on an old airfield near the desert, with motorcycles and small planes among the props. (She flew herself to the location and the next day, Brad Pitt buzzed up in his plane.)

Can you do more glamorous than that? Probably not.

Newsweek’s editors may assume that Americans do not care about global news, but that the rest of the world does. They think that a light story is perfectly adequate for the US market, while a story critical of US foreign policy will do very well abroad.

They may be right. Global X likes to tell the story of this European newsmagazine that tested two potential covers –one about the local political scene, one about sex. The test results were very clear: when asked which magazine they would buy, most respondents (70%) chose the one with the political story on its cover. To double check, the publisher decided to run a split issue –half the copies were printed with the political story on their covers, the other half had the sex story. The results were the same –only reversed (30/70)! On the newsstands, sex won over politics. Plus ça change...


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X likes to drop names. He loves to point out to those who don’t mind listening to him (and even those who do) that he hangs out with elite social entrepreneurs, movie stars and artists. Now, he can also rightfully claim that he knows a MacArthur genius or two.

As he was falling asleep last night reading a fascinating article in The Economist, he noticed an e-mail on his Tréo announcing that the MacArthur Foundation had just selected its 2006 “genius” fellows. He was happy to see that he knew one of them quite well. Actually, two of them.

Global X and Jim Fruchterman have crossed paths several times recently, including at Berkeley for the Global Social Venture Competition, and at Oxford for the Skoll World Forum.

It is not so surprising that Jim Fruchterman is considered a genius. After all, he is a rocket scientist (literally, that’s what he did at CalTech). MacArthur describes him as a “technologist modifying cutting-edge technologies to create affordable devices that aid the visually impaired and others underserved by traditional commerce.” This is true. But there is more to Jim than his professional profile indicates.

Global X had a chance to hear him talk about his teenage son. They went together to the World Economic Forum at Davos, and Jim even asked him to blog for Social Edge. Global X also had a chance to appreciate Jim’s sense of humor, as is reflected on this picture, where he tells the world why he does what he does.

Global X also crossed paths with another 2006 MacArthur genius, Victoria Hale, a “pharmaceutical entrepreneur navigating regulatory processes to develop affordable drugs for neglected diseases and to deliver them around the world to those most in need.” What this means: Victoria launched a pharmaceutical company to develop affordable drugs to treat deadly diseases affecting the world’s poorest populations.

Confronted to such talent, Global X decided to be humble, at least for the day.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X is a big fan of Web 2.0 interactive tools, as they can help social entrepreneurs post online content to describe their mission and their passions. He is often invited to speak at conferences to explain why Flickr, Blogger, YouTube and MySpace are important to those who work for social benefit organizations.

However, he recently noticed that keeping a blog or a flickr was very much like winking to a lover in the dark –it may not have the impact that one would expect. Actually, it may not produce any impact.

While admiring his very own flickr, Global X discovered that his most popular picture (by number of comments and number of hits) was not one that he expected. He thought it would be the picture of his teenage daughter proudly exhibiting her first-ever credit card, or his wild son being interviewed by CBS after being the witness of a tragedy, or, why not, a beautiful shot of Global X in the nude.

No, his most popular picture is one of a computer. Mind you, a gorgeous laptop, a black MacBook with a flashy white Apple logo, introduced by Apple very recently.

What can explain such success? Why would so many people click on that very picture? Because it was properly tagged. As soon as Steve Jobs announced that a new laptop was introduced, Global X rushed to the local Apple store (where he is quite well known and called by his favorite nickname --Globe), took a quick shot of the new MacBook with his Tréo 650, uploaded the picture to his Flickr as he was walking back to his cubicle while wondering how he could convince his COO to get him one.

As he reached his desktop (a mighty cute Mac Mini), he realized that hundreds of visitors had already discovered the picture on his Flickr. Apparently, Global X was the first to post a picture of the new computer, and the picture was easily identified by search engines as it had the right tags attached to it ("apple" and "macbook").

The lesson learned here: yes, social entrepreneurs should tell their stories online, but they should also make sure that the rest of the world knows where to find them. As Global X has found out, there is no point in winking in the dark to one's beloved.


Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Unfortunately, Global X was not able to go to Burning Man this year. Again.

Many things seem to be getting in the way around the first week of September, like back to school day or This Thing Called Work. Apparently, launching a billion dollar company gives you more free time, as it was reported that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of search-engine-company-turned-advertising-conglomerate Google, were again making their pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert, along with another 38,987 people.

Rather than drive all the way to Nevada, Global X just sat in front of his Apple computer and visited the scene remotely. He first went to Mickipedia&rsqu