On the eve of the Jewish High Holidays, ABC columnist Ben Knight writes, in a sophomoric essay titled Oh God, not another holiday,

“If you ask someone in Israel to do something they don’t really want to, they might reply with a Hebrew saying that translates literally as ‘after the holidays’. But its meaning is deeper; it’s the Jewish version of ‘manana’.”

Knight suggests Israelis use the Jewish holidays to avoid work and commitment, which is insulting and nonsensical. Knight manages to insult Mexicans and Jews alike with a single word, ‘manana,’ which in American slang (and presumably in Australia, where Knight comes from,) denotes constant procrastination due to being laid back or lazy. If you’re going to stereotype people, neither laid back nor lazy applies to the Israelis.

This is not just “another holiday.” This week begins the period known as the High Holidays, so called because they are the most important and most solemn of all Jewish holidays. The first of these is Rosh Hashanah, which falls this week and marks the start of the New Year. Next week is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, in which we petition God for forgiveness for our sins and indiscretions. Most Jews fast for 24 hours on Yom Kippur. (I did when I was younger. I currently do not.)

No one in my family ever shouted: “Wee hoo! It’s Yom Kippur!”

Knight’s piece might have been mildly humorous some other time of year, though I doubt it. But this week it’s ignorant and ill conceived, bordering on outrageous. Why not take it down, tweak it a bit, and repost it on Purim?

By the way Mr. Knight, any plans yet for Boxing Day?

Tags: ABC, Ben Knight, Jewish High Holidays, manana, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur

As I write a chapter on the future of social media for my SocialCorp book, I asked people on Twitter last night whether they had favorite social media apps and which if any offered hints at the future. Here are the responses:

• Imho, Qik, and Seesmic a close second. I have never seen a single 12second.tv video that made any sense whatsoever.
• chi.mp One profile to rule them all.
• Check out Socialbrowse.
• Tumblr and disqus
• none. i have tumblr, disqus, 12 seconds, but i wouldn’t say any of them are predictors. i would say Twitter is the one i go to see what is happening around the world 24/7.

One of the more imaginative scenarios came from Chris Grayson who suggested “some cross between the iPhone App called Loopt with iChatAV and Second Life in a discrete virtual vision visor display built into your eye wear.”

What do you think the future holds? What about Friendfeed and other aggregators? And whether you love or hate Plurk, and everyone either loves it or hates it, you have to give them credit for exploring a new user interface. Or not. Maybe Yammer and other apps that encroach on the corporate firewall, or internal clones like Pfizer’s Pfacebook and IBM’s BlueTwit will become popular.

SO COME ONE! SPEAK UP! WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Please add your ideas for most progressive or innovative applications to the comments on this post. Thank you!

Tags: , chi.mp, tumblr, disqus, twitter, seesmic, 12seconds, qik, iphone, loopt, ichatav, second life, future of social media, plurk, friendfeed, yammer

Boston-based Social Media for Social Change (sm4sc) today announced that it hopes to raise as much as $20,000 for Jane Doe Inc. at a fund raising event October 10 at 6:30 PM at the Harvard Club of Boston. Jane Doe, Inc. is a “statewide coalition of over sixty community-based sexual assault and domestic violence organizations across Massachusetts committed to the safety, dignity and liberty of survivors.”

Back in July, blogger Jeremy Pepper challenged the social media community to show that it can “do what it claims” by using its influence to give back to the community. While I agree with Jeremy that every one of us who is fortunate to be employed and comfortable should be giving back to those less fortunate, I believe the best mechanisms are organized, broad based efforts like sm4sc. (That’s not to say individual giving is a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but I think it’s a personal and private matter.)

sm4sc was founded by Gradon Tripp, and was chartered with the understanding that “the social media world has proven that, though still a young and small community within a multitude of industries, we have the power to exact great change.”

I urge Boston area folks to attend and support this event, which is for a very worthy cause and can demonstrate the power of the social media community as a force for good.

Tags: Social media, jane doe inc., sm4sc, boston, Jeremy Pepper, Gradon Tripp

Christine Lu, a Twitter acquaintance, let me know about a couple of interesting events in the Bay Area next weekend.

The first event is AAMA CONNECT 2008, Silicon Valley into the Next Decade: The Center of Global Transformation, Friday, October 3, 2008, Hyatt Regency Santa Clara Hotel, which the organizers describe as “the leading Asia technology gathering of the year in Silicon Valley.”

The second is “China, Beyond the Olympics,” Saturday, October 4, at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This conference “will center the discussion on China’s future after China’s great showcase of its 5,000-year history as well as its technological and economic achievements at the Beijing Summer Olympics.”

If you’re in tech, you’ve probably seen a slide in some executive presentation that says your company is going to take advantage of opportunities in the emerging BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China.) But what does that mean beyond slideware? COMDEX is dead. Might be time to break out of the U.S.-centric bubble and find out what’s really going on in the rest of the world.

Tags: China Beyond the Olympics, AAMA CONNECT 2008, BRIC, Asia, business, entrepreneurism

I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking and writing about guidelines for corporate participation on Twitter. (See this and this.)

Today I was downright thrilled to see that Wachovia followed one of my suggestions: add your social network affiliations to your corporate web site “contacts” or “news” page so consumers can verify that your presence is officially sanctioned.

Here’s what it looks like:

Congratulations also to Wachovia for expressing in fewer than 140 characters, in the space of a banner ad in fact, the value Twitter has. “Get updates via web or cell phone.” (Banner copy writing may be the best career experience for concise tweeting.)

Tags: wachovia, twitter, corporate, business, guidelines