developerWorks: This is a developerWorks podcast. I'm Scott Laningham here with Turbo Todd Watson, who regularly tops the developerWorks blogging charts. Todd, describe him maybe as a trend watcher, scene maker, crack commentator — all the things you'd expect from a great blogger. Welcome back, Todd.

Watson: Hey, thanks for having me. Happy 2008.

developerWorks: Thank you, man. Now, how hard is it — I'm just wondering with you — how hard is it to reach both pop icon status and then hold on to it?

Watson: [LAUGHTER] Next question.

developerWorks: I mean, the paparazzi must just drive you nuts, man.

Watson: Yes — you know, that's why I really have a high security perimeter here in downtown Austin. Keeps those people out.

developerWorks: OK — now, I noticed your blog entry on the 11th about search words of 2008. It's sort of a year-ender entry in a way, capping some of your own '08 highlights and experiences. And do you want to share a few of those — kind of talk about some of the stuff on that list?

Watson: Yes, the Google Zeitgeist is what it's called. And the way I position it, it tells us things about our world that you can't even imagine and much, much more. Google obviously puts a little more politically correct. But I think it's a fascinating list. And it's kind of really — it's an interesting look into the psychology of the year of 2008. And this is the first year that it's really gone global.

And I think that's also interesting because this is a year that I traveled a lot. Probably more than any other year of my career. And I used to work at IBM offices in New York and did a fair amount of international travel. But this year, you know, I really put the miles on. I was joking, I bought an Admirable Club's membership so I could have a place to hang out in all those airports. And I even went for a challenge on American to regain my platinum status, and I think that's kind of a double-edged sword. I also invested in some noiseless headphones so I could keep all the crying babies out of my head when I'm trying to sleep.

But I should have known it was going to be a long year when it started because I got stuck in a freezing snowstorm, nearly stuck, somewhere out in the Rockies. I don't remember what it was. I had gone skiing with some friends. And that was just -- I didn't know that that was just the beginning of a crazy travel year. I think this year alone I hit Beijing. I missed Tokyo. We'll come back to that. I was in London as the financial crisis started. And the big question is what do you do with your 401(k) when you're traveling abroad and the market's going deeply south?

developerWorks: Oh, man.

Watson: I was in Stuttgart where there was no Internet. I couldn't get online. It was kind of funny. Bratislava, Vienna, the Italian Alps, which were quite lovely. That part I loved. Milan. Nice. All over the place. And it was just crazy. And you pick up a lot of stories along the way. So as we go through the list of keywords, we can hit a few of those.

developerWorks: How many miles — do you have any sense of how much you logged, mileage?

Watson: I need to go back and look, Scott, but it must have been on the order — I don't know, what's a good travel year? 80-100,000?

developerWorks: I would say that sounds pretty typical, not to me, but for you — almost halfway to the moon. That makes a lot of sense. But what about the list, the Google list?

Watson: Some of the words crack me up. Look at No. 3 on my blog post. Facebook log-in. You can't find your way to Facebook.com? I mean, come on, you're using Google to find Facebook. I don't get it. What's so hard about that?

But it made me think about that infamous interview. I don't know if you remember this — between the journalist Sara Lacy and Mark Zuckerberg right here in Austin. And we didn't know that some of the ground, we were watching some seminal event that it turned out to be. But what I learned from that is there's a big difference between being somewhere and not being somewhere, right? So you see how the blogosphere will react to something.

Well, listen — I was on the ground. I was in the room. I was sitting between two really esteemed New York communications and marketing professionals, and I can tell you what our reaction was. We looked at one another like we can't just believe she just asked that question. I mean, it was as if you had, I don't know, some teeny-bopper journalist interviewing the Russian premiere and asking them what it was like to, I don't know, have a gazillion rubles in the bank. Here you had this developer Web-centric audience, and you might as well have been watching Entertainment Tonight. But when you read the coverage, you would have thought that the journalist was being thrown to the lion's den. No — it was none of that. A lot of the criticism was absolutely justified in my opinion because that's not what people were there to hear. There were a lot of people there who were there to look at how Facebook can help me make money as a developer — not how does it feel, Mark, to be a potential gazillionairre?

developerWorks: You talk about being there vs. not being there. That was the sense I got from a lot of people that Sara Lacy was, in a way, she wasn't there, you know.

Watson: [LAUGHTER] I'm not even going to respond to that one. That's good, though.

developerWorks: Fortunately, I'm sure there's no way she's ever heard of this podcast.

Watson: That's her loss. I think, No. 2, you saw was Beijing 2008. Oh my God, I could spend an hour on China. China is an amazing place. And we were there probably, what, three months, 2 1/2 months before the games. First of all, landing at that new airport. It was like landing on the moon. I looked out the window. And I was like it's a moon base. It just went on and on and on. I think the real trip about China, though, Beijing 2008, was we were sitting in a building in the IBM® building, actually, and I was on the 20th floor. And I was having some of our first conversations with our team. There were people from IBM China. There were people from obviously the U.S. And all of a sudden, I started getting kind of dizzy. I looked at my colleagues, and I could see they were kind of looking kind of scant, as well. I thought what's going on? Then I realized, oh my god, it's an earthquake. This building is moving. And I thought: "OK — well, when a building's moving, and I'm on the 20th floor, my first gut instinct is to get out."

So people who know me know I'm a gadget hound. I travel with a Mac computer, not a PC. I had a Blackberry, my Blackberry Pearl. I had a new digital camera I bought expressly to take on the trip. I left it all. Went straight down the hallway. I was like my colleagues — you all feel free to follow me, but I'm gone.

developerWorks: Didn't you know the Mac has a parachute in it? You just strap that baby on your back and jump.

Watson: I would've thought about it. I'm telling you. But turns out the earthquake was like 900 kilometers away. But I think it had either kickstarted a separate fault or whatever. But anyway, it was an unsettling experience. There was like a moment of terror. Then I found out later how horrible it was in Szechuan province and some of those surrounding areas. And I do have to say, though, it was amazing to be there on the ground and watch this unfold because I was there partly to talk about social media and the impact that that's having in marketing and communications. And in China, that takes on a unique perspective, right? This is a more closed society. But what I learned there was within that society, there was huge openness and embrace of these technologies. And in fact, I was one of probably hundreds of thousands or thousands who immediately was twittering. I was letting people know I was OK. But others were using it within China to spread information about the relief to provide information to families.

It was pretty incredible to see that live and real time, and how pervasive and ubiquitous and important, especially these mobile devices, have become.

developerWorks: Now, what's the next one on your list?

Watson: No. 7 — back to globalization. Again, OK, — nasza klasa, and I don't know what that means in Polish, but it is a Polish social-networking site. How does that end up being No. 7 on the global Google Zeitgeist? And what that says to me is how incredibly pervasive this inter-Web thing has become. It goes without saying, I guess, but seriously, the Google top 10 in a Polish networking site is No. 7. That's incredible.

developerWorks: That is amazing.

Watson: I met some people in Poland, who, there was one girl from IBM, lovely young lady, she gave me the hardest time and asked me more questions. I've got witnesses. But I love that. I immediately love the Polish. I like their fire. They're asking hard questions. They're telling us we don't know what we're doing back at headquarters. I was like, "I'm going to come see you guys. So get me a space ready on nasza klasa because I'm coming back to Poland."

developerWorks: That's awesome. Now, what topped the list?

Watson: Well, you see what topped the list.

developerWorks: Well, we'll fly through that one.

Watson: Sarah Palin. What else do you say? I have to say that I love the whole phenomenon. I thought when McCain pulled her name out of the hat, I was like, "Who?" And along with probably a few millions of other people. And I had an opportunity to watch the actual debate, the vice presidential debate in San Francisco. We went to a debate-watching party as it turned out. We didn't even know it. It was a bar down street that served food. We had been in meetings all day — ironically, we had been in meetings with our friends from Google and Tech Target. We're watching the bay, big-screen TV, and everybody has these bingo cards. They were playing Palin bingo. So whenever she would say, refer to McCain as a "maverick," somebody would go "Bingo!" And it was kind of funny.

Number six, though, interestingly ended up being Obama. Sarah Palin No. 1 and Obama No. 6, which I think is fascinating because I'm thinking, "Well, actually, people knew his name a lot longer. You would have thought he would have come up close to the top. But nonetheless, I think the Obama campaign and that whole movement was a social-media phenomenon from which I'm still deriving lessons. And I know many other marketers are, as well. In fact, AdAge named the campaign for Obama the marketing campaign of the year. I think they actually took an audience vote for that. They looked at Apple. They looked at BMW. And the Obama campaign won it. And I thought well, wait a minute, what's really going on here. I get the whole thing politics is marketing. But I think there was something else that was happening. And it really had to do with the social media. I mean, if you think about from the moment that he announced and you think about — actually, he didn't announce online. If you remember, Hillary Clinton announced online in a video. But it was a very staged video. It was really her talking to the audience, and there was a lot of "I" and "me, me." And I think Obama, on the other hand, there was a lot of "we." "Yes, we can." And you look at the social media that was used in the campaign. Obama putting social networking capabilities on his site. Somebody later built an iPhone application, so you could actually call people from your iPhone to try to rally the troops.

The fundraising that was done online. The Twitter channels. I kept track of the Twitter channel, which I found fascinating. How did they discover Twitter? Of course, they had agencies that were helping them. But the point was it was a social-media phenomenon. And I don't think it's ended there. We had a guest speaker just last week come to one of my calls who is in that orbit. And he said that's really just the beginning.

Now they're talking about how do we use those technologies in the new government? How do we make e-government a practical reality to drive down healthcare costs, to drive rural broadband in areas where there's limited access, because access to the Internet means access to the economy as we move forward?

So I think there's going to be some interesting things come out. So, yes — it was only No. 6 on the list, but it's going to move up the charts in terms of its importance to changing our country and changing the world, I believe.

developerWorks: And we know it was a defining thing for the year, and very much about this kind of "we" generation as opposed to "me" type of a thing. I mean, all this fits into that thing that you're talking about.

Watson: Yes, I think you're right. I think the technology is bringing people back into the process in a way that they hadn't really participated in. If you think about the last 20, 30 years how — I mean, we're probably ... I don't want to say how old we are — but we've seen these other campaigns, and there wasn't a lot of we necessarily going on. And I think when you look at social media, it's participatory. The idea is you bring the audience into the conversation, as opposed to having a monologue. Whether you're a government or a large company like IBM.

So I think that those who embrace that not only in the public sector but also in the private sector, I think there's an opportunity to engage those audiences in a meaningful way so that the institutions really bring out the personality of the people rather than just the facade of the institution.

developerWorks: Todd, you're a Facebooking, Twittering madman. And I'm wondering maybe as a wrap-up thought here, do you expect that to continue into the foreseeable future? Or do you think that that phase will soon give way to yet another one we don't even know about?

Watson: You're asking me to read the tea leaves. I was at another seminal moment. Actually, at South by Southwest. And I think it was when Twitter started to what do they call it to tip, to really kind of jump into the mainstream to kind of debut. And it was amazing to watch because I was sitting in the audience, and we all had laptops and at South by Southwest everybody is online. They learn they have to have wireless everywhere. And Austin Convention Center is made up of many, many halls. I literally watched this phenomenon unfold before my eyes. I thought, "My god — conferences will never be the same again." Because what was happening is people were Twittering back and forth between and during the sessions.

If you as a speaker were really bad or your panel was really bad, the rest of the conference knew about it immediately, A. And B, if you were bad, they left the room to go to another room. So the poor organizers of the conference are trying to figure out. They had already tried to do a good job of load balancing. But suddenly there would be a mob herd rushing from one to another. I'm overexaggerating, but you get the premise.

So suddenly, transparency became real-time. And I think that that's something to be reckoned with. Where do we go from here? I don't know. I remember the whole phenomenon in Second Life and Virtual World, I'm not sure it's going away. Speaking of Beijing, if you haven't checked out the virtual Forbidden City. I have some friends within IBM that worked on that with the Chinese. It's an amazing experience. So if you've never been to the Forbidden City, that's a heck of a way to see it. So I think that bringing that back into being and into a venue where there's actually something productive that could be done with it, I think part of the problem with the first wave of Second Life is there really wasn't much to do. You kind of hung out. In some of the places you hung out you didn't want to be hanging out.

I think that Twitter has fulfilled a need for that instantaneous communication. What happens when you take that and you move it into a realm where time and space become less of a factor? — but you have, I shouldn't say, time — but you have that spatial relationship. And I know Google just killed Lively. Somebody somewhere is working on the next big thing in that realm. To me that's where it is because the Internet experience is still way too two-dimensional. And adding that third dimension I think has enormous opportunity. But the technology and the people have to keep up with it. That's what I'm keeping my eye out for.

developerWorks: Things are getting so nonlocal with all of this. We're getting to the point where how fast can we really drag our bodies around?

Watson: You know, I've been working from home for five years, and you know, I miss some of the face-to-face interaction, but I've got to say, because of these technologies, I'm probably more productive than I've ever been. I'm more in communication with people than I've ever been, and I don't have to burn an energy of carbon to do it except for that which powers my computer. So I personally feel good about that when IBM is talking about building a smarter planet, and I think that's the other opportunity looking ahead is how do we as technologists and industry start to think about doing these things in a more intelligent fashion, using the resources, recognizing that three are somewhat finite in many cases and really trying to go from there into building a more sustainable and as we say a smarter planet.

developerWorks: I know you only sleep on the weekend in order to maximize your weekday work, and I'm very impressed by that ability. I've got to share my last two Twitters with you. I'm a Twittering moron. I basically haven't gotten beyond using it as an object of humor. But it goes along with what you're saying. The first one was, "On an iPhone, Twittering from inside Second Life on a virtual phone, while driving my car in SL ,while driving in RL, and eating." [LAUGHTER] Then I followed that up the next day with, "Listening to a conference call, IMing three people while watching a YouTube video, editing some copy and flossing."

Watson: That's our day, man.

developerWorks: That's our life now, isn't it?

Watson: For good, bad or ugly.

developerWorks: Turbo Todd Watson — an important set of eyes and ears for the developerWorks community. Todd, thanks, man, for hanging out for a few. This was fun.

Watson: Thank you, it was. Happy holidays and travel safe — virtually or otherwise.

developerWorks: Check out Todd's blog at ibm.com/developerworks. Click on blogs on the right nav, you'll see it there. On the blog page just look for Turbo Todd Watson. He's almost always at the top of the popular blog list there for us. Of course, we hope you continue to visit developerWorks for tools code and education on IBM products and open standards technology. I'm Scott Laningham, talk to you soon.

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Scott Laningham, host of developerWorks podcasts, was previously editor of developerWorks newsletters. Prior to IBM, he was an award-winning reporter and director for news programming featured on Public Radio International, a freelance writer for the American Communications Foundation and CBS Radio, and a songwriter/musician.

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