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My pal Shona Main has a very beautiful little project - to make a short film of an 82 year old crofter in Orkney, who has been active in the lambing season for most of his life. A great story about age, health, resilience, tradition... BUT she needs a bit more on her Crowdfunder to make sure she gets the cash! Can KILTR community help?

Even as an out-and-out independence supporter, but also on the Left generally, I'm getting a little anxious about some of the policy positions being taken by the SNP in order to "get the population over the line" of voting for a nation-state. This compromise on NATO membership is an acute case in point (never mind the Murdoch-courting). Anyone in KILTR community feel expert enough to comment on my Scotsman article here? Not my field, and I need help...

On the Scottish politics front, never mind Murdoch, Salmond and whoever, but I'm getting increasingly upset at the idea that an independent Scotland would automatically want to join a nuclear club like NATO, as recently floated in the press. I'm going to be writing a big piece opposing this for the mainstream press. But here's a very interesting document I've turfed up in research - http://rki.lt/I5Itel - a report on how it's possible to do "military conversion" from making nukes, subs and … warships, to more sustainable energy tech. We should at least consider the option in the arguments around independence.More

Just been told that Jane Street in Soho, where my hotel (The Jane Hotel) in New York is, features in one of my favourite Steely Dan songs, Shame About Me. With typical lovelornness, the line goes (from 2.26 below), "Thinking of a major Jane Street sunrise/The goddess on the fire escape was you" . I'm out for a walk now...

Time for some "wisdom of crowds" from you all... Here's my chair's notes for tonight's NY discussion on "The Future Is Niche: KILTR, the Scottish Diaspora, and the future of social networks". Have I missed out anything obvious? Let me know in comments.

CHAIR'S NOTES FOR KILTR NYC DISCUSSION EVENTS …

DIASPORA FACTS

215 million migrants around the world - 3% of the words population, a nation larger than Brazil

More Chinese people living outside China than French people living in France

22 million Indians scattered over the globe



SCOTTISH DIASPORA FACTS

20% of Scottish born population live outside scotland

70% of Scottish-born diaspora live in the rest of the UK (Same for many nations: 66% of Irish-born disapora live in UK, 83% of Canadian-born diaspora live in US)

90% of Scottish-born emigrants go to US, Australia, New Zealand as well as England and Wales - English speaking nations clearly preferred.

4.8 million people in the US census report they have Scottish ancestry (1.7% of US population). About 4.8 million in Canada too - together almost twice amount of Scottish-Americans as live in Scotland.

With all the dimensions of diaspora - including "affinity" Scots, as well as ancestral and emigrant - perhaps about 40 million in total representing the Scottish diaspora



NICHE NETWORKS

Instagram purchase by Facebook shows that there's a next evolution of social networks underway - represented by Pinterest, Foursquare, Quora, Instagram... and Kiltr!

- People feeling overwhelmed by Facebook, bored with their friends updates, confused by FB's constant attempts to maximise your interaction in order to serve advertisers better

- Some are now turning to social networks sites which allow them to express a particular interest or passion, alongside people who share that interest or passion precisely, and to do it in an appropriate way

- Curating an interesting collection of items - become more aware of the quality of one's digital profile for self-image or career

- Design and user experience important - particularly on mobile: Give me one thing to click, with impressive results

- To some extent, it's a return to the Web 1.0 world of forums/message boards. Those group of motorcycle or Star-Trek obsessives you joined - but with a much more visual orientation, increasingly better designed input tools and devices, and much more universal and powerful net access.

- Is disapora network the same as a niche network? Discuss...



DIASPORA NETWORKS

For diaspora, KILTR could exist in your media diet as the place to go to sample everything interesting and useful about Scotland - curating lifestyle, culture current affairs and business about the country, while also having access to jobs, investment and relocation opportunities.

Viadeo the French professional social network has built up 45 million users, has beach heads in China and Brazil, and just secured $32 million dollars funding - based on their "multi-local" approach, customising each site to the language, business and culture of its members.

How might a diaspora network relate to entrepreneurship?

- Indian diaspora been essential to the rise of India's tech sector - many Indians getting to the top of IT companies in late 80's - then set up networks like The Indus Entrepreneurs - 13,000 members in 12 countries. Indian tech disapora have helped with outsourcing endeavours, provided venture capital to start-ups in India. Govts and orgs in many other countries - Chile, New Zealand, Nigeria - have set up similar networks

- Very important is the home countries attitude to disaporas - do they encourage the entrepreneurs who leave the shores, take risks abroad? Does the home country celebrate success?

USAid paper on "Diaspora Entrepreneurship" says there are five levels of commitment to diaspora entrepreneurship from govt and orgs

- Networking

- Mentoring (EG, Global Scot - £30 million of business since launch - but exclusive and elite, not open to all, corporate heads and high net-worth individuals, membership a status indicator. Does it need to be more open than this?)

- Training

- Investment

- Venture capital and partnership

Read this as an inverse triangle - the most passive forms of support at the top of the list

Networking/Mentoring is clearly something that Kiltr is already doing, as a vigorous social network - people creating professional and occupational groups, finding other people with appropriate skills and talents for projects. Could investors, companies and governments use the Kiltr network to identify potential diaspora enterpreneurs?
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Some shots from a wander down Bleeker Street last night in NYC, getting set for tonight's Kiltr launch http://rki.lt/HwSi5L That strange contraption in the bookshop is a self-publishing machine.

Very strange to switch on C-Span for 5 minutes in my Jane Hotel cabin room and find George Bush launching his Bush Institute... he's like a bad b-movie actor version of himself

As someone who is at least 50% old media, it's sad to hear that good editors of Scottish newspapers - like John McLellan of The Scotsman - are being axed due to rising debts and falling circulation. I've been commissioned regularly by the Scotsman over the last few years (see my Thoughtland site www.thoughtland.info). At least in opinion-editorial, they take the country seriously. Poignant, as Kiltr prepares for its global launch in New York tonight...what's the new, more viable model for Scottish-oriented media?

To prepare you for our Kiltr global launch in New York tomorrow, here's four pieces from the Scotsman newspaper this week which talk strongly of Scotland's vibrant economic future. Main one is from Lena Wilson from Scottish Enterprise, but check out the others in the comment boxes.

In the departure lounge at Glasgow waiting for my New York flight to host the discussion at the KILTR launch... and I noticed exactly the kind of high-end tech success that we want to be shouting about in Scotland. Linn Products have entered into a deal with Universal to market their Studio Master sound format - 24 bits in each soundfile, and as endorsee Neil Young says, 'it's a relief that you feel when you finally hear music the way the artists and producers did when they created it in the studio.” Ambition and … excellence from a brilliant Scottish company. More

Google Glasses: like beer glasses, only for social media addicts. But will we want to be so mirrorshaded by information? The utterance of the word "Dude" in the promo video would turn you into an instant Luddite. But I'd like to try them, when they make them happen...

I tell you, it's a rare day I can out-hip my Skrillex-loving teenage weans... but here, I present to you Baconhead's FlyTraps. Taken from the free CD on the cover of the cosmically-up-itself Wire magazine. It sounds like a robot flagellating itself... which is a good thing?!?

Check this out as a Kinect hack. I particularly like the bit when he tweaks it to turn himself into the Honey Monster.

Interesting blog post from SXSW this year - the "New Aesthetic". Meaning, what's the world look like when you look from a machine perspective? Lots of pixellation, numbers on the screen?

A Very Important Infographic: density of Metal Bands maps almost directly to high levels of social and economic development. We need more metal in Scotland, clearly.

Ok, hold on to your lengthy habit, Mother Superior... Irvine Welsh is back with Skagboys, the pre-quel to Trainspotting, his iconic 1993 novel. Promo video is below, and it couldn't be cooler, with a rare Rod Stewart song as the soundtrack, and a chilling marionette star. Anyone else remember sitting on public transport in Glasgow, mid-nineties, and seeing every second person with Ecstasy (the book) on their lap?

I'm working for NESTA at the moment on a big project, but one of their predictions for 2012 - crowdfunding takes off - seems to be so far right on the money. I have pals coming to me to ask advice on how to do it. This Nesta blog http://rki.lt/GQLIG4 pointed me to a new law going through the US Houses which will formalise crowdsourcing - making it easier to solicit money, and offer a stake in the biz, via social media. Details being worked out... but something to keep an eye on for future Scottish legislative power?

Small note to the visiting lady Tory: What would put Scotland at MORE of a threat from international terror attacks is for our armed forces to be part of a UK military force, tagging along with every bit of non-UN-mandated American interventionism in the Middle-East and elsewhere. Never mind waters bristling with nuclear missiles. Independence, a la the Scandinavian nations, is much more likely to improve our image as peace-facilitators, in the more unstable parts of the planet. And thus IMPROVE our domestic security. Rant over.

Yes, we have a myth about the quality of Scottish education that doesn't always match up to reality. And yes, Curriculum For Excellence is demanding a lot of Scottish teachers. But before we start listening to voices that say we should move down a more uneven, entrepreneurial schools path - like England - maybe Scots should listen to what's happening in Finnish schools, consistently rated the best in the world.
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Diane Ravitch is a US educational reformer who looks enviously at the Finnish system - where teachers have high status and pay, very selective entrance standards, and rarely exam children in a system devoted to developing creativity and thinking skills. This is also a society with much greater levels of equality, and much lower levels of child poverty, than both Scotland and the US.

If we're going to globally benchmark ourselves against the best in an independent Scotland, it's sounds like - in education at least - we just have to be more ourselves, rather than anxiously looking over our shoulder at what's going on over the border.More

Typically brilliant review of the relationship between Fred Astaire and jazz in the New York Review of Books. Not very Scottish as a topic, but thinking of Fred Astaire makes me think of my Coatbridge dad (six years deceased on March 9th), who moved like greased lightning across the Glasgow dancefloors of the 50's and 60's. Also an excuse to show two things: Fred Astaire dancing (it's veritable hip-hop at the start), and a picture of fellow hoofer Gene Kelly, looking ineffably cool coming into Glasgow Central … station, in early 50's. C'est ca. More