Random Musings

My friends in Korea are doing an amazing job putting together the first pan-Asia web conference - Open Web Asia ‘08.  The speaker list looks great. The timing is perfect as many US web companies are clamoring to get into Asia and as Asian web companies are starting to eye the US market.

If you plan on being around Asia in October, I would say this is a must attend event.   Also, side note on the location - there is a casino there for you gambling VC types;)

this week i had the most annoying interaction with a company that sent us a DMCA takedown notice. this company had no idea how to handle the situation and is apparently completely unfamiliar with the idea of letting fans of their product be fans.

quick facts - a soompi member posted a message about a particular product they liked and hotlinked an image from the company’s website into their post. we subsequently received a notice to remove the image. however, the notice did not give us a specific url that contained the content on question. rather, the link provided in the takedown notice took us to an area on the site that contained over 4000 posts. when we replied saying we hare happy to comply, but inquired for further information so we could locate the content, we were told that it wasn’t their problem and that we should take down all 4000 posts if we could not find it or suffer the wrath of their lawyers. (i know, how cliché)

here are three simple tips to future DMCA takedown notice senders - just so we can all get along here.

1.  when fans of your product or your customers are writing positive things about your product - LET THEM! encourage your customers to tell their friends about your product.  they are your best marketing asset and they are a heap load more believable than your own marketing team.

2. if you are sending a takedown notice, provide a specific link that takes us to the content in question. do not send us on a wild hunt when you obviously know the appropriate url. the DMCA states that you should provide “information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.” so just send me a link that takes me directly to the content in question, not just a link that takes me to my website or some general portion on my website.

3. most websites are happy to comply with DMCA takedown notices, so be polite. do not start of the dialouge being rude and condescending. don’t try to bully. its just not necessary.  and related to this tip is my next point - don’t tell us all about what your big bad lawyers are telling you to do to us in an attempt to scare us. there is plenty of readily available information on the DMCA - we all know how this process works, so no need for huffing and puffing in an attempt to intimidate websites.

thanks. just wanted to get that off my chest.

it has been decided.  i will be going back to baan dada at the end of september.

a bit of background - i have always done a bit of volunteer work, trying to contribute where there was a need. i have worked on DNA exonerations for the Innocence Project, i have represented immigrant women who were victims of domestic violence at Sanctuary for Families and i’ve even done highway trash pickups (no, i wasn’t in trouble and doing community service!)

but nothing has touched me as much as my experience at baan dada.  maybe its the first world poverty versus third world poverty difference? maybe it was the loving and brilliant children at baan dada?  they are wise beyond their years due to their life experiences yet they keep their happiness and wear their hearts on their sleeve.  either way, they’ve got my support for life now.

why am i going back? because there is still so much work to be done. using the over $8000 we have raised thusfar, i will help with some of the building projects. i will send lots of pictures to show you all how much your donations have gone.  this is a real NGO doing real work.  no administrative overhead.  You donate $100 and we go buy concrete bricks to make walls the next week.

also, i will be working with the little boy you see in all my pictures and videos - puchada. he totally stole my heart and won’t give it back.  the schools there refuse to enroll him because of his vision issues, so i am going there with ted to work on a plan to get him in school. maybe there, maybe here.  either way, my #1 priority is to get puchada into school.  as an overeducated, ivy-league pedigreed nyc girl, it is completely unacceptable that a child as bright and inquisitive as puchada is rejected from elementary school.

so, if you want to help out, you can still donate to Baan Dada - buy some more bricks for me to move or you can put a child in school for a year! or you can donate in-kind.  i need monitors to bring to them because the monitors on the donated laptops are breaking, but i can at least rig a monitor to a laptop.  and if you have an old laptop (what, your macbook isnt the latest dual core! to donate, i will bring it.

thank you. i feel very lucky to have friends like you.

i think i need more rest.

if you are squimish, stop here.  right here.

2 Days later

UPDATE:  Thanks so much to the following donors so far! You guys are quick!

those of you who follow me on twitter, facebook or this blog know that i spent a good part of july on the thailand/burma border volunteering at an orphanage there that is home to many burmese refugee children and abandoned thai children.

i was expecting some pretty tough conditions there - after all, it is an orphanage. i spent my time teaching the children english, learning about their lives and wishing there was a functioning toilet (!) the time flew by faster than i expected. and on my last days there, i spent a lot of time wondering and worrying about their futures.  they are in a tough situation - undocumented in thailand, limited access to schooling and medical care, lack of enough indoor space for the children to sleep comfortably.  but if the children had not found a place in this home, then they could have likely ended up in sweatshops in thailand or the sex trade for some of the young girls. if they were sent back to burma, they could be killed or used as child land mine sweepers - a disgusting practice.

my experiences motivated me to commit myself to running my own fund raising campaign.  they are applying for grants for some of the educational and health programs which are potentially fundable. however most foundations will not fund capital campaigns - which means no money for building buildings and the kids are sleeping on the ground, all crowded together.

so here is my plan: i am going to use all my social media and social networking tools to raise $10,000. this money will be used for the expansion of their building.  i will be using facebook, twitter, google groups, wordpress, digg, etc to see if i can reach this goal.  here are my flickr pics from my trip if you want to see.

i have rebuilt their website on wordpress (so they can update it themselves) and rejiggered their paypal to they can give US donors charitable donation receipts - (side note: it was fun building my first website - if you see major mistakes, let me know). and now its ready for all the amazing donations that all you lovely web 2.0 people are about to send over!

DONATE TO BAAN DADA HERE!

i will regularly post updates on donations and donors here. so come on, be charitable and take a moment to give to some really great kids that really need our help. thank you!

List of Awesome People who Donated - Thank you so much!

• Sean Kelly of Dizzywood
• Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon
• Albert Lai of Kontagent
• Fred Hasani of Fortis General Counsel
• Hiten and Amee Shah of Kissmetrics
• Ted Grubb of Get Satisfaction
• Shinyoung Park of Funji
• David Prager of Revision 3
• Dave McClure of 500 Hats
• Bong Koh of ibeatyou.com
• Russ Simmons of yelp.com
• Helen Kang of Morrison Foerster
• Susan  Kang of SOOMPI.com
• Dae Kim
• Eliana Sur of AKQA
• Chris Han of Shearman & Sterling
• Matt and Jennifer Gaarder-Wang
• Kevin Kim of Flushing, NY
• Jonathan Grubb of Rubyred Labs
• Lane Becker of Get Satisfaction
• Mysterious anonymous and VERY generous donor from Seattle, WA ping me if its you so I can say thank you directly!!!
• Kevin Burton of Spinn3r
• Yishaun Chen
• Jared Kim of Wegame
• Brandon Dennis of Oxhorn Brand
• Robert Dang of Fortis General Counsel
• Jeff Tseng of Kontagent
• Stuart Orsak
• Gabe Vanrenen
• Greg Stein

8/7: We are at $2000 raised thus far! Amazing!

8/8: wowie, wowie:) $4222 as of today!

8/11: gosh, i really love you guys, i really do.  we are at $6300.

8/14: the grand total now stands at $6542:)  over 65% of the way to the goal in 1 week!!!

8/20: we are now at $7872! and i spoke with the folks at Baan Dada, they already bought bricks with the first batch of money sent over:) real bricks! not the mud ones that they used to make by hand and use for walls.  just over $2000 more dollars to go!

8/24: Yay! Over $1000 came in this week in donations. Total now stands at $8972. woot!

puchada so rocks my world:D and here is a link to my baan dada pics on flickr.

itinerary for the next few weeks.

Today - depart from LAX and fly to Bangkok (via layover in Taipei - nihao!)

2 days in Bangkok, showing my sisters around, saying hi to school friends, visiting amazing buddhist temples.

July 13 - bus to Kanchanaburi Provence, Sangkhlaburi will be the nearest town to Baan Dada, where we will be volunteering for 1 week. i will try to post as much as possible from there.

July 20 - bus back to Bangkok, then plane to Siem Reap where we will be checking out Angkor Wat for 2 days (i am SO ready to get all tomb raider out there;)

July 22 - head to Phnom Phen where we will check out some more historical sites (such as the Killing Fields museum) and we will be visiting a human trafficking victims’ shelter and colleagues of family friend Aaron Cohen aka “the slave hunter” (amazing human rights activist).

July 24 - back to the US.

Phew, that is an action packed schedule.

i have been a bit lackadaisical about my blog updating.  BUT i just got a shiny new xacti hd-1000:D  (thanks to my bro jared kim for the early birthday present!) woot!

so, over the next few weeks, i will try something different. i’m going to try to do short video blog posts instead and hopefully that will be even more interesting than my written ramblings. i am going to start shooting tomorrow and with the holiday weekend right around the corner, hopefully i will have some good posts all weekend. in the plans: fireworks celebrations with the wegame crew; rock climbing; and a bowling trip!

i haven’t been caught on video since the end of the gigaom show - so hopefully i didn’t forget all the good stuff that i learned from revision3!

next month i will be heading to the burma/thailand border with my sisters to go volunteer at an orphanage.  baan dada is a small orphanage that houses a little over 50 children.  you can read more about them on their website and in the blogs of some past volunteers - here and here. many of the children at this particular orphanage are not ethnically thai. they are of the karen ethinic group, which is a minority group in burma.  the karen people fled political persecution in burma and now live in refugee camps on the thai side of the burma-thai border.  these children are not considered thai citizens and are not given full legal rights in thailand - as one of the bloggers above put it, they are “invisible.”

since i have not yet been there, i cannot speak specifically to the current state. but reading about other volunteers’ experiences scattered across so many personal blogs and websites, i am able to get a good sense of the community they have built and the good work they are doing.  while i am there, i think we will be helping care for the kids, teach some english and art classes, help with smaller building projects, etc.

i will try to keep everyone updated on my journey and experiences out there. i am trying to organize some supplies for the trip - the dada who runs the home has asked for money for supplies for the kids (supplies are cheaper for them to buy in thailand), medical supplies and computers.  i told him computers i can definitely help with!  if anyone wants to donate to these kids, or maybe has a connection at a big computer hardware company (dell, you out there?!?!?!), then please contact me. i would be happy to bring things over there.

i went to owens river gorge this weekend with a massive group of people for 3 days of camping and climbing.  was lots of fun, but there was this freak snow storm in mammoth this weekend which we got momentarily caught in.

this was the campsite (horton creek):

this is me walking around the gorge - can you see me?:

this is ted climbing a giant rock: