Oakland Focus News | Oakland News Online Blog

Let’s face it: flirting, finding love and managing relationships have always been complicated, but with the involvement of countless forms of technology now impacting every little step of the way, the social rules of love and sex have only gotten more confusing. The role of tech in dating is a primary topic in psychotherapy sessions I conduct with young singles in the Bay Area of California- the world’s hub and backbone of tech culture. Part of my role as their clinical psychologist is to help them decode and navigate the emerging social rules of text, online dating and social media to help them achieve fulfilling relationships. I recently spoke with Tech Crunch journalist Sara Buhr , who was investigating dating trends among people immersed in the tech industry. Some of the questioned she asked of me were: How are the norms and expectations different? Are young men in tech less likely to follow traditional social rules of dating? How has the proclivity toward using dating websites ch...

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget! YouTube , Yahoo , MySpace , DailyMotion , Blip.tv , StupidVideos , Sclipo and Viddler Widgets are identified as the next hot "app" by many in the digital media industry, and from an upcoming video episode of "The Blog Report With Zennie62" created by Producer Sierra Choi, widgets were the talk of the Digital Hollywood conference in Santa Monica. But what are widgets? Why are they important? I recently had the pleasure of visting San Francisco-based Widgetbox.com . There, I talked with Ryan Spoon, the Vice President of Marketing for the company, a visit faciliated by my friend Steve Kloft, a Widgetbox consultant whom I call "The Legendary Steve Kloft" for his Internet marketing exploits. Our interview, captured in full in the video that accompanies this blog, was aimed for those who've never heard of "widgets" and don't know what they do. And after our tal...

First I take a stance on how backing up data is a personal responsibility and how Carbonite - a data protection company -- should take the rap for losing its customer's data, then I get comments on the San Francisco Blog about it, and from some high level folks, and now a press release?  Interesting.  It means our blogs matter in the tech world after all.  Here's the release I got on Promise Technology's news about an onsight parts replacement program: Promise  Announces New ServicePlus On-Site Parts Replacement Program for US and  Canada   Industry leading support program expands to include on-site component  swap offering MILPITAS, Calif., April  1, 2009 – Promise Technology Inc., a leading supplier of  sophisticated RAID storage solutions for enterprise and SMB customers,  today announced general availability of the Promise ServicePlus parts  replacement plan for their VTrak enterprise class RAID storage subsy...

More at Oakland Tribune : “Retaliation for a shooting two days earlier appears to be the motive for a shooting Friday in West Oakland in which one woman was killed and another wounded by someone who shot at them from a pickup truck, police said. The dead woman was identified as Giovanna Warren, 24, of Oakland. The name of the other woman, who was in critical but stable condition Saturday, was not released. Police said she was a 22-year-old Oakland resident.”

I attended the TeamPlay Foundation fundraising party held at Harry Denton's Starlight Room last Wednesday July 23, in San Francisco. The organization was founded by Erik Gunnar Counselman and Barron Davis, the latter the now-former star with the Golden State (Oakland) Warriors. The video presents Counselman's interview where he explains how the firm's trying to mate social networks and mentors and kids in need. The target region is East Oakland. Why have the event in San Francisco is a question for another time. But this event was to raise money for TeamPlay and present its new technology to the audience. For his part, Baron Davis, now with the Los Angeles Clippers, said that regardless of where he goes in the NBA, this -- the Bay Area -- will always be his home. He expressed his commitment to making the company work well.

I present my long form video documentary of the TechCrunch | August Capital Party held Friday, July 25th 2008 at August Capital and hosed by TechCrunch Co-Founder / Editor Michael Arrington. First, let me thank Michael for the opportunity to do this at his event, as well as the time he gave me. Second, let me thank all of you who gave me your time at the party, which was the vast majority of you. I set out to form a pattern of opinions on what the Democratic Party and Senator Obama should address on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. I also tried to give a view of what people were working on in the tech / web community. There's a lot here. But I also tried to make something fun to watch, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The video is 41 minutes long and some of the highlights: TechCrunch's Michael Arrington explaining that he hope Barack Obama sicks to his concern for "net neutrality" as well as his hope that issues regarding H1 Visas, the FC...

I created this "vlog" (video-blog) to deal with and talk about a problem I've had with certain friends. Perhaps you've had the same problem where some of your, in my case, friends who are White (or the reverse or generally interracial) don't give you proper "consideration" in your friendship, where consideration is a kind of contract that all friendships have -- a contract of basic expectations of treatment. In other words, while you call them, they don't call you, or if you are dealing with someone who's racist, they tell you that you "see racism" rather than coming to your aide. Or they are your friends as long as they're able to take advantage of you or get information from you, but when they get around their friends, you suddenly don't exist. I'd like to know your response to my video and your view. Thanks.

The San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group or "SF-BIG" asked me to make this video of their "Reach" event held March 20th, 2008 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. The topic was on what ad firms look for in digital ad talent and what advantage -- if any -- San Francisco has as a center of digital media. The panelists included Melinda Mettler (Academy of Art School of Advertising), Alyson Hyder (Avenue A | Razorfish); Bernie Albers (Federated Media); and David Greenwald, (i2iplacement). In all it was a great event and the breakfast was terrific.

In 2002, a former aide to The Mayor of Oakland met the head of the University of San Francisco Sport Management department to discuss stadium financing, and the need for a new stadium for the Oakland Baseball. In that meeting, USF Professor Dr. Dan Rascher, PhD, took note of Zenophon "Zennie" Abraham’s web-based simulation game The XFL Simworld, and said "I need that for my class." When Mr. Abraham finished his second simulator in late October 2002, the Oakland Baseball Simworld, he met again with Mr. Rascher, and Sports Business Simulations (SBS) was born. On January 24th of 2003, SBS became a Delaware Corporation, with seed capital, and based in Oakland. Now, SBS is about to turn five-years-old. SBS is the first company who's products are built around the Forio Macro Language (FML) programming language developed by San Francisco-based Forio Business Simulations. "Forio's partners, Michael Bean and Will Glass have been our friends and advisers over the...