I really like Office 10. Looks great, doesn’t it? Lots of new features. And it even works well on the web.

But it is doomed to be kept out of my toolbag.

I realized that when Yong Ming Guang, CEO of Socialwok, showed me his new collaborative toolset today.

How will Microsoft Office be locked out?

Mobile phones.

“But, Scoble, Microsoft Office has made a deal with Nokia.”

OK, name one geek in your circle that still uses a Nokia phone. I can’t and it doesn’t look like the new Nokias will get me anytime soon. Certainly not with Palm Pre phones selling for under $100 and Android phones coming on big time with developers that I talk with (you do note, don’t you, that Guang is holding an Android phone in the picture above).

So, why won’t Microsoft Office be able to ship on iPhone and Android and Palm Pre and Blackberry?

Well, they might be able to, but the versions they showed me so far are pretty heavyweight. IE, they load slow and on mobile phones that’s death. Google’s spreadsheet, on the other hand, is made for the mobile web and opens fast.

Also, Microsoft Office 10 isn’t shipping yet. You’ll notice that developers like Yong Ming Guang is showing off their systems now. What’s the chances that they’ll rip out the functionality they built using Google’s APIs and put in some unproven Microsoft APIs? Let’s just say it’s between 0 and 0.

“But, Scoble, it doesn’t matter, don’t you realize that everyone in the world is forced to use Microsoft Office anyway?”

That isn’t true and over the next five years is going to be less and less true.

If I asked at a conference five years ago, even an early adopter geek conference, how many people used Microsoft Office, lots of hands would go up.

Today? Very few hands go up whenever I ask that question.

By the way, what does SocialWok do? It is a new collaborative feed tool built around Google’s applications. Think about it as Facebook for your workgroup.

I thought it was lame the first minute, but after digging into it I’m pretty convinced that it, or something like it, will change how we work.

Why?

Because of mobile phones. Three years ago I used to carry my laptop everywhere. Now? I only carry my iPhone. It’s amazing how much work I can get done with it.

That will have a deep impact on the tools we choose for work.

And, I’m noticing even the geekiest geek in Silicon Valley is the same way. We’re switching our usage patterns away from desktop and laptop computers and toward our iPhones.

Why did Guang choose Google’s apps? Well, because of the atomicity of Google’s APIs. They can build a new kind of feed based on Google’s apps, which isn’t possible using Microsoft’s Office. Also, because 15 million people are using Google’s apps (according to Guang) he sees there’s a ready audience of people who would use his system today. Because Office 10 isn’t out yet, he won’t bet his business around an audience that might show up “someday.”

Also, Google has provided Socialwok with the infrastructure so he can build his company without spending much, if any, money (SocialWok is built on top of Google’s App Engine and could be easily moved over to other cloud-based infrastructures like Rackspace’s Cloud or Amazon’s Cloud if needed)

That has deep impact on the choices that developers like SocialWok are making.

Microsoft Office just isn’t part of this new world. That should scare the hell out of Steve Ballmer. No wonder why he gets so mad at people who bring iPhones to work there!

This started out as a photowalk. Meet at a pumpkin place in Half Moon Bay. Shoot some pictures. Have some fun. Eat some pumpkin pie. Thomas Hawk and I did that a couple of years ago and it was most fun.

But now times are different. We all have a camera in our pockets. For a good number of geeks it’s an iPhone.

I’m inspired by professional photographer Chase Jarvis who last week released the hottest iPhone app for photos out there. He calls it “the Best Camera” because the best camera you have is the one you have with you.

Mix that with a recent dinner I had with Steve Rubel where he showed me a ton of cool iPhone apps on his iPhone. Ones I never heard of or considered using. Because the iPhone has 60,000 apps on it finding new ones that you’ve never heard of is a pretty easy thing. And hearing about them from your friends is the best way to find new apps. I find that if I hear about an app from a friend I’m about 100x more likely to use it and keep using it. Peer pressure is strong!

So, why don’t we mix these two experiences together?

That’s what we’re doing Thursday afternoon. We’re meeting at Pastorino Farms (Google Map) in Half Moon Bay at 4 p.m. to just after sunset (around 7 p.m.) Two kinds of people are welcome: iPhone enthusiasts and photographers (any kind of photographer). If you can’t find us, call my cell phone at +1-425-205-1921.

Who will be there? Chase Jarvis will be there. I’ll be there. Who else? I’m working on some other big names from the iPhone and photography worlds. Fred Davis, cofounder of Wired Magazine will be there, for instance. It’s free. I’ll bring my favorite app and I’ll even have the cool appsfire working by then so you can see what other famous geeks are using on their iPhones (and see reviews and such).

See you there!

By the way, that photo is one I made yesterday with Chase Jarvis’ iPhone app. The other photos I made with my iPhone and his app are here.

OK, so when Twitter came out with its Suggested User List I went through a bunch of emotions. Hatred. Jealousy. Self loathing. Blaming. Anger. Denial. All that kind of stuff. I have lashed out at it over the last few months here and there. Pissing off Tim O’Reilly and Veronica Belmont and a whole raft of other people. After all, I had more followers than any of my friends did before this list came along and now they all have millions of unearned followers that were gifted to them by winning a lottery called “the Suggested User List.” Also known as the “SUL.”

But the other day I heard Tony Robbins give a great speech at the Twitter Conference (the recording will be up soon, I hear, it will be a must watch) but he pointed out that looking at the world that way is destructive.

So, I went back to a talk that Jim Fawcette gave at one of our offsites back in the 1990s (he ran the magazine company that gave me my first job out of college). In that slide deck he pointed out that there were two kinds of people: those who viewed a half-full cup as half empty and those who looked at it as half full.

For most of 2009 I’ve been the half empty kind of guy when it came to the SUL.

Today, I thought I’d turn it around and look at it as half full.

First, lots of people are asking what the Suggested User List (aka SUL) is. That’s Twitter’s list of people it recommends to new users when they sign up for Twitter. Here’s Twitter’s own blog about what the list is and what it’s supposed to do and how it’s chosen (I don’t believe that the definition is given is right, but we’ll go with it). It has a few hundred people on it. How can you tell someone is on the Suggested User List? Well, if they have more than 150,000 followers they almost certainly are on the SUL because that’s the only way I’ve seen someone legitimately get that many followers. Oprah being the most famous example.

So, last night, I took a different tactic — a glass is half full one — where I went looking for really cool people who are NOT on the suggested user list. I Twittered a bunch, here’s the list, hope this helps you find some more people to follow. Please do share your own list in comments here, or on your own Twitter account.

These are in no particular order. Hope you enjoy!

Twitter’s founders @ev (Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO and cofounder) @biz (Biz Stone, Twitter’s CEO) ARE ON the SUL (you can tell, they have more than a million followers). @dom (Dom Sagolla, Twitter co-creator and author of @thebook and co-founder of iPhone Dev Camp) is not (he was the eighth user of Twitter and one of the original team). @noah was one of two guys who came up with the idea, as the story goes, for Twitter and even he isn’t on the Suggested User List.

CNN’s @AmanpourCNN (Christiane Amanpour) is the best journalist on CNN and she can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List.

@OndiTimoner (Ondi Timoner) is the only movie director to win the Sundance Film Festival TWICE and she can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List (her movie “We Live in Public” is an awesome movie about the New York Internet Scene in the late 1990s and what happens when one group of people decides to live online 24/7).

@zefrank (Ze Frank) is funnier than anyone on the SUL but still isn’t on it. His videos on Time.com are must watch videos!

@Pierre (Pierre Omidyar) started eBay but can’t get into the Twitter Suggested User List. Of course Steve Case @stevecase started AOL but he can’t get on either (and he even gave a talk at Twitter’s headquarters a couple of weeks ago).

@OSTRICK (Marc Ostrick) did Obama’s campaign video and can’t get on the SUL.

@Zephoria (danah boyd, social media scholar) isn’t on it and she’s keynoting @sxsw next year that’s where Twitter got hot. Heck, @missrogue (Tara Hunt) wrote a book on how companies can increase their Whuffie and she isn’t on it.

You can write lyrics for the Grateful Dead, like @johnperrybarlow did (he also co-founded EFF), but that won’t get you on the SUL.

@paulocoelho (Paulo Coelho) wrote some of the most popular (and best) books ever and can’t get on Twitter’s SUL.

You can run camera for NBC at the White House, be on first-name basis with Obama, like @newmediajim (Jim Long) does, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can blog under government oppression like Isaac Mao does in China @isaac but that won’t get you on the SUL.

@IBMResearch invented the hard drive (among other things) and can’t get on Twitter’s SUL.

You can start Creative Commons like @lessig (Larry Lessig) did (he also argued a case in front of the US Supreme Court), but that won’t get you on the SUL.

@liamcasey (Liam Casey) makes lots of stuff you use in his supply chain company in China (you would be shocked), but isn’t on the SUL.

You can teach and make one of the most popular web 2.0/social media videos of all time (watched more than 10 million times), like @mwesch (Michael Wesch) did, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

There is 100x more smarts at MIT’s @medialab than most other places but they can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List.

My favorite recommendation site @yelp finds me lots of great places to eat but can’t get on Twitter’s SUL.

The coolest blog in the world @BoingBoing can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List, but then neither can @Lifehacker.

Every geek who uses @GogoInflight raves about it (wifi in airplanes) but they can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List.

@mattcutts (Matt Cutts) is Google’s best blogger and even he can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List.

@rsarver (Ryan Sarver) runs Twitter’s API team and he can’t get on Twitter’s Suggested User List but at least he probably has lots of Twitter stock options to make up for it.

You can run the Rhode Island School of Design like @johnmaeda (John Maeda) does but that won’t get you on the SUL.

@bramcohen invented Bittorrent and he can’t get on the SUL. @mcuban owns Dallas Mavericks and HDNet and can’t get on.

@scottgu (Scott Guthrie), who runs developer tools at Microsoft and is one of the smartest people I interviewed while I worked there, is not on the SUL.

Tim Bray, who is one of the authors of XML, is not on the SUL.

You can create Ask a Ninja like @kentnichols but the Ninjas can’t beat their way onto the SUL.

You can be a grammy nominated musician, like Peter Himmelman @furiousworld (great show, by the way to watch on Tuesday nights) but you won’t get on the SUL.

You can be a former rock star turned physicist who works at CERN and now is a famous face on the BBC, like Brian Cox @profBrianCox, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be President at the world’s largest hosting company, Rackspace, like Lew Moorman is @lewmoorman, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can know more people in the tech industry than anyone else, like Buzz Bruggeman, @buzzmodo, CEO of Activewords does, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be CEO of a big and important technology research firm, like George Colony @gcolony is of Forrester Research but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be the chief marketing officer of one of the largest retailers in the world, like Barry Judge, @BestBuyCMO, CMO for BestBuy, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can publish Global Voices online, one of the most important blogs I read like @EthanZ (Ethan Zuckerman) and @Rmack (Rebecca MacKinnon) do but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be a Republican Congressman from Texas who does videos from the floor of the House of Representatives, like John Culberson @johnculberson does, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be a conference where Bill Gates releases mosquitos, like @tedtalks did, on stage, but that doesn’t mean you will get on the SUL.

You can invent the wiki like @WardCunningham (Ward Cunningham) did but you won’t get on the SUL.

You can invent a lot of what made blogging possible, like Dave Winer @davewiner did, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can invest in Twitter, like Fred Wilson @fredwilson did, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can say Office and RSS and Comments are dead, like Steve Gillmor @stevegillmor has over the years, but that won’t get you on the SUL. Maybe the SUL is trying to tell Gillmor something? 🙂

You can draw funny little cartoons on the backs of business cards, like Hugh Macleod @gapingvoid does (he also did the SXSW bags last year, and all the Techcrunch posters, among other things) but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be one of the best-known people in Tel Aviv, Israel, like Orli Yakuel @Orli is, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be one of Silicon Valley’s best and nicest investors, like Jeff Clavier is @jeff, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can run the Demo conference for more than 10 years, like Chris Shipley @cshipley did, where tons of famous companies have launched, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can say markets are conversations and co-write one of the most important business books of the past 20 years like Doc Searls @dsearls did but the SUL won’t let you onto it.

You can come up with the commercial web browser and do lots of other interesting things in technology but that won’t get Marc Andreessen @pmarcablog into the SUL.

You can hire three people to help you Tweet, like Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki does (he has the most organically-grown Twitter followers that I know of), but that won’t help you get onto the SUL.

You can be the one who gets Scoble on FriendFeed, like Louis Gray is (and continues to find cool new social media startups before I do) @louisgray but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be a great photographer like Chase Jarvis @chasejarvis (who also has the coolest iPhone photo app out, released this week), Kris Krug @kk, or Thomas Hawk @thomashawk are, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be ultra cool robot maker @bre (Bre Petis) but you can’t get on the SUL (he founded MakerBot, which makes robots that make things). Neither can the smart people at @carnegiemellon (Carnegie Mellon University, which has one of the best robotics departments in the world).

You can teach everyone to make a mean cocktail like @drinkboy (Robert Hess) does (he also owns the Museum of the American Cocktail) but he can’t get on the SUL. He also is one of the smartest people at Microsoft and his team makes and evangelizes lots of bleeding-edge developer-focused stuff.

You can invent the spreadsheet, and co-found VisiCalc like @BobFrankston (Bob Frankston) and @danb (Dan Bricklin) did but you can’t get on the SUL.

Want a tour of Alcatraz? @rangercraig (Craig Glassner) does that every day to tons of tourists but can’t get on the SUL. He should lock Twitter co-founder @biz (Biz Stone) up! 🙂

I blame Drew’s cancer that @drew (Drew Olanoff) isn’t on the SUL (he recently learned he had cancer and instead of letting cancer win, has started a movement with the hashtag #blamedrewscancer and has raised tons of money and awareness for organizations fighting cancer.

The @gatesfoundation (Bill and Melinda Gates and team) is making millions of people’s lives better but can’t get onto the SUL. Neither can most other charities/nonprofits.

If @facebook (Twitter’s top competitor, according to @ev Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter) got on Twitter’s SUL that would be funny! But imagine a world where Twitter gets that confident!

You can be a “sir” and one of the best speakers ever like @SirKenRobinson (Ken Robinson) but he can’t get on the SUL. (Look for his videos on Google, I especially like the one about how schools kill creativity).

The best writer at Fast Company magazine @ellmcgirt (Ellen McGirt, who has done cover articles on tons of interesting executives and causes) can’t get on the SUL.

He might be a key player in the HTML 5.0 spec, but @diveintomark (Mark Pilgrim) isn’t on the SUL.

Bob Cringely @cringely was one of first Apple employees, works for PBS, is one of smartest people I know, is building moon rockets, and can’t get on SUL.

Patrick Scoble @pscoble (Patrick Scoble) is my son and can’t get on the SUL, neither can my wife, @maryamie (Maryam Scoble).

@euan (Euan Semple) who worked in a senior position for the BBC is not on the SUL. Nor @charleneli or @jowyang who are great social media analysts.

Everyone I know in tech industry reads @techmeme but that can’t get onto the SUL (great tech news from blogs). Of course, the guy who invented Techmeme, Gabe Rivera @gaberivera, can’t get on the SUL either.

@Sequoia_Capital has more money than @god but can’t get on SUL. Neither can any other VC I can find.

This guy @tedr (Ted Rheingold) steps in dog poop so you don’t have to (he runs Dogster.com, which is very popular with dog owners) but can’t get on SUL.

Running Salesforce.com and getting the world to believe in cloud computing won’t get @MarcBenioff (Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s CEO) on the SUL.

If you read the “TwitterGate” papers that @techcrunch published you probably understand why @marissamayer (Marissa Mayer, Google VP) isn’t on the SUL. (The TwitterGate papers revealed that the Twitter team didn’t like her approach with them). Oh, and TechCrunch got kicked off of the SUL shortly after these were published and @arrington, who founded TechCrunch, has never been on the SUL.

Neither is @myspace.

@megnut (Meg Hourihan) was one of the cofounders of Blogger with @ev and she can’t get on the SUL. Neither can @LisaStone (LIsaStone) one of Blogher cofounders (famous blog and conference for women). In fact, none of the BlogHer cofounders, including @jorydj (Jory Des Jardins) and @ElisaC (Elisa Camahort) are on the SUL.

You can, like Shel Israel @shelisrael, co-author a book with me, write one of the best books about Twitter (Twitterville) and still not get on the SUL.

@kodakCB (Kodak’s chief blogger, Jennifer Cisney) has a better video camera (the Zi8) than the Flip and @stevegarfield (video blogging expert Steve Garfield) says so but neither can get on the SUL.

One of the most powerful women in Silicon Valley @tseelig (Tina Seelig) who runs entrepreneur program at Stanford University isn’t on the SUL.

@apatzer (Aaron Patzer) won techcrunch conference award two years ago and sold Mint.com for a Mint but can’t buy his way onto SUL.

MySpace might have just synced up with Twitter but @danidudeck who runs PR at MySpace isn’t on the SUL.

You can start Europe’s coolest music app (will be huge here too) called Spotify like Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) did but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can be a great designer, even one who works at Twitter, like @stop (Douglas Bowman) or one who doesn’t @veen (Jeffrey Veen) @zeldman (Jeffrey Zeldman) or @AvantGame (Jane McGonigal) but they can’t get on the SUL.

Some people believe Twitter is killing @googlereader but it cant get on the SUL. @bing is not Google and also isn’t SUL.

You can be the one who really made Twitter popular, like @leolaporte Leo Laporte did, but talking on his technology radio shows and on his podcast network about Twitter (which made it popular at @sxsw in 2007) but that won’t get you on the SUL.

@CERN started the web, might discover the meaning of life, or destroy the earth, depending on who you believe and is not on the SUL.

The NYTimes Tech team @nytimestech isn’t on the SUL. Neither is @huffingtonpost or @ariannahuff (very lame not to have them on it, after all, they have a seat at the White House but don’t have a slot on the SUL).

@nicknotned (Nick Denton) started Gawker, one of the most successful blog companies around, and he’s not on the SUL.

Hah @Microsoft isn’t on the SUL. But @Google is. @Yahoo ? Nope. @Oracle? Nope. @apple (doesn’t even Tweet!) @dell ? Nope. @hpnews ?Nope.

You can write the best gadget blogs in the business but you can’t get on the SUL: @engadget @gdgt @gizmodo @gearlive

@savitz (Eric Savitz) covers tech for Barrons and isn’t on SUL.

You can be CTO of Amazon like @werner (Werner Voegels) is but that won’t get you on the SUL.

The geeky and good @hackernewsbot (my favorite geek news after @techcrunch and @techmeme) isn’t on the SUL.

A great follow @MichaelHyatt (Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers) publishes more bibles than anyone and he can’t get on the SUL. @god isn’t either. @RickWarren (Rick Warren, who runs one of USA’s biggest independent churches, and did Obama’s innvocation) isn’t either.

You can start one of the top three most popular websites, like Craig Newmark @craignewmark, did (Craig’s List) but that won’t get you onto the SUL.

You can sell more than five million records as a rapper, like @Chamillionaire has, but that won’t get you on the SUL.

You can start Apple, be one of the only people alive on earth who has designed and built their own computer from scratch, not to mention be a damn nice guy, like Steve Wozniak is @stevewoz, but you won’t get onto the SUL.

Anyway, I could keep going. There are hundreds of thousands of interesting people who aren’t on the SUL. I personally wish that Twitter would just get rid of it.

It is causing Twitter’s engagement scores to go down and I believe that this has been one of the reasons that Twitter’s usage scores have started to go down.

See, if you slap your community in the face with something that isn’t merit based then people lose interest in your service and go elsewhere.

How to fix this? Get rid of the list altogether. Turn off follower counts for everyone and come up with a new “engagement score” that is more focused on how you use Twitter and how people engage with you. That’s more important anyway than how many followers you have, especially since so many followers are lurkers at best or bots and spammers at worst.

It’s time to change the game Twitter. Or leave the door open to Facebook.

Oh, and only one person I know of has turned down being on the Suggested User List. That’s NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen.

Update: my real “SUL” (Scoble’s User List) is the 3,267 people/brands/objects I’m following (which include all these stars and many other innovative people). Follow me @scobleizer and then troll through the list of people I’m following.