Daily updates on what I’m reading

• The FASTForward Blog » Enterprise 2.0 Adoption Research from Cecile Demailly: Commentary by Bill Ives – CLIP: The report suggests that, “communicating externally about the internal change may help to change the mindsets internally.” This is an interesting idea. Those that have been successful in enterprise 2.0 are by definition early adopters who often like to promote their efforts in the external world. This external promotion will indicate the importance of the transformation, as well as potentially provide more pride within the workplace.Finally, it added that it helps when “new educational modes: mentoring and collaborative learning, structured or unstructured, when the community takes care of improving each one’s participation.” I have always found that collaborative peer learning produces the best results. Enterprise 2.0 tools now allow for this peer learning to be more effective. For example, I have seen several instances where switching to blogs in the learning platform dramatically increased results.
• A Work in Progress: How technology is shaping the way we tell stories – AustinChronicle.com – CLIP: “Like prior moments of rapid media development – script to movable type & the proliferation of books & other printed matter, to the invention of radio, cinema, & then TV – there has always been a “the sky is falling” response along with the flush of excitement at the brave new world the new medium ushers in. And yet, there is something particularly notable about the digital age that makes many media watchers pause. “What we saw in the past was an exploration of new ways to tell stories by both authors & readers,” Carr said, referring to prior new media waves. “It worries me that we don’t see the new influx in narrative. Every new medium exposed opportunities for storytelling. Why is this important new electronic medium not conducive to narrative?” & CLIP: “She agrees that as “people become fatigued with the peppering of information,” the presentation & consumption of story that requires time & attention will have a place again. How stories will be consumed is what will change.”

• Why location based apps are getting traction on the increasingly mobile web – CLIPS: “If Twitter’s raison d’etre is “what are you doing?”, then location based social network apps like Gowalla and Foursquare refine that to “where are you doing it?” And as SXSWi fast approaches, people like Robert Scoble are dubbing this years’ web-geek spring break “the location based SXSW”” and “When Twitter first began to percolate up in the public lexicon, many thought it was dumb, and back in 2006, I was a skeptic as well. I’m operating under the premise that if you’re reading this, you don’t doubt Twitter’s importance. But now, why check in throughout the day and share the geographic details of your travels with your various social networks? What precisely is the point? Still somewhat dubious myself, I polled my Twitter network. How important are place based networks like foursquare and gowalla to businesses and users? What are their impact on the social web? Are they moving the dial? …… What unfolds is a tale of risk, reward, and redemption.”

• The Future of the Internet IV | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project – CLIP: “A survey of nearly 900 Internet stakeholders reveals fascinating new perspectives on the way the Internet is affecting human intelligence and the ways that information is being shared and rendered. The web-based survey gathered opinions from prominent scientists, business leaders, consultants, writers and technology developers. It is the fourth in a series of Internet expert studies conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. In this report, we cover experts’ thoughts on the following issues:
  * Will Google make us stupid?
  * Will the internet enhance or detract from reading, writing, and rendering of knowledge?
  * Is the next wave of innovation in technology, gadgets, and applications pretty clear now, or will the most interesting developments between now and 2020 come “out of the blue”?
  * Will the end-to-end principle of the internet still prevail in 10 years …… “

• DICE 2010: “Design Outside the Box” Presentation Videos – G4tv.com – Great talk by Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell at DICE2010. Particularly like his take on the psychology behind reality vs fantasy – and how reality is sneaking up on us!

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• The Social Media Expert Crisis Descends – "If you’ve gotten 200 followers for your corporate Twitter account in Sydney, and sent out 20 tweets, that’s now ample qualification that you are a social media expert. I spoke to someone recently who works in IT but consults to some of Australia’s largest brands on social media; mostly from the tech/ implementation aspect. The stories he told me turned my hair grey…well, more grey. Companies that think less than 100 mentions in a month is a social media success, because their marketing/ PR ppl told them. Companies who are reluctant to tweet, but want to have a social media strategy without Twitter. Australia is suffering from a major outbreak of social media experts, and it is and will damage the whole space. The problem, as I wrote in August, comes back to trust. There is little to no trust in every man and his dog who uses twitter in PR/ Marketing claiming to be an expert. There is zero trust in those who have never really practiced in the space, or have only done so 5 minutes …"
• 35 Great Social Media Infographics | pamorama – Here’s a collection of terrific social media infographics that might come in handy. As you probably know, infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge. They illustrate information that would be unwieldy in text form and they act as a kind of visual shorthand, making information easy to understand and consume. They are driven by the same information as charts, but they’re often a better form of communication because of their pleasant aesthetics — charts and graphs can communicate data, but infographics turn data into information.<br />
  <br />
  It’s very helpful to use infographics in presentations, reports, articles, etc., to convey concepts. Instead of poring over figures and long reports to decipher data, an infographic can immediately explain what the data actually means.<br />
  <br />
  Most of these have been scaled down or cropped. Each one has been linked to the original, so please visit the links to view them full-size.

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Time to Rewrite the Brand Playbook for Digital – Advertising Age – CMO Strategy – CLIP: " .. a lot of marketing professionals also tend to forget that brands have always been the products of their media. When there was only print, logos were important. With radio, slogans (in jingles) took center stage. With TV, it became all about brand image communicated through the 30-second spot. Simply put, branding strategies have always been connected to specific media technologies.<br />
  <br />
  Change this technology, and the rules of branding crumble. That's why we need to stop asking the wrong questions.<br />
  <br />
  First wrong question: How to use digital tools to build brands?<br />
  <br />
  This reveals that we are still dealing with the strategy vs. implementation dilemma. The question should be: How can digital tools challenge what we call the brand? Instead of simply wondering whether we should spend more time and effort on developing strategy or focusing on implementation, our challenge is to address branding online simultaneously as behavior and technology."

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• The net generation, unplugged | The Economist – CLIP: "Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical, saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population.<br />
  <br />
  Writing in the British Journal of Education Technology in 2008, a group of academics led by Sue Bennett of the University of Wollongong set out to debunk the whole idea of digital natives, arguing that there may be “as much variation within the digital native generation as between the generations”. They caution that the idea of a new generation that learns in a different way might actually be counterproductive in education….."

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Putting people first » Internet on mobiles: evolution of usability and user experience. PhD dissertation. – Overview and Article Downloaded. http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2009/isbn9789522481900/article11.pdf and http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2009/isbn9789522481900/<br />
  <br />
  <br />
  Clip: "Anne Kaikkonen, a UI product manager at Nokia, recently presented her doctoral dissertation on the usability and user experience of the mobile internet. Internet on Mobiles: Evolution of Usability and User Experience (pdf)<br />
  Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy presented at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on 11 December 2009. …. This dissertation has its focus in the area of human-computer interaction research and practices. The overall goal of my research has been to improve the usability and the user experience of mobile Internet services. My research has sought answers to questions relevant in service development process. Questions have varied during the years, the main question being: How to design and create mobile Internet services that people can use and want to use?"

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• random thoughts on being an entrepreneur | @gapingvoid – Some of my favourites:
  7. People buy your product because it helps fill in the narrative gaps in their lives.
  5. In a world of over-supply and commodification, you are no longer paid to supply. You’re being paid to deliver something else. What that is exactly, is not always obvious.
  11. If an average guy in a bar can understand what you do for a living, chances are you’re halfway to becoming a commodity.
  16. People will always, always be in the market for a story that resonates with them. Your product will either have this quality or it won’t. If your product fails this test, quit your job and go find something else. Just making the product incrementally cheaper or better won’t help you.
  21. In terms of becoming an entrepreneur, probably the most useful thing I learned in the last twenty years was how to enjoy my own company for long stretches of time.

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Best Connected Individuals Are Not the Most Influential Spreaders in Social Networks – CLIPS: "…. the importance of hubs may have been overstated, say Kitsak and pals. "In contrast to common belief, the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the best connected people or to the most central people," they say.

  At first glance this seems somewhat counter intuitive but on reflection it makes perfect sense. Kitsak and co point out that there are various scenarios in which well connected hubs have little influence over the spread of information. "For example, if a hub exists at the end of a branch at the periphery of a network, it will have a minimal impact in the spreading process through the core of the network."

  By contrast, "a less connected person who is strategically placed in the core of the network will have a significant effect that leads to dissemination through a large fraction of the population." The question then is how to find these influential individuals."

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Calling non-USA based women activists – CLIP: "Today I'm proud to announce the BlogHer 2010 International Activist Scholarship Program. Here's how it works: If you or someone you know is a woman blogger, outside the United States, blogging to raise awareness, consciousness or funding to change their community, region, country or the world, then please nominate yourself or such a blogger to win one of these four scholarships.

  Scholarship Winners Will Receive:

  * A full 2-day conference pass to BlogHer '10
  * Round trip airfare to and from New York, NY for the BlogHer '10 annual conference
  * 2 nights stay at the New York Hilton during the conference
  * The opportunity to present their work during a prominently-scheduled session at BlogHer '10

  The Criteria:

  If you review the nomination form, you'll see that we're asking you to describe not only the mission of the blog/blogger and how they are effecting change, but also how they could benefit from their BlogHer experience."

Final hiccups solved!  Ever since I upgraded to Snow Leopard, I’ve been struggling to get my netconnect broadband modem to work as well as it previously did.  I’ve blogged about my initial hiccups, where I thought I’d found a great solution.  Well it worked, but my speeds have been abysmal.  Called Reliance service guys – they couldn’t find a fix – and asked me to locate a driver at the Apple India – and there was none of course. It’s been a few months now – small mercies that this is just my travel mate, and not my main connection.

I finally figured it out. With help from someone called Guru who suggested:

So I inserted the modem, opened the folder in finder, right-clicked on the blue Reliance Netconnect icon, got into Package Contents, clicked Resources and there it was.

Installed it. Found the Reliance Netconnect icon in my Applications folder, opened it and sure enough, found my setting was set by default to the lowly High Speed Internet and not Broadband.  Changed that to Broadband + and voila – problem solved

Here’s the fix again:

Do not try to install the mobile connect application. Insert Modem, right click icon in Finder, click Show Package Contents, go to Resources and then install the file mobile_connect_drv_app.pkg.

Thank you, Guru – whoever you are!

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• A New Mobile Radar concept from Nokia Research Centre | via @tsuvik – Make sure you check out the video too! CLIP: "Nokia Research Center (NRC) Helsinki today unveiled a new research concept at “Demo House 2010″ research exhibition in Espoo, Finland. The mobile radar demonstration shows how a mobile device can use an active radar sensor to measure speed, its distance and the direction of movement of approaching objects, similiar to the traditional RADAR. It uses electromagnetic waves to provide a different type of mobile wireless sensing."

  This research concept could enable new ways for users to interact with their device, for example via gesture control. It also opens the door for the creation of radar based applications which could be used in sport, for entertainment or personal safety.

• The Elevator Pitch for Enterprise 2.0 – ReadWriteEnterprise – Enterprise 2.0 Elevator Pitches to different levels in a company – CEO, Head of HR, CIO, Middle Managers, Experts. Original post here – http://www.techiteasy.org/2010/01/25/five-elevator-pitches-for-enterprise-2-0-adoption/ – CLIP: "We have not been writing too much as of late about Enterprise 2.0. Perhaps that's in part because it seems like the phrase is getting a bit tired.Perhaps also it is because it feels like so much of the discussion centers around the technology that Enterprise 2.0 is all about. In any case, we found this post on Tech IT Easy. It goes through five elevator pitches to make for Enterprise 2.0. It's a telling post. While it seems like Enterprise 2.0 is becoming widely adopted, there is still a struggle for how to explain what it means and how to pitch the concept to executive management, middle managers and the people who may find the technology valuable for their work".

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Mattel takes innovation to the dogs with its Puppy Tweets – CLIP: "Puppy Tweets is a plastic tag with a sound and motion sensor that you attach to your pet's dog collar and connect its USB receiver to your computer. Then you create a Twitter account for your dog and enjoy updates all day from Sparky or whatever its name is on your computer or smartphone.

  The tag is set with several pre-recorded tweets that are triggered by the dog's activities. So if he's running around, you might get a tweet that says "I finally caught that tail I've been chasing and…OOUUUCHH!"

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Smartphones Market – CLIP: "For more from Tomi this is a 30min video that makes the case for the next 4billion users and more importantly reinforces the opportunity just around the corner. Some great examples and sound bites. Yes the mobile is the future. This also seems to reflect Nokia’s analysis re banking, SMS, MMS etc. Good numbers and worth sharing as part of the background to his share / competitive analysis.

  Comments:

  * The ChinaPhone will continue to grow across markets. These phones are likely to steal share – particularly from Nokia in India. They are becoming branded. Dual-Sim also plays a role.
  * GPS initiatives like latest OviMaps may help Nokia in some markets. Although until it enables social connections in new ways it alone won’t be a compelling reason to buy Nokia vs say Samsung or switch back.
  * Samsung is appropriately identified as going for world domination. I like their latest touch screen phones.They appear to be two years ahead of Nokia roughly in product cycle."

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Demographic Dividend Theory – A parable of India’s Growth – CLIP: To this effect, a recent report published by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has estimated that India would face ‘talent gap’ of more than 5 million by 2012, as existing educational institutions do not impart employable skills. The report titled, ‘India’s Demographic Dilemma’, brings out the fact that $1.1-trillion economy will have a shortfall of 7, 50,000 skilled workers over the next five years. In contrast, during the same period there will be a surplus of 1.3 million unskilled and unqualified school dropouts and illiterates.

  If you consider the above data to be reliable, then one must understand that talent gaps if widened in the process could only lead to choking economic development and become counterproductive. The proposed Public Private Partnership model (PPP) to reform the culpable education sector is considered as a planned approach with budgetary support of over Rs. 35,000 crore.

Daily updates on what I’m reading

• Go thataway: Google Maps India learns to navigate like a local – Much better Googlemaps!! CLIPS: We found that using landmarks in directions helps for two simple reasons: they are easier to see than street signs and they are easier to remember than street names. Spotting a pink building on a corner or remembering to turn after a gas station is much easier than trying to recall an unfamiliar street name. Sometimes there are simply too many signs to look at, and the street sign drowns in the visual noise. A good landmark always stands out.