If you’re still looking for that just-right, oh-so-unusual holiday gift for a friend or loved one, I’ve got the answer for you.  Buy them a copy of San Francisco Panorama.

Panorama is a newspaper – but it’s not like any newspaper you’ve ever seen. Published on December 8, 2009 by McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house founded in San Francisco by writer David Eggers, this is not like any newspaper you’ve ever seen. Printed on broadsheets and coming in at just over 300 pages, this one packs a wallop.  It’s got arts, sports, news, food, book reviews (96 pages!), comics (16 pages!), movie reviews (by kids), pullout posters, puzzles, and even a paper cut-out of a carousel created by artist, Chris Ware.

The paper was put together by a group of young writers and artists who work in San Francisco’s Mission District.  It’s an experiment of sorts, to remind all of us what a newspaper could be.  As the information pamphlet that comes with the paper says, “The Panorama is just a reminder that readers will be more likely to pay for a physical paper if they’re given something very different than what they can get on the Internet.”

One of the creators’ original goals in developing Panorama was to put out a newspaper that didn’t cost a bomb and didn’t require a huge circulation to make it profitable. On the day of publication it was $5 in San Francisco.  We paid $16 (plus shipping) to have it delivered to our door.  In an interesting twist, Panorama makes a story out of their financial model.  They include a piece on the cost of producing their product and take a stab at explaining the difference between replication and fixed (editorial) costs.  Nice idea.

My son brought this amazing creation into our house.  He’s the online editor of his high school paper, and follows trends in journalism.  He heard about it online and ordered a copy, which was delivered to our door through the mail, in a handsome plastic pouch – all 15 x 22 inches of it.  On the day it arrived, we spread it all out on the dining room table and oohed and ahhed over its contents.  Michael Chabon…Junot Diaz… David Eggers…  Roddy Doyle… Daniel Alarcon!  Some of my all-time favorite writers, gathered up in one mighty attractive package.

According to Eggers, “It is our unorthodox belief that the Web and the newspaper can coexist, but that physical forms of the written word need to offer a clear and different experience.”  Well, he’s certainly done that.

I’ve relished this thing.  And have been reading it for days now.  Each time I pick up a new section, I’m delighted all over again.  Comics drawn by Art Spiegelman – wow. I don’t normally read the sports section but, hell yeah; I want to hear what Stephen King has to say about the World Series. I delighted in the interview between Miranda July and James Franco and couldn’t remeber who was interviewing whom…but it didn’t matter, it was like sitting in on their conversation, over lunch. An article, by Wendy Todd, about Michelle Obama and “Intimidating Black Woman Syndrome” really gave me something to think about.  The piece on the elections in Afghanistan (J. Malcolm Garcia) was a fascinating look at the realities on the ground. And that 58-photo, two-page spread on how to carve and cook a lamb – I ask you, where else would you see that?

For the most part, the writers have concentrated on the long-form.  The writing is deeply considered. Each article is an excursion and I find myself reading Panorama in the same way that I read the New Yorker.  I went through it first, just to see what all was there, deciding what I was going to read (hmmm.. looks like everything).  And then, when I have a chunk of time, I sit down to read one article. In depth.  At a sitting.  Like I am having a meal.  Complete immersion.  In other words, the Panorama has a place on my bed-side table, along with the short stack of novels that I’m planning to read next.

Panorama clearly celebrates writers.  The paper is proud of its contributors and lauds them prominently – showcasing their talents and perceptions in the freshest of ways.  It must be a writer’s paradise to work on this.

A word about design.  I just love the look of this thing.  It’s elegant and clean, beautifully laid out. The photos are interesting and punchy (despite the low quality paper used by newspapers), with excellent resolution.  And there’s just something about that broadsheet – a wiiiide expanse like that gives a journalist all sorts of room to dish up a story in a unique way.  The big picture along with the details, photos clustered or stand-alone, vertical or horizontal orientations, commodious headlines, sidebars. They’ve used the real estate well. There’s also a lot of “white” space which gives the whole thing a feeling of expansiveness and headroom (as the name implies… a wide angled view).  Even the ads are classy looking (for absinthe!). Apparently, some well-known San Francisco designers worked on it, rendering a few noteworthy pieces like a to-die for diagram of the San Francisco music scene.

While it is definitely a work based on the San Francisco Bay Area (the cover story is about the Bay Bridge public works project), it still has a good mix of national and international stories.  As they say, “it’s from here, but it’s for everybody.”

My only beef about the project is that there isn’t much on science.  An interesting article by John Horgan debunking the myth that humans are hard-wired to create war and of course, a lot of environmental coverage, but I could imagine all sorts of compelling stories a paper like this could have included to take a different and fresh look at science in our world.  Ah well, it’s my only gripe and they lay no claim to completeness.  In fact, the creators state, “We can’t stress enough that the Panorama does not pretend to be definitive in any way.”  Ok.

The creators refer to the Panorama as a prototype – a one-time thing.  Their main objective is to offer up an idea, suggest some new thinking, shake things up a little.  I think they’ve done that – handsomely.

At the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) conference this year I caught the tail end of a workshop about using digital cameras in teaching, given by Brian Gross, Mike Kittel, and Brian Heeney (all from Delcastle Technical High School in Wilmington, DE). They had some terrific ideas for using digital cameras in the classroom.  Here were a few gems:

- Taking pictures of students on the first day of class

- Photo record of a field trip of lab experience.

- Pictures of models or maps that students create.

- Photo a day project.

- Five-Photo Stories.

The New Eye-Fi

One of my favorite tips of theirs was a new piece of hardward I’d never heard of called the Eye-Fi. This is an SD memory card (for your camera), companioned with a USB wireless device that allows you to automatically and wirelessly download photos from your camera to your computer. No more cables, no more fussing around. It means instant access to the photos on your camera. There’s a range of options – these guys recommnded the Eye-Fi Pro (which is $140) which functions without a router (the others, that are less expensive must traffic through a router). With this technology, you can use the pictures you take in class and instantly have them up there on the screen – “Look at Suzy’s concept map!” or “Everyone look up here to see what group 3 figured out.”

As for digital camera recomendations – Brian says it’s hard to go wrong these days. You can get a perfectly good camera for $99. If your camera is capable of taking photos at 8 or 10 megapixel resolution, they recommend reducing the resolution to 3-4 mega pixels as that is perfectly sufficient for most classroom or web use and the photos download much faster. If you are buying a bunch of cameras for student use, they do recommend getting cameras that take double A batteries, so that it’s easy to replace them (without having to recharge). Tiger Direct is a web site they recommend for good deals on electronic equipment. They also provided the link to their wiki site that is chock-full of helpful teaching resources related to the use of digital cameras in the classroom.  Good stuff.

QR code. (Big Bozo, Creative Commons)

Raise your hand if you know what that funny looking black and white thing is on the brick wall above.  That is a QR code. What, you may well ask, are QR codes?  QR = Quick Response.  A bit of an unknown here in the U.S., but they are all over Japan (and have been for years) and are starting to make headway in Europe.

QR code billboard in Japan

Think of them as fancy, 2D bar codes.  First introduced in 1994, these are matrix codes that, when scanned, redirect you to whatever digital information has been encoded there (urls, whatever).  They are a very efficient and reliable way to provide a url in non-networked situation – e.g on paper, on a billboard, on a painted surface – anywhere.  A QR code can hold a lot of information  - up  to 4,000 characters.  Even a simple jpeg can be scanned into a QR code, faxed, and then read at the other end.

But how are these QR codes read?  With any one of a number of free QR code readers – free apps that can be downloaded to a cell phone.  In fact, most new cell phones come already pre-loaded with QR code readers.  Once you have the reader, you just aim the phone’s camera at the QR code, the camera registers the data, and redirects you to whatever information was programmed into the code.  If it was a url, your phone will kick start the browser and take you to the desired web site. Bee Tag is the reader that I use, and i-nigma is a very popular one. Here’s a very simple, short video, showing you how it’s done.

And how do you generate these QR codes?  With any one of a number of free QR code generation sites.  Like Kaywa or QRStuff.   You just enter the url (or other data) you want to encode and the site spawns a printable QR code for you. Voila!

A QR code embedded with my contact information.

Here’s what QR codes look like.  This one, by the way, is embedded with all of my contact information, the url for this blog, my skype and twitter IDs.  I use it on my business card.

Clever uses of QR codes (Creative Commons)

So, how might they be used in teaching?  At the simplest level, you could include them in a printed worksheet (for homework or on an exam).  Another idea would be to use small QR code labels in a lab – print them on ready-to-peel labels or tape them onto basic lab equipment (microscopes, glassware, sensors, binoculars, cabinets or drawers). The codes would would lead students to teaching videos or amplified safety information. QR codes printed on labels could be applied to bones or preserved specimens to lead students to further information or investigation.  Perhaps you could assign students the project of creating these QR codes for your lab supplies and equipment? Another possibility might be to use QR codes in an assessment – they go to the pre-determined site, watch a video or an animation, then answer questions about it. Use them for orienteering in an outdoor education course or on a field trip.  The QR codes could connect to maps or destinations on Google Earth. Have students create their own QR codes that they submit as an assignment. Maybe a “get-to-know-the-lab” scavenger hunt at the beginning of the year? Maybe have them printed on t-shirts as end of the year prizes?  Put them on business cards, luggage tags or make temporary tatoos out of them!  Just for fun, check out this video of a summer project, sponsored by a Japanese company to make a dramatically scaled QR code, out of sand.

What ideas do you have for using QR codes?

Overseeing a hub of global technology exchange, yet2.com now enjoys fascinating insight into broad buying trends across the technology marketplace – the aggregated ’shopping list’.

Every day yet2.com is presented with information about market demand and supply regarding a broad range of technologies. Thus daily, our Boston, London and Tokyo offices receive 5–6 data points of serious buyers’ interests in specific technologies. Our definition of “serious” buyers is senior technologists from Global 1000 companies with approved budgets and active projects to pursue specific technology opportunities. We abstract this information into an internal High-Interest Areas database, collecting the most sought-after technologies in yet2.com space.

Periodically we analyze these data points into a broad mapping of market interest, trends and specific technology areas in which yet2.com sees high market interest from these serious buyers.

This is one of the most interest and valuable reports yet2 completes, and is my favorite activity.    It’s an evergreen process, because new data keeps rolling in and every few months we aggregate and publish it.  Here is the latest overview.

1) Life Sciences

Wound Care Liquid bandages, antimicrobials, coagulants, super absorbents, including binders and silicone foams Implants Super elastic shape memory alloys, catheter delivered Surgical devices – extending minimally-invasive to new procedures such as endoscopic disc clearing Implantable biodegradable polymers, including for extended release drug delivery Actives Actives delivery (taste masking, new formulations of delivery, anti-itch, analgesics)

2) Electronics

LEDs for lighting High reflectance surfaces and fittings Next gen Applications IP in high energy efficiency RFID Cost down Tags active Continuous printing Geo positioning Chips and algorithms to enable copyright protecting and digital rights management. Location specific content serving

3) Filtration

Waste Streams, Antibiotic residues detection, Cost-effective field-based testing, Air purification

4) Energy

Renewable Wind Turbine Generators, next generation blade technologies, shock absorption, Alternative substrates Solar/ paper and alternative substrates, printed electronics, near term incremental and long term step changes, Software and technologies for variable and distrbuted supply, dynamics and demand management, Emissions control, Biofuels i. Non-agricultural non-ethanol based Fermentation i. Biomass separation, In situ product removal, Algae and fungi based, Gasification i. Introducing furnace technologies, Replacing hot air with pure oxygen, Steam and pulverized carbonaceous materials iv. Clean gasification including reducing pollutants and sequestration and geologic storage of captured carbon

5) Printing and Authentication

Electrophotography-based high speed digital printing Aqueous-based pigments, anti statics, printing on rough substrates

6) Food Products

Healthy Fats, Barrier (cost effective lower-foot print flexible) Absorbents/Natural AntiMicrobials, DHAs, EPAs, Omega-3s Cost effective production Organoleptics, Food Packaging, Bioassaying and food safety testing

7) Consumer Products

Hair/Skin Anti-frizz/UV/color protection Free radicals control Scents/ Freshening Gene shuffling and receptor bio assays Antimicrobial and other secondary benefits Non wovens /wipes Imparting secondary benefits: elastic, antiviral, antimicrobial, controlled release

Natural Cleaning / Anti-Microbials

a) Enviro-friendly surface cleaners b) Nanosilver- based c) Microorganisms d) Enzymes and Bioflavonoids e) Encapsulation and controlled release f) Preservatives

9) Materials

Conductive i. Electrically conductive substances that can be used in a ‘printing’ process; ii. Conductive inks and ESD coatings Use in polymer melt additivation b) Self heating c) Enviromaterials biobased, sustainable and completely biodegradable plastics for use in injection molding, paper coating, cast film and sheet, blown film, thermoforming

10) Encapsulation

Controlled release, slow release, higher loading ii. Agricultural, pharma, cosmetic and food applications

11) Agriculture

Hydroponics, Reduction of water intensity of crop production b) Fertilisers, Controlled release, Enable reduction in overdosing

Image Credits: Newsday

Newsday.com content will only be available to Optimum Online subscribers, Newsday, or those who are willing for a price of $5 a week. Nonpaying customers will have access to some of Newsday.com’s information like the home page, school closings, weather, obituaries, classifieds and entertainment listings. There also will be some limited access to Newsday stories.

This move is said to be the “pioneering Web model” that will combine the newspaper services with those of Cablevision, which owns both Newsday and Optimum Online.

This is a big leap for newspapers, as they are struggling to reach a new business model that would replace advertising as the main source of revenue and also would be a better idea than micropayments which failed to bring any hope for newspapers.

Maybe this can be the new frontier of online journalism by combining newspapers with other technological and media services to make revenue.

Since the Kindle is bringing so much buzz because of its efficiency and technological advances its price from $279 dollars has been reduced to $259. $20 is not much of a discount but it can be a good investment to consider. Technology is taking over everything these days and soon enough we might see kids with less book bags and more kindles as a back to school supply. Now the only problem is that it will be in competition with the Barnes and Noble Nook which is the same price and the same concept.

Image Credits: Amazon

Hulu, the popular site that allows users to see re-runs of their favorite TV shows or movies for free, might start charging for content. News Corp announced at the Broadcasting & Cable OnScreen Summit, that the free model is makes it difficult to capture the value of content and the subscription model is required.

They said it is not certain but the subscriptions would be primarily for special content and TV previews. Many angry users of Hulu displayed their anger by commenting online that Hulu’s audience will “die” if they go through with this plan and that their video quality was poor anyway.

Image Credits: Hulu

The FCC has decided to move forward and create new rules that will restrict how broadband Internet providers manage their networks. This has caused much opposition from Verizon and AT&T since net neutrality can jeopardize jobs and put a halt on private Internet investments.

The rules say that Internet providers would not be allowed to deprive their users from their rights to choose between network providers or from connecting to the Internet with any legal Web device.

The rules would apply to all broadband Internet and mobile wireless Internet platforms. The rules would also allow for users to address all inappropriate sites and prevent the illegal transfer of content that is harmful or copyrighted/protected material.

Virtual worlds – what a concept, eh?  If you haven’t yet visited a virtual world to have a look around, I urge you to give it a try. What’s more, I strongly encourage you to go in with someone knowledgeable. The first time I went into Second Life, I went in alone, and have to admit that I wasn’t impressed.  The technical requirements were steep, the avatars all had a flat, paperdoll quality, and the interface was far from intuitve.  But worst of all, I just wasn’t sure I understood what the point was.  Why would anyone go to all this trouble?

A year later, I gave it another try.  But this time, with a knowledgeable friend. It only took about an hour, following her around from place to place, talking with other avatars she knew, and getting a short tutorial on how to build, that I started to grasp the possibilities. It wasn’t just all the things you could do there (build, shop, listen to music, learn, attend plays, look at art, dance) but it was the people you could meet. For me, it was other educators – from all over the world – whom I would never meet in other way. Creative, resourceful, and inspiring teachers who were keenly interested in figuring out how the unique affordances of SL could be applied to the challenges of teaching and learning.

My SL avatar

I still feel a bit disoriented when I’m there, I will confess.  For example, time just flies by.  I go “in-world” and, before I know it, an hour has passed.  It’s a combination of each new place you visit leading you to something else you want to see, or someone else you want to talk with but there’s also the complete immersion of it all. It feels as if you’re diving into a deep pool.  In fact, it does remind me a bit of exploring the underwater world as a SCUBA diver.  There’s a funny feeling that you don’t really belong – that you’re a visitor in a strange and exotic land.

So, what’s going on in there?  New information was recently released on the economy of SL.  In total, since it began in 2002, Second Life residents have transacted over $1 billion dollars worth of virtual goods and virtual services over the span of a billion hours in a world that boasts two billion square meters of virtual land.  In 2008, $100 million US dollars worth of Lindens (273 Linden Dollars $ = $1 US dollar) were bought and sold on the Lindex. The in-world economy grew 94% year-over-year from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009. That’s pretty impressive, but even more impressive to me is that the transactions that make up this economy are mostly micro-transactions, averaging in the $1 – $5 range.

Here’s more…approximately 1,250 text-based messages are sent every second in SL. 195 different countries are represented and the SL viewer is available in 10 languages. More than 18 billion minutes of voice chat have been used in SL, since voice was introduced in 2007. And users create more than 250,000 new virtual items every day.  There are now more than 270 terabytes of content in SL.

The Sistine Chapel

And what does all of that content look like?  Buildings, art work, clothes, animals, simulations, rockets, boats, and castles.  An accurate replica of the Sistine Chapel (pictured here), a recreation of  Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, a fly-through tour of a breathing lung, the Great Wall of China, a real-time weather simluator, a ride-able Newton’s cannonball, a virtual Africa, a replica of the HMS Beagle, an underwater park…just to name a few.

Electron Transport Chain Activity

For my part, I’ve been concentrating on my building skills (learning how to build out of prims – the legos of SL and script them with behaviors and responses), meeting avatars from all over the world, and coming up with ideas for biology learning activties. In June, I helped to organize a continuing medical education event – using the virtual world as a forum for practicing physicians to meet and extend their knowledge. I built a mid-air activity where students can get a feeling for the electron transport chain by “reducing” as they “fall” from plaform to platform (pictured here). I’ve just completed a cell structure activity where students can move giant cell organelles into even more giant plant and animal cell frames and, in the process, learn about the relationships between the organelles and how cells are put together.  I’ve got so much more to learn but I’m coming along.

The thing I keep thinking, as I roam the Second Life grid, is that, regardless of whether or not Second Life survives into the future, I have no doubt that virtual worlds will.  It seems inevitable to me that worlds like these will be the way we plot our course through the internet and its vast resources.  That avatars, representing us, will be our agents, our representatives, as we navigate the electronic world and reach out to each other.

And if you’d like to come see for yourself, send me a note and I’ll give you a tour.

I remember my grandmother telling me about the excitement of a new rail line going in that connected her up to a big city.

Realistically though it wasn’t the train or the tracks that was so exciting. The new rail line meant she was able to access a whole new world of possibility faster than ever before. New people, new ideas, new resources and new inspiration.

She wasn’t the only one who saw the possibilities. After highways, rail lines, phones and air travel connected people up in the first 50 years of the 1900’s a global boom in creativity occurred.

By giving designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors and entertainers access to new markets the world saw new music, entertainment, medicine, technology and products unfold at unprecedented levels.

It’s the same story throughout history. Before every boom in creativity comes a new way to connect – coaches, cars, phones, trains, planes – When human can connect fast, we can create fast.

Today, the world is buzzing with excitement as we see Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Skype turn the big wide world into a standard feature in the living room.

However, lets not forget that the last ten years have seen technology focused on new ways to connect and share information at greater speed. This is the “Rail Line” …  The real  excitement comes from the fact that there is a whole new world of possibility on its way!

As this decade draws to a close we are about to see the perfect environment for another boom in creativity. Once again, designers, entertainers, entrepreneurs and everyone else can collaborate at a whole new level.

An inventor in India can talk to an Investor in London who can pay for manufacturers in China to deliver a Product into Sydney. All of which could be done easily and quickly, without big businesses slowing down the process.

There’s no shortage of people talking about how bad things might be in the future however keep in mind that there’s no shortage of new ways to make exciting progress as well.

I predict a creative boom in art, entertainment, medicine, architecture, fashion and technology that we can barely comprehend right now. Fingers crossed.

From Unfocused Mike, Flickr Creative Commons

Here’s another article, this one from USA Today (sorry about that), summarizing the latest thinking on social networking and the “contagion” idea (see previous post on social networking and contagion).  This article pulls together a few threads from different places…I like the idea put forth of flocking or schooling behavior as an analogy for human social networking.  And this image of birds on a wire really spoke to me.

Of course, there’s the usual drivel in this article, this time from Michael Bugeja (Iowa State University) who expresses concern that social networking sites, like Facebook, are just data mining and not “programmed to bring you a friend”.  Per usual, this sort of thinking misses the point.  Facebook, like any of the social networking sites, is a tool.  You use it to help you to build relationships, expand your network, deepen your connections.  It’s  like a fork or a shovel or a flashlight.  Not inherently good nor evil – just a tool.  No one is expecting Facebook to “bring them a friend” – they’re using it to deepen and broaden the connections they have. Why is it that people find that simple concept so difficult to internalize?  And speaking of tools, they make the point, in this article that, in addition to using social networking sites as a tool to extend one’s network, it is also a tool for social scientists to use to accurately measure our friendships and connections.  Good point.

I really like the wrap up in this article…”We’re not substituting online for offlline.  We’re augmenting.”

Two years ago I couldn’t get my cousin (who was in college) to answer my emails. I sent her a txt msg and she responded in about 48 seconds. When we finally hooked up over that antiquated device called a “phone”, she explained that she only used email for school and she started urging me to try facebook.

First experience: “This is stupid.” Tenth experience: “This is still stupid.” Then, eventually, I got hooked. I gave a lot of thought to why, and beyond technical reasons, there’s one fundamental thing that came to mind. I miss my hometown.

I grew up in a small steel town. We saw folks — the same folks — a lot. School, stores, games, bowling alley, wherever. And you’d always get the scoop on little things that you just really didn’t think you’d ever care about. When I moved away, I missed that. I found over time that facebook was filling that social void that was left when I moved away.  Now it’s like I’m standing in line at the grocery store catching a 30-second conversation with a friend on how his kid did in his baseball game.  Haven’t decided if this is good or bad.  But was just interesting thinking through why it “clicked” with me.

When my wife and I were discussing social media, and I mentioned that at Third Solutions we use Skype for IM, and at ASG Group we were using Twitter, she asked me if we had gotten old? When I arrived at MIT in 1997, I ran ICQ for friends from home + Zephyr for talking to classmates, the next year the freshmen showed up with big lists of AIM friends, and by the time I left school, ICQ and Zephyr were basically dead and AIM dominated communication.

Here is it, over 10 years later, and I still use AIM as a constant business communication tool, but it certainly lacks any hype or excitement. Gmail accounts form the basis of OpenID, yet AOL with 20 years of AOL accounts and 10-15 years of AIM accounts couldn’t make themselves the login option of choice for the community web or the Web 2.0 world.

An old AOL hand asks, “Could AIM Have Been Twitter?“  AOL fought third party integration, mostly because Microsoft was at the time masters of embrace and extend, and the only on-ramp was the weird open access AOL published for the Tik client that we ran on Unix, with limited access.  While AOL had the users, they didn’t have the culture of centrality.  Openness may have helped, but the open-IM groups pushed by Yahoo and MSN fizzled, Jabber went nowhere, and even though Google via Google Chat supports Jabber, Facebook chat seems more vigorous.

I think that AOL could have done a lot with their platform.  But the corporate culture, more than the business around technology, prevented them from being cool.  Everything AOL bought saw talent flee to start-ups and generally fall apart.  Other than picking up Time Warner for a steal, they weren’t able to use their early lead in the Internet, perhaps because of their Internet for the Masses reputation, they couldn’t be “cool” to the technologists, so even if the masses used AIM, nobody was building upon AIM.  That, more than AOL’s internal walled garden mentality, is why AIM didn’t become Twitter.

Followed a Webinar from ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com/home.jsp) on the future and convergence of Mobile Devices–handsets, netbooks, smartphones, etc.  I tweeted my thoughts during the Webinar–http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23mohands

My Top Takeaways:

• Netbook v Laptop wars:  likely to be good for consumer in terms of price, but will probably reinforce the split of desktop replacement and highly portable, with the more portable end being threatened by netbooks.  May be bad for consumer in terms of choice as the small, netbook format may become dominant and taking performance away from the highly portable laptop segment.
• Mobile Internet Devices could be the leading edge of personal area network enabled devices and special purpose “adapters” like headsets, Personal Navigational Devices, etc.  But, they won’t.  The US conusmer seems uninterested in MIDs and further the carriers have created too many rate plan barriers and are just plain too greedy in trying to force multi-line subscriptions.  This is blocking innovation.
• Future for Microsoft has never been brighter.  Windows XP is the dominant shipment on netbooks and Microsoft is all over enabling the battery management and instant-on features for a next gen (read 2010) netbook.  This fits most consumer needs.  Could Microsoft be the one innovating a netbook tether to a desktop in a WebOS connected way?  Could they also innovate with a Windows Mobile handset that tethers to the netbook?  I think that could be a very interesting idea that bypasses the carrier problems.

Also announced today was Sprint’s enhanced all you can eat and all the mobiles you can call plan.  Perhaps Sprint will be the innovator in creating one-pay sub plans.  TiVo and SiriusXM offer me these as alternatives to monthly.  When will the wireless carriers wise up?

Oh… I know… when they get their infrastructure aligned behind making money on data instead of just propping up failing ARPU.

I read a very interesting article in this month’s Wired magazine (which can also be found online) about the “MP3 effect”; i.e. the current trend towards cheap and simple being good enough.

It’s been coined the “MP3 effect” because MP3s are a classic example of the principle in practice: Digital music files have become popular to the point where traditional studios have had to rethink how they distribute music or risk declining sales, even though CDs offer a far superior sound quality to MP3s.  As the article says, “we now favor flexibility over high fidelity”.

It seems being superior doesn’t matter so much anymore – in the tech world anyway.  What consumers want – what you and I want – is simplicity; accessibility; flexibility.  We want to be able to use things here and now, quickly and easily.

I think this “good enough revolution” is an exciting prospect to apply to your business.  I chat to business owners who are hesitant to adopt changes (usually technology driven changes in my case) in the way they do business with their customers, or in the tools they provide their staff, for fear of the new solution not being world-beating.  But best-in-class needn’t be the goal here.

Perhaps it’s unrealistic to think you can afford a top-of-the-line CRM system with built in e-marketing features, but you could utilise a free blogging site with email subscription facilities to deliver simple communications directly to your customers – it might just be good enough, yet more than what your competitors do in terms of customer service efforts.

Can’t justify giving laptops to your sales force to work on presentation when at home?  Consider utilising a free product like Windows Sharepoint Services, or a very affordable hosted solution like Microsoft Sharepoint Online, which gives staff access to office files by logging in from their own PCs at home. Another good enough solution your staff may come to love because it’s simple, accessible and flexible.

Technology solutions don’t have to be big complex beasts that rattle cages and gnaw away at budgets.  Take note of what the bigger players out there in your market might be doing and think about how you could offer similar experiences that might take advantage of the good enough principle.

Have you seen the “MP3 effect” in practice in your line of business?

Clayton Moulynox – Evolve IT Australia
We fix business problems, not computer problems -  Develop, Solve, Evolve.
Follow me on Twitter: @claytonhm

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A core issue that arises as we toss our data out to the clouds is the fact that at some point we need to sync that data with our existing “traditional” on-premise systems. This fact is often lost on those deploying cloud computing tools until they attempt to drive business processes between cloud computing and on-premise resources. Then, the lack of integration becomes a huge problem.

I believe that integration is so important that I wrote a book about it way back in the Stone Age. While the focus then was on the enterprises and intra-enterprise integration, we’re now seeing integration in a new cloudy light, with new players and new approaches, but with many of the same old problems.

You have to consider the fundamentals of integration first, including the ability to connect with both source and target systems, such as Salesforce.com and SAP, or Amazon EC2 and Oracle, and then how to extract data from the source system, mediate the semantics and technical differences, and publish the data to the target.

Of course, although cloud-to-enterprise integration is the typical pattern, we’re now seeing cloud-to-cloud integration as well, plus very complex integration paths that can span dozens of on-premise and/or cloud computing-based systems. These patterns of integration are going to become more complex as cloud computing becomes more pervasive.

There are a few ways to address this integration need, including software-based on-premise integration tools, on-premise appliance-based integration tools, and the cloud-delivered integration tools.

Software-based on-premise integration tools. This set includes the technology I created in the late 1990s and early 2000s and is about traditional integration server software running on an on-premise server to drive integration among any number of systems, whether cloud computing or on-premise. While typically higher in price, they are more advanced and richer in features, considering the amount of time they have been around and the number of iterations the integration software has gone through. Providers here include IBM, Software AG, Oracle, and Informatica.

On premise appliance-based integration tools. These provide integration in a box, in essence a preconfigured and optimized integration server that’s configured for a specific purpose, typically some cloud talking to some enterprise. Cast Iron Systems is a provider here (it recently added Amazon EC2 integration after supporting Salesforce.com for years).

Cloud-delivered integration tools. These provide integration technology as a service. This is something I’ve been involved in with a few past startups; today, the likes of Boomi provide this type of service and Informatica on Demand, focusing on cloud-computing-to-enterprise integration. However, this model works best for cloud-to-cloud, for obvious reasons.

Which integration approach is right for you? Generally speaking, I recommend you take the time to understand the integration needs before migrating to clouds and create a plan for how integration will be addressed and the right technology for the job. Issues to consider include:

• Firewall mediation: How you’re going to externalize and consume data that may not be port-80-compliant.
• Performance required: How fast you need to move data and how quickly the data transformation (supporting semantic mediation) and routing mechanisms need to function. There is a huge difference between 10 messages a second and a 100 — trust me.
• Maintenance and upgrades: How you’re going to support new cloud computing or enterprise systems interfaces as they evolve.
• Governance: How you’re monitoring all points of integration and logging the data on the move.
• Security: How you’re encrypting and otherwise protecting sensitive information, stored or on the move, cloud or on-premise.

With a bit of planning and some good technology, integration issues are quickly addressed, and your path to cloud computing becomes that much clearer.

Courtesy: David Linthicum, Infoworld

McKinsey Quarterly conducted a survey in June 2009 and received nearly 1,700 executives from around the world, across a range of industries and functional areas. The survey focused on the value they have realized from their Web 2.0 deployments in three main areas: within their organizations; externally, in their relations with customers; and in their dealings with suppliers, partners, and outside experts.

Their responses suggest why Web 2.0 remains of high interest: 69% of respondents report that their companies have gained measurable business benefits, including more innovative products and services, more effective marketing, better access to knowledge, lower cost of doing business, and higher revenues. Companies that made greater use of the technologies, the results show, report even greater benefits. The survey also looked closely at the factors driving these improvements—for example, the types of technologies companies are using, management practices that produce benefits, and any organizational and cultural characteristics that may contribute to the gains. The results show that successful companies not only tightly integrate Web 2.0 technologies with the work flows of their employees but also create a “networked company,” linking themselves with customers and suppliers through the use of Web 2.0 tools. Despite the current recession, respondents overwhelmingly say that they will continue to invest in Web 2.0.

What benefits do Web 2.0 deployments bring to a company?

This year’s survey turned up strong evidence that these advantages are translating into measurable business gains: greater ability to share ideas; improved access to knowledge experts; and reduced costs of communications, travel, and operations. Many respondents also say Web 2.0 tools have decreased the time to market for products and have had the effect of improving employee satisfaction.

Looking beyond company borders, significant benefits have stemmed from better interactions with organizations and customers. The ability to forge closer ties has increased customers’ awareness and consideration of companies’ products and has improved customer satisfaction. Some respondents report that these customer interactions have resulted in measurable increases in revenues.

Respondents cite similar gains resulting from better ties to suppliers and partners: the ability to gain access to expertise outside company walls more quickly, lower costs of communication with business partners and lower travel costs.

How do companies use Web 2.0?

Among respondents who report seeing benefits within their companies, many cite blogs, RSS, and social networks as important means of exchanging knowledge. These networks often help companies coalesce affinity groups internally. Finally, respondents report using Web videos more frequently since the previous survey; technology improvements have made videos easier to produce and disseminate within organizations.

Respondents who report that Web technologies have strengthened their companies’ links to customers also cite blogs and social networks as important. Both allow companies to distribute product information more readily and, perhaps more critically, they invite customer feedback and even participation in the creation of products.

What’s next?

• Over half of the companies in this year’s survey plan to increase their investments in Web 2.0 technologies, while another quarter expect to maintain investments at current levels.
• The current downturn has increased interest in the technologies, presumably because companies count on extending their gains.
• About 1/3 of respondents have not yet achieved business benefits, either because they aren’t using Web 2.0 for one of the three major usage categories (internal, customer, and partner/supplier) or because they have yet to learn how to achieve measurable benefits with the tools they are using.

For a closer look at how companies are using Web 2.0 and their benefits, see the articles “Business and Web 2.0: An interactive feature,” and “How companies are benefiting from Web 2.0” on www.mckinseyquarterly.com

I wrote an essay back in 2006, after reading John Battelle’s book, The Search, and thought I’d  revist it and take a look at how far we’ve come, and how far we still need to go. All that said, I’m still an idiot for not buying GOOG back in the day…

The unrelenting rise of search (and with it, Google’s share price) as chronicled in John Battelle’s excellent book, The Search, is the topic of much discussion. That said, Search still has a long way to go, and there is plenty of room for improvement, and I think there are real opportunities to unseat Google’s top spot by providing strong offerings in the 3 C’s outlined below.

1) Context

Without a doubt one of the hardest things is to know the intent of what someone is looking for — while I get Battelle’s “database of intentions” concept — I just don’t think a text field can truly understand the context of what I’m looking for in an independent trial. That is, if I type in “dogs” what am I really looking for? to buy a dog? Dog allergies? Dog food? The Pets.com hand puppet dog? Natural language search engines (like AskJeeves) tried to infer context by enabling a consumer to type actual questions, and Yahoo’s original “curated” approach to the web enabled hierarchical category browsing; however, it’s hard to know what someone truly means based on keywords in a text entry field. Some approaches may include reworking the UI to include some basic parameters on the search to say it’s a “shopping query” or a “food query”, or other basic, global categories. I’m not sure this goes all the way, but clearly there is a better way to accomplish this.

[RD Update: Bing seems the one over the year to have a better approach to establish a semblance of context...and at the very least their ads seem to drive at the "context" argument.]

2) Currency

One major issue with search engines is the time delay for new content to appear in the results. This is actually runs exactly counter to Google’s PageRank system. Since the number of incoming links is a big driver of relevance, something new will no doubt require more time to be viewed, and have others link to it. Thus, it would seem that more timely content is in effect penalized.  Google News certainly helps to address this issue, but indexing the Associated Press wire barely scratches the richness of content out there.

[RD Update: This is where some of the bigget noise has been made recently with Facebook, Twitter, and the "real-time" web. Google itself has invested heavily into Google Caffeine]

3) Community

The driving force of the Web 2.0 onslaught is its ability to enable rapid and relevant communication between groups of people, or communities. While this concept isn’t necessarily new (Geocities anyone?), social networking sites, like MySpace, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn, have made it easier for groups to interact in meaningful (and frivolous) ways. How can the classical search engine take advantage of this “wisdom of crowds”, as well as social recommendations. While social bookmarking has approached this from another perspective, and one can argue that PageRank is the ultimate crowdsourced tool, there seems to be something lacking.

[RD Update: Once again, Facebook and Twitter seem to be the  leaders here, while Google did SearchWiki and Knol. Clearly there is more to happen to bring these all together into a more consolidated interface.]

Observability and Switching Costs create vulnerability

So, one could argue that now that “Google” is a common verb in every day life it has cemented its leadership position. However, it is very easy for people to use something else – we are always one click away from another site, that we can easily  try, observe its result, and refresh our bookmarks should we so choose. If Search Engine X emerged today with the capabilities outlined above, why stay with Google? Personalization and customization certainly help (iGoogle), but with all the mashup tools out there, it’s not enough. The ideal solution would become more personal to me over time, more relevant, and offer me benefits in related areas over time.

Now of course, the folks at Google are much smarter than I am, so without a doubt none of these things has gone unnoticed. It will be exiting to see how this all shapes up, and what we, as consumers, can look forward to.

[RD Update: I had two other C"s to represent "cross-media", the ability to search more than hypertext, and "cross-channel", meaning access from desktop, mobile, and other devices. However, it seems that those areas are less relevant today, as they are very obvious]

The Gates Foundation is working to gather feedback on how your library currently maintains its public access computers. Below is a link to a new survey about the practices you engage in and the challenges you face in maintaining your library’s public access technology. This important study will help the MaintainIT, WebJunction, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to understand the technical support needed to sustain public computing and Internet access in public libraries. http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/267775/2e33/

Your response to this survey will help the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation understand how your library currently maintains its public access computers. This knowledge will also assist MaintainIT Project (recently renamed TechSoup for Libraries) and WebJunction, two library-focused technical support organizations funded by the foundation, in developing useful tools and resources for public libraries. This survey should take approximately 20 minutes to complete and is confidential. To complete online we ask that you enter your library’s IMILSID code. If you do not know this number, you can find it by clicking here: IMILSID code index (this link is also included in the survey itself).

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this valuable research! The survey will close on August 31. Questions regarding this survey can be sent to Andrew Robinson at Andrew@LFAgroup.com.

Our Wimba test went very well today – we had 2 virtual attendees (Mala and Roseline) and 6 of us in the room at Burton Barr! We projected the Wimba on the screen and ran the whole presentation that way so that our in-person attendees could see how Wimba worked.  In a sense, it was a dual presentation – demonstrating Wimba while talking about Mobile Technologies!

We all agreed that we’ll use Wimba for our all virtual meeting in September, and again for our next presentation.

Roseline will be posting the archive of the session, so stay tuned!  However, here are my slides from the presentation, as well as a link to my references.

Thanks for another fun meeting – see you all online next month!

Here’s a UStream video of a wonderful presentation from Chris Lehmann, Principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA. He gave a talk at the FCC National Broadband Planning Workshop yesterday (8.20.09) in Washington, DC. Here’s his blog entry about the talk (which includes a draft of his notes). Inspiring. I particularly appreciated his very well said point, that if all we do with new broadband technologies is find a more efficient way to deliver content, we are completely missing the boat. Amen, Chris!!

Gartner Hype Cycle 2009, A brief Analysis!

Written by Richard MacManus / August 11, 2009 7:36 PM

Courtesy: www.readwriteweb.com

Analyst firm Gartner has just released its latest Hype Cycle white paper, detailing some of the biggest trends in technology this year. According to the report, cloud computing, e-books and Internet TV are at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” while this year’s biggest hit Twitter is said to have “tipped over the peak” and is just about to enter the infamous “Trough of Disillusionment.” Social software suites and other microblogging services are likewise starting their downward trend. Interestingly, web 2.0 is deemed to be nearly past the Trough and entering the “Slope of Enlightenment.”

One of our current topics of interest, RFID, is stuck right at the bottom of the Trough of Disillusionment. But another RWW hot topic, Augmented Reality, is on the rise.

Gartner Hype Cycle 2009

Web 2.0, cloud computing, Internet TV and RFID are all labeled “transformational” by Gartner, meaning that they are predicted to have a big impact on the market. Microblogging is only ranked “moderate,” so Gartner doesn’t think that Twitter is a very meaningful technology.

We can’t help but feel that Gartner may be underestimating the impact of microblogging. It remarks that services like Twitter enable “new kinds of fast, witty, easy-to assimilate exchanges.” Microblogging is rated as having a “moderate” impact on business, however Gartner does not analyze the over-arching trend of Real-time web that microblogging exemplifies. They do make a good point that “channel pollution” is a current issue with these services, however this is where the ecosystem of search and filtering products – around Twitter especially – are proving their worth. See also our post earlier today about the new distributed forms of microblogging that may rise to take Twitter’s place over time.

Gartner states that Cloud computing is “changing the way the IT industry looks at user and vendor relationships.” It points to vendors such as Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft and salesforce.com.

Regarding eBooks, Gartner has a bob each way: “This technology is potentially revolutionary if the issues that have suppressed adoption are addressed.” It lists Amazon.com, Fujitsu, Plastic Logic and Sony as sample vendors.

Gartner’s conclusion about RFID is similar to our own – that it’s moving slowly. Gartner notes that “the number of leading retailers working with it [RFID] did not grow greatly through 2008 and will not grow significantly during the next two years.”

On Web 2.0, Gartner archly notes that “the Web 2.0 hype has peaked as constituencies vie for the next generation of the Web.” However it also puts Web 2.0 in the “early mainstream” and is bullish on its future.