Connecting the Dots

Massive, sweeping surveillance on *all* you do

Whether you think, "Ahh....I don't have anything to hide" or "we're in a war" or "the government needs the tools to fight terrorism", you need to be aware of what's going on and the power....the massive and sweeping power....that an unchecked government could have at their fingertips.

Bruce Schneier has a very important post today about the resurrection of the Total Information Awareness program -- which caused an enormous outcry from those among us aware and informed -- so it was killed by Congress.

It's reappeared. Read Schneier's post for more.

Look...I'm against evil and the bad guys. I also will admit that I'm not sitting on the Senate Intelligence Committee and I'll bet there are geopolitical happenings of which I'm unaware (I think of that when I voice my strong opposition to the war in Iraq). I also am well aware that with today's tools for privacy (that mostly geeks know about) it must be incredibly difficult to be in law enforcement or to be focused on our national security. But the oversight , the checks-n-balances are missing. Of course, the president said yesterday "terrorists will win" if the Democrats (possible oversight and check-n-balance?) win control of the House and/or Senate.

Case in point about no oversight: the (admittedly bonehead) kid that created the fake boarding pass? Anyone with half-a-brain and Photoshop/InDesign could easily have done exactly what this kid had automated. Certainly terrorists that can figure out how to smuggle arms, blow stuff up, and are funded by oil rich monarchies, can certainly figure out how to use encrypted Skype or PGP, or any of the other numerous solutions available in open source or commercially available. Still, a Congressman went after this kid hard (though later retracted somewhat) to make, in my opinion, an example of him.

What do you think might happen if there had been slightly stronger circumstantial evidence, no Habeus Corpus and a status of being an "enemy combatant"?

I have a former colleague who was born in Syria and calls home frequently to talk to family. I've often wondered if his transactions at Sears, emails, phone call records, library habits and book purchases were datamined and he was watched. A successful tech entrepreneur and American citizen, I could see him being watched and benign activities interpreted as suspicious. THAT is the problem. Since all of this is secret and "a matter of national security in a time of war" there is no disclosure possible. How would he ever know? What if he went for venture funding but the well was dry since he was "under suspicion"?

I was blown away with the capabilities and power of enterprise data mining software when I learned about it starting five years ago. Trust me when I say this: everything you do (unless it's when you're in your house having unclean thoughts or something) is open to data mining, matching and inferences drawn. Think about that the next time you make a purchase with your credit card at Amazon, surf pr0n, call outside the country or do a search on Google.

Are you good....or great?

Yesterday I grabbed lunch with three other podcaster/bloggers in the Twin Cities. As we talked, I once again thought about all the talent and skills sitting around that table and it made me wonder, "How come none of us are famous? Why haven't any of us hit a home run, knocked it out of the park and watched the cover come off the ball?"

All four of us have all the enabling tools we need to deliver (and we are delivering) podcasts, blogs and other specific value to the world and to our respective clients. I would argue that at least two of the others around the table have the talent, the niche and the skills that should have the cover coming off the ball as it sails out of the ballpark in areas they happen to be passionate about.

Here's the kicker: the enabling technologies for blogging, podcasting, vlogging, participation in social sites and so forth...are too easy. The barriers to entry are so low that anyone with a cheap camcorder can vlog; a microphone and computer can podcast; and anyone can blog with free services! As a consequence, there is more noise than ever...noise that makes it even harder for anyone with talent, skills or value (and yes, that's in the eye of the beholder!) to get heard, seen or read.

So what's our respective problem? Is it marketing? Somewhat. Where we live? I think that's irrelevant in a day where the internet is increasingly the primary conduit for value exchange. Distribution? Ahh...that's a big one since existing distribution networks can really help get the word out as all the new media, content and participation we (and thousands of others) are doing eat away at traditional sources and "push' publishing models.

One example of that is a company started by two friends of mine, Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS), that builds TV station web sites. Turns out IBS is the 7th largest news and information site with 11,700,000 unique visitors and 278,000,000 page views per month. When IBS built their first web site, Channel4000 (for the local CBS affiliate, WCCO-TV which is on channel 4 locally), night-after-night viewers were referred to the web site. People went and went and went and pageviews continued to grow. It's that way with most of their properties.

"What about Rocketboom or Ze Frank?" you say. "They weren't augmented or promoted by traditional distribution sources." Great point. But how many other babe-fake-TV-news-shows or unique-funny-guy-with-face-right-in-camera shows will succeed?  I doubt too many as is evidenced by theHill88 which I went to after reading this post by the (peeping tom/lurker?) Marc Canter. How many pretty-little-girl-acting-goofy serial video shows can anyone take? If you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Recently, I had a post hit Digg and it ended up on the front page. Within 24 hours, a frighteningly huge number of new and unique visitors viewed my post and I've seen both my RSS feeds and pageviews grow since (hopefully a few of them came back to read more).

While most A-list bloggers experience that many visitors per hour, it was an interesting spike and made me at least stop and think about energy that I could possibly invest in building buzz and marketing my own blog. Is that what it takes?

My only concern is that doing so would divert attention, energy and effort away from my core mission and purpose: providing guidance, insight and ideas (with next generation internet technologies and applications) in a time of accelerating change for those who need it most (small-to-midsize business). Perhaps...building buzz about this blog would facilitate that mission and purpose? I'm beginning to think so and thus am considering buzz-building for my own blog...

...or I'm going to go open a Fantastic Sams salon and just be done with all this tech stuff.

Talkshoe + Teamslide = Your Show?

What if you could host a live talk show on the Web and turn the audio into a podcast? That's cool, but wouldn't it be cooler if you could also have your audience sit back, relax and watch your slide deck go by while you talked?

You can do all the above (with some limitations I'll discuss below) with two fairly new offerings on the Web: Talkshoe and Teamslide.

I'm always on the hunt for enabling technologies one can seize to deliver value in consulting, marketing, sales, and deliver intellectual capital in new and more efficient ways. With these two offerings combined, we're soooo close to being able to deliver high value, mass audience webinars without paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in fees to the likes of WebEx, Go-to-Meeting and others...but we're not there yet.

When Skypecasts were added as a preview on the Skype site, I was initially excited until I realized that -- even though they were able to deliver call-in "shows/events" for up to 100 people -- it was Skype only (no landline callers can participate). I then was quite enthused when I discovered HighSpeedConferencing which delivered call-in shows/events for up to 500 people and both Skype and landline callers could participate.

But there are no visuals with Skypecasts or other cool, new audio conferencing solutions! I have my own pent-up demand for high volume, mass audience webinar and presentation capability. While reading the Skypejournal and forums where Skype'ers hang out, there is no question that many, many others share that need so there's a market for this combination.

Are there any "gotcha's" with using Talkshoe, Teamslide, HighSpeedConferencing and other services to hold mass webinars or shows?

Email? Direct mail? SEO? Free stuff?

How the heck can you reach customers, prospective customers and interested others when you're competing with EVERYONE in channels that are NOISY?

Enterprise software sales executives I know have teams of salespeople virtually unable to penetrate the front door of corporate I.T. in order to get their value propositions in front of people who could buy them. Why? There are simply too many software companies banging on the same doors all trying to do what they're all seemingly mandated to: "Get in at the "C" level and get our story heard."

Almost all the under, say, $100M firms led by people I know well have a really hard time getting their messages heard so as to sell, grow or position their company, products or services in a better way. Do they still try to use the virtually-completely-ineffective email blast? Go back to the expensive -- and low effectiveness -- direct mail game? Get better at search engine optimization (SEO)? Give away free stuff in order to build an audience and then try to sell them something later?

Startup-after-startup I deal with are also trying these routes in addition to buzz and viral marketing approaches. "Do a funny video for YouTube" I hear often. "Go after A-list bloggers" is the next refrain. "We'll lose money for the first year or so but we'll get the eyeballs and make it up when the advertising hits" is also an oft-heard strategy. It's getting tougher and tougher to come up with unique things that gets people's attention and isn't cheesey.

There are no magic bullets. Most of these traditional (and even new) approaches are simply not working anymore. So what is, Borsch? What do you know that we don't (and will you tell us)? I've certainly got some ideas but I do know that most methods of getting the attention of customers and prospects fail because most recipients are not interested, do not have a need, or already have what you're trying to sell.

So let's flip the problem around. Instead of figuring out how to find some sort of magic, efficient and more effective way to scream louder than your competition (or loud enough to be heard at all), instead let's focus on ways to let your customers and prospects be heard and how you can give them what they need and help them buy.

Voting, Diebold and Trust

We're getting close to election day in the U.S. and my thoughts have turned to making my final decisions and going back over comparative data on my choices. As I've contemplated standing in the voting booth and making my selections, I suddenly realized that I had NO CLUE if the State of Minnesota was or was not using electronic voting machines.

At this stage of my life, I'd never expected myself to begin questioning the integrity of the voting infrastructure in the United States. Integrity of voting is the bedrock of any democracy and trust in it is as important as trust in the banking system if not more so. Instead of holding trust, my concern has continued to grow about the possible continued deployment of closed, proprietary electronic voting apparatus without a paper trail for recount as a backup. It's far too easy to manipulate results.

We're living in a time of an unfortunate, accelerating mistrust of government, due in no small part to more than half the populations' fundamental concern about the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. In addition, there is an accelerating awareness of the insecurity and unreliability of voting machines manufactured by the largest maker of these machines, the Diebold company. To get a sense of what's going on, perform your own search on Google with the string, Diebold voting machines  and you'll discover it returns 3,150,000 results -- the first several pages of which details the growing controversy surrounding the concerns about Diebold and the baselevel insecurity of their approach.

As it turns out, Minnesota isn't using them this time around (I've emailed the elections commission and the Secretary of State in Minnesota to inquire about the 2008 election). Check out your own Secretary of State's web site or area and find out what your state is using for this election and, most importantly, what they intend to use for the next presidential election. You may think, "Ahh...Borsch is just paranoid" but I'm certainly not alone and for good reason (just read some of the stuff at one site, BlackboxVoting, to get a feel for what's going on and why this is such a big deal).

To ensure trust in voting is maintained (and, frankly, won back) and the integrity of our voting infrastructure to be above reproach (and thus faith in our democracy), it's absolutely imperative that we ALL push our elected officials to ensure that any electronic apparatus put in place is thoroughly vetted, open source software and processes analyzed, and done so by independent organizations.

If you have 9 minutes, peek at this amazing (and frightening) video done by Princeton University (more here):

Imagine the creation possibilities: 2D to 3D

Saw this video today about a development from Carnegie Mellon (June press release here) that turns 2D digital photographs into 3D ones. As you watch this amazing video, don't focus on any image anomalies like tearing or missing pixels, instead imagine the creative possiblities of quickly building virtual spaces in Second Life; adding this capability to video game or virtual world engines; or desktop authoring tools that could let mere mortals like most of us create 3D walk throughs.

Wordpress: This tool has become really good!

Working on a project has compelled me to examine tools that I've looked at previously. One of them is Wordpress and boy...has this tool ever matured!

Not only are there alot of themes and plugins, the administration capabilities and user interface is really well done. It works really well. So well, I'm thinking seriously of climbing the learning curve and using this tool for several things going forward.

Just for grins, I exported all of this blog's posts (Typepad exports a Movable Type-formatted text file) and imported it into Wordpress. It worked flawlessly though all the image URL's point back here to this blog, so if I opted to change platforms myself I'd have to re-insert every single image in every single post. Tedious...but possible.

There is also a hosted Wordpress offering worth looking at too.

Is commercial software dead?

Of course not. Mainframes like the one pictured aren't dead either...but computing and commercial software have both grown dramatically over the years.

What's interesting, however, is how the commercial software sector is concerned about open source and all the messiness of Web 2.0 (the main focus of this post), but thought leading I.T. executives are looking toward both for lessons and solutions they can use.

Very good article on CIO Insight entitled, "Are Enterprise Apps on the Way Out?" that asks leaders some very pertinent questions and the answers won't come as a surprise I'm sure:

• Finding 1: Improving business processes is the top priority for many IT executives, especially at small and midsize companies.
• Finding 2: Although process improvement is a priority, the pace of change is moderate.
• Finding 3: Business process software and services often fail to meet expectations.
• Finding 4: New integration technologies are starting to displace older enterprise applications.
• Finding 5: Much more can be done to automate business processes.

I've personally been witness to multiple millions of dollars worth of software and services expended on enterprise implementations that took years to come online and were wholly unsatisfying when completed. There is a constant and ongoing march toward eliminating inefficiency and making process more efficient (though governments often get in the way of that happening by changing incentives) which is being manifested right now with the onrush of the internet becoming the platform with Web applications on top.

Web 2.0 (which I include in my tag "FutureWeb") delivers discrete functionality quickly. Just look at the bazillions of apps that are already out contained in these lists. It's an impressive volume of solutions that have come to market and are being modified and improved at an amazing rate. Yes they're messy, many have unknown security models and their ability to scale is anyone's guess (all of which is of great concern to most CIO's), but the fact remains that people inside and outside the enterprise are just using them, somewhat like when people started bringing those Apple II's with VisiCalc in the back door in 1978 since they couldn't get mainframe time to crunch numbers.

For more thoughts surrounding this, check out articles here, here (and a rebuttal) and here as well as poke around Dion Hinchcliffe's journal and ZDNet blog.

UndoTV: Actual talent delivering thought leadership?

What a delight it's been seeing the growth of everything touched by that one-man media machine (Leo Laporte) as well as the acceptance and embrace of the value Chris Pirillo is bringing to techdom (e.g., Gnomedex). Reading Chris's blog this morning led me to an update post about UndoTV where he asked readers NOT to slam the site until the DNS was propagated. I waited awhile and headed on over to check it out.

Imagine my surprise to see this under the "About UndoTV" link:

The blogger Steve Borsch commented in a previous thread: "So, who decides what gets 'on' UndoTV? Who the talent is? What emerges?" The UndoTV talent base is starting with the former ZDTV / TechTV staff, previous show guests, and vetted friends. Without a base of quality content, we'd be nothing more than a video portal clone.

This pleased me due to my respect for Leo and Chris as well as I'm highly interested in what they're apparently focused on delivering -- much of which is confirmed by the note on the site -- which is talent who "get it" and can deliver what the audience expects. I'm glad that they're not taking a "Digg or YouTube-like" approach where everything is thrown up against the wall and having everyone weigh in on what they think is important. I want to consume content that is delivered by people that either know more than me or are plugged-in more so than I am -- and connected with big thinkers.

Thanks for having your initial vision NOT being a "me too" video portal. The wisdom of the crowd seems too often to be a collective, mass viewpoint with little strategic or critical thinking behind it. My wife (the home furnishings trend forecaster) said it best: "I don't really care what everyone thinks." We're not being elitist, but when she and I talk deeply about social promotion of news, community forums, YouTube "Most Viewed" or other crowd-wisdom-must-see-content and developments on the internet, both of us realize that it's most often baseline stuff on these sites and what we REALLY gravitate toward is thought leadership.

If I could hope for one thing out of UndoTV, it's that: thought leadership. In the TechTV days, ScreenSavers, Big Thinkers and other shows were ones that BROADENED my knowledge and horizons and made me think and become more aware. That's what I so enjoy with many of the TWiT shows now, Chris' adventures and DLTV. Though I often am already far beyond what's discussed I yet still learn something from virtually everything offered.

The last piece of my hope for UndoTV is the answer to this question (when you're looking at what content to offer and the talent to deliver it): is it interesting vision or is it actionable? Can I use something now to enable myself, inform what I'm doing now (or will be doing soon) or take action on what I care about? Or is it stuff that a guy like me would think, "Oh that was cool" but then go on about my day? (If it's the latter...I submit that I'd quickly lose interest and will turn away after the novelty wears off).

Thought leadership will be sustainable for UndoTV since every nanosecond we're pushing against the membrane of the future and none of us know for certain what's just up ahead. For that matter, most of us don't know what's already here as evidenced by the gignormous number of Web 2.0 hosted offerings that most people have never heard about let alone used!

Let me end with one more thing about thought leadership and a suggestion about what could be a guiding principle for UndoTV.

• It's NOT just the latest flipper, flapper or dweebezaarb technology I want to hear, see or learn about (and PLEEZ don't dumb down the content "for the masses") though technologies are important since they're the manifestations and creations of thought leadership. Without talking tech UndoTV would be a bunch of pontificators blowing into their bags of wind.

• What IS leading thought is a focus on the trends, the shifts in socioeconomics and culture, the acceleration in global connectivity and global innovation. In short, the stuff BEHIND the technologies and innovation driving much of it so all of us can deepen our understanding the catalysts of the future.
  

Global Shift in Value Exchange

Most people think about creating value with their work (and many see work as working in a coal mine) in exchange for money. What if you went to work but didn't get paid in money? Or what if you created something that doesn't exist...but has enough value that people are willing to give you value for your virtual creation?

A post on 3PointD today about this Reuters article entitled, "US Congress launches probe into virtual economies" got me to thinking about some dots I've been trying to connect for the last year or so. The dots are that I'm seeing a global shift in value exchange that may make much knowledge (i.e., intellectual property) free and the implication of free on capitalism and geopolitics will be profound.

Booming virtual economies in online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft have drawn the attention of a U.S. congressional committee, which is investigating how virtual assets and incomes should be taxed.

Why is Congress doing this?

• Think for a moment about the global shift that is occurring in intellectual property. Open source software, as one example, is a manifestation of "value for value exchange" of the highest order. People from around the world invest energy, effort and intellectual capital in the creation and delivery of software value that is non-monetary and non-barter in nature. The relevance and intrinsic value of any of these projects could, I argue, be directly related to the number of people actually using them.

So far, no government has attempted to tax me on the "value" of open source software I use. Is a Linux desktop worth 80% of the value of Mac OS X or WindowsXP? If so, I'm receiving roughly $100 worth of value if I use it. Same thing with content management systems, blogs, wikis and all the other amazingly valuable open source packages I use instead of buying commercial off the shelf software or using hosted services. A very rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that I use tens of thousands of dollars worth of open source package value (if one were to look at commercial alternatives for each).

• Look at the acceleration in the use of virtual worlds and people making money in them. This is the real reason for Congress' action: not if...but when virtual worlds have good enough resolution to facilitate an increasing amount of value exchange and commerce occuring within them, how will earnings be taxed? What if the world is hosted, say, in one country and the value-creator in another. Will the country where the value is created (and the virtual world company located) tax the virtual value and transactions or will the tax be on the individual value-creator and their virtual real estate and commerce businesses? What if a company holds a contest and gives a prize of an island with structures on it? Will I receive a 1099 for its "virtual worth" and have to claim it as income on my tax return?
  

All of this goes way beyond labor and workin' in a coal mine for money. Alot of really smart people are examining these questions and many more important ones. Yale Law School has their Access to Knowledge project and event. Yochai Benkler has written a fabulous examination of the impacts of networks on production, macroeconomics and the profound shifts occurring. If you are in a leadership or strategic role in any company or government you already should be wrestling with these questions. Or if you are a parent or guide who cares about the future of work and where your progeny may be directed then it behooves you to at least think about the changes and shifts happening right now as the world connects.

Design Matters: iWeb vs. Typepad

I've decided to stop trying to use a bazooka to kill an ant.

For the last several weeks, I've been constructing a report on what's happening with the culture of participation surrounding Web 2.0 (which I've taken to calling "FutureWeb", by the way) and am intending to deliver a free ebook and had thought of doing so as a PDF. I've got quite a bit of experience delivering compelling, screen pleasing and readable ebooks -- and PDF is a ubiquitous container that is cross platform -- and good page layout tools and Acrobat Professional offer the ability to deliver great design, some interactivity and, most importantly, rapid ebook creation.

I decided instead to deliver this report online. Hyperlinks are imperative within this ebook and I can also make this a living, breathing dynamic product since change is accelerating. Wanting to leverage Typepad (and commenting, trackbacks, etc.) due to its ease-of-use, I spent HOURS tweaking the Typepad CSS and ended up stuck on the inability to deliver good navigation and, most importantly, to have good enough design. The process was exhausting, building it out laughingly slow, and the "blog look" was just simply too pedestrian.

I went on the hunt for another tool to quickly deliver this ebook with good design and solid functionality before I gouged out my eyes with a spoon and ran out of my office screaming at random strangers.

Will Desktop Linux Be Successful Due to Web 2.0?

The tech publisher Tim O'Reilly has famously asked a question of audiences during talks about open source. "How many of you use Linux?" and a show of hands and only a few are raised. Next he asks, "How many of you use Google?" virtually all hands shoot up as O'Reilly then launches into an explanation of the fact that they're using the world's largest Linux application, Google, every time they perform a search.

Whether or not Google's Linux purity is still 100% true or not is a guess. What is true is that hosted Web applications are so amazingly desktop operating system agnostic that most of them are accessible through a Linux desktop.

As I read this blog post about the Linux-friendliness of the just launched Google Doc's and Spreadsheets (as their salvo into the hosted office application suite game), it made me realize that the onrush of Web 2.0 applications; open or ubiquitous standards like PDF and Flash (the latter, for instance, with its use in video delivery is a game-changer and there's a fabulous article here worth a read);  and super-simple Linux distributions like Ubuntu are all combining to make Linux increasingly a strong option for desktop operating system use.

I'm almost ready to predict that we'll see an upsurge in Linux desktop adoption in 2007 and 2008 due primarily to Web 2.0 applications reaching critical mass coupled with a continued increase in online functionality making the desktop operating system increasingly moot.

Mind Control of Video Games

Over at Slashdot was a post about a teen who controlled the video game Space Invaders with only his mind (article at the web site of Washington University in St. Louis where it occurred). 

Just like my interest in robotics, the whole field of brain computer interface (BCI) is a fascinating one. Frankly, I hope to live long enough to have the ability to jack into my computer, get into a virtual world like Second Life, and simply control my avatar through thought.

Another thing I'd like to do is to have experiences that wouldn't otherwise be possible. Imagine a buffered (to eliminate latency) video feed from a rover on Mars. While it wouldn't be practical to have individuals pilot the vehicle with their individual minds, imagine collectively jacking in and having an immersive sensory experience of the surface of the red planet!

Lastly, the speed with which thought could be transmitted would be amazing. The collective consciousness of all of us could work on problems...or we could absolutely turn into the Borg.

Practical and far more meaningful uses would be enabling the disabled (great Wired article here). As more and more of our work migrates to knowledge-based collaboration activities that are online, the better able all of us -- including the disabled -- will be in manipulating objects and our virtual representatives in the metaverse.

In the ring: bloggers vs. mainstream media

Mike Arrington sounds like he went a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. Weary, punched, but feeling good that he didn't back down.

An old mentor of mine made sure that I understood early on that "if you're delivering your radically different point of view and are interested in persuading, presenting something difficult needs to be done in a way that causes people to stop, think, and examine their status quo vs. bitch-slapping them with it." Maybe Mike bitch-slapped them?

In a time of accelerating change, status quo won't cut it and boy-oh-boy...are we in that time! Journalism has so many faults dragging them down as things accelerate: walled gardens; timidity; lots of process caused by imperative but laborious fact-checking; but all are intended to get the story as objectively as humans can deliver it and to get the story right (Sometimes? Usually? Never? Maybe all three?). Mike's point about mainstream media's non-disclosure of their incentives is, in my view, a huge problem but the overriding issue is reporting vs. opinion, speculation and group-think.

Arrington mentioned Digg in his remarks. While I find Digg entertaining, sometimes enlightening and often illuminating to know what the masses think are interesting, that's NOT where I turn to get my news, balanced coverage or ESPECIALLY not where I go to deeply examine an issue. Even TechMeme, while useful, is too limiting about anything but what's happening in the moment.

When a bunch of bloggers pounce on a story fueling each other's non-critical thinking about an issue and makes it a big deal...is that reporting?

Death rattle for the printing industry?

When I was with Apple in the late 90's, the prepress space was one that the company dominated (something like 87% of all color publishing was/is done on Mac's). One of the largest companies in the prepress space was Banta Corporation in Wisconsin.

On a tour of their plant in Eden Prairie, MN in 1998, I was stunned to see 80 people in the bullpen working on Mac's performing prepress tasks. I inquired, "Gee...won't the ability for companies to collapse everything into PDF (which had just taken off in prepress) obviate much of what these people do?" She replied with an "absolutely yes" and within a year many of them were gone.

I had an incredible knowing even then that the Web was going to continue to accelerate and eventually make much of what ended up as ink on paper be digitally delivered instead. Of course, gigantic, industry shifting changes take many, many years to unfold and I -- like many of us -- tend to ignore basic and fundamental shifts that take place over a long period of time.

A piece of evidence came across my desk just now that confirms my knowing back then: Banta is closing their Eden Prairie plant altogether as well as five other plants and lay off 500 workers. They're apparently "in play" as well since a suitor has appeared to buy them.

I'm a bit disconnected from Apple and the importance of what was (printing and publishing) one of the cores and mainstays of their business. Perhaps the embrace of video and audio tools; even lame attempts at Web publishing (with iWeb); and the apparent teaming with Google (with Eric Schmidt now on their board) are all the moves Apple is making to replace and extend this printing and publishing paradigm to the internet.

Or maybe this is just a natural evolution of the printing/publishing tools, PDF and the skills gained over two decades of being in this space. I know that we produce many color publications in our business and do nearly 100% of all prepress activities as a natural course of our preparation for publishing.

Destined to Repeat History?

As I struggle to deepen my understanding on what's transpiring politically in the US, I've been reading numerous books (e.g., American Theocracy; State of Denial), visiting both "right" and "left" leaning blogs, and thinking about those things historically that might inform what many of us sense is transpiring: a grab for domestic and geopolitical control.

Some weeks ago I was perusing a book shelf at home and was compelled to pick up and re-read William Shirer's famous tome, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". This time, I actually read what I'd previously just skimmed (to get to the "good parts", the war years). What was particularly interesting this time was the political machinations that led to the rise of a regime led by a former tramp and junior officer. A regime that wouldn't have been possible save for the acquiescence of the German people, including business leaders, the military, and all workers -- as well as the appeasement of other countries.

Many reactionaries opt to paint our current administration with a brush that implies corrollaries between Bush and Hitler. While I don't subscribe to those theories, what I do watch for are signs that those interested only in power and control are making their moves...and I'm seeing so many moves that are disturbing that I'm writing this post, knowing I'm going to catch heat for it.

The reason for this out-of-character, political post is because of the first third of Shirer's book which describes -- in great detail -- all the things that sloooowly happened to allow the Nazi party to get into power, how both other governments and the German people acquiesced to their direction, and how none of them put up any kind of a fight (and could've crushed the party many times over). What most of us don't realize is that it was more than five years between Hitler's power grab to become Chancellor and the outbreak of WWII.

During that time there was a constant, methodical and slow erosion of Jews' rights, honest intellectual education, free elections, and an acceleration in the police state. Due to Hitler's truly phenomenal economic trickery that resulted in untold prosperity, the majority just went along with whatever the leadership wanted to do.

Are you not seeing slow, methodical erosion of those same sorts of things right here, right now? If not, open your eyes. It's been interesting to me that several years ago I felt more frightened for the future of my country than at any other time in my adult life. I feel less fearful now since so many others have had their eyes opened and are willing to fight for liberty and justice for all.

Guess who NEVER will be on the cover of People?

I'm often at my desk early scanning my news aggregator (I awake to 300+ articles already populating my aggregator from the 200 or so blogs and other news feeds I follow with nearly 1,000 total articles coming into it daily) and something this morning struck my eye.

Scrolling down Yahoo News Top Stories, there were two articles (here and here) on the recent Nobel Prizes won by Americans. Just below the second one on John Mather (who is pictured at left in the photo) was an article about George Clooney's thoughts about punking paparazzi by dating a different actress every night for months.

You should know that I'm a Clooney fan and admire that he has big ballocks which he used to great effect delivering his recent films Good Night and Good Luck and Syriana. But I'm even a bigger fan of those people who are inventing our future, people like John Mather and George Smoot and the irony of this juxtaposition of news feeds was too blatant for me to ignore.

I'd be living under a rock if I thought for a moment that John Mather would make women swoon like Clooney and therefore would be a good candidate for the cover of People magazine. But the constant and incessant focus on "stars" over scientists is a concern if you care about the minds of those who will invent our future (i.e., our children) and how we're molding and shaping their thoughts about what's important and where they should focus their attention.

The September 26, 2006 Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007 released by the World Economic Forum had this to say about U.S. competitiveness:

Switzerland, Finland and Sweden are the world’s most competitive economies according to The Global Competitiveness Report 2006-2007, released by the World Economic Forum on 26 September 2006. Denmark, Singapore, the United States, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom complete the top ten list, but the United States shows the most pronounced drop, falling from first to sixth.

So who should we be lauding? Putting on the cover of magazines? Encouraging our children to emulate? My own 12 year old son -- who is in the 99th percentile for IQ and reads voraciously with all the promise in the world -- wants to be a video game designer because that's what he thinks is cool. Nothing wrong with that (and I'll encourage his passion whatever that ends up being) but our focus with him is on helping him think about focusing his talents toward building, exploring, creating and we frequently talk-up the accomplishments of those that do (and he could care less about false "heroes" thank God).

I know, I know...there aren't publicity machines that drive revenue from promoting scientists like there are for sports "heroes", movie stars and anorexic models, so this cacophony of noise about false heroes is unavoidable perhaps. But as a nation we should hammer, hammer and hammer on achievement, accomplishment, and thought leadership over who is hot or can hit more home runs.

What's a Widget?

There are so many interpretations of what a widget is, it's often difficult to explain the concept. Konfabulator (acquired by Yahoo who has a fabulous widget site) was arguably the first widget engine and this company was in the business of making them for Apple's Mac OS X. Then Apple allegedly hijacked the concept and shoved it into OS X in the form of Dashboard -- extending the concept and giving it more traction in the marketplace. Opera has widgets. Typepad has widgets. There are widgets for Wordpress. The cool Wigipedia for widgets is representative of the kinds of directories in place to locate widgets. Phew!

The kicker is that there are operating system-centric widgets and browser-centric widgets (e.g., blog; MySpace; or web page-centric) but the two have discrete methods of displaying their content which causes alot of confusion.

Widgets share one attribute: they're tiny "windows" into the functionality of some, internet-hosted application or service allowing it to be easily and seamlessly accessed with these small, ahh, widgets. I predict that the promise of web services is being realized by these little chunks of functionality and the momentum for hosted internet-centric applications and services to deliver their core with API's.

We've only seen the tip of the iceberg with widgets.