Connecting the Dots

Collaboration shouldn't be like driving by keyboard

Back in 1984 I was a manufacturer's rep for a computer company called Apple and they had this new computer called Macintosh. Using the mouse was foreign to most people and we'd put on seminars to teach them how to manipulate a mouse and try out this new fangled computer and it's graphical user interface or GUI ("OK everyone...now drag the arrow to the top left of the screen. Good. Now drag it to the bottom right. Good. Now click once on what looks like a manila file folder. Good." Yes, it was that sort of brain-dead-simple movements that gave people a feel for a GUI since no one we were presenting to yet had a clue.

One of the metaphors I remember using to help people understand this new paradigm of controlling a computer was comparing this new mousing method -- and how fluid, intuitive, fast and seamless it was -- to driving using a computer keyboard and typing out commands vs. just using a steering wheel. I'd start off...

Imagine if we had to use a keyboard to drive a car! To start the car moving you'd type in "Go 30" and the car would begin to accelerate to 30mph. "TL 20" for turning left 20 degrees" "Alt-B" for braking. Then "OH MY GOD, THERE'S A WOMAN WITH A BABY CARRIAGE!!" and I'd pretend to be all flustered and scrambling to quickly locate the Alt-B keys to stop the car (trust me...it seemed pretty funny 20+ years ago).

Using today's virtual worlds is somewhat like typing commands vs. fluid steering with a wheel. While I enjoy Second Life (SL), the learning curve necessary to build an avatar, learn how to move through the SL space is far too daunting to all but the most highly motivated among us. While flying in-world is fun and it's cool, getting around isn't as easy as it appears in recorded SL videos or perhaps how devotees of SL would have you believe.

To use SL in a business setting for casual use isn't practical (I've tried) since the training and learning costs are too high and get in the way of the intended reason and outcome of getting together to collaborate in the first place! Can't tell you how much time I've invested with people to get them to stop flying and learn how to come back to ground and walk and I'm not terribly patient when it comes to coaching people through the basics when we've got stuff to be accomplished.

Qwaq understands these limitations and has a different approach...one that's simple with relatively short learning curves. I've written about Qwaq before and their approach (e.g., building upon the open source Croquet engine), but haven't looked at them for quite awhile. Did this afternoon and it's clear they've been making great strides and even have an emerging ecosystem (e.g., 3D Templates).

Qwaq isn't as high resolution or functional as an SL, but that's not their target market and again, the biggest plus to Qwaq's approach is that the learning curve is really short. Anyone with face-time in front of computer for any length of time can quickly get up-to-speed and use it.

Qwaq was just showcased in analyst firm Gartner's latest report, "April 2008 “Cool Vendors in Collaboration and Social Software, 2008” and the software is worth a look if you're connecting with people virtually and would like a persistent room (i.e., work on stuff and leave it there for future work), a virtual meeting space and an enterprise-ready virtual environment that emulates the real world nicely with all the advantages of a location agnostic collaboration space.

Will we only have *virtual* souvenirs, artifacts and collectibles?

The more I'm involved with online, virtual technologies and those sorts of almost ethereal experiences, the sweeter and more profound it is to hold an artifact in my hands that evokes periods and events in history and sparks memories of these times past.

In 1965, my hometown Minnesota Twins went to the world series after winning their first pennant since they were the Washington Senators in 1933. This was a big deal for a little kid and my grandparents went to the series games and bought (for $1.75) a team-signed baseball actually used in game play.

A couple of weeks ago my dad handed it to me as I offered to investigate its worth and seek an appraisal. It appears to be worth ~$1,000 though it might be "machine signed" and its worth possibly lower.

The money isn't what matters. When I hold this baseball, memories of being in the old Metropolitan Stadium flood back (and of freezing my butt off watching the Vikings in it during winter in the 1970's). I went to games, concerts, watched midget race cars fly around the road track surrounding the stadium and more. Listening to games on WCCO Radio (the huge wattage CBS station here) was a ritual...

...and I wasn't then, nor am I now, much of a baseball fan!

It's the artifact and its partial representation of an era gone by that means so much to me. The players I looked up to that signed this ball -- some of whom I met as a kid like Harmon Killebrew -- conjures up memories and puts into perspective how things change and what's important. In fact, the site where you see the stadium is now the current location of the gignormous Mall of America.

Which brings me to the point of today's post. I've been thinking a lot about virtual, digital and online artifacts (or the lack thereof). Thankfully Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive (and specifically the Wayback Machine) is at least attempting to store representations of our digital and online life...but it's incomplete (mostly since database driven sites break with the archive methods used) and certainly doesn't archive virtual worlds like Second Life.

So how will our children and grandchildren be able to smell, hold and delight in old artifacts, souvenirs and collectibles of our current digital age and the one they're growing up in?  30-40 years from now, what will they be able to hold from Facebook? Twitter? YouTube? Or whatever is the must-use online offering when they're in their teens and young adulthood?  There are few (or zero) physical artifacts in existence from these and almost all other online offerings and this I find disturbing.

Makes me realize that virtual companies need to create and deliver artifacts: t-shirts, pens, mugs or any other swag that people can -- if they so choose -- buy and archive for future generations. Otherwise, most of what we're doing and experiencing will be mostly lost.

What if a 1% increase in broadband penetration equaled 300,000 jobs?

Often I take Robert X. Cringely's columns with a grain-of-salt, but this one entitled, "Game Over: The U.S. is unlikely to ever regain its broadband leadership" really hit me since I make my living on Internet-centric management consulting and view broadband as the key enabler of business going forward. Cringely's article is an important one to read if you care about US competitiveness in the future.

Back in the mid-1990's I had an ISDN line with a whopping 128kbps access for $69 per month. Incredibly fast at the time, I even considered their bonded option for 256kbps (well over $100 per month) but I wanted to stay married. Today I have 8mbps per second downstream and 768kbps upstream for essentially the same price.

I have friends in San Francisco with 10mbps symmetrical (both upload and download) for under $100 a month. Others using Verizon's fiber (FIOS) and getting 15mbps down, 2mbps up for $50 per month.

But Cringely talks about the 100mbps speeds in Japan, others have complained about them being ahead of us too and the OECD's April, 2007 report (which showed the US at 25th in global broadband penetration and speed) is open to debate. So is it important for us to have competitiveness in broadband speeds and why aren't we -- the inventor and creator of the Internet -- in the world's leading position for broadband speed and penetration?

When you think about the relative sizes of countries vs. US states, you begin to get a feel for the enormity of the problem. Japan is roughly the size of Montana, for example, and (as of 2001), 79% of the population lived in urban areas with ~20% in Tokyo alone. That makes it considerably easier to provide a high speed broadband infrastructure for the overwhelming majority of Japanese. It's a lot tougher to do so across the vast geography that is the United States.

The stakes are too high, however, to NOT solve this accelerating need for true broadband. ArsTechnica has a good article on House Democrats and discussions about 'true' broadband. I'm not even going to get into the lobbying and politics of broadband, telephony and wireless, but suffice to say there are alot of complexities on why we're NOT the world's leader. What most discussions don't focus on, however, is that broadband is viewed as a driver of gross domestic product (GDP) output and we need to be accelerating the Internet -- both in speed and penetration -- now.

What if a 1% increase in broadband penetration equaled 300,000 jobs? Read on for a very interesting set of data...

Future of Work is Gaming

For years my 12 year old son has expressed over and over again how he wants to be in the video game space. He's stayed on campus at the UofMN for two years with ID Tech Camp's summer programs in video game design and is immersed in gaming and virtual worlds.

At first, my bride and I were concerned by his rabid and passionate embrace of games. "Hey...go outside and ride your bike or something" was our constant refrain on beautiful summer days when he was opting to be inside gaming with a buddy or a team online. As a parent, the key to successful launching of a kid is to find and fuel their passion -- whatever it may be and regardless of how we might feel about it -- so we're fueling his gaming passion (and still ensuring he is balanced and in the fresh air!).

I've been skimming articles for a few years now on the examinations of gaming theory on learning, collaboration, team building and educational process. Great minds are examining the power of video games -- a power which even was being looked at as a possible psychiatric addiction...but the American Medical Association recently eliminated it from inclusion in a widely used diagnostic manual of psychiatric illnesses.

Now IBM has been seriously exploring the future of work and gaming (by way of 3PointD) with the firm Seriosity.

Figuring out the importance, the best practices and zero'ing in on the most powerful aspects of virtual work -- and creating software systems and processes that are effective -- make perfect sense for an organization like IBM and this study and their initiative is highly interesting. But I'm more interested in the fact that IBM is even looking at this category as I join other strategists and visionaries in determining what it means when business, education, social ties and human consciousness are connected and increasingly virtual.

How do we come together in teams virtually? What software can we use that is instantly intuitive and fosters collaboration and, especially, creativity and innovation? What are the protocols and behaviors we need to exhibit in order to make virtual connections trustworthy, meaningful and productive? How can coming together virtually be really fun and delightful so it will be attractive rather than a burden to participants?

Get Smart about Helping Others Understand Technology

Was poking around Brightcove's site this morning and found a Time/Life channel with the clip below. I remember this show, Get Smart, and its bumbling spy Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams). It was campy as hell but was fun to watch nevertheless.

This clip -- complete with a pinkish red wrapper and an ad for the series on DVD (Note: for some reason I noticed today, July 12th, that it had been taken down so I put up a new version) -- was still one I wanted to include in this post today. Why? Because the way Maxwell is using all his phone gadgets is how I sometimes think people see me when I'm goofin' with all my gadgets and technology. This might be an enjoyable clip that may also make you stop and think about what those of us deeply embedded in Web 2.0, the Internet, software and gadgets present with our use of technology. Let's help the rest of 'em catch up, heh?

Internet Innovation and Optimizing the Status Quo

Minnesota is a great place to live and raise kids. Yes, the winters are brutal but the benefits outweigh the troubles. So much so that most of my 600+ high school graduating class members still live here after several decades.

There are A LOT of smart people in the Land of 10,000 Lakes -- both home grown and those transplanted here. Successful businesses abound like Target, Best Buy, Medtronic, General Mills, 3M, UnitedHealth Group and many, many more. World class businesses and leadership in their respective industries. But as the world of business gets increasingly mapped on to the Internet, it's highly unlikely that these organizations will lead us to the promised land of Internet innovation. They'll just wait and see who is successful and leverage capital to buy-in strategically. Sadly this is often a too-little-too-late move.

Frequently I complain about my conversations with leaders in Minnesota and how I first need to educate them on Web 2.0 and Internet-as-a-platform before we can have a productive conversation about the paradigm shifts and disruption occurring. The next challenge is how to work on driving forward strategically and embracing the changes. "Why aren't you already innovating on the rapidly accelerating Internet platform?", I'll ask. The answers range from "Not sure what to do" to "it's not a big deal for my business yet". The former we can work on...the latter closes the door.

Closing the door isn't an option in a time of accelerating change. Every client I have and every industry I analyze is being disrupted in some fashion by the Internet. Fortunately there are thought leaders guiding us.

EFF Pioneer Awards

Last night I attended the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Awards. Just simply being at this event and absorbing the vibe was meaningful for me and I'll bring forth a perspective that may be atypical and worth putting into the conversation about EFF.

Nearly four years ago was the first time that I donated to EFF and began my support of this organization. Though I look like "a suit", a Republican and a mainstream sort of guy, I'm an independent, a closet liberal, enjoy some Libertarian leanings and am quite open to growing in my perspective as I learn -- especially legally and politically -- as we all push against the membrane of the future.

Five or so years ago I became more enlightened. I was stunned by the multiple, parallel, onrush of efforts by copyright holders, Congress, world intellectual capital bodies, governments globally as well as intelligence communities, to command, control and infiltrate all aspects of the Internet.  As I started to try getting my head wrapped around even a few of the issues, I realized that there was NO way that I could be competently informed about even ONE of these issues shaping our future....let alone dozens of them at a time!

Enter the EFF. I learned that here was an organization whose mission was to be that competent, informed entity who'd act to intervene, stop or shape the debate about the most important issues facing us in our digital future. With more and more of our relationships, commerce, free speech, entertainment -- you name it -- being created or delivered digitally, I (and you) could either pull the covers over our collective heads or get involved...and support those who've rolled up their sleeves, dug their hands in the muck and are in the fray.

So that's what I did.  Last night was great for a lot of reasons and validated (in spades) the vital importance of this organization and the people who've dedicated money, support and all or part of their lives to the mission.

Why in the world would Cisco buy WebEx?

When Cisco bought into the social networking game, there were a lot of folks in the blogosphere scratching their heads wondering why they did it. I didn't pay much attention to this acquisition since it seemed tactical and not terribly interesting. But now with Cisco buying WebEx (press release here) it sheds a whole new light on their potential strategy to become even a bigger and more material part of the Internet-as-a-platform layer.

What could this mean and why should you care?

If you're a developer, it's important to keep an eye on strategic moves since (by their very nature) companies try to position themselves for category dominance. Unfortunately, this often translates into trying to wrest control of standards and protocols or otherwise defend against competition, maintain growth and enjoy huge gross margins often to your detriment.

If you're a buyer of I.T. products or services, you need to understand what's happening strategically so that you know which horse to bet on and ensure you don't paint-yourself-into-a-corner with some given vendor and their approach.

But there's alot more to this acquisition than meets the eye.

Mobile Global Grid: When the World is At Your Fingertips

Like me, if you're paying any attention to the signs, trends and foundational elements upon which innovation in technology occurs, then you have to be seeing what I'm seeing...it's sooo close.  Do you see it?

Right there. Don't see it yet? OK then, let's push against the membrane of the future together for a minute.

If you look now you can just make out a mobile device, connected to a ubiquitous wireless network (that you can use even when you're miles from a major metro area, off the autobahn or Interstate highway system, or at some point in the future on the Serengeti plain in Africa) and is so simple to use that you're able to connect and re-connect to the global grid in an instant and have all the world's knowledge at your fingertips.

When you're in your car, at a restaurant, a dinner party, at a business meeting, at school...anything connected to the global grid you're authorized or able to grab is yours for the snagging from a device in your hand.

We're partially there now and more is coming.

Unless you've been living under a rock, Apple's eagerly anticipated iPhone is the closest concept yet to a just beyond the membrane of the future simple to use, multi-function device that will be useful for the masses to leverage our currently decent wireless network...and is one set to expand dramatically.

According to GigaOM today, there are distinct chunks of spectrum that hold the promise of mass geographical coverage and expanding the grid. An increasing number of mobile communications online applications are proliferating (e.g., this list at eConsultant). The World Wide Web Consortium's Mobile Initiative adds even more fuel to the fire of a mobile, global grid.

Couple that with the always-on, always-connected, culture of participation (see "Rise of the Participation Culture") and you have a brew from which all sorts of possibilities come forth!

Though I look like some geek when I do this, at least twice a week I'll be in a conversation and someone will say something like, "You know...that ocean...the one by (country here)....what's that called?"  I'll whip out my Treo, go to Google, enter a search string and, I swear to God, almost instantly I can find a reference to that country and there's an obvious link that contains the data where I can answer that question. It's a bit of a conversation stifler at the moment as I futz with the device, but I'm pretty good at glossing over my thumbing on the Treo, we carry on the conversation, and I circle back to the fact and insert it into our discussion. Works great.

Did this at a dinner party one evening awhile back when people were struggling with an artist and a song. No one knew, the conversation continued, and about two minutes later I mentioned the artist. "OH YEAH!" came the head-slap comments and we carried on. Trivial in the scheme of life I realize, but extend this to the DOZENS OF TIMES PER DAY that I look something up on Google, use Google Maps, find a phone number on Directory Assistance, send SMS messages, send a photo/blog post to one of my private client blogs, use Instant Messaging....all from applications that run on my Treo!

So how is this going to transform the world? In ways predictable but mostly ones that are not. Who knows what will be the killer application for the always connected world -- especially when better geotracking is in the mix?  What I do know is that some of it is already here...and if you push just hard enough on the membrane of the future you'll have a good indication of what's coming.

World Population to Hit 9.2 Billion by 2050

If there were ever a reason to work toward reducing our carbon footprint, building Web applications, online virtual spaces and other activities that allow humans to minimize our impact on the Earth, it's the report from the United Nations that, "The world population continues its path towards population ageing and is on track to surpass 9 billion persons by 2050, as revealed by the newly released 2006 Revision of the official United Nations population estimates and projections." (More detailed data is here as both a PDF and Excel spreadsheet).

Holy crap. Over 9 BILLION?

To give you some perspective on how population change is ACCELERATING, this quaint little map from the British Empire Atlas from 1918 that you see above says in part, "The population of the World is 1600 millions, the bulk of which is settled in two regions: the Indo-China-Japanese region about 800 millions (half the population of the world), and the Central European region about 360 millions. The only other densely populated region is the Eastern side of the United States and Canada with about 90 millions." (More here).

Though population estimates are significantly more accurate today, 1.6 billion to 9.2 billion in 89 years is a pretty frightening increase.

• As I think about these numbers, the sustainability questions flood my brain: How can the Earth sustain this number of humans? What will we eat and drink? As industrialized nations move from growing food to growing renewable energy resources, is there enough to go around? Since most of the population growth is in developing nations, will the pressure on richer nations mean more wars, negative economic impacts or, God forbid, ways to accelerate genocides like what's happening in Darfur?

• A continual migration from real-world to virtual questions abound: What happens as we disconnect from the natural world and move online?  Will all of us move into our heads and be less in touch with the natural world?  Even though I've shared many experiences with them in wilderness, I've found that my kids already are pretty unaware of the subtelties and nuances of the shift in seasons, how to align with nature and even their expectations as we travel down an Interstate highway in a remote area that a few miles off the highway there is....no one.

• Lastly, the enormity of the problem, the strategic political and governmental necessities, and the moral ambiguities between cultures and religions exacerbate attempts at controlling the problem. I wonder how those who consider themselves religious ignore these realities and object to birth control (no....I'm not going to discuss abortion) as a means of population control?

Remember last year when physicist Stephen Hawking proclaimed that humans *must* colonize other planets -- he believes global warming, nuclear war or a genetically engineered virus could wipe out the earth --in order to survive as a species and he was ridiculed in many circles? I read dozens of blog posts, news articles (like this one) and opinion pieces that missed the point of his central argument: humans all settled in one place (i.e., our planet Earth) are vulnerable to mass extinction.

He didn't even get in to a discussion that we might breed ourselves into extinction.

Qwaq Launches Virtual Workspace

Last week I was delighted to receive an offer to be in a hosted session with Greg Nuyens, CEO of Qwaq, to take a pre-launch peek at a secure, virtual workspace product called "Qwaq Forums"...a product built upon the open source Croquet project (site Croquet Consortium site here).

In April of last year I wrote a post entitled, "Is Second Life the Future of Collaboration and Social Software?" since I'd been thinking deeply about the implications of metaverse world's like Second Life providing us with ever higher ability to be involved in an immersive, persistent, engaging, fun and creative space. But just like Skype's proprietary protocol limits the ability to leverage their IP telephony or Apple's closed iPod (and soon to be closed iPhone launch) limits the expansion, this seemingly needed control limits what organizations can (or will) do with technology.

Qwaq's approach is that their product, Qwaq Forums, "...enhances the productivity of distributed teams by bringing critical resources together in a virtual place, as if they were in an actual physical location, and providing them with all the tools and collaboration capabilities they need to work more effectively together. With Qwaq Forums, users can work together to establish workflow steps, create or review information in software applications, and evaluate designs in 2D and 3D, all while discussing topics using built-in text and voice chat. Further enhancing employee productivity, Qwaq Forums virtual workspaces are always available so users can return to a forum at another time to access and view changes that have occurred since they last visited the virtual space."

So what was my experience like and why should you be keenly interested? I think you might be surprised by my perception...