Found this easy to understand podcasting overview on LaughingSquid (from Common Craft) and thought you might like it. Not because you need to know about podcasting perhaps, but rather how concise and fun it is to watch. More of our communication needs to be this way!
Our pals at Techcrunch just posted about a new company that debuted today at DEMO called Sprout and thought I'd attempt to get in on the private beta and lo-and-behold...I got in.
The 'sprout' (their term vs. 'widget') you see below is one I created in 15 minutes. It took me longer to open Photoshop, reduce the size of the Connecting the Dots header and to type in the pathnames to my podcasts (yes I know...they're OLD) then it did to create the sprout!
I just grinned and shook my head in disbelief as I used it since Sprout has delivered on my pent up desire to have just such a mashup and creation tool which begs the question: why the hell didn't Adobe do this with their rich internet application (i.e., RIA or Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR)) strategy? To date mere mortals -- who are savvy enough to use InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and the like -- can't truly deliver on AIR, Microsoft Silverlight or even Webkit apps unless the propeller on their beanie is fairly large.
There are a few nits (the words "Click on any playlist..." were bolded and italicized which didn't publish) but they're so few compared to the power Sprout has unleashed they're easily overlooked. I also want to understand what they'll charge for the service -- or those I direct to Sprout to create -- before I get too fired up about recommending people leap on the tool and deliver mission-critical products.
I also noticed a slight latency as my 'sprout' loads which you might notice also. I've been a broken record on the topic of the "dirty little secret" -- that Internetwork latency is already affecting mashups, Web/Enterprise 2.0 applications, video delivery and essentially everything we do over the Internet -- but this latency won't likely slow down the creation and delivery of mashed up applications. I hope, really hope, that this latency doesn't crush the spirit of those of us truly wanting to create and deliver significantly higher value on the Web with tools like Sprout.
Using this tool for 30 minutes tonight has sparked about 25 ideas for how I'd use it. From completely self-contained multimedia slideshows to a different sort of ebook to a poor man's RIA, I suspect many others will have exactly the same reaction and start building these things like mad.
In my work it's imperative I stay abreast of new technologies, approaches and how social media startups are figuring out how to increase our capability to connect to one another in more interesting and meaningful ways.
But how many places can we focus our attention?
I blog. Follow and skim 138 blogs and dozens of news feeds in Google Reader. Deal with dozens of emails per day. Scan Techmeme and Blogrunner. Post and follow people on Twitter and now Pownce. Barely use Facebook but feel compelled since so many people I know are using it. Just joined Seesmic (in private alpha) which is a social network for participatory video (see what your friends post, you can post, and a 'conversation' can carry forward). Scroll through Digg's feed and often click on an article.
Oh....and I have work to do for my clients and business!
Since one my strengths is "input" (collecting information is something I love to do), I thought my scattered focus and partial attention was atypical until I talked to dozens of other people. Nearly everyone I talk to is feeling the effects of traditional media clamoring for our attention, more coverage and news with less analysis than ever before, and thousands of new media methods (some which I mentioned above) that are connecting us in ways that making it very challenging to think, mull it over and breathe.
Many business leaders feel that this continuous partial attention is a Millenials or kids phenomena, but my own anecdotal research shows that this is increasingly cutting across all age groups, demographics and cultures (Linda Stone has the seminal thoughts on the topic).
Anyone with a computer and internet connection is now a mini-media mogul since it's trivial to publish, create radio and TV (even live streams ala uStream, Qik, Stickam), deliver screencasts and learning content, and stake a claim in the micro-blogging arena (e.g., Twitter, Pownce) and snag followers tuning into your thought stream.
With all of these sources coming at us (or those we choose feeling compelled or pressured to stay abreast of their content) while we pay continuous partial attention to each, what happens to these attention traffic jams in our brains? How can we discern what is worthy of our attention since not all of it is?
If there are interviews you want to do and record them as podcasts -- or use high quality audio for any purpose when interviewees or conference callers are in multiple geographical locations -- it's been challenging to do over phone lines or any other means...until Skype arrived.
For years I've followed everything Doug Kaye delivers since he's a long-time radio guy who "gets" podcasting and user generated content. He created IT Conversations which allowed me to access and listen to thought leaders in information technologies which first got me hooked on following him. He's done much more and you can read about (and listen to an interview with him) here.
But Kaye has always danced around his Gold stamp of approval for Skype interview recording...until now as you'll see and hear when you watch the video below.
A cohort of his, Paul Figgiani who runs Podcast Academy for Gigavox Media (Kaye's firm) joins Kaye in this video and he's an accomplished audio guy too. I also owe this guy. Why? Because when I was struggling with audio gear -- and had bought and returned several devices -- this guy took the time to record audio for me and emailed me (after I had sent him a note). This was WAY beyond the call of duty and thus have always had a soft spot for him and what he delivers and I'll bet you'll appreciate what he and Kaye have given.
Kaye and Figgiani just released a VERY well done "how-to" video on how to record Skype interviews in high quality. It moves along very fast so you'll want to pause it as you try what they recommend. But for these two guys to place their blessings on Skype interview recording is huge.
I went through a lot of time and pain (and money) over many months in 2005 and 2006 to learn what they've synthesized and have delivered in this video. This is a wealth of knowledge packaged up for your use and is quite a gift. Thanks guys!
On a conference call yesterday with a client we were discussing the many forms of new media (e.g., blogging, podcasting, vlogging) they might use and I was asked point-blank, "So Steve, you had a nice podcast. If podcasting is so great, why did you stop?"
I did the obligatory humma-humma dance and recovered by stating that it no longer met my communication goals. Totally true, but it made me step back and ponder a bit more deeply about why I stopped.
Part of the reason was lukewarm feedback. Though I had a few dozen hardcore fans (many of whom were vocal and emailed me often), my base of podcast listeners pales in comparison to my blog efforts and audience size. My monetary return on investment for blogging is huge (many clients come to me specifically due to my blog) compared to primarily personal satisfaction I felt with podcasting which was nice, but the few hour investment of time to perform, edit and deliver a podcast wasn't worth the effort.
The other reason?
My daughter had a college paper to do and ended up doing it on, "Old and New Media Influence on Anti-American Sentiment".
What was fascinating was to read this report (PDF) from May, 2007 entitled, "The Communication of Anti-Americanism: Media Influence and Anti-American Sentiment” by the Department of Communications at Cornell University and see that this massive research study focused on traditional media and completely left out new media!
They examined all sorts of statistics and variables in the report: country, age, income, media habits, and much more. The problem in leaving out new media is that most people under 30 have radically reduced their consumption of old media and instead are having their perceptions molded and shaped by exposure to all sorts of opinions and alternative new media forms.
Her argument was that negative perceptions of America were being molded and shaped by all media, not just traditional media. In an age when many globally are eschewing broadcast media for social network's, YouTube, SMS, blogs, and shows like The Daily Show or even Al Jazeera offerings, there is no doubt that any thoughtful consideration and examination of public opinion and cross-cultural perception must include new media forms.
As I wrote this looking at that goofy picture of Ze Frank (which must frighten children and small animals), I thought about how tough it would've been for Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbel's, to have done what he did for perception-controlling had the Internet existed in the 1930's.
It was a dark and stormy night. The wind was howling and rain was coming down in sheets out my home office window. Dressed in sweats with the furnace on as temperatures dipped into the 40's, I sat before the glow of my flat panel display and read articles that were coming through in my RSS aggregator, content to be indoors absorbing new material and exploring new business models on the internet. What I didn't know was that this activity -- which pleased me since it fits perfectly my strengths of gathering input and learning -- was going to present me with a surprise...one that may make you sit straight up in your chair as you realize the same thing I did.
OK....that one paragraph told you a story. You learned what I did last evening, what two of my top five strengths are, and that I learned something surprising on the internet. It also left you (hopefully) with a cliffhanger incentive to continue reading this post.
No one is certain when language first appeared or when human knowledge truly began capturing that knowledge through writing, but one thing is certain: humans have developed a profound capacity for learning, storing and retrieving stories.
I came to the surprise (that a company had built a business model around storytelling and is delivering it via the 'net) through Australia-based Anecdote. The company, 50 Lessons, is based in the UK and they've coupled storytelling with Internet video and created an offering that captures lessons from top business leaders:
Experience is the best teacher – people have learned through stories for centuries.
Fifty Lessons is the world’s leading digital video business library. Using the power of storytelling, our mission is to equip ‘next-generation’ leaders with the experience and wisdom of the most respected and influential business leaders in the world.
We serve corporations, government agencies, academic institutions, small to medium-sized businesses and individual professionals, to help them suceed in an increasingly complex business landscape.
To date, over one hundred and fifty of the world’s foremost business leaders have participated. Their contributions are housed in a fully indexed digital library of over five hundred short videos.
This content is published in multiple languages in both digital and traditional formats, including internet, print, broadcast, and audio and can be experienced on devices such as PCs, Mobile Telephones, iPods and Handhelds.
Fifty Lessons content is distributed globally by our partners, who include Harvard Business School Publishing, Vangent and Sun 3C Media in China.
This is big company, enterprise stuff and they sell access to these top global leaders geared to organization-wide access. What about small-to-midsize businesses or individuals?
If you weren't deeply immersed in the Internet's early days as I was, it's hard to remember the pain, the obstacles and the now almost quaint state-of-the-art in 1995.
It was that year in November that NetRadio made its debut here in Minneapolis and is an invention and milestone that needs to be lauded and remembered. Invented by Scott Bourne and Scot McCombs (more here), NetRadio used RealAudio's first player and server technology to run. A former Authorware (now part of Adobe) colleague of mine, Rob Griggs, was an early investor and co-founder and he invited me to the offices you'll see in the video below (via TWiT) to see their new radio offering streaming over the Internet.
At the time I was impressed and could easily visualize the possibilities, but also knew in every cell of my being how long it would take before this was anything more than cool and a novelty. In fact, my belief as to one, key cause of the dotcom crash was that there was a HUGE amount of Web content pouring into the top of the funnel (i.e., being served) and most of us were sipping through the tiny hole at the bottom of the funnel (i.e., with dial-up 56k modems) and there was no way rich media of any kind -- including low audio quality radio -- would yet flourish over copper wires for quite some time.
In 1995 there were, as the video points out, roughly "110,000 Web sites" and that NetRadio received "about 25,000 Web visitors in the first few days". Impressive at the time, but so was the Model T in 1908.
Want to see, experience and understand a phenomenal way to extend your company, personal or other value proposition online? Then you owe it to yourself to spend a bit of time at TalkShoe and understand the implications of what they've just released with free and easy voice (VoIP) capability with TalkShoe called ShoePhone.
Their press release says in part, "ShoePhone is an easy to use service for unlimited
group calling with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Up to 250 people can
participate in a live call (which TalkShoe calls Talkcasts™), and
1,000s more can listen to the simultaneous live Internet audio stream.
Users can also simultaneously text-chat, and Talkcasts can be recorded
and stored on TalkShoe’s website for later listening and podcasting.
Talkcasts can be done instantly, or scheduled in advance. ShoePhone is
Free to use.
ShoePhone uses voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology to create calls. However, unlike other VoIP services, ShoePhone users can connect with other ShoePhone users as well as to people using standard telephones, mobile phones, other VoIP services such as Skype, and 3rd party VoIP clients such as SJphone and Gizmo. This is because ShoePhone is based on a telco-grade conferencing system unlike other server-based VoIP-only services which have limited conferencing capabilities."
After I pinged famed Internet radio guy Doug Kaye earlier this year he forwarded my note about high quality call-in recording solutions with VoIP to Dave Nelsen, the CEO of TalkShoe. Nelsen immediately jumped in with their solutions, indicated that (what now has become ShoePhone) VoIP solutions I needed would be coming this year which I expected would be December! How's THAT for underpromising and overdelivering.
I've listened and participated in shows and played with the TalkShoe system myself. Though embracing an online system was something I was reluctant to do since I want complete control over the recording, the show itself (using a conferencing service) and so on, I've been hunting for a high quality, easy to use, free-for-my-listeners solution that gives them lots of different ways to call in and either listen to or participate in a show...and be of high quality. TalkShoe has delivered.
"Hey Borsch, are there any downsides that you've discovered?"
As a fair weather participant in PodcastMN -- a Minnesota-based group of podcasters -- I answered a question on the listserv today about Skype or iChat recording that I realized would make a good post others might find useful and yes, this is Mac-centric since I no longer use a PC except when needed via Parallels.
I've used both Skype and iChat extensively for interview or conferencing/project scenarios and have recorded them both (even using their respective video capabilities...but that's another post topic). Two ways I've found to be optimal for audio recording:
1) The easy way is with Audio Hijack Pro (AHP) or Wiretap. I've had the best success with AHP so that is my recommendation. They have set up a no-brainer quick Skype or iChat recording function and have detailed a how-to on their web site (and you can also download a demo so you can try it out first).
There are other software solutions (like CallRecorder) but they're limited and you won't be able to grow with them as you get better. The kicker with AHP is that as you grow and become more sophisticated in what you want to accomplish, the software has deep and highly functional capabilities that you can spend hours playing with to get a more perfect sound and geek-out with routing audio signals!
2) Setting up a "mix minus" from your mixer or Firewire/USB box so that you can record the iChatters or Skypers on one channel and you on the other channel so you can fix any problems or normalize audio levels in post production. My preference is to record *both* an internal recording on my Mac with AHP *and* a backup recording out to my M-Audio Microtrack to make certain I've captured it and there are no hiccups. Saved my bacon twice when doing sessions for one of my clients earlier this year.
Continue reading "Recording iChat or Skype on the Macintosh" »
You probably didn't notice, but I'd taken a hiatus from podcasting since last March. Then this summer a business opportunity provided an imperative to no longer outsource our audio production so I went on a hunt for some new audio gear that would provide me with a world-class, broadcast quality sound.
I found it in the Shure SM7B, the Digidesign MBox2 Pro (includes Pro Tools) and the iZotope Ozone 3 set of plugins -- but not after an angst ridden adventure with a bunch of different types of gear!
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...
Continue reading "What if a 1% increase in broadband penetration equaled 300,000 jobs?" »
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?
With free time this weekend to explore online, I was able to perform a cursory examination of the landscape of breakthrough communications providers in telephony, web conferencing and streaming video (the last one I'll discuss in this post). Certainly not a comprehensive analysis by any means, but it gave me a good sense of where we are and what needs to yet happen.
As you can see from this screenshot from one of my non-public 'test' blogs, I was goofin' around and testing streaming video offerings from Stickam and uStream. The former has been around awhile longer so I like their technology better and it works great, but they're targeting a young, social network crowd and positioning streaming as a way to connect with one another. Cool but not yet useful for business purposes (yeah...I care about the social stuff but we need commerce too!).
uStream is certainly driving toward a more serious technology user -- and people that are interested in delivering value of some sort with shows and connecting with an audience -- so it suits my needs, those of my clients, and just about everyone else I know that is in business, education or an organization of some sort....but can it or any of these shows deliver?
Listening (and once watching a uStream streaming video) Leo Laporte of TechTV and now TwIT fame, he'd talked with the founders of uStream (on Net@Nite with Amber Macarthur) about one of his shows which he had streamed live. He had just over 4,000 viewers and the server blew up. The uStream team is remedying that problem but this brings up my #1 issue: to be serious contenders, these communications technologies must scale.
I've brought up scale over-n-over again on this blog and I know that streaming video is really hard and the bandwidth needed is expensive. What if a hot 'show' is streamed on Stickam or uStream and has even 1% of the disappearing network TV show audience (37.5 million viewers in the US in March for broadcast networks), there is NO way that any of these lower end solutions would be up to the task of streaming to an audience of 375,000 people...let alone millions.
When individuals, companies or organizations start down a path of choosing superior communication technologies, they are placing a bet. I view many solutions -- Skype, Stickam, uStream, and many Web 2.0 solutions -- are bleeding edge and not a safe bet. That said, I'm experiencing many solutions myself and know exactly what I (and many of my clients) want but believe that we're not quite there yet...
...but man, are we close.
Was very pleased to see Tim O'Reilly bringing forth the issue of Web 2.0 scaling and Ray Ozzie's perspective. This is such a vitally important issue and it needs analysis, facts and discussion and big time thought leading exposure.
I first wrote about the "dirty little secret" of Web 2.0 back in December of 2005. That secret is that infrastructure, bandwidth and minimizing latency is a huge issue for startups and is one little discussed. It's one I know first hand from a conferencing startup I worked with last year -- and informing developers is an imperative since this dirty little secret will impact rich, internet applications; mashups; widgets; and other composite applications delivered going forward.
This problem becomes more acute as we all pull data from geographically disbursed hosted online services. I can't tell you how many times I've waited...and waited...and waited....for some data to appear in a widget, an ad served from DoubleClick, or a startpage pulling simple RSS text data from dozens of different sources. Imagine when several, dozens or numerous interdependent sources (ones that pull data from other services to deliver a composite web service that is, in turn, consumed by yet another new application!). It's a recipe for disaster unless managed at a world-class level.
Now that more of us are playing with video, Flash and, especially, streaming video (e.g., uStream and like what I did at a low level yesterday with Skype video), the challenges in betting a business, a workshop series, a product category or composite applications means that we all better get more informed about this issue and damn fast.
I've said before that one key to the dotcom crash was HUGE amounts of content and functionality being shoved into the top of the funnel while those of us consuming it were drinking from the tiny end of the funnel through 56kbps straws.
I fear that unless this dirty little secret is handled and done so by disseminating understanding amongst ALL creators, developers, business strategists and users of Web/Enterprise 2.0 products and services, users expectations are going to be dashed and it will create material barriers to adoption and use. Maybe not another crash, but the barriers and obstacles that will come are preventable with enhanced understanding and knowledge dissemination.
Continue reading "Scaling Web 2.0: The Dirty Little Secret Exposed?" »
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.
Continue reading "Internet Innovation and Optimizing the Status Quo" »
Nothing happens without a vision. Nothing gets created, manifested, built, or moved forward without a vision of an outcome.
Almost on a daily basis, I'm being bombarded with the benefits of visualization in my work, my personal life and as I guide others. If you don't already visualize before you set personal goals, build a plan or, especially, if you lead an organization, team, or group, then you owe it to yourself to begin.
Just to illustrate how vision is showing up everywhere, at the Web 2.0 Expo's Hybrid Designer session Chris Messina said something that hit me in the face and has stuck with me. In a discussion about the challenges facing designers with a creative vision struggling to get programmers to see the outcome of that vision so they could code to it, he talked about how he mocked up a visual when they were creating Flock, posted it to Flickr so that the geographically disbursed development team could all get on a call and talk about that vision. Without that shared vision, Chris said, the coordination of the team on a shared vision would've taken 6 weeks and dozens of threads in a discussion forum. Instead, it took 2-3 days.
No question this sharing of vision -- and the co-creating that goes along with that sharing -- is the single reason that I'm so incredibly enthused about the accelerating connection of humanity via the Internet and all the open source projects, Web 2.0 startups, and commercial software companies that are rushing to deliver ever-increasingly functional collaborative applications and platforms.
After dozens of people my bride and I know talked about the film The Secret, she purchased it. It was very well done and focused on one piece of sage wisdom: The Secret is a feature length, historic and factually based account of an age old secret, said to be 4000 years in the making, and known only to a fortunate few. The Secret promises to reveal this great knowledge to the world - the secret to wealth, the secret to health, the secret to love, relationships, happiness, eternal youth, the secret to life. The secret? The Law of Attraction which is creating a vision of what you want and expect to show up...and how it works when you align your intent, your energy and your focus on it.
Why should I care about vision Borsch?
Continue reading "Vision: THE most important first step..." »
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.
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.
Are you blessed
with a child (or yourself) who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)? Then you might
want to listen to this week's podcast where one guy who has ADD
discusses it (and how he's wrestling with his son who also enjoys ADHD).
Signs point to Thomas Edison, Wolfgang Mozart, Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill and others who "suffered" with this "deficit". Discussed is Thom Hartman's "hunter in a farmer world" metaphor that he espouses in his book ADD: A Different Perception. Also discussed is the Learning Breakthrough program and the Dore program (which is partially based on the LB methodology) and the possible cerebellum exercises which might offer some brain hacking breakthrough.
As I get ready for a trip, I found myself in front of my computer this evening picking-n-choosing podcasts to subscribe to and load on my iPod. Since I'm so busy and have so much content to prioritize and consume -- and generate myself with my blog and podcast -- that it's been a few months since I really took the time to poke around iTunes and see what's there.
Holy Schnikey! I hadn't realized that there was such an enormous wealth of new stuff. TV news, public radio and more has flooded the iTunes podcast section. Though I should probably pay closer attention, I hadn't and was a bit stunned.
Since I usually like thought provoking podcasts, public radio is more to my taste than alot of other content. IT Conversations is another favorite as is the Social Innovation network.
This reminded me of my post from January of last year entitled, "Information Overload: Can You See What's Coming?" that said in part:
The river of content is flowing faster and faster. This river of content available on the internet is reaching flood stage and is in a variey of media types. As newspapers, magazines, radio and television lose eyeballs to the internet and become ever more desperate to cling to their advertisers, they are finding increasingly garish and dumbed down methods of getting the attention of the eyeball owners back (which, in my view, will only push people away faster).
As broadband continues its adoption and more people get on the internet and attempt to connect their own dots, it's becoming exponentially more difficult to see or tap in to the collective consciousness and stay on top of changes in an industry, area of interest, or even to stay relevant in the workplace. Primarily it's more difficult to understand change and to see disruptive technologies or business models coming...and having time to act.
Even entertainment options are accelerating. There are more DirecTV channels than I could ever watch. I've pared down the number of shows I TiVo since I could barely keep up with what I really wanted to watch. I recently took out a machete to my RSS aggregator to cut down the number of blogs I track (currently over 200) and news sources (35). It was becoming too much and I just felt anxiety over all of it.
In his book "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less", Barry Schwartz argues that the proliferation of choices essentially causes us to be paralyzed with indecision.
Continue reading "An Embarrassment of Riches in Digital Content" »
Just came across the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), "a nonprofit, vendor-neutral consortium dedicated to driving adoption of comprehensive open source business solutions" and am so pleased to see SpikeSource and CollabNet -- along with Sourceforge and others -- playing such an integral role.
Why should you care?
There are over 140,000 open source projects listed on Sourceforge. Some are incredibly active...others less so...but there is such a wealth of useful software available that it's creating a baseline of information technology products that the world is leveraging. The result is that all of us can then strive for ever higher possibilities in efficiency, creativity and innovation driven by technology and the Internet as a platform for the future.
I've personally installed and learned (albeit from a high level) a couple of dozen of the most popular projects in content management, blogging, ecommerce, forums, courseware and groupware as well as other categories. Here's the kicker: it's VERY difficult to coordinate and orchestrate (as an administrator) a deployment of these packages since every administration model and user interface is different...and forget about it if you're just a power user trying to deploy something for your non-profit or small-to-medium sized organization. You wanna make 'em present on a Web site like they're an integrated whole? Whaddya nuts! Better hire a bunch of really smart developers and keep your fingers crossed that you'll be able to upgrade any of these software offerings individually without breaking integrations and thus your Web asset/site/application.
Want to present them to your customers, prospects or constituents as a whole offering that looks-n-feels like one, holistic Web asset/site/application? Again, good luck and happy budgeting. Want to teach and train others on how to deploy and use all of them? Time and money is all you need and alot of hair 'cause you'll be pulling most of it out of your head.
Why else should you care?
Continue reading "Why You Should Care About the Open Solutions Alliance" »
Friday's post by IDG SVP of online, Colin Crawford, was one that hit my radar and I immediately forward his permalink to my bride (with whom I co-own a small publishing company) as well as several other senior level people in publishing I'm involved or acquainted with so they could see what he revealed...and think about this piece of evidence with respect to their own businesses.
Then Scott Karp posts about Colin's writing and goes further to discuss the rapid acceleration in the death of print publishing. When I posted back in October about one clear death rattle for the printing industry -- namely prepress behemoth Banta closing a big shop four minutes from my offices -- it was interesting to me that it had taken roughly eight years for their business to downtrend as prepress activities migrated to the desktop and online increasingly became more important to their customers delivering content.
Though I'm still a consumer of print newspapers (Minneapolis StarTribune, New York Times, Wall Street Journal) I've let most of my magazine subscriptions to Forbes, Fast Company, Fortune and others lapse, keeping only BusinessWeek and Wired. Most of the 60+ trade publications I used to receive in print (e.g., Computerworld, eWeek, CIO Insight, Information Week, et al) I now read skim through an RSS reader.
For me, I find that the #1 issue with print publications is cycle time and the inherent inefficiency and time lags this creates. The number of cycles it takes to gather, edit, and decide what should be published in the limited real estate on a printed page means that I've already exhausted the topic by the time the print version appears.
Case in point: When Steve Jobs put up his public manifesto entitled, "Thoughts on Music" discussing digital rights management (DRM) in the music industry, there was an absolute explosion of conversation in the blogosphere which I watched unfold on Techmeme...and read several perspectives from blogger's I trust. By the time more traditional publications weighed in with their perspectives, I'd already formed my opinion and no longer cared what they thought. Instead I looked online for what reactions might emerge from the music industry which were forthcoming pretty quickly...and the story continued to unfold.
So is print publishing dead or not?
As more and more of us engage in user-generated content in the form of podcasts, videos, and other media types, one thing that people ask me over-n-over again is, "So how do we record Skype calls?" While there are simple methods like Call Recorder for the Mac or HotRecorder for the PC, they're fairly modest in capability and the results lacking in quality (in my opinion).
On my desk right now is a studio quality microphone on a stand (that I've used for podcasts for a year and a half) as well as a mixing board and M-Audio Microtrack recorder, I wanted something drop-dead-simple, fast to setup, bulletproof and of pretty decent quality.
Though most know about Audio Hijack Pro and its ability to get geeky and deal with all the audio streams on a Macintosh, they came out awhile back with one, incredibly useful feature: instant recording. Though I've done alot of experiments with various headset/microphone combinations, I finally settled on using the Logitech Premium Notebook headset due to its comfort and quality (though I stuck a foam cover on the microphone to reduce its "tinny" sound).
Due to a client requirement, I performed several tests today recording Skype-to-phone calls, Skype-to-Skype and just did one with a colleague in San Francisco (Amy Lenzo from Clearlight Communications) using that instant recording feature. If you'd like to hear what a Skype-to-Skype call can sound like recorded over this here Internet thingy without a lot of muss-n-fuss, give it a listen: Click to hear the mp3
Why does it seem that -- regardless of the endeavor, employee base, or community -- such a small percentage of people seize opportunity? A buddy of mine once said (horribly twisting a crass old adage) that "ideas are like a#&holes...everyone's got one." Though this is a sweeping generalization, my experience has been that roughly 5-10% of any body of people will actually DO something about their ideas and the other 90-95% will come up with a million excuses as to why they cannot.
Macro-level excuses include "everyone is doing it" or "there are probably patents out there already." Carl Jung, the eminent psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, was a proponent of the collective unconscious which, "refers to that part of a person's unconscious which is common to all human beings. It contains archetypes, which are forms or symbols that are manifested by all people in all cultures. They are said to exist prior to experience, and are in this sense instinctual." It's been one explanation as to why ideas seem to popup simultaneously...sometimes in different parts of the world causing great consternation amongst venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.
Some are worried about the land-grab occurring in intellectual capital and use that as an excuse not to move forward on their idea. I've written about the acceleration in intellectual property capture by Intellectual Ventures (post here) and how even an exchange traded fund, Ocean Tomo, (post here) has recognized this momentum and is trading on it. Google is obviously taking steps to capitalize on this global trend too (post here). The kicker? It's easier than ever before to discover patents, applications and prior art of spontaneous and simultaneous ideas from those who've seen them early on and find your entry point that's relatively safe and secure.
So who is in the 5-10% of Web 2.0, what are they building and what should you do?
In the movie The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman, Mr. McGuire (a family friend) is giving career advice to Hoffman's character Benjamin, "I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening?" Benjamin says, "Yes, I am." McGuire then leans in and says, in a low voice, "Plastics."
If that scene was repeated today, that one word spoken in a knowing, low voice would be "Mobile."
No less than three venture capitalists I'm connected with (all of whom have made major bets on mobile offerings), a friend that runs public sector and education for a major mobile smartphone company, and several friends that own their own companies concur...the world is accelerating toward mobile.
Apple's iPhone got a lot of attention and rightfully so. This article in eWeek, however, spells out what's happening globally that's significantly more important than what is happening in the US...namely that mobile devices dwarf all other connection types:
Global sales of mobile phones totaled a record 1.02 billion units in 2006, an increase of 25 percent over 2005, and 299.6 million units in the fourth quarter, a survey found on Thursday.
Right now, my Treo 700p lets me connect to: Google search; Google Maps; Yahoo News; to my IM via an application called Toccer; a Flight Status app; my RSS reader, Newsgator; and essentially anything on the Web. Though not as easy to use as I like, I still have access to the world's information in my hand wherever I happen to be at the moment. How huge is that...and we have only just begun connecting humans to the internet with a variety of device types and applications!
My excitement over the coming acceleration in rich, internet applications in 2007 is palpable but, at the same time, my concern is growing. Anything my clients deploy or use on the Web -- especially if repurposed as RIA's -- needs to be accessible with mobile devices. There is still a tremendous amount of work necessary (e.g., the W3C Mobile Initiative) but a big chunk of the future is summed up in that one word....mobile.
There are dozens of thoughts swirling through my head after Jobs' keynote at Macworld, but there is one that is uppermost in my mind and, perhaps, is a slightly different perspective than others about the amazing package Apple has delivered with the iPhone.
The accelerating human-to-human connection that a global internet and mobile telephony provides is astounding. But when you think about the implications of the world's knowledge AT YOUR FINGERTIPS with extremely powerful handheld devices it gets even more interesting, lifechanging, and truly an enormous catalyst to drive interactions online.
Not that smartphones haven't existed before...it's that they've been "just OK" since they're replete with compromises. I love my Treo 700p and think it's cool...but the operating system and applications on it (I use the PalmOS version) feels like the old, shaky, MacOS 9 instead of the robust, unix-based Mac OS X operating system (which the iPhone is based upon). The Windows Mobile version of the Treo is worse since Windows Mobile feels like Window98 stuffed into a phone and has a PC-centric user interface.
The iPhone is a reinvention of the concept of a portable, rich, elegant, comprehensive communications device for your hip or purse and if the keynote or Apple web site animations are any indicator, this is going to be one phenomenal device. Are there tradeoffs and compromises? Probably...but sitting on my desk right now is the first generation iPod which looks laughingly clunky right now even though it was launched in October of 2001. My...how things have changed with the iPod devices in that short time. We can expect the same with this class of device from Apple and others.
Now think about the trends in social software; in Web applications; in video, audio and animations; in education. How cool is it that you could easily and seamlessly interact with them all from wherever you happen to be at the moment?
I can only imagine the possibilities of searching Google and having location-based advertising show up. Or being able to grab a picture and moblog on the spot. Or working on some machine and quickly looking up the manual online (I do so now but go to my computer, find the PDF, print the page and take it with me). Learning (education and training) is the category that promises to be changed the most since why bother to memorize tons of information and data when you can just look it up? Having the world's information at your fingertips will have profound implications and I'm already experiencing many of them today via my Treo and the fast Verizon EV-DO network.
I have one year left on my Verizon contract with my Treo 700p but will undoubtedly buy one of these anyway and sign up for Cingular. Wow.
Wikinomics just arrived and I've leapt into reading this new book by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams -- and am already 25% of the way through it. It's a very good book for those needing context about the accelerating change occurring with an increasingly connected globe and the disruption, changes -- and exciting opportunities -- being enabled by the Internet and the emergent culture of participation.
I've been thinking deeply about -- and searching for thought leaders discussing -- the non-monetary, non-barter value exchange accelerating globally (or what Tapscott calls "non-market production"). Wikipedia, open source software and even cooperative non-profit efforts are manifestations of the phenomena. Mass collaboration fostered by a globally connected consciousness is certain to exponentially increase it and is at the core of Tapscott/Williams argument.
Though 1/4th of the way through it, Wikinomics has already crystallized my thinking on one, key point imperative to all of us if we intend to be a marketable commodity in a globally connected world: how can we put our value in a box? How can that value be encapsulated so it can "plug in" to strategies, projects, and efforts where mass collaboration is required? How can others trust that the value is real?
I've written before about extreme specialization and clearly mass collaboration will allow each of us to more narrowly focus our personal value propositions and deliver our value if a way emerges to offer our value into a marketplace and plug-n-play it into a larger effort. Step #1 is identity management, but my thinking is expanding:
After reading this post and writing this one, I have more clarity on Microsoft's approach with RSS since I just got done reading the whole patent (can you see my eyes glazing over?).
They're NOT attempting to control the RSS protocol, but their patent is a platform play designed around controlling the RSS processes and paths in order to manipulate, maneuver and morph RSS itself. The operative and important paragraph is this one at the end:
[0150] The web content syndication platform described above can be utilized to manage, organize and make available for consumption content that is acquired from the Internet. The platform can acquire and organize web content, and make such content available for consumption by many different types of applications. These applications may or may not necessarily understand the particular syndication format. An application program interface (API) exposes an object model which allows applications and users to easily accomplish many different tasks such as creating, reading, updating, deleting feeds and the like. In addition, the platform can abstract away a particular feed format to provide a common format which promotes the useability of feed data that comes into the platform. Further, the platform processes and manages enclosures that might be received via a web feed in a manner that can make the enclosures available for consumption to both syndication-aware applications and applications that are not syndication-aware.
My "co-opting RSS" concern from the last post still stands and this is why...
Continue reading "Microsoft RSS Patent Update: Manipulate, Maneuver and Morph" »
