Purple Polar Bear
Seth's Purple Cow book is sitting in my to read pile and by all accounts its worth getting to soon.
However this example of the 'purple' phenomena is wonderful!
N.B. The original picture an story can be found here.
Interesting terms -- "sensemaking" and "cosmology episode" from elearningpost
Staying with Weick, here’s the definition of another one of his frequently used terms -- cosmology episode.
A slight edit:
A person feels like he has never been here before, has no idea of where he is, and has no idea who can help him. An inevitable state of panic ensues, and the individual becomes more and more anxious until he finds it almost impossible to make sense of what is happening to him.
Can you have variuos levels of this? If so perhaps I'm having an edited episode - I know where I am and have been here before but the rest is about right...
In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?
and
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye ?
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now by The Smiths
(via It May All End Tomorrow)
'Point-and-connect' links for wireless devices
18:09 29 July 03
NewScientist.com news service
Linking devices via a wireless network could be considerably simplified using a "point-and-connect" technology being developed by Sony.
The camera-based system, developed by researchers at Sony's Interaction Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan, lets users instantly transfer data from a laptop or handheld computer to a device in close proximity connected to the same wireless network.
Researcher Ayatsuka Yuji says the prototype system, dubbed Gaze-Link, removes the need to manually configure networked devices for this purpose.
"It is so troublesome, especially when there are many networked devices," Yuji told New Scientist. "When you want to send data in your PDA to a printer, for example, you have to input or to select a correct network address."
Small sticker
A code displayed on a small sticker attached to each device is identified by the laptop's camera. Software running on the laptop then automatically locates the device on the network. "Gaze-Link is one of the challenges to make connecting more 'intuitive'," Yuji says.
Simeon Keates, a computer usability researcher at Cambridge University, UK, says the system could have real benefits if there are a multitude of different devices connected to a network.
"As the home gets more connected, user overload is going to become more of an issue," he says. "It would certainly be helpful for someone who was nervous of the technology."
But Keates adds that this benefit will depend largely on the accuracy and reliability of the system. It must also be able to distinguish between different devices stacked next to each other, he says.
Will Knight
Via SmartMobs.
Good idea in principle. Love to see how it works in practice.
f r e e g o r i f e r o | weblog
Design PDF-athon.
Just discovered that the Design Council in the UK has great overviews on key design disciplines in the About Design section of its website, with more areas to be covered in the near future.
Great discovery by Fabio. While I am a long way from being a designer, I'm fascinated by the processes of creativity and innovation. There are some really interesting points here which I'm going to read at leisure
The structure of the language one habitually uses influences the way he perceives his environment ...
Lev Semenovich Vygotsky
Spotted this on the Vygotsky site. It reminded me of passages from 'Awaken the Giant within' by Anthony Robins, where he encourages you to change your life by modifying your language for describing things.
For example using excited instead of nervous, or I'm a tad fed up rather than I've had enough.
My thanks to Graham for helping me to remember that there are alternatives to my current environment. Alter or take another path...
BBC NEWS | Health | Brain scans 'reveal baby thoughts'
Brain scans 'reveal baby thoughts'
Babies were fitted with nets of sensors
A burst of brain activity recorded by scientists could offer clues to a baby's level of understanding of the world around it.
The researchers involved, from Birkbeck College, and University College London, believe their finding could begin to settle a controversial argument on baby brain development.
When an object is shown to six-month-old babies, then hidden, they often behave as if it is no longer present.
It appears to be "out of sight, out of mind", as far as their level of understanding is concerned.
But scientists still suspect the baby, to some extent, does understand the object is still around, just hidden, even if it shows no physical signs of awareness.
I remember doing a lot of this kind of stuff while studying for my PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education or a teacher training course). I think it was Piaget (et al) who went on about this. I was never quite sure as to the relevance for when I was teaching 18 year olds - A level Politics. Probably because his thinking is aimed more at how younger children develop and while I understand the need for children (and adults) to own a solution - reinventing a theory every time doesn't ring true for me.
I was always more interested or convinced by Vygotsky -
Zone of proximal development is the difference between the child's capacity to solve problems on his own, and his capacity to solve them with assistance. In other words, the actual developmental level refers to all the functions and activities that a child can perform on his own, independently without the help of anyone else. On the other hand, the zone of proximal development includes all the functions and activities that a child or a learner can perform only with the assistance of someone else. The person in this scaffolding process, providing non-intrusive intervention, could be an adult (parent, teacher, caretaker, language instructor) or another peer who has already mastered that particular function.
The important point is that:
... the idea that human learning presupposes a specific social nature and is part of a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them (Vygotsky, 1978).
We learn through a social context. We learn by going from what we already know to an area just beyond. We are supported by others, socially, to move into this space and develop our knowledge there.
If that is how Humans learn, and I believe it is, what implications does that have for machine learning. Should the kind of ideas that are espoused in Shelly's post about RDF and the semantic web be viewed through this kind of thinking. Intuitively I think there is more here to explore.
Practical RDF: Semantic Web for Poets: FOAF, Flocking, and the Semantics of Starlings
Elegant rant (?) by Shelley (whom I don't know - read the article) about W3C, the Semantic web and FOAF.
The complexity of human relationships and how we may describe them in the context of the semantic web are examined. Perhaps more importantly the outline of how a virtual community (i.e. bloggers) are seeking to redefine tools to meet a need while the great and the good (W3C) argue about how it should be done. A clash between wanting to get on and exploit practical applications versus a theoretical purity (I exaggerate slightly to make the point).
Essentially semantics are about context. Therefore it is the context which provides meaning. Data on things, on people and presumably ideas can easily be held somewhere on the web e.g. INFP but until you then understand that its my Myers-Briggs classification, and can link to information about MB you won't understand what it refers to. Unless you can read something which outlines data about me, it doesn't mean anything and until you can give all of that some context i.e. the machine searching this out is doing so for an employment opportunity, do you (or does one?) get somewhere.
Even then do you know me? Knowing I have blue eyes or work for a UK cable company, does that help?
I don't know. Perhaps you have learnt that I trail off arguments...
Design Framework - Just the Essentials
Gary Klein, naturalistic decision making expert and author of Intuition at Work and Sources of Power, suggests a three-step process to analyze cognitive tasks. The steps are,
Knowledge Elicitation. Here the intent is to gather first-hand information (observation, interviews, etc.), and not second-hand information (training manuals, PPT slides, etc.).
Analysis. This phase is still a hunt for clarity (inspecting, selecting, simplifying, abstracting, and transforming information, developing explanations, and extracting meaning).
Knowledge Representation. This is interesting. It is the transformation of the findings from step-2 into a more usable representation (process of displaying data and depicting relationships, explanations, and the meaning).
These steps seem to offer a simple design framework, especially for knowledge oriented work. Not because the steps follow the ubiquitous Rule of Three, but because they include just the essentials and thus are easier to communicate to team members and to clients.
Perhaps this oversimplifies but, and its a big but, simple rules lead to complex behaviours (at least complexity theory suggest this e.g. flocking birds). I think this works for me... I'm still cogitating...
From Seb's Open Research
Pointing at "Meta Data Mark 2". Great introduction to this stuff for the 'Idiot Guide' audience i.e. me. Go read.
Having a look at the Tom Peter's Site and reading one of his powerpoint presentations I ran into an old quote that he uses frequently:
If you are not pissing people off, you are not making a difference!
Tomorrow I intend to 'piss' some people off, with the intention of making a difference.
(Especially for my boss, who is on holiday in Arizona)
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Pentagon axes online terror bets
Pentagon axes online terror bets
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: "I share your shock"
The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up a controversial online trading market to help predict terrorist attacks.
There was uproar after opposition Democrats in the US Senate highlighted the plan and described it as ridiculous and grotesque.
Under the plan, bets could have been made about future terrorist attacks, conflicts, and assassination attempts.
But the proposal ran into fierce opposition in the US Congress.
Oops! Looks like I was wrong t pedict this lasting. It never even got beyond the starting gate.
You can perhaps see now why I generally don't bet. In some ways I think this is a shame. I think Darpa should be congratualted for their out of the box thinking rather than castigated.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not defendng terrorism or anything that would encourage its outbreak, however innovative ideas on how to gether intelligence, like this shold not be simply brushed aside with knee jerk reactions to misplaced outrage.
Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi confirmed that the PlayStation Portable will come equipped with wireless networking functionality.
According to a report on Bloomberg, Kutaragi-san told the meeting of developers and publishers that the device will be able to access the Internet wirelessly through local area networks - suggesting that the system will use either 802.11 wireless networking technology, or possibly Bluetooth.
Wey hey! I need to start saving for the PSP now. I wasn't aware of the positioning:
the PSP is a Personal Digital Companion - it carries your media, plays your games, connects you to the Internet wirelessly, acts as a communication deck, handles basic organiser functions and may even provide you with a navigation system or a television on the move.
Sony don't always get things right, but they do have vision and this is a superb vision. I was intending to buy a PDA, but I think I will wait now.
I wonder what browsing capability it will have?
Joho the Blog: Odlyzko on Price Discrimination and Privacy
Odlyzko on Price Discrimination and Privacy
Andrew Odlyzko who has the annoying tendency to be right and, worse, fact-based about it has posted a paper called "Privacy, Economics, and Price Discrimination on the Internet." It is to appear in the Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on eCommerce. From the abstract:
The rapid erosion of privacy poses numerous puzzles. Why is it occurring, and why do people care about it? This paper proposes an explanation for many of these puzzles in terms of the increasing importance of price discrimination.
I had never considered this arguement previously. Andrew Odlyzko's paper has given me a lot to think about in terms of my own personal privacy and also strategies that can be used in business.
Generally I am fairly relaxed in terms of revealing information about myself, as generally I believe it enables companies to target me with goods and service I would be interested in. I'm not totally naive. i understand the risks I expose myself to in this instance however I'd much rather have Amazon for example offer me books on science fiction than romantic fiction. Now that's targetting the message NOT discrimination on price. If his arguement does hold water in the real world then as an individual I believe that discrimination , in this way is inherently unfair, and like the consumers cited in Odlyzko's paper I would rebel. In high turnover, low margin markets is it always possible to discriminate in such a way, even online. After all, even if I am willing to pay £20 for a book, it doesn't mean to say that I will also look elsewhere to purchsae it cheaper. If erosion of privacy does lead to price discrimination by some vendors, this may well be counter productive, for while this leads to a clearer understanding of knowledge about the consumer, the Internet also gives consumers to have better knowledge about the marketplace. Consumers can make use of comparison sites, that while not allowing perfect knowledge, do allow for very rational decisions to be made. Price discriminiation is counter productive in this situation and consumer preferences are easily altered.
Looking from the other perspective, the introduction of loyalty schemes seem far more user friendly and may offer an incentive to allow customers to give up privacy in exchange for the benefit of lower prices in some areas but also giving the vendor addtional information to accurately target offers and increase their rate of sales. This type of approach appeals to me because it feels more of a partnership between vendor and seller rather than a competition.
I didn't read the whole of this paper so apologies if I missed some of the points I am making later on. I must finish it though!
BBC NEWS | Health | Tight ties could damage eyesight
And I thought it was something else that led to blindness. Silly me :)
From John's blog and his results I thought I would have a go!
The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers
Paul Goodison's Quiz Results
Your total score is: 53 points, Average Employee (up to 59 points)
Other ranges are 60-89 points (Successful Professional) and 90-100 points (Extraordinary Executive)
Your thoughts and behaviors are consistent with an Average Employee.
You are in a range where numerous professionals fall. Many Average Employees are highly talented, but sometimes experience frustration with their career trajectories, or lack of control over their professional direction. You may have met with some successes in your career, which begs the question how much more successful could you be if you began putting the 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers to work in your own career.
Pattern 1 - Understand the Value of You
Pattern 1 Score: Average Employee (53 points)
Pattern 2 - Practice Benevolent Leadership
Pattern 2 Score: Average Employee (55 points)
Pattern 3 - Overcome the Permission Paradox
Pattern 3 Score: Successful Professional (60 points)
Pattern 4 - Differentiate Using the 20/80 Principle of Performance
Pattern 4 Score: Successful Professional (87 points)
Pattern 5 - Find the Right Fit (Strengths, Passions & People)
Pattern 5 Score: Average Employee (43 points)
The only one that really surprised me here was benevolent leadership and I am a little disappointed by that figure. Perhaps the worst result is actually the worst result i.e. 'Find the Right Fit' and is telling something I think I already know...
I think it will be well worth reading this book.
(I just had another go and improved my scores significantly just by taking a little more time to consider my answers and being more positive about me - I'll let these scores stand though as I feel they are probably a more accurate reflecting of my current career, though not my potential)
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Pentagon plans online terror bets
Research indicates that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of dispersed and even hidden information," it said in a statement.
Risk Services
"Futures markets have proven themselves to be good at predicting such things as election results; they are often better than expert opinions."
The scheme is called the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) and it is run by a Pentagon unit known as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Unit.
This is under the control of retired Admiral John Poindexter who has been involved in another controversy recently in a plan for a sweeping electronic intelligence operation.
I like this because the y have come up with a damn good idea and want to make use of what is in effect an open source model (albeit it involving transactions) of gaining future info. However because of the nature of the topics it is obviously courting controversy -
Markets have done this in economics for some time and the Iowa Electronic Markets does it for US presidential elections, so it is not really novel
Merli Baroudi
Personally I think I will bet on the likelihood of this succeeding - a five year bet should have quite good odds :0
BBC NEWS | Technology | Loss of e-mail 'worse than divorce'
According to Veritas, the survey shows "alarming deficiencies in current e-mail system management and backup and recovery methods, placing businesses at risk and causing undue stress in the workplace."
And when something goes wrong with e-mail for a week, the experience can be more traumatic that moving home, getting married or divorce, at least for a third of those taking part in the survey.
Really? More stressful? I think perhaps either these people are too up tight or haven't yet been through a marriage or divorce, and perhaps their house moves went well.
Sans email isn't good but its not that bad :)
Of course that's at work. At home my ISP deserves a good seeing to... oh but I work for them... and on this type of stuff too. Perhaps I need a good seeing to?
f r e e g o r i f e r o | weblog
...On the other hand you have no idea how gratifying and motivating it is to see others joining in on the conversation, so if you have anything to rant or rave about please do let me know anyway.
Not sure if it's just me, but running a weblog sometimes feels like Speaker's Corner on the home planet of the invisible man, a fool blabbering away in front of a transparent crowd.
Ok, in my case the term "crowd" hardly applies.
Small group?
Friends and family?
Sometimes it does feel like that for me too - 'a fool blabbering away' but then the pleasure of a good email conversation and the opportunities it brings are worthwhile.
I think I've said it before, I'm certainly quite introverted when it comes to meeting people however in written form I find it easier to be more outgoing. So please do comment - even if its just to say hello! I've been here. (Perhaps a wall and a paint can would encourage you?) You never know, I might be worth knowing... :)
I was extremely interested to read Jon's recent posting on his strengths, as outlined by Gallup's Strength Finder.
As I have come to trust Jon's judgement (through his weblog and correspondence) I thought I would purchase the book, "Now Discover Your Strengths". I luckily found a copy through Amazon UK and have just started reading it.
I am very impressed with what I have read so far. In particular the thought provoking,
Most organizations take their employees strengths for granted and focus on their weaknesses... But this isn't development, its damage control...
Each person's talents are unique and enduring
Each person's greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength these snippets are from page 8.
I intend to work my way through the book and the strength finder application.
And Thanks to Jon
BBC NEWS | Health | Music 'makes the brain learn better'
Music 'makes the brain learn better'
All those hours practising are worthwhile
The hours spent mastering the violin or piano are worthwhile - music lessons boost children's memories.
Researchers from Hong Kong have found children who are given musical training have better verbal memories than those who have not had lessons.
They say their findings could help people recovering from a brain injury as well as healthy children.
I have sen a lot of research say how important music is for increasing various functions of the brain, from memory to creativity. Its why all my children attend music lessons (for children) and I think it helps them and not just with memory but also with confidence and sheer enjoyment of music, by appreciating the craft involved.
I think more music listening in work would help too. Not only would it calm me down but it would drown out the sound of things I don't want to hear :(
The classes my children attend (Len Tyler School of Music) are based on the work of Zoltan Kodaly, whose pedagogy underpins the principles (and methods) taught. Len is a fantastic teacher and accomplished musican. I very very glad my children can benefit from someone such as he.
I wonder whether I should suggest some Management Consultancy opportunities?
BBC NEWS | England | London | Art on demand at National Gallery
Art on demand at National Gallery
The National Gallery has been storing images of its collection
Copies of more than 900 works of art at the National Gallery are being made available at the flick of a switch as new technology is unveiled.
Masterpieces on display at the gallery have been captured on advanced digital cameras.
The images have stored on computer so that visitors can obtain a copy almost instantly.
Until now visitors were only able to get a small proportion of the gallery's treasures on traditional printed copies.
The gallery said it has taken two years to capture all 2,300 works of art.
The "print on demand" technology will allow visitors to browse through and print in reproduction quality A3, A4 and A5 size prints.
Great idea. I'm not a huge lover of art for the sake of itself, but I do enjoy seeing the mastery of the great artists as exhibited at places like the National Gallery. I think its a shame that one can only get hold of this by visiting.
Obviously a trip to the capital is in order.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Virtual humans edge closer
Virtual humans edge closer
By Spencer Kelly
BBC ClickOnline
For years, one of the main goals in computer graphics has been to recreate a totally convincing human being on screen, something that looks and acts so life-like that it is indistinguishable from a real person.
The Dawn demo draws detailed graphics at high speeds
But human beings are hard to recreate, because along with all those tiny details in the way we look, there is the way we move, our expressions.
Now there is a new type of computer graphics card which is bringing virtual humans a lot closer.
Its amazing the computing power needed to do this, but the results are stunning. However, I'm not absolutely convinced that this is the right way to go for everything. Taking Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, there is a long passage which describes how Humans recognise faces more easily if they are characterised or abstract rather than realistic.
Is the intention of programers to confuse or hoodwink people into thinking these graphics are real? Or is it purely for the sake of being able to do it? Whatever the reason perhaps more thought is needed to ascertain what kind of user interface/graphics people prefer, understand and relate to.
BBC NEWS | Health | Unlocking the brain's secrets
The mysteries of how the brain controls everything from language to movement could be explained by a "map" created by scientists.
The international team behind the atlas used thousands of images of the brains of people of all ages, and with a range of conditions.
They hope to create the most comprehensive picture yet of the brain's structures and functions.
So does this mean we will be able to start describing the brain interms of URIs. Could we soon be brain blogging? [I am currently blogging to you using the humour centre of the brain found here (made up URI) seeAlso this resource on sarcasm centres) :)
Anyway, great research.
Iunctura Daily -- Center for Strategic Relations
Individual behavior can influence your economy
Dubner, Stephen J. Calculating The Irrational In Economics. (New York Times, Arts & Ideas/Cultural Desk, 28 June 2003)
Behavioral economics -- which blends psychology, economics and, increasingly, neuroscience to argue that emotion plays a huge role in how people make economic decisions. [News in Brain and Behavioural Sciences, Issue 101]
Other resources on this topic include: The Society for the Advancement of Behaviorial Economics (includes a list of relevant journals), Russell Sage Foundation Summer Institute on Behavioral Economics (includes agenda of last program and participant list), and should I miss anything MIT presents a Behavioral Economics Bibliography.
Relationships strengthen emotions and establish expectations for individuals. I've pulled heavily from some of the surface discussions in this community. It is key to remember that people are not cogs in a bigger business machine, they are people and will always be people.
When the individuals working for you, or with you, or even served by your product feel you have grouped, categorized, or labeled them, and they will discount your value to them. While these customer segmentation strategies help you select more profitable customers, they should be conducted in a manner that increases the feeling of individualindividualism.
Behavioral sciences can help you understand people in such a way to help you reach them more effectively. The way they respond to what you have to offer will significantly influence your companies economy (flow of goods and services.) Take emotional states into consideration in your marketing communications, customer interactions, and how you treat your employees-- these strategies powerfully build your bottomline.
Fascinating stuff - need to spend time reading this. Really interesting and very valid point above about treating people as individuals.
OK -I admit it. We have a secret weapon. His name is Eric Sigler and he's about to go get married. But when he returns, THEN we'll be able to tell you all about the PeopleAggregator. And let you play with it.
Okay, so I bought into the Meme and Marc's about to use FOAF in the PeopleAggregator - with a little help form his secret weapon :0
I am really excited to see how this application is going to work and what it can be used to do (although I have some ideas).
Its the first time in quiet a while that a release has me desperate to see the results - I think the last time was Big Country's 'The Seer Album'.... and the single releases like "Look Away".
BBC NEWS | Business | EBay profits shoot higher
EBay profits shoot higher
EBay offers millions of items for sale every day
Online auction site eBay has enjoyed a surge in profits, making more than $100m (£61.9m) in just three months.
Ebay, which sells anything from stuffed animals to antique cocktail shakers, has become an internet phenomenon and is one of the few really profitable dot.com firms.
It sold goods worth $509.3m in the three months between April and June, a rise of 91% compared to its sales in the same period a year earlier.
Ebay goes from strength to strength. Could the success of Ebay be repeated today. Yep. Keep going, keep trying and you'll get there.
Wired News: Tired of the Telly? Reprogram It
By Leander Kahney
02:00 AM Jul. 22, 2003 PT
A Colorado startup, Interact-TV, has released a hacker-friendly digital entertainment center that plays, records and archives TV shows, DVDs, music and even digital photo albums.
The Telly MC1000 Digital Entertainment Center, available now from the company's website for $900, can also surf the Web and act as a home media server.
So what's new you say? Well,
Unlike TiVo or ReplayTV, the Telly is designed to be easily upgraded and expanded by the consumer and third-party software developers. Most other set-top boxes are expressly designed not to be hacked, and their warranties are voided if the owner opens them up to tinker.
By contrast, the Telly is expandable like a PC. Consumers can add bigger hard drives, more memory or even swap out the motherboard. In most cases, the machine automatically detects and configures itself to run the new hardware.
So an Open source model versus the Branding model of Tivo (etc). Who will win? I guess it goes back to some points I made in the previous post - who is the target market? Mainstream consumers may want additional functionality but are they prepared to do things like open the box and plug in a new hard drive? I don't think so. Not unless there is a slot I can fit it in and it goes thunk and I'm done.
Personally I like the idea of the Telly, although I doubt we'll see it in the UK but I do think it makes the mistake of attempting to be a PC style device rather than a Consumer Electronics style device.
BBC NEWS | Business | Net sales gather pace
Net newbies and old hands differ in their attitudes, demographics and product interest," said Ms Jennings.
"To get the attention - and cash - of both groups, online retailers' sites must offer a variety of product routes to the same target, with both simplicity and more sophisticated functionality," she said.
A Forrester report, which suggests more and more people in the UK are buying online. It also goes onto suggest that different techniques ae needed to encourage newer Internet users to participate. The key point for me here (so that it get drummed into my thick skull) is that the newer users (one would assume more mainstream people) have different tastes to online veterans.
Companies need to target this new segment (and I use that term loosely) in a different manner and get rid of any jargon.
Iunctura Daily -- Center for Strategic Relations
I've edited down this post from Iunctura, which is a delightful piece:
Kristine Kirby Webster's article on the mutual relationship necessary to build trust with your customer base is a great read. Here is the article in abstract with commentary.
Key points to remember:
Trust is a product of a positive association with your company, that not only will your products do what you say they will, but what the customer expects them to do. Inherently customers don't trust companies that sell, the majority of their experiences are negative.
Successful brands engenger strong two-way communications in relationship development. This communications includes information sharing, and listening for customer concerns. I'll add that positive communications contribute more to the relationship than negative ones.
Every buying relationship is a long-term investment.
Relationships are built over time one interaction at a time
ntl so need to understand this stuff it hurts. I remember some considerable time ago producing a dcoument in conjunction with my then boss, called the Moments of Truth. There were so many key points when ntl interatced with the customer and so many possibilities for error, that we spent a considerable period of time streamlining processes. This in itself led him to appoint me to build the intranet interface and content to support customer services. The year in which that launched Cabletel (as ntl then was) won JD Power's award for best Customer Service in the Telcos in the UK. (I won't claim all the credit - I had a good team working for me - but I know it made a considerable difference).
Yesterday I saw a memo praising our work in improving our call centre metrics. This primarily consisted on driving down call waiting times, etc. What I wanted desparately to see was some index, some measurement of customer satisfaction. It was nowhere to be seen. How then, despite a lot of people's hard work do we know we have been successful? Because our MD says so? I have a lot of respect for him but he is a numbers man. I think some of the softer issues get missed.
Somehow I wanted to link this in with ntl being suddenly more risk adverse. Perhaps its something to do with retrenchment that we are still more inwardly looking, when we should be looking outward to solve some problems. After all, that's what I'm trying to do here find answers from elsewhere...
I've not been feeling well over the last few days. Possibly something to do with having some dodgy posture thing going on which ash meant I've had a very sore wrist for some time. Right now my body has decided enough is enough and is inventing painful areas everywhere. This is particularly unpleasant.
It also means I'm behind in my work (but then who cares about newsgroups anyway?), my family aren't particularly feeling loved 'cos I'm so grumpy and the cats aren't even talking to me.
Its a times like these that I wonder why I gave up alcohol, meat and hallucinogenic drugs (in that order).
Anyway blogging may be light for the next few days...
Oh and I still can't get my FOAF file to work properly when I add a friend. Can anyone suggest some idiots guide to building this stuff?
iWire: Ve Have Vays Ov Making You Vork
Ve Have Vays Ov Making You Vork
An interesting article from last week's FT suggesting that in "any technology cycle, innovation-based high-risk economies give way to security-based low-risk economies, once the returns from risk no longer tempt the governing authorities", and in turn suggesting a diverse approach and rejection of the innovation-friendly american model may benefit more consensual stakeholder European models of economic development.
Go read this. Then think about what you are trying to achieve in your work/business/economy. Apply the lesson.
Joi Ito's Web: Thoughts on micro-content, metadata and trends
Thought provoking article by Joi which illustrates a lot of key points about the technology trends within the blogging community right now.
Perhaps even more interesting are the comments on this posting from people such as Marc Canter.
Those building blocks imply innovation, but in fact - the marketplace doesn't pay for innovation and those key technologies is a part of a unified, digital lifestyle kind of product - that no one company or product can deliver. Only Apple and Microsoft can fund, develop and deliver products with that scope. And each of the key technologies Joi mentions can't stand alone as viable models
Does it always take the organisation the size of Microsoft to succeed? I don't think it does but then I'm speaking from observation not experience like Marc.
Probably the most important thing about ALL of what Joi says is that digital identity has to have CONTEXT? Who's gonna pay for JUST their Digital Identity?
Indeed. One of the factors I often get accused of (and rightly so) is that just because the technology is cool doesn't mean people are going to want to use it, or that there is a viable way to make money out of it. I am very interested in trying to understand more about this stuff, partly cos that who I am (an identity and a context), partly because of what I do (another identitiy and context) and partly because I think its an opportunity to make an extremely exciting product(s) that can make people (maybe me) money (another context and identity).
The technologies are the building block; who can come up with the product (note not tool or even idea) that will make this a must have in mainstream markets worldwide?
When Will We See Geeplogs? from "The Merging of GPS and the Web"
Cagle also talks about a new language to be submitted to the W3C, the GPSml markup language, which would be used to describe, routes between two locations. For more information about GPSml, you can visit this Chaeron Corporation webpage.
One means to encode routes is the GPSml markup language, to be submitted as a note to the W3C later this year. In this XML-based system, a GPSml document consists of one or more collections of three principal types: a waypoint, a route (a named collection of waypoints), or a track (which combines locations with a time coordinate).
One component of this waypoint would be an identifier which could be associated with a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
With such a URI, you could effectively assign to that location an application that will run when the location is referenced in some manner (you get within five feet of that node, for instance). This application could be a Web service, retrieving contextual information about the location.
Of course, this kind of information and services could potentially be used by marketers.
Even without knowing anything about you, a marketer could read the identifier being transmitted to Web services giving GPS information for the device and develop a profile showing [your shopping habits.]
Finally, Cagle thinks that we'll soon see geeplogs (short for GPS-logs) through the use of the RSS specification."
[These geeplogs will contain] public GPS contexts that can be queried about a given area. [They] will be the GPS equivalents to blogs, in which a person could narrate a specific tour with his or her relevant commentary, possibly with photographs or video feeds.
This sounds really cool. Being able to provide information tailored to a location or provide information on a route via mark up language.
From a marketing perspective it gives all sorts of possibilities to offer goods and services relevant to that space and person within that space. If you tie this into other web services perhaps you could suggest nearby stores which sell woolly hats when its snowing?
My personal desire for this idea is to be able to provide more detailled information about a locality especially its history (and to a lesser extent tourist type info). It would make some experiences much richer for me. (Not all - real life doesn't always need augmenting!) It could also provide interesting service when you are travelling too.
Charles Feltman's Enemies of Learning (2-page .pdf) is a quick survey of personal factors that make it harder for us to approach the unknown. A few of the "enemies" that George picked out:
Great to see Seb Paquet blogging again after a short hiatus. This article is a great little pointer to the business world to think about organisational learning. I have a background in teaching, so a lot of this makes sense to me. Organisations firmly need to consider people first. If they do, like this article suggests then the business will surely be sound.
Good Experience - Top Sites' User Experience Teams and Their Challenge
Clearly, managing the integrated customer experience isn't something that one user experience practitioner can take on. Customer experience is a strategic issue. Managing it has to be a company-wide effort
Great little article this. While it is about websites, i think it can equally be applied across the gamut of customer experience. CRM is a big industry buzz word that in a technology sense seems to be dying a death because of serious lack of ROI. Why? Good question! I guess, and will no doubt be told by the great and the good that it wasn't evaluated enough, that the change wasn't handled very well, blah, blah blah!
Its a people thing. 'DNA it into the orgnisation' as the article puts it. People are the core of any organisation. Customer expereince begins and ends with them, if they don't belive in helping people to have a good experience of the product or service then forget it.
I've found out that people within the organisation I work in are generally very keen to assist customers despite barriers that get put in their way, like policies that insist on them making their call quota for the day or idiots like me who deliver sub-standard products.
That's what we sometimes forget, even if we are trying to deliver good products its that full lifetime expereince with the company that is the key
BBC NEWS | Business | Amazon seeks book-search boost
Searching for success
The key element in Amazon's plan is the searchability of the database.
The intention is not that customers will read through books online, but use the search engine to target the right books via keywords.
The difficulty of the plan is to secure the agreement of publishers, who are worried by any attempt to post their copyrighted material freely online.
Any agreement will be restricted to non-fiction, and probably only to the sort of narrative non-fiction - history, biography and so on - where extracts are likely to whet a buyer's appetite to purchase.
Amazon gets a new strategy. It feels like the idea for brick book shops where cafes are introduced to get you to spend more time browsing. Its interesting the comparison later in the article about Amazon losing trade through Google, as buyers search for books there and then find cheaper alternate sites.
It reminds me of the phrase 'rational economic man' from my Economics A level. Given perfect knowledge, a person will be rational and seek the lowest price for a similar (or same) good. Google provides that opportunity. So Amazon needs to prvoide a service which makes buying from its site worth more.
I generally do buy from Amazon as I find it easier to search there (never actually considered using Google) and I get other readers opinions of a book, which for non-fiction I find really useful. I've yet to find another site that allows me to do this easily without putting in some effort. Recommendations are also very handy and have given me some good tips of books to read.
Ultimately that's all things that I find useful. However perhaps the one thing that I miss would be some form of loyalty programme. Since I spend a great deal of money on books (far more than I should), anywhere that rewards me for being loyal is going to win the day for my business. Of course cheap books and free delivery help.
Via Seth's Blog
A story worth thinking about
Making your own change. How could it change your business?
To the actual article:
It's also apparent that Ralph trusts his customers, and that they both appreciate and return that sense of trust (I know I do). Trust is one of the most difficult "assets" for companies to acquire, but also one of the most valuable. Many companies take shortcuts in getting their customers to trust them, paying lip service to Trust™ in press releases and marketing brochures. Which works, temporarily and superficially, but when you get down to it, you can't market trust...it needs to be earned. People trust you when you trust them.
When an environment of trust is created, good things start happening. Ralph can serve twice as many customers. People get their coffee in half the time. Due to this time savings, people become regulars. Regulars provide Ralph's business with stability, a good reputation, and with customers who have an interest in making correct change (to keep the line moving and keep Ralph in business). Lots of customers who make correct change increase Ralph's profit margin. Etc. Etc.
And what did Ralph have to pay for all this? A bit of change here and there.
Should I add anything? Probably not much to say... 100% extra efficieny, loyalty from customers. Compare to some of my earlier rants on the subject.
Joi blogs about Netomat
netomat beta [ Social Software (wiki) | Wiki (wiki) ]
I met Kris and Maciej of netomat at Supernova and just got around to downloading and playing with the beta. It looks interesting. It's like an email/wiki/link sharing tool. It's written in Java and runs on Mac and Windows. It's pretty easy to use and is more "rich" than a wiki because it has things like drawing tools that let you annotate pages in a way similar to a white board. You create pages with your netomat client. You can publish it with editing enabled so anyone can modify it. It keeps a history of changes. You can email pages to people. You can include lots of things in pages including audio, images, links, etc.
If anyone else is running the beta, send me netomat mail so that we can mess around. I am jito on netomat. My first netomat page is here.
I have been having a play with this and it looks really good. It could be really useful as a collaboration tool. I'm wondering how I wold make use of this within an organisation. Haven't quite gotten there yet given the existing infrastructure that i work with but I'm going to give it more thought.
Onlineblog.com - Guardian Online's weblog
BusinessWeek Online has a special report on Digital Homes -- what we used to call "home automation".
Great article from Business Week:
What distinguishes today's digital homes from "smart homes" of the past is the modular nature of the technology. Because so many products are designed with Internet standards in mind, consumers can start out with just a few devices and build up slowly. It helps that PCs such as Dell Computer (DELL ) Corp.'s XPS gaming machine and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Media Center PC are becoming entertainment-oriented, while consumer electronics are becoming more PC-like -- with hard drives, screen-based menus, and built-in Net access. Piece by piece, the technology also is getting more user-friendly. That goes a long way toward explaining the explosive popularity of Wi-Fi networks, now in 11 million U.S. households.
Absolutely. I cannot afford to get everything I want either but the modular nature of the equipment is a superb factor in allowing consumers to go for it. more importantly is the understanding that these items really have to be plug and play. Carrying out some extensive configuration in techie level language just won't cut the mustard. Remember most people can't even programme a VCR.
the ultimate goal for almost every room is to deliver what Dutch giant Philips Electronics (PHG ) calls "ambient intelligence." As devices get smarter, they can identify and adapt to individual users in a household, potentially making suggestions on everything from what to eat to how to dress. "Think of it as the electronic equivalent of an English butler," says Emile Aarts, vice-president and scientific program director at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. Those concepts may seem pie-in-the-sky now, but many are being tested in corporate labs -- and some are nearing commercialization.
I keep telling people abut this concept, some joke, some sneer, some even accept this is around the corner. The question is how soon is it going to get to a place wher eveyone wants one? My current thinking is 2 years before this stuff becomes easy enough and cheap enough for mainstream families to adopt. And that's when it becomes big money.
The last word goes to the Business Week article:
Not surprisingly, we found consumers who say they crave technology, but only if it's no-muss-no-fuss. They should control the technology, not have it control them. It should "just work," make life easier, and even help free up time to do something else.
ZDNet |UK| - Comment - Story - Broadband wireless goes to the max
802.16 is to 802.11 what the M25 motorway is to the Basingstoke one way system. Designed to operate over a number of bands from 2GHz to 66GHz, 802.16 can work over 30 miles and pump data at speeds of up to 70Mbps.
Originally intended for 'last mile' fixed wireless broadband links, the standard has already grown mesh additions to let stations relay data for others, and work is underway for mobile working. This week, Intel announced it would be designing 802.16 silicon: it's not alone, and other standards espoused by the chip giant haven't always taken off, but as a statement of intent it's very significant. If 802.16 takes off, it'll change the face of broadband.
I've heard it before, but there might be something in this. Could this be a way of improving the link over the last mile without major investment of diggin up roads and replacing infrastructure? Okay there has got to be some investment, base stations for one, however it could be that this is significantly less than fixed solutions. If chipsets and the equipment get to be consumer pricing then who knows where this cold lead?
BBC NEWS | Business | BT told to cut internet charges
Britain's telecoms regulator Oftel has ordered BT Group to cut its charges for wholesale internet access.
Oftel said it had told the phone company to reduce its prices by 17% following an investigation into unmetered access.
The investigation had concluded that BT had been charging operators for certain call routing and call management measures which were no longer necessary.
"The action taken today ensures that BT continues to recoup the cost of providing wholesale internet access, and that UK consumers continue to benefit from one of the world's most competitive dial-up internet access markets in the world," said Oftel's director general David Edmonds.
Its good to see Oftel actually find against BT (the UK's largest Teleco and ex-state owned) as they rarely seem to do it these days. Its perhaps not so good news for ntl as it has its own network and therefore can offer lower prices anyway (dial up ntl is £10 per month cf to AOL £17.99 per month), although I believe ntl' offnet service called ntl Freedom does make use of this (not 100% sure though).
Still Oftel's role is to keep the market competitive and remove Monopolistic practices. Sometimes it manages to do this, even if it has taken them 2 years to make a decision.
Seth's Purple Cow book is sitting in my to read pile and by all accounts its worth getting to soon.
However this example of the 'purple' phenomena is wonderful!
N.B. The original picture an story can be found here.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Broadband faces slow future
The core networks routinely run at 10gigabits per second (gbps) and can easily step up to hundreds of gbps.
Relatively slow home broadband could dampen downloads
A speed of 10gbps means a DVD quality film can be transferred approximately every four seconds.
Home networks are speeding up too.
The basic ethernet technology used by many consumers works at 10mbps, has been upgraded to 100mbps and forthcoming wireless networking technologies work at speeds up to 54mbps.
But the technologies used to link homes with the net look like they will be lagging behind these very high speeds for some time. This could mean that downloads of large files, such as films, will always take time.
Yep its true BSPs are a bottleneck, and given the massive downturn in the technology market, ntl, Telewest and to a lesser extent BTs woes regarding finance means you are not going to see Fibre to the home anytime soon. Although ntl do have a demonstration implementation of this somewhere in London (operating with real customers).
Does this need Governement intervention? Probably, but I can't see it happening - infrastructure is enormously expensive and ROI timescales just too long.
Still FTH would be good. Perhaps I can persaude someone to do a trial so I can have it?
Via Marc's Voice (again today!)
Example FOAF website
It links to the specs, the tools, the foaflog, pulls together articles posted on disparate weblogs all to make one big excellent FOAF resource. The design is slightly too garish and the text line-spacing slightly too tight for me, but I can live with this. A few contributed “beginners” articles and this would be excellent. [geek commodity]
This does look like a good site (FOAF example site). I have to admit to using Marc's examples and links to put up a FOAF file. Although I've yet to add any Friends. (I think I'll add Marc later as he's blogged me blogging him).
With any new technology its important to play around with it at a hard techie level, but even more important to start taking it to the masses and explaining to them how this stuff is going to work - and then commoditising it for them so they don't have to know. Education is perhaps the first step in a good marketing campaign?
Via the VoxPolitics blog: Roo's Strengthening Medicine is a link to Forbes magazine article on Korea</