2007 February

The next BIG leap forward…will our kids be ready?

February 16, 2007 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

If you’ve read a book that really hit you, made you think and informed what you were doing or one of your thought processes, wouldn’t it be cool to interview that person? A blogger I’ve connected with, Christian Long at think:lab (a consultancy focused on “School 2.0″…the next generation of learning) has that exact opportunity with Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind.

I’ve written posts that included the impact that Pink’s book has made on my thinking. Talked to dozens of people and encouraged them to read it. This post is one that sums up what I’m seeing and the dots I’m connecting with Pink’s help. Here’s a snippet:

If you’ve read Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, you’ll understand his argument that left brain, serial and linear thinking is of flat value and more prone to outsourcing (because it can be) and that the next phase of value creation and innovation will come from the right brained, parallel and associative thinkers among us. Higher order thinking, pattern matching and an ability to connect the dots (which can’t be outsourced) will be highly prized and will be the intellectual fuel for tomorrow.

Disruption, creation and innovation spring forth from seeing unmet needs, patterns, mixing together elements from multiple sources, creating new and innovative products and services from unique combinations or methods and yes, accidents. According to Pink, high value innovation will be delivered by those who can see and think differently (needless to say that I found Pink’s book pretty validating on how my brain is wired and that I’m not just some guy going off on tangents all the time…and with far too many Categories on his blog).

So what’s my recommendation to Christian? If it were me, I’d ask Pink 100 questions…but if there was *one* thing that not only shapes the future design of a school and perhaps education itself that I’d ask him about….it’s a concept that is already shifting value exchange, capitalism and the nature of work around the world….and certainly will change education. The concept I’d ask Pink about is this: how is learning affected when knowledge is at your fingertips and dozens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of minds connect and the future of work is mostly virtual?

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Filed Under: Innovation

The ROI of Personal Tech

February 15, 2007 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

I often try to discover hard return on investment (ROI) whenever I buy some new piece of technology. Investing in tech is a key part of my work — staying up-to-speed on the latest-n-greatest stuff — and another part is to personally experience products and services so I can gain an intuitive understanding of it.

Last night I went out and replaced my aging Apple Powerbook G4 and 22" Apple Cinema Display (their first LCD panel shipped) with a shiny new Macbook Pro and 23" Cinema HD. As it turned out, I was right smack dab in the middle of a project needing to be completed this morning, so my sense of internal urgency was coupled with the joy of new tech as I bought them. Part of me also stood back to observe my own reactions when I got back to my office and hooked them up.

Others have observed that huge LCD displays enhance productivity and Apple did a study last year to prove the point. I can attest to the truth in this perspective. Just one more diagonal inch and a few hundred pixels either way made a HUGE difference in my productivity on my project since I could have palettes on the side without bumping up to them and triggering my dock. The brightness of the display on both the big panel and the Macbook itself felt like a room fully illuminated vs. sliding a dimmer switch to the 50% mark. The room is still lit when dimmed, but damn is everything vibrant and crisp when fully lit!

My next purchase is Parallels and Windows Vista so I can run both OS’es applications on one box. More productivity awaits…

Filed Under: Innovation

Do you love spam too?

February 14, 2007 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Before you get the wrong idea, I do NOT love email, comment or trackback spam…or even the one made by Hormel. When it comes to the digital kind I wonder often, “Who are all the knuckleheads or newbies that actually click on the links in spam and/or buy stuff to keep the spammers interested?” I don’t get it.

Just for grins, I took moment over lunch to look at just a few of the hundreds of spams per day that I get sent to my several email addresses:

Get all your favorite RX Meds Online! With discreet fast FEDEX shipping!
No Prescription Needed! Order Now - haremo . com

Now you can order Original Viagra directly from Pfizer. Here: http://axonta.info
All prices are tax/vat free and free same-day worldwide shipping also included.

The Loosest Slots in the Midwest! 24 hours a day 7 days a weekâ€”the action never stops!
Whatever your pleasure, you’ll find the action you want. Best online casino games like black jack, roulette, video poker, slots, craps and baccarat, no download
Choose from over 240 online casino games, including slots, blackjack, roulette, video poker and more

…and on and on. All of us get the “Bigger boobs today!” or “Male erection enhancement” or “Come see me naked” spams. Again, who clicks on these and if they do, why would they buy? Someone has to be falling for these or spammers wouldn’t keep sending ‘em.

I’ve had a couple of experiences in the past few years where I was able to track down an actual human associated with a spam email (he was advertising on a web site and was stupid enough not to buy the private setting for his domain name at Network Solutions…so I called him) but it didn’t go anywhere. Most of these are sent from other countries so I suppose that if ANYONE bites on an email it’s a positive reinforcement and — for someone who probably earns little per month — one transaction is probably a huge payoff.

Filed Under: Current Affairs

Web 2.0 Start Pages: Where to invest your energy?

February 13, 2007 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

Here is a classic, Web 2.0 conundrum: which of the three most popular start pages should you invest significant time, energy and effort within?

Besides the usual Google, Yahoo, AOL and others, there are — in my opinion the top choices — the new Web 2.0-ish ones like yourminis, Netvibes and Pageflakes. Directionally, these three are embracing the drag-n-drop, turn-a-module-into-a-widget for publishing anywhere on the Web and artfully allowing each of us to build our own ‘dashboard’ to aggregate and access all of our favorite Web stuff.

The kicker is that each one of them, regardless of how easy they are to use, require a fair amount of time to mold, shape, customize and play with in order to get ‘em just right. I like what each of them are delivering A LOT and find the promise of an aggregated start page compelling.

What is even MORE compelling is the direction each is taking through the enabling tools and methods they’re giving us to mashup or remix the Web. Pete Cashmore says it best in this post:

Widget Disruption – Two pieces of news make me think that the widget world is headed for major disruption in the coming weeks. First up, Netvibes plans to catch up with Pageflakes YourMinis by making its widgets available to post on MySpace, hi5, Piczo, blogs and other sites. Netvibes is also set to launch a Universal Widget API, allowing widgets to share data back and forth and synchronize among themselves. Look out for the hotly-anticipated Netvibes social network to launch in April.

I still shudder to think about latency when pages have dozens of widgets on them and we all sit around drumming our fingers on our desks waiting for it to parse and load…but I’m loving the ability to assemble pieces-n-parts of my stuff on the Web into a new whole.

Are these start pages scalable and worth our effort? Are they similar to what big companies deliver inside their organizations? Pete’s one sentence about Netvibes is an interesting one to consider when thinking about start pages and which one to pick “…allowing widgets to share data back and forth and synchronize among themselves.”

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Filed Under: Web 2.0

Gorillapod: A useful tool for you content creators

February 12, 2007 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Over my lunch hour I stopped at Best Buy and picked up a Gorillapod for $20. I normally don’t play fanboy and gush about products on this blog, but this little product instantly met a need: steady low light photography with my new Lumix as well as being able to place the camera in places to snag video…and I’ve fallen for it.

The Joby Gorillapod firmly secures your camera to just about anything- anywhere and everywhere! Unlike traditional tripods, the gorillapod doesn’t require an elevated surface for you to take the perfect shot.

On the way back to my office from Best Buy, I attached my camera and wrapped the Gorillapod around my rear view mirror and grabbed some video. It was shaking a bit and there was some rattle being picked up (I hadn’t secured it very well) but I shot 10 minutes of video of me talking in the car. While not useful for anything but ridicule (which is why I’m *not* posting it), it did allow me to test a quick proof of concept and it worked!

It’s so laughingly lightweight that it’ll fit in my briefcase alongside the tiny Lumix camera and I’ll be able to capture steady video and low light snapshots easily. They also have beefier models for prosumer and heavier SLR cameras if you need that capability.

Filed Under: Gadgets & Hacks, Innovation, Open Media, Vlogging

Print Publishing is Dead…Or is it?

February 11, 2007 By Steve Borsch 2 Comments

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?

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Filed Under: Blogosphere, Innovation, Open Media, Podcasting, Vlogging, Web 2.0

CTD Podcast: The good…and bad…of Skype

February 10, 2007 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

A brief podcast about Skype…the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) computer telephony software. In this show, I explain why I’m BOTH enthused and dismayed by Skype:

a) Skype is a quiet and therefore tension-reducing product enhancing voice communications making them more intimate. It really enhances conference calls and simple voice calls in new and more important ways;

b) I tell a couple of personal stories of how Skype has provided meaningful communications for my family and one other with whom I’ve shared my Skype enthusiasm

c) Demonstrate Skype quality with a recording of a call with my bride who is on a Frankfurt, Germany hotel phone at the same time my daughter is racing through a shopping mall in Florida while on a cell phone

d) With a recording of using the Skype dialpad to get into interactive voice response systems, I demonstrate why Skype can’t yet be trusted or fully utilized for business voice telephony since its DTMS (Dual Tone Multi Frequency or touch tones) implementation is flawed

e) Lastly, I want to test out Skype-to-Skype recording while we’re both on decent microphones (vs. headsets) so I connect with fellow podcaster Tim Elliott of the Winecast podcast and we do an impromptu — albeit NOT optimized quality — discussion which I recorded.

Download the MP3

Filed Under: CTD Podcast, Web 2.0

Video from digital cameras…

February 9, 2007 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

My new toy is the Panasonic DMC-FX50. Though I love my Nikon D70 digital SLR for ‘serious’ photography, this slim, small camera has allowed me to have it with me all the time. I toss it in my briefcase or in my pocket…no muss, no fuss.

Where I’ve developed a shine for this little wonder, however, is with its high quality, 30fps video capture. I bought a 4GB SDHD card for it and can snag about 44 minutes of 640×480 video and store it. As a Mac user, I appreciate the Quicktime formatted output as it helps streamline my personal workflow.

I’ve been in three situations where someone has demonstrated a technology, process or service and I *knew* that I needed to grab the demo in order to show it later to a client. Asking the person if snagging some video would be OK, I’d proceed to take out the camera and shoot. A little technique and a steady hand helps, but a moving picture is worth 100,000 words in many instances. As more and more of us collaborate on the Web and participate with our own generated content thus communicating in a richer and deeper way, the ability to quickly grab good quality videos is only going to increase in value.

My first night with the camera I grabbed the following in the car as I went to pick up my son at a local coffee shop where he was doing homework with others. The quality — transcoded here to Flash and delivered via my Brightcove channel — is pretty good but the original in Quicktime is, in fact, qualitatively better and Flash means virtually everyone can view it. The video this camera takes is certainly not high definition nor even digital video dimensions, but for most presentations or Web communications I do, it’s absolutely perfect.

NOTE: for some reason in this video, there is a slight warping of my head making it look a bit convex. While my head probably is warped and that explains why my kids say "You don’t get it Dad" fairly often, it’s the fact that the camera is in my slightly outstretched left hand two feet from my head as I’m driving (and yes, I’m demonstrating a couple of the techniques taught at the "Steve Borsch School of Dangerous and Aggressive Driving" in this video).

Filed Under: Gadgets & Hacks, Innovation, Vlogging, Web 2.0

Yahoo Pipes: Is the Promise the Reality?

February 8, 2007 By Steve Borsch Leave a Comment

Lots of buzz about Yahoo Pipes and the capability for non-developers to pull together disparate Web services, repackage and deliver them in new ways. One possible use-case is something I’m involved in right now with a client: they want to take seven blog feeds (yes…they have permission from each blogger), bring in a news service feed they’ve licensed and then deliver them — properly formatted and with a look-n-feel that matches *theirs* — into their online magazine. This would’ve required people with propellers on their beanies to accomplish and it *appears* that Yahoo Pipes will enable this to happen without propeller intervention.

Here’s the kicker though: after reading Tim O’Reilly’s excellent post as well as Nik Cubrilovic’s post at Techcrunch, I was eager to give it a whirl…but the site has been offline all morning! After my post yesterday regarding my growing cautious optimism about relying on Web apps, the irony is not lost on me.

Still, my enthusiasm for the tools that are here and ones I know are coming are going to continue to accelerate our ability to leverage the Web and the Internet-as-a-platform in new and compelling ways. I’ve written about this before when discussing assembling a rich, internet application and my gut belief that Apple will position iWeb as a mass market, desktop publishing-like application for Web applications that’ll consume all of these new Web services remains as ones that fill me with hope.

Since Yahoo Pipes is a new deliverable and there’s A LOT of excitement about it — and thus everyone’s bangin’ on their servers probably causing my inability to get connected — but if more of us leverage Web services and create our own mashups that we bet our businesses or mission critical projects on, the damn stuff has gotta work!

UPDATE: After reading some comments on a post just now, it’s possible Yahoo did NOT launch last evening and this may yet be offline.

UPDATE 9 HOURS LATER: Just got back from L.A., sat down at my computer and checked my email. For grins, I peeked at Yahoo Pipes and found this on the page:

Clogged_1

Filed Under: Web 2.0

Web 2.0: Relying on Web Apps a Problem?

February 7, 2007 By Steve Borsch 1 Comment

As my reliance on Web based applications increases, my enthusiasm is giving way to cautious optimism.

I’m feeling this way since, in the last week, Gmail, Typepad and even Yahoo News on my Treo 700p have had outages. Today as I was preparing to head to Los Angeles, I wanted to upload an 88MB video to my new Brightcove ‘channel’ (they have a 100MB limit). but it "hung" at 64% for 20 minutes so I did it again. Same thing and I had to leave for the airport with my work incomplete.

My NetNewsWire and Newsgator sync’ing has hiccupped twice not displaying synchronized news feeds and showing ones I’ve already read. Skype has crashed on me four times…twice during calls. My Technorati watchlist sign-in has looped and never logged me in and the exact same thing has happened with my Feedburner account.

Again…all of this happened this week…and it’s only Wednesday.

A buddy of mine who has run major development groups at several brand name software companies always explained to me the cumulative lag time of multiple Web browser refreshes and how they’d combine to make a Web app feel really sluggish to a user making them less than an optimal solution. It wouldn’t just be the lag time from any single interaction…but rather the constant need to click "Save" in order to post any given input to a server or a retrieval from that server and consequent HTML page parsing which would take 10+ seconds. With 10 seconds here and 10 seconds there, pretty soon there’d be one frustrated user bangin’ his head against the wall.

I remain wildly enthusiastic and optimistic about the future of the Internet-as-a-platform and the emergence of truly useful, powerful and coordinated Web technologies and applications. It’s just that I’ve moved from big-grin-on-face-and-giddy about relying on them to being ever so slightly cautious about betting something mission critical on them without some sort of contingency plan.

Ironically, this turn-of-events is informing my work with clients whenever I’m shown new features or functionality they’ve built and are eager to show me.

Filed Under: Web 2.0