When a colleague turned me onto the site Eternal Moonwalk earlier today, I was impressed not only by its creativity and mission, but importantly by its global reach and age range of collaborators.  The project was set up by a Belgian radio station, Studio Brussel, to encourage people from all walks of life to upload their own 10-second version of Jackson’s signature Moonwalk.  Submitted videos are aggregated and spliced together to form a continuously flowing Eternal Moonwalk.

In true 2.0 fashion, the project empowers fans to share their favourite uploaded Moonwalk video on any number of social platforms and capitalizes on the most popular web content for its “how-to” Moonwalk video from YouTube.

Snippets of different users’ uploads, and even their rehearsal videos, are now also popping up on the video sharing site.

Among the 000s of videos uploaded so far, there have been solo Moonwalks, group Moonwalks, corporate Moonwalks, Lego Moonwalks, cat Moonwalks, ballet Moonwalks, video game Moonwalks…Well, you get the idea.

Beyond the tribute, what I find quite fascinating about the eternal video are the tiny snippets of insight into people’s homes, workplaces and even into their wildly diverse personalities. While certainly not all contributors are doing so to honour Jackson (some are just enjoying the spotlight), I appreciate that the project allows people to reflect in their own tiny, yet symbolic way. Some videos are subdued, but most are quite happy and in sum, they demonstrate that Jackson impacted many people’s lives in his short 50 years.

The distance walked in each video is recorded and at about 2 metres/dance, I hope we reach the moon before gravity catches up and slows the project’s momentum. (That would be about 384,403 km, or 192,201,500 walkers.)

Late last week, U.K. Parliament publicly released the official digital records of its 646 MPs’ allowance claims dating from 2004 – 2008.  As you can imagine, the release of such data has been a hot topic of discussion, with many championing the move towards what PM Gordon Brown calls maximum transparency, while others claim it is a step too far, citing security and privacy concerns.

The move seems a natural progression following news daily The Telegraph‘s recent release of an unedited version of the same claims (the official version obscures many details for security reasons). While this increased openness seems an important step towards transparency in Government, I can’t help but question Parliament’s misstep, coming up short in overlooking the public’s inevitable desire to question any number of submitted claims.  The data were released without any official parallel platform over which to voice any questions/concerns about specific claims.  Anyone who has seen the official data is quick to realize that what they are often looking at is a series of numbers with their itemized explanations blackened out (in the interest of security), rather than a fully open display of expenditures.

To help fill the void of an official feedback channel, a number of news outlets have been only too happy to step in, providing real-time updates of emerging citizen concerns and even a “great MP expense hunt” hosted by The Guardian.

I am particularly fond of The Guardian’s platform, which provides a simple interface that makes it easy to review the scanned documents, with questions like these:

At time of post publication, The Guardian‘s crowdsourcing experiment had presented 457,153 pages of documents, of which 293,191 were unreviewed.

As a result of the U.K. MPs’ allowance inquiry, there have been many political resignations, and The Telegraph has posted a slideshow of what it’s calling The Political Casualties – “those who have stepped down or been forced out by the scandal”.

Encouraged by its UK counterpart, local Toronto paper, The Toronto Star, attempted to follow the queue of The Guardian and asked Canadian MPs to submit their own expenses for review, with the report coming out this past weekend.   Not many MPs took up the request, with only four of the 37 contacted initially agreeing to share their claims.

With some very distinct opinions emerging in the comments on both the U.K. and Toronto media outlets’ features on this push for greater MP transparency, I am curious to hear the opinions of our Wikinomics readers.

With respect to U.K. Parliament’s release of its 2004 – 2008 data:

Do you think it is a commendable step to be applauded?
i.e. At least they went that far – some transparency is better than obscurity…

Do you think that data released without a feedback mechanism is a poor attempt at transparency?
i.e. Nice try, but better luck next time…

With respect to the release of MPs’ claim data as an ongoing practice:

Do you side with the increased transparency champions?
i.e. If public money is being spent, I need to be able to see where it is going.

Do you believe that in the countries in question’s political systems, i.e. Canada and the U.K., there are enough checks and balances that the expenses/allowances filed are just fine?
i.e. I’m sure everything’s on the up and up – they’re elected officials for a reason.

Do you believe that it’s nobody’s business what MPs spend?
i.e. This is private information we are talking about here; why should anyone be able to see what MP “X” does in their day-to-day?

Do you believe that releasing such data will only feed “a scandal-obsessed media”, as one former cabinet member states in The Star? (The Star’s political series tagline, by the way, is Sham-Ocracy)
i.e. It’s a no-win situation – people will always find something to complain about.

Do you not care one way or another?
i.e. Don’t bore me with such details; I’ve already got a job and it’s not as an auditor, thanks.

Widely recognized for creating some of the most brand loyal customers around, Apple has designed an overwhelmingly popular in-store summer camp targeted at 8 – 12 year old children.  The camp features a series of four different workshops: Movies, Music, Photos, and Presentations.  Each is designed to give children exposure to Apple’s hardware and software suite.

While certainly not as exciting as the dinosaur camp that I attended in my childhood, I think that Apple is really onto something here, and all kidding aside, I know many adults  who could benefit from similar workshops.  Here is the ad for the Presentation Workshop: 

Replace kids with employees or executives and school with work and think about how many people you know who should probably be first in line for this workshop.

These sessions are being offered at all U.S. Apple retail locations free of charge and all technology required is to be supplied by Apple (unless you’d like to bring your own gear).  Of note is that if you’re looking to sign your litte one up, you’d better hurry as many sessions are already filling waiting lists and some have been closed for registration due to oversubscription.

I think this is an interesting example of industry creatively stepping in (albeit for self-motivated purposes and on a tiny scale) to help provide training in skill sets that our school systems may not be able to immediately address – advancing the technological skills and comfort level of some of our youngest scholars.

What’s your take on Apple’s attempt to create a little army of I’m a Mac evangelists?  Creative marketing combined with valuable skills training or targeting a market too young for comfort?

When most of us think of our digital profile, we think of the footprint that is created by our active maintenance – à la Facebook or LinkedIn.  On these networks, either we or those we “know” are responsible for maintaining our rich user profile that comes to define us in the digital world.  There is tremendous power in these networks for facilitating both our social and professional lives, but one of the associated challenges is that there are so many of them – how can one keep track of them all?  If you have maintained a consistent online handle, things can be much easier, but for those of us who haven’t, there are emerging tools such as UnHub that act as simple aggregators, allowing users to create a single destination where their many profiles can be found i.e. http://unhub.com/richardbranson without having to purchase and set up an independent domain.

For better or for worse, there is also another very important level of profile maintenance that is taking place in the background, requiring very little effort on our part – passive maintenance.  Programs such as ChoicePoint have become important destinations for comprehensive personal information by aggregating data from a number of public sources and privately held databases.  By serving as mass aggregators, with over 17 billion records in ChoicePoint’s case, such organizations are able to sell profile information for the purposes of insurance, reference checks (tenant, employee…) and many other uses.

While such services can be quite convenient, they are not without important risks, the tip of the iceberg being data integrity (what if information is wrong/outdated) and data security (they present a single point of failure in the case of compromise).

Curious to investigate my own ChoicePoint profile, I have attempted a number of times lately to take advantage of the opportunity to review my information for free (available once a year).  Interestingly, I have received the message below when seeking profile access from my office in Toronto.  Funny…I always thought Toronto was within Canada.

Now I don’t want to be alarmist, but we have all heard stories of online missteps that have ended in less than ideal circumstances, often due to oversharing of information.  Therefore, it is important to not only think about, but purposefully monitor and maintain your profile on the web – afterall, you are what Google or the aggregators say you are, at least to non-discriminant or lazy searcher.

Just the other day I was involved in a dinner conversation over which a colleague mentioned that they had seen an unflattering 1980s prom picture of another colleague at the table go up on Facebook a few hours earlier. The subject of the photo replied “Yah, sure glad I took that down.” Not seconds later did another friend chime in with “oh, that picture…you mean this one?”, triumphantly holding up their iPhone for all to see.  In the minutes that the photo had been up, it had been not only viewed, but saved for others to enjoy.  Now this story was all in good fun, but it raises the important notion of control over your digital identity.  Who is really in control?

Will online missteps such as an embarrassing/uncomfortable photo surfacing (or worse) matter as much in future to a generation who has grown up with eroded privacy expectations?  Or, will it be understood that perhaps it will only matter in certain relevant contexts?  Is the social contract that we have entered into with not only friends, family, colleagues, but also many of the programs/networks that we have integrated into our daily lives be “enough to protect us”?  Has anyone out there stopped for long enough to read a Terms of Service agreement lately?  I suspect that if we did so, we may not be so comfortable…

More to come on the happier side of the Pervasive Personal Identity in the next entry.  Until then, keep combing the vast Net out there to ensure that your identity that is becoming quite pervasive, and personal, is in fact doing you justice. 

No matter what you were looking for, at least one would have left a lasting impression.

Recently, world-class French pole vaulter Romain Mesnil bared all in a YouTube video aimed at bringing attention to his quest for sponsorship.  The video featured Mesnil running through the streets of Paris, pole in hand (for jumping, come on!), with his unmentionables covered by a digitally-imposed black box as onlookers tried to figure out what was going on.  The video concludes with a message imploring viewers to return to Mesnil’s site on March 31st, stating “You haven’t seen anything yet.”  Click here for video (watch at work at your discretion). Mesnil’s former sponsor, Nike, did not renew their support in October and ever since, Mesnil has been very creatively searching for a replacement.

One of Mesnil’s earlier efforts had him wearing a jersey with a large question mark during competition and he has also posted other great YouTube videos (even before this round of looking for sponsorship) that have helped bring a more playful side to the sport of pole vaulting. 

So now that the 31st is here, what was Mesnil’s (other) big reveal?  He has posted two auctions on eBay targeted at prospective sponsors 1, 2.  The first auction is for a sponsorship for his 2009 season and the second is to have your photo/logo/message posted on Romain’s jersey, with proceeds benefiting the ARTC (brain tumour research).  At the time of publication, bids totalled >19,000 Euros, with just under 10 days remaining in the auctions.

As far as new media strategies for the branding of an individual (athlete) go, I’d say that Mesnil has started down a very intriguing path and he has managed to reach a widespread online audience, as well as gaining traditional media coverage, with prime time exposure on French television networks and news broadcasts worldwide.  I can only imagine where he’ll go next…

An interesting experiment is taking place right now that will put some of our perspectives and predictions on this topic to the test.  Since printing its last edition on February 27th, 2009, a number of staffers from Denver’s award-winning Rocky Mountain News (RMN) have collaborated with three local entrepreneurs to form InDenverTimes (IDT) – “a vision based on a 150-year tradition.”

IDT has collected 30 former RMN reporters, editors, designers and other journalists,  and plans to go live  with its online edition that will “invite readers [subscribers] inside the newsroom as never before” on May 4th  if at least 50,000 pledges of $4.99 a month or more can be secured by April 23rd.  The collective has created a YouTube video that details their appeal.

As Patrick Harnett reported in his earlier post, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is quoted as saying in his 2008 Boyer Lecture Series, “My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it’s not newspapers that might become obsolete. It’s some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper’s most precious asset: the bond with its readers.”

Interestingly, the above-mentioned YouTube video is clearly focused on the journalists/staff themselves and the perspective that they brought to their stories, heavily leveraging the writer/reader bond. The video finishes with sports journalist Sam Adams delivering the line:

You’ve seen our faces, you’ve heard our voices, we’re anxious to provide you with insightful commentary, in-depth reporting and invaluable experience.  We’re InDenver, are you?

There seems to be quite a bit of buzz around the IDT, and based on comments in numerous locations, support seems forthcoming.  The question remains, though, will intention carry through to action at a cost of $4.99 a month? Has the connection to familiar names and voices formed a strong enough bond to make the InDenverTimes a reality?  Could this be a model for the ‘paper’ of the future?

As I watched the film Us Now last week, I was reminded of the British football club Ebbsfleet United and the MyFootballClub story, (see a clip here) where fans ultimately had enough of being armchair critics and put their money where their heart (and often discontent) was, and actually purchased a Club.

Bringing the story to a more personal level, I have been to quite a few of my favourite athletic club, the Toronto Raptors’, games this year and I have left the Air Canada Centre more often than I would like wishing there were some recourse that I, as a fan, had to have my displeasure heard.  I am completely aware that loss is an important part of sport, but to leave a match feeling as if the players did not leave it all on the court, or that the coach drew up a bad play, is not a great feeling as a supporter.

Now I know what you’re saying – does everyone give 100% all the time? Obviously not, but in the world of elite professional athletics, my threshold for forgiveness is admittedly lowered.

If there were a more immediate, constructive, and tangible way to give timely feedback, rather than voting with my feet, I would be all for it.

Now there are great online tools, such as Protrade The Sports Stock Market, that harness the power of prediction markets by allowing for the “purchase and sale” of  athletes, in order to earn some pretty great rewards and dominate fantasy pools, but the ultimate effect of these actions on the actual team remains unclear (presumably minimal).

One potential participatory experiment could be to gauge fans’ expectations vs. actual outcomes to mine the wisdom of the fans for added insight (kudos to Alex). For example, if the Raptors were playing the Kings, I would expect a solid victory, with CB4 putting up some big numbers, along with Jose Calderon dominating the assists column.  Now if the Raps were playing the Celtics, I would hope for a victory, but rather expect a big game from Chris Bosh, Jose Calderon, Andrea Bargnani and co., but would be well-prepared to chalk one up in the L category.

If, using sliding scale, I could input my predictions, along with the 000,000s of other NBA fans, then technically, the wisdom of the crowd should be pretty good at predicting ultimate outcomes (and managing expectations), and could hopefully improve the quality of game play (and fan engagement) if predictions were able to influence (pre)game-time decisions.  I respect many coaches’ expertise, but I am also a firm believer that none of us is as smart as all of us.

I suppose some of my frustrations this year have been driven by a few of the decidedly bizarre moves undertaken by a number of teams in the NBA, in light of salary cap considerations and decreased expected future earnings owing to economic pressure on ticket sales. Some of these decisions have resulted in what analysts have called a blatant disrespect of fans.  Always entertaining Bill Simmons goes so far as saying ”I’d say the Grizzlies hurled a flaming bag of dog feces at their fans, but they don’t have any fans” in reference to a three-way trade involving Houston, Orlando and Memphis, in February. In another complementary statement, Simmons also laments that “we [team leadership] finally crossed the imaginary line between “building a good team while being fiscally responsible” and “being fiscally responsible and not giving a crap about anything else.”

If fans begin to feel bored, or worse disrespected by questionable ownership/leadership  moves, then a fear of empty seats will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In an economy where entertainment dollars are growing harder and harder to capture, particularly the big ticket item sales – season tickets and luxury boxes – perhaps mechanisms that create deeper fan engagement must be among the tools used to help keep teams afloat - give the fans a greater say.

Now most of this post has been focused on the NBA, the league I would argue is best set up to weather the storm, due to its high-level of fan interaction and loyalty, but I dread to think of the situation that is imminent for many MLB and NHL teams (a league that is having trouble securing player buy-in and excitement for the fan favourite All-Star game).

Challenges aside, let’s be idealistic for a moment – wouldn’t it be great if a pro team were willing to give fans the extent of control that the Ebbsfleet United fans have, without surrendering formal ownership rights?

Any disenchanted sports fans out there looking to join in a myfootballclub-like adventure? We’ll call it mybasketballclub just to be original.

Now normally I am a pretty squeamish person, but the novelty of Ford’s Twitter innovation from the OR had me hooked, and I spent a large part of the day checking in on the lastest tweets provided by Dr. James Peabody.

The patient in the procedure, who remained anonymous (and gave consent to the tweeting), was a 54 year-old man, who had been diagnosed with bladder cancer.  The broadcast procedure featured the removal of the patient’s bladder and prostate. Using robotic assistance, the procedure was performed faster and more safely than if it had been done completely manually, as I learned from the tweets.

The purpose of the broadcast feed to the Bellagio was to educate physicians in attendance at the Symposium (who could ask live questions of the Drs.), and it was one of a number of the event’s video procedures.  The purpose of the live Twitter feed, in the words of Ford, was: to expand exposure of medicinal and surgical techniques and explore new uses of technology.

When reading through the tweets, I found a very interesting blend of both information and self-promotion i.e. Henry Ford’s large experience with robotic prostatectomy (> 4000 cases) helps us with other robotic procedures, like cystectomy and to date, we have the largest robotic prostatectomy experience world wide. Now it’s likely that Ford’s intentions in tweeting the whole experience were exclusively in the interest of education, but I think that they managed to strike a successful balance between the informational and the promotional in their updates – a sometimes difficult balance to achieve. Overall, I commend HenryFord on taking such an innovative step and I found the experience fascinating. Frankly, I’m astonished I was able to make my way through most of the tweets without my stomach getting the best of me.

Here’s to hoping the experimental use of Twitter will help spread awareness not only of HenryFord, but also of some very important health concerns and possible treatments/interventional procedures.

Now that Twitter’s been in the OR, where to next?

At first I enjoyed the irony of the situation, but within a few days, I had grown quite tired of my tiny iPhone screen for Web access and I found myself needing to visit friends/family and Internet cafes, sometimes on more than once daily basis, to get my full Net fix. (The day before losing access, I had been at a client engagement, and had been asked how I would feel as a Net Gener without Internet access.  I proudly responded to the effect of I’m sure I’d be just fine.  Little did I know…)

It was a combination of factors that compounded to make my situation more frustrating, including my being on vacation (so no office Internet), a lack of cable television (I don’t normally subscribe to TV – Net Gener, remember), and decreased access to offline news sources such as my local paper from the corner box, at which I found this sign:

(Sign reads: To Our Valued Customers:  This vending machine will be removed from this location in the very near future.  The closest location you can purchase a Toronto Star is:________)

From some of our previous Net Gen research, I knew that depriving a Net Gener of their technology could present a very difficult situation, as the collage below from one of our in-home studies shows, but I had to this point managed to somehow “separate” myself from those Net Geners.

To think, feelings of despair and desolation, just from being removed from your technology…How strange, I thought. Little did I know…my separation from immediate Internet access set me up for quite a range of emotions, from an occasional sense of relief and freedom that came from being “disconnected”, to the more frequent feelings of anxiety that were caused by not knowing what was going on, in real-time.  What world events were taking place that I should be up to speed on?  What if someone was trying to get a hold of me?   How would I watch my ailing Raptors go on a multiple game losing streak?

I knew the Internet played an important role in my life, but I didn’t realize how important it was to my daily routine, even when not working, until it was no longer readily available.  I’m now back at work, and have had my home Internet access restored, but what a couple of weeks it has been.

I’m curious to hear reactions our readers might have from their own disconnected experiences.  Have you been disconnected, or intentionally disconnected for an extended period of time?  How did you feel?  Has anyone vacationed at a “phone and Blackberry-free zone” to escape the “always-on”?

The first came while traveling in Orlando, after a recent Talent 2.0 conference.  Andrea and I decided to spend a few hours visiting Mickey and Co. at the Magic Kingdom before returning to Toronto, and on the way out, I visited the giftshop looking for some souvenirs to take home, along with an entertaining DVD to watch on the flight back to Toronto.  I had my sights set on Wall-E, after having really enjoyed it in the theatre, and having also seen a sign for Disney’s new feature, DisneyFile, which allows you to make a digital copy of a movie to watch on a portable device.

Perfect! I thought…I will get the DVD and upload the movie to my iPhone, so that I won’t have to deal with my laptop on the plane.  I was internally commending Disney for being among the early ones to let owners view the media they had purchased in the format of their choice.  That was, until I found the DVD and realized that the DisneyFile was actually part of a premium 3-disc addition, that would cost another $10 for the DisneyFile transfer disc (which could be transferred to 1 portable device, using a one-time activation code).

I understand that the additional coding and technology required to provide the DisneyFile does not come for free, and that there is a price to be paid for convenience – but at what price should I be able to “own” the media that I have paid to view, in whichever format I choose?  I had already paid $13.75 to see the movie in the theatre, and combined with the special edition DVD purchase at $32.95 + tax, I was looking at nearly $50.00 to be able to enjoy one of my new favourite movies as I wished.

The second experience came when reading about an $8 million theatre overhaul in Toronto that is taking an old revue cinema (late first-run movies, smaller screens) and transforming it in to a new destination, featuring “business-class” loveseats and high-end concessions (like sushi and liquor – not so new in many places).  Now I may be alone here, but as a less than frequent movie-goer, what’s kept me out of the theatre hasn’t been the lack of higher-end food or uncomfortable seats – it’s been a lack of value proposition on other fronts – i.e. lack of showtimes, lack of social interaction (film festivals get this one right and encourage discussion around a film, feature speakers etc.) and, the 10 minutes of commercials that come before the previews and feature film.

Personally, the quality of home theatre systems is not much of a detractor for me, as I do appreciate the picture and audio quality of a true theatre, but many comments on the article seem to point to the fact that “it’s just not my living room” as the main reason for not going “to the movies,” anymore.

Maybe I’m just cheap, or it could be my Net Gen drive for customization, but each of these experiences has left me less than impressed, and made me just that bit less concerned for an industry that is still crying foul at piracy and declining profits.

I, for one, would be a strong supporter of a middle of the road payment, say $25 – $30, that would allow me to see a movie in the theatres, and later have the rights to the DVD and its viewing (in all formats), once the disc(s) became available.  With the time between a movie’s release and its digital availability decreasing, in both legitimate and illegitimate format, it’s time for a new pricing model that (re)engages movie-goers, even if it does take some collaboration between studios and exhibitors.

How much would you pay for “ownership” of full format-viewing capabilities of the latest flick?

How would you help save the experience of “going to the movies?”  Is it a tradition worth saving?

That’s why today, as I went to Amazon.com to pick up my new read for the weekend, I was very pleased to see the retailer’s attack on wrap rage with the introduction of Frustration-Free Packaging.

Not only does the new initiative cut down on the tools/time/effort required to enjoy many new purchases, it also takes an important green step towards reducing the unnecessary, and often environmentally harmful, containers and accessories used to package many consumer goods.

The reduced packaging often takes the form of recyclable (but ugly) cardboard casing in lieu of more attractive, but also less ”green” clamshell cases and plastic bindings.  Now aside from aesthetics, which don’t matter nearly as much in an online platform like Amazon, where attractive packaging bears little impact on purchase, there doesn’t appear to be much downside to the switch.

Customers win with easier-to-open packaging, Mother Nature wins with reduced plastic-based products, and companies win by producing lower cost packaging.

While not yet widely available on many products, the frustration-free and less harmful packaging alternative is a step in the right direction and here’s to hoping many more collaborative partnerships between retailers and manufacturers are to come based on similar win-win(-win) situations such as the one highlighted by Amazon and its partners - especially in the area of packaging, where it seems there is still a lot of room for creative all-round winning solutions.

It seems that a quick way to get the public talking about much needed educational reform may be as simple as pushing back the time of the morning bell.

This week, Toronto’s English language public school board, the TDSB, announced that at least one local high school, Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute, will be starting classes later than ever next September – 10 am – in order to better accommodate students’ learning patterns, biological development and evolving lifestyle demands (such as part-time evening employment).  As you can imagine, the announcement has been met with vocal reaction - both for and against - but one of the most unfortunate side effects to come from the decision has been the amount of generational bias and “in my day” attitude that seems to have emerged against Net Generation students. 

A few choice comments left on The Toronto Star‘s (one of Canada’s largest newspapers) article follow below:

When the cart drives the horse

Why just start classes at 10:00 to accomodate the teenagers? We should adopt other accomodations: teach Facebook instead of Math, play Warcraft instead of studying literature and teach “chilling” instead of Science? Now, seriously, the teenagers have their world and their fun stuff but it is the education system who should teach them values, not the other way around. – petrache

 Discipline is the Difference

I have probably seen 10,000 CV’s, 2.000 interviews and hired 800 people in my career. I have absolutely no time for applicants who demonstrate a lack of discipline. In fact, I seek out evidence of poor self discipline. Most of the employers I know do the same thing. Eastern Commerce is certainly on my DNH (Do Not Hire) list! – Herschell Hollywood

 Work to be done

The work should be done when it is required, not when you feel like working. Due to a deadline of monday, I will be working until the work is done. I do not particularly want to work right now and it is not my optimal work time, but I will work to meet my deadline. This was required when I went to high school, college and university and served me well in the first few years after school when my company (a tech startup in the 90s) loaded me with more work than I could really handle. Deadlines were set and many times my work day started at 7 am, ended at 2am and it was not uncommon for the office to be full in the middle of a Saturday night. My wife (working today) had similar experiences both earlier in her career and now and would tell you (as HR) that informing your manager that it is inconvenient to start early will not get you ahead. This is one reason that I resent so many people who complain about the wealthy.  – Expat in the USA

While I don’t propose to be an expert on adolescent mental health and development, based on my personal experience and nGenera’s research on the Net Generation in the workforce and next generation education delivery, I think it may be time for more Boards to investigate alternative learning strategies, such as the one proposed for Eastern C.I..  A number already have a similar late start system in place and I am encouraged by the Toronto Board’s willingness to experiment with the standard 9am – 3pm day. 

Is 10am – 4pm definitely the right answer?  Likely not, but it presents students with another option, and those who choose to embrace the offering will hopefully be the ones who need it the most – not to surf Facebook for an extra hour in the evening, or to stay up later playing WOW as many opponents fear will happen, but rather to work their part-time job, or even simply to get that extra hour of sleep that so many of us, young and old, crave. (Let alone the benefits that can come from adept Internet usage or the skills that can be gained from MMORPG)

Are we failing our next generation by allowing for a later start, when so many of us have already been at work for number of hours?  Does this mean we’re pushing back “adulthood” and the need to just get used to early morning starts?  Maybe “adulthood” as defined by just learning to deal with it is being delayed - but is that such a bad thing?  Nobody has proposed shorter days, just ones that are rearranged to harness students’ proposed maximum potential. 

I guess only time will tell the merits of the late start for Eastern C.I., but one thing is for sure – having all classes start at 9 am or earlier simply because that’s the way it’s always been done, doesn’t make sense -particularly to the Net Generation, known for their scrutiny of information and who will enter a workforce that features increasingly flexible work arrangements.  I imagine the flexible work day faced similar criticism when it was first proposed, but that seems to be working out just fine (read: one of the fastest growing and most sought after employment trends) for many.

I think Herschell Hollywood might miss out on some top talent with such a brazen attitude, but hey, with 000s of resumes still to go, I’m sure he’ll be fine…unless he ever needs to hire one of those undisciplined Net Geners.

Cost? Indifference? Technical Inability? 

If you’re still one of the great majority not using your phone to access email (I was surprised to find that very few of us do +/- 10% according to estimates), there are any number of reasons that could be the root cause, but a new market entrant, Peek has placed a heavy bet that cost is what’s been stopping many and they have introduced a sleek new offering to do something about it.

Peek’s first device is a slim handheld that shares similar look and functionality to early Blackberry devices, which much like Peek were designed to do one thing only, and to do it well – access your email.  Unlike earlier RIM offerings, though, the Peek is available without any contract at a price of $100, with a monthly access fee of $19.95.

I just recently started accessing my email from my mobile phone, when I succombed to my tech geek side and purchased the iPhone, but prior to that, I was no less attached to my work email, I just carried my laptop with me nearly everywhere.  For me, the move to on-the-go email access was one of convenience – and I don’t mind blurring the lines between work and home too much – a noted characteristic of just over 40% Net Geners according to our latest research. 

Our latest research also shows that cross generationally, email is considered integral to successful work completition, with 73.6% of Net Geners, 73.0% of Gen Xers and 65.4% of Boomers agreeding with the statement that “Email is a necessicity for doing your job as well as you can.”  Now, we’ve all got the friend/family member who is addicted to their Blackberry/Smartphone as well as the friend/family member who swears they will never subscribe to the always-on work life enabled (read: encouraged) by ubiquitous email connectivity.

What side of the coin do you fall on?  Is Peek really on to something here, or have they totally missed the boat by assuming cost, not lack of interest, is the real barrier to mass mobile email adoption?

Instead of the typical “here’s your company laptop – enjoy!“, Citrix is one of the few companies to have gone public with a Bring Your Own Computer policy and they are experimenting with giving employees a stipend with which to purchase their own machine. With a $2,100 allowance, employees can purchase a PC or Mac of their choice, so long as it comes with a three-year service plan and carries guaranteed next day on-site service.

There are obviously a number of challenges posed by the infinite number of options that come as a result of a customized computer program, but the program brings with it at least one important reward – and one that our research has shown to be particularly attractive to the tech-savvy Net Generation – Customization.

Much more than just a machine on which to complete work (and sometimes play), laptops, like many other tech devices have become an important means of self-expression (enter the Mac marketing strategy). The option to customize also goes far beyond the Mac vs. PC debate by allowing employees to purchase a machine that best suits their desired specs i.e. screen size and port availability vs. weight, speed vs. storage capacity etc.

While I appreciate the interoperability and flexibility provided by a standardized computing option, I can honestly say that I have found a personal machine much more valuable than the ability to swap power cords every once in a while, which is one of the greatest personal benefits I experienced with standardized machines.  And really, with the marked cutbacks of late, by which many employees have become their own peer IT support department, does it really matter anymore whether or not your system is “supported,” so long as it runs one of the operating systems.  Let alone the increasing shift towards cloud computing, software as a service and hosted computing, which have helped transfer the burden from “can you computer do this” to “is this a machine you’ll be happy and productive working on.”

Most organizations still seem to be view this customization as an unwelcome and unnecessary headache, but it appears that there may be a growing appetite for at least experimentation with a customized procurement model.

My take on the situation is that petty as it may seem to some, if this customization is a “reward” that is valued by an increasing number of employees, I think it is certainly an option worth serious consideration.

What’s your take? Is the potential reward of increased employee satisfaction worth the potential headache of dealing with countless systems?  Anyone else experienced (or wanting) the option to customize?

Of note as well is that Citrix has been able to decrease the average amount of upfront computer outlay from $2,500 to $2,100 (ownership lifecycle costs not factored in), which suggests that maybe some employees are willing to take a “lesser” machine in favor of customization and also that rewards don’t always have to “cost more.”

The debate took place in the Whole Body aisle at Whole Foods and it was centred around which toothpaste was best – Tom’s of Maine or Burt’s Bees.  The winner was ultimately declared to be Tom’s, and the trump card that was triumphantly played to seal the victory was “It’s definitely Tom’s – just check their enviro rating on GoodGuide.”  Being the inquisitive person that I am, and also feelng a little embarassed to have been seeking the $2 toothpaste among other $6 – $10 alternatives, I had to ask what this “GoodGuide” was.

As it turns out, it’s a site that in its own words “provides the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home.”  The site was started by Berkeley professor to help address the concern that most consumers know very little about the products that are brought in to their homes everyday.  Using a team of scientific, technological and academic experts, over 60,000 household products have been rated on three separate metrics: health, environmental, and social performance.

The site is still in its beta phase, and whether or not you choose to heed/trust the expert ratings is a personal decision, but based on my browsing around today, I’ve already begun to appreciate the insight that GG has helped bring to some of the products I regularly use.  While so far, the site has not managed to gain a critical mass of user input and ratings, I think that once the word gets out there, this tool just might be the arbiter that helps tip the scales in a certain direction for prodcuts with which people have often teetered back and forth between preferences.

Some of the insights I have gained about my personal products include:

My soap could certainly do much better on both the health and environmental performance metrics, earning a paltry score of 4.0 and 5.5 out of 10 respectively;

I could probably stand to follow the lead of the toothpaste aisle victor and switch to Tom’s instead of the tried and true Crest;

And, while my laundry soap leaves my clothes smelling and feeling great, it may be downright unsafe if I am to trust the information provided on GoodGuide.

The moment of truth for the power of GoodGuide will come the next time I do a big shop back home and whether any of my buying habits change.

Take a few minutes and do a mini-audit of your own…How do your purchases measure up?

By rewarding those who are really taking a chance by purchasing cutting-edge/often unheard of music, I think popcuts is really on to something here…Each track sells for 99 cents, of which the site takes 10-20%, with the artist able to dictate how much of the remaining funds they would like to claim.   The remainder of the $0.99 is earmarked for distribution to every person who has already purchased the track.

While I wouldn’t suggest liquidating your savings account to make a quick cash-grab (unless your ideal portfolio consists of music credits), the site’s value proposition capitalizes upon important principles that I think will make this going concern, if not a solid buyout target for one of the bigger music stores out there (shudder):

1. Rewarding early adopters – Getting Paid: As a gadget geek and a reformed overzealous music experimenter, I know the pain of early adoption costs.  Site founders express their intentions to reward early buyers with cash as opposed to music credit, but for the time being, at least purchases can be seen as investments in future discoveries.

2. Rewarding early adopters – Earning Street Cred: There is little pleasure greater for early adopters than the ability to be known as such.  Top “earners” are featured on the popcuts homepage, capitalizing upon the social recognition and reverance that may come from being a trailblazer.

3. Low (entry) cost for artists: Unproven artists can upload their tracks and take advantage of the low-cost distribution model that only costs when the artist gets paid.  The ability to set the percentage of revenue demanded per track will allow for the evolution of pricing based on the artists’ stage in their popularity lifecycle.  There may even be a solid value proposition here for “known” artists whose name can sustain sales, with a lesser need for label support.

4. Harnessing (niche) fan communities:  While it’s no challenge to find someone with whom to chat with about the latest pop sensation, this same experience is not enjoyed by fans of lesser-known, often local artists, whose fan base can often be very dedicated and eager to get the word out there.

5. Power to the artists:  Artists retain full rights to their music and are able to peddle their tracks elsewhere, simultaneously.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on popcuts and the music industry as we always do here at Wikinomics and here’s to hoping the little guys pull out a victory over the giants in this one.

When the rumour again surfaced today, bolstered by the over-played (and incorrect) fault of a weakened stock price, the response was as expected, with many jumping on the bandwagon claiming Googlers are a(n overly-) pampered bunch, who’ve got nothing to complain about, even if their free dinners were to be taken away.

Whether the rumour is in fact true or not (seems to be an exaggeration of one single cafeteria being cut back) this raises a hot topic that many organizations are still struggling with, and the billion dollar management challenge of finding the right balance for employee rewards.  While Google is certainly the crown jewel of “total rewards”, there are many other organizations with very progressive, company-appropriate rewards programs who seem to be getting it right, day after day (albeit not many as all-encompassing, but then again, not everyone’s sitting on seven billion or so in cash).

For me, I suppose the question with such full employee “perks” has always been: is it really a “perk”, when I don’t have to leave the office to enjoy some of the luxuries, and even the ennui, of everyday life?  While it would be neat to have my dry cleaning left, and picked up, at the office, I’ve got a great place just down the street from my house, where the banter alone is sometimes worth the extra time/money spent. 

Whether you see them as pampered employees or not, I challenge the notion that Googlers should just “be happy with what they’ve got”, as I’ve not heard of too many organizations being able to take away what’s been promised, without significant “feedback”, lavish or not.

I, for one, think the Googlers have earned it, and while I’ve never worked for an employer with volleyball courts, countless cafeteria options or gondola-fashioned offices, I’ve been quite fortunate to have enjoyed a strong element of employee/employer trust, which has allowed for flexibility in how work is completed and the ability to continually push the limits by challenging the status-quo, and that’s been “reward” enough for me and many colleagues and friends across organizations.

I’m very interested in hearing about your employee “perks” (or lack thereof) that have either enhanced or made your work life challenging.  In order to be meaningful, do they have to be quantifiable (monetarily)?

See you in the morning for breakfast at the Googleplex to discuss…

The site provides member-scanned full digital copies of magazines, which can be browsed, shared, archived and even re-assembled to create aptly-named “mygazines”.  The site is hosted by Stokholm-based PRQ, “the world’s least lawyer-friendly hosting company“, which is also host to (and owned by two founders of) well-known bittorrent tracker, The Pirate Bay.

Interestingly, the site tour appears to be targeted at publishers, pitching itself as multi-faceted growth opportunity,  but most industry leaders asked aren’t exactly jumping at the “opportunity”.

Why should I upload my publication to mygazines.com?

• Our article-level search and archiving ability allows your audience to find the content they’re looking for faster
• Increase your distribution and advertising revenue by exposing your publication to more eyes
• Keep control of your publication: Mygazines will not allow for downloading or printing of your publication. Your original source file is never accessible.
• Save the trees – no paper will be used in the making of your virtual publication  

It’s absolutely free!

Wow.  A paper-saving, “distribution” and advertising revenue-increasing model that is also reader-friendly, allowing for customized content…seems like a no-brainer, right?  Well, not so fast.  Despite the site’s sugar-coating, the proclaimed “benefits” do not accrue to a publisher whose member-uploaded content becomes hosted on the third-party site. (Even if hyperlinks on advertisements are provided, the content is not tied to the original publisher.)

I must admit, I see both sides of the coin on this one.  Will this be a push towards open-content release or a short-lived copyright casualty?

In other copyright news, well-known Canadian law professor and fair copyright crusader, Michael Geist, has launched a campaign entitled c61in61seconds, where citizens are challenged to submit their reactions to Canada’s heavily-debated amendment to the Copyright Law, Bill C-61, in a YouTube video of 61 seconds or less.  The campaign has yet to gain full traction, but be sure to check it out and submit your 61 cents if you’ve got an opinion.

The injunction has ignited a debate over the ruling’s merit, which names each of the students as well as MIT in the temporary restraining order. The MBTA has taken issue with the fact that the “students offered to show others how to use the hacks before giving the transit system a chance to fix the flaws”, while the students’ representative from the Electronics Frontier Foundation (EFF) says “the students were simply trying to share their research and planned to omit key information that would make things easier for anyone who actually wanted to hack the payment system.”

In banning the presentation, which had already been distributed to conference attendees, and managed to make its way online, (go figure – handed out at a hacker conference and quickly made its way online) many have questioned whether the ruling has actually made things “worse”, helping the Hack gain increased publicity. According to EFF representative, Jennifer Granick, the ruling also leads down a “dangerous” path whereby “If you prevent legitimate researchers from talking about their findings, it’s not going to stop people from finding vulnerabilities. It’s going to stop the good guys from talking about them and from learning from each other.”

While I’m certainly not proposing anarchy here, I can’t help but wonder – with the knowledge of savvy individuals like Anderson, Ryan and Chiesa, does it make sense to alienate them with such court injunctions? As a result, has the MBTA missed an important opportunity, suppressing potentially valuable conversation that could/would have been a natural follow-on to the presentation, helping improve the MBTA and potentially other systems?

Recently, BIC launched a mobile phone in France, seeking to extend their convenience-based brand into the telecom market. The phone, which shares the colour-scheme and appearance of the company’s razor line retails for 49€ and comes with a fully-charged battery and 60 minutes of airtime. The phone is available at grocers and retailers and is targeted at people with a short-term need for a second line such as when troubled by a battery-depleted device or selling a car/renting an apartment. (Not to mention the ability to take the prank call or movie-like “call me at this unassigned number” to a whole new level.)

At first, I questioned the value of a disposable mobile device (expensive, wasteful/environmental impact) but when considering the international roaming charges that apply on many carriers’ networks, I wonder if these phones will gain momentum, particularly among the cost-conscious business crowd.  Do such roaming alternatives have the power to encourage inter-telco agreements that can allow for legitimately unlocked devices to improve the customer experience and potentially lead to everyone gaining from a rising tide?

Aside: At launch, BIC leadership made sure to point out that their mobile device [remember: sub $100, disposable] would not be competing with the iPhone in terms of function and features. In related news, Justin Timberlake can share in Apple’s sense of relief in knowing that based on a conversation spurred by the BIC phone’s merit, Denis Hancock (the artist formerly known as the Dilbert Wikinomics guru) was quick to point out that despite having picked up some new dance moves recently, he will not be competing with the JT for the adoration of tweens worldwide.

Self-proclaimed to have indexed three times more pages than Google and 10 times more pages than Microsoft, Cuil is the brainchild of Tom Costello, Anna Patterson and Russell Power, formerly of IBM and Google.  With some pretty direct attacks on other unnamed search engines that “rely on superficial popularity metrics,” Cuil’s philosophy is “to solve the two great problems of search: how to index the whole Internet—not just part of it—and how to analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.”

While I was unable to complete many searches effectively today due to overwhelming traffic to the site, Cuil appears to have great potential and I am intrigued by the service’s promise to “guide [me] towards answers to the questions [I'm] not even sure how to ask.”

Another advertised feature that is sure to attract attention is cuil’s privacy policy that can be summed up in short by their tagline “your search history is your business, not ours.” (It should be interesting to see how long this lasts.)

What do you think?  Are the other player(s) in for some trouble? 

Certain pundits think not, and a few have been quick to point out such potential shortcomings as having a name that noone knows how to pronounce as being an important marketing flaw.  (Nomenclature troubles didn’t seem to hurt Google much.)  Others, including $30+ milllion in VC funding seem to think Cuil is on to something hot.

A particular section of the article piqued my interest and really got me thinking:

Quoting the author: It is a strange new world for employers, who must be ready to protect their own image when embarrassing details of their employees’ lives become known.

Quoting an assistant professor from the Ivey Business School, Claus Rerup: We’re living in a more media-crazy world, where what your employees do can potentially have very bad implications for you…But people have not put two and two together that this could happen.

This brings me to a few questions: In such a time when Web 2.0 tools enable powerful mass collaboration and ever-decreasing barriers to communication and transparency, should employees’ private activities (legality assumed) be subject to review and possible reprimand at the hands of an employer?  What is the employer’s role and what should be within their power when an employee’s damaging private activity suddenly becomes public?  What is the role of the HR team and the boardroom when it comes time to “protect the company’s image?”

On top of the email handcuffs, has Web 2.0 helped create moral restraints as well?

Radiohead chose to shun the traditional camera and lights video (that’s so 2007) in favour of the Velodyne LIDAR system, which used 64 lasers, shooting 900 times per minute in a 360 degree radius to capture the data for the video, which would later be re-assembled to create the four and a half minute sequence.  The final product perfectly captures the eerie tone of the song and in the words of the video’s director, James Frost: “In a weird way, [the video] is a direct reflection of where we are in society – everything is data…Everything around us is data-driven in some shape or form and we’re so reliant on it now. Our lives are so digital, so in that way, it felt apt.”

And the video itself is not even the coolest part.  Radiohead has made available the data used to make the video (here) and is encouraging fans to download, remake and post their own version to the YouTube group, which “the band would love to see”.

Kudos to the “video’s” production team and to Radiohead’s front man, Thom Yorke, for once again pushing the envelope and as he says himself: “using technology in a way it wasn’t meant to be used.”

Check out the making of the video here.

An increasing number of artists are now signing recording deals with consumer product companies such as Nike, Red Bull and Procter & Gamble, who are acting as de facto record companies - finding, funding, promoting and in cases even distributing new music.  In an effort to promote various product lines, these companies have now begun to look outside of their core businesses for a new way to get their brands “out there.”

An early leader in this movement is TAG records.   Launched in April, TAG is a joint venture supported by P&G and led by hip hop mogul Jermaine Dupri, which takes its name from TAG body spray, a former Gillette brand that is entrenched in a battle against Unilever’s AXE in the highly-competitive teen market.

While collaborating with artists for short-term promotional pieces is nothing new, a number of companies are taking their relationship with artists to the next level, and early signs point to a winning relationship for both sides involved.  Dupri is very pleased with the budget provided by P&G, claiming “You can’t get this type of marketing budget. There are endorsement deals, but not like this.”  Artists appear to benefit by receiving both an up-front payment as well a royalty agreement that outpaces what is offered by the big labels.

So far, Nike-commissioned Better Than I’ve Ever Been has succeeded by bringing together hip hop royalty Kanye West, Rakim, Nas and KRS-One, earning popular acclaim and a Grammy Nomination over the past year. Some big label execs are refuting the success of this new model with the age-old “this model wouldn’t work if these artists weren’t already so popular because of our help” argument. If artists are receiving more support (promotional/marketing expertise AND money), and at the end of the day, most consumers do not you care where the music is “coming from,” is this a business model that’s here to stay or a flash in the pan fad?

PM harness the wisdom of crowds approach to knowledge creation and management, and I want to share a chart that Hagai and Jeff prepared to help compare and contrast variations on this approach to “none of us is as smart as all of us.”

In my opinion, the most interesting evolution in harnessing the wisdom of crowds comes at the top right corner of this illustration, through reality-mined PM (the collection of machine-sensed environmental data pertaining to human social behavior).  These PM collect information that on an individual basis would be of relatively little value and aggregate this data to display and predict useful information. There exist a number of rich applications based on this type of passive intelligence collection, such as Trapster (previously highlighted by Hagai) and Citysense, developed by a leader in this field, Sense Networks.

One of the early applications of this rich data aggregation has been the display of traffic patterns in real time by tracking the movement of every enabled mobile device through a city’s roadways.

While I am excited by the power of these PM to enhance their users’ daily experience, there are certainly tradeoffs on the personal level that must be considered before wholeheartedly buying into the exciting possibilities created by these tools.  One of these considerations was hit home in a quotation from Sense Networks’ co-founder, Tony Jebara.

“Just as Google indexed pages on the Internet to optimize web discovery, Sense Networks has indexed the real places in a city and characterized them by activity, versus proximity or demographics, to better understand the context of consumers’ offline behavior.”

While the information collected by Sense is done on an anonymous basis, it is important to consider the tradeoff of a database knowing your daily, weekly and monthly personal traffic patterns so that your behavior can be “better understood” (read: so that we can market to you more effectively).  Just as your Internet activity has been turned into targeted banners and spam, how long will it be before your rich traffic data leads to yet another layer of sometimes unwanted and evermore targeted marketing based on a “better understanding of your offline behavior?”

I am excited to see both the progress and conflict that will emerge from powerful reality-mining tools.  What’s your take? Golden Nugget or That’s a Little Too Weird for Me, Thanks?