Posts filed under 'technology'
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September 30th, 2008, 07:13am
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I know that in the past I sure have, and it appears that a number of employees at enterprise software company Citrix are now also doing the same.
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. Read More »
September 23rd, 2008, 08:20pm
I’m sure many of the Wikinomics blog readers are familiar with Massively Multiplayer Online Games, but there is an off-chance you haven’t heard of Trion World Gaming. They have yet to release a game, but Trion has been very active in securing funding. They just landed a deal worth $70MM from a consortium of Venture Capitalists, which brings their total VC-take to over $100MM.
So why are they “worth” that much? Well, according to their CEO Dr. Lars Buttler (a former Electronic Arts executive who worked on Might and Magic and Heroes), the reason is two-fold:
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September 14th, 2008, 10:39pm
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Over the summer my brother had a friend visiting from Japan. Erina – this petite, normally quiet and demure Asian had a good hearty laugh at the fact that our major Canadian electronics retailer fancies itself as the store of the future. Personally, I always find a visit to the electronics shop to be quite exhilarating. I enjoy perusing the new gadgets, hanging out in the speaker room, and fantasizing about the sweet 52-inch Sony flat screens. But then again, I’m male, I’m 30, and I’m a Canadian. To a Japanese native whose expectations are clearly far more demanding, our entire technology industry is a bit comical. The futuristic gadgets that we find ourselves drooling over are already two or three generations old in Japan. In fact the digital camera that Erina walked into the store with was the latest model… too bad she bought it in Japan five years ago. To her, our technology was “soooo 2003.”
I bring up this little anecdote because it is relevant to some research I’m contemplating about Asian business revolutionaries and, in particular, the mobile industry. The issue is that, despite our global business environment, the disparity between North American and Asian product innovation and consumer expectations of innovation is, honestly, quite shocking. The electronics industry in this continent is a great example of the “culture of legacy” that we North Americans complaisantly support.
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September 5th, 2008, 08:37am
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I’m in Krems Austria at the Talk of the Future Conference. I have the opening keynote this morning. Last night I heard an amazing talk from Dr Franz Joseph Radermacher, head of the Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing and the Chair of Computer Sciences at the University of Ulm. Member of the club of Rome and an expert in artificial intelligence.. It was a profound talk. My notes are below:
The issue is not the individual. The issue is human kind as an intelligent system. We’ve been living for 4 million years. What keeps us together? Communication.
Innovations are powerful mechanism to change input output mechanisms. There is a universal mechanism of communication where by superior innovations become part of standard procedure. It took 4 million years to get us to 20 million people. 8,000 BC. Up to that point we were hunters and collectors. Read More »
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September 3rd, 2008, 09:12am
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This guest blog is by Steve Ressler, founder of GovLoop.com, a social network connecting the government community. Mr. Ressler is also a contributor to the nGenera Gov 2.0: Wikinomics, Government, and Democracy project and the co-founder of Young Government Leaders, a professional organization of more than 2,000 government employees. Ressler has published articles on generational issues and Web 2.0 in various publications including The Public Manager and presented on these topics at a range of venues including Harvard’s Kennedy School and Brookings Institute.
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It’s official - Gov 2.0 is here to stay. From nGenera’s Gov 2.0: Wikinomics, Government, and Democracy project, NAPA’s Collaboration Project, and Mashable’s recent Gov 2.0 column, a lot has been written on the potential power of web 2.0 technologies in government. Government agencies across numerous jurisdictions have begun focusing on how Web 2.0 technologies can help foster workplace collaboration and innovation. Organizations such as the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Transportation Security Agency, and National Resources Canada have implemented organizational wikis to provide a central point for ideas and discussion.
But while government organizations have begun to focus on fostering workplace collaboration from the inside, a new type of collaboration is developing outside the formal reach of government agencies. As part of the Gov 2.0: Wikinomics, Government, and Democracy research series, I recently completed a paper entitled “Net-Gen Networks: How Agencies Can Leverage Outside Innovation Internally.” In this analysis, I document the rise of informal networks in the government sector built around Web 2.0 applications as a means of facilitating collaboration, idea sharing and innovation both within and across agency lines. Whether via social networks like Facebook, wikis, or blogs, these networks have created new authoritative resources for employees without the input or control of their superiors.
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August 15th, 2008, 12:09pm
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If you have ever fancied yourself as something of an amateur inventor or designer but never seemed to have the resources to make your vision a reality, your day may have finally arrived.
Shapeways, a new internet-based 3-D printing service, offers rapid prototyping at an affordable price. Send in your digital design file and Shapeways will ship your polymer prototype in less than ten days and won’t charge you an arm and a leg. According to Shapeways, most orders cost between $50 and $150. Shapeway’s proprietary software ensures the design can be built and tweaks small errors in the design before production. Amazingly, Shapeway’s advanced printers can build objects with moveable parts and the clincher is that the price isn’t determined by complexity, but rather by the amount of polymer required.
3-D printing’s uses are virtually unlimited. Small businesses and startups can order prototypes for potential customers, artists can have a new medium with which to play, friends can create their own unique gifts to give, and prosumers can whip up a redesign for a company.
In an age when Starbucks’ die-hard caffeine addicts spend hours combing mystarbucksidea.com for ways to improve a business in which they have no professional stake in, it’s not a stretch to see similarly devoted customers producing actual mock ups of improved products for a favorite brand. But will it really catch on?
Cornell University engineer Hod Lipson thinks so. He told MIT’s Technology Review that he thinks people will eventually have these printers at home.
Could the democratization of 3-D printing technology be for prosumerism what the Gutenberg press was for literacy?
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August 11th, 2008, 07:46am
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Very observant readers may note that this post has some striking similarities to what I wrote about three months ago - the collaborative experience economy. What I tried to do then was connect the “four forms of theater” idea from Pine & Gilmore’s “The Experience Economy” with the principles of wikinomics - hence the name of the post. For whatever reason I didn’t get a lot of traction with it, but I’m still intrigued by the underlying ideas, so I wanted to re-frame the idea directly in relation to social media. More to the point, I’d like to hear from wikinomics readers as to whether it’s a useful framework for thinking about the use of social media in relation to creating experiences both for and with customers.
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July 23rd, 2008, 05:07pm
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Trips to the gas station have turned into quite painful experiences lately. I used to hate riding bikes and walking places but now it is becoming a necessity. The horse and buggy is becoming more appealing every day.
It isn’t just your car you have to worry about. Airline ticket prices are on the rise. You almost have to create a budget just so you can have the money to get to work. This presents a problem for a global workplace.
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July 21st, 2008, 02:32pm
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As we look back over the past couple of years there is no doubt about the entrepreneurial spirit that is catching among tech savvy Net Geners entering the workforce. Young people like Mark Zuckerberg, Dalton Caldwell 27, Hooman Radfar and Austin Fath both 26, Andrew Frame 27, are creating and utilizing social networks, and word of mouth to successfully develop businesses.
The University of Waterloo has taken notice and is currently building a “Dormcubator” to link 70 of their best and brightest tech students together. According to an article in PC World the University of Waterloo is revamping one its dorms to make room for these students. The $400,000 project is designed to give them a place to live and interact with other like minded individuals.
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July 2nd, 2008, 01:02pm
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An article on ZDNet announces that the Openmoko Neo Freerunner will debut in markets July 4th. This new phone will run a linux based operating system and is entirely open source. It will include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3 axis motion sensors. The one thing missing is a camera. It will cost $399 and can be purchased directly from Openmoko.
This is a big step forward in the cell phone industry. Big cell companies like AT&T and Sprint can no longer dictate what applications you can run or how big a dent they will make in your pocket book. Now if you want your phone to do something, you can just design it yourself. The operating system is entirely open source. This means that with a little programming knowledge, you can make your cell phone… beep when it is lost; detect air quality; help you practice your golf swing (this is feasible with the motions sensors on phone). The possibilities are endless. Big cell companies beware: This is the future.
What will you create with your open source phone?
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June 30th, 2008, 07:46am
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You can check out the original, and all the other mash ups, at www.dilbert.com.
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June 28th, 2008, 02:01pm
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Can Wikinomics Keep the 77 Year Streak Alive?
This week’s edition of the Wikinomics Report Card will focus on General Motors Corporation (GM). In case you missed my first report card about Major League Baseball, you can find it here. Like last week, I will be evaluating GM on the Wikinomics principles of being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally.
Company Background: GM was founded in 1908 and is the world’s largest automaker and leader in global sales for the last 77 calendar years. It manufactures cars and trucks in 35 different countries under the brands Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac, and many more. Under the strength of Alfred Sloan’s revolutionary corporate structure and leadership, GM was once one of the world’s most profitable companies peaking in the early 80’s with a U.S. market share of 45%. However, the legacy costs and complex accounting systems associated with the Sloan era have hindered GM’s efforts to create a more lean manufacturing process. Stiff foreign competition from companies like Toyota and poor strategic decisions like focusing on SUVs and light trucks in a rising fuel market has led GM to one of its weakest points in its history. Yesterday, its stock reached a 53-year low after Goldman Sachs changed it status to “sell”. GM is hoping that it can weather this storm long enough to introduce its new line of alternative energy vehicles like the Chevy Volt and reclaim some of its former glory.
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June 16th, 2008, 07:27am
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To complement the USB phidgets I described a couple weeks ago. I thought it’d be interesting to see what existed on the embedded server front. Turns out that there are some astonishingly compact web servers. Not only may your next computer be a USB thumb drive, looks like your web server could be too. The WebServUSB costs a mere $69.95. You can go ahead and download a page from one of these USB webservers here. Here’s a photo of what these devices looks like:
For other tiny web servers, check here and here.
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June 11th, 2008, 10:16am
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As reported by Daniel A. Begun on Hot Hardware yesterday, an interesting new study has been released from researchers at Ohio State University and the University of California that indicates the use of instant messaging (IM) can improve productivity. The finding that may be particularly counter intuitive to many people is shown in the following chart:
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June 10th, 2008, 05:51am
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Nate Anderson published a very interesting article on Sunday where he quotes Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu calling Apple’s iPhone the device “at the center of the battle for the future of the Internet.” Why? Well…
It’s not that he doesn’t like the iPhone; he does, he owns one, and he’s jailbroken it. The problem is control, or, more accurately, the lack of control that device users have over their own devices.
The argument builds on Jonathon Zittrain’s new book “The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)“, where it is argued that “generative” technologies (think: open) are being marginalized by closed technologies like the iPhone and other proprietary platforms. As Wu went on to argue, open devices are important (and even the iPhone is making tentative steps in this direction), but without open access to networks they aren’t much good. There is also an interesting perspective on Wu’s history provided, notably including how he determined that some work in his former life (working with a device maker to help ISPs control content people can access) was “probably not very good for the health of the Internet or the future of free speech.”
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June 4th, 2008, 02:15pm
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Fans of the arduino or anyone interested in making cool stuff, might want to take a look at these great USB hardware gadgets (called phidgets) offered by Trossen Robotics.
Note: Actually I just realized that the company which produces phidgets is at phidgets.com. Apparently they’re located in Calgary, Alberta, so much closer to home for Canadian readers of the blog.
All of it works via USB connections and they offer things like servo controllers:
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April 14th, 2008, 10:46pm
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And maybe this time, it’s okay to be old-school.
In a world where the job application procedure has evolved to where face to face contact has sometimes been replaced with virtual meetings (in worlds such as Second Life), isn’t it also about time that the boring old resume started to evolve as well? The standard format of: this is who I am, this is where I went to school and this is where I’ve worked may seen a bit passe to many prospects, particularly N-Geners with big aspirations, who find it difficult to put everything in to neat little boxes, including “work experience”, “education”, and “community involvement” to name a few.
Where resume 1.0 has long held exclusive reign, companies such as Visual CV have entered the market to provide more colourful applicant representations (both literally and figuratively). Allowing users to create electronic documents that can be customized to the users’ needs to include extras such as PDF files of recommendation letters and hyperlinks to employer and institutional information, these CVs provide much more depth than a traditional black and white, one page resume of the day. Read More »
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April 11th, 2008, 02:01pm
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Back in November my New Paradigm colleague Paul blogged about the impact of the Net on language, in particular noting the massive dominance of information in either English or Mandarin. Now a non-NP colleague, Don Osborn, takes a crack at applying the long tail concept to languages in his latest blog post available here. He notes:
“…the application of the long-tail concept to language runs into problems perhaps similar to other attempts to apply economic analysis to languages (as) people don’t move “down the tail” to niche markets with language in the way they might with music or books ….. With language, the most prominent fact is that people live in the long tail, as it were, and there are some incentives to move up the tail to dominant languages. Part of the issue is how new technologies facilitate not abandoning the linguistic home in the long tail when dominant languages are learned and used.”
As Paul highlights in his post there are several tools and applications that, in theory, faciliate learning, or given Don’s take, not leaving, the long-tail. But in a world where the language of economics is conducted in one, perhaps two, and in the future maybe three languages, can a combination of technology, ethno-nationalism and culture trump trade and economics? Read More »
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April 8th, 2008, 12:10am
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In the 24/7 world of the blogosphere, where the action never stops and the best scoop could be just around the next virtual corner, the life of a top blogger can be one full of Google, Technorati and endless caffeinated beverages with sleep and sometimes even food coming as a distant afterthought. With 112 million active blogs being tracked by blog search engine Technorati, the blogosphere has become an extremely important part of the web 2.0 world and the allure of becoming an elite blogger has attracted tens of thousands of full time bloggers worldwide.
Many bloggers are paid by the post (and the number of hits their post gets), leading to what some critics label the new virtual sweatshop. While the life of a blogger can often feature the ultimate in flexibility - where working from home and “on your own schedule” is the norm, it can be precisely this flexibility that can lead to unhealthy work practices and overburdening stress for those unable to maintain a healthy median between work and play. Read More »
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March 13th, 2008, 09:40am
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Modeling surprise, probabilistic chips, NanoRadio, Wireless Power, Atomic Magnometers, Offline web applications, Graphene Transistors, Connectomics, Reality Mining, and Cellulolytic Enzymes. There you go - the Technology Review (published by MIT) top-10 of technologies that “we think are most likely to change the way we live.” Normally I wouldn’t give away their entire list, but I have a hunch that the vast majority of people might need a little bit of help to figure out what at least one of those things are. You can find the links to all the individual descriptions here, in addition to the top-10 lists for each year from 2001 - 2008.
There’s some fascinating stuff in the older lists - DRM predictions from 2001, Grid computing in 2003, and Universal Memory from 2005 to name a few. For those interested in where technology is going, and where people thought technology was going but a few years ago, it’s a great site to cruise around. Anything in particular jump off the page at anyone?
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