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A London Think Tank ... and a glass of wine!

As I head off the grid for nine days in northern Minnesota (no phone, no TV, no microwave ... just R&R with my family in the deep woods with a glass of wine!), it somehow seems appropriate to leave you with this post ... and thought from Demos, A London based think tank (thanks to Jane Hart for the link).

Hopes and dreams matter...

Personal dreams must be taken more seriously, especially during a recession.  Demos travelled the country asking people about their lives and what they wished for in the future. Far from a 'broken society' we found an optimistic, realistic and altruistic Britain.

In addition, you'll find a report on the state of education in the United Kingdom ... The Edgeless University. The full report may be downloaded from this link. Here is a very brief overview, which could really be about almost any service affected by technology. Do you fear it, or embrace change? Time for my first glass of wine!

The Edgeless University argues that this can be a moment of rebirth for universities. Technology is changing universities as they become just one source among many for ideas, knowledge and innovation. But online tools and open access also offer the means for their survival.

CalTech NASA Study on Micro-Blogging ROI / Business Value

I just found a great research study on effective internal use of micro-blogging to enhance collaboration in a distributed engineering environment ... or should I say it found me via Twitter (thanks to Carrie Young).  One of my favorite quotes from the executive summary: "93% of the answers were from a different NASA center". Explained in my own words, the NASA pilot participants received answers to their technical questions from fellow employees who they often did not know ... and who did not work at their own location. If you focus upon collaboration inside the firewall, and are exploring the use of Web 2.0 tools for the enterprise, this is must read. After all ... you have an elite university (CalTech) reviewing a complex distributed engineering environment (NASA). NASA's pilot project used Social Cast, but I found the findings to be software tool agnostic.

• NASA Collaboration Study: Executive Summary | Full Report

You may also wish to see my prior post on Collaboration in the Cloud.

The New York Times or Wikipedia?

I originally learned from WikiAngela that Google News was testing the idea of adding Wikipedia as one of the prime news sources on their Google News. Selected Google News accounts are now being presented with links to stories from the expected players ... the New York Times, NBC, the Associated Press, etc., but also Wikipedia. Well, my account is apparently includes in the test. Take a look at the screenshot included below (click to view full at full resolution). Consider the implications!

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Another sign of the digital age, after 74 years, Kodak is going to take everyone's Kodachrome away! From Paul Simon's famous song:

"They give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers. Makes you think all the world's a sunny day," he sang. "... So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away"

The Conversational Web

I'm trying to determine the ROI / business value of social media sites for my company. A common assumption is that if one's company is not end-consumer focused, there may be less value found upon social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. However, if you are trying to take the pulse of the "conversational web", these services handily beat traditional web sites. Over the past 24 hours I've discovered the truth of that hypothesis. In my case, I ran Grandma's Marathon yesterday during "black flag" weather conditions (i.e. dangerous heat). I decided to create an animated slideshow with music of the experience.

Being curious about yesterday's race, I queried Google on "Grandma's Marathon". Almost 100% of the first 20 results (farther down that most people would ever read) are traditional news media reports of the race. However, if one runs the same query via Twitter Search, the results are dramatically different, you learn what it's like to actually run in the race. The first tweet was by Graeme Thickins, a web 2.0 reporter who actually linked my video.

Thus, always know your audience and your purpose. One needs to stay abreast of both the traditional and conversational web. You'll be better able to understand the parts to the puzzle.