Prologue Given the depth and nature of conversations on this subject, I think I’d better let this one run for a while. Many of you have commented in different ways, by writing in, by talking to me, by commenting on this blog, or on Facebook or Twitter, or even by writing blog posts and pointing [...]
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Social objects in the enterprise: some early thoughts
Origins of “social objects” Nearly four years ago, Jyri Engestrom introduced us to the concept of social objects, and Hugh Macleod built on that theme, and what they said really resonated with me. As a result, I’ve been writing about social objects for a while, as you can see here from three years ago here, [...]
– February 23, 2011
Thinking sideways about the World Economic Forum and platforms
Beginnings: congregations and stories As long as humankind has existed, humankind has congregated. And whenever humankind has congregated, humans have used the opportunity to follow their passions and dreams, to tell the world their stories, to connect with others to make their dreams reality. Sometimes those dreams went against the grain of the society they [...]
– January 30, 2011
You *can* take it with you: musing about cloud principles
Photo courtesy of @psd. Paul, I owe you one. There was a time when the “high street” bank was a disconnected silo, an island of tranquillity. Except when it came to a busy afternoon and you wanted to withdraw money. Your money. Because the only place you could withdraw it from was the branch with [...]
– January 23, 2011
The Maker Generation in the Enterprise
A few days ago, I spent some time with James Powell at the Thomson Reuters offices on Times Square. It was just the kind of conversation I enjoy: we covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time, rarely had to explain anything to each other while we went off on tangents and random [...]
– January 17, 2011
Thinking more about un-nationalness
[Note: this is a follow-up to my post a few days introducing the theme of un-nationalness.] Krosno Odrzanskie, Poland. Dakar, Senegal. Greenwich, London. Uzice, Serbia. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Cardiff, Wales. Praia, Cape Verde. Edinburgh, Scotland. Derry, Northern Ireland. Blaegoevgrad, Bulgaria. Guadalajara, Mexico. These are the birthplaces of the 11 who took the field in [...]
– January 5, 2011
Musing about 2011 and an un-national generation
Happy New Year everyone. If you haven’t heard of William Stafford before, you should try and spend some time reading his poetry. Stafford, who died in 1993, was made the US equivalent of Poet Laureate in 1970, and was known for his gentle, pithy style. A prolific poet, he is estimated to have written over [...]
– January 2, 2011
Does the Web make experts dumb? Part 2: Who’s The Teacher?
I try and make a point of looking for the good in people; I try and make a point of looking for the good in situations; I try and make a point of looking for the good in outlook and expectation. Those traits in me make some people believe that I’m a wild-eyed optimist, whatever [...]
– August 23, 2010
Does the web make experts dumb?
For information to have power, it needs to be held asymmetrically. Preferably very very asymmetrically. Someone who knows something that others do not know can do something potentially useful and profitable with that information. Information can be asymmetric in a number of ways. The first, and simplest, is asymmetry-in-access. If you can make sure that [...]
– August 22, 2010
What we share: Continuing to look at privacy, sideways
We now have a growing and fascinating array of tools with which to share information with others, “social” tools. Having spent some time recently thinking about why we share (posts here and here), I wanted to spend some time sharing my thoughts with you on the topic of what we share; in a few days’ [...]
– May 24, 2010
Why we share: a sideways look at privacy
This is a follow-up post to one I wrote nearly three months ago, Musing About Sharing and Privacy. This time, I’m trying to focus on just one thing. What makes people share. Incidentally, while talking about sharing: if you’re interested in privacy I would strongly recommend you read this post by Danah Boyd and this [...]
– May 23, 2010
Thinking about social objects and limbo dancing
There was a time when people had real beards and real names and real jobs. People such as Theodatus Garlick pictured below, one of the world’s first plastic surgeons, and perhaps one of the world’s first daguerrotype photographers. [Incidentally, I am grateful to the delightfully named Increase Lapham, whose wonderful collection of cartes-de-visites and cabinet [...]
– May 14, 2010
Thinking about predictability: More musings about Push and Pull
Chichen Itza photograph courtesy JuanRojo If you’ve been following this blog for long, then you’ll probably know that I’ve been interested in a number of themes to do with information and its implications on business structures and process. You will also know that every now and then, I use the arenas of food and music [...]
– May 4, 2010
More on the Power of Pull
The world keeps changing. There was a time when all the conversation related to a blog post could be found in the area around the post, the blog itself. Nowadays things are somewhat more complex. Today, if I want to find out how my post is being received, I have to do a number of [...]
– April 26, 2010
Of Push and Pull
My thanks to Bob Davidson (oybay on flickr) for letting me use the wonderful shot above. Those of you who know me well will also know that I have had a soft spot for the writings of John Seely Brown and John Hagel for some time now. [I've found 15 mentions of the word "Seely" [...]
– April 25, 2010
The Digital Economy Bill: Thinking further about copyright
Image courtesy of Drew Douglas duly attributed here The photograph above was taken at a rugby league game in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in September 2008. In it you can see young children and older youths watching the game from rooftops adjacent to the stadium. Tho photograph below, nearly a hundred years earlier, shows [...]
– April 5, 2010
On comics and teleportation and similar Saturday meanderings into the future
Do you remember good old everyday comics? Not manga, nor the kind of stuff people treasure in polythene wrappers and pay a million dollars for. The stuff you touch and read and laugh at and with. At home, we were brought up on a rich diet of comics; I must have read my first comic [...]
– March 8, 2010
Just one. The best
I love chess for a variety of reasons. The sheer breathtaking beauty of the game, as evinced here, in “Fatal Attraction”, Edward Lasker v Sir George Thomas nearly a century ago. The characters it throws up, as in Jose Raul Capablanca and Efim Bogoljubov. And the way chess teaches us about cause and effect in [...]
– February 16, 2010
Life in Transit: Happy New Year everyone
Note: My thanks to Orin Zebest for all the photographs, provided via Flickr on a Creative Commons Attribution Licence. Orin, you’re Ze Best. And I’ve left all your original titles in!. Note: I had some trouble with the photographs when viewed via the permalink. I’ve reloaded each one from a different “source” and with standardised [...]
– December 31, 2009
Musing about culture and customers and choice: the eBaying of “content”
I have the privilege of spending time with many startups, in a variety of guises: as incubator, as advisor, as investor, as chairman, as well-wisher, friend and supporter. The startups differ widely and wildly: they range in size from a handful of people to hundreds; they have annual burn rates in the thousands and in [...]
– October 11, 2009
Thinking about Mario, Pompeii and the internet
I spent some time with the family wandering around Pompeii at the weekend. It was a wonderful experience; while I’d been there before, it was a long time ago: the technology of archaeology has moved forward apace; and I was twenty-five years older. [We'd gone to Sorrento for our honeymoon in 1984. We decided it [...]
– August 12, 2009
The Death of the Download?
I woke up this morning with blepharitis in both eyes. Not sure how it happened, but there you are. A considerable inconvenience, having to reschedule everything, go to the eye hospital, queue up, get seen and diagnosed, pick up the prescription, get the medications from the pharmacy, then go home. Start applying the stuff. You [...]
– July 13, 2009
Thinking about the web with respect to good and bad news
I was born into a journalistic family in the fifties. My father was a journalist, as was his father. The family business was journalism. Financial journalism. Their models of vertical integration included owning a printing press and shares in ad agencies and restaurants. Which meant that as a child, I was pretty used to hearing [...]
– July 12, 2009
Thinking about complexity in the world we live in today
A few decades ago, I read a book called AI: The Tumultous History of The Search for Artificial Intelligence, by Daniel Crevier. In it, the late and brilliant Donald Michie is quoted as saying something like this: AI is about making machines more fathomable and more under the control of human beings, not less. Conventional [...]
– June 28, 2009
Strumming my phone with his fingers
There’s a common mondegreen to do with Killing Me Softly With His Song: apparently, people hear the first words as “strumming my fate with his fingers” rather than “strumming my pain with his fingers”. But the title of this post is no mondegreen: Yes, there’s now a decent guitar app for the iPhone: PocketGuitar, available [...]
– March 23, 2009
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