Deja Vu: Ten books I’ve re-read this past year

And I feel
like I’ve been here before
Feel
like I’ve been here before
And you know it makes me wonder
What’s going on

David Crosby, Deja Vu: Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Dallas Taylor and Greg Reeves

[BTW I have not seen a “neutrality disputed” tag on a topic like this before in Wikipedia. Looks like I will have to do something about it]. Enough meandering. Here is the list:

If any of you do decide to meet Serge A Storms, Tim Dorsey’s creation, I would recommend doing so when seated comfortably and far from anything that could injure you. Serge is truly insane. And a delight. Thank you Tim.

Corporate lobbying and opportunity costs

Michael Massing makes an interesting point in the FT today, you can find an excerpt of the article here.

My takeaway from his comments is as follows:

  • 1. US corporates spend an awful lot of money lobbying government on a variety of issues
  • 2. The sectors that do the lobbying (eg automobiles, utilities, entertainment) spend this awful lot of money seeking to preserve the status quo
  • 3. That represents a significant opportunity cost
  • 4. They may get more bang for the buck in a global connected world by using the money to improve what they do

I must admit that I have not considered the opportunity cost aspect of the lobbying approach enough in the past. Thank you Mr Massing.

When they were asked what they wanted, the people said �Uglier horses�!

Ugly sells? Take a look at this post from Commission Networks (I couldn’t be bothered trying to find out who the person was, the site was too ugly for me and I couldn’t find an “about”). But it made me think.

I wonder if the Henry Ford “faster horses” statements can be made to apply to design. Is it possible that ugly sites are more attractive to the generations before M, because that’s what they’re used to? Brought up on green-screens and blue-screens-of-death anything looks beautiful. That generation loves looking at Excel screens on a BlackBerry, remember?

I wonder if I can extend that supposition. If a site is NOT ugly and yet IS popular, can I assume that it is used by Generation M?

Just thinking.

A little slice of my favourites on my iPod

In no particular order, but maybe it lets you get inside my head just that little bit more.

  • Today I Killed A Man I Didn’t Know…. White Plains
  • (I’m) On the Road to Freedom…. Alvin Lee and Mylon Lefevre
  • Thoughts about Roxanne….John Mayall
  • Angry Eyes….Loggins and Messina
  • Maybe…. Dave Mason
  • Twas a Sunny Day….Paul Simon
  • The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys….Traffic
  • May You Never….John Martyn
  • Photographs and Memories….Jim Croce
  • How Far….Stephen Stills

Foundations underlying the Four Pillars: Setting the scene

If you haven’t done so already, you must read The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

I’d like to pay Mr Asimov some form of homage and see whether I can construct the Four Pillar Foundations using the same book headings: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. This is neither meant to be pompous (in no way do I see my posts competing with Asimov’s elegant prose) nor contrived (I genuinely saw a three-layer foundation and particularly liked the chance to use the word “empire” in its new context). Thank you Isaac Asimov for making me dream many years ago.

In Foundation, I want to cover the implications of Moore, Metcalfe, and Gilder (note the use of the Oxford comma there, purists!) and set the scene with virtualisation, service orientation and commoditisation.

In Foundation and Empire I want to show what has happened to erstwhile participants in the market (even if they haven’t figured it out yet) and the move towards platform independence, device agnosticism and telephony-becoming-software.

In Second Foundation I want to bring in democratised innovation, consumerisation and market-driven “conversational” standards.

The Four Pillars of Syndication, Search, Fulfilment and Collaboration/Conversation stand four square on these foundations.

More to follow this week.