The bubble of unreality that is Thursday afternoon
October 9, 2008
The Future of Web Apps spent thursday afternoon in that pleasant reality that is the most positive future. What I mean by that was we were all buying into business as usual — there’s a rich VC market waiting to snap up and fund innovations and we all have a shot at being rich, well, any time now.
But before I get into that, here’s a review of this afternoon’s sessions:
Learning Journey
I missed most of Alvin Woon’s presentation, but took away this, badly paraphrased: You can do user centered design with users that domn’t know what they want. If users have never had it before, the can’t know what they want. There’s something wise and hopeless in there. Mostly a cry for iterating to solutions. Building something new is learning, for all involved. The learning journey is the key here.
XMPP and PubSub
Blaine Cook was back on the stage talking about XMPP and PubSub as a way out of endless wasted polling of site A by site B looking for, say twitter updates. It sounds great. I’m a huge fan of XMPP as a mechamism for handling the more complex connection cases than simple HTTP. Good stuff. I asked a question about the requirement of the server, now, to have to manage potentially millions of subscriptions. Blaine says it will be no worse than current, but I’m still left feeling that my app that is PubSub aware is going to be having to keep some sort of state for the potential millions of connections. I’m not sure about this, just a feeling. I’m dying to do some XMPP experimentation soon, maybe with secret project BrightLunch or something.
Open Tech
Dave Recordon from Six Apart did some nice work on stage, putting the case for open standards, like OpenId, OAuth, microformats etc as the essential next steps in blowing the social web wide open to all. Thanks Dave, it made sense and was a compelling case for all the pen tech that you and yours been working on.
Objective J and Cappucino
Thanks Francisco. Interesting. Not sure I want or need Cappucino, though. Unless I was quickly making a desktop app for the web, but not sure I want to replace a desktop app with a web app just because I can. Sorry, but it all felt a bit 4GLly to me. “We’ll solve all your problems for you, etc….”
The Pitch Competition
Are we noticing what is going on out in the real world? The pitch comp felt a bit weird. I’m sure I saw the panel talk down at a solid business model that might work now and encourage the pitcher to go for some model of giving it all away for free for a bit. Maybe they were right, but I’m getting the feeling that we’re in a bit of an unreal bubble. The economy and banks are in trouble, and we’re still going on like there’s a lot of hot VC cash for your ideas. Is that true? Or are we living in a cute little bubble for the next couple of days.
A great day all around, though. Thanks Carsonified people, and especially Mike for the handwritten note on the postcard attached to my badge. And as the train pulls into Brighton, I’m ready to do it all again tomorrow,
Can you do it?
August 4, 2008
“I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something.
Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt.
The most remarkable things follow.”
Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way
Find out about our blog & social media coaching and courses here.
On writing (& social media)
June 26, 2008
When I read this, I also include social media (eg. blogging / photo sharing / social networking).
Commentators like Clay Shirky and Charles Leadbeater tend to be a bit snobbish when it comes to acknowledging the inherent human need to be heard, to share, to tell our stories.
Lawrence Sanger told me he was worried about non-experts getting together to construct their own knowledge. But he would say that.
I say – do it! Experts be damned. Speak your truth, and find others that share it.
[[ Just be careful about checking the facts that really matter. Which is not what we are talking about here anyway. The subjective realm is far vaster than many wish to acknowledge.]]
Writing is egalitarian; it cuts across geographic, class, gender, and racial lines… vice presidents of insurance agencies…factory workers…lawyers, doctors, gay rights activists, housewives, librarians, teachers, priests, politicians…
We all have a dream of telling our stories – of realising what we think, feel and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”
Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones
The Essence of Authentic – Dialogue
June 24, 2008
“Dialogue.. the art of thinking together.”
“A dialogue can be among any number of people, not just two. Even one person can have a sense of dialogue within himself, if the spirit of dialogue is present.”
“Dialogue … a stream of meaning flowing among and through us and between us. This will make possible a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which may emerge some new understanding. It’s something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all. It’s something creative. And this shared meaning is the “glue” or “cement” that holds people and societies together”.
“The object of a dialogue is not to analyze things, or to win an argument, or to exchange opinions. Rather it is to suspend your opinions and to look at the options – to listen to everybody’s opinions, to suspend them, and to see what all that means.”
“Take part in truth.”
“He’s one of my scientific gurus.”
HH The Dalai Lama in the foreward to On Dialogue.
Power of You Tube meets Izzard
June 11, 2008
What must this 3 minute clip have done for Eddie Izzard! I loved him already, but after viewing and sharing this countless times, I have to wonder how Lego / Playmobile and other simple animation techniques could be used to create great, viral, social media. If you happen to have some genius talent lying around you can call on.
Enjoy!
If you one of the 4 million who have already viewed it and loved it.. enjoy all over again.
All about Social Media Integration
May 15, 2008
You Think, I Think, We Think (Better) Together
March 26, 2008
Been reading reviews about Charles Leadbetter’s book We Think all over the place. Got to get my hands on a copy sooon (come on Rosie, hand it over).
If anyone is trying to get their heads around Web 2.0, social media, new paradigm thinking and all that claptrap – get a look at this. Lovely simple animation. I’m going to use it at the beginning of all my courses. Free event coming up soon to give people a taste of it all. Watch this space.
Guardian review here (including Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky) which also looks reeal good.
Shame The Big Issue review isn’t available online. A different and very valid take on things.
No wonder most journalist’s I meet are annoyed with blogging and What’s Going On with we-think.
No wonder I am compelled to work in and support this space.
So glad Rosie Sherry is in it with me (thanks for the video).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiP79vYsfbo&hl=en]
Event organiser
October 16, 2007
A bit off topic, but I know there are people out there that also struggle to get consensus on dates and other things. So check Doodle out.
Schedule an event…
… such as a board meeting, business lunch, conference call, family reunion, movie night, or any other group event.
View example, create poll
Make a choice…
… among movies, menus, travel destinations, or among any other selection.
View example, create pollHow does Doodle work?
- Create a poll.
- Forward the link to the poll to the participants.
- Follow online what the participants vote for.
Adding RSS blog posts to a web page
October 15, 2007
If you have a blog and a regular website, often it is really nice to get headlines or a little bit of blog info into the regular website. You can put a news sidebar on a page, and give people links to go further into the blog.
New choices for blogging course
September 13, 2007
After a long gestation period, things have been moving fast on our innovative, profound and effective (says us) blogging courses. They are now two time slots to choose from – an evening or a morning.
Eight weeks in a row (not including half-term school holiday)
Monday mornings 10-12 noon
8 October – 3 December
or
Tuesday evening 7-9pm
2 October – 27 November
Find out more about them but exploring this site and clicking here, and email Libby to reserve a place or call 01273 540 023 or 07968 687 107 to find out more.
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