Untangled On The Edge

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2007-02-06T13:22:00.000-08:00

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New Vista

2007-01-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

Vista is available today to the unwashed masses, and the initial reviews are not exactly stellar. The three big complaints seem to be that it is a rip-off of Mac OS X, peripherals like scanners, cameras and Zune media players don't have much likelihood of working yet, and in order to get most out of the new features, most people will either need to upgrade their systems or simply purchase new ones.

Not exactly the reception you want after working on a product for five years.

Being primarily a Mac geek, I haven't spent any time with Vista, so I'm not terribly objective or informed. I remember hearing these same objections, however, whenever Microsoft has released a new version of Windows - XP, 2000, 95. None of the new features are so exciting as to entice me to try it out. Mostly, I dread the headaches that a new Windows has in store for techies - just like I dread a new version of a browser and whatever incompatabilities it might cause.

Some folks will run right out and upgrade. And then upgrade everything else they own. Not terribly practical for most people. But really, it's a new version of Windows, and a lot of people will be running it soon as they buy new PC's. Peripheral makers will upgrade their drivers and old stuff will work with it eventually. And the fact that it's a Mac OS X rip-off? Immaterial to users. If the features in Mac OS X are really better than the features in XP, is it any surprise that Microsoft would copy them and try to provide their users with the same benefits? For all the whining us Mac geeks do whenever Microsoft rolls out a product with blatant rip-offs of Mac features, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. It's just not a reason for us to switch from the OS that provided the innovations in the first place, and implements them in a cleaner fashion.

As far as upgrading goes, I'd wait a little while. The first Vista service pack is already on the way, so I would at least wait for that and make sure that whatever peripherals you have that are essential are supported.

The most important new feature to me is the upgraded security. I have lost countless hours over the years to fixing Windows systems that have been inundated by viruses, spam, malware and spyware, so I was disheartened to see that MSNBC's reviewer found Windows Defender to be intrusive. I don't care how intrusive it is, I would leave it on and deal with it rather than have my system crippled. CNET is also not impressed with the security features.

Slowly but surely, Windows users will migrate onto Vista. 90+% of the market is not going to sit on their old machines or switch to Mac or Linux. The complaints you hear are valid, and were overcome by previous incarnations. I would be more concerned with a good security package first, however. If Vista had delivered that, then I think the upgrade decision would have been a lot easier.

I'm looking forward to installing Vista soon, and taking a look up close at the glossy new interface in particular. It looks pretty, if still cluttered. But I'll do it with Parallels on my Mac, mainly so that I can do compatability testing with it.

Waking Up with Oscar (Nominations)

2007-01-23T10:22:00.000-08:00

Oscar nominations were announced this morning, and as a transplanted Southern Californian, I recognize that the importance these announcements carry diminishes with every mile that you travel away from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. Still, old habits die hard, and I ran through the list of nominees eagerly, despite the fact that the only movies I've seen in a movie theater since last summer were The King & I and A Miracle On 34th Street.

One of the movies I did see last summer, An Inconvenient Truth, received two nominations, one for best documentary and one for best song. I don't have to peruse any historical tome to know that Melissa Etheridge's I Need to Wake Up is the first song from a documentary to be nominated.

Watching it on YouTube is fine and dandy, but you can get a higher quality version from iTunes too.

So how do I justify writing a post in my blog that is ostensibly focused on technology about Melissa Etheridge and the Oscars? Well, let's face it. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to geek out about the new 300 Mbs ieee 80211.n WiFi standard and its extended range and speed, you have to deal with the reality of the physical world.

Some technologies that will help:

Carbon credits - where do you buy them? How much do they cost? I won't pretend to know how this works exactly, but they seem to have done their homework.

Oh, and that Al Gore guy? He has a new version of his book coming out later this year geared toward children. I haven't listed to this movie fan's podcasts related to the movie, but find it interesting that two of the three reviews are ascribed to an 11 and 12 year old.

If you're cinematically inclined there is a contest at treehugger.com for green videos.

Back from the Mac

2007-01-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

Macworld was a bit of an odd experience, as it was a coming out party for Apple's forays beyond the desktop. Or the laptop for that matter. And I had no idea how many companies were actually making and marketing iPod accessories! I mean, I knew there were a lot, but how many plastic sleeve manufacturers can stay in business long term?

Okay, obviously there are some things in this world that I am not meant to comprehend. Like why in any mall in America you can find a cart filled with cell phone faceplates. I mean, how many people are willing to spend twenty bucks to give their phone a leopard print faceplate?

Speaking of Leopard, where was it? Outside of a rehashed demo and a new ad taking potshots at Windows Vista, where was Mac OS 10.5? Or iWork/iLife '07? Missing, and tantalizingly so. Are they waiting until after Vista gets the inevitable press rush to display the hinted at new features? Is the integration between the OS, Apps and the new iPhone so deep that you can't reveal one without the others? Is everything coming out of Cupertino going to be insanely great all year long?

Yes, the reality distortion field is in full effect. The fact that Apple didn't announce things has caused a stir among the faithful. You can debate whether or not Apple has reinvented the phone, but there's no debating that Steve Jobs is a master of manipulating the media. And the rest of us too, judging by the hordes of people salivating for a glimpse of the iPhone.

Macworld: David Pogue, the iPhone and Software

2007-01-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

David Pogue is at Macworld hawking his books and getting to play with the new iPhone, making him the envy of most everyone here. He gave his impressions about the iPhone for the NY Times.

When I stopped by the O'Reilly booth he was talking about the input with the virtual keyboard, and that yeah, Blackberry addicts would prefer a tactile keyboard. This thing is for the rest of us. Well, at least those with $500 to blow on a phone.

On the software front I kind of got what I expected. No Microsoft Office 2008 until fall or later, and no Adobe Creative Suite CS3 until "spring". Frustrating since those are the apps in their non-universal form slow my day down the most. They love the rainbow ball. And no update of iWork or iLife? Probably on hold until Leopard/Mac OS X 10.5. Even the demos of Leopard are mostly a rehash of what they showed at WWDC last year.

Looks like Project Management is starting to finally happen on the Mac. OmniPlan and Project X both look interesting. I'll have to do some more investigating...

Macworld: New New Media

2007-01-10T15:50:00.000-08:00

I spent a bit of time sitting in on a presentation on the New New Media by Jon Alper of WGBH, a PBS station in Boston. Jon talked about podcasts and context, and what motivates conent creators and aggregators. He made two very interesting observations about creating content and web sites.

1) Web projects require three distinct disciplines: editorial, technical and design. Each discipline should be represented by an expert on the team. I wholly agree - only there are only two of us here at Social Edge. Hmm. When you are getting things started this might not be practical and you may end up with overlapping responsibilities.

That said, having a designer handle your tech architectue or vice versa can leave your implementation wanting in one area or another. Each needs to make concessions to the other in order to produce a cohesive end result.

2) Boundaries are important. They make content creators' work easier. Let your users do what they need to and keep the technical bells and whistles out of their way.

I've always been a big believer in constraints. They allow people to focus on the task at hand rather than getting lost in the possibilities. If you want to write about hybrid NGO business models, you shouldn't spend a bunch of time making colored tables and slidesets from scratch. You should tell me about hybrid NGO business models!

Macworld: Waiting On The World To Change

2007-01-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

At the end of the keynote presentation yesterday John Mayer played a couple of songs. In between Gravity and Waiting on the World to Change he said something to the effect that Macworld was like the exact opposite of terrorism. It was fun. It was about making cool new things. Then he launched into his latest hit about changing the world and how the younger generation feels cut off from the ability to make a discernible difference in the world. I'd love to introduce him to someone like Kyleigh Kuhn and have her tell him about her Pennies for Peace project.

iPhone will change things. It really doesn't do anything that different than today's smart phones, it just does the same things better. It's that whole Think Different mindset that Apple has. As I was riding the train to San Francisco I found myself thinking about transportation and what it would be like to rethink transportation.

Segway went down this path and made a device that was a really different take on getting from here to there. GM did the same with the EV1 and have just announced a new plug-in hybrid called the Chevy Volt. The Toyota Prius is all over the place and Tesla is releasing their high end electric Roadster.

Some are incremental changes and others are big leaps in a certain direction without a definite destination in mind. What's the best way to overhaul how we get to where we want to go?

Which brings me back to the train. Every morning there's a regular and an express train that leave my station at almost the same time. Every morning the two trains are there but not in the same place. There's no indication as to which is which, either on the train or on the led screens telling us to be aware of suspicious activity. The only way to know which is which is to ask another rider who got on at a previous station which one they got on.

Seems like a simple UI issue that, once solved, would go a long way towards making the train an easier more pleasant way to get around. Have the trains pull in to the same location every day. Put a sign on the train indicating it's number and type. Have the LED signs say which is which.

Big changes are usually an accumulation of small changes from a lot of people solving a lot of related problems.

Macworld: Hanging with Steve Jobs

2007-01-09T14:53:00.000-08:00

Well, hanging with Steve and thousands of his closest pals.

After some trepidation after hearing others in line for the keynote discussing a dreaded "overflow room" I was quite releived to get into the keynote presentation. Others were not so lucky. I guess catching the 5:56 train from San Jose to San Francisco was worth it.

When Steve said that he was debuting three revolutionary products in one, he wasn't kidding. The iPhone appears ready to change our perceptions about what mobile connectivity means. Sure, we're starved here in North America for the kind of mobile connectivity that parts of Asia and Europe enjoy, but the UI that the iPhone has and the capabilities changes the paradigm a bit. Right now it's $499. (Or will be in June.) Imagine it at $100 and see what kind of shift takes place. I haven't seen so many grown adults drool over a toy in my life. Reminds me of the last day of school when I was a kid - everybody excited about the fun to come.

The presentation itself - wow. And I heard a lot of wows the entire time. If you need to learn how to give presentations, look for the video of this or any of Jobs' old keynotes. The Reality Distortion Field was in full effect. He announced two products, neither of which are available for purchase, and the whole crowd was in awe. Contrast it to the brief presentations given by the CEOs of Google, Yahoo!, and Cingular. The energy dropped off considerably when Jobs left the stage.

It was hard to tell at the end if the standing ovation was for the products introduced or simply for the presentation itself.

Macworld: Entering the Reality Distortion Field

2007-01-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

I'm going to my first Macworld. As a longtime Mac-geek, this is my pilgrimage. Of course, the anticipation I am sure is greater than the actual event will be. Booth after booth of tech toys and software. Oooh, Mufasa!

There are plenty of pundits out there predicting what will be revealed at Steve Jobs' keynote. It used to be just a small group of MacGeeks that salivated over these things, but now with the success of the iMac, iPod and iTunes, CNN and the Wall Street Journal even get in on the pre-show hype. Of course, most of the predictions are just logical extensions of a product cycle, and others are logical guesses and some are based on component orders or leaks from partners. The most fun of course are the wild ones based off of what people think they want Apple to make. Like an iPod with a GPS and a built-in pocket knife.

I'll spare you my predictions, and just say that as someone who has sat through his share of horrid PowerPoint presentations where the only question I wanted answered was 'when will it end?' I'm looking forward to a presentation where I'm actually happy that it's two hours instead of 1 1/2. I like good presentations. It's an illness, I know, but I do.

All the fun hardware aside, and the obvious fun of the distortion field pales in importance, however, to the software updates that hopefully get announced. MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite updates to Intel native versions and more features of the upcoming Mac OS X Leopard.

5 Tech Resolutions for the New Year

2007-01-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to those around the world who are celebrating the beginning of 2007!

New year's resolutions, they come and go. Mostly, of course, they are forgotten by February. A few years ago, I started writing mine down. This led to my finding the list later each year and becoming depressed by how little progress I had made. I have yet to lose those same 20 lbs. that show up on the list year after year. I misplace them from time to time, but I always manage to find them right where I left them.

This year, I’ve decided to limit my resolutions to 5 simple, straight forward things I can do to make my daily work more productive. Nothing too taxing here, nothing that should cause me too much pain or light-headedness. Anyone who wants to get in on the act can follow along.

1. Clean up my desktop.
 All those files that are splattered all over my desktop? Time to put them away in an sustainable organizational hierarchy. If there’s not a folder for a particular file, it’s time to either make one or decide that the file can go away. It’ll make resolution number 2 a whole lot easier.

2. Back it up.
 Global X is doing it. I should to. Not the whole system, just the files that are important. If my kernel blows a gasket, I’m going to want those files I’ve been saving diligently to my desktop. These, of course, will now be filed away in my Documents directory which I will schedule for automatic offline backup once a week. At home, I’ll do the same but backup my music, movies and photos directories as well.

3. Organize my inbox.
 It’s a whole lot easier to find that all important email when it’s not lumped in with a whole slew of spam and out of office replies. Once I’ve done the big clean up, I’ll set aside a time every week to keep it sorted.

4. Eliminate one barrier between myself and site users.
 There are a lot of ways for companies to do this. Make your contact form more visible on your website and make sure that someone is responding to all incoming mail. Make it easier for donors to donate. If your organization has a call center, add a chat component to your site that allows them to chat instead of calling in. I have a few ways of doing this that’ll come to fruition sooner rather than later on Social Edge.

5. Take more pictures.
 Post and tag them too. I have a Flickr account, and didn’t post a single picture to it last year. Life moves fast, and sharing what you are doing with those close to you - and with those you have yet to meet - is an invaluable means of communication.

So that’s all for this year’s resolutions. Sure, it’s more fun to list off retire or weigh what I weighed in my early twenties, but these five things are all achievable and will make a difference every day of the year.

It's a Thrill Just to be Nominated

2006-12-26T13:04:00.000-08:00

So, I'm the person of the year? Well, it's about time somebody noticed how much I've given to the world. Besides, Muhammad Yunus and Al Gore have gotten enough press this year, don't you think?

I'll have to make sure and keep up the good work so I can repeat next year. But what I really want to do is direct!

Of course, we've all been thrust into the spotlight as the content creators of the 21st century. We're going to write the news, and provide the photos and video to go along with it. We're going to amuse each other with video and audio that we create at home. We're going to finance each other too.

Sounds pretty exhausting to me. And it sounds suspiciously as if the promise of Web 2.0 has jumped the shark.

Thankfully, all the hype can't undermine the fact that connecting people to each other is the best way to create real, lasting change. Once the hyperbole dies down, we'll still be benefitting from the recent explosion of innovations from the blogosphere and billion dollar file swapping services.

Years ago, the introduction of TV was supposed to mean the end of the movie house. Then it was the VCR that was going to send the ticket takers home. Access to everybody's home videos on YouTube isn't going to keep folks from going to see the latest blockbusters.

The possibilities continue to expand rather than contract. Can't wait to see what next year brings.

Joy in Repetition

2006-12-18T10:05:00.000-08:00

Last week I talked about how to rob a bank. Okay, not really. “Bank robber” wasn’t an option for career day in high school, and with good reason. No medical benefits. Oh, and the whole it’s immoral and you’ll end up dead or incarcerated if you choose to pursue it thing. Pshaw.

I also talked about going where the viewers are. A lot more people go to YouTube than will ever go to yoursocialenterprisenamehere.org. You have videos? Pics? Podcasts? Post them to your site and post them to YouTube, Flickr and iTunes.

It’s not enough, however, to just take your current content and stick it up on these sites. Web 2.0 is all about motion. It’s all about what’s there today that wasn’t there yesterday. Posting things once might get someone to your site once, but how do you stay in their conscience? How do you lodge your message into their cerebellum?

I give you the wise words of the fox in Antoine de St. Exupery’s The Little Prince:

Or in the words of another Prince:

joy in repetition.

Etc. Etc. Etc. (And yes, I realize that pulling lyrics from an obscure album track off of the soundtrack to Prince’s last motion picture brings up the obvious question of why he never made another motion picture? Endorphinemachine could have been turned into a franchise with the right supporting cast. Hollywood, take note.)

Posting a single podcast to iTunes? Fine. But tell the fox that you’ll post one every Thursday and he’ll start to anticipate it’s arrival. Whatever type of content you have to post, do it on a regular basis. Don’t expect immediate results, as relationships with an audience takes time to develop.

My NetVibes Flickr module did get updated with new pictures tagged “social entrepreneur” this week, so at least one person read my blog last week. Global X. He’s always cutting edge, ahead of the pack. Soon, I hope, there will be new photos tagged social entrepreneur on a regular basis. Certainly others will follow in Global X’s bold, trendsetting footsteps, no? Certainly pics of social entrepreneurs are at least as interesting as ones of people playing with Wii?

Rob Banks, Not Bookstores

2006-12-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

Years ago, I was working in a bookstore that was held up. The perpetrator took a few hundred dollars and made off in his getaway car, driving past 3 banks in the parking lot. Perhaps he had never heard about Willie Sutton's reply to the question 'Why do you rob banks?' Answer: 'Because that is where the money is at.'

Why do hackers write viruses for Windows? It probably has as much or more to do with Microsoft's 90% marketshare than with the security vulnerabilities of their OS.

Why are the Beatles rumored to be putting their catalog on iTunes despite their years of legal wrangling with Apple Computer? Because iTunes is where people are paying for music online.

A 30 second Superbowl commercial this year costs $2.5M, despite all the naysayers that say that traditional TV advertising is dead or dying. Advertising revenue is declining. But the Superbowl? It's the one time a year that people watch the ads on purpose.

On the web, attention is currency and the banks are plentiful. Do you need to put your podcasts up on every podcast site? No. Your photos on every photo sharing site? Your videos on every vid-swap site? Nope. Go where the eyeballs are. You can create your own photo or video swapping social network, but you aren't going to reach an audience the size of YouTube's that way.

Take Flickr. Yes, I know, a billion things have been written about Flickr, and all of it's web 2.0 goodness. That's kind of my point. Flickr is a bank filled with the currency of attention.

I have a NetVibes module that does a search for photos tagged social entrepreneur. Most of the time it is stagnant. Very stagnant. Okay, it rarely changes. But last week I noticed that it had new pictures in it, ones that I hadn't seen and I clicked to see where they had come from.

As a result, I learned about On Road Media, " a unique and exciting organisation that provides the necessary tools for people to tell their own stories in mainstream and citizen media or podcasting." After clicking around a bit, I was led to their podcasts hosted at Switchpod. They are on iTunes as well.

Never would have heard of them if they hadn't tagged their pics and posted them on Flickr. And I never would have found them on iTunes. Of course, now they have to keep my attention, which is the second part of the equation and more difficult than the first. Take the fellow who decided to skip banks and rob bookstores instead. He left the store with more money than he had come in with, so part one of his endeavor could be considered a qualified success. He only had a short time, however, to enjoy his misbegotten reward. He had failed to plan for part two - not getting caught - and had left his fingerprints on some books that he had been browsing.

Social Entrepreneur Mash-Ups

2006-12-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

This week's event on Social Edge asks you who your favorite social entrepreneur is. Well, what if you didn't have to choose just one? What if you could create the Social Entrepreneur equivalent of the Beatles? Oh sure, individually the Beatles were formidable. John had Imagine, Paul had Band on the Run, George had My Sweet Lord and Ringo had Caveman.

Think what it would be like if you could launch a social enterprise with all of your favorite social entrepreneurs. Jim Fruchterman slapping down a healthy bass line, Heidi Kühn keeping time on the kit, Matt Flannery wailing on a wah-wah stick and Muhammad Yunus rocking the hardware. For this week's event, we decided to put four of our favorite entrepreneur's together in a replica of the Beatles' first album cover.

Karen Tse, Blaise Judja-Sato, Muhammad Yunus and Victoria Hale, Heavyweights, indeed. Perhaps the Traveling Wilburys would have been a more appropriate model.

With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.

Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.

The Web Beyond Your Web Site

2006-11-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

I have a diagram in my office that delineates the Elements of User Experience. It is a very helpful roadmap on how to conceptualize, design and develop a web site. You start with your objectives and the needs of your users and you work your way through functional specs and content requirements to your interation design and information architecture before working out your information design and then finally you get to work on the part that is usually the first consideration of web site development, the visual design.

It's a solid model to keep in mind when developing a web site, which is why I have it on my wall. It also gives me something to point at when somebody asks why making the site pretty is the last part of the process. Never underestimate the power of having outside expert opinion to point to when creating something new.

Once you have built your site, you might feel that your work is done. Take your team out and celebrate the accomplishment, but remember that your work is only just getting started. There's scaling to worry about, the acquisition and intelligent analysis of statistics and, of course, SEO - otherwise known as Search Engine Optimization or "How to get Google to notice me." Maybe there's an AdSense account in your near-term future. These are all important tasks, but there's more to your organization's presence on the web than just your web site.

The data on your web site is just that, data. Your site is one way for you to share that data with your intended audiences. It is one very effective way of sharing your information, but it is not the only way. Think of your web site as your store and your home page as your storefront. Your Google ranking will tell you if you're in a big shopping mall or a little strip mall. You can sell your wares, you can advertise to let people know where you're located and you can do a nice little business this way. Even in a strip mall.

Or you can find more places to display your wares/data. Starbuck's isn't content with having a store on every corner, including locations across the street from each other. There are 4 Starbuck's within a block and a half of my house, but they don't stop there. They also have mini-coffee shops in my grocery store, book store and convenience store, not to mention the Starbuck's branded ice cream and coffee beans on the shelves too.

Your data is your tall mocha mint frappuccinno half-fat no whip blended whatchamacallit. You don't have to limit yourself to your local strip mall. Get it out there and put it to good use.

You could create a NetVibes module that keeps people updated with the latest postings on your site. Dappit.com/Dapper allows you to create "Dapps" that utilise your data by browing your web site and automatically figuring out what the data points are. It even lets you create NetVibes modules as a result. (Caveat - I tried this with two different sites with very different results - one worked fine, the other was, shall we say, confused.) You can create Widgets and Gadgets and put your data on people's desktops. Plenty has been written of late about Second Life. Share your podcasts out on iTunes. There are plenty of tools available now that let you open up your own little mini-site within the context of somebody elses.

It's a wild and wooly web out there. Don't get stuck in a corner, get entangled.

Good Vibrations

2006-11-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

No, this isn't a post about the Beach Boys, not even as a clever segue into taking about the Apple Store's new "Help Me Rhonda" customer alert system. It would give me chance to link to the huge 91-track 40th Anniversary Edition of Pet Sounds on iTunes, and ask incredulously how a 13 song album becomes 91 tracks?!?

I'm not going to launch into a diatribe on cell-phone etiquette either, although I would implore everyone to keep their cell phones on vibrate. Sure, you might really, really love the BackStreet Boys, but unless you happen to be at a fan club meeting, chances are those around you just don't. Set your phasers to stun and your phones to vibrate and let's just move along, shall we?

The Good Vibrations I'm talking about come courtesy of NetVibes. Way back in the day when the internet was a shiny new toy that we hadn't figured out yet, my homepage that I saw everytime I opened up Netscape Navigator was Excite's customizable portal. NetVibes reminds me of this only in a slicker, slightly buggy web 2.0 kind of way.

Signing in and getting started is simple, requiring that you enter your email address and a password. Then you have a default page that is filled with some base modules and some others that you can add. Modules for such web 2.0 stalwarts as Flickr, GMail, Digg, del.icio.us and more are included, and other modules for Google Maps, stock quotes are available to add from the NetVibes Ecosystem. These additional modules are like Microsoft Windows Gadgets, which are just like Apple's Widgets which, in turn, are just like Konfabulator Widgets (now brought to you by Yahoo!).

While Gadgets/Widgets bring internet functionality to your desktop, NetVibes brings the desktop to your browser, in a way. So you can walk up to any internet connected computer, login to NetVibes and see your world in one place. Writely and Box.net modules allow you to have file creation and storage capabilities here too. It's an interesting start towards having a virtual internet based OS with integrated pieces from multiple companies working together. Tres chic.

The UI is very simple and useful. You can drag modules around the page, change the number of columns, add tabs and drag modules from one tab to another. I added a Customize module because I'm a sucker for a nice background image / desktop picture. The most useful module? You can use NetVibes as a virtual RSS reader to keep track of your favorite blogs from wherever you are. I suggest setting up a tab just for your favorite Social Edge blogs, but then I might be a tad bit biased.

Who Reads Your Blog?

2006-11-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

Writing a blog can be a terribly loney task. Oh sure, your significant other might read it, and your mother is sure to dutifully slog through it and pretend that she understands what it is that you are talking about. You might even swap comments back and forth with that kid you played Dungeons & Dragons with back in middle school. Okay, fine, high school. But unless your D&D buddy is a Level 15 palladin with a batch of highly effective charm spells, well, you might as well just send each other email for all the traffic your blog will be getting.

You don't want that. You want people to read what it is you have to say. You want people to care about the work that you're doing and help you spread the word. So you stop writing about orcs and ogres (to the dismay of your palladin friend) and you tell your mom that she doesn't need to ask you if you're eating well in your comments. She's a little dispirited, but you make the fruitcake that she emailed you the recipe for and all is forgiven.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. You've heard about tagging so you switch from Blogger to WordPress or Moveable type and you tag everything. Everything! Tag it all!

And now your other friend from high school, the one who took the game a little too seriously and started to think that a beholder was out to get him? He's using his "library time" to catch up on all your old posts. Congratulations! You've got a reader!

Now you go and ping Weblogs.com et. al and see about raising your hit count. Numbers numbers numbers! Change your content to be more like the posts that are generating the most hits!! Thar's gold in them thar hits!!! Exclamation points extremely optional!!!!

Yes, but who's reading your blog? Why are you blogging in the first place? In most cases, it's not a popularity contest, even if it seems that way sometimes. You're a social entrepreneur. Know your audience and write for them. Tell them what it is that you have to share. If what you have to say is well thought out, coherently expressed and relevant to your expected audience they'll find you. Yes, a modicum of technical honing is going to help, but don't be beholden to the numbers.

Be mindful of falling into the trap where you write your blog and tell the world what is on your mind, but never read anyone else's blogs. Like poetry, there are plenty of people who write blogs but never read them. Find people who are blogging about the same fields of interest as you do and read what they have to say. Create the conversation. Very Cluetrain, I know, but it's true. A blog is inherently a monologue, but get off your soapbox from time to time and see if there are other points of view that can open your mind.

One very useful tool in this endeavor comes from Technorati. Once you have signed up and claimed your blog, you can see who links to you blog. Take a look and see who thinks what you have to say is relevant. (Or who is mocking you, as the case may be.) It may take some time for people to notice you, but when they do, pay attention. Read what they have to say about you, but don't take it personally. If you're blogging for a purpose, this isn't personal, it's business.

Again, remember, it's a two way street. Link to blogs and postings that are relevant to your area of concern, comment on other people's blogs, mark your favorites in Technorati or other like-minded sites. Join the conversation, listen and respond.

Once you do that, the numbers will take care of themselves. If not, there's always your friend's beholder problem that needs to be dispatched.

The Enchanted Wiki Room

2006-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

As a child growing up in the shadow of Disneyland, I spent many a day at the "happiest place on earth." The Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Carribean, Haunted Mansion - good times all. And yes, I still lament the passing of Adventure Through Inner Space to make room in Tomorrowland for StarTours.

And then there was the Enchanted Tiki Room, brought to you perpetually by those fine folks at Dole. (Large, slow loading YouTube video follows:)

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who didn't quite get it. In my mind this attraction was nothing more than a fiendish plot to keep me from getting another ride on Space Mountain. That and those parades. Everybody's sitting down and watching the parades - c'mon! That means they're not in line for Big Thunder! Let's go!

For a long time I felt the same way about wikis. Not that a wiki has ever kept me from enjoying a roller coaster, but I just didn't quite get them. What's a wiki anyway? An encyclopedia? A workspace? A collaborative brou-haha?

According to Wikipedia, "A wiki (IPA: [ˈwɪ.kiː] or [ˈwiː.kiː] [1]) is a type of Web site that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration."

That's it. Nothing terribly fancy about that. But not all wikis are the same. Some are simple, others complex. It all depends on what the wiki is for, who uses it and what functionality is included.

So don't worry about getting a wiki up for your organization. You don't need a wiki. Unless you do. If you need to work collaboratively with co-workers or with folks from other organizations, a wiki might help you out. Or if you have a community of users who want to share their knowledge and expertise with each other - and with you - a wiki might be the way to go. Define your need first, then find the tool that best addresses your need.

There are plenty of options to choose from. Sure, JotSpot is down for new users now that they've been absorbed by the Google-plex, but if you want a hosted collaborative workspace-type wiki, SocialText, WetPaint and Yahoo Groups are all viable options. If you are looking for a more robust, project oriented solution Basecamp is a robust solution.

If you're looking to have a mini-Wikipedia on your site, chances are that you'll want to integrate it into your current development environment. Content management systems such as Drupal and Plone have optional wiki modules, or products. You can also build collaborative workspaces utilizing a content managements user profile security and collaborative functionality from calendars to document sharing to create a custom tailored collaborative experience. It might not be a wiki, exactly, but if it works you can call it whatever you like.

If that means filling it with animatronic birds and dubbing it the Enchanted Wiki Room, that's fine, just as long as I get one more ride on Adventure Through Inner Space.

Cleaning Out The Tech Closet

2006-10-31T08:44:00.000-08:00

I know you want that flashy new red Treo. Or maybe that new Bang Olufsen Serene phone for a mere $1275 or so. Or maybe you’re holding out for the cell phone equivalent of Sasquatch, the Apple iPhone.

Whatever.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not immune to the siren call of any new geeky gadget, least of all a shiny new handheld device with that lets me do something that I wasn’t able to do yesterday. It’s just that, well...

My closet is starting to resemble the island of misfit toys.

There are some old cell phones in there, along with my Powerbook 145 (4MB RAM / 40MB HD / Black and White screen!), old video game systems including the Sega Game Gear, a G4 Cube and other assorted computers along with a collection of cabling that time forgot (SCSI, Parallel, ADB, AAUI-10B2/10BT Ethernet adapters - I have cable issues). It’s a virtual museum of yestertech.

So it was with great glee and not a little bit of melancholy that I read this article about ReCellular, Inc. They are in the business of rounding up old cell phones, repairing what they can and recycling what they can’t fix. The refurbished cell phones are resold into markets that have the same lust for getting CNN piped live into their handset that we do here in the US.

Makes me wonder if the same kind of effort would be successful with old computers, or if in fact someone is already doing the work.

In either event, recycling or refurbishing yestertech beats the heck out of having it collect dust in my closet. Or sitting in a landfill and leaking toxins into our water supply. Or being disassembled by children in some far off corner of the world.
If you’re interested in reading more about the recycling of electronic waste, High Tech Trash comes highly recommended. If you’re more academically inclined, there is research being done there as well. Information on an effort to help companies in the high tech supply chain track the material composition of their products is also available.

Time to clear the closet of all that old tech that you just never know if you’re going to need again someday. Trust me, SCSI isn’t making a comeback.

DIY Google Search

2006-10-24T08:34:00.000-07:00

Google has rolled out a customizable version of their search functionality, so now anyone can roll their own custom search engine. Here's one I made and cheekily decided to call Social Edge Re:Search:

It searches a limited number of sites in the social entrepreneurship field, such as Omidyar.net, Changemakers.net, Kiva.org, GlobalGiving.com and the like. If you Google "job listings" you are going to find a whole heck of a lot of Monster.com and HotJobs listings before you ever find listings from companies seeking social entrepreneurs. If you Re:Search "job listings" via the search box above, you will find job listings from the sites that Social Edge (in this case, me) has pre-selected as being relevant to the field of social entrepreneurship.

I've never been a big fan of customizable functionality that you link to from your site, and even though the search is integrated into this blog post, it still takes you off of the site and onto Google's site. At least it does by default. There is also the option to have the results hosted on your own page as well, and a Google AJAX search API available if you wanted to get really fancy. If this functionality is of use to your customers, take a little extra time and make it part of your site. Who knows? Re:Search might make it into the upcoming redesign of the Social Edge website, and if it does, rest assured that it will be fully integrated.

Also by default, ads are included in your results. If you don't want the ads to show, there is a checkbox for 501(c)(3) non-profits, universities and government agencies to turn the ads off. If, however, you are interested in making a little extra coinage, you can connect it to a new or existing AdSense account.

You can also share the burden of managing the custom search engine with others. By default, visitors can volunteer for this "privelege", or you can choose to restrict it to people you invite, like your unsuspecting co-workers.

One word of warning is that this is brand spanking new, and I've already come across one Safari bug related to some Ajax-y input for adding new sites. Worked fine from Firefox, but I haven't tried it out on Windows at all yet. I'm sure the Safari bug is just an oversight, since Google is working to make sure they're very Mac-friendly. Not surprising given that their CEO is now on Apple's board.

More information is available on John Battelle's SearchBlog.

iPod nano (PRODUCT) Red Envy

2006-10-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

It’s beautiful. It’s tiny. It’s a bright, shiny shade of red that is just breathtaking. Yes, it’s the new iPod nano (PRODUCT) Red. I want one in the worst way, but I can’t justify it. Not even if I bought a pair of Nike+ shoes and convinced myself that I would start running again, ignoring the fact that the last time I went running George Michael was still with Wham!

The (PRODUCT) Red campaign is a fascinating example not just of typographic excess, but of the corporate sector aligning with the social benefit sector in order to support social change. With $10 for each red iPod sold going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis an Malaria, it’s not hard to imagine that the campaign will be a fiscal success.

Apple isn’t the only company to start shipping (Product) Red merchandise this past week. Bono and Oprah went shopping at the Gap to get some appropriately hued merchandise to kick off the campaign here in the states. And I can finally replace the Converse Hi-Tops I lost shortly after George went solo and left Andrew Ridgeley wondering how long he could make his pop star earnings last before reality TV would come along and provide washed up has beens a means of supporting themselves without appearing on Murder, She Wrote.

But the (Product) Red nano is the device that grabbed my attention as I am still hanging on to my first generation 5GB iPod, physical click-wheel and all. I’ve waited through the introduction of color screens, touch click-wheels, Nike shoe integration, games and video. Now I find myself waiting until they make a version with a larger screen. Some people are just never satisfied.

The most enticing new feature since I bought my monochrome version isn’t a shiny red metallic casing. When photo capability was added, an interesting by-product was that you could put Powerpoint/Keynote slide sets to your iPod and carry them around with you just in case you found yourself trapped on an elevator with someone with the means to fund your efforts. If you use Keynote, you can buy themes with slides that are optimized for iPod viewing. It also makes for a nice back-up plan in case your computer stops functioning before you give a presentation. If you have some videos showing what your organization does, throw them on there too and keep them handy for your next long trip down from the penthouse.

Google Buys Social Edge For Lunch

2006-10-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Lost in yesterday's headlines about North Korea + Nukes and Google + YouTube was another merger, that of Google + Social Edge:

Okay, this merger was strictly in my head, as I work on the design for the new Social Edge site, coming soon. Still, I envy a site design that is that simple, clean and pure. Okay, I also envy the thought of having $1.65 Billion to play with, but let's not venture off into Fantasyland too much.

$1,650,000,000. That's enough to build your own evil empire with:

As far as Google + YouTube, I have to admit that I don't quite get it. It seems to me to be an obscene amount of money to pay for something that you have already built yourself. Especially when so much of the content is of questionable copyright validity. I mean, what did Napster sell for? $8M.* What is the difference here?

Well, if I understand those kinds of questions, maybe I would have that $1.65B to play around with. Instead, I find myself wondering more and more about the advantages one finds in the social sector, where the competition that drives a company to buy up a competitor that has the same basic product simply doesn't exist. Then again, maybe I'm still suffering from an acute case of naiveté.

Still, I think that one of the interesting things that can happen in the social sector is that the different organizations supporting social entrepreneurs can excel at different parts of the puzzle and integrate our work together for the benefit of the whole sector. Utilizing a common identity system is the most obvious first step, but there are plenty of other ways for the work we do here to integrate with the work others do in the social sector.

Right now, I'm more concerned with getting the revised Social Edge site wrapped up and in your hands, and then with the inevitable clean-up that follows such a task. It'll be interesting to see how things shake up after that. More interesting than building the same things as everybody else and then trying to mash like things together like they do over in the non-social sector.

Connecting the Social Sector’s Long Tail

2006-10-03T10:43:00.000-07:00

Working at the Social Edge is a humbling experience. You can go through life thinking that what you do for a living, what you do with your life has meaning. You can believe that what you do makes a positive difference in the world, that your life has some sense of minor gravitas - and then you meet someone like Victoria Hale or Gary Cohen and you realize that there are levels of degrees. We can’t all quit our jobs to teach children in Nepal to read - can we? So what do we do instead?

My task-at-hand is to rebuild the Social Edge web site. I have been working on this endeavor for a couple of months now, and the fruits of this labor will be coming your way in short order. The biggest difference that you will find once we relaunch the site is that it will be better integrated and it will make it easier to find information and to contribute your thoughts and ideas to the discussions that take place here.

Obviously, this work is not on par with the work that a lot of the folks I am privileged to meet here at Social Edge do, or with the work that a lot of you in the Social Edge community do. My hope is that the new Social Edge site will be a solid foundation on which to continue building the Social Edge network of social entrepreneurs and helping you to make the world a better place for all.

When the site launches, there will be some new features that I will talk about in the coming weeks, but mainly, we are building with an eye to the future, trying to make sure that we have a good technical base that will allow us to deliver new integrated features to the community quickly and with high quality. I see it as the next step in enhancing our ability to connect the pieces of the social sector’s long tail, create critical mass and enable those who want to work in the social sector to do so.

One thing I have learned in my time at Social Edge is that a community of principled, dedicated individuals can get things done that a handful of individuals simply cannot. I look forward to getting our handiwork into your hands and seeing what we can make of it together.

What do you want to see on Social Edge?

Can you Digg it?

2006-09-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was four or five years old having a shovel and an idea. A dangerous combination at any age, to be sure. I had learned that the earth was round, and that had prompted the big dig in a corner of the backyard. I wanted to dig all the way to China, and I made enough progress that my father glanced out into the backyard and couldn't see me anymore, just some clumps of dirt flying in the air.

He came out and asked me what I was up to and I explained my grand plan. I may have told him that I'd dig the hole big enough for him too if he didn't tell mom about it. He explained to me that a) mom would find out, b) China isn't a straight path from North America, c) the earth's core would require sturdier tools to get through and, most importantly, d) that there were easier ways of finding my way to China.

Years later, I still haven't been to China, but do agree that my toy shovel would have been inadequate for the job. I should have made him take me to Sears for a Craftsman shovel. Or something bigger.

I feel the same way sometimes when I'm slogging through search engine results looking for information on a topic near and dear to my immediate concerns. Sometimes I want the latest news, what's happening right now about a topic. Other times I want information that has been vetted by people who care about the topic.

This is where bookmark sites like Digg and del.icio.us come in handy. They utilize the intrinsic power of community to bring the most relevant sites or stories to your attention. Or, if you are posting to del.icio.us, Digg or another social bookmark site, you can help get your stories about social entrepreneurs into the hands of other folks with similar interests who might not come across your site otherwise.

What I am interested in learning is what bookmarking sites does the Social Edge community utilize? Is there a site that you use that might be useful to the rest of the community, or that you would like to see integrated into the Social Edge site? Is there enough interest in stories about social entrepreneurs for Digg to add a category for us?

After all, there are always easier ways of finding what you want, as well as sharing what you find with others.

Say Hellodeo!

2006-09-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last week I blogged about posting video to your website or blog using Google Video or YouTube. What I failed to mention was how to get the video recorded on your computer in the first place. I used iMovie on my MacBook with a built in iSight webcam, which was very simple, and allowed me to add an opening title screen without much thought. Don't worry, I'm not about to say "I'm a Mac" and how everything just kind of works out of the box. Even if it did, kind of, just work. Right out of the box.

We don't all have the latest and greatest toys from Apple to help turn us into web video stars. (And if you're of a certain age, I'm sorry if that Buggles song I included in last week's post is now playing in your head.) Some of us have Windows, Red Hat Linux or Ubuntu running on our desktops. Or even pre-OSX Macs. (Perish the thought!) I know at my house, I have a Mac that is candy colored still instead of sleek aluminum. Sure, it's older than broadband, but it works.

So, what's the easiest way to record and post video directly to the web? If you have a webcam, an internet connection, and a Flash-enabled browser, you might want to give Hellodeo a try.

It's free to record and post video to the service right from the home page. I had to switch the camera option from DV camera to USB to get it to record, but it was a really easy process. It also has an option for a Firewire based camera. If you have a camcorder with a Firewire/iLink/iEEE1394 connector and a computer with the same, you should be able to use that as well.

The video quality is not as good as recording direct with iMovie or other video software, but you can't beat the price - or the ease of use. Like YouTube and Google Video, once you've recorded and submitted your video you are given a string of code to copy and paste into your browser. This took a little bit of time to be generated for me, so be patient once you submit.

Also of note, when I copied and pasted the code into Blogger, I had to use the "Stop showing HTML errors for this post" checkbox in order for the post to be submitted. Less than optimal, but it works. There's no tagging involved yet, so you won't be searchable like you would be on YouTube, Google Video, or Flickr. Your clip is added to their homepage right after you submit it, however, so if you're camera shy - well, why would you be camera shy? If you are, just make sure that you post videos of others and not yourself.

Hellodeo is from those fine folks over at Odeo, who offer the same kind of utility for recording and storing podcasts. We'll save that for another day. For now, if you are looking for a quick and easy way to record and post video to you site or blog, I recommend trying Hellodeo to help get your message out. I also recommend saying "Umm..." less often than I do. But hey, we can't all give presentations as slick as Steve Jobs. Nor do we have to if the story we're telling is compelling.

YouTube Isn't Just for Teenagers and Copyright Infringement

2006-09-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, Amazon unveiled their Unboxed video download service, and today Apple took the wraps off of their updated iTunes video store. Big budget studio flicks are now available for downloading onto your computer. Legally.

I'm no Steven Spielberg, so I doubt that my movies will ever show up on either service. My vacation videos just really aren't that intriguing. But let's pretend that I did have video that I wanted to share with the world. It doesn't need to be a slick, professionally produced movie in order for you to share it with your audience on your web site or blog in order to enhance the message you want to get across to your audience.

YouTube is the most talked about video service out there that allows you to share your videos with the world. They have a nice disclaimer on their upload page that a lot of people seem to be ignoring:

Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts, or commercials without permission unless they consist entirely of content you created yourself.

Which is why you can find plenty of copyrighted material on the site. I'm not above tracking down music videos from my MTV-influenced childhood:

But I only get sucked into the viral marketing campaigns once they're revealed as such:

So how hard can it be to upload a video to the site and share it out to you legions of adoring readers?

Not that hard. Granted, making the video attractive can be difficult, but once you have the Quicktime or MPG file, getting it up on YouTube is a snap. You need to create a user account, verify your email address and then upload your file along with a title, description and some tags or keywords to help others find your video. The above video is tagged SocialEdge. In order to put the video onto your site or blog, there is a string of code provided for you to copy and paste into your site. The video sits on the YouTube site allowing you to save on hosting and bandwidth costs.

So what other options are there? How about Google video?

The process is pretty much the same as for YouTube.

There is also a .org site, OurMedia.org, that provides the same service, and also allows you to upload other media types, such as images and audio. Handy service, but the interface isn't nearly as clean as YouTube or Google. It requires that you create user accounts at OurMedia and at the Internet Archive. There are options for copyrighting the material that you are posting, incluing Creative Commons which is important considering the flack some of YouTubes policies have created. However, I stopped trying to post my video after the third "File copy failed" message. I had posted to both YouTube and Google in less time than I spent on OurMedia unsuccessfully trying to post. Your usage may vary.

So what does this mean for social entrepreneurs? It means that you can easily share video with your audience to let them know what you are doing and how you are making an impact on the communities that you serve. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the words add up exponentially at 30 fps.

And who knows? Maybe you are the next Spielberg.

The "Long Tail" & The Social Sector

2006-09-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Long Tail, as described and analyzed by Chris Anderson, is fun to apply to all kinds of markets that are affected by technology. The most obvious sector is the media and entertainment industry, as its products are easily digitized and are consumed in a very high profile manner. TV re-runs have been commodotized to the point where a pilot for a show based on the Aquaman comic book character hit the top of iTunes video charts. Obscure musicians can find a large enough following to justify following their muse.

Other markets are changing, and becoming deeper as well. Everything from the grocery store to the financial sector is being affected. Sometimes the changes are harder to discern, but they're there nonetheless. So what about the social sector?

Big "hits" exist in the social sector market. That much is obvious when the Gates Foundation makes the headlines on a regular basis, and the Jerry Lewis telethon raised a record $61 million over the weekend for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The head of this market is easy to spot and understand.

So what's in the tail?

I would argue that the long tail of the social sector is the domain of social entrepreneurs, and the work that they do is often enhanced or made possible by advances in technology that allow them to reach a targeteed audience of benefactors to make a focused impact on their cause of choice. From microfinance organizations such as Kiva to the targeted charity of GlobalGiving to entrepreneurs in the field giving their time and energy to make changes both large and small, the long tail is at work making it easier for individuals to make a measurable difference.