Category: Food for Thought

Food for Thought

Leadership Training and my personal work of art

I have been in a leadership program for about a month now. The session this week is “The Art of Leadership” based on the book by the same name authored by William A. Cohen PhD.. The class has been thought provoking, most provoking was the exercise where I identified the different types of advice I rely on and who provides the advice. I really thought about the various contributors in my “Board of Directors”.

The insight that I came away with is that for most of my career I have treated it like personal art, something that I created alone while integrating feedback from others. The reality is that as I seek to pursue the goals I have set for myself in the coming years I will have to become more skilled at treating my career as a collaborative piece of art. I may have to think about my career more like making music, because every great solo artist still has an engineer and in most cases a producer. The session really has focused my thoughts regarding how I care for and nurture my career.

Food for Thought, Technology

eBay bans Google Checkout, not a wise move

It seems to me, if eBay believed in its payment service they would want to compete head to head. I think it is telling that Google offers links to competitive services. For example, if you search for an address on Google you get links to Google maps, Yahoo maps and MapQuest. If you believe you have the best service you look to create opportunities for customers to compare which positively reinforces a positive view of the best service. eBay is making a mistake by banning Google Checkout, head to head competition is the way to prevent the Google Checkout beach head. My guess is that right now eBay and Paypal provide a more robust feature set and that difference may be enough to slow or stunt Google Checkout. That attack should occur now not later after Google has improved on their service.

I once read an article where Meg Whitman talks about the value of the eBay community. It seems to me if the community wants to use Google Checkout then eBay should respect the communities demands.

attention, Food for Thought

Attention OS and The Cognitive Economy my thoughts

In roughly 50 lines of text Steve Gillmor roughs out the Attention OS. The article has triggered many thoughts, so I will just lay them out in a series of posts.

The Cognitive economy is based on value created by individuals powered by a cognitive suite of tools, services, repositories and raw computing power (includes the attention os). To create pools of value that are sufficient to sustain an economy, there will have to be:

  • Attention consumers that continually respect an individual’s usage policies and permissions.
  • Attention providers that share very similar usage policies and permissions.
  • A standard way of describing and communicating attention usage policies and permissions

For example, there are many French world cup soccer fans, but they may not have the same usage policies and permissions for their attention data and gestures. Some fans may restrict the use of their attention data to French companies only. Another set of French world cup soccer fans may have their attention data and gestures governed by more restrictive government statute. So the challenge becomes creating a constellation of French world cup soccer fans that allow their attention data and gestures to used in the same way for a similar result. The consumer of attention and gesture data will be required to be very aware of the current disposition of its constellation of attention providers. The attention consumer must also continuously update and reform the constellation based on changes in the change in provider policies and permissions.

More to follow.

attention, Food for Thought, Technology

The Cognitive Economy

I have been thinking real hard about the Attention economy and then about the Intention economy. In the past I have written about the Situational Awareness economy and online cognitive models, well I think I was in the right neighborhood. I think the economic revolution before us is the Cognitive Economy. The Cognitive economy revolves around memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving. It will be the businesses, organizations, services and people that build value around those key components that will be sucessful in the long term. Now in some ways this is a No Duh moment.

Continue reading “The Cognitive Economy” →

Food for Thought, Technology

The change in corporate technology ecosystems

I again was listening to the Grand Central Gang from the Gillmor gang. My only comment on the whole podcast is simply the choice in changing software platforms is not solely based on the technology. In my experience significant change in corporate technology ecosystems is heavily influenced by its IRR and if it is significantly greater than the IRR of current solution. There are many innovative technologies that get adopted slowly because no one is able to produce a cash flow analysis that can move the company into action.

As geeks we sometimes see the potential in technology but the realization of that potential usually trails significantly. This is due in some part to the inability of us geeky folk to relate the technology to the business. In addition to our geekyness corporations (read large) like to have projects that have high batting averages (read no failures). Even more limiting is the corporate desire for not only high batting averages but high power numbers (read no failures and big returns). Short term thinking of many middle managers adds to the ideas of no failures and big returns.

This is why we see time and time again small upstarts using technology to redefine a market and beat established companies.

Links:

Gillmor Gang RSS Feed
Grand Central Gang

Food for Thought

Google AdSense as an Activist platform

I was thinking could Google AdSense be used as a platform for activism or protest. Moveon.org could buy keywords that would help expose their movement or act as a counter weight to their opponents. I know that it could be expensive but imagine how targeted you could be. I bet there will be a political campaign consultant that specializes in using Google (if there isn’t one already) to win the swing or undecided voters. Now I understand that Google might have an issue with that.

Then I thought what if Google wanted to provide equal time for searches that were of a political nature. Google could also donate AdSense budget for movements it thought were important. The more I think about it, Google could use its position to influence people one way or another. Imagine every search result page having a small space for activism or protest.

Its a good thing Google isn’t evil.

attention, Food for Thought, Technology

A life Connected

As we become more connected in our daily lives we are going to become more dependant on online cognitive models. These online cognitive models will become our primary conduit for knowledge. Today the primitive online cognitive models consist of a composite sets of applications, their rules and their data. The applications range from email to our cell phone, all providing some mechanism for us to be attentive to information. The models today stop short of proxying our understanding of the information. We are still faced with internalizing almost all the information we receive and then formulating some understanding. As that happens we will be forced to create mechanisms to maintain our situational awareness, and at the heart of that awareness will be our online cognitive models.

The models enabling situational awareness may be capable of representing our understanding and acting on that understanding. This may all occur beyond our site based on rich collections of attention/gesture data and rules. I think of email filter rules, pop-up and download permissions and IM presence rules as just the first step in creating the building blocks of composite online cognitive models.

Food for Thought, Just The Facts

6 million missing Shopping carts

In the Los Angeles area last year a minimum of 6.2 million shopping carts went missing according to California Shopping Cart Retrieval corp and Hernandez Cart Service Inc. (via Harper’s). I find this number amazing. I wonder if the number of shopping carts that go missing are reflective of the number of homeless. I know scrap steel has gone up but where do these carts go. I also find it funny that there are companies specializing in shopping cart recovery. These companies in my mind are like Dog The Bounty Hunter for shopping carts. It just goes to show that there are niche businesses everywhere. This problem does beg for a technology solution like RFID or something. 6.2 million WOW, I wonder what the recovery cost is to the stores.

Links:
Get Harper’s Magazine RSS feed here
Harper’s Magazine

attention, Food for Thought, Technology

Attention economics, ah the possibilities

As I think more about the economics of Attention I am struck by the silos. Everyday of my life my attention is disrupted by the constant silo switching. I spend 2 to 2.5 hours per day driving to my place of employment. Today, that time is better spent thanks to my self programmed iPod. There exists a huge problem maintaining the flow of information into and out of my commute silo. I have to spend time to deliver information into that silo and its a pain in the neck, sync, plug in, navigate, unplug, plug in navigate, and unplug every day. So here is what I think would be nice.

In the evening as I review my schedule for the next day, iTunes detects my car as a device on my wireless network. iTunes updates my car with the content I have added and allows me to program my drive to work with content. My calendar also detects my car as a device on my wireless network (or as a client via EVDO, a nod to Steve Gillmor) my temporal data gets downloaded and is used to prime my navigation system. The car then could make suggestions regarding when and where to get gas based on price, route changes based on live traffic data, and provide access to my voice mail. The opportunities are all over the place. Why can’t I sync my contacts in Google or yahoo bidirectionally with my cell phone.

Creating attention efficiencies for people in their daily lives is just obvious. Jon Udell writes about the broader value of attention efficiency and effectiveness [1]. Technology has consistently increased the productivity of the individual within the context of a specific task. How about life productivity, how about increasing the continuity of experience of my life, I would be willing to pay for that. In the end, all the players (companies, customers ect..) will have to focus on collaboration, continuity of experience and increased situational awareness.

Links:
[1] Attention economics: by Jon Udell