Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• "Pilots or Beta?" Post by @hjarche. Agree, we promoted Mosoci and Brand 2.0 efforts and courses in 2005 as a step to perpetual beta. – Harold writes: "If it is viewed as something done on the side and not part of the real business, then it may be doomed to failure. If being involved in pilot projects is a normal part of work, then it fosters a culture of life in perpetual Beta. You can still cancel projects or go in a different direction, but there is a cultural commitment to learning by doing. It’s the difference between our pilot and your pilot"

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• 8 Things Your Phone Will (Probably) Replace | many cases already has….more important to look beyond these examples too cliche. – I like the 8 examples although many users have already begun integrating many of these into their lives. Money as in wallet and video conferencing projectors are not here yet. Money is a huge deal. Still I'd like to see more re health and services in these examples. There's also many expectations that the majority of users won't know or understand yet. Eg print from mobile. Many mobiles can, it's just the printer technology is not broadly spread enough yet. There are other products that don't get mentioned. DId I say "radio"? for example? Pandora re-invents radio…. in fact "mobile music" reinvents speakers… parties etc. We should be careful "lists" don't gloss over the changes in real behavior. Re directions… or reading the paper, music sharing, social gaming, travel management, etc.
• Hardware Becomes Software | nice set of picture examples from guitar tuner to remotes –
• Job Search, Version 3.0 | Better tools exist even on Twitter than just tweeting off a search to find that job. – An observation. This tweet doesn't provide enough detail beyond the curiosity of who is asking for a job. The obvious value-added method is to provide a "link" although sending them outside Twitter doesn't really help much. So the question is… how do you keep the exchange escalating within Twitter? How do you provide the additional information and an easy channel to further discussion without all the "follow" – "email" – "phone" etc? <br />
  <br />
  The second issue is how do you find the leads you want? You require a notification service. Timely leads may or may not lead to a more effective conversation. It will communicate that you understand the medium that you are using. <br />
  <br />
  This person's strategy was a fail as they had no way to share the CV / resume as part of their Tweet and retain communication inside Twitter. There's also no opportunity for references or otherwise while the twitter profile lacks the development of time. <br />
  <br />
  Job's 3.0 or 2.0 or whatever it is called is coming to Twitter.

I received an email today from John Stockton Superintendent Acalanes UHSD titled “Eliminating the Competitive Edge”. It’s about more budget cuts in our schools. It’s also reflective of the broad failure of US society to provide effectively for its citizens. It demonstrates a failure of the “government” we collectively elected to develop more prosperous and better futures. Add in health care, and more and I can just count myself as extremely lucky for where I live.

“We educate every student to excel and contribute in a global society.” The Acalanes Union High School mission statement could soon become a dream, instead of a viable mission. With the announced reduction of $254 per student for the 2010-2011 school year and further cuts likely to come, AUHSD students will lose their competitive edge when applying for college, university and technical schools.

The district will receive less funding next year by the state than it did five years ago. During the same period, expenses and state mandates have increased. Class sizes have increased and will continue to do so. Elective programs have been cut. On February 3, 56.9 full-time teaching positions were selected for release at the end of this school year. The Acalanes Union High School District must reduce its 2010-2011 budget by $4.8 million.

Consequently, AUHSD will no longer be offering students a seven-period school day. There will not be state and local funding available to support these class sections. Additionally, six-period day course options must be reduced.

While some people may see this as a return to a basic education structure of several decades past, many view this as the decimation of one of the most respected high school districts in the nation. Although it is natural for most of us to have cherished memories of our high school years, it is clear that a 20th Century education does not meet today’s needs. The mastery of complex academic standards with fewer and fewer resources is simply not possible.

At the request of parent and community leaders, the Governing Board of the Acalanes Union District approved a resolution to submit the Emergency Education Act of 2010 (Measure A) for community consideration. Measure A has a life span of five years at $112 per parcel. This May 4 vote will determine whether the district will need to finalize its program cuts by the mandated May 15 deadline and be forced to provide AUHSD students with a less-competitive high school education.

Both my kids attend or attended Campolindo High School one of the best High Schools in California. I always vote for any bond issue that improves schools and education. However, that only benefits where I live, it doesn’t help to engender better learning skills for all. There’s much wrong with public education, yet making environments less creative, limiting depth of learning, at a time in a childs life when they can gain the most makes little sense to me. I’d predict this measure will pass in our area. It’s simple maths… Add $112 to my property tax and it keeps house values up in the local area. The same approaches in other areas won’t pass and where schools are already terrible even less likely to pass. That creates an even more unbalanced society.

Solving problems like this on the local level is not the long-term answer. Sacramento and Washington – BIG FAIL.

Thanks to Paul Sweeney for pointing me to this Mashable post. Recongnizr is probably on the eComm schedule (although I’m not sure) and is a great example of mobile AR that is coming to a handset sooner rather than later. Makes “Bump” look a little lame.

Recognizr: Facial Recognition Coming to Android Phones

“Recongnizr” is a mobile prototype that allows you to use your phone in order to “see” who a person is and what web services and social networks they’re connected to.

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• (714) 916-3519 is a spammer who SMS’d me. How do I put a stop to it? How does one sort out with ATT? – Do I forward the the SMS to ATT? Others will be paying money, for me it is more nuisance factor. Still It's not something I want. What's the business model on this one? I've had 3 in the last week so it is getting worse!

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• A post by Todd Carothers on "The Skype Empire" and impact on landlines | Nah… strategically think broader – "In fact many of the executive leadership of Fixed Line and Mobile Operators that I met with back in 2004 saw Skype as a “Gnat” buzzing around the Telecommunications sector. They disregarded the threat at large. Well, we all know that Skype become much more than that." Yes I helped many with a "What's your Skype strategy?" approach. What this article fails to really point to… is "What's your Skype strategy today – should be?" When Skype launched there was no Facebook, no Twitter, – these too have usurped the telecom sector. Today it is pointless to address "skype" alone in terms of strategy. Yes it is mobile today and importantly Skype, and others aren't really there yet. There's big strategic opportunities there. Over six years ago… "skype" focused strategy around communications. Today it is mobile, iphone, twitter, SMS, facebook, google/android etc.
• Buzz – Sizzle or Fizzle? @kencamp took me less than 3 minutes last week to decide to turn it off! – I'm still catching up on the Buzz hoopla yet for me Buzz was another reminder that Google has too much of me and that goes for a lot of other companies too. I want control of me. That's why I like my own Wordpress. I don't mind fragmenting myself over various services and I use them in different ways. Still… this to me is a message. Google wants too much of me… and I for one don't really like it.
• Thoughful post on iPad by Facebook iPhone developer. It’s the screen! Forget the "closed" arguments – Add this post to the useful perspective on iPad. I'm with Joe iPad is illustrative of the direction and capabilities that Apple will ultimately apply to macbooks at large.

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• Finally some Nokia Symbian phones get Skype. Not ready for touch applications! – I was a little surprised to see Skype for Symbian finally being released as a limited beta and not being available for the N97. In fact looks like all "touch" versions are currently unsupported. That's sort of where the future is and it suggests to me that this took too long to get out of the gestation period. Or is there a developer issue or set of challenges for the "touchscreens"? Will add to my N95 and see how we go.

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• Teens Love Facebook, Hate Blogging, Are Always Online, and Don’t Use Twitter | "online" is missleading here re mobile – Nice update with no real surprises yet this article fails to differentiate or clarify what "online" means. They say everyone goes online. That is not the same as teens going online with mobiles. Multi-channel communications becomes really interesting at that point.

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• iPad: The (attempted) Windows killer by Michael Mace – if you need to read anymore… on this subject. – If they really believe all of those things, then the iPad starts to look like Apple's idea of the next logical stage in the evolution of personal computing. It takes everything Apple learned from iPod and iPhone and applies that to a redesign of the low-end personal computer. It's Apple's vision of the netpad done right — not a PC accessory, but a lightweight portable device that can replace the PC for many basic usages. The idea wouldn't be to kill the PC outright, but to nudge it toward the workstation space, in the process gradually eating away at the market share of Windows.
• Mobile Phone Market Shares for year of 2009 | Units! That’s a lot of mobiles. – Tomi Ahonen puts together a set of mobile share numbers for 2009. This is a unit focus, rather than $share or some other metric that might show (particularly for smartphones) real differences in how different phones are used. Eg share of occasions, number of hours used… browsing minutes.. number on a 3G plan etc. Different phone perform in different ways. EG it is easy to understand why BBM has become very popular in some markets. Development and movement to SmartPhones market to market is also uneven and buried in these global totals.
• Apple’s iPad: Why iAttaché Would Have More Cachet! | @jimcanuck great thoughtful reveiw – There are many many iPad reviews out now. While iAttache is an interesting metaphor, I'm happy to watch Apple fight to use the rights to the iPad name.
• Proposal for Fixing Multitasking in iPad/iPhone OS | Seems like a sensible suggestion? Comments? – "The answer for the iPad is neither full multitasking or no multitasking of any kind. The answer is to classify a certain kind of application as a Service that can be called upon from within any other app. Mac OS X does this to limited effect (seen above), NeXTStep did it better, but the gist is a contextual, useful function not contained within the primary application. Imagine that primary-use apps (think iWork-level) are designed with a button labeled “Services” that you can tap which brings up a pane listing all available programs and tasks that can be run in parallel with it. It would then instantiate that Service as a Widget on the side of the screen, up to two at a time. (You could imagine iPhone Safari and Pandora both at once, for example). To switch the list, you would then, hold down the home button to bring up close boxes at the upper-left corner."

So when will the free marketing stop? How many videos are there now? No one will be confused about the iPad when it is actually available. All will know it works like an iPhone although is really a big iPod Touch. It may not have everything and yet that is little to worry about. What videos will emerge when it launches? Video re Netbook? Video re Desktop? Video with child in Africa? Flying carpets? Get ready for them.

Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman and Eric Appel – Video.

Thanks to @johnrichards for pointer

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• .@DocSearls writes Up the creek without an iPaddle | Agree so lets promote the strategies that make the alternative appealing. – "What you also have to appreciate is how much we also need the horizontal one. The iPad needs an open alternative, soon. There should be for the iPad what Google’s Nexus One is for the iPhone."

  Not sure about the Nexus1 comparison. It's more to do "ease of use", "availablity", "simplicity". We should be concerned – iPad is a very closed system (which will be jailbroken but that matters little) and yet as a "tool" it will simplify training and adoption. Eg as the clipboard or many other replacements. iPHones and iPods train the users. It's a good bet and developers can see the opportunity.

  The N900 is a good example of what could take it on… however development is glacially slow and Nokia is playing copycat rather than applying / developing a winning strategy. Open is their best chance – particularly given their base.

• iPad Will Change How We Make Music | Good examples where functionality and cost win. –
• Jaron Lanier’s manifesto for the tech consumer "You are not a Gadget" | Anyone read it? Thoughts? –

Daily update on del.icio.us links with my notes. I also just tweet links @stuarthenshall

• "our habit to use substantive words that express a function, a social status or state, rather than essence" – JfNoubel – "I recommended we don’t use much the word user in the flowplace and in any other piece of software we create, but that we replace it with essence-based words, as acknowledging the sacredness at every corner of our languaging of the world. Person is definitely one of these words."

This is an incredibly important set of points re joining the flow. The quotes below represent JF’s thinking (and I’ve already bookmarked his previous post in Delicious). If you are thinking about “flow” you cannot miss reading the FAQ on FlowPlace.

We operate exactly the same with knowledge. We accumulate knowledge in our inner basement. Knowledge that was first poured in our heads at school (this is the dominant vision of school programs in most cultures). How much of it do we really make publicly available? How much do we freely redistribute? How trained are we to pass it on, naturally, fluidly? These new social media and free economies are so odd in regards to what we learned at school…..

later in the same post..

The evolutionary threshold is that now we can scale up the properties of original collective intelligence (and still benefit from the amazing evolutions of pyramidal collective intelligence). We are now on the verge of inventing the language of flows, so that wealth can flow through us at the right time according to our needs, rather than accumulate in our backyards after a long and exhausting hunt for scarce money.

This new level of complexity requires a new techno-economic infrastructure. Just like the printing press, this is going to create a new culture.

via From owning to flowing.

Let’s see.. I followed iPad announcements on Engadget, read Gizmodo’s summary, saw that @gigaom thinks it kills the Kindle and now we have the Apple Video. According to Apple 75 million iPhone / iPodTouch users already know how to use it. They also say they are now a mobile company, beating Sony, Samsung, Nokia etc and claiming they are now the biggest.

So will it sell? Is it any good? We don’t know. Yet Apple has the power to frame new markets and opportunities. Today iPad isn’t much more than a glorified iPodTouch with a great big screen and faster processor. It should also be dammed for not having a front facing camera! (See also Mashable on this score). It was demoed using iPhone OS3.2 so any upgrades coming for the iPhone haven’t yet been revealed. Things it is designed not to do (tethering), VoIP over 3G, SkypeVideoChat are disappointing to at least 3 million users that downloaded Skype for iPhone and iPod touch.  Leaving the camera out is obviously “version” planning. What the iPad does do is make computing/browsing/electronic address books and many more things much more simple and easily accessible.

When listening in on the commentary I thought…
If the price is right ($499 – still expensive but it can be rationalized) this really takes on the gaming platforms. Games on the iPhone are simply much cheaper than Nintendo, PS3 etc. iPad will really hurt them and will get “gaming” away from the TV. Lots of things happen in houses around gaming, equipment, usage, etc. So, kids, families, – this will be one to watch. This is an activity focused on consumption of media and games.

Yeah, so the books stuff I saw was yawn (I expect some upgrades). Yet it is the overall availability of the web in general that becomes very accessible and easy for many to reach. I have an image of a much older generation that possibly missed out on the PC generation — we would like to have them connected. A gift for Grandma? Grandad? Perhaps they haven’t upgraded for years… perhaps not even on the net, yet to you it is worth a try at $15 per month. If this is a success story… if the reading works out.. if the videos etc are cool.. if it works in bed, when they travel etc.. then just perhaps this is the device…and the $14.99 is less than a one night hotel charge to be connected. And of course, the larger screen which would help me too with eyesight. Add in a few more ways to make syncing easy and I can share my pictures etc. People are buying picture frames for this… With a dock.. it can ring. It really is a shame that no camera is built in. I just think this is strategy and timing. Next generation.

Then I thought after about app developers.
iPad just ratcheted up the app store another notch. While Android is going into many different devices and going to appear in different shapes and sizes, there is a migration path and integration here that will appeal to businesses. No one talked in the presentation about Business Apps. This takes Apple further into business. This really hurts Nokia more than Android today.

From an app developer standpoint it is awesome. All those Toshiba Toughbooks and all those Sears or GE repair guys… what about the product sales or merchandising reps calling on stores, or going into a store like Nordstrom and this is the register, the stock system the etc. Then health care. This looks like it will adapt pretty well. My doctor is useless with his laptop… but with this there is a chance for some real advances.

Many years ago I was the first to outfit my 30 person NZ grocery sales team with laptops. It was hellishly expensive at the time. It also paid out in unexpected ways (made some great hires that year). Form-wise then we took the computer into businesses… better to partner with key account managers etc. Today 15+ years later that is commonplace. I see here something that could take that much further. I see new ways to organize the info that might be presented too. This is the first step to rethinking your “portfolio” and the speed with which it can be delivered and how to make it more adaptive at the same time.

And that may be the biggest risk for Android, Nokia etc. By providing a form factor that replaces the portfolio, clipboard, the book, the diary, the agenda, and enabling salespeople, technicians, couriers, real-estate agents; all in a device many times cheaper than what it is replacing. Many firms will even go and do the custom development as it will payout.

I’ve written before that every firm should be experimenting with the iPhone just so they understand how to go mobile, real-time, location based, etc. The iPad makes this POV more compelling in my view for now the apps are going to work around personal interactions, face to face exchanges as well. The iPhone platform is no longer primary solitary.

What was glossed over..

• Notifications. Nothing was said. Partially because this is a very sensitive strategic area for Apple. I wonder if iPhone OS 4.0 will bring “notifications” between parties “requests”?
• No bluetooth keyboard? I can’t get too excited about the dock keyboard and this just pisses me off. I already own an Apple bluetooth keyboard!
• OS 3.2 vs 4.0. I hope that “sharing” also provides advancement in log-in and multiple users. The iPhone is distinctly personal and other than a few pictures not really all that shareable. This device is different. Managing access to different users (even in business who has it checked out…. ) will really expand how it is used.
• I’ve glossed over iWork by not referring to it. Yet I use them everyday in preference to Office. Not sure how they matter here.

Who will buy it? Well outside those of us that just want to evaluate it first hand and see some new opportunities.

• iPhone users? If they do buy it… it will only be a WiFi version. The only reason to buy a 3G would be if there was the same sort of $14.99 plan globally. Then as a traveler I’d have a good reason to pay the extra. Go to Italy… for what they charge me for WiFi in one hotel for a night… paid! In the US – use my jailbroken iPhone and just tether it via WiFi. Those that have learned to browse and tweet and more but want a bigger screen around the house… Then it doesn’t have a camera!!!
• MacBook User: Without an iPhone or iPodTouch this product won’t seem too compelling. Wait for the next MacBook which will integrate the same SIM approach and enable you to connect in any one country anywhere for up to a month for $14.99 or go unlimited. Can Apple do it this year??? For students it would be a real luxury at this point…. unless it really saves them bucks on expensive text books and makes note taking easier. Then it is an automatic purchase.
• Desktop User: Possibly.. those that know their desktop is tired… know they don’t do much on it… or someone that has the work computer and doesn’t produce much when at home. Don’t have an iPhone etc. Seems plausible. The second PC that isn’t really a PC and isn’t locking me down in my office. These people would never have bought an iPodTouch for their general browsing.
• Kid? No PC No Gaming Station: This may be easier for some Mum’s to justify educationally than an iPodTouch. Its too bad that “books” seem to be so underdeveloped still. I’m waiting for the day when Dad can read the story while traveling with supporting video and text being underlined etc.. With nice pictures. Then maybe that is just so old fashioned!