Stop Tweeting about these…

Had to smile as this post from The Oatmeal this morning. It it Monday morning, and if anything it’s bound to give you a little smile. 10 Things you need to stop Tweeting about.

It’s a large and often question I’m hearing these days: what is Twitter all about? I’ve got it down to 3 categories of Tweets in order to explain it:

• The ‘I’m having a shower’ crew
• The ‘I’m at a conference/church meeting and this is what going on’ gang
• The ‘I’ve just read this great blog post, and you should too’ group

Or put another way:

• What I’M doing tweets
• What WE’RE doing tweets
• What YOU SHOULD be doing tweets

They all seem to have their own following based on the people I followers. There are some that cross over, but most people seem to stick to one particular genre.

Of course there are the ‘do business with me / look at my sexy profile online’ folk. But they’re despicable, in my opinion, and simply shouldn’t be allowed on Twitter. They do have a right to play with the rest of us, but it’s a pain in the butt to have to look at their tweets when I’m looking for something to feed my soul.

And yes, for some of you reading this, what and who I discover on Twitter does feed my soul : )

WTF, Google?

FastCompany has a great post, with the same title as this post, on some of Google’s glitches. Of course, as they point out, when you’re processing the volume of stuff they are, they’re bound to make a few glitches. They mostly relate to attempts to return searches and ads that are in line with what the user has requested, and then royally messed up. And a couple of them are royal.

My fave of the bunch they showcase is this one. It’s a Google Ad within an article someone’s written. Certainly not the kind of ad you want period, and definitely not at the beginning of an article like this:

I’m sure there are some that love that Google doesn’t get it right every time (Microsoft and Yahoo!! come to mind) but I like that technology isn’t perfect and that it creates some humour for us every now and then : )

Building your own healthcare community

Many years ago when I was in community development, some of the cutting edge thinkers were promoting the idea of less professionals and more community involvement in ensuring the growth, development, safety, etc of family. It was a simple but profound concept of building a care system less reliant on the ‘usual suspects’ (professionals) by involving people around a particular family who had an interest in them, who spent more time with them, and who, if integrated successfully could provide more useful and meaningful support.

There was a book I remember having to read while studying called ‘The other 23 hours’, that made the point in a residential child care environment. The book was written to encourage Child Care Workers, and to see the value and importance of their role. Social Workers in these setting often got all the glory and were seen to be the most important people in a child’s world. But as the book pointed out, a child may only see a Social Worker for 1 hour each day (and that’s a lot), there were another 23 hours in their day.

FastCompany has recently posted an article (The Future of Healthcare is social), and they’ve done a great job outlining similar thinking for healthcare, with technology as a large enabler. It makes sense in this arena as well. Our health is something that needs 24 hours of proactivity. We can’t afford or expect professionals to be available for all that time. But if we can assemble a community of people around us, who care about us, and who’ll get involved with us, and then enable it all with technology, we may find ourselves in a far healthier place than we currently are.

Even when we do our best to stay healthy, we still get sick. Coping with sickness in our already hectic lives can be challenging. In addition to looking out for her parents, Susan manages the health of her two kids, her husband, and herself, and she looks for ways to save time and money while still getting the care that they need. Recently, for example, Susan’s son woke up with a sore throat and a fever. She used an at-home strep test to rub a swab of her son’s throat culture onto a card. Within minutes, the test results confirmed her son had strep. Through an embedded RFID sensor within the card, the test results were wirelessly transmitted to her computer’s reader. On her computer, she was prompted to connect the incoming test results to her son’s personal health record. Next, she used her personal health network to book the earliest visit for her son within a 10-mile vicinity. Susan elected to electronically send her son’s strep results in advance of her appointment, allowing the receiving retail clinic to accelerate her visit by pre-issuing an e-prescription. Before leaving her computer, Susan selected her son’s classroom network, comprised of his teacher and the parents of other students, and sent out a message that her son had strep throat and would be home for the next several days.

It’s a longish read, but definitely worth it. If not just to see where health care might go, I’m fairly certain the thinking will at least change how you see other parts of your world.

Newspapers and Blogs. A great conversation

It’s not often I get sent a read like this one. And I follow a truck load of ‘reads’ everyday. Twitter, RSS, e-mail links, etc, etc. There is a lot of stuff that flows through my browser (is anyone else frustrated by Flash and Safari with the new Snow Leopard upgrade?).

The article I’m referring to (Let’s get sentimental; the readers deserve it) can be found on Marketingweb. It’s written by Gill Moodie:

Gill Moodie spent 14 years as a salaried hack in print media in South Africa and the UK before escaping to the blogosphere and freelance journalism. She is the publisher of Grubstreet in between unpacking and packing the infernal dishwasher and bringing up a four-year-old with attitude.

I suppose in all web 2.0 fairness I should take the time to credit Mel Stevens for sending it on, via e-mail (she’s barely a Tweeter or a FB’er). Thanks.

Back to the article. It’s an overview of the conversation between, primarily, Peter Bruce (Business Day editor) and Matthew Buckland (20FourLabs) and their good natured exploration of the future of newspapers in the midst of a web 2.0 onslaught. It brings in Barack Obama’s recent comments, along with a host of other great thoughts and comments from other great thinkers in this space.

Now, here’s why I love newspapers. Most of this excellent debate came from people schooled in the rigours of newsrooms. I, as a blogger for instance, may delight in thumbing my nose to traditional media but I can only do so because I was knocked into shape and learned how to be fair, accurate and (sometimes) thoughtful because I worked at newspapers, including at OMG’s (Peter Bruce).

I can’t do justice to her great article. Definitely worth going ‘there’ for a read. Certainly you’ll leave with at least one thought.

Social Networks and how we communicate

On Friday 2 October 2009, I was interviewed by Rueben Goldberg on Classic FM on his show, The Internet Economy.

I’d not met him before we recorded the show. He’s a good guy, fairly active on Twitter, and interesting and interested to talk to.

Our PR company, SimonSays Communications, assisted in getting the interview and I’m hoping this wont be the last chat to Reuben. Yeah, it won’t be.

If you’d like to listen to the PodCast (7 min) of my interview on his show, you can find links to it here.

A happiness bank – connecting helpers with those who need help

I am doing some work in Estonia in a few days time, and so have been watching the wires for news reports from that country. One of these really jumped out at me.

“Estonians to lauch world’s first e-Bank of Happiness” – read the story here. The concept is simple: bring together those who are in need of help and those who can help. In the e-bank one can exchange information on needs, offer help and register good deeds. All for free. It’s basically elance.com for volunteers.

The idea is not only to help people out digitally and online, but for this to extend into Estonia, with people in physical need (e.g. elderly people need help to get to the shops, house sitting while on holiday, looking for a gym buddy, etc) can also use the system. “The Bank of Happiness is an initiative to change the way of thinking. It’s a bank for exchanging good deeds. The wish of the Bank is to make people think and act with their heart. The Bank is meant for all those who value good deeds and have the will to make good themselves.”

You can check out the simple user interface here: http://www.onnepank.ee/en.

I’ll watch it closely, and hope it succeeds. A nice idea, well executed. Let’s hope people support it.

VWV Red Plug on Generation 2.0

VWV is an interesting company, that I still don’t know enough about. Take a visit to their web site to see some of the ‘interesting’ I encounter when I meet with their people (wherever they may be).

Tomorrow I’m spending the afternoon with them as part of their ‘Red Plug’. It’s an informal forum they pull together made up of clients, media, friends and other interesting people who don’t fall into those 3 particular categories.

I’ve got a slot at tomorrow’s Red Plug. Talking about Web 2.0 (whatever that is) and it’s impact on people and business. It’s a monster of a topic. I get to put my little bit forward. how I see it from this particular corner of the planet.

I’m going to test out the term ‘Generation 2.0′. I’ve borrow it from Gen X, who are often referred to as the ‘TV Generation’, simply because they were the first complete Generation to grow up with TV. Today’s younger set are the first complete generation to grow up being influenced by Web 2.0. I think it’s a fitting descriptor.

Of course you’d have to be at the Red Plug at VWV to hear some of my thoughts. Or perhaps another day over some coffee, a beer or a glass or two of red wine.

I’m looking forward to the afternoon. Fer sure!

[after the event] The session was tweeted by Bev from SimonSays Communications – click here for her tweets

Two innovations that will change the world

Two technological innovations are giving me great optimism for future sustainability, reduction in our reliability on fossil fuels (and therefore hopefully less conflict in the middle east) and lower emissions of hothouse gasses. They are the exciting developments of Honda’s Clarity, a car that runs on hydrogen and emits H20 (It’s a decent looker and performer!); and a battery, developed by Peter Bruce at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, that draws on the oxygen around us providing cheaper, lighter and longer lasting batteries for mobiles and laptops.

These are probably two of the most exciting and important innovations in the past 100 years.

Honda Clarity

You can learn more about the Honda Clarity by visiting the excellent website or see the entertaining Top Gear special report hereTop Gear Honda Clarity

Air Power

You can read about the battery blow or visit The Economist

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Now it gets interesting – music industry, file sharing, Lily Allen and Dan Bull

For a while now, we’ve been using the music industry as an example of an industry that has not understood the radical shifts taking place in the new world of work. Our new presentation, After Shock, focuses on the five drivers of disruptive change every industry needs to face. The music industry has to especially deal with new technology, institutional changes and shifts in societal values.

Up until now this has been a backroom boardroom (and courtroom) battle. But it has increasingly been making its way to the frontline. Most recently, Lily Allen, UK’s fresh faced young music phenom, has stated that she is “quitting music” because of of downloads of her songs. Read The Sydney Morning Herald’s reporting of this. (No-one really believes her, of course). Funnily enough, the blog she made the announcement on was taken down within days because she was accused of copying an article without attribution (talk about an own goal).

Now, another musician has used the tune of Lily Allen’s chart topping “22″ to support his own take on the subject. Rapper, Dan Bull, has cleverly summed up how many rational thinkers see the issues in a song he released on YouTube. (See the lyrics and the video below).

Now, it gets interesting. Front line artists are entering the debate – and not all of them have understood they’re standing on shifting sand. They may alienate their fans. It’s time to be careful and to understand the TIDES of change…

I don’t think I have much to add to Dan Bull’s lyrics – I’ve highlighted the bits below I think are the most important. Enjoy.

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The emergence of Neuromarketing

Traditional market research has it’s limitations when one considers the influence of the ‘observer’ on the ‘observed’ when attempting to understand people’s true thoughts and feelings on the product/brand/service being researched. If we could just get into their heads to withdraw a pure brain impulse without the constraints traditional market research introduces in the mechanisms it uses. Enter Neuromarketing…

Neuromarketing is the practice of using technology to measure brain activity in consumer subjects in order to inform the development of products and communications–really to inform the brand’s 4Ps. The premise is that consumer buying decisions are made in split seconds in the subconscious, emotional part of the brain and that by understanding what we like, don’t like, want, fear, are bored by, etc. as indicated by our brain’s reactions to brand stimuli, marketers can design products and communications to better meet “unmet” market needs, connect and drive “the buy”.

FastCompany posted an article recently that explores the issue and the companies that are using this new ’science’. It also suggests a few shortcomings and some interesting ethical concerns.

Neuromarketing is only poised to grow in use and influence. But as the practice makes its way out of the lab and into the real world, at the grocery aisle, onto your computer perhaps…a debate, well beyond marketing, will rage.

Mom’s are big

Every now and then I discover thoughts from marketing experts exploring the value of women between 35-55 and in this example mom’s. Their research and observations remind the marketplace of the value of the people who match the criteria of these segments, and how over-looked they are from a marketing and communication perspective. They either have incredible spending power, or massive decision rights in their world, or are inhabiting a particular channel that isn’t effectively communicating to them.

The Israeli Diamond Industry web site has an article around social media and mothers titled, ‘Mothers use FaceBook, Twitter, Blogs more than average adults’, and again suggests the retail world is missing a trick if they’re not using these platforms to speak to them.

“Retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat. Twitter, Facebook and blogs are becoming increasingly popular with moms as they search for coupons or deals and keep in touch with loved ones. The web provides efficient, convenient ways for brands to stay in front of their most loyal shoppers and attract new ones.”

I am always left wondering if these segments have been overlooked for so long is it because there isn’t an effective way to single them out, or is it because companies aren’t wired to see them. Reminds me of that quote that goes something like this, “Do we look at what we see, or do we see what we look at?”

Conferences of the future – more online / more connecting

New and ever improving telecommunication technologies have improved how we communicate. From the first telegrams to virtual reality holographic conference rooms, we’ve come a long way. The key now is not so much the technology (we have the technical ability to put a 3-d representation of a person live on stage anywhere in the world, after all). Of course, we still need better, faster and cheaper broadband to be more evenly spread around the world, but that will happen – sooner rather than later. It’s now more about our acceptance of these technologies, and the user friendliness of their application.

It won’t be too long before a significant number of our conferences go fully digital. That is, the speakers and delegates will all hook up to the Internet, and participate digitally. This will take many forms, the best of which will include video walls and full interactivity.

There are many reasons to go this route, including: making it easier for people to work from home, reducing commuting time, office space, the need for conference rooms (which often stand empty for long periods of time – especially the big auditoriums), reducing the number of flights around the world and the amount spent on corporate conferencing. So, save money, reduce pollution, save time… why would we not do it?

Of course, what we lose is the time between sessions. Conferences are a lot more than just information transfer meetings. Lots of networking happens, and relationship development. It’s often the time between formal sessions that is most important. We can’t change this, and virtual conferences will not replace this aspect.

However, this means that those people who put conferences together need to know exactly WHY they need to get people together physically. There are good reasons to do this – but these need to find their way into the design of the conferences themselves. This is a challenge for the next few years for this industry.

Online video training on saving energy and saving money

For some years now, we’ve been tracking the issues related to climate change, global warming and the business case for sustainability. We are convinced that these issues are critical for businesses everywhere – not as a nice to have, but for very good business reasons.

We’ve put our money where our mouth is. Working together with one of our clients in the UK, Sustainable Energy Design Solutions (SEDS Ltd), and an online learning team, the 8.45 Club, we’ve developed a series of online, video-based courses designed to help your company and the people who work for you to not only understand the issues, but also do something about them.

The concept of the 8.45 Club is simple. Courses are delivered in 10 minute segments, just right for 8.45am before work gets going properly at 9am. You get an email at 8.45am, giving you the link to a video (if you don’t have access to high speed broadband, the courses can be delivered on video to you). It takes you a few minutes to watch, and a few more to go through the notes, and then you’re ready for the day. Courses typically have 10 modules, and can be done once per day over two weeks, or 2 or 3 times per week over a few months.

We’ve used this format to develop three courses aimed at helping companies to save energy. Doing this will obviously save money, and ultimately help us to secure the future of the planet and our companies. The courses are:

• How to Save Energy and Save Money: All you need to know about emissions trading, improving energy efficiency and saving money
• How to Make the Public Sector Green: All you need to know about reducing energy usage, saving money and improving public service
• The Carbon Reduction Commitment: All you need to know about emissions trading, improving energy efficiency and saving money. NOTE: In October 2009, the CRC was delayed by one year to be implemented on April 2011, and was given a new name: The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. There are a few regulatory tweaks as well – the course is being redone to take this into account, and is now available at a new website as well: click here for details.
  

You would need to choose just one of the courses (if you don’t know which one, then the first one is for you). For just £ 47 per course, you get 13 video modules and supporting materials delivered direct to your inbox. If you have 100 or more people who’d like to do the training, we would be happy to chat about a bulk license rate.

You can see the first two modules of each course for free, before signing up. Just follow the links at the bottom of the main pages.

If you have any questions, please email Graeme Codrington.

What Microsoft’s “racism” teaches us about ourselves

The ether is alive with enraged twits, tweeting and blogging on about Microsoft’s racist blunder. If you’ve not heard the buzz, it has to do with MS photoshopping an advert as it transported it from the US (where it features a white woman, older black man, and an Asian man) to Poland (where it now features a white woman, a young white man with a black hand, and an Asian man). Outrage, disgust!

Here are the two pictures:

Microsoft is pulling the advert, and after investigation discovered that all four of the people responsible for the advert have left the company (how convenient).

I am NOT going to join the clamour of voices shouting racism, though. This is just good business (and bad photoshop), and a bad marketing decision, and a great example of the new world of work (yes, it is all of these things).

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How teenagers consume media (UK report)

How Teenagers Consume Media: the report that shook the City

This is the full copy of the research note written by Matthew Robson (aged 15 years and seven months), an intern at Morgan Stanley, which caused a stir after it was published by them. Reported in The Guardian, 13 July 2009

MY COMMENTS first, though: This report is a fascinating insight into how a 15 year old sees how his teenage cohorts see media. If you’re trying to reach teenagers with a message, then this report is helpful. But what Morgan Stanley thought it told them or their clients is another story altogether. This is part of the problem with a Twitter and Blog driven universe – that we tend to reduce things to soundbites and take the populist view, without much processing or context. This is useful information – in a limited context. It should be wisely and cautiously – within the context of that limited context. The news coverage this report generated indicates the shallowness of most mainstream media at the moment. It’s no wonder, then, that teenagers don’t reckon they need to connect with traditional media!

NOW, the report…

Most teenagers nowadays are not regular listeners to radio. They may occasionally tune in, but they do not try to listen to a program specifically. The main reason teenagers listen to the radio is for music, but now with online sites streaming music for free they do not bother, as services such as last.fm do this advert free, and users can choose the songs they want instead of listening to what the radio presenter/DJ chooses.

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Guy Kawasaki on how he Tweets

Anyone who follows @guykawasaki on Twitter assumes the man never sleeps. We’re all certain that Tweeting isn’t his main job, but he never seems to stop tweeting. So how does he do it?

Click over to ‘How to Change the World‘ for an interview with Guy, that I certainly enjoyed reading. Well actually it looks like it’s an interview with Guy by Guy?

Clearly he’s doesn’t mess around : )

“Yes, four people contribute to my tweets: Annie Colbert, Gina Ruiz, Noelle Chun, and Neenz Faleafine. This is why you will see the initials “AC, “GR,” “NC,” and “LF” at the end of some tweets. If there are no initials, then it’s me.“

What’s new in MobileMe

It’s not the normal practice on this blog to be show-casing new technology, for the simple reason that it’s kewl. We rather try and focus on the people impact changes have in the areas of technology, values, demographics and institutions. Certainly this post is related to changing how we see things, but I just loved the technology and wanted to post it for those that haven’t seen it.

But a brief summary is:

Now, if you lose your iPhone, MobileMe can help you find it. MobileMe includes a new feature called Find My iPhone. Just enable Find My iPhone in MobileMe settings on your phone.* Then you can log in to me.com from any computer to access Find My iPhone and display your phone’s approximate location on a map.

As I said. Way kewl

Will Twitter change the way we live?

There’s a lot of hype around Twitter. I hear it all the time. And there seem to be two distinct camps. Those rabidly for and those against. The against camp speak of just another fad. I say that they’re possibly correct in their thinking. To be honest though, that’s not the question. The real question is for however long Twitter is with us, will it change something about how we look at the world and each other, and therefore how we connect and interact?

Steven Johnson writes a great piece on Time (online) that gives a small insight into some of how Twitter added a new dimension to at least one conference. I like how it was used, and how it brought in a new channel for communication to add to the dialogue in the room.

The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn’t be taken lightly.

I’m really interested more in the social changes than the platforms themselves. Personally I think whether Twitter stays or goes, it will change our lives in some way going forward.

What on earth is going on

As you know, TomorrowToday tracks societal trends. We help our clients to understand the implications of shifts and changes in technology, demography, institutions and societal values. Every now and again, we come across people who are doing an excellent job in both tracking and visually communicating the types of information and trends that we think our clients should be tracking.

The best of these are:

• Gapminder – I warn you – only go to this site if you have a few hours to spare. You will be amazed and delighted by the videos available and the software they’ve designed to take international public domain demographic information and display it in graphs that will blow your mind
• Worldmapper.org – static maps that reconfigure the world map based on different criteria. So, you can see a map of what the world looked like if every person in each country had one square kilometre of space. India and China balloon, and Australia nearly disappears! Some of their hundreds of maps are truly amazing.
• Worldometers – live updates of key statistics – watch the world population grow before your eyes. See how much energy we’re using, how many cars are being made (this might be slightly out of date as of today), or how many people have died of hunger this year so far. Less technically accurate than the other two, this one is maybe more immediately impactful as you see numbers whizzing up and down.

Gary Hamel on Generation Y

Gary Hamel, the best selling author and global guru on innovation, has turned his attentions to the impact that the next generation of young people is having on the workplace. Hamel’s latest book is on the Future of Management, and he believes that the recession is simply adding force to some major changes already underway in the world of work.

This is from his blog on the Wall Street Journal website: Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0: A look at new ways of managing. Read it online here, or below.

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Generations online… who’s on and who’s not?

It’s great to follow the online trends for each generation. Pew Internet recently completed a report called Generations online in 2009. You can get the full report here but I’ve copied the key highlights for you below:

Generation Y, aka the “Net Generation,” does not dominate every aspect of online life. That revealing statistic and many others like it come from Pew Internet and American Life’s recent “Generations Online” report which takes a look at how the different generations of users – from Millennials to the G.I. Generation – use the internet.

The web is still largely populated by younger generations as over half of those online are between the ages of 18 and 44 years old. But these days, larger percentages of older generations are going online and they are doing more activities while there.

According to Pew’s research, Generation X is most likely to shop, bank, and look for health information online, but boomers are just as likely as Gen Y to make travel reservations online. Even the older Silent Generation is competitive when it comes to email, although that could point to the fact that email is an activity that is trending older.

Who Uses Email?
It’s true: email is for old people – at least it is now. Today, 74% of internet users age 64 and older send and receive email, making it the most popular activity in this group. Meanwhile, email usage among teens is dropping. In 2004, 89% of teens said they used email. Now that number is 73%.

Social Networking Dominated by the Young
Teens and Generation Y (18-32*) are the most likely to use the internet for entertainment and for communicating with friends and family through social networks. They’re also more likely than others to play online games, watch videos, send instant messages, hang out in virtual worlds, and download music. In other words, they’re the most likely to use the net for fun.

The favorite online activity for teens, however, is not social networking – it’s game playing. 78% of 12-17 year-olds play games online, but only 50% of Gen Y does.

Older Generations Research, Shop, and Bank
It’s not really surprising to discover that the older generations use the internet less for socializing and entertainment and more for research, email, and shopping. Generation X (ages 33-44) remains the leader when it comes to online shopping with 80% using the internet to buy products online, compared with 71% of internet users ages 18-32.

What is surprising is that users age 73 and up use the internet just as frequently for doing health searches as does Gen Y. In fact, researching health information is only the third most popular online activity for seniors, after email and general online search.

However, when it comes to online banking, it’s Gen X that dominates. 67% of this age group does their banking online. Gen Y will most likely do more banking online as they grow older. You can see the activity trending up in their group from 38% in 2005 to 57% in 2008. As Gen Y ages, this number will continue to increase, as does the percentage using the net for booking travel. In 2005, 50% of Gen Y booked travel online and today 65% do.

What is shaping the next leaders of Britain

At TomorrowToday, we study the past to track the trends that help us predict the future. In last week’s Spectator magazine, there was an excellent article on the influences currently shaping the Conservative party, and particularly David Cameron and his inner circle.

The article hints at the influences that shaped Margaret Thatcher, and how these later shaped Britain. It points out some of the key influences that shaped Tony Blair and Gordon Brown while they were in opposition, and how those later shaped Britain. It then points out a key shaping force for today’s Tories, and leaves the reader to speculate on how this might shape a future Britain. I will come back to this in the next few days, since I think the article is onto something.

For now, read the article at The Spectator, or below.

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Online news in 1981

This video clip is a news report from 1981.  It covers the once “far fetched” concept of reading news on your home computer.  It is amazing to see how far we have come!  My favourite part of the clip is where a man is interviewed because he is one of the rare few that owns a home computer.

Link to 1981 news report on YouTube

Is Google making us Stupid?

For those of you with the time (and it needs some time) take a read of this article from The Atlantic. It’s a great read, written by Nicholas Carr, taking us on a short-ish journey of the impact of technology. From the written word to the internet and it’s impact on our thinking.

Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives—or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts—as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. The Net’s intellectual ethic remains obscure.

I must be honest and say that I struggled to read it without jumping to another ‘thing’ to get done on my computer. I was alerted to the article by a friend who said, “I’ve just read a really interesting article entitled ‘Is Google making us stupid?’ and I thought you might enjoy it. Warning – it’s fairly long, but once you start reading it you kind of feel morally obliged to finish it, lest you add credence to the basic thesis of the article that we cannot sustain focused concentration for more than a few paragraphs.” Still I fell into the trap : )

Still, their (Google) easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.

Cancer free baby is born

The first baby in the UK tested before conception for a genetic form of breast cancer has been born. For some time now, we have been predicting that it will become the norm to attempt to use our growing understanding of DNA and genetics to control the genes our children inherit. Instead of just leaving it to nature and the genetic lottery of life, we believe that parents will make important decisions on behalf of their unborn children.

If there are genetic diseases in your family ancestry, why would you not take the opportunity to break the chain of inheritance? Do you really want to pass on Alheizemers, cancer and other horrific diseases to your children? There is a natural fear of the unknown here, but those people who oppose all forms of genetic modification (GM) are missing the fact that we’ve done this all along. My mother took me around to a friend’s house as a child precisely because that child had chicken pox, and my mother wanted me to catch it. That was a (primitive, but effective) way of modifying me. One of the reasons, for example, that non European people are more prone to getting AIDS is because their ancestors were not exposed to the Black Death plague a few centuries ago. Those of us descended from the survivors of the Plague have different genetics and a closed genetic receptor that makes us less susceptible (although not immune) to AIDS.

So, this type of GM adaptation is both natural and normal in human history. The fact that we are now beginning to understand it, and can programme it is an advance, not a danger.

Read the full BBC report of how this family, with a history of breast cancer in their 20s and a foetus which showed an 80% probability of having the cancer creating altered BRCA1 gene, went ahead and altered the gene in their unborn baby. It was successful, and this form of breast cancer is now firmly in their history.

Not everyone agrees, and there will be abuse of this technology. But, I for one, am all for it.

It does raise an interesting issue in about 24 years time, though. When this girl grows up and starts dating and falls in love, will her parents insist on a genetic screening of her potential husband? I mean, what’s the point of spending all this money to remove breast cancer from the family tree when you allow it back in again through a husband who is a carrier? Is this the beginning of new forms of class distinction – between Human Being 1.0 and HB 2.0? Now, there’s a thought…

The Net Generation: The kids are alright, OK?

In the latest edition of The Economist, there is a news of a massive research project recently completed on how the Net impacts kids.  It’s well worth reading, and supports the conclusions my co-author, Nikki Bush and I put in my latest book, “Future-Proof Your Child“. 

The net generation
The kids are alright

Nov 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition

WORRIES about the damage the internet may be doing to young people has produced a mountain of books—a suitably old technology in which to express concerns about the new. Robert Bly claims that, thanks to the internet, the “neo-cortex is finally eating itself”. Today’s youth may be web-savvy, but they also stand accused of being unread, bad at communicating, socially inept, shameless, dishonest, work-shy, narcissistic and indifferent to the needs of others.

 The man who christened the “net generation” in his 1997 bestseller, “Growing Up Digital”, has no time for such views. In the past two years, Don Tapscott has overseen a $4.5m study of nearly 8,000 people in 12 countries born between 1978 and 1994. In “Grown Up Digital” he uses the results to paint a portrait of this generation that is entertaining, optimistic and convincing. The problem, he suspects, is not the net generation but befuddled baby-boomers, who once sang along with Bob Dylan that “something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is”, yet now find that they are clueless about the revolutionary changes taking place among the young.

… Continue Reading

Marketing with a WOW factor

Radiohead have used some fantastic new technology to record their latest single. Creativity-online.com says this about the new video “Radiohead’s latest video, for the track “House of Cards” from the In Rainbows album, uses real time 3D recording instead of cameras, utilizing highly technical structured light and Lidar laser-enhanced scanners to model lead singer Thom Yorke and provide an otherworldly narrative accompaniment to the song.”

This is cutting edge stuff and if any marketers want to do something to impress Generation X and the Millennial generation then this is it. But don’t wait as it is notoriously difficult to impress these two generations and it won’t be long before the use of this technology becomes “so like yesterday.” Act fast the application of this technology has some WOW factor something that is very difficult to create in marketing these days.

Have a look at the video

The Future of Mobile

We all know how ubiquitous mobile phones have become. In poorer countries, where communication technologies have been slow to arrive, the take up of mobile telephony is nothing less than breathtaking. But, the future brilliance of mobile phones lies not in their communication ability, but in the add ons that can be made to these little computers we all carry around with us. A decade from now, mobile phones will be personal digital devices hooked up with tens and hundreds of functions.

I recently blogged about the ability of MP3 players to replace stethoscopes – of course, any MP3 and microphone enbaled mobile phone could do the same. I also recently read about mobile phones being used by diabetics – they have a little needle embedded in them. A click of a button, the needle pops out of the phone and is inserted into the skin, the insulin reading is done by the phone and displayed, and the diabetic knows immediately what has to be done (sorry, I am not diabetic and don’t know exactly how it works – but the key is that the technology to do the test diabetics must do daily is embedded in the cellphone).

But, now graduate students have found a way to turn their cellphones into microscopes.

… Continue Reading

Wired Politicians

A week or so ago, Dean noted that the Tories in the UK were trying to target (or needed to try and target) a younger generation of voters. In the same week, I read an article in The Economist about how British politics was using (or not using) digital communication technologies and Web-based tools. Read it online here, or a summary below.

The internet and politics

Semi-connected

Apr 17th 2008
From The Economist print edition

British politics is missing out on the potential of new media

EVEN the least fogeyish of politicians have been flummoxed by the internet. Tony Blair, champion of all things modern, paid no end of lip service to the potential of new media as prime minister but was comically technophobic himself. Still, the internet plays a role in huge areas of British public life: party politics, punditry and government itself. But web aficionados lament a yawning gap with America, and with the most go-ahead corners of Europe.

The official websites of the main political parties—Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—get less web traffic than the most popular political blogs, and much less than even the far-right British National Party. No surprise, say cyber enthusiasts; they do a passable job as repositories of information but offer little scope for users to get involved beyond signing up for e-mail distribution lists.

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The Multitasking Generation

Every now and again, TIME magazine has a seriously excellent, long and in depth, feature article that grabs my attention. I am not a subscriber, but always check TIME editions out on the newstand. These features are well researched and worth keeping.

I missed one about 2 years ago, and was recently given a copy of it by a friend. I found it online, and it is available here. It is about the generation of young people that are growing up with pervasive technology, and the impact of multitasking from a young age.

It’s long, but it’s worth a read. Extracts are available below…

The Multitasking Generation
TIME magazine, Mar. 19, 2006
By CLAUDIA WALLIS

It’s 9:30 p.m., and Stephen and Georgina Cox know exactly where their children are. Well, their bodies, at least. Piers, 14, is holed up in his bedroom–eyes fixed on his computer screen–where he has been logged onto a MySpace chat room and AOL Instant Messenger (IM) for the past three hours. His twin sister Bronte is planted in the living room, having commandeered her dad’s iMac–as usual. She, too, is busily IMing, while chatting on her cell phone and chipping away at homework.

By all standard space-time calculations, the four members of the family occupy the same three-bedroom home in Van Nuys, Calif., but psychologically each exists in his or her own little universe. Georgina, 51, who works for a display-cabinet maker, is tidying up the living room as Bronte works, not that her daughter notices. Stephen, 49, who juggles jobs as a squash coach, fitness trainer, event planner and head of a cancer charity he founded, has wolfed down his dinner alone in the kitchen, having missed supper with the kids. He, too, typically spends the evening on his cell phone and returning e-mails–when he can nudge Bronte off the computer. “One gets obsessed with one’s gadgets,” he concedes.

… Continue Reading