November 2011
4 tags
Return of the Diaspora: After a Taste of the... →
Jeffries profiles a number of young entrepreneurs who have returned to NYC after a brief tour of Silicon Alley.
Adrianne Jeffries via Betabeat
Whatever the reason, a passel of companies have recently boomeranged back to the city after a season on the far shore. The longtime tech mantra of ‘go West, young founder” is being revised for the simple reason that New York’s tech scene is...
5 tags
6 tags
Staff to be banned from sending emails - Telegraph →
Henry Samuel via The Telegraph
Thierry Breton, CEO of Atos and a former French finance minister, wants a “zero email” policy to be in place within as early as 18 months, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees receive per day on average turn out to be useful. Instead he wants them to use an instant messaging and a Facebook-style...
4 tags
Product Innovation and Culture
A great example of why thinking innovatively about products is really more like ethnographic research than engineering or marketing.
Sara L. Beckman and Michael Barry, Innovation as a Learning Process: Embedding Design Thinking, California Management Review, Fall 2007
At the core of doing good observational research, and unearthing important information from potential customers or users, is...
4 tags
Third Time’s The Charm? A New NewsCred Raises $4... →
I think Empson is mischaracterizing this as a new play on the newswire. This isn’t like AP: it’s an aggregation of many news outlets into a single stream. Is it time for a complete ‘river of news’ service?
Rip Empson via TechCrunch
We first covered NewsCred back in 2008, when they launched a credibility rating score for publishers, authors, and stories (by way of...
1 tag
“A survey among its US subscribers asked those aged over 40 how they read the...”
– Andrew Rashbass, The biggest reason we’re successful is that we are lucky via The Guardian
(via vanderwal)
4 tags
WordPress.com Partners with Federated Media for... →
Jon Burke
If you’re going to have advertising on your site, it darn well better be good, and beginning with our partnership with Federated Media we’re ready to start rolling out WordAds here on WordPress.com.
I was working with Federated Media a few years ago, but got dumb ads — Chevrolet? — and dropped out of the program. Maybe Wordpress will do it better.
I think that Tumblr...
2 tags
Using Mailchimp To Publish Daily Posts to Email
I have set up a daily email push of posts here at stoweboyd.com using Mailchimp. You can sign up for the ‘newsletter’ by clicking on the box in the upper right hand corner of the blog:
I followed the instructions at Mailchimp and used their Chimplr tool. Effortless if you are a competent Tumblr user. I hope their analytics give me more insight.
Update: 10 minutes later, and...
4 tags
“The government might be causing more unnecessary interference on planes by...”
– - Nick Bilton, Fliers Still Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why
Government stupidity and industry hypercautious behavior. It’s the same reason that people are shown how to put on seat belts in 2011, too.
6 tags
The Show Is Starting, Please Turn On Your... →
The Tateuchi Center outside of Seattle is reversing the pre-digital policy of forbidding attendees to use devices during performances:
Ben Sisario via NYTimes.com
One new hall near Seattle is turning that logic on its head by encouraging patrons to send texts and update their Twitter and Facebook accounts to their heart’s content. The Tateuchi Center in Bellevue, Wash., is expected to open...
6 tags
Software heavyweight moves headquarters to Silicon... →
New York City’s challenge to Silicon Valley’s high-tech dominance continues apace. By the time Mayor Bloomberg’s brainchild of an applied sciences campus takes root in 2013, the momentum may be too great to stop.
Latest case in point: Infor, the world’s third-largest creator of manufacturing software, is moving its headquarters from Atlanta to the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan — joining...
“May the best memes win.”
– Lalle Lasn
4 tags
IF THIS THEN THAT: Social Web's Duct Tape &... →
gbattle:
ifttt is quietly building an arsenal of powerful small tools that are making them the duct tape of the social web. Just as specific tools like hammers, chisels, saws and APIs are great in the hands of a skilled craftsman/developer, duct tape can fit the bill for connecting anything to anything for the numerous unskilled. The ifttt repository for Tumblr might be where David & the...
3 tags
“InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, has released...”
– Ads on Smartphones Grow Fast in Europe - The Next Web
(via thenextweb)
1 tag
“Air Force researchers were delighted recently to learn that they could cut...”
– R. Douglas Fields, Transcranial Stimulation Shows Promise in Speeding Up Learning
(via world-shaker)
3 tags
“The Economist recently noted that Apple, Amazon, and Google together employ...”
– - Henry Blodgett, THE COUNTRY’S PROBLEM IN A NUTSHELL: Apple’s Huge New Data Center In North Carolina Created Only 50 Jobs
(via jonathanmarcus)
Yeah, except we need to rebuild the entire infrastructure of the country, and the government has abrogated its leadership in that area. So now we can...
4 tags
“It’s funny how hard it is to pick an interesting image from a giant grid on a...”
– Nate Bolt, Why Instagram Is So Popular: Quality, Audience, & Constraints
(h/t arainert)
3 tags
Slacker And The Innovator's Dilemma - Mark... →
Mulligan is right to say that innovation is being stifled in the music world by the stranglehold of the labels:
Mark Mulligan via Forrester
Music subscription services are stuck with the Innovator’s Dilemma, but an unusual flavor of it. They are a sustaining technology that is forced to improve through modest sustaining improvements because of the restrictions inherent in the agreements...
4 tags
Pre digital - Seth Godin →
Seth Godin visits an emergency room and is staggered by how analog it is: people taking notes on paper, the lack of access to patient’s history, and six people acting as front men to the doctor: 90 minutes to see a doctor for 90 seconds.
But it’s the tip of the iceberg:
School is pre-digital. Elections. Most of what you do in your job. Even shopping. The vestiges of a reliance on...
4 tags
China’s Swift Trains Are a Boon to Development,... →
People worrying about the US losing its lead to China should stop the nonsensical talk about declining math SATs, and look to the difference in our investments in high speed rail. The know-nothing GOP have cut our investments to zero, but that’s lunacy:
Keith Bradsher via NYTimes.com
Just as building the interstate highway system a half-century ago made modern, national commerce more...
2 tags
Mika Savela: Greetings from Post-Everything →
mikasavela:
Relating to the previous post, here’s the beginning page of my article in the new issue of MONU. You can find the full article in the magazine.
A discussion about post-something, is bound to be personal. Post-what? Partum? War? Tracing the history of urban ideologies starts from where we…
2 tags
7 tags
The Occupy Movement and the New Public Space -... →
Nate Berg asks a valid question — should we have publicly usable space set aside for special purposes in our cities, and which groups could occupy for whatever purpose? — but I think his answer blunts the purpose of protest, like Occupy Wallstreet:
Nate Berg via The Atlantic Cities
There is no blank slate autonomous public space. But maybe that’s what we need: a space empty,...
6 tags
Trust and Complex Technology: The Cyborg’s Modern... →
PJ Rey via Cyborgology
Being a cyborg is risky business; we must depend on the expertise of others to ensure that our equipment is fit for use. This radical dependency on expert systems—and the societies that create them—makes cyborgs fundamentally social beings. In fact, it is through dependency on technology, and the subsequent loss of self-sufficiency, that we express our commitment to...
7 tags
The Myth of Monotasking - Cathy Davidson via... →
Why the debate about attention — multi- versus mono-tasking — is really about institutions:
Cathy Davidson, The Myth Of Monotasking
[…] If we want to change our institutions, we have to believe that it is the institutional structures that are the problem, not the new conditions of life that institutions should be supporting. That is, if we believe that technology is...
3 tags
“The mind wanders a lot because the mind’s task is to wander.”
– Cathy Davidson, The Myth of Monotasking | HASTAC
“All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the...”
– Chief Seattle
2 tags
“The bucolic business office is not a state-of-the-art workplace but rather a...”
– Louise Mozingo, To Rethink Sprawl, Start With Offices
2 tags
“In the late 1990s, high-end outer suburbs contained most of the expensive...”
– Christopher Leinberger, The Death of the Fringe Suburb
5 tags
Does a strong sense of meaning in life make you... →
The authors report on data indicating that having a strong sense of meaning in life makes people more appealing social interactants. In Study 1, participants were videotaped while conversing with a friend, and the interactions were subsequently rated by independent evaluators. Participants who had reported a strong sense of meaning in life were rated as desirable friends. In Study 2, ...
8 tags
Collaborations Welcome - Avinash Rajagopal →
33 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn is the center of a swirling world of innovation:
Avinash Rajagopal via Metropolis Magazine
In 2006, the three architects who founded Interboro Partners were walking around downtown Brooklyn in search of a new office when they happened upon the run-down, beige facade of 33 Flatbush Avenue. “There was a fantastic portrait of Elvis in the window, with a sign that said ...
4 tags
6 tags
“Urbanized [a documentary by Gary Hustwit, of Helvetica and Objectified fame]...”
– - Joshua K. Leon, Metropolis
5 tags
“The real work of architecture that adapts and reflects this new mediated world...”
– Andrew Blum, Here but Not Here | Metropolis Magazine
2 tags
“There can be no significant change in the ecologies of the city, including the...”
– Rob Sheilds, Space and Culture › Ecological Urbanism
3 tags
“The world of plenty is New Babylon, the world in which man no longer toils, but...”
– Constant Nieuwenhuis, 1970
5 tags
The Future of Brick and Mortar Space - Mark... →
Mark Alvarez via Rebellionlab
Here’s where I see technology changing the store in the next 15-20 years.
1. The cash register will cease to be an organizing principle. You’ll be able to pay from anywhere in the store. Right now, the current is working in both directions — tablet apps that allow salespeople to complete sales from anywhere in the store, and phone-based apps that let the...
7 tags
The end of the office - Clive Thompson →
Corporations are starting to wake up to the huge costs — direct and indirect — involved in offices. Not just the real estate and electri bills, but the human costs. But people still need to interact: to be co-present, even if it significantly less that 40 hours per week:
Clive Thompson via The Globe and Mail
In recent years, some large, established Fortune 500 firms — particularly...
2 tags
“@josiefraser: The CUNY Academic Commons Announces The Commons in a Box Project -...”
– November 26, 2011 at 04:54AM via http://bit.ly/tvzxTV
2 tags
“@stoweboyd: 60% of office space is wasted, costing $600B in direct costs...”
– November 26, 2011 at 05:19AM via http://bit.ly/rvUjU4
2 tags
“@stoweboyd: Telecommuters are 40% more productive than their office-based...”
– November 26, 2011 at 05:17AM via http://bit.ly/rqU6gT
3 tags
The Non-Training Approach to Workplace Learning:... →
The socially networked business (‘social business’) is one that has moved past business process and the organization chart as defining modalities and maps. One of the casualties is traditional course-based training and learning, where people are pulled from context and trained in an abstracted manner.
Social learning is really about creating a culture where people’s natural tendency to cooperate...
4 tags
Facebook is gaslighting the web. We can fix it. -... →
Anil Dash says that Facebook is gaslighting us: they are feeding us false information to make us doubt our own reason, and specifically false information about their own intentions and actions. Specifically Facebook is spinning stories about why it is changing various policies — like Open Graph, sharing content in Facebook via RSS, and others.
Anil Dash via dashes.com/anil
Facebook has...
2 tags
8 tags
Some Degree Of Separation
The six degrees of separation meme has surfaced again, based on new research from Facebook — in collaboration with researchers at the Università degli Studi di Milano — that suggests the average path length from one Facebook user to another has fallen to 4.74, and has been shrinking as Facebook has grown larger.
The N degrees of separation idea was first suggested in a short story by...