Smartphones, Dumb People

On the Street in Washington, D.C., there is this circular sign on the ground.

It says: "Look up! Watch where you are walking."

This is a good reminder, especially on the corner, right before you step off and possibly walk into some ongoing traffic.

People get distracted walking and even texting while driving and they can have big accidents because of this. 

But an article by Christine Rosen in the Wall Street Journal takes this notion quite a bit further. 

She proposes that people are so busy on their smartphones and tablets that they are either "oblivious to their surroundings" or more likely to want to film emergencies rather than get involved and help someone in trouble. 

She has examples including in December 2012, when a freelance photographer took a photo of a man run over by a train instead of trying to help him off the tracks. 

However, I am not convinced that it is the computing devices that make people into "apathetic bystanders" or "cruel voyeurs" any more than the salons in the Wild West made people into alcoholics, gunslingers, and patronizers of prostitutes. 

Let's face it, people are who they are.  

Things do not make us do bad, but lack of self-control and base impulses, poor moral upbringings, brain chemistry and brainwashing, and psychological problems and disorders cause people to behave in antisocial and immoral ways. 

If people weren't filming someone being attacked on the subway, then very likely they would be running out at the next available stop or changing cars as soon as they could get that middle door opened. 

Those helpful people, good samaritans, and even heroes among us, are not there because they left their iPhones at home that day, but because their conscience tells them that it's the right thing to do, and perhaps that they would want someone to help them or their family member if the situation was reversed. 

People like to blame a lot of things on technology, but saying that we are "losing our sense of duty to others because of it" is absurd. 

The technology doesn't make the person; the person makes the technology!" ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Smartphones, Dumb People

Social Networks--Online and At The Beach

There was a comical editorial in the Wall Street Journal about Social Networks. 

This guy, Farhad Manjoo, is addicted to Twitter. 

He writes: "I check it first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and about a billion times in between."

And he admits he doesn't understand his own addiction: "I've never been able to explain what I get out of Twitter, or exactly why I find it so enthralling."

Manjoo is afraid of what an IPO will do to Twitter--will they have to advertise more, become more like Facebook, favor pictures over text, lose it's strength in the area of breaking news--hopefully, he is referring to more than what he ate for breakfast!

People are spending inordinate amounts of time on social media--friending and following people they don't even know!

Perhaps, it's the fantasy--compliments of virtual reality on the Internet--of being associate--"friends" or "connected--with the rich, famous, powerful, and wise or with the kids who would beat us up in the schoolyard only years earlier. 

Online--we're all sort of friends, aren't we? 

Our avatars or online profiles don't differentiate much between those we really like or not--we are free to pretty much follow anyone, anytime--unless they block you because you are annoying!

Virtual reality in social media--perhaps the great equalizer--the freedom fighters in the Middle East can post videos of the Sarin attacks as easily as the President can post his inaugural message. 

The material is there and free for the ingest by everyone.

Social media has a purpose in bringing us together and spreading the word, videos, and pictures of the times--it make the big world smaller for us to get our arms around. 

Then again, a social network of a few close family members or friends on the beach--also good, maybe better for the soul. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Social Networks--Online and At The Beach

We're All Digitally Distracted

Focus, focus...forget it!

With smartphones, social media, email, texting, phone calls, meetings, and more...it takes a lot of discipline to not get distracted and actually get things done. 

The Wall Street Journal (11 December 2012) laid out half jokingly that most people wouldn't even be able to finish the article because of all the technological and people interruptions in our daily lives. 

There are various aspects to this problem:

1) Digital Addiction--We love and are addicted to the information, connectedness, convenience, and entertainment that computerization, digital communications, and the Internet provide. Loneliness be gone!

2) 24/7 Expectations--Employers, family, and friends expect that we will be available to them around the clock. We are tethered to our jobs and each other with computers, smartphones, Blackberries, telework, social media, and more. If I can't get to you, it's because you don't want to be gotten!

3) Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)--One of the concerns we have about getting off our devices is that we may miss out on something--that critical phone call or email may be regarding an important event, a special sale, a job interview, a long lost friend or lover, someone who needs help, or whatever. But if you shut yourself off, then you may just be missing the opportunity of a lifetime!

For most people the smartphone is the last thing they look at before going to sleep and the first thing they look at in the morning...assuming your significant other doesn't intervene. 

Even going on vacation, for many, means checking work and personal emails and voicemails...a vacation is no longer a real vacation, just perhaps less work than going into the office. 

On one hand, we have more information and connectedness at our fingertips than ever before, but on the other hand, we are living in virtual, and not physical, reality.

One example is how we sit with our families and friends, but every one is on their device and no one is interacting with each other in the room. 

No wonder there is a movement now to "Turn it off!" or "Leave it at home (or work)!"--We are desperately trying to balance between cyberspace and personal space. 

We can't afford to be distracted or to distract ourselves, incessantly--we need to focus on what's important, what needs to get done, and on those who love and need us. 

Whether you do a zero email day or just leave it all behind vacation--everyone needs some time be human with each other again. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

We're All Digitally Distracted

Remembering Every Moment

I saw a frightening movie a while back about a girl that had been drugged and brutally raped. 

In the movie, the girl is eerily warned, "You won't remember, but you will never forget!"

That line leaves an indelible mark--that something can be so horrific, so scaring that you can't recall it, and can't forget it. 

Now there is a new device coming to market that helps you recall everything.

Memoto is a 5 megapixel tiny camera (36 x 36 millimeters) with an embedded GPS that is worn around the neck, like a necklace. 

When clipped on, it starts taking the phones and when put down or in a pocket it shuts off. 

The Memoto takes 2 photos a minutes (1 every 30 seconds or nearly 3,000 a day if worn all the time).

The photos are stored in an accessible cloud app that uses GPS to sort the photos on a timeline with a date and location stamp.

Photos are private by default, but can be shared using traditional social media, such as to Facebook or Twitter. 

The battery lasts about 2 days and is rechargeable by connecting to your computer at which time the photos are uploaded to Memoto's servers. 

Wear, photograph, recharge/upload and repeat. 

Privacy issues abound with a device like this--imagine wearing this into the bathroom, locker room, bedroom, or even a private corporate meeting--lots of embarrassing and compromising no-no's here!

At the same time, imagine all the precious or memorable moments in life that you can capture and enjoy--it's the realization of the photographic memory you've never had, but always wanted. 

Also think of that rapist or other criminal approaching you--getting photographed, caught, and punished--so that the victim really does remember, and can forget with a new peace of mind. ;-)

Remembering Every Moment

Fun, The Good 'ol Fashion Way

This was a funny picture today on the street in downtown D.C. 

This guy was getting a cheap ride down the thoroughfare in a bin. 

She was pushing and he had his arm raised as the winner of the big race. 

It reminded me of when we were kids and used to ride go-karts down the hill--and only after we picked up some speed did we realize that the breaks didn't work that good.

Oh well, a little flip and some chuckles and no worse for the wear. 

Those were the days, young and carefree--nothing to worry about except whose house we were going over to, next, to wreck some havoc. 

I remember, one day we were having a huge wet paper towel fight and one kid ran into the garage to escape the barrage, I gave chase and unwittingly pushed against the glass in the door to follow and oops my hand went right through.

Not a pretty sight, but I thank G-d lived to tell my kids about it, and now they got one up on me when they do something a little out of bounds and fun--actually they are a lot better than I was at that age. 

And it wasn't that I was a bad kid, I was actually one the good ones--or so I was told--but before we all had computers, the Internet, social media, and smartphones, we had each other. 

It wasn't the technology that drove us, but rather the evolving web of interactions (today my new best friend is...), the challenges we made up (let's bike up to Tarrytown in 100+ degree heat), the fun we found ourselves in (from the board game Risk to early gaming on the Atari, or just cleaning out a friends garage for a few bucks)--times were simpler, more innocent, and in a way better.

When we went home at night from work or for the weekend, our time was our own--were weren't glued to email and always on call. 

When we attended an event, we didn't check our Facebook and Twitter, but paid attention to the company we were in. 

When we ate dinner together, maybe the one rabbit-ear TV was going in the background with one of the 3 networks stations, but everyone wasn't being pulled away for gaming, blogging, or some Internet shopping. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my technology as much or maybe more than the next guy, but I also miss just being me in the physical world with my family and gang of friends, and not just so much TheTotalCIO in the office and in cyberspace. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Fun, The Good 'ol Fashion Way

Action Video Extravaganza

This is an awesome action video--5 minutes and totally worth it.

It feels like being inside a single player shooting game. 

I first saw this video on Facebook posted by a colleague as a interesting advertisement for Go Pro wearable helmet cameras, often used for capturing extreme sports activities. 

Now we are going from helmet cams to Google glasses. 

With the new Google Glass coming out this year for $1,500--that mimics most smartphone functions including taking pictures and videos just by a simple verbal command such as "Okay Glass, record a video" or "Okay Glass, take a picture,"-- things are going to get a lot dicier. 

While this type of James Bond action doesn't happen everyday for most of us, if we can capture every day events like these --it will be both awesome from a recall, sharing, entertainment, study and scientific perspectives and scary from a privacy one. 

If Google Glass really works as it's envisioned, it is going to revolutionize how we interact with the world and each other--get ready augmented reality, here we come. ;-)

Action Video Extravaganza

Twitter's Vine Is DOA

So I tried out Twitter's new Vine App--and it is a thoroughly mind numbing experience. 

There is an old saying that "wine is fine, but liquor is quicker," in this case the only thing that will put you under the table more quickly than Vine is some hard liquor.

You hold your finger to your screen and take 3 short video clips and Vine splices it together sequentially into a 6-second video that loops over and over again. 

As you scroll your feed in your Vine, every time you come to the next video, it comes alive in these short meaningless bursts, and then goes into its crazy loop until you scroll down to the next annoying video clip. 

When Twitter decided to put an end to its blog, Posterous, that it purchased just a year earlier, I thought that they had gone off the rails.

Now that I see they have replaced any semblance of thinking and sharing through blogs with loop-the-loop 6-second video feeds of babies crying and dogs asking to be taken for a walk, I know someone at Twitter must seriously be on the bottle. 

There is a 6 second video for Twitter that says you've lost your minds. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Robert Michalove)

Twitter's Vine Is DOA

Innovation Infertility

Many of you may have probably the seen the movie, "Children of Men,"--it is themed around a time in the future when women are infertile (because of pathology, pollution, drugs, or whatever) and the world is in chaos--for what is life without children to carry on?

Fortunately, in the movie, after 18 years, one woman does get pregnant and bears a child and there is hope in the scientific community for a resurgence of humankind. 

Unfortunately, we are now in a similar period of technology, where big innovation of yesterday has come grinding to a miserable saunter. 

When the biggest news leaking out of superstar innovator, Apple is the potential for an iWatch--uh, not exactly earth shattering, we know we are in innovator's hell!

And vendors from Apple to Samsung and Sony trying to come out with some sort of voice activated television--again, who doesn't hate the TV clicker, but really this is not going to revolutionize our entertainment center days.

With hundreds of thousands of apps available for everything from social networking, eCommerce, gaming, and more, it seems like there are more copycat apps then anything else coming out these days--where's the real wow factor?

Microsoft can't find it's way in a mobile world, the mighty Intel has been supplanted by ARM with mobile chips, Marissa Mayer is trying to figure out how to remake the jump for joy, Yahoo, relevant again, as are the Vanderhook brothers and Justin Timberlake trying to do for MySpace.

With the overemphasis on the form factor making bigger and smaller sizes and shapes for computing devices, we seesaw between iPod Classics and Nanos and between iPads and Minis. But where are the great functional enhancements? Yeah, ask Siri.

Similarly in computing architecture, we have latched unto cloud computing as the next great savior of IT-mankind, ignoring the repackaging again of the mainframe into a cool new computing model again, and relegating the prior go-to architecture of distributed computing as the evil twin.  Sure, we can save some bucks until the pendulum swings back toward more decentralization and agility again.

In social computing, with Facebook what can you say--it's got a billion users, but virtually not a single one would pay a dime to use it. If not for marketers scooping up our personal information online and advertisers annoying us with their flashing and protruding pop-ups, we continue to trade privacy for connectedness, until we lose too much of ourselves to identity thieves and snooping sources, and we fall back clamoring for more protection. 

In security, we are getting clobbered by cyber intrusions, cyber espionage, and cyber attacks--everyday!  We can't seem to figure out the rules of cyberspace or how to protect ourselves in it. We can't even find enough qualified people to fight the cyber fight.

I was surprised that even magazine, Fast Company, which prides itself on finding the next great innovation out there, states this month (April 2013), "Growing uncertainty in tech is creating chaos for startups, consumers, and investors...nobody has a non-obvious new social business model that can scale."

As in the movie, Children of Men, we are suffering from an infertility of innovation--whether from burnout, a focus on short-term profit instead of long-term R&D investments, declining scores in STEM, or a lack of leadership--we are waiting for the next pregnancy so we can have hope again, but are disappointed that so many are false positives or overhyped prophets. 

One of the things, I am most excited about is Google Glass and their concept of augmented reality, but the glasses are geeky and will need to be package in a lot more eloquent solution to really be practical in our futures. 

The next great thing will come--life is a great cycle--but as in the Bible with 7 fat cows and 7 skinny cows, leading to the great famine in Egypt, we are now seeing lots of skinny cows walking around and it is darn scary. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Innovation Infertility

Tweet On, Dead Or Alive

So recently, I saw the movie Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise who plays a wealthy playboy who has everything, but has a horrible disfiguring accident as a result of a disgruntled girlfriend, and Cruise ends up in despair, overdosing, and ultimately in cryonic suspension--but with the added package of being in a lucid dream while in frozen suspension for 150 years. 

The idea of somehow being placed in suspended animation after death in the hope of eventually being brought back to life with technologies in the future has been an interest of many who naturally seek immortality. 

A company called Alcor Life Extension, not only researches cryonics, but also actually performs it and has over 100 patients preserved and frozen in liquid nitrogen (as well as over 30 pets). 
Understanding the great desire for people to somehow defeat death, I was not completely surprised to read about LivesOn in the New York Times (2, March 2013), which is an algorithm being developed to continue Tweeting even after you are dead!

You can sign up at the website to join their beta trials--no, you don't have to be dead yet!

But LivesOn will start learning what and how you normally Tweet and through artificial intelligence will start to tweet on its own for you and you can give it feedback to refine its performance. 

It's slogan of "When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting," seems more than a little crude. 

Given all the distress about accessing a person's social media account after they die to learn more about them, their friends, perhaps the circumstances of their death, or even to post a closing to account--the legal and policy issues are still being worked out in terms of privacy and the user agreements for the sites. 

With artificial intelligence now being able to, in a sense, take over for you and continue your posts even when you are dead, this practically begs the question of who you are and what makes you distinct from a computer that can mimic you to the world?  

Can a computer or robot one day be able to assume your identity? How difficult would it really be? Would anyone even know the difference?  And would they care?  Are we all just patterns of thoughts and behaviors that can be predicted and mimicked, and if so what are we really? ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Anders Sandberg)

Tweet On, Dead Or Alive

Seasaw, Yeah It's For Kids

There is an interesting new crowdsourcing application called Seesaw.

And like a seesaw goes up and down, you can take a picture and crowdsource decisions--thumbs up or down for what you should do.

Food, clothes, movies, more--I could imagine people even going so far as to use this for dating--Go out with them or not? Keep 'em or dump 'em?

While the possibility of having others chime in on your everyday life decisions is somewhat intriguing, social and fun...it also seems a little shallow and superficial.

Do you really need to ask your friends about everything you do or can you make simple day-to-day decisions yourself?

And when it comes to big decisions, perhaps you need more than a picture with a thumbs up or down to give the decision context, evaluate pros and cons, think through complex issues, and make a truly thoughtful decision--perhaps some genuine dialogue would be helpful here? 

Finally, many decisions in life come at the spur of a moment--should I or shouldn't I--and you don't have the benefit of saying hold on "let me take a picture and get some of my friends opinions on this"--life waits for no one and timing is often everything!

It is good to get other people's opinions (i.e. the proverbial "second opinion") as well as to do what my father used to tell me which is to "sleep on it," because things look different over night and in the morning.

But while you should consider what others think--in a meaningful way--in the end, you need to trust your inner self and take responsibility for your own decisions. ;-)

Seasaw, Yeah It's For Kids

What's Your Information Lifecycle

A critical decision for every person and organization is how long to keep information out there in the physical and cyber realms.

Delete something too soon--and you may be looking in vain for that critical document, report, file, picture, or video and may even violate record retention requirements.

Fail to get rid of something--and you may be embarrassed, compromised, ripped off, or even put in legal jeopardy. 
It all depends what the information is, when it is from, and who gets their hands and eyes on it!

Many stars have been compromised by paparazzi or leaked photos that ended up on the front page of newspapers or magazines and even government officials have ended up in the skewer for getting caught red handed like ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner sexting on Twitter.

Everything from statuses to photos put on social media have gotten people in trouble whether when applying to schools and jobs, with their partners, and even with law enforcement. 

Information online is archived and searchable and it is not uncommon for parents to warn kids to be careful what they put online, because it can come back to haunt them later. 

Now smartphones applications like Snapchat are helping people communicate and then promptly delete things they send. 

With Snapshot, you can snap a photo, draw on it, even add text and send to friends, family, others. The innovation here is that before you hit send, you choose how long you want the message to be available to the recipient before vanishing--up to 10 seconds.

Snapchat has sent over 1 billion messages since July and claims over 50 million are sent daily--although forget trying to verify that by counting up the messages because they have self-destructed and are gone!

Of course, there are workarounds such as taking a screenshot of the message before it vanishes or taking a photo of the message--so nothing is full proof. 

Last year, according to The Atlantic, the European Commission proposed a "Right-To Be Forgotten" as part of their data protection and privacy laws. This would require social media sites to remove by request embarrassing information and photos and would contrast with the U.S. freedom of speech rights that protects "publishing embarrassing but truthful information."

Now, companies like Reputation.com even provide services for privacy and reputation management where they monitor information about you online, remove personal information from sites that sell it, and help you with search engine optimization to "set the record straight" with personal, irrelevant, exaggerated or false information by instead publishing positive truthful material.

According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek (7 Feb. 2013), "Ephemeral data is the future," but I would say comprehensive reputation management is the future--whether through the strategic management of permanent information or removing of temporary data--we are in a sense who the record says we are. ;-)

What's Your Information Lifecycle

Challenging The Dunbar 150

Today, Facebook announced it's new search tool called Graph Search for locating information on people, places, interests, photos, music, restaurants, and more. 

Graph Search is still in beta, so you have to sign up in Facebook to get on the waiting list to use it. 

But Facebook is throwing down the gauntlet to Google by using natural language queries to search by just asking the question in plain language like: "my friends that like Rocky" and up comes those smart ladies and gents. 

But Graph Search is not just a challenge to Google, but to other social media tools and recommendation engines like Yelp and Foursquare, and even LinkedIn, which is now widely used for corporate recruiting. 

Graph Search uses the Bing search engine and it's secret sauce according to CNN is that is culls information from over 1 billion Facebook accounts, 24 billion photos, and 1 trillion connections--so there is an enormous and growing database to pull from. 

So while the average Facebook user has about 190 connections, some people have as many as 5,000 and like the now antiquated business card file or Rolodex, all the people in your social network can provide important opportunities to learn and share. And while in the aggregate six degrees of separation, none of us are too far removed from everyone else anyway, we can still only Graph Search people and content in our network.

Interestingly enough, while Facebook rolls out Graph Search to try to capitalize on its treasure trove personal data and seemingly infinite connections, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (10 January 2013) ran an article called "The Dunbar Number" about how the human brain can only handle up to "150 meaningful relationships."

Whether hunter-gather clans, military units, corporate divisions, or an individual's network of family, friends, and colleagues--our brain "has limits" and 150 is it when it comes to substantial real world or virtual relationships--our brains have to process all the facets involved in social interactions from working together against outside "predators" to guarding against "bullies and cheats" from within the network. 

According to Dunbar, digital technologies like the Internet and social media, while enabling people to grow their virtual Rolodex, does not really increase our social relationships in the real meaning of the word. 

So with Graph Search, while you can mine your network for great talent, interesting places to visit, or restaurants to eat at, you are still fundamentally interacting with your core 150 when it comes to sharing the joys and challenges of everyday life. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Challenging The Dunbar 150

You Can Better The World

I am really excited about this new Social Media application called Betterific.

It looks a lot like Twitter but is focused on ideas to better the world. 

Every Betterific starts under the heading of "Wouldn't it be better if" and you fill in the rest. 

Whether you have ideas for improving products, companies, policies, or even the way we treat each other--this is a great way to get your ideas out there. 

You also add tags (metadata) to make the ideas more easily searchable by others. 

Like Twitter you can follow topics or other innovative people, friends, and family members. 

A great feature is that you can actually vote--thumbs up or down--for the ideas, and through crowdsourcing great ideas can rise to the top.

There is also a bar at the top where you can look up better ideas by search term--so individuals, organizations, or brands can harvest this information and hopefully act on them.

One of the featured Betterifics when you sign in online is from someone who suggested that toilet seats come with a pedal lift lid (like a garbage can)--being a little germophobic myself, I vote definitely yes to this one!

I hope this type of app catches on so we can all innovate and get our ideas out there simply and clearly.

This has the potential to become a tremendous archive for great ideas that can be accessed, prioritized and most importantly implemented--so we can all really make a difference for the better. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

You Can Better The World

Meet Sammy, The iPhone Guy

Sammy, the iPhone guy, in the Galleria Mall in Ft. Lauderdale was kind enough to talk with me about his experiences repairing smartphones.

Some highlights:

- He learned his trade from watching videos online (Go social media!)
- Smartphones can be taken apart, diagnosed, and fixed in as little as 15 minutes.
- Repairs generally cost between $85-99 and come with a six month warranty. 
- Loves the iPhone, but he says Galaxy is a strong competitor. 
- Most smartphones are damaged by dropping them without cases on (people love their devices naked).
- Many smartphones are dropped in the pool and in the toilet--but amazingly these can be fixed too!

Thanks Sammy for talking with me today about the ins and outs of the smartphone. ;-)

Meet Sammy, The iPhone Guy

From Adventure Photography to Lifelogging

Felix Baumgartner jumped from a helium-filled balloon lifted space capsule, one week ago today, to set a skydiving record from 24 miles up and reaching the speed of 834 miles per hour.

On Felix's helmet was a GoPro video camera to capture this memorable event.

GoPro is the leader in wearable, waterproof, shockproof videocameras and has an especially strong market in action and extreme sports.

Their newest helmet-mounted camera is the HD HERO3 (available 17 October 2012), and it continues the significant trend to ever smaller, lighter, and more powerful cameras technology.

I like this video they put out showing the high resolution and exciting video taken while doing activities from surfing to mountain climbing, deep sea diving, flying, kayaking, and more.

I have a feeling that these cameras are going to make a leap from capturing adventure photography to being used for lifelogging and lifejournaling--where people capture major life events on a wearable camera, and in some extreme cases--they try to capture virtually their whole life!

As someone who has blogged now, thank G-d, for 5 1/4 years, I greatly value the ability to capture important events, share, and potentially influence--and lifelogging with discrete, wearable camera technology can take this even further. 

Of course, with this technology, we need the ability to search, discover, and access the truly memorable moment--those that are meaningful to you and can have a deep and lasting impact on others--and let's face it, despite the rise of Reality TV, most of life is not quite a Kardashian moment. ;-)

It sort of reminds me of the Wendy's commercial, where the old lady asks from a fictitious competitor, "where's the beef?" With lifelogging, blogging, or other capture and sharing technologies, the beef had better be there (people's time is valuable)!

There are billions of people to reach--capture, reflect, share...in writing and with pictures--then truly, "The pen is mightier than the sword."

From Adventure Photography to Lifelogging

Sorry Amanda Todd

Just watched this video with my daughter about Amanda Todd, the 15 year old girl from Canada who hung herself on Wednesday. 

She made some mistakes with some guys--looks like she was taken advantage of--and then she was ruthlessly bullied, tormented, tagged, shamed, followed, beaten, and encouraged to kill herself. 

After depression, anxiety, drugs, alcohol, cutting, and drinking bleach, she finally hung herself and is gone. 

To those horrible people that pursued this young women and essentially murdered her--you are vile and disgusting and G-d will one day bring you to final judgement. 

To the family of Amanda Todd, our heart, prayers, and sympathy goes out to you--your daughter and all decent people like her deserve better from society. 

If we can only learn from this tragedy, perhaps her death will not have been in vain. 

She wrote: "I have nobody. I need somebody. :(" 

Hopefully, she is now with the heavenly father--and has not just somebody, but the one that matters the most.

Sorry Amanda Todd

Amazing Internet Statistics 2012

So what happens in only 1 minute on the Internet--this cool magazine Ideas and Discoveries (October 2012) provides some amazing examples:

- Information Sharing--639,800 gigabytes of data are exchanged
- Information Generation--6 new Wikipedia articles are created
- Information Visualization--20,000,000 photo looked at on Flickr
- eMail--204,000,000 emails are sent
- eCommerce--$83,000 of sales on Amazon
- Social Networking--320 new users on Twitter and 100 on LinkedIn (wonder how many for Facebook...)
- Cyber Crime--20 new victims of identity theft

And in the same month, Harvard Business Review reported on the growing significance to commerce with the Internet contributing to GDP (in 2010) as much as:

- 8.3% in the UK
- 7.3% in South Korea
- 5.5% in China
- 4.7% in the US
- 4.7% in Japan
- 4.1% in India

Moreover in HBR, this is what was reported that people are willing to give up instead of the Internet for a year--and the numbers are pretty startling--check this out:

- 91% of UK would give up fast food
- 89% of Indonesians would give up smoking
- 86% of Japanese would give up chocolate
- 85% of Chinese would give up coffee
- 78% of Indonesians would give up their shower
- 60% of Japanese would give up exercise
- 56% of Chinese would give up their car
- 56% of Japanese would give up sex--go figure! ;-)

While this is all sort of light, there is also a very seriousness dimension to this. For example, in the Wall Street Journal today, it quotes Secretary of Defense, Leon Paneta warning that with Iran's digital assault on the U.S., the concerns of cyberwar are growing with the SecDef going so far as to say "Is there a cyberwar going on? It depends on how you define war."

Yes, the Internet is amazing for so many reasons and we can't take it for granted--we need to be vigilant and defend the Internet (cyber) with the same zeal and commitment as the other domains of war--land, sea, and air--all are vital to national security and for the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This is a lesson we need to learn quickly and decisively--before the old Star Wars is passe and cyberwar turns deadly. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Amazing Internet Statistics 2012

Engaging Millennials

I have a new article in Public CIO magazine called Trophy Kids at Work. 

Millennials may be having a tough time finding work--perhaps they are down, but they are certainly not out!

The article explores how to successfully engage millennials in the workforce by:

- Connecting in person and through social media

- Offering leading-edge technologies with room to experiment and innovate, and 

- Providing a sense of meaning through professional contributions. 

Hope you enjoy, 

Andy

Engaging Millennials

When TMI Is PC

An interesting editorial in the New York Times (19 August 2012) bemoans the state of affairs in the workplace, where generation Y'ers, take the liberty of sharing too much [personal] information (TMI) with others.

The author, Peggy Klaus, gives examples of young workers talking about their looking for other positions, recounting family birthing experiences, or discussing sexual exploits or a shortage thereof. 

Klaus see this as a carryover of people's online social behavior or what she calls "Facebook in your face"--where you "tell everybody everything"--whether appropriate or important, or not at all!

Similarly, this behavior is viewed by some as young people simply acting out what they learned from their helicopter parents--who instilled "an overblown sense of worth" on them--where every poop is worth sharing from infancy through adulthood. 

Ms. Klaus refers to this as O.S.D. or Obsessive Sharing Disorder--and she instead calls for "decency, common sense, and just plain good manners" in deciding what to share and when.

While I agree with a certain amount of base political correctness and decorum in the office, I think too much control (TMC) over our workforce is not a good thing.

We cannot expect people to fit in, be enthusiastic about coming to work, and be innovative and productive in their jobs--when they have to constantly be on guard--watching what they say and what they do, and worrying about making any mistake. 

Assuming that people are not doing anything that hurts themselves or others, I think we should give people more room to breath, be themselves, and to self-actualize.

Holding the reins too tightly on workers, risks developing a cookie-cutter workforce--where everyone must look-alike, talk-alike, and think-alike--like virtual automatons--and such a telling and controlling environment destroys the very motivated, creative, and entrepreneurial workforce we desire and need to be globally competitive and individually fulfilled. 

Best practices for teleworking, flexible work schedules, and clubs and activities at work that let people be human and themselves--makes for a happier, more committed, and more productive workforce. 

Creating climates of workplace sterility, and fear and intimidation for every miscued word or imperfect deed--is neither realistic for human beings that are prone to make mistakes--nor conducive to learning and growing to be the best that each person can be.

I am not a generation Y'er, but I appreciate people who are real, words that are sincere, and deeds that are their personal best--whether it's the way I would do it or not. 

Yes, don't talk and act stupid at work--and shame yourself or others with hateful or abusive behavior--but do feel free to be honestly you as an individual and as a contributor to the broader team--that is better than a zombie army of worker bees who faithfully watch every word and constrain every deed. 

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Irregular Shed)

When TMI Is PC

Technology Forecast 2013

I am an avid follower of everything technology and trends, but am tired of hearing about cloud, mobile, and social computing. 

It's time to get over it with the agenda of the past and get on with it with the future of technology. 

Here is my "Technology Forecast 2013" and the top 8 trends I see going forward:

1) Service Provision--Cost-cutting and consolidation into the cloud is a wonderful idea and it has had it's time, but the future will follow consumer products, where one flavor does not fit all, and we need to have globalization with a local flavor to provide for distinct customer requirements and service differentiators, as well as classified, proprietary and private systems and information. 

2) Service Delivery--Mobile is here and the iPhone is supreme, but the future belongs to those that deliver services not only to remote devices, but in wearable, implantable, and even human augmentation. 

3) Human Interaction--Social computing epitomized by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more is a cool way in interact with others virtually, but wall posts, email, and chats are getting cliche--next up conjoining with others with capabilities such as telepathic communication, mind melding collaboration, and even virtual sex for the outlandish. 

4) Robotics and Artificial Intelligence--With something like 10,000 drones flying the friendly and not-so friendly skies and even drones that autonomously land on aircraft carriers, the next robot is coming to the ground near you--drones will become (an)droids and will eventually have the AI to become part of our everyday society. 

5) Service Assurance--Enough playing defense with a sprinkling of offense against our worst enemies--it's past time to move from trying to stop-gap infiltrators and do damage control once we've been robbed blind, and instead move to a hunter-killer mentality and capability--the price of being a bad boy on the Internet goes way up and happens in realtime. 

6) Data Analytics--Big data isn't a solution, it's the problem. The solution is not snapshot pretty graphics, but realtime augmented reality--where data is ingrained in everything and transparent realtime--and this becomes part of our moment-by-moment decision processes.

7) Biotechnology--Biometrics sounds real cool--and you get a free palm reading at the same time, but the real game changer here is not reading people's bio signatures, but in creating new ones--with not only medical cures, but also new bio-technological capabilities. 

8) Nanotechnology--Still emerging, quantum mechanics is helping us delve into the mysteries of the universe, with applications for new and advanced materials, but the new buzzword will be nano-dust, where atomic and molecular building blocks can be used on-the-fly to build anything, be anywhere, and then recycled into the next use.   

Overall, I see us moving from mass produced, point-to-point solutions to more integrated end-to-end solutions that fit individual needs--whether through continued combinations of hardware, software, and services, man-machine interfaces/integration, and building blocks that can be shaped and reused again and again. 

From my perspective, there a seeming lull in innovation, but the next big leap is around the corner. 

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

Technology Forecast 2013