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Thrilling HEMA??!!
Dutch Business Blog Meeting
Yesterday I attended the second Dutch business blog meeting. Wonderful event, Marco did a great job organizing it. Lovely to meet Dutch blog enthousiasts (although the number of female participants was a bit disappointing, since I was the only woman in the room). No extensive blogging about the event from my side so far. It's too hot, my hay fever is at it's peak and I'm not feeling all that well. Just some quick quotes from the speakers:
Steffan Fellinger: "Authenticity is more powerful than commercial approach."
Neville Hobson: "The new watercooler: hosted blogservices."
Ton Zijlstra: "Knowledge management does not exist."
Moving forward
New gadget - SPV M500
Realizing I couldn't head of to Reboot without carrying electronic gadgets (hey, notebooks and digital camera's are so passé) I went to the Orange shop and picked up a new phone (in case you're wondering: I signed up for two more years and they give me the thing for free). I've been a user of the classic SPV for two years now and beside the usual Windows crash every now and then, I've been a happy user. I liked the way I could adjust everything, file things the way I like, download skins that meet my needs (a big clock e.g.). What I noticed is that I like the agenda function. If I take my phone with me, which is almost all the time, the agenda comes with it. And it synchronizes with Outlook pretty well. What I missed on the classic SPV was the ability to write something down fast. Therefore I carried a foldable keyboard in my bag, but it still took time to click in the phone and start typing. That is why I've chosen to experiment with a PocketPC Smartphone, the Orange SPV M500 (practically the same as the T-mobile MDA compact, i-mate Jam or Qtek S100).
After a getting-to-know-each-other-session during the ride to Copenhagen, we understood each other well enough to at least use the basic functions. I really love to take little notes with the stylus without having to type frantically on my notebook. It feels less obtrusive grabbing the PPC to make some notes than opening a laptop. I like the look and feel of the little machine. It's got a slick design, the stylus fits in very good without having to worry about losing it (a spare in the box). Orange was very kind to include a 512 MB SD memory card as well, so I immediately transferred some music to listen to on the road. The sound quality is not that great (especially when you have to turn all volume levels to the max whilst sitting on the train with all the windows open on a hot afternoon), but I think it would be great for listening to some 'talk'-podcasts.
Big downside so far: I would love to twist the lay-out of the today-screen (that's jargon), but in contrast with the 'normal' SPV phones you have to pay for software that supports the cool stuff. Enough themes that are available for free, but I'd like to display a clock in the middle of the screen. So far I haven't found anything that is free and works on my machine. But probably I'll just need to search a bit more.
Rebooted alright
Such an event like Reboot 7 is definitely constructive for the mind, but destructive for the body. Ton and I arrived back from Cophagen Sunday evening. Yesterday I experienced the great backlash from 4 days of driving, talking, listening, blogging, IRC-ing and little sleeping. My body and mind switched to slumber mode to be rebooted today (although the starting up did take some time). I've had a great time in Copenhagen (even though my body disagrees with me). I met so many people, some I already met before (Johnnie, Lee, Martin, Felix, Flemming), others I've read on-line for some time (Dina, Stuart, James) and some new faces are on my radar (Jon and Jesper, Trine-Maria, Dave). This was definitly the best conference I attended so far. I think Thomas did a very good job and I'll hope to be there next year (maybe as a presenter?)!
Jyri Engeström - object-centered sociality
Excellent talk from Jyri centered around the question why so many social networking platforms fail. He explained how social networks emerge: networks emerge around objects. The representation of social networks in node diagrams are good at representing links between the people, but it doesn't explain what connects those particular people and others not. If you look at networks centered around certain dates, they look completely different from your network centered around your job. Jyri explained why a lot of people will have lost contact with friends in high-school. As soon as you leave school, the objects around which the network of friends are centered will dissolve (he refers to doing homework together, going out together). Without the object, the network will dissolve as well. He compared YASNS as Linked-In as a way of ladder-climbing. If you've reached the top, what will happen then? The platform is built upon a competitive model. In networks we sort of play, but not only in the competitive sense. New platforms should integrate more forms of play to be successful.
I have some difficulties with the term object Jyri uses. Is making homework an object? What would be an on-line object we play around? A tag in a physical space could be an object, but does a network emerge around the tag? In current YASN's many people 'tag' the place they live in, but are networks emerging from that? As current platforms already offer this type of tagging and they still don't seem to work, what is needed in the design of a platform to do make it work? I need to chew on this a bit longer, but it certainly is an interesting topic. Read Jyri's full argument.
Reboot 7 - day 2
The second day of Reboot 7 arrived and we've already listened to two key notes from Cory Doctorow and Christian Lindholm. I'm still in the process of waking up. Yesterday was long, intensive, magnificent and exhausting. I takes enough effort listening to the speakers, so you'll have to wait for some notes.
Jimmy Wales - Wikipedia revealed
Some interesting number by the founder of Wikipedia:
- 522 people contribute more than 50% of the content
- 1474 people are responsible for 73.4% of the content
- 3 people are responsible for 1/3 of all edits in pages
Douglas Engelbart - 1968
We've been watching a demo of the early days of text editing and linking by Douglas Engelbart. Amazing that's the demo was recorded in 1968 and breathes a modern voice. Using headsets we still use nowadays, switching live via video conferencing, using multiple screens, showing what the system does and how it works. Man, he already invented the mouse . I remember the first home computer my father bought (Atari 800 XL) somewhere in 1985-ish. A PC with mouse came in the early nineties (and we were early adopters in our neighborhood). Amazing to see. Even more amazing is the fact that we've had live contact with Engelbart before and after watching the demo. Gosh, this is recorded 10 years before I even was born. Why did it take so long to become mainstream?
Live at reboot - Johnnie Moore and James Cherkoff
Just attended the workshop from Johnnie and James on open source marketing. Excellent! No death by powerpoint! Interesting remarks:
Q: Lee Bryant - I don't want to be involved in conversations with many companies.
A: Johnnie Moore - It's a matter of choosing how open you want to be as a company. (THE PULSE) (See also what Charles Leadbeater said at CC about the continuum)
reboot 7.0 - Geek fest
I'm Sitting in the conference room for reboot and what a geek fest it is. Everyone seems to have an Apple. Hope to do some live blogging today. If you've been wondering where I was lately, I've been cut of my internet connection at home for a few days. Since my blog runs on our home server, Communigations was of the air as well. But now it's up and running again. More to come soon!!!
