Learning, Technology & Change

Maybe the internet isn't forever after all. New services are popping up to enable you to privately share messages with a select few, and to even have them self-destruct at a given time/interval. Some high-profile people with a penchant for sending pics (looking at you Carlos Danger) should Love this. In the era of domestic surveillance and the realization that most tech companies are complicit is this the silver bullet? Maybe not. Just because it's deleted from public consumption, how long does it take the site's respective crawlers to get it? Accessible and deleted are two different things.  How will FB and Twitter feel about being used less as a publisher and more as a temporary broadcast medium. You might think that's what they were... you would be wrong. The ability to broadcast and store your thoughts, ideas and drunken outbursts for future consumption is a part of their value proposition. Are their respective graphs as valuable without storing everything? If...

One month ago we cut cable - so far so good.  I took this as a personal challenge to make this process as smooth and positive as possible. It still is a change, but with a little prep work it has gone really well so far. Recap: We (a family of 5) cut our Cable TV provider, upped our ISP package and replaced our homephone line with a free VOIP alternative. We also employ a DIY antenna. For a full description of the setup see here . Kids are definitely watching less TV. There are less occasions where the TV sits on as background noise. Those moments of respite where we need to occupy the kids were my biggest concern. More on that later. I'm using subscriptions for TVO's the Agenda and the Big Think so I have something interesting to watch if I was bored. I'm most proud of the fact that we no longer live in the continuous "breaking news" death grip of CP24. I don't need live coverage of the Royal Baby's baptism or first bowel movement. In reality Netflix is...

There was a great article in Macleans last week on how medical sensors are close to being sold to consumers. I have a few hypochondriac friends who will be all over this. Beyond that this could have huge implications for our current healthcare system. So much time and cost is put into minor diagnoses with people clogging up clinics and emergency rooms, convinced they have ebola. This could make a huge difference in wait times and unnecessary diagnoses. Imagine being able to check if the bug you have is bacterial and viral. Will people still want to go to the Dr? Most of the time folks simply want piece of mind. The hospital ER is the best place to rule everything out, but most are willing to clog up a walk-in or their family doctor's office. If you could plug in your smartphone read the throat swab yourself, wouldn't you take that convenience? "So many great apps who's got time to make friends"-Macklemore Being able to get more data on your health throughout...

A great post by Andrew McAfee on the technological obsolescence of car gadgets. In a time where keeping a cell phone for more than 2 years feels painfully long, a touchscreen interface in your car can be asking for trouble. Car companies are trying to use consumer electronic integration as a differentiator. My car has the nav/dvd/jukebox and I love it. However  I plan on  keeping this car for quite some time. That interface will be quite the antique by then when compared to other consumer electronics. My biggest concern with this car is the battery (hybrid) but second to that is the touchscreen has my climate controls, radio Everything. I would have to replace that screen at who knows how much, and being a 3+ year old car it's unlikely there will be an updated interface. If cars were to be more modular we'd need some open interface with rules around it for safety purposes. No movies or attention-grabbing apps should run while the car is docked. Perha...

As an owner of a Flip camera, I was disappointed to hear that Cisco has decided to sunset it's Flip camera operations.At the same time I see the same writing on the wall that motivated this move.  The handheld video market has been sandwiched in two directions. First from smartphones and their increasingly better cameras in a highly portable multi-purpose device, and second from Digital SLRs shooting HD video in better quality. As an owner myself, with the wife's iphone and my android, the flip, continued to be forgotten at home. And most importantly, not missed. It remains a great niche device, but I like many others I suspect are willing to sacrifice the user experience for portability. This was a  great device at home with a young baby, but newer smartphones and more critical things to pack like diapers, food and drink.  Despite our 1st world entitlement people make some (small) sacrifices in quality for portability (see mp3). In our disposable culture, many new tech...

Sadly on Friday Bloglines announced that they will be shutting down the site on Friday. Why? What does this mean? Officially they cite focus, but really it's a shrinking non-profitable product. Other sites like Netvibes and Pageflakes have worked to integrate and try and monetize their users better, they've branded and added features like podcasting.  The RSS aggregator itself has been completely commoditized by browsers, email and even some OS'. Worse than that is Twitter. When RSS came out, it was a huge productivity hack. "Push" enabled content authors to get content to all audiences without them having to continually check for themselves. Getting an RSS update was knowing when new content was there as quick as you could check your page. It was like real time. But it wasn't, now twitter - that is real-time. While RSS has grown immensely in popularity (hence the commoditization) anyone I know who doesn't bear a self-appointed geek badge doesn't k...

I have been a huge proponent of NetVibes and start pages in general. RSS has such potential, I still evangelize to friends on the benefits of creating a start page and monitoring their favourite sites. The ability to aggregate great content and not have to actively find it is great. It's basically putting a filter on the web. Sure some articles will lead to others but for the most part I have a "manageable" container of key information. The manageable concept is a tricky one. As I come across new sites and blogs, I add feeds while deleting few. I find myself now with 9 pages with 12+ feeds per page. There is a lot of great content. The idea of important vs urgent is different in my surfing. A lot of surfing is about staying current. Sticking to the same RSS feeds will keep me current on the topics of my chosen sites but not at a larger view. I as a person look to adapt and stay current. Feeds typically stay focussed on their niches. Twitter provides a very current vie...

Every time you repeat a task, make progress on automating it. It doesn’t have to be big… It just has to be progress I came across this from one of my favourite twitter feeds venturehacks . Pointing to this article on Emergent Properties of Continuous Automation . There are so many mundane tasks that I have great ideas towards automating and making more efficient. Typically my great ideas require a lot of effort. A more incremental approach could diminish the pain each iteration. The big point is that it's not a big massively funded project. It's not some impressive consultant it's a mindset a change in your culture. Not easy to do, but immensely rewarding.

Friends returning from a trip to asia always comment on the archaic nature of the technology here. When one person goes, friends are putting in orders for new phones /cameras etc. Why is it we won't see this technology in N. america for another few years? Those with access to the asian market get to be all superior for "pfft that's soo two years ago". A post on the wikinomics blog argues that it's our fault. We are satisfied with 3 yr cellphone contracts and 5 yr workstation lifecycles. Many offices run XP desktops connecting to windows 2000 servers. Since we do not demand cutting edge tech we don't get it. We are satisifed with our phones and music players. It's our fault. I strongly disagree. It's not our fault. I do'nt think it's a fault at all. I would argue that the hyperactive technical obsolescence of asia is not a virtue. Technology for the sake of technology is not something I aspire for. Tossing out a perfectly good piece of techno...

I'm not a rocker by any stretch of the imagination. But i do love me some Rock Band. Perhaps since i'm a failed wannabe drummer and just a bit of coordination in this game will take you a long way. I have Rock Band for the Wii, and while I do love it, I am a bit envious of PS3 & Xbox folks that can download tracks and add to their catalog. One aspect that is the natural evolution of this game is bringing song creation to the masses. Looking at MySpace and what it's done to create a groundswell for music artists, Rockband could be the next big thing. Myspace allowed artists to connect with fans in a much more intimate way. Fans had access to songs pre-release, or web-only songs, artists blogs. Communities were created which inspired loyalty, the artists built their brand on this. Now picture how fans will feel if they go to their favourite indy artist's site and can download their songs to play along. I think that's something they'd pay for. By putting it on...

Rapid eLearning tools are becoming a standard. The ability to quickly create content develop interactions without web developer skills is a necessity. The reduction in the cost of instruction is amazing. The great thing with these tools are that anyone can create learning content. The problem is - anyone can create content. The argument being made is that unqualified people are creating bad content (powerpoint, word documents, Email...). Providing tools to improve the quality of the content can't hurt. I think a larger benefit can be had by automating how we build content. Can we create a tool to help the author analyze the information? Is it declarative knowledge (perhaps more user-friendly questions)? If so then these are the ways you should present the information. Is it procedural knowledge, then try this. Maybe in some sort of wizard format. You create the learning objectives and determine the knowledge type. From there you could drill down and get more detailed. Perhaps som...

There is a significant amount of noise these days. Much of Knowledge Management is about helping people cope with the massive amounts of information available to them. George Siemens had a nice little post that got me thinking. Knowledge workers are bombarded with email, IM, twitter etc. New media is becoming more centred on commercial-size chunks. YouTube videos and micro-blogs are a perfect example. Finding the time to listen to a 20 minute podcast feels daunting at times. I really feel my ability to focus has been compromised by too much time multi-tasking. In the moments where I have important tasks to complete I find difficulty focusing on it to just "git'er done". I'm far too used to just clicking a link and going down the rabbit hole. Related Posts Shut UP already Multi-tasking?

With developers apparently jumping off the bandwagon it's natural to assume users will follow. As less development occurs other tools will become more integrated and easier to use. As a user do you care? if i move to friendfeed, getting reconnected would be a pain, but i'm not really leaving much behind. Links are bookmarked in del.icio.us. Personally I don't really favourite many tweets. If I like a link I tag it. The real-time nature of twitter doesn't translate that well for long-term value. Related Links: http://staynalive.com/articles/2008/06/19/developers-bailing-on-twitter/

There's a growing debate amongst the effect of cellphones while driving. While it would seem to be logical that cellphones would increase the rate of accidents. However a recent study proved otherwise. A study of regions that have banned cellphones while driving reported no decrease in the rate of accidents. There is some difficulty in producing hard data as to whether accidents are reduced. How many people will admit to being on the phone? Within the learning field there is a similar discussion about the effect of distracting the user through different forms of media. So if accidents aren't decreasing, this seems to elude to two options. 1) Cellphones aren't a distraction 2) Drivers are still using their cellphones People for banning cellphones would argue that the number of accidents involving phones are going down. Those opposed to the ban point to stats and state that it doesn't make a difference. So it follows that other types of accidents are going up. So a third...

I like twitter, really i do. But it's not a good signal to noise ratio. I'm trying to be very selective on who I follow. I'm extra careful with my notifications. but it's increasingly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. I understand the value in getting closer in touch with people through these life streams. Part of why i follow people is to find insight and perspective. The aimless blabber with some twitter streams is tough to justify. Why must it be justified? - Because twitter is eating into my day more and more. following Guy Kawasaki & Jeremiah Owyang along could be a part-time job. I follow a selected few, and don't read everything, how on earth do people with hundreds or thousands manage? Are they ignored for the most part except for the occasional trip to twitterland? With the lack of good search tools (hash tags are a good step) what's the point in all those followers are people really keeping up or are they just basing it on chance? Te...

On Oct 24th Microsoft valued Facebook at a remarkable 15 BILLION dollars. By investing 240 million for a measely 1.6% 'strategic interest'. So what does that mean? My take: Microsoft is trying to remain relevant against the big G. Microsoft's stock continues to stay flat while Google continues to sky-rocket. Google is making large in-roads with SAAS. Ultimately MS' market-domination will fade as more common tools are to the web and become less OS dependant. So how can they recover? how can they regain the eyeballs of the world? By strategically partnering with the web's current darling - Facebook. There's a huge rash of new development happening in facebook. Startups are being launched with the express intents of creating apps just for facebook. The marketing potential is incredible. The amount of time people are spending on facebook is ridiculous . So, again - what's this got to do with MS? Let's say in Jan 08 or at least before their quarterly repor...

With the new Wii and their game development kit, this could be an incredible opportunity for learning. Nintendo has done a remarkable job already with mental fitness in the DS. The ceiling for the Wii is incredible. The ability to work in 3 dimensions, combined with tactile feedback could provide for a great learning experience. Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes will admit that this is not just another game system. Gamers and non-gamers alike love the new experience the Wii provides. Hopefully the learning community can jump on this new development kit and build something special to help take human performance to the next level.