jeffhester.net

• Downloading the Lotus Notes 8.5 beta for OSX #
• Holy moley, what a long day. One more meeting to go (at 8pm!) then time for a cold bev. #
• Anyone had success promoting a site with http://www.Spott.com #

• Went to the library tonight. Remember those? #
• Just downloaded Duke Nukem 3D via Xbox Live. A blast from the past. #
• Testing http://www.mydropcard.com #
• Watching the McCain/Obama debate #
• heading to the Race for a Cure in Newport Beach with Lynn #

Earlier this month at the Office 2.0 conference, I ran out of business cards. Maybe it’s happened to you. You fumble around in your pocket and come up empty-handed. Somehow I was caught off guard. I put in a new order online (our company has at least automated all of that), but still hadn’t received the shipment before I left for the Knowledge Leadership Forum two weeks later. 

Dropcard aims to solve that problem, and could even eliminate the need for business cards altogether–a very green idea. I read about Dropcard on WebWorkerDaily and immediately saw how I could’ve used this.

How it works

The concept is simple. You register on Dropcard and can create two profiles: business and personal. You control how much or little information you want to share. When you want to send your “business card” to someone, you do so either via text message to 41411. When I meet Bill G., I can ask for his email, then send him my Dropcard by texting drop billg@windows.com to 41411. 

If you’re using an iPhone, you can thank your lucky starts and skip the text message, opting instead to use the clean, web interface you see to the right. Either way, it’s quick and easy. 

What happens next?

Once you send an instruction to send someone your contact info, they get a nicely formated email with all your details and a vCard attachment for quick import to Outlook. 

Dropcard allows you to enter multiple phones, addresses, chat networks, websites and personal profile addresses. 

There are no advertisements. Dropcard is supported by paid subscriptions. With a free account, you can send up to 15 Dropcards per month. $4.99 a month gives you as many as 20 profiles, and the ability to send up to 100 Dropcards per month. $9.99 a month gives you unlimited Dropcards. 

Oh yeah, my old skool carbon-based business cards did finally arrive this week. I’m not ready to ditch them, but Dropcard will be a handy backup in the future. 

Check out Dropcard.

• Had a wonderful Sunday with Lynn. Went to the aquarium, followed by brunch at Sevilla, a movie, then napping in front of a football game. #
• Today, flying from LA to Dulles for a Knowledge Leadership Forum in Annapolis. #
• Testing inflight wifi on AA flight to DC using http://www.gogoinflight.com — not bad so far. #
• In Annapolis for the Knowledge Leadership Forum, Day 2. #
• At Dulles waiting for my flight to LA #
• Online at 38,000 feet again. Flying home (can’t wait!) Thanks to AA for adding inflight wifi — greatest thing since sliced bread! #
• @opriusceo and how’s it looking? in reply to opriusceo #
• Back home in Southern California #
• I agree with @Scobleizer — wishing there were some iPhone upgrades. For now, I’ll stick with Hahlo. But I’m liking the Twitter web update. #
• Talking to the love of my life… God, I love her so. And she’s not making me write this! Ow! Stop squeezing my neck!!! #
• Interesting, Quarta Mobile announces a version of Windows CE 6.0 tailored for MIDs (mobile internet devices) http://snipr.com/3rpmz #
• Just made a contribution to the Obama campaign. #
• Just read: Trust your employees (or fire them) http://ping.fm/ri8Bv(Or-Fire-Them)-50695.htm #
• Battling a nasty memory leak on BBC. #
• Rosa Maria is back, looking and running like new again! #
• oneConnect on the iPhone is very cool. Very. #

Being the weekend, I’m sharing something a little more recreational in nature.

When I first bought my iPhone 3G (same day they came out), the lines were horrendous. But I did have plenty of time to learn about the new apps that were available. The Apple store employees were showing off their favorite apps, one of which was Midomi.

Midomi essentially let’s you find songs when you don’t know the name or even the artist. You can hold it to the radio and it will tell you the artist, the song title, the album and even provide links to YouTube videos and the ability to purchase the song on iTunes. But even more impressive, you can hum or sing a bit of the song and Midomi will find it for you… usually.

I didn’t really get the appeal of Midomi when the guy in the Apple store described it, so it wasn’t until a week ago that I downloaded it and gave it a try. The verdict? Midomi is FUN!

This week when I was driving to Dulles airport, I had the radio tuned to a classic rock station, and heard a song that I wanted to add to my personal library. I fired up Midomi,

Midomi records about 10-15 seconds of the song, sends it to their server and returns a list of matches. In my experience, grabbing songs from a radio was extremely accurate.

To purchase via iTunes, you must be connected via wifi. Since I was on the road, I just added a bookmark so I could return later and purchase the song.

Now for the real fun…

Midomi is useful, but the real fun begins when you try singing or humming a song. Lynn and I were cracking up as we tested the accuracy of Midomi (and our singing talent). Here’s how to play:

Get a few friends together. In round robin fashion, you challenge your friends to “match” a song from the band or artist of your choice. They choose the song, and sing or hum into Midomi. Who ever gets a match (or the highest match, if you’ve got a group) can decide the next challenge.

Let the laughter ensue.

Seriousness is stupidity sent to college. - PJ O’Rourke

I don’t have any particular reason for sharing this quote, other than it caught my eye while reading today and wanted to capture it. My brain is too full to store it, so I’ll use this little corner of the web to do so. 

If you’ve got a good quote or anectdote about stupidity, please share!

• Good to be home. Lynn’s cooking up vegetarian chili, cornbread and sangria. #
• Thanks to @mastermaq for the DropBox invite. Looks promising! #
• Messing about with Wakoopa. Should be interesting. http://wakoopa.com/jeffhester #
• Just posted panoramic image of Union Square at night, taken while at #o208 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffhester/2841172257/ #
• Yammer unveiled at TechCrunch. Twitter for the Enterprise? At least they have a business model that could work. http://www.yammer.com #
• Installing iTunes 8 on both my PowerBook and my XP desktop. Looking forward to playing with Genius playlists. #
• Testing Yahoo oneConnect for the iPhone. Not shabby. Http://tinyurl.com/65a642 #
• Hmmm.. that last tweet was from oneConnect. Didn’t convert the URL or identify where it was sent from. http://tinyurl.com/65a642 #
• @SmartBoyDesigns, here’s my 8 word analysis: Joomla is “easier” and Drupal is “more flexible.” I’ve used both, so I know. in reply to SmartBoyDesigns #
• Not surprised that http://www.yammer.com/ got the top award at #TC50, even if it is a twitter knock-off. I’ve already set it up for #Fluor. #
• @opriusceo for what it’s worth, iTunes 8 is working fine for me (on both OS X and XP). Still need to test Vista. I like the Genius playlist! in reply to opriusceo #
• Addicted to Spore Origins on my iPhone. Stupid simple and beautiful. #
• Just wished daughter-in-law Cheriann the best for her baby shower. Still can’t believe I’m going to be a grandpa! #
• Saturday morning is a great time for getting in touch with my inner geek. #
• Watching USC tromp Ohio State #
• Lynn and I are contemplating hiking England’s Coast-to-Coast trail in 2009. #
• @tigerblade delicious is working for me. Just added a new bookmark. in reply to tigerblade #

Last week, Google launched their own web browser: Google Chrome. It’s lean and very fast, and it’s now my default browser at home. When I first heard about Chrome, I was curious, but not expecting much. A browser is a browser, right?

After using it for a week now, I can say I’m sold. It’s got some great features for users of all types. Best of all, it’s simple, clean and uncluttered. It mostly stays out the way and lets you make the most of your browsing experience.

I won’t go into the details, since you can get a great overview from Google’s Chrome site, but I was surprised to see Chrome take off at BigBlueBall, where today’s stats show that over 4% of the visitors to the site used Chrome. Pretty amazing for a browser that’s still in beta and barely a week old.

Currently Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista, but word is that every day Sergey asks the Chrome team when the OS X version will be ready.

Google Chrome website

• Google announced the winners of the $10 million Android Developers Competition: http://snipr.com/3lx2r #
• Just setup my Office 2.0 email. Looking forward to the conference (starts on Wednesday in SF). #
• As much as I love Photoshop, I’m really glad Flickr integrated Picnik. #
• @chrispirillo Mac and Linux versions of Chrome will be here within weeks. in reply to chrispirillo #
• Watching Google’s Chrome announcement. Looks pretty awesome! #
• Google Chrome and Wordpress don’t play nice. #
• Testing Ping.fm (now that it’s open) #
• at the Office 2.0 Unconference #
• in the Cloud Stuff session #
• Participating in The Collaboratory #
• Reframeit.com is worth a closer look. Thanks to Bobby Fishkin for the overview. #
• Listening to David Allen discuss the GTD methodology at Office 2.0 #
• David Allen uses Jott.com #
• 2. Clarify #
• 1. Capture #
• David Allen also promotes the “zero inbox” every 24 hours. #
• Interesting — David Allen’s company uses Lotus Notes, and has more databases than staff. #
• David Allen suggests that zero inbox is akin to showering daily #o208 #
• Matthew promoting Google’s realtime translation bots for Google Talk #o208. Duh… http://tinyurl.com/65f97k #
• The translation bot usage seems like a big stretch. #o208 #
• Hmm… TripIt.com looks pretty effin cool. iCal import and iPhone interface. Must check it out #o20 #
• I need to look in to using Forms with Google Docs. Looks like it doesn’t suck. #o208 #
• http://code.google.com/apis/v8/run.html gives a nice javascript benchmark showing the performance gains in Chrome. #o208 #
• We might actually be able to use Google Video for Business #o208 #
• The HP 2133 Mini-Note keyboard cramps my fingers. #
• Dr. Sukh Grewal from GE up next to discuss their SupportCentral case study #
• The org chart view in SupportCentral gets 100k views per day. #o208 #
• Sukh:Simple and quick trumps elaborate and beautiful (in community design) #o208 #
• Sukh: In a mature community, they see about 100 document downloads per question asked. #o208 #
• Interesting — integrating Zoho for document creation, effectively cutting out the need for Microsoft Office licenses. #o208 #
• Hmmm… in SupportCentral, questions can be asked online OR by phone. Interesting. #o208 #
• 100 surveys are created every day in SupportCentral. #o208 #
• I second that motion! @SamLawrence #o208 #
• Disappointed that the definition of “online community” in this panel seems to learn towards external. What about inside the firewall? #o208 #
• @marilynpratt absolutely! I don’t care about products. I care about people and process. #o208 in reply to marilynpratt #
• David Allen, I’m not multi-tasking; I’m ignoring you. #o208 #
• FWIW, Windows Messenger Live also has a translation bot: http://tinyurl.com/67p7hx #
• sits behind and watches @brucephenry tweet like a madman during the Money 2.0 panel. #o208 #
• @idarose the problem is the ratio of practioners:people selling something. #o208 in reply to idarose #
• If you want Chrome on yer Mac, you can sign up here to be notified by Google when it’s ready: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/mac.html #
• @GeorgeAtha yeah, I don’t really care to listen to a bunch of vendors tell me why documents matter. Add practicioners! #o208 in reply to GeorgeAtha #
• @bigs got a cable here in the second row #o208 in reply to bigs #
• @olivermarks gave @elsua kudos for working without email (a barrier to adoption of collaboration tools) #o208 in reply to olivermarks #
• Newsgator is the underlying technology behind Lockheed-Martin’s collaboration environment?! Didn’t see that coming. #o208 #
• @SamLawrence Sharepoint + Newsgator = meh (IMO) in reply to SamLawrence #
• Heading to the Zoho party. #
• Enjoyed the conversations tonight with Doug and Allen. Goodnight, world. #
• @opriusceo yes, brisk walk, warm weather and loaded backpack = sweaty back. in reply to opriusceo #
• Adobe Genesis collaboration system leverages the web and local apps, but in a desktop client rather than a browser. Risky? #o208 #
• Genesis workspaces can include AIR apps, web pages, file repositories, etc., and can be shared. Reminiscent of Groove in some ways #o208 #
• Adobe Genesis caters to the 10% (engaged users). Not really suitable for the other 90%, IMO #o208 #
• Interesting that reduced travel was the justification for Wachovia’s collaboration environ #o208 #
• Thanks to @GeorgeAtha and @DT for the great overview of Wordframe: http://wordframe.com/ #o208 #
• The Tesla case study is about to begin, and the ballroom has about 27 people in attendance. Where’d all the people go? #o208 #
• The Ford dealer just called with bad news. The entire rear axle and differential on my GT needs to be rebuilt. Maybe I should get a Tesla? #
• Breakfast at DeLucci in North Beach #
• en route to SFO. Heading home to my baby. #
• Took a little walking tour around San Francisco this morning: http://ping.fm/WyLbU #
• @brunoL I agree about Cruise. He played a great asshole. in reply to brunoL #

This week, I’ll be attending the Office 2.0 conference in San Francisco. Most of my colleagues and friends gave me quizzical looks when I told them about the conference, wondering why on earth I’d want to go to a conference about Microsoft Office. Office 2.0 may be about a lot of things, but it’s most certainly not about a certain well-known suite of programs from a company in Redmond.

So what is Office 2.0?

For starters, it’s the name of the conference described on the web site as “…a collective experiment organized every year in San Francisco, CA and aimed at discovering the future of online productivity & collaboration. It is a unique gathering of visionaries, thought leaders, and customers using innovative online services for getting things done at the office, at home, and on the go.”

Wikipedia describes Office 2.0 as “…a marketing neologism representing the concepts of office productivity applications as published applications rather than stand-alone programs. The term leverages the Web 2.0 concept to conjure imagery of collaborative, community based and centralised effort rather than the more traditional application running on a platform locally.”

So just as Web 2.0 embraces the community and user-generated content, Office 2.0 explores new ways of working in a primarily online, collaborative environment.

I’ve seen firsthand success with collaborative online communities, particularly with the online, community-centric approach Fluor has taken with knowledge management. Distributed ownership, administration and accountability, coupled with a culture that encourages every voice to be heard has proven to be not only extremely effective, but essential to success.

In the spirit of “eating your own dogfood” the conference is paperless. Instead, each participant is given an HP 2133 Mini-Note running Linux, with wireless access to all of the tools necessary during the conference: Google Apps for email and calendaring; ClearSpace for discussions, blogging and publishing; Zoho for presentations and so on. On Wednesday, we will split into teams and respond to a simulated enterprise crisis in which we’ll put all these tools to work to solve the problem.

I’m looking forward to meeting others who are applying these concepts to support their business strategy, and learning innovative ways to stimulate similar success throughout the enterprise.

The Challenge

Probably the largest challenge to Office 2.0 is breaking down the barriers put up by IT Czars and establishing trusted, reliable ways to work outside the firewall and in the cloud. Most enterprises are leery, and rightly so, of putting their eggs in someone else’s basket. It will be interesting to see how other companies are tackling this issue.

Check back here and via Twitter, and I will keep you posted throughout the week from Office 2.0.