Month: November 2006

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My Fault

I’m in Camberley for the next couple of days, and had a very full weekend. Some good friends from Yorkshire came down for the weekend, and Paul and I went to the England-South Africa rugby match at Twickenham. As a result, I’m just now catching up.

So while I catch my breath, I thought I’d share a humorous anecdote forwarded by co-worker Rob Koene. It’s a good example of the great divide that sometimes occurs between management and engineering.

My Fault
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted,

“Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an engineer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman, “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded,

“You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems.

The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

Enjoy!

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Flickr files patent for ‘Interestingness’

You know I’m a big fan of Flickr. The online photo community has, for me, been fun, useful, amusing, educational and immensely interactive. Flickr helped popularize the whole concept of folksonomy tagging. And their secret formula for calculating ‘interestingness’ has an uncanny knack for surfacing truly amazing photos.

What exactly is interestingness? Well, it’s a method of calculating which photos are the most interesting, using information such as the tags used to describe the photo, how many times it’s been viewed, how many comments it’s received, the age of the photo, how many times it’s been saved as a favorite, and by whom — and probably a few other factors. The combination yields delightful results. Whereas Google’s image search reveals what you expect (the mediocre stuff), Flickr’s interestingness factor delivers the exceptional. Tim O’Reilly recently described a perfect example of Flickr’s interestingness in action.

The beauty of interestingness, as explained by Yahoo!’s own Bradley Horowitz, is that it exponentially expands the pool of participation within a community. People participate in the process of establishing interestingness without necessarily doing anything. Which is exactly what community builders want; a way to get the lurkers and the consumers to share their knowledge and insights.

Ok, so interestingness is a good thing, right? Well, now Yahoo has filed a patent application on interestingness.  Now I can understand that Yahoo! wants to protect their secret sauce, but isn’t that really limited to the weight factor they give each variable in their interestingness equation? If they are awarded the patent, does this mean I can’t take usage metrics to derive results in other arenas, like serving up the most interesting/salient/relevant knowledge? And really, is the concept of relevancy (however it’s defined) really new?
I love Flickr, and I like Yahoo! But this patent is too broad and filled with “uninterestingness.” Let’s hope it dies quietly.

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From the stratosphere to the blogosphere

Online in the airSix-and-a-half hour flights can be long. Fortunately, Lufthansa business class provides some amazing services that make the time fly by.

First, there is a standard power outlet, so I can plug my laptop without any sort of adapter. This is important because even with the super-sized battery for my Thinkpad, it still burns through it in about 90 minutes. Second, they have free broadband Internet access. Called Connexion, it’s provided by Boeing and Lufthansa is one of the only airlines to offer it. And third, it works with the wireless network adapter on my laptop. No cables to tangle with or trip over on my way to the lavatory.

I’m able to run browse multiple websites, sign into Sametime at the office, WLM Messenger and even control my DVR at home via Slingbox. I think that qualifies me for the geek of the week award, don’t you?

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No Skype for you!

It’s been said that necessity is the mother of invention. When I ask my co-workers back home if they’ve heard of Skype, most respond with something like “What’s Skype?” In the U.S., unless you make frequent calls overseas, you don’t need to worry about VoIP technology like Skype. Long distance phone calls are generally cheap or free, depending on your phone plan.

But if you live in Dubai like my co-worker Laurie, calls can get expensive. And so, out of necessity, people learn about Vonage, Skype and other VoIP solutions. Which is cool. I love this stuff. I use Skype regularly and prefer the call quality to my regular phone.

Unfortunately for her (and the other 900,000 expats living in Dubai — about 80% of the population), the national telecom company Etisalat started blocking Skype. Yahoo! Messenger filled the gap for a while, then they found a way to block voice calls on that, too.

I realize that phone companies don’t like the idea of losing revenue, but they need to get onboard or get left behind. They’d do better to provide a decent, competitive VoIP solution themselves, much like AT&T Callvantage. Eventually, technology will provide a way around their blocks, and they’ll get passed by.

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On the Road (or in the air)

As hard as it may seem to be, my quest to become the world’s busiest man has been a big success. Tomorrow, it kicks into high gear with a business trip involving speaking on knowledge management, performing usability testing, and visiting some far flung offices, including:

  • Abu Dhabi and Dubai, United Arab Emirates
  • Kuwait
  • Gliwice, Poland
  • Haarlem (just outside Amsterdam) and Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands
  • Camberly and London, England
  • Madrid and Barcelona, Spain

I won’t be back in California until November 27th. I’ll be online regularly, though in a very different time zone. I’ll be posting updates here, as well as photos on Flickr, so check back regularly.

If you’ve got a suggestion for something I simply must see or do, or would like to meetup for a cup of coffee (or something stronger), leave me a comment.