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This video by Microsoft has not been watched a lot, but it sure demonstrates what kind of digital world we might be getting close to. The neat part is, it’s not just all digital, but a transition from analog experiences to interactive ones.
Watch the part around 4.09 minutes, when the man opens up the newspaper. How different is it from your experience today?
Not that you can scroll through a column, or click on a news item in the newsprint. But think about it: ten years ago, we never thought we would be able to read a newspaper on a phone, did we?
Or use a ‘tablet’ styled laptop in this way. Or take a picture of an icon or bar code and have it link us to content. Which is what Quick Response Codes allow. (See my twinterview on this for more details.)
The critics of this tend to question how useful a hand-held device will be, when ubiquitous computing will make common objects interactive. “Why would the whole world revolve around a single technology (touch screens)?” asks one person commenting on the Microsoft video. Google probably has answered that, now, with its Android. Watch how its navigation application works.
There are so many mashups around us that we have begun to take them for granted. We tend to see more of the video and music variety -like Everyblock and those that are Obama-based. Google has a tool called ‘maplets’ to use the API of their maps.
How about a mashup of a mug and your Twitter followers? Check this out.
So I was glad to hear that there’s a British competition open for mashups, on three themes: Crime, Environment and Health. The winner gets £10,000!
Watching last evening’s live webcast by Bill and Melinda Gates, I liked how Bill zipped past Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, and the Windows logo, to note that these ‘pictures’ don’t compare to something completely different –a chart showing decreasing infant mortality rates.
I love it when presentations don’t use graphics as a crutch. (Love it when the first slide is not the darn company logo, as if to remind the brain dead in the audience as to who is presenting! Full disclosure: I have committed this crime myself, and know it sucks!)
Love it when someone stops a canned PowerPoint preso and uses the flip chart instead to draw some crude Venn diagram or stick figure to explain the point. (If you’ve not read The Back of a Napkin, I highly recommend it, as I have done before like a broken record.)
In somewhat ironic news, this month, Gates (who owns Corbis) supposedly ‘expanded his stock photo empire’ with a small stake in Eastman Kodak.
“In the surround-sound media environment of today, there is no shortage of places you can go to see an expert’s view of business and where it is headed. What I took from the first day of the World Business Forum, however, was just how important passion is as a common thread in the people (and their organizations) who are accomplishing something.”
Rohit Bhargava, on the World Business Forum
“While 60% of employees use word processing daily, only 42% actually create documents.”
Forrester Research report on technology adoption in the workplace.
“In a real-time, social media world, marketing has to react immediately to the successes and shortcomings of operations, product development, legal, finance, customer support, and the idiosyncrasies of company personnel.”
Jason Baer, on how social media gives everything a marketing focus.
“A turtle travels only when it sticks its neck out.”
Tweet by @lspearmanii
“Hi! This is your aspirin bottle calling. I haven’t seen you in a while…”
Peter Svensson, of the Associated Press, on the technology that connects the pill bottle cap to an AT&T network.
“Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?”
George Will, conservative columnist for the washington Post, on Obama’s overuse of words and concepts in his speech at Copenhagen.
“Nice headlamps”
Headline of a billboard ad for a Northern Ireland used-car web site, that got the advertisement banned in the UK. The accompanying visual was not about cars…
Last week Dipnote, the blog by the State Department, turned two.
So much has happened in two years. It was the year that the iPhone debuted, and Microsoft bought a stake in Facebook. A few months before that TIME named all those people creating content and connecting through social media as the ‘Person of the Year’ – the famous “YOU” issue.
Luke Forgerson, Managing Editor of Dipnote
Dipnote took to this new way of communicating with amazing flair. If there is one example of I’ve been using repeatedly to illustrate how any organization could stop firing press releases and start a conversation, it’s been them.
Think about it. Foreign policy to many is as sexy as watching paint dry. But given the right angles –heck, the right to loosen up– and the interest in listening as much as speaking, it turns out to be a different animal.
I have talked to many organizations who are terrified at the thought of saying something that could come back to bite them. Blogs, and videos, and photos pulled from a diverse group of individuals seem like total anarchy to them. It might damage the brand, they fear. The question I get asked a lot is ‘What if someone says something nasty?” –followed by “should we publish that too?”
I won’t go into the responses I give, but you’d think a group of people who represent the brand image of a country must have thought about this a lot. There must be bookshelves of white papers and journals on this subject in their offices. There must be legal advisers shaking their heads in disbelief.
And yet…
If you look at the social media initiatives the State Dept has rolled out over the past few years, these ‘government employees’ seem to take to new media in a way you’d expect of a marketing organization. Maybe they understand that good marketing is all about good communication. It’s more than the ingredients of ‘technology and talent‘ that Sec. Clinton spoke about.
It’s about using social media as an antenna not a bullhorn.
I want to apologize to any of you who follow me on Twitter if you received a direct message from me saying “hey, I made $384 yesterday. this website showed me how.” Apparently my account was hacked because I may have clicked a link in a similar message from others in my network.
I had contacted two senders from whom I received the suspicious DMs with the shortened URL, and thought I was immune. A reader to my post at ValleyPRBlog confirmed that I too had taken the bait.)
So why are we so vulnerable to the garbage that gets passed around the Twittersphere faster than you could say Phish? One word: Trust.
- We screen less: We are so inherently trusting of those in our network, we don’t always take time to check if the email jokes, the ‘Must Read This’ links, or the PPT attachments are safe.
- We click more. I tend to click more on a shortened URL because I see so much of them. The link economy teaches us to prefer clicking on links rather than typing a URL out.
I have made the point elsewhere that there will soon arise Trusted Friends, or Network Curators, and these may not even be major brands; they could be individuals with great credentials. People we value, and… trust like crazy!
Speaking of which, I am about to purchase a book on the subject called Trust Agents –co-authored by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. It comes highly recommended. Brogan’s original thesis for the book was that it was about: “people who use the web in a very human way to build influence, reputation, awareness, and who can translate that into some kind of business value.”
For all those who equate young people and the Me-Generation, with limited interests, take a look at Voices of 21.
It’s a project by students of the University of Pittsburgh, and it’s named for a god reason -to add a 21st ‘voice’ to the 20 global voices at G-20 summit going on in their neck of the woods. It’s goal is
to inspire a more inclusive and constructive dialogue on global economic stability that will resonate with the Pittsburgh community and beyond.
This analysys of the protests, for instance is enlightening. A rather long post, it is written by fourth-year student majoring in Law and Global Political Economy, Eli Baumwell. I don’t mind the length, and will probably use it as an example of those who complain that wonder if this generation is all about short form content and Facebook-y status updates!
Thanks to Danny Stoian, at the Department of State, for pointing this site out.
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