Podcasting goes mainstream
Podcasting, according to Wikipedia, is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). It became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading audio onto portable players (like...
Blogging in the classroom
I've been doing quite a bit of thinking around the plausibility of incorporating blogging in classrooms. The idea first struck me while catching up on my Biology skills with The Learning Channel on SABC 3 just the other day. I figure, if interactive television can...
Sun Microsystems and Blogging
Two marvelous links that show how Sun Microsystems is embracing the blogging phenomenon (Inner Circle - Blogging in Business) and "managing" it (Sun Policy on Public Discourse).
Measuring the blogosphere
I have included an editorial from The New York Times below, it was short enough to post the whole thing and pretty good reading (worth it just for the last paragraph...): Published: August 5, 2005 "Earlier this week, Technorati, a Web site that indexes blogs, released...
Customer service – getting it right!
At last I have a great example of customer service to share! It's a rare thing - but when a company does get their customer service right it is thing to behold and admire! I recently went shopping at IKEA ... and to cut a long story short they had some stock issues...
Movie Review: In Good Company
This evening, I took the evening our from work and our three daughters (youngest is 10 weeks old), and went out movies with my wife. We saw an amazing movie that I can highly recommend to anyone wanting to make sense of the business world today. It is not an attempt...
Conflict Transformation
I know I am referring a lot to Inc magazine today, but its good stuff... The last page had a short piece on conflict in the workplace, and a consultant that goes beyond conflict "management" and "resolution" to conflict transformation. Read the full article here. "In...
Dealing with hackers and security issues
Security breaches, stolen and lost data, hackers, fraud - all of these are here to stay. Even the most powerful firewalls and anti-virus software, and the most stringent controls, can not keep out the really good (or is that bad) people who have the desire and ability...
Getting your customers to help each other
Nick Bradbury's Nashville-based company, Bradbury Software, has only one employee - himself. He doesn't have time to help all of his clients and answer their questions. He solved this problem reasonably easy - he got his customers to help each other - for free! In...
Why I read Business Blogs everyday
Inc magazine is one of the best business mags around. Ostensibly aimed at the small and medium sized business, it is good for anyone in any business. The mag comes out once a month, and really is filled with brilliant stuff. In this latest edition, there is a great...
Does personal info belong on a business blog?
The discussion around Michael's recent article, The Quality Issue, has generated some really interesting questions around blogging in general. Can a differentiation be made between "business" blogs and "personal" blogs? Is there a case for censorship/regulation in the...
Multi Occupational Disorder
Darren Rowse, author of the extremely popular Problogger site writes an article (which refers to another article!) about the multi-faceted life of a professional blogger. However, I feel the language being spoken in this exchange is representative of that being spoken...
A decade later
I'm not sure it really means anything, but today (9 August) is the 10th anniversary of the launch of Windows 95. Within 2 months, Microsoft had sold nearly seven million copies of their ground breaking operating system. That was just ten years ago. THEN, the world...
The end of an era
Yesterday, Dixons, one of the UK's top retailers of electronic goods, announced that they would stop selling 35mm film and cameras in their shops. If we didn't know it before, they know it now - its the end of an era for non-digital photography. Just a few months ago,...
The Oracle of Kevin Bacon
You've probably heard of the concept that we're all separated by only six-degrees-of-separation? Scary I know. Especially when you consider who you're separated from by only six degrees (everybody actually) You can thank Stanley Milgram for the discovery. He ran an...
Letting it all hang out
The South Florida Sun Sentinel got me thinking yesterday, with an article on "Disappearing privacy and the generation gap" by Liz Doup (requires free login). In the article, Doup argues that before the Baby Boomers, older generations were quite private about their...
Lessons from the Gamer Generation
In TomorrowToday.biz's free monthly e-zine, this month, I wrote about "Lessons from the Gamer Generation". Its quite nice to be ahead of the game - The Economist has a similar article as its latest cover edition. Its premium edition content, so here are the...
Barbarians at the Gate
Once again I have been pulled out of bed by the inspirations of a book that is grabbing me. I've only just begun reading Barbarians at the Gate (buy it at Kalahari.net or Amazon.com) via a recommendation from a corporate advisor regarding a cross-section of what LBO's...
Some thoughts about the future
In the past few months, I have sat through some good (and some boring) presentations on the future. I can't remember where all the following came from, so can't attribute them, but here are a few random thoughts to mull over: Yesterday we kept our customers because...
Measuring what we measure
In the emerging world of global economics, our current measurements don't add up - they are designed to measure an outdated system. For example, most trade treaties measure tons at dock, yet ignore the flow of intangibles and intellectual property. Another example is...