It seems the recent acquisition of Skype by eBay is doing wonders for the free VoIP service.
You may not have heard of Skype yet. It’s a program, easily downloadable off the Net, that allows you to speak to anyone in the world using your computer speakers and microphone as if on a normal telephone call, over an ordinary Internet connection. The technical term for this kind of software is Voice Over Internet Protocol (you may have heard of it).
What makes Skype so cool?
Continue reading ‘Additions to Skype’
“It’s the latest wave on the Web: tools that combine search with tagging and social networks. These sites use real people to help tag articles to help create more relevant search results, and build communities around those folks as they share information and destinations. It’s a fascinating advance in Web culture, and it’s emerging rapidly.”
PC Magazine have put together an analysis of their choice of five of the neatest sites, including del.icio.us, Yahoo! My Web 2.0 and Jeteye. Check out their reviews for details on how well these services work, and then visit the sites for a look into the future of the World Wide Web.
“The Perfect Office Culture…
…probably doesn’t exist, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to provide an environment where everyone feels trusted, empowered and a part of the team.”
So says Keith Robinson, the author of To-Done!, a regularly updated collection of thoughts, writings, tips, tricks and information on personal productivity, work/life balance and getting things done. He is also a contributor to Lifehacker - currently one of my favourite daily reads.
His recent post, titled Empowerment and Office Culture, suggests that if you work in an office culture absent of trust, you will not do your best work. Or, if you’re a leader, creating an office culture that lacks trust will stunt productivity. This is not a new statement, nor is it a complex concept, and yet Keith’s questions still ring true:
Continue reading ‘Re-imagining office culture’
Yesterday on the 26th day of the 10th month of the year after last, TomorrowToday.biz went audio in the form of a Pod Cast channel. We’ve jumped in on Odeo and as of a little while ago we had 3 shows ready for you to listen to or download.
If you use iTunes to listen on your PC or to update your iPod then you can add Odeo as a channel in the ‘Pod Cast’ section of your iTunes.
To do that all you do is….
Continue reading ‘From ink to audio’
A post with the title, Mind the Conversation Gap at Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion caught my eye today, not only because TomorrowToday.biz uses a framework with a similar title (see Mind the Gap), but because in the post he has supplied solid emperical backing to the school of thought that encourages companies to think long and hard about possible opportunities to connect with customers and stakeholders via blogs on the Web.
To generate the data, one needs to employ the services of blog trend tools (like IceRocket’s Blog Trend Tools), and the process can be a little cumbersome, but the results are staggering.
Continue reading ‘How are you losing out?’
I do quite a bit of work with my girls’ school, and have convinced them to start a computer games club at the school - as an extra mural option for the girls at the school.
But, now, they’ve asked me which games I would recommend. What would you suggest?
They obviously would be interested specifically in multi-player games. What would you suggest?
Then, they have hardware constraints. Specifically, they don’t have great graphics cards. If you were limited in this way, what would you then recommend?
I don’t often recommend a book before reading it myself, but this book has caught my eye, and I wanted you to know about it. I have ordered a copy, and will review it in detail in a few months’ time.
It is China’s Generation Y by Michael Stanat ( (get it online at Amazon.com).
The book is unique in that it is the first book written on China’s Generation Y and one of the few well-written non-fiction books written by a teenager (the author is 17). The book is based on extensive research sponsored by SIS International Research, New York (www.sisinternational.com) and assisted by CBC Market Research, Shanghai (www.cbcnow.com). Fun, fast, and captivating, China’s Generation Y is the ultimate guide that Westerners will need to be able to work with the leaders of the future.
The Publisher says:
“Growing up during the information age, China’s Generation Y (born between 1981 and 1995) is unlike any of its predecessors, sporting branded items and increasingly sharing some of the same ideas as Western youth. This generation of teenagers in China will most likely be the political and businessleaders of the world’s next superpower by the year 2025. Based on interviews and surveys conducted in Shanghai by the author, an American teenager, China’s Generation Y provides an exciting look into the lives and minds of China’s youth, showing Western readers who they are, how they got there, and where they are headed. The book brings to life the influences on them – political, cultural, family, economic, and environmental – in such a way that it truly provides a rare glimpse into the minds of today’s youth and tomorrow’s leaders. China’s Generation Y is not only for those who seek to acquaint themselves with this crucial generation, but also for business leaders who wish to cater to the up-and-coming Chinese consumers. Informative and stimulating, this first-of-its-kind book opens up a new horizon for many in the West who will ultimately meet the need and challenge of this emerging Chinese generation.”
See also the book’s official website: http://www.chinageny.com/ - (not Firefox compatible - go to http://www.chinageny.com/html/main.html).
Continue reading ‘China’s Generation Y’
A report in Biz Community (1 Oct 2005), looks at targeting the Millennial Generation with websites. The report starts, “Internet AdSales reveals that the internet could seriously affect your bottom line when marketing to the youth of today.
They’re mobile, trendy, streetwise, technologically; brand and lifestyle savvy, have plenty of disposable income. They are highly developed, active key influencers, trendsetters and are using the internet on a daily basis.
Generation Y - renowned as the first internet generation; into multitasking and consuming media simultaneously - whether it’s blogging, chatting, shopping, dating, researching, downloading…
Previously ignored, as it was a challenge for marketers to keep up with this fast changing generation but not for much longer!”
Read more here.
“Understanding the underlying forces that turn success into failure”
The following thoughts are extracted from Jamshid Gharajedaghi’s book, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos & Complexity (Pub. Butterworth-Heinemann. 1999) (buy it online at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).
When the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked it 100th anniversary in 1996, of the original companies listed only General Electric had survived to join in the celebration. Fourteen of the 47 companies exemplified in Tom Peter’s much acclaimed book of the 1980’s, In Search of Excellence, had suffered serious profit erosion within four years.
Everyone can recall cases of great powers, nations, organizations or personalities rising and falling. What then are the underlying forces that convert success to failure?
Gharajedaghi’s suggests that there are five forces that form a hierarchy with each level representing a distinct tendency, but together forming an interactive whole. At each level success plays a critical but different role.
Continue reading ‘From our archives: HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW’
A little while back I posted about a new online, open source collaborative business startup called The Business Experiment (TBE).
To be totally honest, I am guilty of not really participating actively in the growth of the project so far (I did register early on in the startup process so theoretically should be contributing), having been busy trying to make a living out of cyberspace. I do receive periodic correspondence from the management team and try to interact wherever possible, but the truth is it’s hard to find time to commit to a peripheral idea like this one, regardless of how exciting or progressive it is. Real life gets in the way.
Check out the recent email I received from Rob, TBE’s founder. Clearly, he has concerns…
Hi Everyone,
There seems to be a problem at TBE. We put something up for a vote, and we get emails and forum posts about how we aren’t ready to vote on that issue yet. Nothing is getting done. The business plan has been “open” for weeks and it is going nowhere. This wisdom of crowds process for creating a business simply does not work. There is no accountability. We are experiencing the classic free rider problem where each individual lets everyone else do the work, and hopes that the crowd does good work and they get their cut of the next big thing.
Continue reading ‘Speedbumps for The Business Experiment’
The Baby Boomers (born post-World War II and into the 1960s) have been a demographic tidal wave in every life stage they’ve entered so far in life. And now, they’re about to start retiring (or, at worst, re-tyring) and hit old age (although they’ll never admit it). Expect a pile of books to be written about this - its a tsunami for many industries. In the USA, for example, “On 1st January 2006, the oldest ‘Baby Boomers’ around will turn 60. After that, for the next 19 years, another one will turn 60 every 7.5 seconds, causing a demographic tidal wave will affect businesses with greater impact than the aging of any previous generation”, according to generational experts Brent Green & Associates (BGA).
Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers by Brent Green (Writers Advantage, 2004) (buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). A book review was posted at TheWiseMarketer (click here to see it - free signup required - or see below).
Another resource we used extensively on this issue when writing our own generational resource two years ago (Mind the Gap, Penguin, 2004 - buy it at our online store, or Amazon.com or Kalahari.net), was Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old, by Ken Dychtwald (Tarcher, 2000) (buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net).
Continue reading ‘The Boomer tidal wave is about to hit old age’
Every Friday, Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, sends out an email to everyone who has subscribed to his free service. These emails are personally written by him, and he apparently refuses any editing or content development assistance. The President of Africa’s richest and most powerful nation is an idealist and academic, with a massive vision of what Africa could be (he has called for an “African Renaissance”). I’d highly commend his email to you: sign up by going to: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/subscribe.html.
This past week’s was an excellent reflection on the value of awards, especially the Nobel prizes.
Continue reading ‘A Letter from the President’
If you’ve been following the posts on this blog of late, or the tech world news in general, then you’re aware of Google’s charge toward world domination. Recently Google and Sun Microsystems signed some cooperation agreements that made the headlines for an hour or two. Here’s some of why the world and the Microsoft Office development team are taking notice:
An open-source group Thursday launched the final version of OpenOffice.org 2.0, a free application suite that’s drawn attention from governments interested in breaking away from Microsoft’s office application bundles.
If you want more detail then click here.
We know the world is changing, and the change is being driven by new people doing some new things with new technologies. Convergence is one of the bigger drivers creating all kinds of interesting options and opportunities. Example: Just when you’d surrendered to cell phone ring tones simply annoying you, there’s an emergence of some that are not only going to simply annoy you, they’re going to drive a message home in the process. Here’s an example of a ring tone with a conscience:
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” he says, and Arlo Guthrie’s “City of New Orleans” starts playing under the looped quote. The remark is a snippet from a speech Bush made in the flooded southern city, in which he praised Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown shortly before Brown resigned.
A new phenomina is using ring tones to make a statement as cell phones incorporate various media formats that allow you to use any sound bite you choose.
Click here for more of the story
Internet search engine giant Google saw its third-quarter revenue nearly double from a year ago and profit rise in what usually is a slow Web surfing period.
Click here for full story
Nuf Sed
The biblical principle of tithing is to give to the work of the church 10% of your increase (your salary). There are reasons why you one is encouraged to do this. But the one I like is to compare tithing to that of planting seed. It could go towards an Aids home for orphans, or a soup kitchen, or an outreach. So although your personal contribution might be small, when accumulated everyone’s small contribution adds up to a very big difference in someone’s life.
Why the bible lesson? Well, I found another wonderful example of tithing. Tim Smit, the co-founder of the Eden Project (which in itself is awe-inspiring) is working on his Tithing College. This is a campus where business leaders, artists, scientists, engineers and bureaucrats will commit to spending 5 days a year sharing their knowledge. “Tithing College is central to my manifesto,” Smit explains. “It will attract those who want to imagine a new beginning and contribute to the debate, What does ‘great’ look like, and how do we get there?”
Continue reading ‘Tithing is the way to go’
Impending baby boomer retirements, a widening skills gap and outdated approaches to talent management are combining forces to produce a “perfect storm” that threatens long-term business performance, according to a new survey conducted by the Human Capital practice of Deloitte.
So starts a short report on Deloitte’s research, posted on Ireland’s accounting net website - click here to see it.
The actual research paper by Deloitte, entitled “It’s 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? Why Acquisition and Retention Strategies Don’t Work” is available here, with a PDF download of the Executive Summary.
Continue reading ‘The Perfect Talent Storm’
Increasingly, Boomers are being seen as the “sandwich” generation - simultaneously caring for their children and their ageing parents. This trend is exacerbated by the twin facts that (1) today’s young people are taking longer than ever to leave home, and (2) older people are living longer than they ever have.
In Spain, the government is running some public service adverts trying to get younger people to leave home. Not leaving home is causing entry level home prices to plummet, and is stopping the development of a materialistic consumer culture required in all democracies to make the economy tick over.
In Australia, just yesterday the National Carers Association was warned of the increasing burden on women of having children later (median age of childbirth in Aus is now 30.5 years), and caring for an ageing population. (Read the full report here).
Anyone interested in generational theory in Australia would do well to get hold of “What Was It All For? The Reshaping of Australia” by Don Aitkin (Allen & Unwin, 2005, ISBN: 1-74114-667-4) (it isn’t available on Amazon, and I can’t find a place to purchase it online - see the publisher page here, but I picked it up at Borders while in Sydney).
Aitken is apparently a well-known Australian social scientist and commentator, especially prolific in the 1970s and 80s. The book is largely the reflections on “the class of ‘53″, his matriculation year. After reconnecting with many school friends at a reunion, he tracks the changes in the past 50 years of Australian history, weaving in social information, facts and stories of his friends. Its an easy read, with some wonderful insights into Australia’s emergence as a real world-class player in the past 50 years. (Read a summary/review onloine here).
His book provides great inputs for anyone wanting to understand the cycle of Generations in Australia, clearly showing all the common generational moments (GI, Silent, Boomers, Xers and Millennials). A great read!
When the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take-off on January 28, 1986 who would have known that, out of the 4 publically listed contractors to the shuttle, the Dow Jones market singled out the party responsible prior to any investigation into the infamous O-ring that caused the explosion? This is one of the many case studies and examples that James Surowiecki lists in support of his premise in The Wisdom of Crowds (Buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net):
Continue reading ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’
Here’s what looks to be a great thread of conversation around Gen Y in the work place. Click here for the full thread
This is a generation has has been advocated for since their moment of birth, has had no line drawn between parents and kids, and has no fear about questioning anything or anyone. What kinds of shocking behavior have you seen from this new crop of talent (or their parents)? Has your company — or have you heard of companies that have — found a creative way to deal with it? Or is restructuring their organization to harnass some of the positive qualities (collaboration, etc.)?
Continue reading ‘Gen Y - your new workforce’
I sat in a meeting the other day in a company in an industry I’m not a part of, so there was lots to learn as I listened to the industry speak. The conversation turned to some discussion about LSM’s (Living Standard Measure - go here to work out your own LSM). What surprised me was the number of people who make up the LSM study. No more than around 14 000 people. Shock and horror. Some companies I work with give a fair amount of weight to this market segementation tool. 40 000 000 people make up the country (there abouts) and they’re using a sample of 14 000 to tell us about the LSM spread. Clearly I don’t know enough about research and exactly how many people you really need to make your research meaningful and useful?
And then I started wondering about the media and the numbers they report on every day. Take for exmaple the amount of people who turn up at an event and what the media reads into it. And let’s look at a current issue like the Jacob Zuma trial going on. Several years ago when less than 20 000 Durbanites arrived for a Whitney Houston concert, it was seen as a poor turnout. 1000 people arrive to Jacob Zuma’s trial last week, and the support is monsterous.
So who works this all out? Who are the experts that know these things? And it’s important stuff. In the case of the Jacob Zuma trial you’ve got a whole country trying to work out the current South African mood based on support for the various fragmented groupings. So 1000 who were there are a more important measure than the 39 999 000 who weren’t?
And there are countless examples that could be put on the table for discussion.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
The past few years have seen massive accounting scandals and corporate frauds. In order to protect shareholders, mounds of new legislation have been implemented. The key one is the Sarbannes-Oxley Act in the USA, which has had the effect of adding substantial cost and complexity to the auditing and reporting of company accounts. The auditors are smiling of course! But I’m not sure that shareholders should be.
These “rules” are not working. They are not having the effect that they should. In fact, they’re hurting business.
Continue reading ‘When the Rules Don’t Work’
The digital revolution is coming to Hollywood. Digital movies are now making it possible to bypass the massive hierarchies that exist in Tinseltown, allowing innovative directors to go direct to making movies, without getting bogged down in the politics and cost-spiralling of the movie studios, producers and big wigs.
Hollywood’s creative machine has long been mired in the bogs of big money players. Now, digital media are making it possible to bypass all of this. A possible tipping point is the release of Sin City by director, Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez left the Academies and “unions” of directors and actors, and did producing, directing, screenplay, editing and even the music from his own studios in Texas. With a monster ensemble cast, he also proved that he can get any actors he wants to.
And, now I see he’s planning a sequel already.
Its nice to stand on the edge of an earthquake zone, and see the earth twist before your eyes. If you want to read a more substantial report, check out this weekend’s FT - “A Defining Moment“.
If you’ve followed the iPod story then you’ll know that from the begining the iPod was going to be about music, pure music. Then we got ‘picture pods’ on which we could load our images and view them, but Apple was on record saying that they were not going to enter the world of video.
Well not surprisingly all that has now changed. Welcome the iPod Video (Click here for the full story)
Even the great innovative Steve Jobs is a victim of his own words. Never-the-less bring on the video. (oh and you’re going to need to download a new verion of iTunes to get it all to work (but you’ve got to get that iPod first)
