Just set up my new readernaut.com account at http://readernaut.com/leighelliott78/, feel free to check it out.
I’ve just watched the Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration TED talk today. After watching I thought I’d track down the installer for Pivot and give it a go myself.
The TED talk by Gary Flake is below:
Pivot can be downloaded from the URL http://www.getpivot.com/. Once I downloaded, installed and launched it, it came up with a number of sample “collections”. I decided to select 2009 World leaders. From there I was able to quickly bring up the visual data and then tighten and loosen the search criteria by making selections on the left hand side panel.
The concept of Pivot is really interesting, because to be able to categorise data based on a large number of filter gives greater meaning to the endless sea of data that continues to accumilate on the www.
As far as setting up and defining my own “collections” is concerned, I’m not sure if or how this is possible yet, I may keep playing with it to see what is possible. So at this stage the idea is more of a novelty for me. However I think if the number of Pivot collections takes off then we have a really powerful tool. I could see lots of interesting ways to use it. One idea that springs to mind is to use it in exactly the same way Gary did duing his presentation, but instead use a collection that relates to the topic you are presenting. It would be amazing to see some demonstrate in real-time a pattern or trend by using the visual cues of Pivot. Very interesting…
Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.
This week I am rostered on for project work. I have a truck load of things to start and hopefully complete by the end of the week. In an attempt to keep track of them all I thought I would try out 37signals Ta-da list online application. I could have just opted for a pen and paper, or a word doc to keep track (and I still might), but after reading a lot about Basecamp and Campfire I thought I’d give Ta-da list a try. I’ve already added a couple of urgent tasks to a list this morning and it looks good. Very simple idea with some interesting additional features like list emailing and list RSS feeds. Might be useful, not sure yet. Anyway I might post some more thoughts on Ta-da list at the end of the week once I’ve had a chance to form an opinion.
(It also has an iPhone friendly version as well which looks good)
The latest article on the Duarte blog highlights the work being done by the Global Citizen Year organisation. I have had a quick read of the GCY website and blog and it looks really interesting.
Taken from the GCY website (http://globalcitizenyear.org/about/about-gcy/):
Global Citizen Year is a non-profit organization building a movement of young Americans who engage in a transformative “bridge year” between high school and college. Through an innovative cross-sector model that partners with high schools and colleges in the US and NGOs around the world, we create opportunities for emerging leaders to work as apprentices in Asia, Africa and Latin America. By providing intensive training and support, we ensure that our Fellows develop an ethic of service, the ability to communicate across languages and cultures, and a deep commitment to becoming agents for social change.
The model was conceptualized by Abby Falik, a social innovator who has dedicated her professional life to expanding opportunities for young Americans to learn about the world. Incubated at Harvard Business School with a team of graduate students from Harvard and MIT, today the Global Citizen Year team has grown to include leading experts in social enterprise, global development, international education and exchange, and higher education.
Global Citizen Year has benefited from generous investments from the Draper Richards Foundation, The Mind Trust, Mulago Foundation, and the Peery Foundation.
The website and blog can be found at:
http://www.globalcitizenyear.org/fellowsblog/ — The current years Fellows Blog
http://globalcitizenyear.org/ — The main GCY website
It would be really interesting to see if there is are similar organisations based in Australia.
Watching the latest season of Survivor, Survivor Heroes vs. Villains last night, I was reminded of the crazy self obsession of one of the contestants, “Coach” aka “The Dragon Slayer”. For those of you who have seen the series and the series that Coach made his Survivor debut will remember that he is a strange guy. He is very passionate about his beliefs but at the same time often confrontational and quick to dispense advice or “coaching” without it being requested or helpful.
This is an example of how not to lead. But now that I have your attention I was watching YouTube videos of Tom Peters (on my iPhone on the bus on the way into work, earlier this week) and found this:
In contrast to “The Dragon Slayer”, being a GOOD coach is the key to being a good manager or leader (not that I am manager myself).
Tom Peters explains that in the business and government sectors the best people often climb the corporate ladder to become a manager when in fact they may be much better suited to remain as the “MVP” of the team, especially if they are star players in their chosen field.
The important lesson here is to place the right people in the management and leadership roles — that is people who can mentor, coach, foster collaboration, promote and drive enthusiasm in their team(s). Of course this doesn’t mean telling their team how to suck eggs but rather looking at ways to get the best from their team and looking at ways to win in a supportive way.
A lot easier said than done but extremely rewarding for everyone when executed successfully.
When was the last time you moved your “goal posts”? When was the last time you reached a goal post? What happened next?
Setting goal posts is a really great way to achieve incremental change and growth. I often think about how great things would be if we implemented the following … blah blah initative, only to be too overwhelmed by the sheer scale and scope of the task or problem. I then do nothing or become distracted by other less important tasks.
Setting small “goal posts” are easier to achieve, once achieved reset or move the goal post, then repeat. Even better, keep a log of changes and then over time review where you started and how far you have come. This becomes an exciting motivator to continue the process.
This process works particularly well when using models that support iterative change, like the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and Continual Service Improvement (CSI). Models like this are made for setting goal posts, achieving them and then moving to the next goal.
When a team unites under this type of thinking there is no stopping what can be achieved.
In Dan Pinks latest book Drive there is a section titled “Type I for Organizations – Nine Ways to Improve Your Company, Office, or Group”. In an effort to generate discussion I thought it might be fun to look at each of the nine ways. The first is “Try “20 Percent Time” with Training Wheels”.
For those of you not familiar with the long established Google practice, see here.
Dan suggests that rather than trying to achieve 20% time that a more modest and achievable target could be 10% (or one afternoon of a five-day workweek).
We at T2 have a roster in place at the moment that encourages “project work” but only when rostered on and only for tasks specific to a certain work related project or commitment.
I think it would be challenging to implement true 10 or 20% time – that is time spent on any project of your own choosing that may not directly relate to your main role but could be beneficial to the company.
Have you been successful in starting a 10 or 20% time movement where you work and has any of the project work been adopted by your company?
Earlier last month I posted an article that highlighted some great presentation resources. Within this article I made reference to Bill Gates latest TED presentation “Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!” At the time the presentation was not available for viewing on the TED website so I was unable to link back to it. Now that it is available I thought I should highlight it here and also share some thoughts on it.
Firstly I think the cause is critical. We are living on a planet that at the moment is under stress, ever increasing populations (in developing and 3rd world countries), ever increasing energy requirements (mostly in the developing and 1st world countries) are taking their toll on the world overall. Gates adds to this by mentioning that the climate and energy crisis is also directly related to the success of ending poverty and creating better, healthier lives for the poorest 2 billion people on the planet.
Secondly, the presentation design and delivery was excellent. Slides were clear, minimal and contained high contrast colours (this aids in readability). Fonts were usually large and looked large enough to easily read from the back of the auditorium and the font choice was consistent and san serif (also making text easier to read).
The slide design used in this presentation gave the presentation clarity. The message was clear, each slide only highlighted 1 or 2 main points at most and where photos were used they were almost always high quality full bleed images.
This presentation is a real contrast against many of Gates earlier presentations and if you look back on what he has shown (in terms of slide design) it is so much better. Back in 2005 Garr Reynolds wrote an article “Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic”, in the article Reynolds compared Gates presentation style against Steve Jobs and Jobs won hands down. Many of the photos showing Gates slides contained within the article are very harsh on the eyes (in terms of colour (too much) and busy-ness (too much content on one slide)).
It’s great to see Gates presentation style has changed for the better. I wonder if it has anything to do with him finding a newer (more important) passion. The slide design in Gates lastest TED presentation emphasises the importance of sending a clear message.
Earlier this month I posted the Akamai report “The State of the Internet”. Earlier this week Jesse Thomas released an amazing multimedia video on the State of the Internet, see below:
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.
Most statistics show cased by the video are hard to actually comprehend — basically the numbers are huge! The thing that I found most interesting about the video is the social media startup statistics over the last decade. According to the video the peak years for social media websites were:
’01 — 4 websites
’02 — 7 websites
’03 — 10 websites
’04 — 15 websites
’05 — 11 websites (2 were re-launches)
’06 — 11 websites
’07 — 2 websites
’08 — 3 websites
’09 — 1 website
’10 — 1 website (actually this one is really just a new feature to an existing site (Google Buzz))
According to the above the number of new Social Media websites launched in one year peaked in 2004 and the rate of new websites released each year has decreased since. Given the hype surounding Social Media I think this pattern is interesting. Probably shows that people are more likely to stay with an existing popular website (ie Facebook, twitter) rather than trying to compete with them.
