cazh1 » YouTube

Fragmentation of Social Sharing Environments

Jim MacLennan — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:06:47 +0000

Progress requires innovation, success spawns imitation, competition requires differentiation – and after 7+ years of “Web 2.0”, there are multiple sharing environments vying for our attention (and participation).

Content Creation

Blogging has morphed beyond it’s “personal diary” origins; Blogger, WordPress, and the various CMS platforms have moved to become a long-format publishing platforms that continue to evolve. My own experience with this blog (cazh1) and internal blogs at work has shown that “posts” are more essays, articles, documentation on what and how, status reports for projects or trips.

I’ve recently begin experimenting with a new (for me) type of blogging – I’ll call it short-format, and it hearkens back to the old-school, diarist model. This is a place to put short notes, observations, maybe sketches / photos for an Artist / Designer, code snips for a Engineer / Developer, or experimental prose for an Author / Poet. The format is exemplified by tumblr, a fast-growing platform that hosts some amazing content and is giving the old stalwarts some competition.

Click for the original ...

Content Sharing

But what about the Usual Suspects – Facebook and Google+? I don’t see these platforms as content creation engines as much as they are content sharing engines; ubiquitous Share This! links, the +1’s and Like buttons that give “social media” their differentiating characteristic; networks of contacts that are of a like mind, in your Circles or Smart Lists, add value and context to the original content.

I see Flickr and YouTube as hybrids. Flickr is driven by people adding pictures; you can see / browse / search, and it has a personal, sharing-my-photo-album quality. YouTube, in the other hand, is more like a new video broadcast network; lately, it seems like the number of personal videos is dwarfed by ad campaigns, political messages, and music / entertainment videos.

Antics with Semantics

Yes, I understand that you can Follow other tumblrs. Facebook pages and Google+ circles are creating content as profound and banal as the bloggers. And I’m glossing over professional networks like LinkedIn, which can be oversimplified as an electronic form of career networking. All of this has great value, is very relevant to the conversation – but all have subtle nuances, different use cases where they drive value.

Where does Twitter fit in? The best description to date seems to be micro-blogging; the 140-character limit forces a style and controls depth of meaning – Twitter is more of a broadcast medium, a virtual bulletin board or cocktail party, best understood by watching trending topics when events are breaking. Content is created, and RT’s and hash tags give weight to an ideas current mindshare.

An Excuse for Experimentation

Clearly, there is no one best answer when trying to figure out how social networks can drive a business. There are many platforms and technologies, all of which are evolving to deliver different messages and produce different results. There is no one best solution – and the only way to be able to glibly comment on how this might impact your business is by diving in, learning what these things can and cannot deliver. Or find someone who had done it, who is still doing it.

Just don’t go by what you read in airline magazines or see on TV – sound bites won’t cut it.

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2011. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: Blog, Blogger, business value, Facebook, Google, Google Plus, LinkedIn, networking, Social Media, Social Networks, Tumblr, Twitter, Web 2.0, WordPress, YouTube

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Google+ is Active, not Passive, Social Networking

Jim MacLennan — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:22:21 +0000

This past week saw the introduction of Google+, the search behemoth’s entry into the social networking fray. A slew of posts, articles, opinion pieces, etc. were sure to flow – and as I settled down with some time and a backlog of links to review, here are my initial thoughts on the service.

Do I need yet another social networking platform? Not really, I’ve got my personal (Facebook) and professional (LinkedIn) networks somewhat segregated, and I am falling a bit behind in regular tweets and blog entries – the value waxes and wanes over time. Still, I’ve been impressed with Google’s overall track record on innovative tools for the “personal cloud” (i.e. how can I run my own life / my start-up / my virtual business sans infrastructure?)

Ahem … Google Wave notwithstanding … but everyone gets a mulligan every once in a while, yes?
In the various reviews / blogs, many call out that Google+ will replace / obviate the need for Google Buzz. Funny, I barely registered that one … a finnegan?

First impression: the basic interface / layout seems unimpressive, just another “skin” over the basic LinkedIn / Facebook layout. The UI tricks in Circles (drag and drop into groups) is cute, and it’s the little “usability” things that get a fair chunk of the universe to salivate … but I’m looking for something insightful …

Sparks just looks like Yet Another take on aggregated, automated search. I can follow news topics in Google News or companies on LinkedIn, subscribe to Google Alerts in eMail or RSS feeds in my feed reader; Sparks is just the Google+ version of an in situ enabler for watching the world go by

Hangouts actually looks promising – a video chat room that allows groups to speak and see each other. The first-time install process was a typical, classy example of well designed, tech savvy, user-empathetic instructions that eludes corporate IT.

Ahem … looking for examples of why folks don’t like corporate IT? Or, suggestions for skill sets and training required in modern IT?

However – to be a real enterprise tool, it desperately needs the ability to screen-share. The majority of my collaborative, video-enabled meetings-at-a-distance typically revolve around a presentation or spreadsheet that we are reviewing.

Active vs Passive: I found that I was looking for ways to incorporate feeds from Twitter and this blog … but I noted what MC Siegler called out in his writeup. Content doesn’t make it into Google+ unless I specifically put it in there; if/when I build up an active, complex nesting of Circles, that editorial tweak has the potential to jack up the overall relevance score, and make Google+ an impactful tool for workgroups in a professional setting. Combine that with the readily-available face-to-face Hangout interaction – it’s a social networking platform that leans a bit more to Active, not Passive, connections. Marshall Kirkpatrick has some very insightful notes on this idea, expanding on the notion that communication needs contextual integrity (a reasonable expectation of the proper level of privacy in this context – or, freedom from worrying about who’s listening in).

At this point, however, it’s very tough to get real interactions going – I need to get folks that I know – and would actively participate – to join Google+. I got my invite through a Lifehacker forum last week, and the person that kindly sent me an invite hasn’t even completed their profile yet.

Social Networking for the Enterprise: The really interesting notes come from folks like Dennis Howlett and R. “Ray” Wang, longtime commenters on the enterprise IT scene. Howlett’s writeup on Google+ in the Enterprise is a bit breathless, but I suspect this comes from years of wading through the so-called Enterprise 2.0 offerings from other quarters; he also notes the contextual power of Circles (when done right). Wang writes about the Google+ and the consumerization of IT – where I (above) call out the usability, he is stressing his five pillars of Consumer Tech and how Google’s approach lines up so nicely with what the consumer market has been trained to expect.

But don’t take my word for it – check out these writeups, my link list for the topic (hey, I even tagged and shared ‘em via Google Reader … and the

Whitson Gordon at Lifehacker gives a quick tour here – best place to go for the mildly curious
MC Siegler at TechCrunch captures his thoughts, including the seed of the Active vs. Passive idea
Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb on the intricacies of Circles – and an XKCD comic
A threat to Facebook? David Cohen at All Facebook weighs in with his alternaview
Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb writes on her “stress test” of Circles – and shares the findings of Florian Rohrweck on possible future offerings for Google+

At this time, Google+ is still invite only – last weekend, there was quite a rush of wannabe early adopters, so I am not in a position to give out invites – but if you are interested, let me know, and I will send out invites as soon as I am enabled!

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Post tags: collaboration environments, Dennis Howlett, effective design, Facebook, Google, Google Plus, Lifehacker, LinkedIn, personal cloud, R. "Ray" Wang, social networking, Wave, Web 2.0, YouTube

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Vintage Technology

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 03:29:03 +0000

Here’s one of those videos making the rounds via eMail. I found this in my inbox at work, from an observant friend who apparently likes the same web sites I do (although I had originally this as a great example of minimalist site design).

It’s interesting to note how the magical becomes the mundane. I did find it interesting that certain “timeless” concepts (a deck of cards? a marbles game?) have more resonance than these artifacts of a bygone age.

Yet we are still surprised when new technology comes along, with the younger generation and their newfangled ideas supplanting our familiar, tried and true tools that we use every day. Not many music fans want to go back to 8-tracks – so why do we resist the next version upgrade, the next user interface paradigm?

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Post tags: generational diversity, Technology, video, YouTube

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Design Thinking and Process – Is It In You? (1 of 2)

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:25:08 +0000

Continuing a bit on my recent Design meme; I talk about the current relevance of design thinking, and the impact it can have on change management – but if it feels a bit foreign, how can you tell if you have it in you?

Do You Think Visually?

Interesting how Design always seems to have a strong visual component, even though functional design (like my data warehouse or the structure of my house) is not directly visible. Still, I thought Chuck Frey‘s post from last February is an interesting 10-part test, looking for some hints of visual thinkers. If you think beyond the simple yes-and-no questions, your feelings and interests in these areas could indicate latent design tendencies …

In the last month, have you drawn a diagram to explain something to someone?
In the last week have you drawn a diagram to help yourself understand or remember something?
Have you visited two or more art galleries or museums in the last 6 months?
Do you like to study maps of places before you visit them?
Can you visualize what a landscape might be like by looking at the contour lines on a map?
Did you like geometry at school?
Do you enjoy manipulating your digital photographs? For example, do you crop and edit them to improve the images?
Can you use the 2D engineering drawings of an object or the 2D architectural plans for a building to visualize what the object or building might look like?
Have you worked on a jigsaw puzzle in the last year?
Do you use mind maps to record and remember things?

Can You Appreciate Good Design When You See It?

From the always excellent FlowingData, an introduction to the talents of Cristobal Vila, who created this tremendous, design-sensitive walkthrough of Frank Lloyd Wrights FallingWater …

… and, if you like to see mathematics in nature, this little number (sic)

… I think should appeal to the techie/ programmer in you – the hidden order in the chaos of nature.

Need to Get some Peer Feedback?

Brian Hoff‘s site, The Design Cubicle is a terrific source for design ideas and thinking – and this past spring, pointed me to the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) site, which has started an area on their site where young designers are offering up advice for their peers, “seeking to develop a competitive advantage in the workplace”. Articles like Follow your passion and be the best at your craft, See no boundaries, and Work smart and prepare for a changing practice are good food for thought for any age.

Suspend your disbelief for just a moment, and explore a bit of your Design side. It can free up your thinking as you design systems, reports, transactions …

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Post tags: AIGA, American Institute of Graphic Arts, architecture, Brian Hoff, Chuck Frey, Cristobal Vila, Design, effective design, FallingWater, functional design, geometry, imagination, innovation, Inspiration, mind map, The Design Cubicle, video, visual, YouTube

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Sorting with Sound

Jim MacLennan — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:31:48 +0000

via Geek.com – yes, I subscribe to stuff like this in my RSS reader …

I thought this was interesting on two levels …

The Engineering student within appreciates the differences in sorting techniques (although I think I could speed up that bubble sort …)
I also think these videos provide a simple illustration of the power of multi-media information sharing; the audio helps the animated “description” of the sorting techniques

I freely admit to be a bubble-sort bigot, as I never truly understood the heapsort algorithm. But think how this combination visualization / audio tool helps illustrate the concept; I’d love to see an interactive tool that lets me step through the sort and see the loops and the “stack” of values.

Another important power of effective visualizations – they get your audience thinking in new and different ways as well!

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Post tags: algorithms, Art, coder, communicating complexity, elegant, interesting stuff, multi-media information sharing, programming, Science, sort, sound, stack, subtlety, technical communication, video, visualization, YouTube

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What Really Motivates Us? Insights for your Tech Team

Jim MacLennan — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:59:13 +0000

Over the last month or so, a large number of authors in my RSS reader called attention to Dan Pink’s ‘Drive’ video …

Props to Cool Infographics (home of the Caffeine Poster!) with the post that introduced me to the video. Key insight from Randy Krum: is this a video? A well done presentation? Or another innovative infographic?

Global Nerdy (a site with style and substance – content does not match the title!) calls out that this idea has direct applicability to work in software development – really, any systems design, development, and/or implementation work.

TechDirt draws a connection between the message of the video and Shirky‘s ideas around cognitive surplus – and how current incentive structures drive down creative output.

Aggregated Intelligence, Lifehacker, and Anecdote just linked to the video, no deep insights – just more votes on the relevance of this video!

And leave it to Coding Horror to pull the deepest insights (and the best post title). Atwood is a great writer, and draws a great straight line from the video’s call for a driving vision, to specific examples from his experience in building Stack Overflow.

With so many brilliant minds pointing me in this direction, I had to watch it – and yes, I was impressed by the presentation style and the content. It struck all the same chords that were called out above – and got me to stretch my presentation style a bit.

I hold quarterly meetings with my groups in IT, designed to continually invigorate and reinforce communications up, down, and across the business and IT organizations. And – free lunch for all, plus a chance to regularly hone my presentation style, and try out new things.

I have long been loathe to demonstrate software or do any sort of “live” presentation in front of a crowd – the silence can be deafening when Murphy strikes. But I like the message of the video – the style and length just fit nicely with the general themes I was covering this past quarter. So I took the chance and embedded the link in a PowerPoint slide, and ended my slides with the video. What did I learn?

Always test the internet connection beforehand – make sure there are no unfortunate proxy logins to get past
Do NOT rely on the speakers in your laptop (I had to scramble for some external speakers – thanks, Andy!)
Never underestimate the ability of a technical audience for introversion, insight – and outspoken feedback!

I did get some nice responses from my team – not in the group setting, but a couple of folks came to me afterwards, marvelling about how they had been thinking about the same ideas recently. A double win – new presentation tool, and new insights into the creativity and openness of my team!

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2010. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: A Whole New Mind, artistic expression, Dan Pink, design thinking, incentive structures, innovation, motivation, passion, People Management, Tech Management, video, YouTube

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More Amazing Social Media Statistics

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:36:16 +0000

A follow-on from my last post; speaking of interesting Social Media statistics … would you believe …

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 4th largest
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
In 2009, Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices
25% of search results for the world’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

Pretty amazing stuff … check out this video for more …

I was referred to this video short by a friend, and I dug into the source a bit – check out the Socialnomics blog for more stats and videos. For example, this one on Social Media ROI …

… although, I am currently still of the opinion that social media is applicable to consumer markets; I’m not sure how it applies yet to B2B industry.

However, I’m not going to wait around to find out … but I guess I can’t talk about that right now …

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Post tags: Facebook, Google, information, interesting stuff, LinkedIn, millennials, networking, possibilities, Presentations, Social Media, Social Networks, Socialnomics, trends, Twitter, video, Web 2.0, YouTube

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eMail is Dead, Long Live Social Networking: Don’t Get Left Behind

Jim MacLennan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 03:29:11 +0000

via Fred Wilson – a stunning slide from Morgan Stanley’s recent Internet Trends report:

Click to enlarge ...

The primary topic of the report is the growth and future prospects of the mobile internet – reason enough read through all 87 slides. However, I am slightly amazed by the fact that eMail runs second to the relatively new phenomenon of Social Networking, driven primarily by consumer behavior and Generation Y.

Admit it – more than once, YouTube and Twitter have made the water-cooler talk circuit, as folks text their kids and rave about connecting with long-lost high school and college chums on Facebook. We’ve all seen upticks in LinkedIn traffic as the economy has driven job networking skills to this professional social network.

The Internet’s “Gen-X” Surpassed

Another Morgan Stanley slide shows how the young-uns have surpassed their web-based brethren – first YouTube, now Facebook have taken over the internet …

click to enlarge

In just three short years, a significant movement of mindshare from one web property to another – but don’t stop there. The immersive user experience of Facebook and YouTube is very different from personalized Yahoo and Google portals, and business and social messaging has changed rapidly to adapt.

So how does that translate to business productivity and process management environment?

Business Process Automation Architecture is Falling Farther Behind

eMail is still the dominate business process environment in corporate America. Don’t believe me? Got users clamoring to switch from Notes to Outlook, or desktop-based to cloud-based service? Try introducing mailbox size limitations or document retention limits, and see how many folks squawk. Spin up a few SharePoint sites and insist that all file sharing be done in shared folders (no attachments allowed!). Insist that all discussions take place in forums, not via Re: and Fw: eMail chains. How successful do you think that will be?

Now, there’s no reason to panic; the population within many corporations have an interesting ability to want consumer level flexibility, speed, usability, and “fun factor” in their personal electronics, but few have that same sense of humor about their day-to-day job. “Go ahead and upgrade, as long as my process does not change at all”.

I’m sure this varies at different corporations – based on the average age of the user population. This is not meant as a slight, just an admission of reality – even I don’t quite get some of the communication norms embraced by my daughters.

However, I am very aware that with each passing quarter, new employees and incoming contractors join our work teams, expecting increasing levels of openness, information access, and social connections. It’s only a matter of time until the internal preference measures match the switch shown in the first slide above – will our business process teams be ready?

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |
Post tags: behavior, eMail, Facebook, Gen-X, millennials, Morgan Stanley, networking, social, Social Networks, trends, Twitter, Web 2.0, YouTube

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Finally! Relevant Applications for YouTube and Twitter in the Enterprise!

Jim MacLennan — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:58:00 +0000

If you are involved with manufacturing these days, you’ve no doubt heard about Lean Manufacturing. I’ll not go deep into this area here, but one fascinating (for me) aspect is the thread (in some quarters) that ERP and computer systems are the enemy of Lean. On the whole, I don’t disagree – process improvement, kanbans, and attacking muda are typically very physical exercises; roaming the floor, walking through the processes (gemba walks), reorganizing workspaces for flow, designing and simplifying standard work – all very visual, participatory efforts that continue over time (constant improvement). Computer systems can just get in the way – metrics and measurements that require extra data entry, or inflexible processes that can’t be changed quickly. Much of Lean thinking is common sense and practical, applied thought – computers can over-complicate things!

However, it’s that visual, participatory nature of process improvement that can be something of an obstacle, especially if you’re working in an extended organization with many locations. It’s difficult to gain insight over the assembly process unless you’re standing at the bench, twisting and turning to reach for components. It’s hard to design practical speed improvements for changeovers if you aren’t there handling the tools / molds. And it’s often extremely difficult to get the folks who know how to do this stuff (operators) to effectively document their work!

Enter the YouTube idea (which I freely admit is not my own, but the originator has no problem sharing his insights). Travel budgets are shrinking, time away from the shop is tough – but all I need is a 5 minute show-and-tell of a process. Why not a quick video? It’s hard to describe how I can easily, visually manage WIP until you stand in that one key spot on the floor, and see how the sight lines to the various workstations all line up perfectly. Why don’t I just show you …

What about Twitter? Well, eMails, blogs, and wikis are really just fancied-up documentation tools, and nobody likes to create documentation. But Twitter can be terse, instant, and informal – not too intimidating for the itinerant author. Heck, sending tweets about ideas and observations on the job would be very much like sending text messages from your cell phone, an increasingly common, popular, and non-threatening task. The bonus, however, is that Twitter traffic can be broadcast (unlike your typical point-to-point text) and saved to a database for further review and insight.

Now, the public YouTube and Twitter sites are probably not the way you want to implement these ideas; much of what we’re Tube-ing and Tweet-ing is company confidential. Corporate IT should get involved – either host it yourselves or properly vet a third party site for access & availability, storage & security.

… finally, a chance to walk into the COO’s office and say “tweet” with a straight face …

Interested in more Lean Manufacturing resources? Here’s the best of what I’ve found on the ‘net … check ‘em out!

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© Jim MacLennan for cazh1, 2008. | Permalink | One comment |
Post tags: Art, communication medium, documentation tools, innovation, kanbans, Knowledge Management, knowledge transfer, Lean, Lean Manufacturing, process documentation, process improvement, Science, speed improvements, Twitter, video, Web 2.0, YouTube

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BigDog: Impressive Robotics

Jim MacLennan — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I don’t often post YouTube videos, but this one elicited a “wow” …

I’ve only dabbled in AI-type programming, but I can appreciate the amount of computation that’s going on in real time here. The Big Dog recovers nicely from a hard shove at about 0:40, but that’s nothing compared to scrabbling on the ice at about 1:25. I found myself thinking through the subroutines, if-then statements, and 3D math required to figure out where to move your feet to counterbalance the weight that your carrying.

A little research on Google and Wikipedia and covered some interesting facts about Boston Dynamics; they are a spinoff from MIT doing a number of different robotics projects.

This is the posted in many places. I saw it on Make and BoingBoing, but it’s cross-posted everywhere.

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Post tags: imagination, innovation, Inspiration, interesting stuff, MIT, possibilities, robotics, Science, Technology, video, YouTube

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