How Can Web Tech Help Enterprises with Innovation Management?

The times are changing and I'm a firm believer in the idea that technology plays a (largely) positive role in this.

ReadWriteWeb agrees with me:

The innovator's dilemma, according to Christensen, affects companies whose success and capabilities can actually become obstacles in the face of changing markets and technologies. There is no more important an issue on the agenda of top management than driving innovation. In this post, we'll review the evolution of "innovation management" and how social media has a significant role to play. This is one area where social media can "move the needle" for large enterprises and help them change the very nature of the firm.

Of course, with the economy as it is, only time will tell.

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I Don’t Believe In Originality

For example, I've been trying to find the words to connect the misunderstood world of rap/hip-hop to what it truly is at it's most basic form: poetry. I found a blog post by Hitchcock Blonde that accurately paints the picture (IMO): 

Poetry was invented to be conjured on the tongue. All those nomadic bards, minstrels, skalds, rhapsodes, udgatars, griots, ashiks, ozans and dengbejs moulded it into a perfect conduit and cradle for cultural and social memory. On the page, like Shakespeare's plays, poetry has a sterile beauty; but remembered and performed, it has visceral, affecting life…As any actor will attest, to properly remember something you have to understand it. Parrot by rote, and your brain can't connect the chain. Find the throughline, the backbone – even if it is purely rythmic, aural or instinctive – and it sticks. Allusive, intellectual and contextual richness will come; but sensing the emotional and aesthetic shape of a poem deep in your bones is the most important and often neglected way to it's heart.

That also explains why I like talking about Tribes, Flobots, Words that Work and whatever else it is that someone does that I'm unable to.

I'm not a good writer and it feels good to finally be admit that. 

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NPR’s Best Album’s of 2008

Over the years, I’ve learned to trust NPR’s list of top albums of the year, mainly because most of my nominees make it too. This year is no different and December 8 seems so far away right now.

With all that said, if you’re looking for good music for the rest of the year (and for a good part of the next), NPR’s the place to be IMHO.

What 10 would you recommend? And why?

NPR Poll: What Are Your Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2008.

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The Power of Not Talking

I read a book a few months ago, Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear by Frank Luntz. Apart from the fact that he loves how much everyone hates him, it's made me more aware of words and how important they are in communicating ideas, problems, concepts. Whatever.

Another excellent example would be the Tower of Babel. There are very many different versions of the story (my favorite is Jonathan Davis' reading in the audio version of Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash). I haven't picked up much else (yet) from the book so please don't take this as a recommendation.

In stark contrast to all that endless talking, there's The Power of Words from the Guardian:

The Pirahã have no socially lubricating "hello" and "thank you" and "sorry". They have no words for colours, no words for numbers and no way of expressing any history beyond that experienced in their lifetimes. And, in the late 70s, Everett was dispatched to the Amazon to learn their language, translate the Bible and convert them to Christianity.

I had a feeling there were a lot of stories hidden in that short paragraph. And it turns out I was right.

For example:

Thirty years of living with the Pirahã has taught Everett that they
exist almost completely in the present. Absorbed by the daily struggle
to survive, they do not plan ahead, store food, build houses or canoes
to last, maintain tools or talk of things beyond those that they, or
people they know, have experienced. They are the "ultimate
empiricists", he argues, and this culture of living in the present has
shaped their language.

And then there's:

Yet Everett's life with the Pirahã didn't just cause a gradual
disenchantment with the Chomskyan intellectual framework he had once
cherished: it also triggered another, even more dramatic, de-conversion.

All of that to say: I'm going to try to read this book before I die and you should've been reading that article a long time ago agreeing with me.

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My Poor (wannabe) Blog

I swear I'm lurking around here somewhere (twitter's where all my actions been happening lately).

There's some other stuff cooking too.

LIke Calgoo, "the best calender service in the world", until I ran into 30boxes and now I have to get them to duke it out.

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Analyzing the Election

USA Today has a cool tool for analyzing the results of the election. This is your chance to fold & unfold every delicious (or bitter) moment of Nov 4th by geographic location, wallet size, number of gray hair, or whatever else the infornographic mind desires.

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Journalists & Tech | Food for the Start-up Mind

It's been frustrating to see journalism fight technology and I've always thought that most journalists didn't care too much about it. This morning I ran into two blog posts that confirm just how wrong I've been:

The first was Amy Graham's post Working With Journalists: What's in it for Geeks?:

This discussion got me thinking: Right now, it's becoming obvious to
many journalists that our field sorely needs lots of top-notch,
creative technologists. Developers for whom software is a medium, and
an art form. Developers with a deep passion for information,
credibility, fairness, usefulness, and free speech.

Which linked to Richard Gordon's by Journalists & Technologists: An Uneasy Courtship recounting his experience at the recently held Computation + Journalism Symposium:

Still, by the end of the first day, I was a bit frustrated. We'd
heard journalists talk about their uses of technology, and we'd heard
computer scientists talk about technologies relevant to journalism. But
it was uncommon for anyone to try to connect the two. I was ready to
mix it up, to argue, to move on to talking about new ideas and
solutions to the problems journalists and media companies are facing.
But we never seemed to get there.

Upon reflection, I realized: This was like a first date. You know
the feeling. You talk mostly about what you do. You ask a few
questions. You're very careful not to get spaghetti sauce on your tie.
But you're so careful about making a good impression that you don't
really delve very deep. You and the person across the table are
ultra-polite, but you don't really understand each other. If you like
the other person, you're hoping to keep the door open to a second date.
If you don't, you're hoping to find a graceful way to avoid hurting
your companion's feelings.

I stand corrected.

On a slightly different note, my new favorite online news site SocialMedian, recently came out with an election tracking widget (I wrote a little about it in this post I wrote for the company blog). And if you're looking for election coverage with a tech twist, Jason Goldberg, the founder, will also be covering the election with Leo Laporte live on This Week in Tech on Tuesday, Nov 4 @ 8 pm EST/ 5 pm PST. If that still doesn't do it for you, see Mashable's The Ultimate Election Day 2008 Toolkit.

In the spirit of democracy and freedom, go out and rock that vote!
Or not. Either way it's up to you.

 

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World Wide Words: Other sites of interest

I've always found words to be a fascinating human tool. We use it everyday but we never really think about it because it's just there. Like air or water.

I've been coming across a lot of word related websites and I'm loving it:

Worldwide words has a nice list of word related websites.

I like Buzz Whack, the Language Log and Lake Superior University's Banished Word's List. Word Origins is cool too.

FWIW, I got on this word trip after picking up Frank Luntz's Words That Work: It's Not What You Say But What People Hear. It's worth a read at the very least because it shows  how important the words we use really are.

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Why Open Source?

I read an article in BusinessWeek on Google's Android that's been irking me since I read it. Now I think know why.

As someone who appreciates good ideas, I'm a fan of both Apple & Google. I'm also a beta testing addict who knows nothing about code so the idea of buggy software that's usable by ordinary people makes me as giddy as a 6 year old running after the ice cream truck.

The thing that bothers me is what's supposed to be the difference between the Apple and Google platforms:

The most promising thing about Android is the way Web services and
search are integrated across applications. In many programs, anything
you type into an open window is interpreted as a search request,
tailored to whatever you are doing at that moment.

Umm….Really? That's it?! Is that really the most promising thing about Android?!

And then there's this:

The iPhone has flaws, too, but Apple had all the important pieces in
place from Day One. Android is a work in progress. I suspect it could
be a formidable competitor in six months or a year, but it has a long
way to go.

I think someone misunderstands the potential behind the open source movement and thankfully, it's not Google:

Andy Rubin, who heads up Google’s Android efforts, spoke to me
yesterday about his vision for the Android Market. In particular, we
talked about how the market will be different from Apple’s iTunes App
Store and some other efforts, which also peddle software for cell
phones.

Rubin’s message: Google won’t impose many of the restrictions Apple developers have been grumbling
about. Unlike iPhone aficionados, developers using Android Market will,
for example, be able to allow consumers to try their applications for
free before they buy them. This may seem like a small thing, but
developers name lack of free trial as one of the biggest reasons behind
their lukewarm App Store sales.

Yes, Apple's gotten a headstart, but who's going to survive the long game better?

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#5: I Could Die Here And No One Would Ever Know

Inc. Magazine's Top 10 Signs You're Ready to Leave Your Home Office (via Thought Balloons)

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