Rolandt

My friends at Data and Society ran an excellent conference today in NYC. A speaker dropped out at the last minute and I got asked less than 48 hours ago to give a talk… a very specific talk. Here’s what I came up with, more or less.

I’m pinch hitting here, as we had a speaker who couldn’t join us, so I apologize for an unpolished talk without slides. To make my life easier, our friends at Data and Society asked me to tell a story I’ve told before. As I thought about it, I realized I wanted to tell that story very differently. So here’s a story that starts with one of the most embarrassing moments of my professional career and ends up on one of the most experimental and difficult projects I’ve ever worked on. Basically, it’s a story about the gap between ambitions, intentions and the compromises we make to bring ideas to life.

Twenty years ago, in 1996, I was 23 years old, and somehow was the chief tech guy for Tripod.com, which thought it was a lifestyle site for recent college graduates, but was actually one of the world’s first user-generated content sites. By 1999, we were hosting free webpages for 15 million users, which made us the 8th biggest website in the world. But in 1996, we were trying to figure out how to pay for the massive bandwidth bills we’d suddenly incurred by letting thousands of people publish whatever they wanted on our server.

Advertising was the business model everyone else was using on the internet, and so we joined in – we put banner ads on top of the pages users hosted with our service. Great! Until we got a call from one of our ad sales guys, who giving a demo to the Ford motor company, and found a Ford banner on top of a page enthusiastically and visually celebrating the joys of anal sex. (Lesson one – don’t let ad guys give live demos. Lesson two – don’t ever program a “show me a random page” button, no matter how easy it would be to implement.)

Ford was understandably upset, and so my boss demanded I do something. And while I should have figured out how to minimize the amount of pornography we were hosting on the site, my immediate reaction was to figure out how we could somehow distance ads from user generated content. I designed a navigation window that featured Tripod branding, links to our edited content, and an ad, and used a just invented javascript function, window.open(), to open a new window on top of the browser window the user’s page lived in.

Yes, I invented the pop-up ad. And yes, I’m very, very sorry.

In reflecting on my sins, I’ve publicly decried advertising as the original sin of the web. Not all advertising – I have a soft spot for advertising targeted by user intent, like ads matched to search engine queries. But the ads we use to support the services we use everyday, our social networks and webmail, are almost necessarily going to fail – they’re trying to distract us from seeing our our friends’ baby pictures or hear about the weekend’s debauchery. And so these ads have become deeply surveillant, encouraging us to use whatever data we can glean about the context they’re shown in, and anything we can learn about a user’s demographics, psychographics and behavioral data in the desperate hope that we might click on them. And I fear that the rise of surveillant ads may be slowly training us all to expect to be surveilled at all time, a development that’s dangerous for us as citizens, not just as consumers.

But it’s way too easy to beat up on advertising. It’s a really tough problem to figure out how to support services that require network effects to be effective. Facebook wouldn’t be the useful behemoth it is today if it were a hundredth or a tenth the size. It’s useful because there’s the reasonable assumption that anyone you know will be on the service, even if they use it fairly rarely. it’s the universality that makes it so useful, and universal services require near-zero cost of entry.

Yes, we eventually could have supported Tripod with paid subscriptions… and Facebook could and should offer a non-surveillant, paid service for power users. Gmail should agree not to surveil the email of anyone paying for disk space. YouTube shouldn’t track the users who pay for ad-free RedTube. But there’s got to be a way for me to be findable by my high school friends, even if I don’t want to use the tool everyday. For the activist in Egypt to put up a webpage calling people out into the streets in a way where she doesn’t need to pay with a credit card and reveal her identity. Advertising is problematic solution, and it’s led us some troubling places. But I’m starting to worry about a bigger problem.

The mistake we made with Tripod was deeper than the pop-up ad. In retrospect, I feel like our whole business model – the business model I spent two years persuading my boss to adopt – is starting to destroy the web, this strange and beautiful creature I’ve been in love with for the past 22 years.

What Tripod did was take something that was possible for technically sophisticated users – to put up a webpage – and make it possible for orders of magnitude more users. and that was a good and important thing to do, much as letting people share photos and videos with each other, or send 140 character messages to each other is a Good Thing. But the way we did it sucked. We took the great genius of the web – the idea that everything could live on its own box, but be connected to everything else by the wonder of the hyperlink – and replaced it with a single server, controlled by a single company. This made it vastly easier for someone to put up a webpage without learning how to install apache and to write HTML, but it also meant that we had control over what you wrote. If you wanted to share your enthusiastic love for anal sex, too bad, because Tripod banned almost all nudes, and enforced the ban aggressively, with a combination of automation and human filtering. And so if you find yourself with certain types of speech – wanting to share information on breastfeeding on Facebook, for instance – you’re going to face the complicated reality that our digital public spaces are owned and controlled by corporations that we have little control or influence over.

A few years ago, cyberutopians of my generation, people who weren’t dumb enough to believe that the internet would automatically make the world a better place, but were dumb enough to believe that the values and tendencies of the internet would lead us towards a better world, started to find ourselves in crisis. One of the great hopes we’d had was that the internet inherently fights centralization. That barriers to entry are so low that there will always be competitors, always be options. When Amazon is eating all retail, Facebook all communication, Google all discovery, it’s hard to believe this anymore. And so it’s time to stop being so enthusiastic and uncritical about the internet and to start thinking hard about the downsides of this approach we’ve adopted.

My friend Rebecca MacKinnon encourages us to think of ourselves as citizens, not just as consumers, and to demand basic rights on these platforms. Others have proposed that we start thinking about how we regulate these platforms as if they were utilities, recognizing that they provide essential services and that we need to ensure everyone can access them. I want to suggest something even more radical.

I think the future of the web – the future I want for the web – comes from radical decentralization. The really radical version of Tripod – impossible at that point in time, but maybe possible now – would have been building tools that helped people publish their own content on their own servers they control under their own rules.

Here’s what I’m working on now – in all the classes I teach, students turn in their work on blogs. But I control those blogs, and at the end of the semester, I end up controlling their work. What I want is a system in which students have their own blogs, share the appropriate posts with me for the semester so I can aggregate them into a class site, but they end up owning their words and coming away from their time with a portfolio of work on their sites. This is not a new idea – The University of Mary Washington has a project called A Domain of One’s Own where there are accounts on a shared wordpress install. But I’m trying to solve this problem in a ludicrously convoluted way

I’m trying to build a system where my students use a tool that’s as beautiful and easy as Medium, but stores the data on multiple places all over the web using IPFS, the IP file system. Rather than keeping an index of the students in my classes and where those blogs are located, the system uses the bitcoin blockchain to register contracts about where I can find their writings for class. I’m building this in an insanely complicated way because the same architecture lets me build a distributed but compatible version of Twitter – if I decide I don’t want Twitter having control over my tweets anymore, I can start publishing my own twitter-like feed on a website I control, then register contracts that say that’s where my tweets live. If you use a compatible client, and you decide to follow me on Twitter, your client will check the blockchain to see if I’ve registered a contract to publish my updates off twitter and then subscribe to that RSS feed. If not, it will look for me on Twitter and subscribe to that feed. Basically, I’m trying to build a system with as few centralized points of control as possible, in the hopes of making it both easy for anyone to publish and disseminate information, and difficult for anyone intentionally or inadvertently to act as a censor or gatekeeper.

But it’s really hard. We didn’t design Tripod centrally because we were censorious control freaks. It’s way, way easier to build a single, central database than to distribute a directory of users across a distributed hash table. The sort of system I’m describing is probably 1000 times less efficient than existing centralized systems. That inefficiency has consequences, of cost, and for the environment. And there are enormous problems with managing content in a system like this one – it may not be possible to demand deletion of content in a truly distributed system, so what do we do with truly offensive content, like revenge porn.

And yet, it’s probably what we need to do. Because giving control over public spheres to private companies isn’t just a bad idea for us as citizens – it’s an impossible set of responsibilities for the corporations in question, and they’re already starting to strain under the load. And so we need to start thinking about how we build systems that aren’t just new and innovative, but that are architected in ways that support the generativity and creativity of the web in the long term. This isn’t a brave new world – it’s a rescue mission. It’s a return to the past, to the way the web used to work. And while building a decentralized web didn’t work the first time around, because the easy solutions won out against the right ones, we can do it right now, because we understand the dangers of centralization. We’ve seen how the story plays out.

To be clear, I’m not the only one trying to build these new systems. From the bitcoin libertarians to the openhearted cyberhippies like Brewster Kahle, people are building new ways to publish, discover and pay each other for content in ways that don’t require a gatekeeper standing in the middle of these transactions. But we need a much bigger group of people taking on this challenge, deciding to build a web that works in a way that empowers rather than imprisons us. As you’ve figured out, I’m not very smart – I’m the dumbass that thought that pop-up ads were a good solution to internet pornography. I need you, whether you’re motivated by curiosity, by ideology or by opportunity, to join me and take on this task. It’s hard to do, but it’s also right.

As you can see, I’ve suspended the link-sharing project.

It’s not that there isn’t still an incredible flow of links on the subject of digital authenticity and “being yourself” on social media. (You could fill a whole feed just with links to think pieces on Trump.)

But I’m not satisfied with the format I’ve been using. The quotes have value on their own but the simple bloggy reverse-chronological pile isn’t satisfying enough. I’ve been thinking of better ways to organize, present, and share this material, but I haven’t put them together yet. Stay tuned.

I advise people on Officehours. I do so, in part, because it’s a platform that @shelkie and I are building. (I figure it’s a bad sign if you don’t use your own platform.) Additionally, I love helping people. Recently, (I think) I helped someone. In any case, this discussion stuck with me, and I wanted to share the gist of it with you.

Our session started with my question: “What do you want to achieve?” He didn’t hesitate before responding: “Fame and fortune.” I recoiled. Most folks aren’t that brash. In a way, though, I admired that he so clearly knew—and said—what he wanted. I thanked him for his honesty, and responded in an equally honest manner: “Those are horrible goals.”

A lot of people think they want money and notoriety. Nevertheless, these are bad goals to work toward. I told him the three reasons why I feel this way:

Number 1: Fame is an intensely competitive pursuit. Many want to be famous. Plus, social media makes it easier for anyone to try. This puts the odds dramatically against you. Being good—even great—at what you do isn’t enough to be famous. In fact, being really, really bad is often a better way to get famous (think: William Hung, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump). Additionally, fame isn’t kind. If you beat the odds and become famous, others will quite likely despise you. Is that something to aspire to?

Number 2: Money is rarely ever the solution to your problems. Sure—if you’re broke, money can make some situations better. Once that’s done, though, you’ll likely adjust your spending to match your new income—indebting you to more work. The pursuit of money is like chasing the dragon: the more you get, the more you need, and no sum seems like as much as it did, the last time.

Number 3: You’re only thinking about yourself. Those who seek fame and fortune are typically only interested in themselves. This makes them seem boring. Who wants to be around someone who only talks about his/herself? Worse yet, who wants to hire (or buy from) such a person? This creates an interesting paradox. By focusing on yourself, you scare off those who might otherwise contribute toward your development.

So, what should a person do instead of pursuing fame and fortune? I say he/she should try the following:

Stop trying to connect at scale. My bet is that you don’t actually want to be famous. Nope. I just think you want to matter—or be loved. Such desires are understandable—and likely essential to the human experience. However, neither of these happen at scale. The masses don’t love Brad Pitt, so much as they’re fascinated by him. If you want meaning/love, you need to concentrate on people you can help individually. (I’d start with those you’re already close to.)

Ask yourself why you actually want money. So long as you’re not destitute, your want for money is probably something other than what it seems. Maybe you seek autonomy so you can do what you want, free of someone else’s direction. If that’s the case, reducing your expenses might be the fastest way to regain control. (I recently gave myself an “unraise” for the very same reason.) Alternately, you might wish your work had more purpose. This is a bigger issue, which I talk about a bit here.

Focus on someone other than yourself. I sometimes wonder if our new god is found in the self. This obsession with our individual desires weakens our sense of connection and diminishes our personal happiness. Forget about what you want. Ask how you might help those around you. Stop thinking about whether you’re happy. Try to make someone else happy.

Upon noting these points to the fellow I was lending advice to, he responded, “But, I’m no good Samaritan. I don’t feel compelled to help anyone else.” At this point, I wondered why I was helping someone who had no interest in helping anyone other than himself. Nevertheless, I held back my contempt, hoping that I might change his mindset.

I explained, “There are many reasons to think about others first—not just that it’s the right thing to do.” By caring about your client’s interests, you’ll become a more trusted partner. By lending a hand to those starting out, you make new connections. By being a more kind husband, you get a better marriage. By helping in your community, you build friendships. And, by talking about someone other than yourself, people actually start to listen to—and care about—what you have to say.

I don’t know that any of what I said made a difference for this fellow. People tend to come to these sorts of realizations on their own, if they ever do. That said, I think there’s something here worth sharing—even if this advice isn’t particularly original.

If you’re struggling, I urge you to focus on how you can be of service. In doing so, you might find that which eluded you.

It is about time for a new blog post. I know it has been a while and there are certainly some notable events I could have blogged about, but in today’s fast paced world I have preferred quick twitter messages.

The exciting news I would like to spread today is that we have a new Google Summer of Code student for this summer! May I introduce to you Paul Morris, who I believe is an awesome candidate. Here is a little information about Paul:

I am currently finishing my graduate degree and in my spare time I like to play music and work on alternative music notation systems (see Clairnote). I have written a few Firefox add-ons and I was interested in the “Event in a Tab” project because I wanted to contribute to Mozilla and to Thunderbird/Calendar which is used by millions of people and fills an important niche. It was also a good fit for my skills and an opportunity to learn more about using html/css/javascript for user interfaces.

Paul will be working on the Event in a Tab project, which aims to allow opening a calendar event or task in a tab, instead of in the current event dialog. Just imagine the endless possibilities we’d have with so much space! In the end you will be able to view events and tasks both in the traditional dialog and in a tab, depending on your preference and the situation you are in.

The project will have two phases, the first taking the current event dialog code and UI as is and making it possible to open it in a tab. The textboxes will inevitably be fairly wide, but I believe this is an important first step and gives users a workable result early on.

Once this is done, the second step is to re-implement the dialog using HTML instead of XUL, with a new layout that is made for the extra space we have in a tab. The layout should be adaptable, so that when the window is resized or the event is opened in a narrow dialog, the elements fall in to place, just like you’d experience in a reactive designed website. You can read more about the project on the wiki.

Paul has already made some great UI mock-ups in his proposal, we will be going through these with the Thunderbird UI experts to make sure we can provide you with the best experience possible. I am sure we will share some screenshots on the blog once the re-implementation phase comes closer.

Paul will be using this blog to give updates about his progress. The coding phase is about to start on May 22nd after which posts will become more frequent. Please join me in welcoming Paul and wishing him all the best for the summer!

 

 

 

Welcome back, it’s been a while since I’ve posted something real on my blog.

This post has a bunch of business honesty and goes into my personal financial situation in depth. I’m sharing it with you to start a new conversation about where I’m going, and to make it possible to write openly from now on about my new path through life.

See my deal with Upload VR isn’t a paying deal. Being entrepreneur in residence just means I have an office there and I have to figure it out. Many of my friends tell me they think I talked myself into a great-paying job and don’t need to worry.

No.

My deal with the founders of Upload VR just put me in place to have a great office in the middle of one of the hottest industries out there (and that’s not me saying that,  great Silicon Valley investor Jeff Clavier told Leade.rs that last week in Paris).

It means I have to come up with a business (or businesses) that will pay enough to keep my family’s lifestyle and, to keep my office at Upload for more than a year, I have to come up with one that provides value to Upload itself. We are in active discussions about that and I expect them to go well. More on that in a future post.

Having an office in the middle of the hottest media business in the world is a HUGE benefit, but all it is is unrealized opportunity. I still need to do the work. I still need to find a way to turn all the coolness of VR and the community that’s coming together into a business. Lots of people want to do VR-related events, for instance, and I have to figure out how to do that while making the income I need to keep my family in Silicon Valley and my autistic son’s many specialists paid to get him the care he needs.

The Upload deal does have other big benefits: I have a media team around me that helps me learn about a new, rapidly changing industry. It has events nearly every night, and is part of a growing market, so opportunities are surrounding me. It reminds me of the early days of blogging where there was the same and eventually the businesses did show up. Techcrunch, Engadget, Huffington Post, all started within a few years of each other due to the opportunity that blogging brought. I believe VR is going to be just as important, if not more so, and it will be followed by an even bigger wave, AR, but the real market might not show up for three to six years. I don’t have the financial freedom to just play VR until the market shows up, so need to find real businesses fast that start paying dividends now.

I can’t imagine a better place to start new businesses than from inside Upload’s offices.

On the other hand, my personal financial runway is running out and boy does that sharpen your focus. Rackspace gave me a few months income to figure it all out and I have until Thanksgiving to build businesses now, or get revenues, before I start digging into my meager savings. I am luckier than many to have even that much time to figure it out, but then my expense flows and housing costs, along with having a kid in college and another who has special needs. His psychologist has been urging us to put Milan into a school that costs $75,000 a year. That is more than a Stanford education for a year! Even now he has dozens of teachers, psychologists, care givers, and baby sitters. Truth be told I couldn’t afford it all even on my Rackspace salary and we are working to cut back but it’s hard to not give your kids the care they need. If you haven’t noticed Silicon Valley is expensive, even for someone with a nice six-figure income.

I remember talking to MC Hammer about why he had to declare bankruptcy: all those mouths to feed. You can get in a financial hole and fast.

I’ve been working on figuring out where my next income is going to come from, but in looking at the problem I realized that I have a mental block. I needed to wash the big-company thinking out of my mind. See, when you are at a big company you start to cruise and you start doing things that don’t necessarily need to add to your personal bottom line. You do things you think are important for your company to be at. You don’t take risks that might help you personally, but might put you in conflict with your bosses. And, yes, even you get used to that fun corporate credit card. Now I find I’m not so willing to go out to an expensive restaurant as I used to be.

I get now why innovation usually comes from a lack of resources. When your family’s future is uncertain staying up a little later and working on your business seems more important than watching a TV show or, even, playing that VR headset (which is why I have two of them sitting on my office floor unboxed). Taking time to meet with yet another businessperson is more important all of a sudden than hanging out with friends (sorry friends). So does taking a tour around the world to meet innovators. All of a sudden you are listening, thinking, and cutting things that don’t aggregate to you. Coming up with business plans. Trying your pitch out on people (and you learn how to pitch again because you have to do it so much where at a big company you only get one chance a quarter to pitch a new idea).

Same when you are working on a technology, or any business really. If you don’t have enough money to do it the old way, you have to come up with a new way to do the same thing cheaper and faster if you want to grow or increase profits. I was talking to the owner of the South African Cycling Team about this, Douglas Ryder. He has two thirds the budget of the other teams. He’s using innovative technology to win. I hope to meet up with his team this week as they race through California to capture his story better but already they have moved from worst to fifth in the world in about two years despite the lack of resources.

I fought with myself whether I should even disclose this to you. After all, there are certain benefits from having you all think I landed a well-paying job and I’m making tons of cash. Sort of like a rapper who brags about his private jet but really is broke. Helps you keep appearances, but I’ve never been one for appearances.

I really only have one thing as a journalist, futurist, or whatever you call me: your trust.

I really have come to hate the social media attitude of “only show the beautiful side of yourself.” I will never treat you that way. Plus, once you start lying, or leaving things out, to your audience and friends in an attempt to get jobs or keep your reputation, well, then you are leading a life that will drive you nuts.

It’s always better to just tell the truth and see where that leads.

I’ve learned the value of asking for help before I fall too deep into a hole. Easier to dig you out of a well if you are only a few feet down than if you’ve fallen all the way to the bottom.

Lately you’ve seen me traveling the world meeting with entrepreneurs, next Monday I head back to Europe to do just that for several weeks. One that I met with recently told me he is worse than broke, his company closed down and now he has a personal debt of a million dollars that he needs to pay back. He’s feeling the pressure I’m feeling but even more intensely. He laid out how he’s digging out of the hole he’s in and that helped me deeply. I know many in the community that are struggling financially. Not knowing where rent for next week will come from. Just knowing there are others going through this pressure does help, which is yet another reason I’m sharing my own struggles.

Some other mental blocks: I thought speaking income might be the way out of this problem, but, no, and even if it were enough speaking is a tough job for a family man. One international speech requires being away from family for five days. This month I will rarely be home in an attempt to rebuild my story and media streams and get around the world to meet many of the influencers in the VR ecosystem, which will probably pay off. Worse, it’s not scalable. There isn’t any way to increase revenues unless you do something else with your life, which probably won’t happen if you are living your entire life on the road.

It’s tough, too, for someone getting older. Even if you get business class seats (which are very expensive) it’s tough on the body and takes one away from building a more sustainable business and is spiky income at best, plus it drives you to do things that might not be natural acts (I arrived to one speaking gig to discover they wanted me to teach a four-hour class to a bunch of MBAs instead of my usual 20 or 40-minute keynote. I’m proud I pulled it off with less than 24-hour warning, but it wasn’t comfortable for sure).

Oh, and if you are desperate for income word gets around that you’ll work for cheaper than your usual retail fee. Which puts your family on a downward spiral. Lots want you to speak for free. The best speakers don’t need to speak to make their money, so they can turn down everything except for the high-paying gigs or the ones that will help their business make even more (which is why most speaking gigs are free, the organizers know you will use it as an advertisement to get business). I’ll keep doing speaking to extend my runway, and for the other benefits, for sure, but doing that keeps me from really working on my business and solving the problem.

Back to mental blocks. I had a mental block about my blog. After all, in an age of Facebook, Medium, Twitter, and Snapchat, why do I need it? I really don’t. I thought. Plus, here I have to worry about security and servers and, yes, even paying for them. Right now Rackspace is picking up the bill but it won’t forever so I need to figure it out. A few years back I was hacked here, which made me realize just how useful having a service is to run your media. Facebook and Medium, for all their failings, protect their users from the underlying work it takes to keep a platform up and running.

It is a mental comfort, though, to have your own space, with your own name on it, that has no competition from others, in which to just share with the world and see what pops out. On Facebook you might not get distributed. On Twitter you might not get seen. On Snapchat you might not get deep. On LinkedIn you might not get read, and even if you do your words are surrounded by distractions.

So I’m working on that mental block. If I’m going to build a media business I need to build it from somewhere I own. I’m CEO and founder of Scobleizer.com. That sounds better than “I’m hoping Facebook distributes me.” I might be broke soon but at least I have something I control. Turns out investor Fred Wilson was right that I gave up something when I left my blog.

All weekend I was hanging out with great entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, er, San Francisco, including Evernote’s founder, Phil Libin, and one of Product Hunt’s key players, Erik Torenberg, and they focused me on this: build things that you own and that can aggregate back to you and that won’t change. Oh, and they all are trying to find ways to disrupt what already exists. In other words, change the rules. Service Rocket’s founder told me the same recently, he told me to do virtual events to corporate clients. He showed me how one such event would make as much as a speech on the road, maybe more and that it’s more scalable, I could do several per day and to larger and larger audiences. (Service Rocket does corporate training and does it well, has 200 employees and hasn’t taken any venture capital to build that business).

Some things that I do own: my email newsletter. If you are subscribed to that, thank you! (Although Rackspace is currently hosting it, and paying Hugh Macleod to do the art for it, the email is mine and I’ll be moving it to my own business soon). A great reputation that gets me into most any door in the industry. My social graph is full of influential people who continue shaking the industry. My Facebook friend graph has everyone from Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, to Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, to Kara Golding, cofounder of Hint Water. I have so many great friends that open up opportunities for me. It’s why I still have a flow of great insights and news from inside companies. It’s why I’m able to recognize trends, like the current move toward spatial computing, before anyone else sees them.

Also, I’m working on another book with Shel Israel, which is about what’s happening next after mobile phones: spacial computing, VR, AR. But there too we don’t have enough money to complete the book. It is expensive to report on, and write books and get them edited and marketed properly. Even just a trip to Magic Leap in Florida will cost us a few thousand dollars. Shel is not in a place where he can invest in the book either, and this lack of resources is causing us to innovate there too.

We are exploring some other business ideas, including starting a consulting/analysis business where we would charge businesses for early access to not just what we’re learning about, say, augmented reality, but where we’d work with said companies on coming up with an innovation plan. Still need more time to figure that out, but Jeremiah Owyang is inspirational here. He has built a nice business that supports his lifestyle without forcing him to be on the road too much away from his family.

We’re considering crowd funding, too, to sell copies of the book, or other partnerships, before the book will come out.

That said, we are willing to hear all creative ideas, including me doing consulting or adding other value beyond just a blurb in the book, and it will be an important book about just how deeply the world is about to change. Heck, tomorrow Google will announce several spatial computing initiatives at its IO conference, but we are between cycles and marketing teams aren’t willing to throw much cash around when this new age will really arrive in two to four years. Timing is hard on products and our book is just a little early. One entrepreneur told me he got sponsors for his conference by offering them 10 days of his time. Great idea, and one we are willing to entertain.

This is what it means to be an entrepreneur: refuse to hear no and refuse to die. That said, damn those mental blocks are sure loud in my head. “You’re going to fail,” they say. I get why it’s so important to get coaching and mentoring to tell those voices of failure to be quiet for a while and to focus your efforts on where you’ll get the most likely chance for success.

Some of my friends and family keep asking “why don’t you go work for Google, Amazon, Facebook or Microsoft or some firm?” I know that’s the easy way out of this problem. I want to build my own thing and get over the mental block that keeps telling me I can’t build my own business. It sure is uncomfortable facing the dwindling savings, though. I am keeping myself from entertaining that mental block for a few more months.

The way I see it is even if I choose the big company path again (or even a well funded startup) I am more useful to it if I have tried to find a new path through life first. I need to build some entrepreneurial skills first to have something to offer another company, if I am forced down that route. For the past month I’ve been working harder than I have worked in two months at Rackspace. Those resource constraints are hugely motivating and that newly exercised muscle will soon be much more valuable than the flab that existed before.

The other thing about going to a big company is that I might end up in this same situation in another seven years. Having to figure out my financial life. But then I’ll be 57 and it won’t be as easy and there might not be two big waves of opportunity coming. The industry is tough for older people. I’d rather have my own business for the last part of my career than have to rely on a committee that I can’t influence for my paycheck.

It gives me a new respect for those of you who have built businesses and, even, those who are struggling to do so. It also shows why the culture you are around is so important. Do you hang out with big dreamers who not only show you it’s possible, but show you how? That force you to focus on business? So many around the world don’t have the advantages I do so end up working at the big company and putting their dreams on hold. Yesterday, on a train, Phil Libin, founder of Evernote, did just that for me. It wasn’t comfortable for either of us, but he was right and I’m so fortunate to have people like that to help me get over my mental blocks.

Over the next few months you’ll follow me as I head down this path to redefine myself and figure things out.

Finally, one person is really inspiring me. Maryam Scoble, I’m her husband. She took a job this year as a conference planner at Service Now. While I’m typing these words at 35,000 feet on the way back from France to home she’s dealing with hundreds of speakers at their huge industry conference in Las Vegas. Why? She’s trying to help me figure this out. She’s keeping a brave face on it, but I can see and hear the strain of a new job with big responsibilities and it has sharpened my resolve to figure it out. It’s really great to have a life partner that’s pulling on the oars in the same direction as you are trying to go, not to mention her job provides health care for the family so that’s one less bill I need to worry about. Plus, as she’s done that I see a sparkle in her eyes of new-found confidence and that makes me very happy.

OK, now that I’ve disclosed the strain, back to work! (Heading back into a plane, this time home to San Francisco, see you in a few hours!)

In an era where every fight online is fought with numbers, this 50-year-old book should be made a compulsory college reading. Stats and graphs are part every news-hour show and part of every political discourse now. But every bit of number is taken as fact instead of being questioned. This is where Darrell Huff’s small and simple book comes into picture. The first eight chapters deal with how simple statistical/graph tricks could be use to cheat common man.

Some of the statistical manipulations it deals in detail are prevalent even today. For example, sample surveys with built-in bias, misuse of different types of averages (mean, median and mode), how one-dimensional picture graphs lie etc. In fact you could find them easily when you watch a politician talk or if you read a newspaper article.

This book is sort of warning if you work as a data analyst or visualizer and a guide if you are a reader, specially the last two chapters. The ninth chapter talks about statisticulation. This chapter deals with how sometimes how the data gets twisted, exaggerated, over-simplified, and distorted-through-selection by salesman, public-relations expert, journalist, or advertising copywriter and not exactly by statistician. This is why I think its important who are involved in data analysis top publish raw data and steps/code to reproduce the analysis.

The last chapter is geared towards the consumer of stats and graphs. It gives tips to ask questions. He argues that just five simple questions can be used as litmus test.

The questions are

1. Who says so?
2. How does he know?
3. What’s missing?
4. Did somebody change the subject?
5. Does it make sense?

I think these questions are applicable beyond stats. We need to apply them for any kind of news or analysis that we read these days. The book is full of quotable quotes. I have some of my favorite below. BTW you can read the book on Archive.org for free.

Quotes from the book

Not all the statistical information that you may come upon can be tested with the sureness of chemical analysis or of what goes on in an assayer’s laboratory. But you can prod the stuff with five simple questions, and by finding the answers avoid learning a remarkable lot that isn’t so.

Misinforming people by the use of statistical material might be called statistical manipulation; in a word (though not a very good one), statisticulation.

A well-wrapped statistic is better than Hitler’s ‘big lie’; it misleads, yet it cannot be pinned on you.

Watch out for evidence of a biased sample, one that has been selected improperly or – as with this one – has selected itself. Ask the question we dealt with in an early chapter: Is the sample large enough to permit any reliable conclusion?

The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify.

Nokia, the Finnish company that was once popular for making Symbian based smartphones, today announced that it will be making a return to the smartphone and tablet market. The company itself will not be manufacturing phones, but it has granted HMD, a new company “led by some of the world’s top mobile specialists,” the license to manufacture and sell Nokia-branded smartphones, tablets, and even feature phones for the next 10 years. Continue reading →

Used smartphones are becoming more commonplace, according to the International Data Corporation

In its latest Canada-centric report, the market research group says about 5.3 percent of the Canadian smartphone market is made up of used devices. That is, devices that have been handed down or sold by the original purchaser.

Currently the market for second-hand smartphones is about $1.4 million CAD, a number IDC says will grow over the next few years based on information the firm gathered after surveying a number of Canadian households. When asked what they would do with their current device, 21 percent of Canadians said they would either give or sell their smartphone to a friend, family member or stranger, while another 6 percent said they would take to websites like Craigslist and Kijiji to offload their device.

The main factor behind the trend, according to IDC’s Krista Collins, is the emergence of bigger and higher quality devices like the iPhone 6 Plus, Galaxy S6 and their recent successors. Most Canadian smartphone users feel comfortable holding onto these type of devices for a greater length of time than the two year contract they signed to obtain those devices in the first place, says Collins.

Buying a used device offers Canadians a number of other advantages. Chief among is the ability for a person to get a high-end device without singing a contract. On the flip side, those who do decide to buy a new smartphone on contract can recoup some of the cost of their device when they sell it at a later date.

On a more macro level, more used devices making their way into the smartphone market also means reduced demand for new phones, a trend that’s likely to compound the effects of a maturing market. IDC ends its report by saying that companies like Apple and Samsung, as well as the carriers that sell their devices, will have to find a way to capitalize on the number of Canadians — and smartphone users around the world — who buy phones off contract.

From the Smithsonian Magazine:

 

Alan Berger, a professor of landscape architecture and urban design at MIT, … as co-director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Urbanism (CAU), recently helped organize a conference at the university titled, “The Future of Suburbia.” The meeting was the culmination of a two-year research project on how suburbs could be reinvented. …

One such technology is the autonomous car, which is what Berger talked about. A lot of media attention has been paid to the prospect of fleets of driverless vehicles constantly circulating on downtown streets, but he says the invention’s greatest impact will be in the suburbs, which, after all, have largely been defined by how we use cars.

“It will be in suburb-to-suburb commuting,” Berger says. “That’s the majority of movement in our country. As more autonomous cars come online, you’re going to see more and more suburbanization, not less. People will be driving farther to their jobs.”

With truly autonomous vehicles still years away, no one can say with much certainty if they will result in people spending less time in cars. But Berger does foresee one big potential benefit—much less pavement. Based on the notion that there likely will be more car-sharing and less need for multiple lanes since vehicles could continuously loop on a single track, Berger believes the amount of pavement in a suburb of the future could be cut in half. You would no longer need huge shopping center parking lots, or even driveways and garages.

… interdependence between suburbs and downtowns is at the heart of how Berger and others at the CAU see the future. Instead of bedroom communities of cul-de-sacs and shopping malls, the suburbs they’ve imagined would focus on using more of their space to sustain themselves and nearby urban centers—whether it’s by providing energy through solar panel micro-grids or using more of the land to grow food and store water.

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Full article here.

Josi Denise, May 20, 2016

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There's a lot of off-colour language in this post announcing Josi Denise's resignation as a 'mommy blogger'. The full post, though, is worth reading, as it gives us a glimpse of a world in which brands manipulate bloggers and bloggers so whatever it takes to gain readers - and stay in touch with company PR reps. And at a certain level, as this post says, it's all fake. Josi Denise ran her 'mommy blog' since 2013 making money and earning tens of thousands of followers, but finally had a crisis on conscience and abruptly quit. I wonder how much of the edublogosphere is like this? probably not many of the people I follow on a regular basis are, but there's a very large mass of 'teacher bloggers' out there that follow a similar paattern: shill for the vendors, do publicity stunts to attract readers, and maybe even make most of the stuff up. Via Motto, via Ben Werdmuller.

[Link] [Comment]

From Eric Britton’s “World Streets.”  It helps to know that Bangkok is one of the only world cities that has adopted SkyTrain-like technology. (See Guest in comments.)

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Eric: No particular lessons to be learned here, I guess.

Let's see how this works: vowe looking at things.

Luke Wroblewski, Official Google Blog, May 20, 2016

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Google has released an app called 'Spaces' intended to support small groups. It integrates other Google apps: "With Spaces, it’ s simple to find and share articles, videos and images without leaving the app, since Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome come built in." I wouldn't invest too much effort into this, as Google has a pattern of creating services and closing them. I've created a space for OLDaily  - the system still seems to need some work. The service seems to resemble things like Delicious.com.

[Link] [Comment]

Lenovo is reportedly retiring the Moto X brand and will come to market with two new flagship devices under the Moto Z naming scheme.

According to Venture Beat, courtesy of Evan Blass, Lenovo will release the 5.5-inch Moto Z Style and the 5.5-inch Moto Z Play, which previously were known by the internal names of Vector Thin and Vertex.

As previously reported, the 5.5-inch Moto Z Style (Vector Thin) will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, 32GB of internal storage, 3GB RAM, 13 megapixel camera with OIS, 2600mAh battery, and 5.2 millimeters thick. The Moto Z Play (Vertex) will have a 5.5-inch full HD display, Snapdragon 625 processor, 16GB/32GB of internal storage, 16 megapixel camera, 7mm thick and features a 3500mAh battery.

Lenovo will be making modular backplates on both devices, which will reportedly go by the name of MotoMods. They will include a pico projector, stereo speakers, and a camera grip with optical zoom lens.

These devices will most likely be unveiled at Lenovo Tech World show on June 9th.

Related reading: Leak indicates Lenovo is preparing to launch two versions of a new modular Moto X

A Moon Shaped Pool of Money

This just in from Business in Vancouver:

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Single-family lots in East Vancouver are gradually densifying through city bylaws that allow legal suites and laneway houses, but builders say the ever-increasing cost of Vancouver real estate is making it harder to find properties and turn a profit. …

Properties increase in value by around $900,000 when a builder tears down an older bungalow and replaces it with a larger house with a legal basement suite and a laneway house. 

The trend pushes the price of the built-out property into the $2.4 million range, the kind of hefty price tag once reserved for Vancouver’s west side.  …

The rapid price acceleration, combined with the City of Vancouver’s lengthy permitting process, has led to another layer of deal-making: it’s common for builders to buy a house, tear it down and begin the permitting process. 

They then sell the lot with the permits in place, but not yet paid for, to another builder. Selling the lot with the new house not yet started allows the second builder to avoid paying GST on a new home. …

The densification trend is largely not happening on the west side, Atwal said, characterizing buyers in neighbourhoods like Dunbar as wealthy people who would rather use the garage to house an expensive car than build a laneway house.

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More intriguing details here.

While cell phones and digital cameras have largely taken over the photographic industry, FILM PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT DEAD! It’s alive and well in the London Drugs Photo Department and particularly attractive to a generation that never had to wait longer than half a second to see the results of their snap! To accommodate these up and coming film photographers and artists (and those who are just too darn stubborn to make the leap to digital) we have been hard at work making sure we have the tools, the know-how and in some cases the creativity to give our customers the quality they expect from a London Drugs photograph.

Single Use Cameras

If you want to give film a shot and you don’t want to invest in an eBay camera, a single-use camera could be for you! It used to be that people carried one of these little guys around with them everywhere “just in case” they had to take a photo. These days, everyone is pretty well soldered to their cell phones so nobody is without a camera when they need it, but there are still times when a single-use camera could come in handy.

Since the only part of the single-use that actually needs a battery is the flash, a dead battery doesn’t leave you completely camera-less unlike a phone that could leave you high and dry after 52 levels of candy crush. So if you’re camping or find yourself with no phone (GASP) or a dead phone battery, a single-use camera could save the day!

Worried you might damage your new iPhone while skiing? Single-use camera. Afraid your DSLR will get lost or stolen at a concert or festival? Single-use camera. Want to allow the guests at your wedding to take some photos from a different perspective? You guessed it – single-use cameras.

These cameras also come in an underwater style which means yes, you can take them underwater! They’re reasonably good for snorkeling or perhaps in the swimming pool where there’s still a decent amount of natural light available as these cameras do not have a flash. So while you can’t catch the Loch ness monster at 40 meters, you might be able to at 5-10!

Fujifilm Quicksnap Waterproof Camera shown above

 

Toy Cameras

Konstruktor

This is where things get seriously, legitimately FUN. If you have a tinkerer in your life – you know – the one who takes your new alarm-clock apart to see how it works and pulls all the guts out of your computer to see what’s in it – they’re going to LOVE this. There is a KIT that you can buy to build your own film camera! If you can build IKEA furniture, you can build a camera from scratch AND it actually works!

Diana series

If you’re not into building your own, you can also buy toy cameras that are completely made of plastic – some even come with multiple lenses similar to an SLR. The neat thing about these cameras is that every one is a little bit different. The lenses may be slightly warped or something might not fit quite perfectly which lends itself to light leaks, flares and differential focus. I can literally hear your OCD squirming, but seriously, this is like the original Instagram! If you want funky colors and effects that make your images truly one-of-a-kind, this is an AWESOME way to go.

 

And don’t forget World Toy Camera Day is October 16^th this year!

Pinhole Cameras

If you really want to get down to the nitty gritty and McGyver a camera out of a matchbox, a pop can some film and tape…GO FOR IT! I’m not kidding you. It really is this simple to create your own pin-hole camera and you may even have everything you need on-hand right this second. There are plenty of tutorials on the web for different ways to create one of these truly DIY cameras, but don’t be afraid to experiment with different equipment and methods – you might create some pretty unique looking artwork!

http://matchboxpinhole.com

C-41 Process (35mm & 110 film)

Being the most recent predecessor to digital photography, this is the most common type of film processing. It relies upon the development of silver throughout several chemical baths to create an inverted copy of the image you have taken. Our technology allows us to pass the negative through each chemical bath at a controlled speed to ensure that each photo on your roll is properly developed.

Some of these film processors have been with us for more than a decade and these old gals require some tender loving care to keep them in tip top shape which is why we clean them regularly, refresh the chemicals as needed and run a control strip every day to ensure our chemicals are in balance.

Many of our locations can still accommodate film developing in an hour.

 

E-6 Process (slide film)

Remember the good old days when Grandma & Grandpa came back from a trip to Hawaii and the whole family gathered together in front of the projection screen to see the gorgeous slideshow of the entire journey? No? You are MISSING OUT! Slide film can produce crisp, vibrant photographic-like tiny images on what’s called a ‘positive.’ During the chemical process, slide film undergoes a process called a reversal bath which creates the positive image.

If you wanted to, after you’d shot a roll of slide film, you could keep the little cardboard framed beauties as images all on their own. It could make for a kind of neat instagram-like display if you put them up against a light colored background, but more often than not you’ll want to print those bad boys or put them on a CD to share instantly with your friends and family – and guess what, London Drugs has you covered there too!

120/126 and ‘other’ films

Not sure if we can develop or print from the film you found in your great-grandmother’s hat box? Bring it in and we’ll take a look! In many cases we can send your film out to another location to be developed, or we can scan and print your images directly from your already-processed odd-shaped negative on our high quality flatbed scanner.

 

About the Author

Meghan is a meal-planning, food-prepping, Pinterest addict. She likes coffee – a lot. A mom of 2 boys, Meghan has a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Psychology, which she uses on a daily basis when helping customers create memories. Meghan is honoured to witness your histories unfold in real-time.

Known as “a social media pro,” LDExpert Meghan blogs about her experiences as Photolab Manager at www.ldlablady.wordpress.com. You can also follow her on Twitter.

A recent poll by Vancity, a local credit union, suggests that Millenials will stay in Vancouver in spite of having the lowest discretionary income in Canada. Here is the press release:

May 16, 2016, Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, B.C. – Sixty-eight per cent of the region’s millennials have considered “giving up and leaving Metro Vancouver,” but a strong majority say they expect to still be living here in five years.

Those are the findings of a new Vancity poll conducted by the Mustel Group. The credit union commissioned the survey of 18- to 35-year-olds in Metro Vancouver to better understand the affordability issues millennials are facing, and how that might affect their decisions about where to live.

Unsurprisingly, the survey revealed the cost of housing is a major concern, with 93 per cent of respondents rating home ownership as unaffordable, and 66 per cent saying it is unaffordable to rent within the region.

Still, 83 per cent say that in five years they expect to still be living within Metro Vancouver – either in their current municipality (61 per cent) or in another municipality within Metro Vancouver (22 per cent). Those intending to stay cite jobs (57 per cent), lifestyle (56 per cent), family (53 per cent) and friends (51 per cent) as among the most important factors keeping them in the region.

With the affordability crunch hitting hard, many millennials say they are making trade-offs to afford life in Metro Vancouver. The most striking is that many of them are still living at home with their parents. Sixty-one per cent of respondents between 18 and 24 say they are living at home, while 23 per cent of those between 25 and 35 have yet to move out.

Other trade-offs include:

• spending less or eating out less (54 per cent)
• living in a smaller home (47 per cent)
• delaying purchase of a home (41 per cent)
• starting a family later (34 per cent)
• living at home longer (30 per cent)
• giving up the dream of owning a home (29 per cent) and/or
• not owning a car (22 per cent)

Despite the pressures, Metro Vancouver millennials continue to hold a positive outlook, with most saying they expect to own a home at some point in the future. Most, however, acknowledge that dream is at least 10 years or more away.

As a community-based credit union focused on building a strong, local economy, Vancity has been inviting millennials to express their opinions about the region through online submissions. Vancity is today launching a campaign showcasing those submissions, as well as a blogcontaining tips, tricks and other lifestyle hacks for millennials in Metro Vancouver and beyond. To learn more about the campaign, visit vancity.com/dontgiveup.

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“We don’t want millennials to give up. Clearly, they don’t want to give up either. That’s why we’re looking for ways to amplify millennial voices in hopes of bringing all the right people and organizations to the table."William Azaroff, Vancity’s vice-president of community investment

Samsung has updated its Always On Display app through the Galaxy Apps store for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge to add new functionality to them. Among other changes, the update introduces the ability to only enable Always On Display during a certain time of the day. Continue reading →

See what we ate on an average day, for the past several decades. Read More

I laughed myself to tears when I got to item 2 on the second list.

Mozilla will provide $150,000 in funding, and also grow the local maker community, to spur gigabit innovation in Texas’ capital

When you couple lightning-fast Internet with innovative projects in the realms of education and workforce development, amazing things can happen.

That’s the philosophy behind the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund, our joint initiative with the National Science Foundation and US Ignite. The Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund brings funding and staffing to U.S. cities equipped with gigabit connectivity, the next-generation Internet that’s 250-times faster than most other connections. Our goal: Spark the creation of groundbreaking, gigabit-enabled educational technologies so that more people of all ages and backgrounds can read, write, and participate on this next-generation Web.

As we just announced at the Gigabit City Summit in Kansas City, we’re expanding our gigabit work to the city of Austin, TX in August 2016. Selected from a list of contenders from across the country, Austin stood out due to its existing city-wide digital inclusion plan, active developer community, and growing informal education landscape. Beginning this fall, Mozilla will provide $150,000 in grant funding to innovative and local projects and tools that leverage Austin’s Google Fiber network. Think: 4K streaming in classrooms, immersive virtual reality, and more.

(In the existing Mozilla Gigabit cities of Chattanooga, TN and Kansas City, projects include real-time water monitoring systems, 3D learning tools for classrooms, and specialized technology for first responder training. Read more about those projects here.)

Mozilla is also investing in the makers and educators who make Austin great. We’ll help create Gigabit Hive Austin — a network of individuals, schools, nonprofits, museums, and other local organizations passionate about teaching and learning the Web. Hive Austin will be one of 14 Mozilla Hive networks and communities across four continents that teach web literacy and 21st-century skills.

Mozilla will open the first round of grant applications in Austin this August, and accept applications through October 18, 2016. Applicants and projects don’t have to be from Austin originally, but must be piloted locally. Click here to learn about the RFP process.

This spring, Mozilla is also providing $134,000 in new gigabit funding in Chattanooga and Kansas City. Funds will support projects that explore gigabit and robotics, big data, the Internet of Things, and more. Learn more.

Over the next two years, Mozilla will be expanding its Gigabit work to two additional cities. Interested in becoming a future Gigabit Hive city? We will reopen the city application process in late 2016.

Throughout history, University students, staff and professors have often shaped the leading edge of change and innovation. The history of the web is no different: the student-built Lynx browser was one of the first and Mosaic (Firefox’s distant ancestor!), pioneered by students and staff, opened the graphical web to millions.

I saw the impact that students and professors can make through my own experience at Engineers Without Borders Canada. Engineering students and professors on campuses across Canada and in Africa built remarkable ventures, reshaped curriculum, changed on-campus and government policy, and taught hundreds of thousands of young people about global development.

I fully believe in the potential of students, staff and professors on campuses around the world to have massive impact on Mozilla’s mission. As innovators, contributors and open web advocates. Engineers, scientists, lawyers, social scientists, economists and designers.

From what I know about my past experience and have heard in the past year working for Mozilla, our mission resonates tremendously with students and professors. The range of impact and involvement is considerable. Until now, we’ve only just scraped the surface of this potential.

We need to reinvent Mozilla on campus.

Our existing engagement on University campuses around the world is an assortment of largely disconnected programs and people. Firefox Student Ambassadors and Firefox Clubs. Mozilla Clubs. Code contribution by individual contributors. Maker Party. Mozilla Science Lab. Various professor and lab partnerships. Employee recruitment. Many of these are successful in their own right; there’s an opportunity learn from each of them, find connections, and imagine opportunity to scale their impact with a more coordinated approach.

The largest of these by student involvement, Firefox Student Ambassadors (FSAs) and Firefox Clubs, has been constrained by limited and variable employee support and a focus on marketing. Our student leaders have already been “hacking” this program to introduce advocacy, code contribution, support, localization, teaching and many other activities; official support for this has lagged.

Our team came into this year with a key hypothesis as part of our strategy: That we can supercharge participation with a reinvented campus program.

The Take Back the Web campus campaign focused on privacy and security has been our first effort to test this hypothesis. Already it’s showing great promise, with over 600 campus teams signed up (including hundreds of FSAs) to have impact in 3 areas. We’re focused on learning as much as we can from this campaign.

The campus campaign is a step toward reinvention. But I think it’s now time to take a step back to ask: What impact can we imagine with a coordinated effort on campuses around the world? What do students, staff and professors want and need to be involved with Mozilla’s mission? How might we evolve our existing programs? What programs and structures would we design, and how do they relate to one another? How can we invite people on campus to innovate with Mozilla?

These are the broad questions that will guide a process over the next 9 weeks. By July 15th we aim to have a clear articulation of the impact we can have, the programs we’ll invest in and how they relate to one another, and the opportunities for students, staff and professors to participate.

We’re hoping that this process of reinventing Mozilla on campus will be participatory, and we’re inviting many voices to contribute. Lucy Harris on the Participation Team will be stewarding this process and shaping the final options. Mark Surman, Mitchell Baker, Chris Lawrence, Katharina Borchert and I will be involved in making a final decision on the direction we take.

You can read more about the details of the process in this post, but let me summarize it and the opportunities you have to be involved:

Phase 1: Listening (May 16-27)

→ provide thoughts on existing programs and opportunities you see

Phase 2: Synthesis and options (May 27-June 10)

→ we’ll frame some tensions for you to weigh in on

→ we’ll shape a set of options for conversation during the London All Hands

Phase 3: Final input (June 10-24)

→ we’ll articulate a set of options for you to consider as we move forward, and will be diving deep into these and key questions during the Mozilla All Hands in London

Phase 4: Final Decision and Disseminate (June 24-July 15)

→ we’ll take all the input and decide on a direction for moving forward

 

Let me finish by reiterating the opportunity. University campuses are a hotbed of innovation and a locus for creating change. Mozilla can tap into this energy and catalyze involvement in unleashing the next wave of openness and opportunity in online life. Finally, our team is excited about helping to shape a direction we can take, and investing in a robust program of participation moving forward.

I’m excited for this journey of reinventing Mozilla on campus.

 

[1] Photo credit: Tanha Islam and Trisa Islam

Download and install evernote. Make sure you have the Chrome extension in the top right of your screen.

Whenever someone shares an emotive story (fear, anger, joy), clip it and tag it by the emotion (here are 8 to get started).

Save it under an evernote project.

After 6 months, you should have dozens of powerful, emotive, stories. You will have stories of distraught customers and delighted ones. You will have stories about intense levels of frustration and anxiety. You will have stories about mutual respect and trust. You will have some good oddball stories.

Start learning the core elements of these stories.

“Member ‘X’ was really frustrated about ‘Y’, she posted this in the community, member ‘C’ responded…Member ‘X’ was really delighted to find the solution”

Now start spreading the best stories.

Start spreading the ones that will make people in the organisation feel great about the work they’re doing (“thought you all should take a second to read this amazing story by…”).

Start spreading stories that should provoke anger and get people to take notice (“I’m sorry to share this, but we’ve had a member today who wasn’t able to…..”).

Start spreading the stories that provoke fear (“I’ve seen two of our top members recommend our competitors today because….”).

Start spreading stories that spread awe (“Just noticed that one of the key influencers in our field has joined the group…let’s raise our game this week”)

Forget reporting metrics. Your boss probably doesn’t care about the number of likes, shares or active members as you do. Your boss does care when customers explain they’re leaving for competitors or they share their joy in something you did.

Remember that emotion tagged ‘joy’? Make sure you have plenty of positive stories from members there. You will need them to get through the rougher days.

Far too often we let our best stories go to waste. We don’t share with them other members, our colleagues, or even use them to improve our own mood. Don’t let the best stories disappear, tag them, store them, and share them.

In Massachusetts, companies can enforce noncompete agreements to stop their workers from working for (or starting) a competitor. There ought to be a cost for companies to do that — and if the Massachusetts legislature passes the law it’s considering, there will be. Noncompetes in Mass. make it hard to change jobs As it stands now, … Continue reading Noncompete agreements should cost companies something →

The post Noncompete agreements should cost companies something appeared first on without bullshit.

Schaut man sich weltweit die Marktanteile mobiler Betriebssysteme an, so besteht kein Zweifel mehr daran, dass Googles Android die Vorherrschaft inne hat. Die aktuellen Zahlen (per Ende März 2016) des Kantar Worldpanel bestätigen dies.

Android: Größtes Wachstum in zwei Jahren

In den EU5 (Deutschland, Großbritannien, Frankreich, Italien, Spanien) stieg Androids Marktanteil um 7,1 Prozentpunkte auf 75,6 Prozent, in den USA um 7,3 auf 65,5 Prozent und in China um fast sechs Prozentpunkte auf 77 Prozent.

In Deutschland wuchs das mobile Betriebssystem im vergangenen Jahr um 4,8 Prozentpunkte auf 76,1 Prozent. Apples iOS sank um einen halben Prozentpunkt auf 17,8 Prozent, Windows verlor massiv von 8,7 auf 4,9 Prozent. Blackberry wuchs nur leicht von 0,8 auf 0,9 Prozent.

“This is the strongest growth for Android across the EU5 in more than two years,” so Lauren Guenveur, Mobile Analyst bei Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “What’s more, the growth is coming not just from one or two players, but from different brands and ecosystems, varying from region to region.”

iOS und Windows verlieren

In den EU5 verlor Apple sogar noch mehr als in Deutschland. Hier ging der Marktanteil von 20,2 auf 18,9 Prozent zurück. Hierbei verlor iOS an Android deutlich weniger als Windows. 6,6 Prozent aller Android Neukunden kamen von Windows, nur 3,3 Prozent von iOS.

Windows ist insbesondere in seinen vormals starken Märkten Frankreich und Italien unter Druck. Dort gingen zehn Prozent der Nutzer innerhalb von der letzten drei Monate an Android verloren. Nicht nur die bessere User Experience, die größere Modellbreite bei den Geräten und Marken sondern vor allem die Mid-Range Smartphones von Herstellern wie Huawei, Wiko und Asus bedrängen Windows hier stark. Im Gegensatz dazu dominiert den UK-Markt weiterhin Samsung mit dem J5 und A5.

Analystin Guenveur geht jedoch davon aus, dass der Marktanteil von Android mit dem iPhone SE insbesondere in China wieder zurück gehen wird. Doch diese Effekte werden erst im nächsten Quartal sichtbar sein.

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

As many have noted this month, including Bloomberg, App Review has been processing app updates at a much quicker rate than usual. In the past week the average time for an iOS app to be approved by App Review has fallen to just 1.5 days. Apple itself doesn't publish times, but there is unofficial crowd-sourced data at AppReviewTimes.com.

Dave Verwer of AppReviewTimes.com was kind enough to share the raw data with MacStories, and we produced the above and below charts which provide some visual context and demonstrate just how out of the ordinary the recent improvement in App Review time is. It is too early to say conclusively, but given the extent of the reduction (and the sudden nature of it), I think it is fairly safe to guess that Apple has made some internal changes in order to improve the speed of App Review.

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Data courtesy of AppReviewTimes.com

Earlier this year we published an extensive survey which detailed a number of frustrations that developers had with App Review, and suggestions for how Apple could improve App Review. At the top of that list of developer frustrations was the slow speed of App Review, with 78% saying it was bad or terrible.

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Acorn 5.4 was released for direct customers today. This is a feature update, which includes new color profile goodies. The full release notes are available for the details.

But the most amazing holy **** moment happened with this release. I built and submitted it for the App Store this morning.

And then seven hours later it was approved.

…

Don't forget to go give it five stars on the MAS.