If you want clear and useful thinking, you need a true analyst, not just somebody who calls themselves an analyst. True analysts pursue thinking as a discipline. Let’s look at the qualities and skills that define that discipline. If you watch TV or read the media, it seems like you’re always hearing from analysts — … Continue reading 11 key skills of a true analyst →
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Some people never get married, and some wait longer than others. Let's look at these people. Read More
Maybe you are aiming to build the next big social platform. Maybe you’re looking to build something as ‘simple’ as a personal website or a feature for your local e-commerce site. Either way, your first step is going to be finding the right software engineer to turn your idea into a successful project. This isn’t easy. You have to find someone who has the skills and talent to execute your vision, the bandwidth to take on your project at a price point that works for both of you, and is the right fit for your team. The good news is that there are a bounty of online resources out there to help you find the right match. We’ve put together a list of the 5 best sites to help you land the right engineer.
Toptal knows that just providing a mass marketplace of mediocre project seekers is going to take you nowhere fast when it comes to executing your goals. So it offers a highly personalized matching service, focusing both on talent and personality. Toptal takes all of its applicants through a rigorous screening process that includes a series of language and personality tests, live exercises with senior engineers, and a test project. Only the top 3% of applicants are accepted into their network. When clients come to them, they hand-match them to one of their pre-vetted engineers who perfectly fits the client’s needs. They offer a two week risk-free trial too! To us, this is the clear winner if you need to find a top-notch engineer and you’re willing to spend some money.
Upwork is a very user friendly marketplace that allows you to find a developer based on a specific set of criteria (location, skillset, rates). Each developer has a profile that lists previous projects so you can easily get at least a sense of their style and personal flair. In each engineer profile, you get to see a short bio, listed skillsets, as well as the developer’s hourly rate and time difference from you. You can also save engineers to a favorites list, creating your own page of filtered potential candidates to explore later on. The best part about Upwork is its vast number of postings and the site’s organization. It’s a great hub for quickly looking through a multitude of eager candidates. Of course, not everyone who is eager is talented – the vetting responsibilities fall to you.
Scalable Path earns the number three spot because of their focus on customer care. You tell them exactly what you need, they build you a team, and they stay at the ready to help you every step of the way. If you don’t like your assigned software engineers or developing team, pick again. If you like certain aspects of what your assigned team has built, but want to take your project elsewhere mid-production, they will help make that transition smooth. As the customer, you call the shots until you are happy with the end result. If you wish to hire an engineering team, they can set you up with a lead software architect who acts as a scrum master to lead daily standups and bridge the gap between you and the rest of the developing team. All teams work virtually as many developers are sourced from international countries, which typically results in more reasonable pricing. The only drawback is that all developers are paid by the hour, meaning sometimes your pricing can be less predictable than you’d like.
Crew is another helpful resource that helps you through many aspects of the development process, including taking care of contracts and legal issues as well as payments and security. Once you create a detailed profile describing the kind of project you want completed, the marketplace of engineers apply with a personal statement and the Crew team will typically make between 3-5 introductions per project. We rate Crew highly because of their two-way selection process, which really helps ensure that interests are aligned on both ends.
Gun.io lands at our fifth and final spot because of the website’s usability, thorough request process, and hiring expert resource. Signing up is easy, and once you do, you are asked about desired skillsets, project goals, timeline, and budget. This lets you create a profile in just a few simple steps, and then you can hop on the phone with a hiring expert who will talk you through the selection process. You also have the option to browse various developer teams to find your best fit. The main luxury of Gun.io is having a hiring expert you can communicate with directly to begin handpicking your development team quickly and efficiently.
Depending on what kind of engineer you are looking to hire, it is always important to keep in mind that you want someone who is trustworthy, has a great work ethic, and shares your company’s core values. Especially with remote work and hourly billing, it is easy to feel as if you are being taken advantage of, especially if you have limited experience with the development process. That’s why it’s vital to find someone who is as great a communicator as he or she is a talented developer.
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We need to move to hyperdemocratic cooperative work, and drop oligarchic management.
The golden loop works like this.
This is the golden loop. The knowledge is built upon into definitive resources. You want to turn someone seeking to solve a problem into sharing their adaptation of the solution. This increases traffic, participation, and valuable engagement.
You can optimise this at several stages.
1. Build your discussions into definitive resources that solve the visitor’s problem. Begin doing this for your biggest discussions. You will have 5 to 10 discussions which bring in a significant percentage of the traffic. Turn this into a resource page that includes the information shared in the discussion (Discourse has a great feature for this).
Link back to related discussions. Embed videos and texts. Include links to related discussions in different sectors within that page. Continually update and add more information to keep this fresh.
Or, even better, tell the individual who posted the discussion in the first place to become the guardian of this definitive resource page. Make sure the visitor doesn’t need to go back into Google to solve their challenge.
2. Make it tactical.
Most advice is broad and not specific enough to be useful. The best rated talks and highest quality discussions are those which are as tactical and relevant as possible. If you want more people to try the solution in the resource, ensure it breaks the solution down into very tactical steps (with screenshots/videos) that anyone can follow.
3. Ask for reviews, adaptations, and further questions.
Most people consume information and leave. That’s unfortunate. Each discussion needs to prompt the participant to rate the material, say whether it worked for them, what adaptations they had to make to their particular context, and any questions that were left unsolved.
You need to close their feedback loop. So either add a prompt, use ad retargeting (expensive, but gets the habit started), or establish the social norm of giving feedback on resources. Use empathetic messages about how much the feedback means to the contributor, not how it would help the community.
The goal over time is to see pages that bring in a lot more traffic to the community, a good conversion rate, and (hopefully), social norms of giving feedback on contributions which have helped members.
Annalee Newitz, writing for Ars Technica, has a great profile of Slack and its impact on virtual offices and team communication:
Working in Slack feels like working at Slack for one simple reason. Henderson and his team built the software for themselves when they were developing the game Glitch with Tiny Speck, a company whose staff was split between San Francisco and Vancouver. "We started with IRC because we needed to chat somehow," Henderson recalls. "We tried things for collaboration, like having a constant video link or open Skype calls all day. But the thing that was consistent was IRC."
IRC, or internet relay chat, is a 28-year-old protocol for text-based communication that's open and incredibly versatile. Henderson and his colleagues built their entire workflow on top of it. They shared game assets, migrated a game server with it, committed code—and, of course, maintained contact with the whole team. When they ceased work on Glitch in 2012, Henderson says, they agreed that they would never work together again without a customized IRC system like what they had at Tiny Speck.
The article goes deep into the possible negative aspects of a "Slack culture" where everything is an emoji reaction or private message. (See also: breaking up with Slack.)
Personally, having a small team that's scattered around the world (we'd never be able to have physical meetings on a regular basis), I love how Slack's virtual office enables us to work together every day. But, I recognize some of the concerns shared by Newitz. A recommended read.
My good friend Jens von Bergman co-owns a firm called MountainMath Software that is specializing in data, analytics, modeling and visualization. One of their products is the Census Mapper application. I have listed 5 interesting maps below. MANY MORE (20+) data analysis and visualization insights are on their main page here. Customized maps with more detail for research purposes can be acquired. Click on the blue “main selection pane” button after you clicked their main page here.
Sample Map 1: Relatively high shelter cost map. This map shows the percentage of households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on shelter. It covers owner as well as renter household and does not directly take into account the value of the dwelling. It only measure running shelter costs such as mortgage payments, strata fees, rent, property taxes and utilities.
Sample Map 2: % of people that are house poor Starting from the above map, that is households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on shelter, this map focuses in on the owner households in that category and maps the percentage of owner households that spend more than 30% of pre-tax income on housing. Overall in Vancouver 29% of owner households are house poor by this metric. Calgary, Toronto and Montreal are not far behind with 20%, 28% and 24%. Pan and zoom around to explore.
Sample Map 3: Employment Income This map shows the percentage of income in each geographic region that stems from employment income, either self employed or through salaries and wages.
Sample Map 4: Bike Mode Share
This maps the bike to work mode share. In Vancouver a ring of modest cycling mode share abuts downtown and is surrounded by, a sea of dark orange patches cautious cycling trials with patches of red bike desert sprinkled in. Low cycling rates downtown are made up for by high rates of walking to work. Victoria sports an impressive overall cycling mode share of 11%, whereas the prairie cities of Calgary and Edmonton just garner around 1%. While Toronto only garners 2% overall, it’s central neighbourhoods have significantly higher bicycle commuting rates that top Vancouver’s. Montreal has an overall cycling rate of 3% but like Toronto has a core with much higher cycle commuting rates. The areas with higher cycling mode share line up with areas where cycling is comparably safe.
Sample Map 5: Average # of children per family This map shows this ratio. In Canada, there are almost as many couples without children as there are couples with children. For all of Canada the ratio between these two variables is 1.1. Areas with more couples without children will have a ratio below 1, and areas where the majority of couples have children will have a value above 1. The dark green areas are areas with two to three times as many couples with children than couples without children. Dark purple areas are areas with more than two times as many couples without children. Very different patterns can be observed in Vancouver than in Victoria, Edmonton, Toronto and Montreal
Developers Bentall Kennedy (now owned by Sun Life Financial) working with architects Musson Cattel Mackey Partnership show off their plans for the huge former Canada Post building in downtown Vancouver.
Proposal for Hamilton and West Georgia
Kenneth Chan at VanCity Buzz provides lots of terrific detail:
Preliminary plans by the developer consist of constructing five new towers up to 19 storeys high on top of the existing 686,000-square-foot building – effectively the redevelopment’s podium – framed by Dunsmuir Street to the north, West Georgia Street to the south, Homer Street to the west, and Hamilton Street to the southeast. The site is across the street from the Vancouver Public Library and Queen Elizabeth Theatre and within close proximity of Larwill Park, the future home of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Altogether, about 900,000 square feet of floor area will be added to the building, which will give the overall project a floor area exceeding 1.5 million square feet.
Approximately 300,000 square feet of retail space, varying from big open spaces to small units, will occupy the first four floors.
The reconfigured podium will provide the downtown retail market with much-needed large-scale retail spaces suitable for larger retailers. Three large retail spaces, accessible using escalators from the retail concourse along Homer Street, are planned: a 27,200-square-foot space on the ground level, 75,000-square-feet space on the second floor, and a 102,000 square-foot space taking up the entire floor plate on the third level.. . .
. . . . There are no plans to develop the existing ground level parking area that borders the building’s West Georgia Street facade into useable floor area. Instead, the space will be converted into a plaza with patio space and a street level entry into building’s retail. . .
. . . no shortage in bike parking spaces is expected as the plans consist of building a 1,000 secure bike parking facility.
According to Jeff Lee in the Postmedia’s Vancouver Sun:
Tony Astles, Bentall Kennedy’s executive vice-president for Western Canada, said the inquiry “is very, very early in the process” and that no firm designs have yet been considered.
“Our goal is a sustainable mixed-use development that ultimately leverages the great transit and amenities in the area,” he said. “We have to work with the city, the planning department, the heritage department and the real estate department to see what we can achieve.”
Jackson said the inquiry from Bentall Kennedy and BCIMC proposes to build office, hotel and a mix of “for-profit affordable rental” and condominium housing above the existing building.
As Firefox for Android drops support for ancient versions of Android, I find my collection of test phones becoming less and less relevant. For instance, I have a Galaxy S that works fine but only runs Android 2.2.1 (API 8), and I have a Galaxy Nexus that runs Android 4.0.1 (API 14). I cannot run current builds of Firefox for Android on either phone, and, perhaps because I rooted them or otherwise messed around with them in the distant past, neither phone will upgrade to a newer version of Android.
I have been letting these phones gather dust while I test on emulators, but I recently needed a real phone and managed to breathe new life into the Galaxy Nexus using an AOSP build. I wanted all the development bells and whistles and a root shell, so I made a full-eng build and I updated the Galaxy Nexus to Android 4.3 (api 18) — good enough for Firefox for Android, at least for a while!
Basically, I followed the instructions at https://source.android.com/source/requirements.html, building on Ubuntu 14.04. For the Galaxy Nexus, that broke down to:
mkdir aosp cd aosp repo init -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.3_r1 # Galaxy Nexus repo sync (this can take several hours)# Download all binaries from the relevant section of # https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers . # I used "Galaxy Nexus (GSM/HSPA+) binaries for Android 4.3 (JWR66Y)". # Extract each (6x) downloaded archive, extracting into <aosp>. # Execute each (6x) .sh and accept prompts, populating <aosp>/vendor.source build/envsetup.sh lunch full_maguro-eng # use update-alternatives to select Java 6; I needed all 5 of these sudo update-alternatives --config java sudo update-alternatives --config javac sudo update-alternatives --config javah sudo update-alternatives --config javadoc sudo update-alternatives --config javap make -j4 (this can take a couple of hours)
Once make completes, I had binaries in <aosp>/out/… I put the phone in bootloader mode (hold down Volume Up + Volume Down + Power to boot Galaxy Nexus), connected it by USB and executed “fastboot -w flashall”.
Actually, in my case, fastboot could not see the connected device, unless I ran it from root. In the root account, I didn’t have the right settings, so I needed to do something like:
sudo /bin/bash source build/envsetup.sh lunch full_maguro-eng fastboot -w flashall exit
If you are following along, don’t forget to undo your java update-alternatives when you are done!
It took some time to download and build, but the procedure was fairly straight-forward and the results excellent: I feel like I have a new phone, perfectly clean and functional — and rooted!
(I have had no similar luck with the Galaxy S: AOSP binaries are only supplied for Nexus devices, and I see no AOSP instructions for the Galaxy S. Maybe it’s time to recycle this one.)
I’m headed out to Austin for SXSW again (now, with more Obama.) This year, I’ll be presenting with Dennis Keeley, the Photography chair at Art Center in Pasadena. I first met Dennis at the Palm Springs Photo Festival faculty dinner, and we quickly found out we have a lot of common interests.
The Faculty dinner at PSPF – I met 2 people I’ve brought to SXSW here.
Dennis is intensely interested in the future of imaging and visual communication. We found that we see these opportunities in some very similar ways. The conversation that started 4 years ago has continued as each of us has pursued this future in different ways. I’m delighted that we can take this time to make this conversation public.
Here is a description of our program. I’ll work on expanding on some of these topics, and we’re hoping to have a recording of the program available.
If you’re going to be in Austin, and can come by the Hilton Friday at 3:45, I’d love to say hello. If you’re in town but can’t make the program, I’ll be around until Tuesday evening.
Presented by Peter Krogh and Dennis Keeley
As the need to visually communicate explodes, organizations of all shapes and sizes face the need for a new kind of staff, new tools and more nimble mindsets. This goes far beyond an Instagram account manager, or a person who works in IT. It looks into the heart of an organization’s mission, brand, legacy and value. But in most cases, the approach to visual narrative is ad hoc, at best.
Solving this problem will require an integrated approach that is grounded in education, technology, business needs, and an understanding of visual semiotics. Dennis Keeley has been addressing this from the education side, while Peter Krogh has been working on technical development. They will discuss the new role of the professional visual strategist and the opportunities it presents… as well as what education, skills and experience will be needed.
The post Heading to SXSW – Presenting Friday appeared first on The DAM Book.
Hello, SUMO Nation!
Good to see you again. How are you keeping? Planning something nice for the upcoming weekend? We hope so! Here are the most recent updates from the world of SUMO.
We salute you!
That’s it for now – but, as advertised, there should be at least two more blog posts this week. Let’s hope the blog can take it and won’t simply explode because of all this amassed awesomeness ;-) Keep rocking the helpful web, SUMO Nation! Over & out…
CW: Cissexism, genital mutilation, penis shaming
“You know what they say about men with small hands?”
—Marco Rubio
Shame and genitals go together like peanut butter and jelly. The story of Adam and Eve tells us just how enduring this shame is. With knowledge came shame, and their nakedness and the differences of their genitals started a downward spiral of fear—fear of our own genitals, and fear of others. From mutilation of the labia and clitoris, to castration, to the disturbing obsession with the state of transgender and nonbinary people’s genitals, we have been conditioned to judge, manipulate, and even destroy these most sensitive body parts. And I really, really wish we would stop doing that.
A few weeks ago I saw an image circulating online of Donald Trump, elegantly illustrated and sporting a small penis. I have yet to find myself defending Trump for literally anything, but I was disturbed to see so many lefties sharing an image that contributes to a culture in which masculinity is defined by body parts and individuals can be denigrated based on what’s in their pants. None of this is to equate transphobia or genital mutilation with a meme about Trump’s penis—rather, it’s important to recognize that all of these phenomena are wrapped up in the same cultural fear of genitals, and specifically the ways they can transgress the binary gender regime.
Queer theorists like Judith Butler and J. Halberstam have frequently noted how complex the relationship between genitals and gender is, and how those distinctions are used to reify systems of oppression and disenfranchisement. Butler notes in Gender Trouble that we often make the mistake of believing that gender is the cultural manifestation of sexual difference when, in fact, sexual distinction relies on the binary gender regime and compulsory heterosexual matrix. Sex doesn’t make gender. Gender makes sex. This is a dramatic oversimplification of the argument—the two reify each other constantly, and ultimately Butler’s goal is to dismantle the nature/culture distinction that the binary gender regime relies on, but the point stands.
The need to reinforce these binaries manifests in our compulsion to mutilate the genitals of intersex infants, to determine the “realness” of an individual’s gender based on whether or not they have a vagina, and to gauge the masculinity of a cis man based on his penis size. Penis size is often used to explain why a cis man is “compensating” for some weakness by purchasing expensive sports cars or being a bombastic braggadocio. The accusation of having a small penis is a mechanism for policing masculinity. What disturbs me about this trope is that it persists at a time when notions of sex and gender binaries are finally being chipped away at. The failure to see why it is toxic to critique Trump based on a presumption about his penis is a failure to see the root problems that allow for the perpetuation of genital shaming, and its often horrific consequences. If we can’t see why penis-shaming Trump is bad, how can we tackle systemic sex- and gender-based oppression?
I could go on to cite psychoanalytic approaches to genital shame, statistics on the relationship between penis size and self-perception, or the history of the penis as a tool of patriarchal domination against people of all genders, but I’m not going to. I’m simply going to plead with you to stop attacking someone’s character based on your assumptions about what’s in their pants. There are so, so many reasons to hate Donald Trump. His penis really shouldn’t be one of them.
Britney is on Twitter.
Edit: It’s worth noting what the artist of “Make America Great Again,” mentioned in this essay, says about the piece, which runs counter to my argument here. The artist writes: “One should not feel emasculated by their penis size or vagina, as it does not define who you are. Your genitals do not define your gender, your power, or your status.” As always, art is open to many interpretations. In my observations, the image was shared by people intending to emasculate Trump, an interesting dynamic given the artist’s stated intentions and the agency of discourse.
The news is now out: http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/10/robert-scoble-leaving-rackspace-for-uploadvr-to-explore-augmented-and-virtual-reality/ I’m joining Upload VR, details here…
What a seven years it was working at Rackspace, much of it as its futurist.
As you know, for the last seven years you’ve seen me hop around the world visiting innovation labs, conferences, startups, and other places/companies that could tell me something about where the future is going. I’ve built relationships all over the world and brought Rackspace to many new companies and places but there are deep shifts coming in our society due to new technologies and it’s time to make a career change.
Not to mention I was one of the most recognizable faces at a multi-billion-dollar public company with 6,000 employees and successfully helped it build its brand on social media and on the world’s most important stages.
Today I’m announcing that I’m leaving Rackspace to join Upload VR http://uploadvr.com/ — a new media site covering virtual and augmented reality — as its entrepreneur in residence, where I’ll be developing new shows, events, and working with other entrepreneurs in the Upload Collective, a coworking space for virtual reality-focused startups. In particular working with Upload’s cofounders Will Mason and Taylor Freeman.
Why?
Well, two years ago, at Web Summit in Ireland, I watched many people get their first look at Oculus Rift. Nearly everyone came out of the demos with a stunned look on their face and most used expletives to describe their experiences. Me too. I’ve seen that happen dozens of times since, including last weekend in Cape Town, South Africa, where a local entrepreneur threw a VR party in my honor and many people got their first experiences with VR, which is why I posted this video as part of this post.
It is clear to me that there are new opportunities to build companies in the VR space (duh, just look at the billions of dollars of investment) and the Augmented Reality wave that will follow VR will be even bigger. I wanted to be in a place where I’d have the freedom to create businesses, or at least be part of a media team that was focused on this future.
In the past six months it’s been clearer and clearer that Rackspace was undergoing its own shifts, toward supporting more enterprise customers who were moving existing datacenters to clouds running at Amazon or Microsoft. VR and AR didn’t yet matter to them, at least not to the bottom line. At least not yet and probably won’t make a difference in the bottom line for three years.
As a media guy, though, I know that in three years the market window will have closed. If there will be new brands, and I believe there will be, or new shows, documentaries, conferences, blogs, worlds, whatever you want to call them, they will all be built in the next three years.
I just didn’t want to sit on the sidelines and Rackspace couldn’t invest in me internally to do such. That’s not how companies work.
So, today, I’m announcing that I’m leaving Rackspace to be entrepreneur in residence at a new media property that you might have heard of. Upload VR http://uploadvr.com/ is my favorite place to learn about new VR headsets, products, experiences, games, cameras, and more.
I’m writing a separate post about what Rackspace, and, in particular, my boss, Robert D. La Gesse, meant to me over the last seven years. It’s been such an honor to be a public face of a public company and, especially one that has such an important role in the tech industry with hundreds of thousands of customers.
Some QA:
Q. What does Rackspace think of this? Were your bosses disappointed?
A. Rackspace invested in me to go follow my dreams and passions. We both are friends and you may see Rackspace involved in what I do in the future. They also gave me my newsletter, content rights to use as I see fit. This move made sense for both sides. We’ve been working on this for a while and figuring out what my future might look like.
Q. How are you going to be compensated?
A. I’m in a very fortunate position because I’ve been asked to speak to corporate events all over the world. I have a new speaker management company, ODE Management, and they are quite positive that there’s enough demand out there for me as a speaker that I don’t need to worry about that short term and that I can work with Upload easily while doing so. That said, I’ll be working on making a series of businesses, including a new book, “Beyond Mobile” that I’m writing with Shel Israel, so I’ll open up new sponsorship and advertising possibilities in the future. More on those soon. I’m also open to new business opportunities, if you have one let’s talk!
Q. What does this mean for what you are doing on social media?
A. You probably won’t see many changes, at least not soon. My Facebook will keep being full of industry news and things that catch my eye. I will still visit with many entrepreneurs and others, albeit with more of a VR/AR focus now. Same on Twitter, SnapChat, LinkedIn, and Google+. They will get my newsletter, like I’ve been doing the past year. Some changes you might notice is that my blog will start up again and I’m playing with some ideas for YouTube, but more on those later in the year.
One idea that I’m noodling on is doing social media consulting, though. Dale Bracey (he worked at Rackspace on the social media team) and I are thinking that through. A lot of the world still doesn’t understand how to use social media well and Dale was amazing at doing the dirty work of what I call “defensive social media” (helping customers out on Twitter and other places) while I did the “offensive work” of building brand, and building storytelling devices for Rackspace (like I did at Microsoft too). I’m working with brands to come up with some ideas, if you have advice or need that kind of service, drop us a line at scobleizer@gmail.com
Q. What will my role as EIR at Upload entail?
A. I’ll be working with the Upload Collective team to help find other great startups to join me in the space, along with thinking through its event strategy for 2017. This is one reason why I wanted to join as an EIR, it would give me time after leaving Rackspace to have discussions with a number of companies without the constraint of worrying about appearances. Being a public representative of a public company does tend to limit the kinds of discussions one can have without causing rumors, brand destruction, or stock price consequences, so this change frees me to work with the marketplace on a number of different initiatives. Want to have a chat? Please contact me at scobleizer@gmail.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble
Q. What will you be doing this weekend at SXSW?
A. I’ll be attending the Upload VR Mixer on Sunday night. I’ll also be hosting a “Beyond Mobile” VIP breakfast for VIP brand representatives on Sunday morning (sorry, that’s sold out). Plus speaking at several events and doing my own reporting on how the VR/AR space is evolving here at SXSW. Am on a panel during the VR day on Thursday with several VR pioneers. Plus having a little fun at the concerts in the evenings and many dinners and parties I’ve been invited to.
Q. Will this mean you will focus exclusively on virtual reality?
A. No. I’m going to continue to cover “Beyond Mobile” technologies, including additive manufacturing, IoT, robots, self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and other technologies that change our future, all hitting in the next decade. I’m especially interested, though, in VR and AR, and how our culture is deeply changing due to these new technologies. In fact, one advantage of this move is I can spend more time working with Shel Israel on our book, “Beyond Mobile,” which will ship in December. We’re still looking for more sponsors for that, by the way. We’re looking for companies who want to position themselves as leaders in the “Beyond Mobile” space.
Q. Why Upload VR?
A. While most people haven’t heard of Upload, it is my favorite site of those covering the upcoming virtual reality and augmented reality spaces. Plus they have a great office in downtown San Francisco where they are hosting several startups with more coming soon.
LOL. I spent some time yesterday fooling with Hive (from Hiveteams.com), and I was using their Intercom.io support chat with comments about UX and their underlying design.
I made a microdent in their universe, it seems.
PS In 1999, I was reviewing a tool called Abuzz, by Beehive, which was acquired while I drafted the final issue of Message from Edge City, an ‘e-magazine’, and then started blogging. I coined the term social tools because of that experience, writing
A new category of software is emerging, software intended to augment social systems. Not to change the company inadvertently, like email did, when the electronic analog of interoffice mail became something else, grew into something else by changing the way people communicated, and led a change in the structure of the company. No, this generation of software is intentional, designed from the start to guide human behavior into new paths and patterns, to counter prevailing ways of interaction. I call these social tools: software intended to shape culture.
Seventeen years later we are still spiraling around these central issues, it seems.
Mr. Trump isn’t saying anything that his supporters wouldn’t. He hasn’t let an explicit racial slur slip on the campaign trail. It’s the other way around. They’re laying bare the subtext of his speech and policies, revealing how they appear to angry white people primed and frustrated by the past century of Republican dog-whistling. They’re saying what Mr. Trump can’t.
Regardless, even if Trump supporters were managing to toe some politically correct line with their words, they speak as clear as day with their votes.
It doesn’t take clairvoyance, or even tremendous mental dexterity, to see what Mr. Trump means by “make America great again.” It just takes a history book. Many of us remember what America used to be like, and don’t care to go back.
”Lindy West, What Are Trump Fans Really ‘Afraid’ to Say?
Many of us remember what America used to be like, and don’t care to go back.
The Netherlands (aka Holland) is the 30th most densely populated country or territory in the world and the densest country in Europe with a over 10 million people. So it’s understandable that the Dutch might think that their country is a little bit crowded. However, the map above flips this idea on its head. Instead of thinking of the Netherlands as a densely populated country, it looks at the Netherlands as if it were a relatively empty city.
The Netherlands are just slightly larger than New York City (or, New Amsterdam). Mother and daughter.
There’s not much time left until the Samsung Galaxy S7, the South Korean manufacturer’s latest flagship, hits the shelves. As expected, this new smartphone doesn’t come cheap, but this is no surprise, as most flagships are pretty expensive when they are first launched.
If you are happy to sign up for a two year contract, most carriers will have the Galaxy S7 available for a better price – but this is outweighed by the disadvantage of being tied to a single carrier during your contract period.
So, what if you want or need to use your brand new phone with another carrier? You’re going to need to unlock it.
Here’s how to do it:
There are three ways to unlock a phone nowadays; by rooting, asking your carrier to unlock it or by using a genuine unlock code.
While rooting is not always efficient and comes with the risk of totally damaging your phone, asking your carrier to unlock your handset can be expensive and time consuming.
The best method of getting your Galaxy S7 unlocked, is with a genuine unlock code.
In order to do it, you need to follow a few easy steps:
Further Info:
In a few moments, your phone will be unlocked, giving you the possibility to use it on any network anywhere in the world!
An unlocked Samsung Galaxy S7 can also help you avoid roaming fees when travelling – by using a local SIM, and you’ll also be able to sell it faster – and at a better price.
AI learns to predict human reactions by reading our fiction
A team of Stanford researchers have developed a novel means of teaching artificial intelligence systems how to predict a human’s response to their actions. They’ve given their knowledge base, dubbed Augur, access to online writing community Wattpad and its archive of more than 600,000 stories. This information will enable support vector machines (basically,learning algorithms) to better predict what people do in the face of various stimuli.
“Over many millions of words, these mundane patterns [of people’s reactions] are far more common than their dramatic counterparts,” the team wrote in their study. “Characters in modern fiction turn on the lights after entering rooms; they react to compliments by blushing; they do not answer their phones when they are in meetings.”
Full Story: Endgadget
Finally, a good use for all that tripe that good-for-nothing bohemians have been scribbling for decades.
Tomorrow’s cover, today
Our cover this week considers the future of computing, as the era of predictable improvement in hardware comes to an end. After five glorious decades, the steady doubling of computer power every two years, known as Moore’s law, is running out of steam. But there are other ways to improve computers’ performance, not least through smarter software—as the defeat this week of one of the world’s best Go players by an artificial intelligence demonstrates
Sweet. One of my must reads.
Trump’s followers like him bc he says what they are ‘afraid to say’ https://t.co/X3AVXmYTDa Afraid to be seen as bigoted, racist, and mean?
— Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) March 11, 2016
GM buys Cruise, will bring its self-driving tech to market in the next few years https://t.co/pFbyo8COVV What I’ve been saying would happen
— Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) March 11, 2016
There is no curriculum on how to be an effective knowledge worker although we live in a world dominated by knowledge work. We identify ourselves as knowledge workers. But what comes after that?
Peter Drucker observed that the defining characteristic of knowledge work and knowledge workers is that the first question is “what is the task?” (see Knowledge-Worker Productivity). In manual work, the task is a given. It is defined in advance of hiring the worker and its various inputs, outputs, and structures define who the appropriate worker is for each task.
All knowledge work begins with the question of what is it that I am expected to do. Nothing in conventional education or conventional organizational thinking prepares us to deal with this question. This goes well beyond questions of self-management or self organizing systems. It implies that we each have responsibility as both designers and executors of our work. It is not sufficient to understand the ins and outs of Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. If we have some responsibility for defining what the task is, then we have some responsibility to understand why the task is relevant and how it fits into the broader picture.
This complicates our lives as both individual knowledge workers and as members of larger organizations. This obsoletes conventional job descriptions. Every job now has components of project management, of strategic thinking, of analytic thinking, and design creativity. What does this imply for how we educate and develop ourselves to be effective as knowledge workers? Note that I’ve focused this question on our individual responsibilities. That leaves another set of questions for the educational institutions and training organizations that lay claim to preparing us for the environment in which we work.
The post Paths to more effective knowledge work appeared first on McGee's Musings.
After launching on iOS back in October of last year, the latest version of Waze, 4.0, is now available on Android.
The most notable addition this update brings to the app is a refreshed user interface that takes more than a couple of cues from Google’s other navigation app, though strangely doesn’t go all in on the company’s Material Design aesthetic. In fact, if you’ve been using the previous version of Waze for a while now, you may be taken aback by just how more colourful the entire experience is after the update.
That said, Waze says it’s main goal going into the redesign was to make the app’s most useful features easier to access. For the most part, the company has accomplished this goal admirably.
For example, tapping the company’s signature now takes the user to the navigation menu, while all the app’s reporting features can be accessed by pressing the floating action button. The app also does a better job now of alerting the user to upcoming traffic obstructions like traffic jams and accidents.
Last but certainly not least, the update brings with it some new power saving feature. According to the company, Waze 4.0 “significantly” reduces how much battery power the app consumes when in use. All told, Waze 4.0 represents the most significant update to the app since Google acquired it in 2013.
Download the new version of Waze on Android or iOS.
The CRTC is back in action protecting Canadians from frustrating telemarketers. Five companies have been fined a total of $643,500 for making unsolicited calls to Canadians with numbers registered on the National Do Not Call List (DNCL).
The companies – three Canadian-based companies and two Indian-based call centres – were masking their identity as being reps from Microsoft, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or Government of Canada officials. The business were selling anti-virus software and requesting callers give remote access to their computer to install the malicious software.
The Canadian companies are Thee Future Web Ltd., which was fined $194,000, 8166200 Canada Inc. with a $76,000 fine, and NextGen Webstore, with a levy of $56,000. The India-based call centres were issued a notices of violation and fined to the tune of $317,500.
Manon Bombardier, CRTC Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, stated, “when making calls to Canadians, companies must follow the telemarketing rules, regardless of where they are located. As this investigation shows, we are prepared to use all the tools at our disposal to protect Canadians from unwanted telemarketing calls which originate in Canada or abroad.”
The CRTC launched the DNCL on September 30, 2008 with the of goal of preventing telemarketers from placing unsolicited calls to Canadians. Canadians can register their home phone, wireless, fax or VoIP telephone numbers.
To date, over 13 million numbers have been registered. As for fines, the CRTC announced today that it has issued over $6.5 million in monetary penalties.
xkcd.com.
