The times are changing and I’m a firm believer in the idea that technology plays a (largely) positive role in this.
ReadWriteWeb agrees with me:
The innovator’s dilemma, according to Christensen, affects companies whose success and capabilities can actually become obstacles in the face of changing markets and technologies. There is no more important an issue on the agenda of top management than driving innovation. In this post, we’ll review the evolution of “innovation management” and how social media has a significant role to play. This is one area where social media can “move the needle” for large enterprises and help them change the very nature of the firm.
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For example, I’ve been trying to find the words to connect the misunderstood world of rap/hip-hop to what it truly is at it’s most basic form: poetry. I found a blog post by Hitchcock Blonde that accurately paints the picture (IMO):
Poetry was invented to be conjured on the tongue. All those nomadic bards, minstrels, skalds, rhapsodes, udgatars, griots, ashiks, ozans and dengbejs moulded it into a perfect conduit and cradle for cultural and social memory. On the page, like Shakespeare’s plays, poetry has a sterile beauty; but remembered and performed, it has visceral, affecting life…As any actor will attest, to properly remember something you have to understand it. Parrot by rote, and your brain can’t connect the chain. Find the throughline, the backbone - even if it is purely rythmic, aural or instinctive - and it sticks. Allusive, intellectual and contextual richness will come; but sensing the emotional and aesthetic shape of a poem deep in your bones is the most important and often neglected way to it’s heart.
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I read a book a few months ago, Words That Work: It’s Not What You Say, It’s What People Hear by Frank Luntz. Apart from the fact that he loves how much everyone hates him, it’s made me more aware of words and how important they are in communicating ideas, problems, concepts. Whatever.
Another excellent example would be the Tower of Babel. There are very many different versions of the story (my favorite is Jonathan Davis’ reading in the audio version of Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash). I haven’t picked up much else (yet) from the book so please don’t take this as a recommendation.
In stark contrast to all that endless talking, there’s The Power of Words from the Guardian:
The Pirahã have no socially lubricating “hello” and “thank you” and “sorry”. They have no words for colours, no words for numbers and no way of expressing any history beyond that experienced in their lifetimes. And, in the late 70s, Everett was dispatched to the Amazon to learn their language, translate the Bible and convert them to Christianity.I had a feeling there were a lot of stories hidden in that short paragraph. And it turns out I was right.
Thirty years of living with the Pirahã has taught Everett that they exist almost completely in the present. Absorbed by the daily struggle to survive, they do not plan ahead, store food, build houses or canoes to last, maintain tools or talk of things beyond those that they, or people they know, have experienced. They are the “ultimate empiricists”, he argues, and this culture of living in the present has shaped their language.
Yet Everett’s life with the Pirahã didn’t just cause a gradual disenchantment with the Chomskyan intellectual framework he had once cherished: it also triggered another, even more dramatic, de-conversion.All of that to say: I’m going to try to read this book before I die and you should’ve been reading that article a long time ago agreeing with me.
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I swear I’m lurking around here somewhere (twitter’s where all my actions been happening lately).
There’s some other stuff cooking too.
LIke Calgoo, “the best calender service in the world”, until I ran into 30boxes and now I have to get them to duke it out.
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This discussion got me thinking: Right now, it’s becoming obvious to many journalists that our field sorely needs lots of top-notch, creative technologists. Developers for whom software is a medium, and an art form. Developers with a deep passion for information, credibility, fairness, usefulness, and free speech.
Still, by the end of the first day, I was a bit frustrated. We’d heard journalists talk about their uses of technology, and we’d heard computer scientists talk about technologies relevant to journalism. But it was uncommon for anyone to try to connect the two. I was ready to mix it up, to argue, to move on to talking about new ideas and solutions to the problems journalists and media companies are facing. But we never seemed to get there.
Upon reflection, I realized: This was like a first date. You know the feeling. You talk mostly about what you do. You ask a few questions. You’re very careful not to get spaghetti sauce on your tie. But you’re so careful about making a good impression that you don’t really delve very deep. You and the person across the table are ultra-polite, but you don’t really understand each other. If you like the other person, you’re hoping to keep the door open to a second date. If you don’t, you’re hoping to find a graceful way to avoid hurting your companion’s feelings.
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The most promising thing about Android is the way Web services and search are integrated across applications. In many programs, anything you type into an open window is interpreted as a search request, tailored to whatever you are doing at that moment.
The iPhone has flaws, too, but Apple had all the important pieces in place from Day One. Android is a work in progress. I suspect it could be a formidable competitor in six months or a year, but it has a long way to go.
Andy Rubin, who heads up Google’s Android efforts, spoke to me yesterday about his vision for the Android Market. In particular, we talked about how the market will be different from Apple’s iTunes App Store and some other efforts, which also peddle software for cell phones.
Rubin’s message: Google won’t impose many of the restrictions Apple developers have been grumbling about. Unlike iPhone aficionados, developers using Android Market will, for example, be able to allow consumers to try their applications for free before they buy them. This may seem like a small thing, but developers name lack of free trial as one of the biggest reasons behind their lukewarm App Store sales.
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Inc. Magazine’s Top 10 Signs You’re Ready to Leave Your Home Office (via Thought Balloons)
