September 2008
63 posts
Bookkake; Or, putting my money where my mouth is →
“How do you make a small fortune in publishing?”
“Start with a large fortune.”
First of all, I must apologise for over a month’s silence here at booktwo.org. I have, as I promised, been…
McCain’s Not The Only One Who’d Like A Delay →
You know the problem – you’ve got something coming up that you’re really dreading. Wouldn’t it be nice to find some excuse to put it off? As John McCain calls for the postponement of the US…
Dell M109S DLP Micro Projector: First Hands-On... →
Hmmm, micropresentations.com will turn out to be a different kind of site than I intended..?
links for 2008-09-25 →
1000 things I’ve learned about blogging | Online Journalism Blog (tags: writing wordpress tips socialmedia reference online list onlinejournalism journalism 1000things)…
Micropresentations at Reboot 10 →
The video from the micropresentations slot at Reboot 10 has been posted…gives me a chance to enjoy the presentations (I was a constantly checking to make sure people were lined up and Keynote…
Sarah Palin, Crowdsourced →
Views of Wikipedia are decidedly mixed in academia, though perhaps trending slowly from mostly negative to grudgingly positive. But regardless of your view of Wikipedia—or your political…
Should Knowledge Workers Have Enterprise 2.0... →
Imagine that an organization has deployed a full suite of emergent social software platforms (ESSPs) for its members— blogs, wikis, discussion / Q&A forums, upload facilities for photos and…
links for 2008-09-25 →
1000 things I’ve learned about blogging | Online Journalism Blog (tags: writing wordpress tips socialmedia reference online list onlinejournalism journalism 1000things)…
Crowdsourcing Lessons Learned →
I just read this article on Wired, from the author of a 2006 Wired article on CrowdSourcing, and a recent book Nice summary of current corporate activity in this field, with the obligatory…
two great examples of 'only on the internet'... →
This week, I’ve experienced a wonderful example from the two sides of the internet-as-collaborative-tool bell curve this week. First up: PublicMarkup.org. A great use of the internet; a…
The Next America →
When you see a fork in the road, take it.-Yogi Berra
The events of the past week have clearly brought us to a fork in the road. At any important decision point it’s often useful to do…
History is written by the readers →
Pardon me for plagiarizing Churchill, but the victors aren’t the only ones writing history these days. At the Institute, we’re re-imagining the American History Project’s “Who Built America?”,…
A Comprehensive Rescue Plan →
I have made it clear that I think the notion of this Toxic Trust Company Of America is a flawed idea. However, many of you have written me and explained why you think its necessary and it is…
Will UK rescue banks too? →
It’s a bit early for definitive judgements about Hank Paulson’s plan to rescue Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - sorry I meant the US economy - because today’s statement from the US Treasury…
JOURNAL: Information Cascades →
Information cascades are important. They explain many of the big problems we currently face. Here’s how an information cascade works:
1) An event occurs or a problem surfaces.
2) A person who is…
AMERICA'S ECONOMY AND OPEN DECISION MAKING →
The global financial system is melting down. Our approach to decision making may have been the reason we are at this impasse today. This brief is a little bit of a departure for me, but I think it…
Adaptive interfaces →
A little while back, I wrote a post titled Widgets, widgets, everywhere in which I suggested all consumer electronics should be thought of as platforms that could run applications created and…
JOURNAL: Information Cascades →
Information cascades are important. They explain many of the big problems we currently face. Here’s how an information cascade works:
1) An event occurs or a problem surfaces.
2) A person who is…
The Whole Earth Blogalog →
Three recent books (From Counterculture to Cyberculture. What the Doormouse Said and Counterculture Green) plus a slew of newspaper articles have examined the influence of the Whole Earth…
Warren Buffet’s “Three I’s” Rule →
My friend Vince Farrell (of CNBC fame) wrote me this morning about AIG.
Teddy Forstmann, the most cautious leveraged buyout player around, remembered Warren Buffet’s “Three I” rule. The…
AMERICA'S ECONOMY AND OPEN DECISION MAKING →
The global financial system is melting down. Our approach to decision making may have been the reason we are at this impasse today. This brief is a little bit of a departure for me, but I think it…
Whole Earth in Hindsight →
It’s no secret that Whole Earth, both the catalogs and the magazine, were huge influences on Worldchanging. Indeed, Stewart Brand has been one of our heroes. Plenty has a sort of oral…
RC JOURNAL: The Lewes Pound →
The town of Lewes, England has just launched a local currency (with an excellent Web presence to match the sharp design of the scrip). Congratulations.
NOTE: Local scrip (read more…
More on Open TextBooks →
I previously wrote about Flat World Knowledge, a startup dealing with Academic Textbooks, so I was pleased to read in the NYTimes about a professor who has used the service (and Lulu) to…
Trusting the web; what companies have to learn →
See that drop on the left? That’s the 75% dip in United Airlines stock price last week, caused by a six year old story about UA’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy application appearing in…
DailyLit - digital curation
DailyLit: Wikipedia Tours: World Capitals, book by Wikipedia
Great idea - curated extracts from Wikipedia covering a series of topics (inventors, wine, etc) and sent one a day via dailylit’s brilliant ‘books’ by email’ service.
Another fab example of curation in action.
“The lead singer of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson, who works as a pilot for the UK...”
– So, I’m skimming a BBC News story about ‘stranded’ holidaymakers being flown home on other charter planes, and this paragraph caught my eye.
Yup Bruce namesake, in addition to belting out Heavy Metal ditties, set up a fencing (as in foils, not stakes) business and moonlights as a...
Ping's Thesis - From Diary to Graph →
Yesterday I wrote about the inaugural QS Show&Tell, where the very first show-and-teller, Ka-Ping Yee, stood up and explained that he had been tracking most of his activities over the last three…
Daniel Suarez: Bot-Mediated Realities →
I enjoy exposure to new world views, the feeling of one’s brain being stretched to fit a new frame. For that reason, I enjoyed Daniel Suarez’s talk to the Long Now Foundation, entitled “Daemon:…
Preview: Curry Stone's Five Finalists in... →
Here’s a handful of innovative, human-oriented solutions to start off your weekend. The Curry Stone Design Prize, a competition debuted this year by the University of Kentucky College of…
Planning Post-Oil Towns →
This article was written by Hana Loftus in October 2006. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective. The story of the Kinsale Energy Descent Action…
The Speech Obama Needs to Make →
Tom Friedman worries that Obama is not connecting on the gut level the way he was in the spring. It’s time for some passion. Here are some possible words for Barack.
* * * *
My fellow…
Government 2.0: What’s your brand? →
Fascinating article by Mark Drapeau.
Mark starts by reminding public sector workers that when you use the new tools, everything you do is open to sharing, interpretation and re-use. That affects…
superb treemap →
What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying is a superb use of a treemap. It benefits from the added visual structure of relative placement of the countries; placement is something most…
Revolution matures into a Republic →
Ah, that sad story about the decline of a awesome North Manchester radio station looks like it maybe have a happy ending…the people (DJs and staff) who made ‘the Rev’ such a unique are setting up…
Wrapping Our Heads Around the Global Food System →
The global food system is characterized by unintended consequences, surrounded by criticism and severely misunderstood by many who rely upon it. In his three part series, Postcards…
Microsoft Missing the Boat on Mobile? →
Yesterday’s Microsoft Watch had an incisive article about Microsoft’s failure to compete in the mobile phone marketplace. Echoing my own assertions that Microsoft’s obsessive focus on…
MacLuhan analyzes the presidential debates of 1976 →
One of our terrific summer interns, Rick Williamson, just sent a link to this 1976 TV interview of Marshall McLuhan in which he skewers the presidential debates for being completely the wrong form…
Where Is the Chrome in Your Strategy? →
Imagine what would happen if GM and Ford collaborated to invest in the components and architecture of a better public transport network — and then licensed it for free to cities, states, and…
OFF=ON Trend and Ubiquitous Computing →
The good folks at trendwatching.com have a new trend report up, called OFF=ON. In their words:
More and more, the offline world (a.k.a. the real world, meatspace or atom-arena) is adjusting…
The Wisdom of Public Prediction Markets →
Prediction markets continue to proliferate. These communities use money to bet on outcomes in the future. If a prediction comes true, the winners reap the money from the losing betters. The price…