I like the new design approach. Can’t wait to try out Windows 8.
Source: Microsoft’s Windows Live YouTube channel
a personal blog about technology, communications and other stuff that interests me
by Martin ·
I like the new design approach. Can’t wait to try out Windows 8.
Source: Microsoft’s Windows Live YouTube channel
by Martin ·
Great perspective on innovation and corporate culture from Jeffrey Phillips on the Innovation Excellence blog. Full article here.
A culture of innovation [..] indicates that an organization is at least willing to embrace many of the tools and techniques that innovation requires, but moreover is able to endure the potential outcomes. For every innovation success there are many attempts and several failures. Every innovation is potentially cannibalizing an existing product or service, and innovation forces constant change – not just to products and services, but to experiences and business models.
This means that a culture of innovation is agile, nimble, constantly adapting and learning, open to experimentation and many points of view. A culture of innovation tolerates and learns from failure, incorporating the best parts of the failure into new efforts. A culture of innovation understands that innovation is a continuous, consistent process rather than an occasional effort. A culture of innovation seeks out internal and external viewpoints and perspectives that are different from what the team “wants” to hear, and works closely with customers, partners and even the disinterested to understand future needs. A culture of innovation has as much invested in understanding the future as it does in delivering value in the present. A culture of innovation constantly generates ideas but also has the ability to commercialize the best ideas and ships valuable products. A culture of innovation isn’t just an idea machine, it is a commercialization machine.
by Martin ·
Just came across a good perspective by Lee Bryant on the evolution of social media monitoring. More in his blog post here.
by Martin ·
The Daily Caller posted an article about U.S. government agencies starting to use Tumblr. It is a social media platform that is especially great for quick posting of photos, videos and images, so it lends itself to organizations such as the National Archives or the Peace Corps. These agencies have a lot of visual elements to share.
For the public sector in general, it is yet another platform to figure out and support, so we will see whether adoption will increase over time and beyond the U.S. federal government (which centrally negotiated terms of service with Tumblr). Computerworld blogger Barbara Krasnoff just asked “how many social networks can one person handle at once?” in a post entitled “Drowning in the seas of social networking“. What is true for individuals is also true for the public sector. How many social networks can one public sector organization handle at once? Especially because almost all organized support of a new service has resource implications.
Tumblr experienced a lot of growth in the last year. At the same time, Barbara Krasnoff describes the recently launched Google+ service as the “cool kid on the block, at least for the moment”. It is way too early to predict the impact of Google+ on other social media platforms. But it is also too early to predict long-term success for Tumblr, although it is clear that it has a lot of potential with its approach. Many public sector organizations are still very much focused on getting the basics of social media right before branching out into a lot of different services. The U.S. federal government is certainly a trailblazer, not just with Tumblr usage but with social media adoption overall.
What I like about Tumblr is that it could be used instead of a traditional blogging platform and potentially make it easier for staff to adopt and manage, compared to enterprise-level blogging platforms currently used by some government organizations. In addition, I like that anybody can view Tumblr content without having to sign up for anything. Having a Tumblr account adds some social media features to the experience. But it is not a requirement. And its content can easily be shared on other platforms including Facebook and Twitter. From my perspective, Tumblr is a platform that public sector organizations should keep an eye on and potentially start a pilot project if there is a good business case to support it.
Here is a short video from the Daily Caller about Tumblr usage in the U.S. government. It will be interesting to see if these become long-term efforts or remain short-term experiments.
Tumblr opens doors to government agencies from Medill Washington on Vimeo.
by Martin ·
“The thing that people forget is that with all this news coming out — more and more words, more and more information — there has to be a trusted source from which this comes. We’ve spent years developing that trust, and even though people may not sit and watch all these nightly news programs the they used to, they still want to have that source they can trust. They want to be able to say, ‘Oh my God, well, this came from PBS or NBC, or fill in the blank, and that means this is something I need to pay attention to on the fact part of it. […] I mean, there’s plenty of stuff out there on opinions and analysis and what people think about things. But the basic facts are another matter. People hear something on the radio or read it in a blog, but they still want to know what the hell the basic facts of the matter are. And that’s the purpose, I believe, that the “Newshour’ serves.”
Jim Lehrer quoted in Jim Lehrer on his last turn at PBS anchor desk tonight, Baltimore Sun, June 3, 2011
by Martin ·
Video of a great short presentation by Mike Bracken, formerly digital director at The Guardian and the UK government’s new executive director for digital starting in July. I will be following the digital engagement of the UK government. Should be fun if they hire experienced, creative thinkers like Mike.
by Martin ·
Everest 3D – 3D RealityMaps from 3D RealityMaps on Vimeo.
Interesting 3D model of Mount Everest, made possible by DLR, Germany’s national research center for aeronautics and space, and private sector companies. More information here.