Monday, January 17, 2011
Librarian 2.0?
The authors' methodology is simple: focus groups of about 81 librarians to discuss what they think defines "Librarian 2.0." Although diverse, the answers are unnervingly clear and concise.
1. Technology - There is a difference between IT skills an IT appreciation skills. Librarian 2.0 should be a role model, not in being an "elitist" in terms of technology, but as a credible source for understanding and imparting knowledge of new technological developments. They are plugged in, but can easily walk away from it, too.
2. Learning and Education - Willing to grow with the job, librarian 2.0 in the web 2.0 world is interested in what is happening around them, and scan the horizon and are aware of the outside world.
3. Research and Evidence Based Practice - An essential element, research is a way for librarian 2.0 to be making best decisions, best practices, and establishing benchmarks.
4. Communication - Good at negotiation and diplomacy, librarian 2.0 should be able to use whatever "language"is needed to persuade or influence the target audience to their point of view.
5. Collaboration and Teamwork - Is about building relationships and partnerships while establishing networks with individuals and groups wherever it is needed.
6. User Focus - Interested in creating communities, they are driven by a focus on people, not resources.
7. Business Savvy - Entrepreneurial, they are know how to get things done -- they go out and seek business
8. Personal Traits - Adaptable, flexible, persistent, and resilient
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Super-Connectors?
Superconnect is a fascinating new book about the strength of connections, but puts the onus back in the real physical world. It offers a unique look at what librarians (among many others) should be doing: reconnecting with one another. Moving past just the tight, narrow confines of the library shelves and stacks. Surging beyond the walls of library-think, and into other networks and spheres. I read this book with great interest, not only as a reference book, but ultimately as a book about humanity which we can all learn from. Here are some highlights:
1. Strength of Weak Links - When it comes to communicating from one person to a target in a different world, weak links far outperform strong ones. Studies have shown that people tend to overuse family and friends, but "underuse" people they don't know particularly well. It is casual acquaintances that are nine times better than friends at providing the connections we need or giving us useful information.
2. SuperConnectors - Unlike our prejudged vision of slick, savvy, prominent socialites, super connectors are actually humble folks who just happen to connect with people because they have placed themselves at the centre of a social system, integrating into a number of networks and nodes that might otherwise have been isolated from one another. Most importantly, a superconnector is willing to "connect" others.
3. Internet - It's important not because it is a new world, but rather it is an old world. It's given us terrific intensification of the communication and network that have actually been built decades and even centuries before its very invention. Social networks have given us tools to lubricate relationships, helping us record, organize, and manage our online connections, acquaintances, and memberships. How's that for improvement?
4. The "Third Place" - To live an interesting life means also the need to cultivate rich, meaningful weak connections. The third place is a term which describe locations where one habitually relaxes and spends time. Regular visits to third places, and irregular visits to new ones, are crucial to renewing and forging these so-called weak links. Even going to the local park, and being among lots of people can be considered a process of connecting. How's that for living a rich life?
Saturday, December 11, 2010
The Cyberport of the Future?
In a first of its kind Web 3.0 conference took place at Cyberport. As the organizers put it,
in the world of Web 3.0, the Internet should know I won’t be able to watch my favorite TV show. It should automatically record it and book a time slot for me to catch up on this show. This is an example of how the Internet and Web will become smarter. What is an example of Web 3.0 with today’s technology? Earlier this year, we transmitted live and in 3D the World Cup from South Africa to cinemas in Hong Kong with the help of the Internet.
In essence, Cyberport organised Web 3.0 Asia as part of its commitment to establishing itself as a leading information communications technology (ICT) hub of the Asia, region, pushing Hong Kong's creative digital enterprises and start-ups to prepare for the next version of the web. What struck me was the depth of speakers for the programme, including: Simone Brunozzi, Technology Evangelist at Amazon Web Services; Jon Leland, President and Creative Director, ComBridges.com; and Kaiser Kuo, Director, International Communications of Chinese search enginge, Baidu.
With this conference, it's becoming clear that the next generation of the web will not be limited in geography, but will be a multiversity of ideas and concepts.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
If you want to work in libraries
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Multi-Touch Technology
Named as Time Magazine's 2008 listing of the 100 Most Influential People in The World, Jeff Han is one of the main developers of "multi-touch sensing," which unlike older touch-screen interfaces, is able to recognize multiple points of contact. Although the use of touchscreen technology to control electronic devices pre-dates multitouch technology and the personal computer, IBM began experimenting with touch screens as early as the 1960s. Over the years, multi-touch technology has seamlessly seeped into popular culture, with Star Trek and Tron being the most prominent. (The Day the Earth Stood Still was the most recent movie which used Microsoft's Surface program). Currently, CNN has been the most innovative user of multi-touch with its "magic wall," which received most of its publicity because of its use by news network CNN during its coverage of the 2008 US Presidential election.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Zero History
Facebook and MySpace seemed like malls to me, as opposed to the street—whereas Twitter actually seems like the street. There’s no architecture within the template other than a limit on the length of a given post. And anyone can turn up and address you directly. It’s exactly like walking down the street. You might meet someone who’s really charming and intelligent, or you might meet a total malevolent idiot.
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Linked Data at IFLA 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Using Social Media Sites For Self Promotion
The rise of social media sites, such as Facebook and Digg, has presented publishers with an opportunity for self promotion that has never been seen before. Due to the popularity of social media sites, publishers have a huge group of people to promote their sites to. Using social media sites to promote blogs and websites can be accomplished with no money and just a little time.
Using sites like digg.com, reddit.com, or stumbleupon.com to push traffic to a person’s blog or site can cause huge increases of traffic and readership. Simply posting a link to a website or blog post on one of these social news sites will cause a large spike in traffic to the link posted. The key to using social news sites correctly is to post quality content. Quality content will quickly become popular on these social news sites and will push nearly 100 times the amount of traffic to a person’s site than would be pushed by simply adding a random, low quality link.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet?
2. Data is the Web - Anderson seems to suggest that the mobile is the is the way to go. Unless phone and internet companies are willing to lower the costs and expand to unlimited bandwidth, most people are still going to have to rely on the web to surf and to download. The web is more than just an "application." It's the circulation system that allows for exchange of information to happen.
3. Ubiquity of the Web Experience - If Anderson is to suggest that the web is dead in the sense that users no longer need to sit at their desks in order to enjoy the web experience, then it's a foregone conclusion. We already are mobile with laptops and similar social devices. Web 3.0 promises to open up for a ubiquitous experience in which the web is that underlying layer of technology that ties physical real world objects together into an 'internet of things'. If anything the web will be more important than ever in this development. Certainly Anderson makes strong points about the new directions that web has taken us; but for us to claim its demise and irrelevance is bit of a stretch!
Monday, September 06, 2010
Introducing Community Informatics
Community informatics as a discipline is located within a variety of academic faculties including Information Science, Information Systems, Computer Science, Planning, Development Studies, and Library Science among others and draws on insights on community development from a range of social sciences disciplines. It is a cross- or interdisciplinary approach interested in the utilization of ICTs for different forms of community action, as distinct from pure academic study or research about ICT effect on the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries.
At the forefront of this new field of research is Michael Gurstein, Director of the Center for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development in Vancouver, Canada, which works with communities, ICT practitioners, researchers, governments and agencies as a resource for enabling and empowering communities with Information and Communications Technologies. In community informatics, the past decade has also seen conferences in many countries, and there is an emerging literature for theoreticians and practitioners including the on-line Journal of Community Informatics.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Web of Things
Sunday, August 15, 2010
What's In Store for Web x.0?
Some web experts believe that combining the digital and physical worlds requires the help of hardware devices that can layer on top of the reality the information retrieved from the cloud to a user’s accounts on various sites. Whereas the social web exists in a predominantly digital atmosphere, Web 3.0 extends to a physical realm where Internet-connected “social devices” faced with a local problem can “talk” with other artifacts that can provide their experience about that situation, or likewise offer information that may help to come up with a solution to the problem.
Monday, August 02, 2010
Introducing The Social Network
"You don't get to a 500 million friends without making a few enemies."With those epic words, the tone has been set for this what must be the most enigmatic movie of the summer. What does the world really think of Mark Zuckerberg? Adapted from Ben Mezrich's The Accidental Billionaires, The Social Network adds an element of mystique to the rise of Facebook. It's been six years since the release of Facebook, so what have we learned about it? What are your thoughts about Facebook? Here are mine:
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Digital Roadmap Comes Undone?
Digital freedom, of the monetary and First Amendment varieties, may in retrospect have become our era’s version of Manifest Destiny, our Turner thesis. Embracing digital freedom was an exaltation, a kind of noble calling.
Perhaps Apple has subtly taken on the digital battle that Microsoft had badly bungled when Google came along. We are already witnessing media companies pushing content through apps alongside (or even instead of) their Web sites. Netflix plans to send movies and TV shows directly to TV sets, making their customers’ experience virtually indistinguishable from ordering up on-demand shows by remote control. The web has truly moved to the living room TV, as Bill Gates had once predicted (although accidentally and largely incorrectly before the Web) in the Road Ahead.
This is an unnerving proposition. Is this the end of the era of browser dominance? Hirschorn points out that Twitter, like other recent social networks, is not even bothering with its Web site, choosing to instead focus on its more fully-featured smart-phone app. TweetDeck, which collates feeds across multiple social networks, is not even browser-based.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
The Race to the Past
For that reason alone, rather than pulling out altogether, Google sidestepped any potential conflict this past winter by automatically redirecting its users from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, its Hong Kong search engine. This redirect, which offers unfiltered search in simplified Chinese, has been working well for its users and for Google, as it reports on its latest blog entry.
However, the PRC has stepped up its firmness, as government officials have made it clear that the automatic redirection to Google Hong Kong is no longer acceptable. Google's solution? Instead of redirecting users directly from Google.cn to Google.com.hk, the Chinese homepage will now simply link to its Hong Kong counterpart, which allows users to search free of censorship. As many have commented, the best Google can hope for is to find an acceptable middle ground so that it can honor its own commitment to unfiltered search results while working within the rules set by the Chinese government. And Hong Kong's Google site seems to be that solution, if not long-term, then at least temporarily.
It's interesting, and perhaps historically relevant that Hong Kong is the compromise. A landing spot for much of its history until its recent commercial success this latter part of the 20th century, Hong Kong has always been an entrepot, an entry point where migrants, travelers, and traders stationed temporarily to either evade state authorities or build support for political upheaval. In fact, Hong Kong is where the seeds of Sun Yat-sen's 1911 revolution had taken place. Almost 100 years later, Hong Kong finds itself enmeshed again between the two powers which divide the orient.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Googling for the News
It’s obvious that in five or 10 years, most news will be consumed on an electronic device of some sort. Something that is mobile and personal, with a nice color screen. Imagine an iPod or Kindle smart enough to show you stories that are incremental to a story it showed you yesterday, rather than just repetitive. And it knows who your friends are and what they’re reading and think is hot. And it has display advertising with lots of nice color, and more personal and targeted, within the limits of creepiness. And it has a GPS and a radio network and knows what is going on around you.
Friday, June 04, 2010
Henry Jenkins' From Youtube to YouNiversity
Henry Jenkins is the creator of the Comparative Media Studies (CMS) graduate program at MIT, and can be considered an innovator in digital culture. At its core, his MIT program has encouraged students to think across media, across historical periods, across national borders, across academic disciplines, across the divide between theory and practice and across the divides between the academy and the rest of society. Although he has moved on to being Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, his blog entries continue to be as interesting as ever.
Blogs represent a powerful tool for engaging in these larger public conversations. At my university, we noticed that a growing number of students were developing blogs focused on their thesis research. Many of them were making valuable professional contacts; some had developed real visibility while working on their master's degrees; and a few received high-level job offers based on the professional connections they made on their blogs. Blogging has also deepened their research, providing feedback on their arguments, connecting them to previously unknown authorities, and pushing them forward in ways that no thesis committee could match. Now all of our research teams are blogging not only about their own work but also about key developments in their fields.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Wolfram Alpha and Year One of the Shroud of Turin
One year after the release of Wolfram Alpha, the hoopla has come and gone. It just seems as if the world wasn't quite ready for Wolfram to come and grab the spotlight away from Google. Heavily weighted toward computational queries, with blended tendency of manipulating its data sets as opposed to simply retrieving what is actually available on the Web means its results can be more authoritative than a list of links.
As a result, Wolfram has "sold out" in a way, as it plans to make over its home page, and will start adding data for more pop-culture-friendly information such as sports, music, health information, and even its own take on local mapping. The problem is that Wolfram just doesn't know what it's for: as one pundit puts it, "Wolfram Alpha is like a cross between a research library, a graphing calculator, and a search engine."
Another challenge for Wolfram is that unlike Google, Wolfram expects to cash in on its enterprise: let's put it this way, it isn't doing this for knowledge dissemination. It plans to sell subscriptions to advanced users who want to do thing like blend their own custom data with Alpha's engine. The question remains: who's going to use it? Its business model is incumbent on a smaller, elite set of expert users. Google, on the other hand, has a business model that's shown a way to work based on use by just about everybody. There's a neatly aligned financial alliance between more users and revenue.
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Copyright Wars
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Open Access & The Pulitzer Prize
An independent journalism outlet that syndicates content to various traditional news organizations but itself operates solely on the Internet, ProPublica specializes on investigative reporting who had won the award along with the Philadelphia Daily News. Competing against multi-million dollar New York Times, ProPublica still managed to win. A non-profit organization, it offers a resource for struggling news organizations that can't afford to focus human resources on investigative reporting.
In the other award, Mark Fiore won the award for his editorial cartoon work, a series of web videos on SFGate.com. Competing against the likes of established The Philidelphia Inquirer and Politico, this is a huge feat. Although it has only been two years since the Pulitzer Prize board first began permitting online-only publications, ProPublica and SFGate's achievements have significant implications in both the publishing and literary world.
Of course, with the ubiquitous availability of Internet access, it has become commonplace for academics to publish a scholarly article and have it instantly accessible anywhere in the world where there are computers and Internet connections. The possibilities of open access comes at a time when the traditional, print-based scholarly journals system is in crisis, as the cost of publishing can no longer match the demand of subscribers. As the number of journals and articles produced has been increasing at a steady rate, the average cost per journal has been rising at a rate far above inflation.
As a result, this all indicates that the web has become the great equalizer for publishers and writers. Until recent time, both academics and publishers have been skeptical about the quality and legitimacy of web publications. Perhaps the latest winners of the Pulitzer Prize by two creators of online content is an indication that open access is slowly making its way into the public consciousness.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Gladwell on Social Media
In a surprising splash of cold water, Malcolm Gladwell dispelled the anticipation and excitement of social media enthusiasts at the F5 Expo in Vancouver, BC. As a conference that converges interactive exhibits, peer idea-collaboration amongst fellow entrepreneurs and executives, and "edge-of-your-seat conferences into one explosive day," on topics such as mobile apps, search marketing, business blogs/webinars, social media, and web 2.0 . . . Gladwell came, and Gladwell left, with a debris of ideas for us to take home.
Intriguingly, he thinks social media is still in its experimental phase. For someone as observant and bright as Gladwell is, he certainly makes a good point. In the brief history of the internet, it builds something up up only for it to be toppled later. Perhaps Facebook is just a flavour of the month. The web is not a world that respects loyalties and longevity. . . Will Twitter?
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Google Vs. The Great Wall of China
Instead of simply withdrawing from China, Google has decided to redirect traffic from google.cn to google.com.hk — their site hosted out of Hong Kong. This version of Google hosts unfiltered results — something that likely isn’t too popular with Chinese officials. Moreover, Google stopped censoring its search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where it offers uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Essentially, Google has decided to let China make the call — instead of shutting down the service themselves, it’s now going to be up to China to pull the plug.
As a snapshot in historical context, this is very much a tense standoff between multinational corporatism and state nationalism. As a result, Google Inc. partners in China are said to follow billionaire Hong Kong Li Ka-shing's lead and cut links with the U.S. Internet company after it defied the nation's self-censorship rules. Li's Tom Online Inc. has already stopped using Google's search engine on its portal and media buyer Zenith Optimedia; advertisers it represents may also switch to rivals after Google began this redirection of its mainland users to an unfiltered offshore site. Not surprisingly, China Mobile Ltd. has a deal with Google to provide mobile and Internet services. What is going to transpire? As we said earlier, this is a game of chicken, with both sides fairly rigid in its position and solidified in its respective empires.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Hong Kong Central Library
(2) State-Of-The-Art Multimedia - Called the Multimedia Information System, the MMIS is an example of all-embracing use of information technology and computer application in the Hong Kong Central Library. As such a three level audio-on-demand and video-on-demand system are set up. In order to enable more public use of the first level video and third level audio and video of the AOD/VOD system, about ninety Asynchronous Transfer Mode terminals are installed in the library. In other words, the library allows its users the most advanced technologies available.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Vancouverism and 2010
The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver has come and gone. It has forever changed the city. Vancouver is also known for its unique Vancouverism. Characterized by mixed-use developments, typically with a medium-height, commercial base and narrow, high-rise residential towers to accommodate high populations and to preserve view corridors, Vancouverism is an urban planning and architectural technique pioneered in Vancouver, Canada.
Vancouver is somewhat unique among large North American cities with such a large residential population living in the city centre, and no expressways connecting the core to the suburbs, and still being able to significantly rely on mass public transit for its citizens. It these reasons contribute to the fact that it is consistently ranked among the most livable cities in the world. Not to mention its gorgeous landscape during the spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons. Perhaps Vancouver should also be known in Vancouverism for its knowledge capital. Why? Here are some main features:
Friday, March 05, 2010
Bibliothèque nationale de France
This is one of the most historic, most beautiful libraries in the modern world. Tracing its origin to the royal library founded at the Louvre by Charles V in 1368, the Bibliothèque nationale de France expanded under Louis XIV and opened to the public in 1692. With library's collections swelling to over 300,000 volumes during the radical phase of the French Revolution when the private libraries of aristocrats and clergy were seized, the library became the Imperial National Library and in 1868 was moved to newly constructed buildings on the Rue de Richelieu following a series of regime changes in France. At one time or another - 1896 to be exact - the library was in fact the largest repository of books in the world.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Boston Public Library
Friday, February 26, 2010
Semiotics and the Semantic Web
. . . when computing entered the realm of images, a new dimension was added to cyperspace (taking it literally from 1D to 2D) and the term 'virtual reality' started to be more than a daydream. (Cadognety, 2002).
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Horizon Report 2010 - Changes to Come?
1. Mobile computing - This is not a surprise as the iPhone has entered our lives as seamlessly and ubiquitously over the past couple of years. Handheld tools such as smart phones to netbooks are portable tools for productivity, learning, and communication, offering an increasing range of activities fully supported by applications designed especially for mobiles.
2. Open content - Although the open content movement is a response to the rising costs of education, it has been around since the open source and freeware movements in the software and gaming industries back in the 1990's. In the open content (also known as open access in the publishing and academic world), the desire for access to learning in areas where such access is difficult and an expression of student choice about when and how to learn battle against the corporate for-profit universe which for years has seen growing textbook prices, hefty rising student fees, and the ivory tower image of the babel of academia. The digital world is attempting to fight back, be it free online courses or video webcasts open to the world.
3. Electronic books - Going hand in hand with open content, electronic books promise to reduce costs, save students from carrying pounds of textbooks, and contribute to the environmental efforts of paper-conscious campuses. As pblishers are raising the costs of printing to justify the costs of doing business, the digital world is paving the way to break down those barriers and allow for portable, compact, and inexpensive options for all.
4. Simple augmented reality – This is the technology that has subtly entered into our daily lives with little notice or fanfare, but will ultimately change the way we interact with the Web. AR is the concept of blending (augmenting) virtual data — information, rich media, and even live action — into our physical world – with the purpose of enhancing the information we can perceive with our senses is a powerful one. This is what some predicts as the next generation 3D web (or Web 3.0).
5. Gesture-based computing - Allows our natural movements of the finger, hand, arm, and body which can recognize and interpret body motions. As we work with devices that react to us instead of requiring us to learn to work with them, our understanding of what it means to interact with computers will have a paradigm shift.
6. Visual data analysis - An emerging field, a blend of statistics, data mining, and visualization, that promises to make it possible for anyone to sift through, display, and understand complex concepts and relationships. Visual data analysis may help expand our understanding of learning itself. Learning is one of the most complex of social processes, with a myriad of variables interacting in highly complex ways, making it an ideal focus for the search for patterns. Indeed, Chris Anderson has argued in Wired Magazine that the explosion of data spells the ‘end of theory.’
Sensors everywhere. Infinite storage. Clouds of processors. Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology. As our collection of facts and figures grows, so will the opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions. Because in the era of big data, more isn't just more. More is different.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
How the Mighty Fall
What began as a journal article eventually expanded to How the Mighty Fall, which confronts these questions with some answers to how even the best can succumb to decline and collapse. One thing is even more true about the recent financial collapse: all organizations are prone to vulnerabilities, regardless of how well crafted and seemingly operated they appear. Collins' research project--more than four years in duration-- reveals five stages of decline. It's an excellent guide to libraries and information centres, particularly those nestled in the guise of large budgeted institutions. All organizations run by humans face mortality one day or another - it's important that we recognize its symptoms and confront the brutal realities of decline. And perhaps step in if it's not too late. Here are Collins' five stages:
Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success - All success depends on hard work and luck; however, success does not guarantee perpetuity. Every decision needs to be continually re-examined.
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More - Success often breeds greed, which often leads to straying from the original elements which produced success.
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril - Greed leads to blindness that there are signs of hazard, until it's too late.
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation - Signs of failure arises, but blindness to reality reinforces the need to look for miracles. Often, the organization looks for a messiah from outside the organization to lead it back to the promise land.
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death - Nothing is done. Demoralized, the organization accepts its fate of a slow death.
Collins' research argues however, that these are just five stages. Indeed, they are reversible. Some companies do indeed recover--in some cases, coming back even stronger--even after Stage 4. In fact, this is because decline is (believe it or not) self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within the organization's own hands. As long a company is not entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.
Collins' book impressed me as a book that can be applied to all organizations, profit and not-for-profit - technology or customer-service. Regardless of what sector, when large numbers of people work together to achieve a common goal, they are bound to irrationality and group think, politics and human egotism. The five principles of decline are a good reminder that nothing is indestructible if pushed to its limits.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Seattle's Central Library
Here is a library that I is close to heart, literally and figuratively speaking. I heart Seattle, one of trendiest urban living spaces in the world. Its Central Seattle Library also ranks as one of the most beautiful architectural spaces in the world, with state of the art technology. A remarkably postmodern rendition perhaps, even the floors have a classically labeled Dewey Decimal system as markers of shelf sections.
Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the Library is award-winning in architectural style, modern on both the inside and the out. The library uses RFID that allows patrons to check out their own materials. Its former city librarian Nancy Pearl even had a few books under her name and a figurine, too. So grab a Starbucks and your MS Windows laptop, and take a plushy seat in one of the world's most interesting libraries.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Is it Google? Or Is it Information Imperialism?
In a recent posting from the Google Blog, Google has announced that it will be adopting a new strategy in China after facing cyber-attacks in which Gmail accounts were hacked into. In mid-December, it had detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. Google would have an easier time quitting China than other companies. Although its business there has been growing, it is estimated to be only a few percentage points of its total revenues. That's a sharp contrast to companies like General Motors Corp., for which China is a crucial market.
What's interesting is that the US government has taken a stance in this growing situation, turning it instantly into a political issue, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently pointed out China as among a number of countries where there has been “a spike in threats to the free flow of information” over the past year. She also named
Let's take a look at the the Global Search Report. The report indicates that even as far back as 2007, Google's reach into the web has not been as extensive as we think it might be. Not only did Google have only 21.7% of the market share compared to Baidu's 55% in China, it had only 24.7% compared to Seznam's 65.5% in the Czech Republic. Google didn't even rank top 3 in South Korea (Naver is number 1, with 72.7% of the market share). If we look at Google as a multinational corporation, perhaps its strategy isn't one of intellectual freedom, but one of consolidating market share. As it has no dominance in certain regions, why would it want to move into China in the first place? English isn't everything you know.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Libraries of the World - One Google Streetview At A Time
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Steve Jobs, Computers, Technology -- And How to Present Them
Steve Jobs will forever be one of the icons of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He's helped shape not only technological and business landscape, but the cultural agenda as well. His pitching of the PC vs. Mac debate has split the world into two camps. As one likes to describe him, Jobs doesn't just sell computers; he sells an experience. A new book which has just come out is worth a read. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs argue that Jobs' successful not only because of his visionary appeal of Apple's products, but ultimately his ability to create elegant presentations that are meant to inform, educate, and entertain - his ability to sell himself as a brand. An Apple presentation has all the elements of a great theatrical production—a great script, heroes and villains, stage props, breathtaking visuals, and one moment that makes the price of admission well worth it.
Take a look at Jobs' presentation of the 2001 iPod, long before it gained the foothold of our musical and cultural lexicon - Jobs doesn't just deliver, he performs. His words dances across the stage like an actor's - and we all know he's having fun doing it. Carmine Gallo's book is an addictive read after the lull of the holidays. Perhaps it is as important for librarians and information professionals as any, as presentations form the crux of their work. Steve Jobs' skills at articulating himself is a defiant reminder to how we can all work on effectively communicating to our audiences what we really need to say.
Act 1 - Create the Story
Scene 1 - Plan in Analog
Scene 2 - Answer the One Question That Matters Most
Scene 3 - Develop a Messianic Sense of Purpose
Scene 4 - Create Twitter-Like Headlines
Scene 5 - Draw a Road Map
Scene 6 - Introduce the Antagonist
Scene 7 - Reveal the Conquering Hero
Intermission 1 - Obey the Ten-Minute Rule
Act 2 - Deliver the Experience
Scene 8 - Channel Their Inner Zen
Scene 9 - Dress Up Your Numbers
Scene 10 - Use "Amazingly Zippy" Words
Scene 11 - Share the Stage
Scene 12 - Stage Your Presentation With Props
Scene 13 - Reveal a "Holy Shit" Moment
Intermission 2 - Schiller Learns From the Best
Act 3 - Master Stage Presence
Scene 14 - Master Stage Presence
Scene 15 - Make It Look Effortless
Scene 16 - Wear the Appropriate Costume
Scene 17 - Toss the Script
Scene 18 - Have Fun
Encore - One More Thing . . .