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Communicating in a networked world

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Hey! We already thought of that!

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Doug Engelbart
Doug Engelbart
in 1968

Once or twice a week I’m in a meeting, someone blurts out their fantastic new idea, and I have to bite my tongue instead of saying “hey, we thought of that years ago!”

If you’re over 30 you’re probably beginning to have that thought yourself once in a while. My favorite is when someone pops up in a meeting and says “Hey, I had this great new idea that we should use the web [or phones, or whatever] for online learning.”

When I tell them that someone first did this in 1954, why do they get so bent out of shape? (And then  ignore the comment and go right back to claiming the idea as their own…) [Read more…]

Doodling – or is it Visual Mapping?

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Jay Cross in 2009Jay Cross writes about developing a reputation as the guy who was doodling in business school classes.

But what Jay shows as examples might not all be doodles. Meaning aimless drawing. Yes, Jay may have been doodling much of the time, but there’s often more to it than that. And it can be extremely useful as well. [Read more…]

TweetChat: Twitter for meetings – but it’s a tossed salad

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TweetChatSuddenly this afternoon at 5pm I started receiving a bunch of tweets (Twitter messages) from friends. That’s not unusual, but these tweets didn’t make much sense.  Obviously a couple of my friends were chatting back and forth using Twitter, but of course all of their followers, even those who weren’t in on the conversation, were receiving the messages – which made no sense because they/I had no context for these tweets. They seemed to be random answers to some unseen question. And they weren’t exchanging direct messages, which would have been private, not public. What had I missed?

Then I noticed the hashtag #lrnchat on the tweets and I investigated. [Read more…]

Google ruled by engineers, Apple ruled by designers

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nano-rainbow Fundamentally different approaches to problem-solving, nope design, nope creating products, nope life!

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. — Doug Bowman, Goodbye Google

I love this farewell post by Google’s visual design lead because it confirms a theory I’ve long held: that Google is a company where engineers are the ruling class, while at Apple it’s designers. – Buzz Andersen, Sci-fi Hi-fi

This just blew me away because of my experiences with people from both Apple and Google.

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Chatting our way to World Peace

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dharamsala-streetWhen I made my first trip to Dharamsala, India, in 2005, to see this hub of activity of the Tibetan exile community and the home of the Dalai Lama, I was hosted by Thubten Samdup. “Sam” is founder of the Canada Tibet Committee and an activist in the exile community. He lives in Montréal. When he’s not traveling, that is.

One of Sam’s recent projects (it’s a couple of years old now) involves a group of Chinese-speaking (reading and writing as well) Tibetans who live in Dharamsala and spend their time chatting with people inside China. About what it is to be a part of the Tibetan culture and how it relates to the rest of China. It’s an actual project with financial supporters and employees, and you can contact me if you’re interested in helping support it. Sam also spends a lot of time in the Tibetan exile settlements in the rest of India, but that’s another story.