Data Mining Goes Mainstream

A NYTimes Money article talks about data mining going mainstream, also mentions Tom Davenport's recent book: "Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning", previously mentioned here. The book also briefly mentions P&G's use of analytical methods. Good overview with some useful examples, though nothing about managing the risk involved.

" ... The entry barrier, he says, "is no longer technology, but whether you have executives who understand this." There are plenty who do. Big retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and Kohl's use today's advanced computing and math to more accurately predict what sizes of clothes should go to what stores. Harrah's and other casinos decipher slot-machine results to optimize customer traffic and profits, and they use face-recognition software to identify people with criminal records. And Stockholm and other cities use traffic data and patterns to determine "congestion pricing." ...

" In the last year or so, Whirlpool, the appliance maker, has begun using new analytics software to automatically scan warranty reports as well as manufacturing, supplier, sales and service data to try to further trim its warranty costs and improve quality. That is no small task, since it sells an average of 25,000 washing machines a day, for example. "A human being cannot see and detect all those trends," says John Kerr, the general manager for global quality.

With the new computing tools, Whirlpool has trimmed by 30 to 90 days the time required to detect and fix parts or manufacturing problems that cause defects. "The math is astounding," Mr. Kerr says ... "

Aloft Hotel to be Torn Down

The much written about Starwood/ W Hotels / Aloft Hotel in the Second Life virtual world will be removed after a ten month experimental existence. More about it here. There is also an announcement posted at the hotel. This is a telling event about how hard it is to mimic real world venues in virtual spaces. I made it a point to visit this space a number of times as I wandered about SL, and after the grand opening it was usually empty. I never saw a Starwood employee there, having a person greet you would have been useful. Though beautifully designed, I wondered, OK, what is next? Do people check in? Sleep? What? There is still quite a gulf between the virtual and real worlds. Simply replicating aspects of the real world is not enough, and often not even useful except to prove that the empty spaces can be created.

I am assuming that Starwood got the design experience they wanted out of the experiment. They have annnounced the ground-breaking of a real-life version of the virtual hotel.

Google Seeks to Reinvent Search

Google Searchology

" ... Google is unifying its search silos, including images, video, news, blogs, local, maps, and the main search index. That means that when you search for something, you are as likely to get news and images-and even YouTube video-as you are to get plain old text results. It's an audacious plan, and one fraught with peril. What if the search results become so cluttered, for example, that you won't be able to find what you want? Google also launched two cool new projects: the ability to see results on a timeline and an internal Google Search/Maps mashup ... "

And more about it here from Google. Agree with the comment above about how this could make results too complex, should be an option only. Is the strategy here to complicate the free results and augment the paid?

Scratch Programming Tool

Originally designed primarily for children , the MIT programming tool Scratch, " ... a new free program allows people to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks ..." . Richard James sends me a BBC article on it, with a video demo of creator Mitchel Resnick, of the MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten Group creating a character. You can see more about it here. Could this be used to create narratives to store corporate knowledge? Have not tried it as yet, but plan to.

People Will Click on Anything

PCWeek reports on a study where 409 people clicked on a link that offered to infect their PC with a virus. A click-through rate of .16 percent. To be fair, I have found myself clicking on things I should not have.

Computing History

Now reading: Dreaming in code : two dozen programmers, three years, 4,732 bugs, and one quest for transcendent software by Scott Rosenberg. A history of Mitch Kapor's Chandler development. I don't code any more, but I did develop some fairly complex systems and I recall the almost religious and infectious aspect of developing a system. And also that complex systems were devilishly hard to debug, if they ever are debugged.

Also reminded me of applications like Lotus Agenda, which I recall was being used by a number of folks corporately before folding. Also covers a good bit of mid to late 90s changes in computing. Also have to mention the bi-monthly IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, which I have read for years now. It does sometimes deal with minutiae which I skip. But it also covers some fascinating areas that are well worth reading, for example in this issue, some of the early history of computer crime.

Nanotech Bootcamp

Some training and conference opportunities in Nanotechnology, from the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

Unilever Advertising

I see in an AdAge article today that Unilever is re-thinking its advertising position in the US. Likely unrelated, at the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) meetings last week, Unilever had one of the larger footprints in the technical show. As to be expected, most of their space was devoted to their food products, but they also showed off beauty and bodywash items.

Patent Suit Resolved

In what seems like a major development, Amazon has agreed to pay IBM regarding a claim that they invented and patented electronic commerce over the internet. From StorefrontTalkBack.

The Black Swan

Have read Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Highly recommended for modelers or those who think about their application.

Taleb, once a very successful derivative and options trader, now a professor at the University of Massachusetts, takes you on a wild and often idiosyncratic ride through financial modeling. No equations in the book, but it helps to have some basic statistics and econometric background. As close to a page-turner as a book like this can be.

Taleb writes about what he considers the total inadequacy of currently used modeling methods. This is mostly a full-steam attack on the mis-use of Gaussian methods (the Normal or Bell curve), which are the basis of modern portfolio theory, forecasting, regression and just about any statistical method that claims to be predictive. The Gaussians' small tails make it incapable of modeling anything even close to improbable. Our connected world is getting more improbable, thus these methods are increasingly wrong.

To be clear, it's not that the use of Gaussian methods are always wrong, though Taleb's style sometimes implies that. He is making the case that they have been used to underpin all of financial modeling methods, even when it makes no sense.

Along the way, Taleb tells a personal story (very unusual for a statistics book!) and trashes modern portfolio theory, Black-Scholes, Wharton, the Nobel Prize Committee, the use of narrative and most of the last twenty years of econometrics. He has received threats from the normally staid econometric community. He suggests that that Mandelbrot's scalable fractal methods are a better approach than Gaussian methods.

He says that modern practitioners of financial methods agree with him, though most academics do not. The formal methods do not work. Evidenced by the 1998 LTCM crisis, which came close to bringing down the entire global financial system. The formal methods could not deal with a 'black swan', a very improbable event by normal distribution standards.

The practitioners respond that the current portfolio risk methods are all they have today to create useful models. Mandelbrot's models do not give the predictions that current formal methods do. But if the predictions are wrong?

This is a big deal to large companie who use many techniques like forecasting, marketing mix and simulation models that are based on what Taleb is saying are flawed fundamentals in a world of increasing improbabilities. Also, WSJ Review.

Supermarket Opens in Second Life

I attended the opening of Phil's Supermarket in Second Life (138,93,29) today. The ribbon cutting was held as part of the Food Marketing Institute's Marketechnics meeting. The supermarket is a joint effort between IBM, Kraft and supermarket technology writer Phil Lempert. IBM was showing it as part of their exposition, and several hundred people attended in all. It includes dozens of new Kraft products, which can be manipulated in 3D. Particularly surprising was the very high graphics quality of the Kraft product packaging shown, better than I have seen in SL before. More details. SLNN article on the opening. The site

" ... creates real world benefits through this unique new frontier of a virtual world experience. Shoppers can browse the store as they wish - or they can pre-shop for the real world. Consumers can personalize product lists, recipes, nutritional profiles and soon even be able to avoid specific ingredients or allergens. Although products are not actually for purchase with US Dollars, shoppers can participate in a variety of programs and frequent shopper incentives where they can obtain a combination of cyber and real life "stuff" such as product coupons, tote bags, t-shirts and more ..."

Also, Chicago Tribune article on Kraft's presence.

Interesting here is that the store does not seem to be mimicking the architecture of real-life stores, but trying some things that are more appropriate to the granularity of Second Life.

Videomining

At Marketechniques, although the show seems smaller, saw some interesting things. Notably, Videomining, which I had not encountered before. Their site shows a number of video-based solutions to help manufacturers and retailers. From their site:

" ... VideoMining is the pioneer of technology-enabled in-store research. Using automated video analysis, VideoMining gathers insights about shopper behavior, demographics and trip types. These insights provide retailers and manufacturers with an unprecedented ability to identify opportunities, test and refine strategies and monitor performance ...

Practical application of some ideas I have seen in some large company labs. Have not worked with them, but they are worth a look.

FMI MarkeTechnics

This next week I am attending the FMI show in Chicago. FMI is the Food Marketing Institute. Have attended these a number of times over the last ten years. I attend primarily to understand how technology in grocery and pharma is changing. I am interested in new technologies that interact with the consumer in the store and especially at the shelf. I have covered such ideas as interactive displays, RFID tagging, in-cart personalized systems and interactions between consumer's personal devices such as cellphones and the retailer. Although the last ten years have brought many changes, the basic store presence, from a technical leverage perspective, looks very similar to the consumer. The show indicates the ebb and flow of ideas. Large company presence indicates investment changes, small company presence indicate new ideas and potential testing to be done. Anything I really should see? Send me an email at the address in top of the right column.

Pricing Software Could Reshape Retail

I think this idea, often called RRM (Retail Revenue Management) is a very big threat/opportunity for CPG manufacturers. It could give power to retailers by giving them the ability to leverage data they are collecting every day. Oracle is now also in the pricing optimization business through their acquisition of Retek. Another player, Khimetrics, was acquired by SAP last year, which could result in the yet broader use of these techniques.

Haptic Gaming Design

Yury Gitman contacts us via IFTF's Future Commons, and points to some of his students work in haptic (touch interface) gaming.

" ... For those of you interested in haptic and gaming experiments that are happening in universities these days please see the link below. I'm an adjunct prof. at Parsons in New York. My class explores advanced topics in Human Computer Interaction. In this case students developed their own gaming platforms that have haptic interfaces similar to and beyond that of the Nintendo Wii-motes.. These are 3-week rapid prototyping projects by MFA students. ... Watch the videos, and follow the links for the back-story.. thanks! ... Yury Gitman ..."

Isaacson's Einstein

Over the years I have read a number of Einstein bios, from Abraham Pais' relatively dense scientific biography, to any number that attempted to understand his life, science and times. The newest: Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe is the best general purpose bio I have seen. Isaacson alternates chapters between Einstein's personal life with his scientific investigations. Although there is no equation to be seen except for the now iconic E=MC2, he does a very reasonably good job of explaining special and general relativity. If you take the time to read the explanations carefully, you will understand the basic ideas. My own physics background spoils the fun at one level, but do give it a try.

In the last few years there have been a number of discovered letters and other sources that have put Einstein in a less than favorable light. There has also been an attempt to position his first wife as co-inventor of his early work. She certainly helped him substantially, but so did many others who provided advanced mathematics support. Their names are also forgotten. It's ultimately not useful to twist history for current social engineering agendas.

Einstein was no ideal family man, but this has been presented unfairly in recent bios that have tried to gain some publicity from this. Isaacson clearly likes his subject. He does cover many of Einstein's less that favorable aspects, but does not dwell on them. Einstein's religious and ethical beliefs have also created much debate as well. Isaacson does an excellent job of positioning these in the context of his times.

After reading this book I felt that I knew more about Einstein. Its balanced, and you feel that you have seen both his faults and his brilliance. Its sad also to see his early magnificent results, and then his long fight, incredulity really, with the new results of quantum theory, a science he had helped start. Much recommended for anyone interested in the history of science.

Snipers, Shills and Sharks

I recently read Ken Steiglitz's new book: Snipers, Shills and Sharks: eBay and Human Behavior.

Auctions come in many forms: English, Dutch, Japanese and Reverse and variants of these. They have been used since at least 500 BC. But the real quantitative understanding of auction science has come from online auctions, and especially the explosion of eBay in the last dozen years. This has connected more buyers to more sellers than every before. Its also constructed a test bed for understanding the science, both quantitative and psychological, that drives auctions.

Steiglitz, a computer science at Princeton, has written an excellent overview of auction science. The first 180 pages are completely non-mathematical. The appendix that follows contains the math details if necessary. There he does a good job of doing the proofs, which are usually of fairly idealized situations. He starts with the history of auctions, and then follows with a careful description of the different types that exist. Also a number of sometimes surprising revelations about the specific dynamics of eBay auctions, and how that influences buyers and sellers.

He then describes examples of consumer behavior on eBay, tracking how people bid and the resulting outcomes. Most of his examples come from ancient coin categories. These outcomes are driven by participants sometimes weak understanding of the technology, their own internal economic models, and the psychology of the bidding process. Not all is rational here! Along the way you do learn some remarkable things about how eBay works.

This book is not meant to be an introduction or guide to doing business on eBay, a quick search on Amazon shows dozens of such books, from the 'dummy' books to thick works on the best ways to make money there. This book, as its title suggests, is about how human behavior is represented in auctions. Along the way, Steiglitz suggests that a good way to study auction dynamics is using agent models. I think he is right ... this is not about the idealized 'Homo Economicus', or his student volunteers, but rather about rather irrational beings who display all kinds of interest, including emotions like 'spite' when they bid at an auction.

He uses his classes to experiment with these kinds of auction behavior. That limits the breadth of what can be experimented with. I wish he would he extended his interest in agent models to show some examples to prompt more explorations in this area. Good book for those who want an introduction to the more technical aspects of auction science.

Fascade: An Interactive Story

At GA Tech last year we saw a demonstration of Facade: an interactive story. A clever idea where you interact with an AI. A sort of game link with an script. A scripted Second Life. The examples they show are short pieces of fiction, but you could script this for things like training. When there we saw an example done in a real 3D space.

Blogger and Podcaster Magazine

I didn't know they were still publishing magazines with the 'simulated page turning' display. Well here is one, the April issue of Blogger and Podcasting. Not sure I like it. To read the text you have to zoom in, that way you really can't scan the text, just the titles and pictures. Should new media ever simulate old media? You would think we are now beyond this approach.

Simon Ellis, Supply Chain Futurist at Unilever

Simon Ellis, frequent speaker, well known supply chain Futurist at Unilever, is interviewed in Consumer Goods Technology. He talks about his view of supply chains and cautious views on RFID tagging.

Why Enterprise 2.0 Won't Transform Organizations

A colleague sends along a discussion article by Tom Davenport. In Harvard Business Online. As he points out, an excellent discussion follows.

" ... It's going to be very interesting to see what happens when the young bucks and buckettes of today's wired world hit the adult work force. Will they freely submit to such structured information environments as those provided by SAP and Oracle, content and knowledge management systems, and communication by email? Or will they overthrow the computational and communicational status quo with MySpace, MyBlog, and MyWiki? ..."

Design at P&G

"Designed to Sell: Procter & Gamble
Claudia Kotchka holds Procter & Gamble's new secret to driving customer sales: infusing innovation into brands.
By Julia Chang

When Claudia Kotchka wants to prove the impact of good design, she likes to show, not tell. This means the Procter & Gamble executive has found herself on occasion roaming the corridors of the consumer products giant's Cincinnati offices with tchotchkes on hand to show off to her colleagues.

One of her favorites is a pair of measuring cups. The first is a basic plastic one she bought from Wal-Mart. She shows it to unsuspecting executives and asks them how they would change it. Most would look at it and say that it functioned exactly how it was supposed to, so could you even improve upon it? Then Kotchka would take out a second measuring cup, this time one from OXO, the household goods manufacturer known for its innovative design. This one has an angled surface that lets you see from the top how much liquid is going in--this way, the user no longer has to stop pouring to lift the cup and check the measurement. "It has such a better consumer experience. Then the lightbulbs would go off," says Kotchka, vice president of design innovation and strategy. "Once you see it, you say, 'Oh why didn't someone think of this before?' They are great examples [of good design] you can readily understand." .... '

Empty Your In Box Completely, Every Day

Just read Mark Hurst's Bit Literacy: Productivity in the Age of Information and E-Mail Overload.. Hurst is one of the founders of Creative Good, a user experience group which we have been members of for several years. Bit Literacy is an easy, short-flight read. Also has a web site, with sample chapters.

This book contains lots of good ideas about making your use of computing more efficient. It seeks to increase your 'bit literacy', improving your computing experience, in useful ways. I do wonder about the practicality of some of his proposals, which exist in the realm of 'wouldn't it be nice if we all ...'.

The first, and what will seem the most radical to many is his proposal that we should completely empty our email in boxes every day. Deleting, filing or placing each message in a todo list. He also describes some novel ways of using todo lists, using the package Gootodo, which he claims is the only 'complete' todo package. I would like to see my email inbox completely empty someday, he suggests it's an almost spiritual experience. I have not seen an empty in box for a very long time.

He makes a good case for minimizing the use of e-mail attachments, says we should include all text in the body of an e-mail , and suggests that we should rarely use packages like Word, and stick with plain ASCII, where the text you see is exactly what is in the file. No fonts, no advanced formatting. I admire his view, but I think that train has left the station some time ago.

His company has every candidate take a typing test, and believes that fast, touch typing is important. He goes a step further and suggests we should be using the more efficient DVORAK keyboard arrangement, rather than the near-universal QWERTY. Some packages allow you to switch arrangements with an easy parameter setting. Probably most relevant for those that do lots of typing, and I think you would get quite a bit of resistance for the re-training required. My own 'modified-peek' touch typing', last measured at about 25 wpm in high school, serves me reasonably well.

I did like his ideas about file naming and maintenance, we could all do with a bit of better machine organization, making it easier to find things and minimize the number of keystrokes to get things to happen. He is not a fan of the mouse, and suggests we should do many things with 'bit levers', key strokes that implement words or phrases. He praises simplicity and order in messaging style, meriting an 'Elements of Style' comparison. I wish he would have done more in depth here.

The last part of the book gets into what I would call literacy rather than advocacy, he does a good job describing some of the things all computer users should know about files, folders, extensions and the like. He overviews Windows and Macs, but prefers Macs, which are the standard for his company. He outlines how his company uses these methods.

Hurst has thought much about the user experience of the personal computer and comes up with some thoughtful ideas. Not a revolutionary book by any means. I like Brian Schwartz's back cover comment that we have all learned our computing style piecemeal , this book starts to bring some of that together. How would new employees react to a 'Bit Literacy' class to establish a base of common usage?

Recommended for those that want to think about what current computer experience is all about.

Robert Scoble Revisited

Robert Scoble is the former Microsoft employee, who while he was there did a remarkable job of inside-out blogging. As a full-time MS employee he wrote a blog that often criticized MS, and as a result of his perceived objectivity, acquired a huge audience. Despite his sometimes critical view, even Bill Gates said he helped re-cast Microsoft's image. He also co-authored the book The Naked Conversation, a rabidly positive book about blogging, that received much press. Even P&G merits a mention there. He left MS some time ago and now works for Podtech.net. where he still blogs frequently. It seems he now has so many connections that it appears easy to generate lots of interesting posts. I had not been following him very closely of late, but in this weeks Businessweek, an article criticizing Microsoft's position in search delivery. Scoble says that their missteps in search " cripples their entire Internet strategy from the start ...". See his example here. Scoble is worth following, with a bit of a caution about his sheer net boosterism. read Carr's Roughtype blog for a balance of skepticism. Scoble does say that MS does research much better than Google, and provides a report on a tour.

eBags

I met Jon Nordmark, founder, CEO and President of eBags this week at a Creative Good meeting which looks at excellent user experiences. Many of you may have heard the story of the eBags online store before. Very impressive home grown piece of work. Check them out, especially their consumer review section, now with over a million reviews.

Google Content Removal Tools

I have written about the Internet Archive, which has P&G content from as far back as 1996. When I speak about the Net I always mention that you have to realize that just because you have erased a page from its server location does not mean it's gone. That should make you more cautious about what you place on the Web. Now Google has come out with some new improved content removal tools. This does NOT mean that the trace of the content will be gone from the Web, only that it may be harder to find.

Human 2.0

The MIT Media lab announces the new human being, to be ushered in with this symposium. A bit of hubris here, MIT has some nerve assuming this responsibility ... Carr concurs: " ... We're definitely overdue for an upgrade - it seems like we've been stuck in Version 1.x for a few hundred thousand years, and that was after a beta that went on for freaking ever. Still, I think I'll probably hold off until 2.01 or 2.02. I don't want to be on the bleeding edge for this one ... ". Arrogance, perhaps?

Donald A. Norman

Had a intriguing conversation with Donald A. Norman, former Apple VP and known for his book Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things. Here is his web site. He mentioned the formation of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern where he is a professor. I plan to visit. He is in the process of writing a new book: The Design of Future Things and has posted some draft chapters. Sharp and inspirational guy.

Wired for Speech

I just read Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship , a book by Stanford prof Clifford Nass and Scott Brave. The Amazon link above lets you preview parts of the book. Nass was co-author with Byron Reeves of the book The Media Equation. In many ways Wired for Speech is a continuation and specialization of The Media Equation. Its a statement about how how our brain's recognition capabilities for speech are very specifically wired, and how a knowledge of that fundamental wiring is important to building speech-driven interfaces. Worth reading for people building these interfaces.

It also makes the point, emphasized in The Media Equation, that humans interpret synthesized speech as though it was delivered in a human to human interaction, even when it is obvious it is synthesized, and they are repeatedly reminded of that fact. In other words, many of the same rules for human speech interaction apply for interaction between human and machine. This is startling stuff, and well worth understanding. Nass and Brave establish evidence for their conclusions with experiments with groups of volunteers, usually less than a hundred, who I am assuming are Stanford students. Hardly representative of real consumers, and I wonder some about statistical significance. A number of these experiments are described in the book.

Nass was also involved in an experiment to deliver a sophisticated car navigation system for BMW. Car navigation assistance is a good example of this kind of voice interaction. Other excellent examples are systems that deliver consultation over the phone. Many of their conclusions rang true as I thought about when thinking about my own experiences with systems support at P&G.

He makes the point:

" ... there is a sad irony: voice interfaces can seem very smart without knowing anything. The core problem is that humans have simplistic rules for assessing performance and these rules can be leveraged to make things seem smarter than they are. Reminding people that they depend on the interface for their success automatically makes the computer seem more intelligent. Attractive faces and voices are perceived as better able to perform tasks. And as noted earlier, labeling a part of the interface as a specialist, conforming to gender stereotypes, flattering the user, or matching the user's personality, also increase perceived competence. Indeed, people are so susceptible to manipulation that perceived intelligence is a very weak predictor of actual intelligence (it explains less than half of the variance) ..." (p. 152)

He spends much time on gender stereotyping in systems. Making the point that the wiring for detecting and responding to the gender of a voice occurs at a very young age. So do you use this finding to improve your voice driven interaction system, or do you attempt to re-engineer people from the top down? Heady stuff.

Good book if you are designing or re-designing a voice based system. Or if you are interested in the linking of people and machines.

Navigating Complexity

I was invited to be part of IBM's Alamden Institute Navigating Complexity workshop. I have connected with IBM a number of times at Almaden over the years, and the spectacular site in the hills above San Jose really does expand your mind. It's much more interesting than the Almaden site in Second Life! I do applaud IBM and the leader of the session, Myron Flickner, for pulling this meeting together.

I was surprised at the number of people there that I had met in the past. Stuart Kauffman, of Santa Fe Institute and Bios Group, Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. William Rouse - organizational modeling expert. Brian Arthur - synthetic economist. Also made lots of new conenctions.

Surprising too that even the definitions of complex systems are still in debate. There is also the subspecialty: Complex Adaptive Systems, which assumes the models are adapting. Not unusual, though the time scales can be very different. William Rouse presented a paper developed for presentation to the NSF which tries to button down definitions and research directions.

The presentations could be divided roughly into two groups. One about the architecture and function of the brain, and the other about business-related topics. Certainly the brain is a complex system. Complex systems also exist in business. Supply chains, organizations, software, communications and innovation flows.

The work on brain systems is intellectually very interesting and I found it fascinating, but it really should be handled in a separate meeting. I could not have brought my business clients into that meeting. Separately, with the right kind of specialists, they could be more useful.

Almost everyone in the group was either in academia and research. The exceptions were me and Ronald Johnson from Boeing. I challenged the group that we should look much more closely about how we can translate complexity systems to make them more useful for business applications. This should include improved architectures and methodologies that include experimentation frameworks.

One question that was asked was what kind of problems have truly been solved using this technology. There are some examples, but far fewer that there should be. Several examples where shown, notably some work at CMU on how to analyze organizations, that looks very promising. I will provide more details in a forthcoming post.

What ever model your build needs to be trustable. Why else would management use it to support decisions? Complexity models may not be verifyable in the normal sense, but for their results to be trusted, there needs to be a method to overlay an experimental design that can gain that trust.

Dayjet Models Business

Jim Herriot, is formerly of BiosGroup. He helped us construct complexity models of our supply chains back n the 90s. He is has now landed at Dayjet, a per seat executive jet service, which

" ... Simply put, DayJet will make it easy for you to travel point-to-point between those hard-to-reach regional markets by providing a personalized air transportation system that responds to your needs. Upon receipt of the necessary government operating authority, DayJet's "Per-Seat, On-Demand" jet service will give you the freedom to travel where you want to go, when you want to go, and bring you back again on your schedule, not ours. You decide. All at a price comparable to that of an overnight stay (including airfare, hotel, and per diem) ... "

In a conversation with Jim, he told me that this is the first case where a venture has been effectively pre-modeled, to maximize the potential for profitability.

More Difference

I previously reviewed Scott E Page's book on problem-solving diversity: The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies. A rare analytic look at the topic.

Tim Sullivan correspondent at Princeton University Press sends me some new mentions of the book, thought-provoking pieces, also here is the prologue to the book, a good introduction.

" ... First is a lecture Scott did at Ohio State; it's (unfortunately) a Real Player file. It runs about 45 minutes total and Scott starts at 6:10. The second is a podcast from the Invisible Hand, where Scott fields some interesting questions from Chris Gondek. Finally, Michael Mauboussin, the strategy wizard at Legg Mason, writes about how Scott's book gets into the mechanism of the "wisdom of crowds" and "blink" phenomena ... "

D-Wave Demo and Criticism

Bill MacReady, who formerly worked with us on advanced supply chain models is now with D-Wave. They have demonstrated what claims to be a commecial quantum computer. Bill is formulating some very hard math problems to put the system to test. This could solve some very hard design, simulation and scheduling problems that are as yet uncrackable.

Now the critics are out, including an article in Technology Review. This weekend there was an article in the NYTimes, and some insider criticism about the demo. This has the potential of being the biggest advance in computing in many years, but some claims remain to be proven.

Personalized Maps

You can create your own personalized Google Maps, annotated and customized with images, video and web links. Say for documentation of a study of retail conditions. A geographic map is an ideal interface. We have experimented with Geographical Information System (GIS) interfaces to systems like optimization models. This had historically required quite a bit of programming effort. Mash-ups on top of existing platforms like Google Maps and Earth provide new flexibility for using this kind of interface.

Persuasive Technologies

Long-time correspondent BJ Fogg of Stanford sends along an alert on his upcoming conference, quite interesting. See also his Captology site.

" ... PERSUASIVE 07 - The Second International Conference on Persuasive Technology

26-27 April 2007, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
Can a web site persuade you to be politically active? Can a mobile phone motivate you to exercise? Does instant feedback on gasoline use change how people drive? Do online rating systems inspire people to behave better online?

PERSUASIVE 07 will focus on how digital technology can motivate and influence people. This event will bring together researchers, designers, and developers interested in computers designed to change human attitudes and behaviors in positive ways. Key themes of PERSUASIVE 07 include health, education, sustainability, productivity, social relationships, trust, credibility, ethics and more. Technologies of interest include web sites, mobile phones, video games, and electronic devices, among others ..."

Ray Ozzie on Connected Software

Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, in an insightful interview with Knowledge@Wharton.

RFID: The Kimberly-Clark Experience

Good article on the current state of RFID and work ongoing at Kimberley-Clark, Best Buy, DHL and Wal-Mart. Some details on KC's work with display tracking, an example of RFID tagging focused to clear business problems.

" ... One Wal-Mart supplier, consumer goods company Kimberly-Clark, is about to expand to more products a pilot that used RFID to monitor promotions of its Depend adult diapers. The company created fully stocked promotional displays of Depend and put RFID tags on the displays before shipping them to Wal-Mart and Target, another RFID pioneer. Using software OATSystems developed with Kimberly-Clark's input--and which the vendor began selling last week--the consumer goods company could see on a color-coded dashboard how many stores received the product in the stockroom and how many put it on the store floor.

That setup helps Kimberly-Clark know if the displays are on the floor at the same time its ads run. "We back up promotion displays with TV advertising, so you spend a lot of money trying to get consumer awareness of them," says Mike O'Shea, director of corporate AutoID/RFID strategies. The feedback wasn't good: Kimberly-Clark learned that just 56% of stores executed the promotion on time, and those that were late reported lower sales. It used the information to work with the retailers and has since been able to increase on-time execution of Depend store promotions to 75%.

It's these types of focused applications that will work for RFID, O'Shea says. Although no one was naming names, last week's RFID World conference was rife with talk of Wal-Mart suppliers that have spent considerable money on RFID, are collecting loads of data, yet haven't figured out what to do with it. "They got caught up in the hype of the technology and lost focus," says O'Shea. "You will get those wins, and we've proved that." ...."

IBM Many Eyes Update

Good overview article in CNet on IBM's Many Eyes project. Shared visualization. You can upload your own data, but the results are public.

" ... Researchers in IBM's Visual Communication Lab plan to add more social-networking features to the Many Eyes Web site because they believe communities will be formed around the data-sharing and visualization tool. Still in public alpha, Many Eyes allows users to upload data sets from an Excel file or other common delineated files, click a few times to create a visual, and make it available to the public. Viewers can manipulate the 15 different types of data charts or visualizations to search and parse for alternative views and specific data subsets. By the summer, the IBM team plans to allow users to pull bigger versions of visualizations and tools into blogs, incorporate live updates into Web sites, add more browsing options, and create categorized forums so that people with similar interests can have a place to discuss the data. Many Eyes has grown from 20 data sets to more than 2,000, and has been used by Christian bloggers to analyze the Bible, and book enthusiasts have used it to upload data from Project Gutenberg, says Matt McKeon, a developer for the project. He believes sports statisticians will take to Many Eyes once more become aware of it, and hopes other researchers will put the Web site to good use ... "

More on Justin TV

An update on Justin TV, details. The more I see of this, the more it looks like a piece of performance art than a marketing experiment. They have an open and visible and often vicious comment stream that has to be scaring away any business sponsors! Suggest they at least make it optional when viewing the live video feed site.

Mariott's Plug-In

Last year I attended a meeting put on by Hilton about the future of the business traveler. One of the biggest gripes by frequent travelers was the connectivity issue. I have had many, many problems with connectivity. Early on it might have meant crawling under the bed to splice a telephone line. Now its mostly getting a wireless connection to work with our VPN. It is improving, but the technology is there to make it much better. Now I see that Mariott plans to introduce room plug-in panels that will adapt to many kinds of digital devices. More from Mariott. See the panel above, which does not seem particularly revolutionary, but it is certainly in the right direction. Videos and demos at the Mariott site. Not devoted to just getting work done!

Uncertainty

I am a physicist by (long ago) training, so I try to stay up to date in astronomy and physics. Also very interested in the history of these sciences. Just finished David Lindley's new book : Uncertainty. Lindley is a Phd Astrophysicist. A very non-technical look at the history of the subject and all the players involved. Heisenberg, in particular, has seen much publicity in the last few years. To what degree did he sabotage the Nazi bomb effort, or did he believe that a bomb would require tons of fissile material and just stumble in the effort? The debate, which I read about in the NYRB, even produced a play: Copenhagen, about the conversations between Bohr and Heisenberg, which I saw in NY a few years ago. A friend quipped that before seeing Copenhagen a degree in physics or the history of the subject was useful.

Lindley's book is good. It's completely non-technical, nary an equation to be seen. It still is dense for those that have not taken a college level physics course or studied the history of science. Or are at least enthusiastic about the subject. He makes a too much of Heisenberg's membership in wandervogel (hiking) societies in Germany. He makes too little of the broad misinterpretation of Heisenberg's uncertainty as the fact that an observation can influence its subject, for example in the interpretation of literature. I like his link to Adam's Education of Henry Adams, though physicists may cringe.

His final conclusion regarding Heisenberg's wartime complicity is that H never denied he misled his superiors, nor did he say he did. He does provide a good overview of the history of atomic theories, from planetary model to a strange view of uncertainty. Influenced even by the translation of the word Heisenberg used from German to English. Ending in a struggle for the soul of science that is still under way. Worthwhile read.

Issues of Water

A colleague sends this along, Another personal water purifier idea reported on in Medgadget. This is a solution similar in form to the Lifestraw device. I see that P&G is sponsoring a World Water Day, and the inspirational Children's Safe Drinking Water blog. Might be useful to also connect with other solutions to the problem. For example, its not only about purifying, but also about pumping and transporting water. In 2002 I attended a World Bank meeting that highlighted third-world solutions and it opened my eyes to this important issue.

Wiki Divide

A colleague pointed me to this Bnet article. Have also had a number of conversations on this topic with younger folks in the organization. We are approaching a big change, loss of expertise from the baby boomers and a very different view of the online world in the newer generation. The baby boomers see online as a way to connect with systems and an easier way to make a phone call. The younger folks see it as a the means of connecting, researching and delivering. Thus the use of 'wiki divide' is apt. The reaction to activities like blogging is a sure sign of this. At least when folks join the company they do see we are experimenting with these ideas, but its still seen as research rather than value.

Accelerando

Reading Charles Stross' 2005 book Accelerando. I note that its available in a number of forms online at it's site. Not sure how common that has become, but its an interesting development. I had noted a study that showed that providing this kind of service has the tendency to increase book sales. Not sure if that is still true, or if it only is observed for certain kinds categories of works.
I have experimented with reading works online and with specialized book readers as an ebook, but it does not work for me with a work of any length. Paper is still a remarkable medium.

The book manages to compress many ideas in a very short space. I have not counted them but there are dozens per page. Many of which we have sought to understand as useful views in a technological future. There is even a technical companion / glossary, though incomplete on Wikibooks. Although I like the companion at one level, should fiction need a technical glossary? Stross apparently picked all these items up during his own tenure as a programmer in the 90s. It would be interesting to review the book in 20 years to see if these topics are still in the news, or are even intelligible then. So the technological mentions are dense ... but I even with Scifi I do demand character development and engagement. That does not happen all the time with Scifi, hope it does so here. If you have been following technological directions in the past ten years this book will often bring a smile or smirk to your face.

Stocking Up

Stocking Up With P&G : Forecast Solution Enables a Win at the First Moment of Truth. An article in Consumer Goods Technology. Overview of demand management and use of forecasting.

Ultimate Blog : Livecasting

I have posted about recording ones life in various forms. Notable is the Microsoft Mylifebits Project and related methods to record audio, video and computing media. A number of people have also taken the next step to record much of their lives. See, for example, Justin TV, where Justin is capturing an audio and video record of his life, 24X7 and streaming it on the web. Includes, thus, all of his professional meetings. I watched his interaction at a meeting at Podtech today, and it was a revelation. This goes beyond what Steve Mann did at MIT in the 90s where he recorded selected parts of his life. Many will see this as bizarre, but the technology exists to perform various forms of this kind of recording today and its likely we will see more of this. This also leads to new understanding of how wearable sensors, cameras and computers can be implemented. Implications for storing corporate knowledge, and how to separate it from personal experience? Applications for consumer research?

Origami Printers

My background is in physics and so I often scan PhysicsWeb for information, and some interesting things do turn up. This one links to the ability to create 3D models. There are existing methods that let you carve 3D forms out of a material. Messy and expensive. Its done, for example to build models of bottle designs. We have joked about the ability to create 'origami printers' that would create and fold templates of 3D shapes. Here is a step in that direction. I note that this article is original reporting, but where are the links to the original papers? We are on the web here. There is a Quicktime movie of an example, which seems to indicate this is still in an early state.

"Chemical origami" shrinks 2D discs into 3D objects

Physicists in Israel have invented a neat method of making elaborate 3D structures from flat 2D discs. The trick is to pre-treat a gel disc half the size of a beer coaster with a monomer solution "blueprint" that selectively shrinks when heated. The technique, which cleverly demonstrates the link between 2D and 3D geometry, could be used by engineers to create self-assembling prototypes (Science 315 1116).

It's quite easy to see how simple 3D objects could be created using the principle. For example, if the solution were only applied to the edges, only they would shrink when heated, and the disc would form a bowl-shaped object. But more complex "chemical origami" would need an intricate application pattern, and it is difficult to predict 2D patterns that will accurately translate into the 3D objects desired. ..."

Simplified Virtual Worlds: Nexon Maplestory

A good article in BusinessWeek online on alternate virtual worlds. In particular about Nexon's Maplestory, which is a virtual world that originated in Korea and now has hundreds of thousands of Koreans logged on at any time. The game is described as being far simpler and easier to customize than Second Life. Tailored specifically for non-techies. The form of the Maplestory avatars appear to be too 'cute' for a more cynical western audience, which may require a cultural adjustment. Maplestory is starting to gain traction in the US, with Target selling cash cards which can be used in the virtual world. This is a rare non-research connection between virtual worlds and big retail. An example of virtual worlds going mainstream as an entertainment interface.

I have now spent since November informally looking at Second Life and other examples of virtual worlds. There are striking differences between social uses of worlds and their use as business environments. Though there is also a clear similarity .. where SL works well, in business as well as social applications, is where it is stocked with lots of live avatars that link reality to the virtual space.

Oracle vs SAP

The Oracle vs SAP lawsuit is intriguing. Nick Carr examines the details. This will be closely examined by large companies who provide public access to training and related systems. Carr seems to make the case that SAP or its contractors may not be as responsible because Oracle did not closely guard their assets or even notice when they were accessed. That runs contrary to his former view that illegal copying of digital assets in the music industry should not be condoned just because it is easy to do. I would think that this case will go on for some time and will have interesting implications for the industry.

Strange Loops of Inspiration

Back in 1979 I eagerly acquired Douglas Hofstadter's book: Godel, Escher, Bach. Heard about it in a Scientific American article. Although I had studied Godel's work in mathematics, this was the first time I had seen it placed in the context of computation, which was my world at the time. I remember reading it on a cross Canada flight, losing a bit of sleep. I thought it would have applications in my day-to-day work. That was not the case. Yet still it gave me a new introduction into how philosophy and computation could be married and linked to intelligence. It led me to a time doing artificial intelligence applications in business. Ultimately the AI hype curve descended, and although we had several very useful applications, some still running today, lack of management patience broke our group up.

I just acquired Hofstadter's new book: I am a Strange Loop. Based on the flyleaf, its about consciousness and its emergence from brains. Look forward to reading it. I am not sure it will create the excitement of the 1979 book, but I am willing to be inspired once again.

Data Mining Introduction

A good 39-page document that overviews data mining techniques. The opening sections useful as an introduction, relates data mining to aspects of databases and business intelligence.

Making the Best of Computer Interactions

This article relates to what is called affective computing, which we tested at MIT in the 90s, The sensor array at the right is more appropriate for applications like flying a plane, rather than just updating a spreadsheet! Shows how are getting closer to brain interfaces.

" .... The idea -- to grossly over-simplify -- is that people have more than one kind of working memory, and more than one kind of attention; there are separate slots in the mind for things written, things heard and things seen. By monitoring how taxed those areas of the brain are, it should be possible to change a computer's display, to compensate. If a person's getting too much visual information, send him a text alert. If that person is reading too much at once, present some of the data visually -- in a chart or map ... "

Designing Interactions

Designing Interactions (includes pdfs of selected chapters)

" ... Digital Technology has changed the way we interact with everything from the games we play to the tools we use at work. Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object--beautiful or utilitarian--but as designing our interactions with it. In Designing Interactions, Bill Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the GRiD Compass, 1981) and a founder of the design firm IDEO, tells us stories from an industry insider's viewpoint, tracing the evolution of ideas from inspiration to outcome ... "

Model Based Computing

As new forms of real-time data continue to come onto the scene, new forms of computing need to be developed to make sense of them. One method: Method Based Computing or RMS (Recognition - Mining, Synthesis) is being actively talked. Here is an introductory article.

" ... For the past year or so, Intel has been talking up RMS, an application software model for terascale computing. RMS, which stands for Recognition, Mining and Synthesis, is the class of software that Intel believes will represent the killer apps of the not-too-distant future -- 2010 and beyond. These applications will require the capabilities of terascale processors -- teraflop performance processing terabytes of data.

RMS applications are used to manipulate complex models, which can be either objects or events. The three components of RMS describe its function. Recognition involves defining the model; mining has to do with sifting through datasets for instances of that model; and synthesis performs "what-if" types of calculations on the model to yield predictions or solutions.

For example in financial markets, there is a deluge of real-time data being generated for all types of traded options (bonds, stocks, currency). This makes qualitative financial analysis somewhat of a guessing game. RMS might change that. A trader would be able to define a model of an attractive options investment (recognition). Once an investment of this type is found (mining), an algorithm could be applied to provide the trader with the different levels of risk and potential return (synthesis) in a given economic environment. The application doesn't provide the trader with an answer, per se, just guidance on which investments are more likely to yield good returns under different sets of economic conditions (interest rates, currency rates, stock P/E ratios, etc.). ... "

Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Game

Learned about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Theory in a Sciam article about television addiction then tracked his work for some time, Flow " ... which holds that people are happy and fulfilled when they are fully immersed in what they are doing ... In short; flow could be described as a state where attention, motivation, and the situation meet, resulting in a kind of productive harmony or feedback ... "

Notably presented in his work: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and 1998 book Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life. His ideas were naturally picked up by game designers. 

Data Mining Site

I have mentioned the KD Nuggets site here a number of times. Its a good, old-style, information-rich site about knowledge discovery and data mining. Publishes weekly news on the topic. I scan it regularly for useful information in the field. Data mining tends to be more focused on specific goals and tends to be business oriented, while knowledge discovery is usually directed at finding fundamental patterns in data.

Economist Letter Blog

The Economist now posts many of the letters to the editor it receives in a blog. You have to register to post, the letters can be 'lightly edited' and only letters that are not 'otherwise inappropriate' make it through. Always includes links back to original articles .... lack of which is a frequent gripe of mine. You are immersed in a linky medium ... use it!

Retail Blog

Spoke to Evan Schuman, who publishes StoreFrontTalkBack, one of the few blogs that cover retail technology. I have found it to be very useful, since I cover similar ground internally. I connected with him to discuss some of his articles. Much of what he publishes are original articles, based on interviews and connections with retailers and vendors. What struck me was the difference between his work and many tech blogs, which often just comment on other writings. Evan also publishes a newsletter which I have subscribed to, which provides more detail regarding his blog entries. If you know of other blogs that cover retail tech, would appreciate knowing about them.

Making Business a Game

An article in Strategy+Business : The Game Maven of New Haven, article about Yale prof Barry Nalebuff and some of his game theory applications. Notably Nalebuff was the author of the book Co-opetition. I was led to the article by the mention of P&G, but the article itself contains only a brief mention of our spinbrush acquisition, and not much else. Still worth a look:

" ... Barry Nalebuff, chairman of Honest Tea and an economics professor at Yale, has applied complex game theory and innovation principles to his business. One major thrust of his work is companies can grow the "game" by welcoming competitors and still grow their own business. Companies from Procter & Gamble to Dunkin' Donuts have effectively used the strategies, he said .... "

Ray Buse

Pete Blackshaw comments on Ray Buse's recognition as PR Professional of the Year. Buse is a Cincinnati PR celebrity. The article provides some local venture history.

Semantic Web Application Freebase

The semantic Web, aka Web 3.0, leads to an application called Freebase via AI and hardware luminary Danny Hillis. Free, open structured data, with intelligent meta-tag links. Carr describes it:

" ... Artificial intelligence guru Danny Hillis has launched an early version of the first major Web 3.0 application. It's called Freebase, and its grandiose epistemological mission is right up there with those of Google and Wikipedia."We're trying," Hillis tells John Markoff of the New York Times, "to create the world's database, with all of the world's information." Alpha user Tim O'Reilly says that Freebase "appears to be a bastard child of wikipedia and the Open Directory Project" but that it's really "like a system for building the synapses for the global brain." ..."

Seeking the Nature of the Blog

Nicholas Carr writes In Praise of the Parasitic Blogger, thoughtful piece which he ends describing his blog as ... a parasite, a bacterium, a scavenger of bones and turds and the occasional piece of pretty cloth. And I, for one, couldn't be happier ... He takes his metaphor from Steven Johnson's Ghost Map, the excellent description of nineteenth century London's battle with disease. I agree that blogs are a new form of journalism, born of a cheap universal medium and a very simple recording mechanism. So it permits most anyone and everyone to digest today's news. Here news is not what I can find in a newspaper today, but also the track of an individual in an increasingly information-rich environment.

That's a useful outward view of the blog. What is the view to the individual? Some conversations we had recently bring up that idea. Should an employee be able to write about their professional experiences, when that might reveal the activities of their employer? I said yes, as long as the affiliation is clear. I described a blog as a sort of 'floating resume'. Today some employers may look at a candidates online writing. In the future they may require the submission of a blog name to show the evolution of a person's writing, thinking and interests.

Is Business Ready for Virtual Worlds?

In CIO Insight: Is Business Ready for Virtual Worlds? Good overview with some technical perspectives. They mention the positives and some of the negatives I have observed now with a few months of 'in-world' experience. Its has lots of intriguing possibilities, but it has a number of slips in actual execution.

Qwaq for Multi-Dimensional Model Collaboration

Qwaq is an interlinked set of multidimensional croquet spaces. Advised by such people as Alan Kay, the company aims to aid in the collaboration of geographically distributed groups. I saw a short demo, and the graphics are a bit primitive, but are much more stable than virtual worlds. It links together applications with knowledge assets in 3D space. More on the open source Croquet platform, which Qwaq is based on. At the right, a Croquet implemented 3D spreadsheet. First I had seen this idea, worth a look. I would be curious to see if this could be linked into virtual worlds in some way. Examining.

The PC Must be Revamped

Alan Kay, some say the inventor of the modern workstation, writes in CIOInsight : Alan Kay: The PC Must Be Revamped-- Now. Very good piece, while the personal computer greatly expands the computing and textual capabilities of the individual, its interface deserves a serious review. Its only been about thirty years since computing became widely available. How can we we do better? Though his work on the Children's Machine (also known as the One Laptop Per Child and $100 Laptop) is mostly about hardware availability, rather than improved interface, at least for now.

" ... Kay believes the limitations of the PC are due as much to lack of imagination and curiosity on the part of computer scientists, the unwillingness of users to invest effort into using computers, and the deadening impact of popular culture, as they are to technical constraints. He says the push to make PCs easy to use has also made them less useful; their popularity has stunted their potential. Executive Editor Allan Alter spoke with Kay about the future of the PC. The following is an edited version of their talk ... "

His Viewpoints Research Institute..

Psychology of Security

Security Guru Bruce Schneier has a draft of an essay on The Psychology of Security that is worth reading. Lots of useful discussion about how people look at risk and how that relates to security choices. Also recommend his books.

Future Value Chain

Quoting Alan Kay's famous line "The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create it" ... From the Global Commerce Initiative (GCI) , Intel and Cap Gemini, a 46-page paper published in October 2006: The 2016 Value Chain, with a forword by P&G's AG Lafley and Jose Luis Duran of Carrefour and a number of manufacturing and retail contributors. A good, but general overview of the how the next 10 years will evolve our view of value chains. Nothing tremendously new here, but lays out what we should be thinking about. Includes mention of virtual reality, quantum computing and 'Wikipedia style collaboration' as means of delivering aspects of this new value chain view. Minimal mention of analytical methods. Also just a few mentions of RFID. Well worth a read, provides a basic grounding in the value chain world.

Jingles for Pringles

A new consumer media creation site, Jingles for Pringles. With prizes. Upload your own video. Good example of consumer generated media (CGM).

HP Labs : Imaging the Antikythera Mechanism

When I was a student of archaeology back on the 70s we were shown a picture of a corrosion encrusted device that contained some interlocked bronze gears. It had been found in a 2000 year-old Mediterranean wreck a hundred years earlier and labeled the Antikythera Mechanism. We did not have a clue as to what it was. It was clear that there were barely discern-able inscriptions on the device. Only a few years ago, Thomas Malzbender, an imaging scientist at HP Labs, developed an technique using multiple images of a surface, such as the mechanism, to build an enhanced image of the writing detail. The text turned out to be instructions for using the device for predicting eclipses. This idea, called reflectance imaging, has the potential of revolutionizing aspects of archaeology. More here on this from HP labs.

So what has this to do with corporate Information technology? Is IT planning Indiana Jones type efforts? Doubt it. But imaging is a powerful concept that helps companies get a better understanding of materials and their function. Computing and digital photography have advanced to the point that this can all be done in increasingly powerful ways.

Voice to Come to Second Life

Voice will soon be an option in Second Life. If you have done any extensive text chat there you would think that its an obvious positive. The debate is more complex than I had thought.

New Views of Synthetic Worlds

In a recent post I mentioned a symposium I attended sponsored by Cisco and The Santa Fe Institute. All about synthetic worlds. Second Life and games like World of Warcraft are now well publicized examples of these ideas. Interfaces, really, with a new capability to expand interface into a third dimension .... plus another dimension ... a fourth synthetic and social dimension, allowing new kinds of interaction with people, especially in groups.

This is all not new. Back in the 90s we connected with a company called Blaxxun that wanted to do some of the same kinds of things. Bandwidth was still uncommon outside of universities. We were asked to advertise there, but there was little social component, and we passed. Even before then, back to the 70s. the military was building 3D worlds to help trainees interact with battle environments.

Edward Castronova of Indiana, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, gave a talk, perhaps too tongue-in-cheek, about how the Second Life currency of Lindens was becoming more real to many than dollars. Well, OK, but then it has not been taxed yet. Still Castronova made the point that alternative currencies are making people take notice. They are being used on E-Bay, exchanged for actual labor. Economists know what that means. Cisco's Christian Renaud talked about their new space in Second Life and how they were seeking to use it as an engagement space for clients. MillionsofUs CEO Reuben Steiger gave a pep talk about where all of this is going and what we should expect, and not expect. Byron Reeves of Stanford gave a talk on some extensions of work he had reported on in his book The Media Equation. That work had inspired us to do early work on having advertising avatars talk to consumers. A good meeting, with lots of interesting ideas being posed.

The meeting turned out to also be a revealing view into how easy (and not-so-easy) it was to use SL as a collaboration space. The talks were delivered in real and second life, and then transmitted to both. There were some problems, created by lag, that occurred along the way, making it unclear who had seen what, except for the people in Real Life, who could nod in acknowledgement.

From an engineer's perspective we have worked with synthetic worlds for a long time. Simulations (sims) have been used since before computing became personal to model proposed worlds to test them before construction. Synthetic Worlds are places where a very general purpose interface has been constructed, mostly with social interactions in mind. Its still not easy to do complex specific things there. As Steiger suggested, its still a place where you can do mostly chaotic, unplanned things, not precisely scripted or planned actions. Sure you can build, construct 'scripts' of object interaction, and text chat all you want. But the interface is still mostly limiting, as opposed to enabling. I have seen things there that are breathtaking, but they are mostly about art as opposed to about engineering and science.

I remain optimistic about where all of this is going. In its current form its really not completely ready for business, but I can see how its evolving in that direction. The enterprise needs some help in making this work. Even better interfaces, stability and interaction. It may not happen in this go around. Looking forward to it.

Google Apps Re-Examined

Check out Google Apps Grow Up. The introduction of a set of premiere application for the enterprise. I was an early user of Gmail, which though it did not do everything the 'enterprise' email applications did, had some advantages in sheer retentiveness and simplicity. When I first took a look at Google Spreadsheets and docs I was not impressed. In the early days I took several fairly simple spreadsheets in my collection and sought to convert them, with not a great deal of success.

Now things are changing, and some notable large companies are looking at the possibilities of using Google applications. First because their cost is far less than the cost for full featured packages. Feature creep has led us to the point where we use a small percentage of a packages capabilities. The average user, even at a large company, rarely uses these capabilities, and may be better off not introducing the complexity they allow.

They won't do everything, they won't serve all needs, but as long as there is upward compatibility between basic user needs and the advanced applications, your can segment the needs of your users. And the basic segment of users can be very large. Certainly the needs of the home and small business are often addressed by these basic ideas. The apps are worth another look for businesses large and small.

Tapscott Now BusinessWeek Columnist

Don Tapscott is now a BW columnist, His recent book Wikinomics, which has lots of references to P&G, is a good overview of collaborative and group models at large companies. Here is hi first column, about open source models at large companies. Few new revelations here for people who have tracked this. But a great introduction.

Made to Stick Call

I mentioned the book Made to Stick : Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Have not read it yet. Jerry Michalski is having a conference call with co-author Dan Heath on Monday, February 26, 1:30 EST, 1-800-615-2900 or 1-661-705-2005 access code: 778778 .

Group Brains

Paul Saffo sends along a note about Harvard's Group Brain project:

" ...The Group Brain Project
Our project is focused on developing a model of how analysis and problem-solving occurs in groups of professionals, and how the complementarities of cognitive processes among team members can affect team performance. A lot of the existing work in the psychology of problem-solving focuses on the cognitions of *individuals*; however, what is less well understood is what takes place when the "analysts" need to confer with one another, share information, and come to a consensus on what the answer is.Brains work effectively only when the various specialized areas operate in concert. And groups work effectively only when they are structured and led in ways that enable them to exploit the complementarities of their members. Given that we can now assess the kinds of cognitive and emotional activities for which different individuals are especially adept, might it be possible to adapt such assessment devices for use in composing teams that perform analytic work? And might it further be possible to identify the specific conditions that would increase the chances that such teams would be able to draw upon the full complement of member talents in the interest of excellent collective performance?

TV Remote Inventor Dies

Max Kalehoff writes an insightful obituary of the inventor of the TV Remote control, Dr. Robert Adler. Perhaps our first example of personal remote interaction. What were the implications of this idea? Update: The Wikipedia says his remote was the not the first, but a vast improvement ...

Synthetic Environments and the Enterprise

Atty Mullins of the Santa Fe Institute sends along a link detailing the February 20 SFI sponsored Synthetic Environments and the Enterprise meeting. Much of the symposium will also be presented in Second Life in Cisco Corporation's theater. Details in the link.

" ... There’s a lot going on right now in a place that doesn’t really exist. Millions of people are spending part of every day engaged with others in intense collaboration, competition and exploration in virtual online worlds. Some are playing massive multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft™ and others are meeting people via their computer-generated avatars in a virtual world known as Second Life™. Entertainment applications are driving technology — as always for cutting edge media — but serious people are asking more and more thoughtful questions about how these new ways of connecting people and problems can be harnessed for real-world challenges. This meeting is a chance to see what business can learn from the rich tapestry of human behavior now playing out in synthetic environments. We will look at initial corporate efforts to meet customers in these worlds and attempts to address the challenge of managing collaborations across large scales of time and geography. We will explore how old models of leadership hold up in these brave new worlds and which of the successful game design principles can be integrated into enterprise workflow today. Invited participants will have a chance to place their own bets on the pace of innovation in enterprise application of game-like technology ...

Human-Future Interaction

Jason Tester of IFTF has a good piece in IFTF's Future Now blog on the case for human-future interaction.

Visualization as a Problem Solving Tool

SF writer and Transparent Society author David Brin writes about a talk he gave at Google. Video of talk here.

" ... In October, Google invited me to fly up and give one of their company-wide Tech Talks on "Visualization as a Problem-Solving Tool in the 21st Century." For this topic, I asked to bring along one of the most ingenious "visualizers," Professor Sheldon Brown, my colleague in the Exorarium Project. The Google talk (hosted by my friend, the appropriately named Larry Brilliant) stretched 90 minutes, but for those who are interested in the evolution of online tools, it should offer a few new perspectives. We also met with Sims creator Will Wright, whose new game "Spore" will knock you out of this world ... "

Silence is Deadly

Robert Scott in Computerworld: Silence is Deadly: Five key conversations can mean the difference between success and failure in IT projects. (note that the actual 5 conversations are found in a link in a sidebar to the right of the article.)

" ... These days, however, less than 30% of corporate initiatives come in on time, on budget and on spec. The rest either fail outright or are significantly disappointing. So while much has been done to improve new processes, tools, techniques and governance concepts in the past 20 years, there is surprisingly little progress to show for it.

This point was dramatically emphasized recently by a major study called "Silence Fails: The Five Crucial Conversations for Flawless Execution." "Silence Fails" was conducted by The Concours Group and VitalSmarts LC to identify the causes of IT project failure. This worldwide study involved more than 1,000 executives and project management professionals representing a cross-section of major corporations. It included analysis of more than 2,200 projects. The Procter & Gamble Co. was one of 40 companies participating. Our goal was to determine how we could take our project management competency to the next level. ... "

Baby Journeys Goes Live

A new Procter & Gamble external blog, Baby Journeys has gone live. Includes 7 bloggers, representing 5 stages of baby development. Looks to be a very good start.

Global Digital Natives Call

Another one of Jerry Michalski's conference calls that I thought would be of interest:

" ... We've talked about different generations' uses of technology and attitudes in general. This time we'll address today's youth, those Digital Natives, the kids who never bought an LP or stood in line to get cash at a bank. With Jennifer Corriero, founder of TakingITGlobal, let's discuss:

What do Digital Natives think about global-scale change?
How do they prefer to be involved?
Is climate change a priority? How are they tackling it?
What practices help connect and catalyze their actions? ...
Date: Monday, February 12, 2007
Time: 10:30 PDT, 1:30 EST
Primary Dial-in Number: 1-800-615-2900 (Toll Free in USA and Canada)
1-661-705-2005 (for callers outside the USA and Canada)
Participant Access Code: 778778 ..."

Japanese Subway Ads

A colleague sends along this link to top Japanese subway ads. Some impressive examples, including one that effectively uses the movement of the subway itself like a old time movie zoetrope, like these Dasani ads done on the NYC subway. To the right, two Pringles in a soup bowl. A 3D effect in a normally very 2D space, a Trompe L'oeil effect. Also, examples of making whole spaces, like a subway car, transform into a single message. Not sure how much actual subway advertising we do, the Pringles example here aside, but the effects are inspirational.

A Tagging Video

RFIDupdate points to a video that shows how easy it can be to find tags in your environment with a small amount of money. The author, Chris Paget, finds passport tags in the city and says that RFID is particularly unsuitable for tagging people.

WorldMapper

WorldMapper is a visualization project brought to my attention by the Santa Fe Institute Newsletter:

" ... developed by the University of Sheffield and Mark Newman (SFI Faculty Member and Associate Professor, University of Michigan). Worldmapper turns "all sorts of obscure statistical information into vivid pictures," and is based in part on a 2004 paper by Newman and Michael Gastner (SFI Postdoctoral Fellow) entitled "Diffusion-Based Method for Producing Density Equalizing Maps."... Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. 366 maps and PDF posters will be finished by February 2007. ...

To Blog or Not to Blog

From Knowledge@Wharton a fascinating view of how the blogosphere is being used to provide value. As I blog internally and externally I have changing impressions. When people provide feedback I feel that value is being provided, at other times its hard to tell.

" ...Kevin Werbach, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics, is a dedicated blogger, especially when it comes to technology news and innovation. He sifts through 300 to 400 blogs using NetNewsWire for the Mac, a blog management tool that allows him to quickly scan new posts. "I look for blogs that tell me something I don't already know, including in areas where I am an expert," he says. Knowledge@Wharton asked several faculty members and technology experts to comment on the appeal and usefulness -- or lack thereof -- of blogs..."

EDS on Workflow Processes

Correspondent Charlie Bess of EDS on Workflow/Process Management. He makes some excellent points about workflow.

Generative Social Science

Just received a copy of Joshua M. Epstein's new book: Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling. While the worlds of engineering have used simulation methods for a long time to do analysis, research using simulation in the social sciences has always seemed less useful. People are by their nature less predictable and thus the results of such models have always been less useful by industry. Social models I have seen to date still treat people with an engineering mentality. Scanning his first chapters, Epstein covers some foundational assumptions of his methods. I look forward to better understanding this view.