I really enjoyed reading this post on Niti Bhan’s blog Perspective. I don’t have anything substantial to add to her comments right now, and I don’t usually just post links, but for some reason this one seemed special. Thanks Niti.[tags]Niti Bhan, Localization[/tags]

IBM has been organizing these jam things for the past couple years. I’m participating in this year’s global innovation jam, and it’s been an interesting experience so far.

My first reaction was similar to a comment I saw on Digg. If IBM wants my innovative ideas, they can pay for them. Just like any other client. No - they’re not just any other client… they’re IBM! They can damn well afford it.

I reflected on this and realized that maybe I was missing the point (my reader will confirm that sometimes I do). I’ve told several clients in the past that ideas are free. Ideas should be free. Yes, if you hire me you’ll get more exposure to my ideas, and I’ll be billing you with the understanding that my ideas generate value for your business. But ultimately selling ideas is not my business. I like it when ideas are open and free.

That was my second reaction; I like free ideas, so I should be generous and share my ideas with IBM.

My third reaction was to assemble a team of market minded eco-freaks and to storm IBM’s happy chat with a left wing agenda. I went so far as to email some of my more radical business friends, and we shared an email or two about how we might make an impact. It’d be a great accomplishment to influence IBM to think differently about their role in the world, right? Well, turns out that was a pretty serious misconsception too.

Fortunately I decided to skip any disruptive organizing and just login and give the jam some honest participation. If they want to hang out, smoke herbs, and sing old dead tunes, I can roll with that. And you know, the early results haven’t been that amazing. They haven’t been bad either. Not a single djembe in the house. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d post this in a forum but I can’t find the right one…

I run win2K on an older machine. It’s stable and for the most part I never need to fool around with it. It does what I need it to do.

Recently I made the huge mistake of opening a zip archive without first scanning for viruses. I introduced 6 viruses into the system. I probably spent over 24 hours working on the system, and removing the viruses. This was no fun.

Late one night, in the midst of working on this virus problem, I decided to diable what seemed to be unnecessary services. This was the next major mistake. I wasn’t thinking clearly and I disabled the RPC service. Not cool. Once it’s disabled, it doesn’t want to restart.

I haven’t found any good instructions on how to resolve this problem. It seems like I’m going to have to tear down the system and rebuild it. I don’t want to. If you have any suggestions on how to fix this Win2k problem, I’d appreciate them.

The recovery panel results in blue screen. Many system functions are affected by RPC, and of course they’re not working. Many other functions are working.

The system disk will not repair the system because I’m running SP4, and the disk dates back to SP2.

I wonder if the system will upgrade to XP? I guess it’s a long shot, and I’m reluctant to try, because XP seems like it’ll reduce the available RAM on a dated machine.

I have a backup of the entire harddrive, dating back one year. I’m sure there are complete registry files in there somewhere. I unfortunately did not follow the preferred method for backing up the registry. I may be out of luck. I’d like to hear from someone who knows…

Thanks!

That title is a hacked up version of an expression that I first heard from Hunter Lovins. It’s also a great description for a tendency among some types of fundamentalist groups whenever they get upset. It’s hard to find value in the behavior, and it happens all the time. I guess it’s just a pattern.

I drifted carelessly into the world of political environmentalist blogs yesterday. I’m sure everyone involved in that scene is committed to making positive change happen. They’re enthusiastic and sincere individuals. They’re most likely underpaid for the amount of work they do. They’re respectable and intelligent people. Like all of us, they sometimes make mistakes.

John Sellers and Barbara Dudley owe Adam Werbach an apology for their recent attacks.

“Whenever environmentalists help Wal-Mart score easy “corporate responsibility” points in The New York Times, they set back the efforts of working people in their battle with Wal-Mart, and simply reinforce the flaws of the old environmentalism which Werbach and others declared dead over a year ago.”

Pat Joseph at the Sierra Club Compass also owes Adam Werbach an apology. He wrote:

“(Think about it: How many people even know his [Werbach's] name?)”

Their personal attacks are not aimed at Wal*Mart. Their comments are aimed at an individual and they cast doubt on his credibility and integrity. Why?

Adam and his family live in my neighborhood in San Francisco. He’s an active entrepreneur, public servant of the city, and he even participates in organizing at the local level. He has a long history of public accomplishments. He doesn’t merit this type of criticism. It’s unjustified and possibly mean spirited.

I don’t know Sellers or Dudley or Joseph. I don’t know Adam personally either.

Sellers, Dudley, and Joseph no doubt feel justified in their statements. I don’t fault them for voicing strong opinions. In this case they were mistaken and they should publicly acknowledge their mistake.

No easy answers today, I promise:

1.) Can you talk about global cultural sustainability without talking about expected changes in life span?

2.) Can you talk about global cultural sustainability while talking about expected changes in life span, without being perceived as a eco-messianic advocate of massive human depopulation?

3.) If you’re perceived as pro-genocide, will anyone listen to you?

3.) In answer to question 3, exactly how rich would you have to be?

The third and fourth are maybe a bit too cynical. But considering the seriousness of Ulrich’s position, and the associated discussion here (Sierra Club), here (Grist), here (Salon), and elsewhere…

Cut to the chase already, ok? Life span is an issue. Carrying capacity is an issue. The rate of global economic activity is an issue. Entropy is an issue. Some people take the lead on those issues. They’re heretics. Nobody listens. Nobody wants to cull the herd. I sure don’t. Not unless Americans start at home and proceed at a rate equal to (or greater than) our disproportionate consumption of non-renewable resources vis a vis everyone else. Ignore me. That’s just a blog talking.

One last thought: let’s start a market mechanism to offset EVERYTHING.

Today I’ve got some questions:

What’s the difference between environmentally screened, socially screened, locally screened, carbon screened, sweat free, Muslim, Christian evangelical or any other type of values based investment fund?

Aside from the differences in opinion that distinguish one flavor from another, are there any broad themes that make values based investing more meaningful than single bottom line investing? I believe there are, and I’m curious what you think.

I don’t have any opinion on what types of values based investments are right for you. Paul Hawken’s Responsible Investing has an opinion. Muslim-Investor.com has an opinion. Christian Science Monitor has an opinion. Even the Vice Fund has an opinion. You might say these opinions are anatomical.

How soon until we have a “SWM-ISO-SLF-420-Friendly-Fund.info”?

Can you think of any reasons why the market for values based investing won’t continue to diversify into thousands of different ultra-niche funds?

Will this long tail of values defined funds be a good thing for global economic, social, spiritual, and environmental welfare?[tags]SRI, values investing, social screening[/tags]

There two interesting articles in last Tuesday’s FT about IBM’s restructuring of their service offerings.

The first article reports on IBM’s efforts to shift leadership from hardware divisions to service divisions. The second article is an in depth analysis of the cultural shift required to transform IBM’s consulting approach from a process approach to a product approach (Richard Waters).

What’s the difference between a product approach and a process approach?

Here’s Matt Porta, vice president of IBM Global Business Services, describing IBM’s traditional service approach:

“‘You needed a tremendously smart business analyst who got out a blank sheet of paper’ for each assignment and devised a response from scratch.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been writing a little about the concept of filtering online information, and it’s perhaps useful to consider the different qualities of online attention.

Let’s agree that the medium of the web functions as an economy of attention (Wired 1997). We don’t have to agree, and I’m happy if you disagree, but let’s at least pretend for a minute that we agree. Attention can be quantified in the form of web stats, and there are different qualities or types of attention. I like to think of these three:

1.) Surface impressions
2.) Moderate interest
3.) Passionate and active engagement

One type of low quality online attention can be generated in the form of surface impressions, like you’d get from a flashing, annoying banner ad. People have trained themselves to filter and resist a lot of marketing messages and images, so in some ways these surface impressions only register in your audiences’ subconsious. Some people deeply believe in this style of “top of mind awareness” repetition oriented conditioning. It must work. Otherwise why would so many people do it, right? Yahoo’s advertisers a huge believers in targeting this type of attention. Luckily it’s not the only type of attention for website marketers to work with.

Many websites generate a higher quality of attention because people are coming and seeking information, and engaging with that information. I call this moderate interest. People come to the site, find what they’re looking for, and leave. They may bookmark it and return regularly, or add the site into their feeds. The depth of this interaction is influenced heavily by the site’s visual presentation, layout, organization, and architecture. I give google this type of attention when I use their search engine.

A third type of attention is the most desirable, let’s call it passionate and active engagement. Some of the people browsing flickr are passionate about images, and they spend a lot of time studying the images and commenting on them. They take an active role in creating content on the site. This passionate interest is a hallmark of social media sites.[tags]attention, social media, filtering online information[/tags]

I’ve had several interesting conversations recently about whether or not to run google ads on a site. I don’t think there is one right answer to that question, and there are many reasons why ads might or might not contribute positively to the overall goals of any given site. Anyhow, last night I was talking to a friend about how our minds work to filter information. I think the two topics are closely connected.

Ads make it harder for me to appreciate some websites. When my subconscious is trying to filter noise, I have less mental energy to invest in the message. Sometimes the message is important, and it’s a shame if those important messages are lost.

The idea that our minds act as filters is not a new idea. Platonic idealism probably isn’t the first school of thought to differentiate between reality, the ideal reality, and our perceptions of reality. I’m convinced the three are tied together. Kant was happy to reduce them to two: the noumenon and the phenomenon - the former being the real or objective, and the latter being our subjective observation of the real.

How we experience information on the web reminds me less of Plato, or Kant, and more of Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception.

“In this book, Huxley explores the idea that the human mind filters reality, partly because handling the details of all of the impressions and images coming in would be unbearable, partly because it has been taught to do so.”

I use my attention to filter out google ads and especially animated banner ads. I’m sure they register, but hardly, and in the interim they annoy me. They interfere with my ability to subconsciously connect with the information I’m seeking. For some sites, the benefits of advertising far outweigh the costs. For others the case is not so clear. Either way, I’m convinced that ads negatively impact a site’s ability to manage peoples’ valuable attention.[tags]attention, social media, filtering online information, Huxley[/tags]

Had a great time in Santa Fe last weekend. Saw many friends from around the country, people I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a beautiful reunion. The wedding was fun and memorable. Congratulations Todd and Kristina! Hope you’re having a proper adventure in Peru.

The wedding was my first trip to New Mexico. I didn’t meet many New Mexicans, and the ones I met were working hard to show me a good time. That was nice. Delicious food, delicious scenery.

I spent part of the trip taking pictures. Can’t wait to see other peoples’ photos. There will be a lot of nice pics of the event floating around the web. I was happy to see many other people documenting; it sort of freed me to focus less on context, more on details.[tags]Santa Fe, New Mexico[/tags]