Digital NZ Keynote…
I managed to beam into the Digital NZ keynote out of Austin using an amazing Polycom system. Ok, I sure missed an All Press coffee, breakfast at Cafe Melba Vulcan Lane, a plate of green-lipped mussles and catching up with Greg, Sandy, Rod and crew… But then I didn’t have to sit on a plane for 21 hours either…
The kit up at Polycom blew me away. HD video conferencing. Awesome.
My main premis was:
- Broadband is an issue but in a tightly regulated economy Telecom, Telstra and the Govt will need to sort that out. Hopefully while giving enterprises like Woosh a chance at succeeding. Somehow we manage to stay ahead of demand when it comes to the Internet. I heard an interesting soundbite the other day – YouTube today consumes all of the Internet capacity that existed five years ago. And, every second, six hours of video is loaded to YouTube.
- But, given this does happen we face two greater issues. First, if we continue to deploy infrastrucutre as we have been, there simply won’t be enough power to go around. Now, given that many of the major sites used by Kiwis are offshore – like YouTube — that might not be such a problem to the consumer. But for businesses planning on participating in the global economy this is a major issue. Green computing coupled with low cost, low impact power could be a major source of competitive advantage for NZ.
- Then, to the real problem. Running out of power is one thing. Running out of people is much more problematic. We are simply not outputting talent to run and build on the infrastructure we need to dearly. This is a problem we must fix for the long-term. Fixing it means getting started now though.
So, those are the main tenets of my story.
Rod had a few things to say, as did ComputerWorld.
A few had follow-on questions about the correlation between bandwidth and power. I’ll get you some data courtesy of our friends at Gartner. The key to understanding this is to grok not what it takes to run the bandwidth but rather what the bandwidth is accessing… Massive and multiplying data centers across the planet. It’s not jsut Google or Microsoft. It’s nearly every Enterprise of any substance facing this challenge.
Minor thing: I few journos keep reporting that I chair the NZTE beachhead program in the US. As they expanded the program I stepped out of this role. Bridget Liddel has that honor. I do play a leadership role on the technology team that exists as part of the overall program though.
The Tag cloud…
Fascinating article on Cisco in Fortune… they speak to the power of Social Networking…
Another tool is social networking, that new-time religion that Cisco has embraced with a convert’s fervor. In September it launched a website that is a microcosm of everything evoked by the phrase “Web 2.0.” There’s a Ciscopedia, where people can build an evolving body of lore about anything fellow Ciscans might want to know. There are text blogs and video blogs, discussion groups, and “problems and solutions links.” There’s an internal version of MySpace, which provides not only title and contact info but also personal profiles, job histories, interests, and videos. Soon it will show whether a person is reachable by, say, office phone, cell, IM, or telepresence, and offer a one-click connection.
And there’s more. “We’re going to use social bookmarking to allow us to take the pulse of the organization,” says Jim Grubb, who built the website (and whose day job is putting together John Chambers’ demos). They’ll do that by aggregating the tags employees create into “tag clouds” when they click on sites. Tracking these will allow a Cisco honcho to get a snapshot of the current hot-button issues for marketing or finance. If an employee is tagged as the go-to person for virtualization, say, he could earn a bonus for this previously unacknowledged expertise. That’s down the road. Asked for a here-and-now example, Cisco marketing head Sue Bostrom laughs (proudly) and recounts the six-month online campaign to develop and select a five-note “Cisco sound” for TV and Internet ads. “Ten thousand employees voted,” she says, “and 1,200 partners also participated.”
not interested…
For some reason I’m getting a burst of invitations to join folks on Plaxo Pulse. Sometime ago a landed in Plaxo. Aside from generating Spam, I found it way to intrusive. So, stopped using it. The best way to connect with me is Facebook, Twitter, and Skype. I sometimes fire-up Yahoo. Across the IM services I am kiwilark.
Cool Site | BookTour
Been playing with BookTour – a site that enables you to connect with your favorite authors and keep track of them. Smart idea for us book obsessed.
Why Code-of-Conducts Don’t Have a Role to Play
It’s simple really, because it is a conversation and conversations by there very nature should be free ranging expressions of interest.
While I do believe that anonymity breeds irresponsibility, leave that up to the Blogger to decide. Some blogs might benefit from anonymous posts.
I have a real problem with any formal codes of conduct. And screw civility. I expect people to be very uncivil regarding some of my views. Some very useful conversations can be very uncivil.
But I do draw the line, no hate-speech, nothing nutty or abusive. And, I get to make the call in the context of the conversation.
Code of Conducts exist outside the context of the conversation. The conversation that takes place here, might be very different to that to takes place elsewhere. Why subject them to a common standard?
I also find it particularly concerning that we would somehow, someway subscribe to a group policing mentally in which a few could potentially get together “When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.”. This is deeply troubling. Who, for instance, gets to define the “believe” part of that? Sometimes it might be self-evident – such as the attacks on Kathy Sierra. I suspect most won’t be. And the attacks on Kathy aren’t a job for a bunch of self-appointed “blog vigilantes” – they are a job for the Police.
Blogs ultimately should be about transparency. We should revel in what they expose, not seek to limit or hide it. And lets leave the policing to the real police.
:: Backreading ~ ComputerWorld; Scoble; Techmeme; Jeff Jarvis
