My completed site, “Conversations and Expectations”, is now complete, live and may be found here.
Author: Jeff Hora
Connectivity Wants to Be Free – Conversations and Expectations
I have posted my SLIDESHARE version of my presentation:
My final posting may be found here.
Cross-post: My First 10 Days with the Kindle 2
Here is a link to my review of the Kindle 2. Posted to Flip the Media.
Trends – More Discussion Questions
- Why is it so difficult to find consistent correlations between Internet motivations and usage?
- What are the challenges of obtaining a true random sampling of users for an Internet-related research study?
- How can you arrive at a consistent ethical standard when applying the arguments found in The Tragedy of the Commons?
Who are we listening to?
I am consistently drawn to the central point of the conversation as I read all of our assigned articles, books and collateral material. One of the standout articles that has brought a new perspective to my work and analysis of what I’m doing is the Christensen HBR article (Bower, Joseph L. & Christensen, Clayton M. (1995). “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave” Harvard Business Review, January-February 1995). His analysis on how competent companies miss disruptive technologies by listening closely to their existing customers describes a business problem I am working with.
Trends – Discussion Questions #2
- Why were the innovators working on the telephone and the phonograph so hesitant to pronounce them as ‘break-away’ inventions from the telegraph?
- What other industries (beyond the Intel example) have a growing number of obviously overshot customers? What industries might develop this problem soon? What are some potential outcomes in addressing these challenges?
- When considering information discovery and filtering as when a user is doing research or following a whim, and then considering Google as an example of a service provided for this purpose, what is ‘the next thing” on this path? Why?
Book Review – “Tell Me Something Good”: Cluetrain and Conversations
Review Citation:
Levine, R. (2000). The cluetrain manifesto: The end of business as usual. Cambridge, Mass: Perseus Books.
“The Cluetrain Manifesto” is a collective work written by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger and published in 2000. Its tagline is “the end of business as usual”. The specter of this book is the Suit. The Suit is the Executive VP, a “fat cat”, closed-minded person who sees markets and consumers as on the receiving end of whatever his company wants to say or sell. The “end of business as usual” is this person’s organizational demise, and the social effect of the Internet (and company intranets) is what causes his crumbling.
An overarching topic throughout this book is the conversation: between the members of communities of the marketplace, the members of communities within the workplace, and, best of all, among them all. When I think of what I am looking for from a conversation, the first phrase that comes to mind is “Tell Me Something Good”, hence the bit of collateral entertainment by Rufus and Chaka Khan!
Reflection: Presentation Jazz
My experience on Tuesday, presenting to my colleagues three consecutive times in forty-five minutes, felt very much like when I was a working musician. In most jazz groups I played with, we had a ‘chart’, so called because if provided enough melody and background riffs to play specifically, and then ‘chord hash’ that allowed an improviser to be able to play within the chord progressions (or not, depending on the player’s mood, sensibilities and abilities) while soloing.
Discussion – Yin and Yang – Technology and People
I read the article cited here:
Williams, F., Strover, S. and Grant, A. E. (1994). Social aspects of new media technologies. In J. Bryant J. & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 463-482). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
I have substituted their phrase “new media” for “social media”.
Final Project Idea – Taking it for granted: Wi-Fi as a ‘Dial Tone’
Thesis
Each leap and evolution in technologies and the socialization of them creates expectations of a standard. One example is “land line” telephony. The dial tone is the first noise you hear when you lift the phone from the cradle, if the line is working. If you do not hear the dial tone, you know something is wrong, but you expect to hear a dial tone and generally do not notice it otherwise. Other examples of technologies we expect to just “be there” include television, radio and, more currently, connectivity, both wireless and cell.
Authentic Voice 