My Photo on Schmap
September 24, 2008Another one of my photos has been included in the newly released fifth edition of the Schmap Hobart Guide. It’s a picture of Eaglehawk Neck taken from the nearby lookout on our trip to Tasmania in Nov-2006. The original photo is on my flickr page. The other photo included is Adventure Bay.
I really get a kick out of seeing my photos included in stuff like this and the feeling that I’m contributing ‘value’ by being a producer rather than just a ‘consumer’ online.
My photos are released under a Creative Commons license, so people are free to use them with attribution.
Google Chrome Comic
September 4, 2008There’s been a fair bit of hype about the release of Chrome – Google’s new open source web browser. Yet another browser is of little interest (or use) to me, but have you seen the comic book introducing how the browser works’?
The famous Scott McCloud — who I’ve talked about before — created the comics adaptation. This is so awesome! I just love it.
Go see for yourself.
Required viewing
May 26, 2008Watched a couple of really good talks over the weekend. I enjoyed both of them a lot.
Clay Shirky at Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008: Clay’s talk centers on the notion that in today’s modern society, there is a massive cognitive surplus, or untapped source of brain power. He tries to debunk the often heard phrase aimed at technophiles and ‘geeks’ — “where do people find the time?”
In his presentation he cites some staggering statistics, which are not only compelling on their own, but support his argument well. He calculated the amount of time American’s watch TV to be in the vicinity of 200 billion hours per year, which is equal to 200 wikipedia projects per year. Imagine what we could achieve if we re-directed this type of energy — use this surplus in a more positive way? A thought provoking presentation.
Paul Graham at Startup School 08: Paul’s presentation is an interesting look at why start-ups should not worry about the money too much, and act more like a not-for-profit in the early stages. He argues that being benevolent improves moral; helps you to be decisive and makes other people want to help you.
He recommends the adoption of Google’s “don’t be evil” model, and concludes by urging not to be satisfied with simply ‘not being evil’, but to be good! I found one of the best takeaways was the advice: “Cheap to run = Hard to kill”, sage advice for a start-up, even a micro-one like my own.
Anyhow, go see for yourself.
Time To Think
February 9, 2007Dave Pollard is musing about our lack of time to think: to think deeply …
Not only are too many of us becoming too unpracticed at thinking, I believe many of us no longer have the breadth of useful information, or the generalist experiences and competencies of our ancestors, or the diversity of experiences, or the introspective, meditative, peaceful, uneventful moments, or the unhurried and pensive conversations to draw on, all of which comprise the raw material that effective thinking depends on.
There are a couple of reasons why this post piqued my interest:
- It calls for us (the royal we) to become more generalist. Now clearly here is a voice of reason!
- I’ve also advocated for a long time, the move towards business models that are more open and cooperative and for organisations to treat their staff more like adults than angst-ridden teenagers (inspired by Ricardo Semler).
- I’ve recently been implementing GTD (more on that later). There is some real synchronicity here. From my reading of the book, what David Allen advocates is a method for dealing with the ‘firefights’ and everyday issues SO that we DO have time to think. Is that not the whole point of GTD? From my own experience facilitating strategy and planning sessions, this bottom-up approach to planning is essential. You are never going to achieve the required level of introspective thinking or any productive thought unless the day-to-day is under some level of control.
I agree with Dave’s postulation that the solution lies in approaching management with a completely different mindset–one that empowers individuals to take responsibility, encourages them to act and most importantly, treats them like human beings.
Giving It Away
December 7, 2006I’ve been an advocate of open source for a number of years now, and the number one ‘objection’ I encounter is “but you can’t make money out of open source”. Well, who say’s so?
I’ve been giving away my books ever since my first novel came out, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money.
Cory Doctorow is certainly a shining example of how giving it away CAN reap huge rewards, both financial and otherwise. Cory tallked a little bit about this when he visited Melbourne recently. You can see my wrap up if you missed it.
