David Zach, futurist

Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion Blog - Gigapan Explored

For some marvelous exploration of the Gigapan technology [see previous post], visit Ron Schott's Geology Home Companion Blog. Zoom in and zoom out to get the full potential of the photography. 

This is great stuff. Applying this technology to scientific exploration, (or architectural, or geographic, etc.) holds amazing potential. Pull it together with the likes of Google Earth, GPS, RFID, tagging and the like and you can start to see how everything can be mapped and easily accessed, either virtually or in person. I'm cautious and yet can't help but marvel at it all. He suggests Google Earth include a Geology layer and like many innovation, such features are often developed by users themselves who lead innovation from its best source, the imagination. 

Failure Magazine

As there seems to be some truth to the notion that those who succeed have also failed — and failure can be a marvelous teacher, check out Failure Magazine. 

800 CEO READ Blogs, etc.

800 CEO READ is a book distributor here in MKE with an international reach. Jack Covert, the CEO, has an exceptional grasp of the book business. 

Here are four links from blogs they manage. 

http://800ceoread.com/blog/

http://800ceoread.com/podcasts/

http://800ceoread.com/excerpts/

http://www.changethis.com/

Digital Inspiration

Digital Inspiration is a website that gathers articles and other websites on how to use technology and access the digital world around you. Check out the TimeTube that makes a timeline of your search terms as they have shown up on YouTube. What becomes more and more obvious is that as the flood of innovation continues, and we get the feeling of being more and more overwhelmed, that these innovations will drive other innovations in design of interface and presentation.

Elegance and eloquence should rule the day. The goal of the Age of Information is not more information, it is less information, or perhaps all the information filtered, refined, aged (think of fine wine, not old newspapers) to the point where what actually reaches you has more style than it does bulk. It is beauty that should kill the beast.

Shift Happens, etc. on SlideShare

Yet another site offering videos and slide shows. This one seems to have a lot of marketing efforts from Trend Spotting services. Shift Happens was interesting. (Update: This set of statistics is being used over and over again . . . which of course makes me wonder about their validity. They sound valid, but there are a lot of numbers here without source. Lots of times numbers are used to defend a position but can't be defended themselves. Caution.)

I have a real mixed feelings about this sort of consulting service. On the one hand, there are cultural issues that we need to be aware of, but these are mostly fads being sold as trends that must be known to be in the "know." This is promoting frenetic business culture, if anything that is frenetic could even be called culture, or for that matter than anything inside of business should be referred to as culture.

One of these services say they spot 40 trends a week. Huh? So it means that 2080 trends per year? More important would be to ask, "how many of these will still be here by the end of the year?" Perhaps pay attention to those. The rest of them, being fads, should be put into context. By that, group them under some broader category and try to understand why these things are happening, but don't obsess over the individual things that come and go. (If you are in fast-paced retail, you can ignore this and go ahead, be obsessed with the next "big" thing.)

Clairefontaine notebooks

These are the notebooks that I use. Available at The Daily Planner, there are a few other places on the net you can find them. I have yet to find them in any brick and mortar shop. They are absolutely great to write in - especially with a fountain pen. I don't use them as a diary but I figured out that if I keep writing notes on various pieces of paper, I'll never really be able to review them or keep them in order. My friend and fellow professional speechifier James T. Harris turned me on to these.

Not to mention the fact that they're half the price of those Moleskin notepads.

Someone once told me that if you think that your thoughts are important enough to write down (and that means that one should do a little filtering . . . ) then write them down on nice paper and use a nice pen. The act of writing should be a pleasure.

Fads and trends from Springwise

Here's a nice source for things that change. Springwise has a network of thousands of trend spotters to tell us what's exactly right now.

I'm a bit of a stickler on stating that not all trends are trends. More often than not they're just passing fads. Trend spotting is mostly fad spotting. And, in case you haven't noticed, there's a definite trend of us having lots of fads. Paying attention to fads is also rather, uh, trendy.

Fads are often more fun than trends, but they're certainly not capable of being fulfilling nor as lasting. That distinction is lost on those who'd rather not have anything last and deny that anything can be fulfilling. The change addicts amongst us can't find anything that is fulfilling. Those who make money from the selling of fads could be the first to tell you all of that, but they won't. Sometimes they use advertising to try and convince you that fulfillment you're still seeking comes from the next thing just around the corner. They're lying.

Eric Hoffer said that You can never get enough of what you really don't need. Still, having a few wants beyond our needs is part of what makes us human. Without any fads, it might be tough to tell if we we're really alive.

If you have too many fads in your life, you're irrelevant. If you have too few, you're just boring.

Manpower launches 'virtual work' site

Below is a press release that a friend sent to me regarding Manpower, the largest employer in the world and their plans to be in what I suppose is the largest virtual community, Second Life. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has an article on it here.

Of course many people ask me if I'm in Second Life - and I politely tell them that I'm turning 50 this year, so I'm concentrating on this life for now. Part of this whole notion doesn't appeal to me at all. I see enough people completely avoiding reality but to wanting to have more and more of a virtual one doesn't make much sense to me. Well, it does make sense to me, but not in a good way.

I do know that a variety of companies hold corporate meetings in Second Life and with some of the fast-paced corporate environments where there is not much personal criticism, I can only expect that people show up in these virtual meetings manifesting themselves in an avatar that could be anything: a tree, a raccoon, a school of fish. If you're uncomfortable with tattoos, this might not be the place for you.

Someone in my audience back in Ft. Wayne said that his friend's wife was making close to $2000 a month selling digital clothing to residents of Second Life. Those people who say the economy is not booming are just nuts apparently.

I'm continuing to worry that work is a virus that infects your internal clocks, making you think it's always 8 to 5, those with the worst infections never stop thinking about work. You had maybe assumed that something like Second Life would innoculate you from that?

Here's the release:
Manpower Inc. (MAN), the second-largest employment services company, is
venturing into another world today with the launch of a corporate presence in
the virtual community of (www.secondlife.com).

Citing the growth of opportunities in "virtual work" such as telecommuting and
outsourcing, where work is done outside of traditional physical office space,
Glendale-based Manpower said it intends to be a leader in virtual world of work.

"Manpower's mission is to help people, companies and governments understand
what's coming next in the changing world of work," Tammy Johns, senior vice
president of work force strategy, said in a statement. "The virtualization of
the labor market is a key issue for all of these groups and our presence in
Second Life will enable us to further define the next stages of virtual work,
which are emerging in 3-D worlds."

Manpower said it's building an "island" at Second Life, where job seekers,
employers and entrepreneurs can interact to learn about and explore collaborative possibilities. The site will
include resources and advice on such matters as how to create a virtual resume.

As examples of commercial success from Second Life, Manpower cited a game
developer who has sold the rights to a couple of his Second Life creations, as
well as an attorney who has met clients through the Web site.

For a video explaining Manpower's Second Life site, please go to Second Life.

Fantascience

This was found as a link off of the Future Past site. Fabio Femin�'s Fantascience site is in Italian, but there's a button for using Babblefish translation for the site. Again, like Future Past, this has a great collection of old futuristic images.

The Museum of Unworkable Devices

While I'm on the topic of defending Western Civ, it might also be a point to suggest this website The Museum of Unworkable Devices. I never took Physics, but this is a well explained site on why those perpetual motion devices and the like just don't work.

There's this famous story of a friend visiting Thomas Edison while he was in the midst of trying (and failing) to invent the light bulb. The experiment at the time of course failed and his friend was quoted as saying something like, "Well, I guess you've failed!" Edison shot back with, "No, I just found one more way it won't work."

For that reason, I suppose that a site devoted to unworkable devices is there for the purpose of inspiring the future Edisons who would see these sorts of things as just one more way it won't work on the way to ways they will.

Many societies have the freedom to succeed. We go a step better. We have the freedom to fail, and then get back up and try again.

When you know what will succeed, you know the future. The problem with that attitude is that the future is really mostly unknown and in places where it is known, it's also a place where there isn't room for error, experimentation and trying something new. If I have a choice, I'll take the place where the future is unknown, but the people there have a faith in themselves, in God and in their own abilities to solve any problem thrown in their path. Those people are the real futurists.