Collaboration Technology 2.0

Today is the start of something new, Pincher and White are giving away the secrets of suceeding in a increasingly collaborative world.

With people's growing desire to share stuff and be heard and with boundaries of work and play blurring by the day, we will highlight opportunities, link to benefits and tag dead-ends to help you make sense of this whirlwind of change.

With 40 man-years of working with collaboration software technology between us, we will be provoking the key players in this arena to share their experience, insight and knowledge for the benefit of all.

This blog is going to formally launch next week so I thought I would check out CW virtual front page today, first we have UK government loses data on 25 million Britons followed closely by Fortnum & Mason improves store flexibility with new LAN. Now I am not decrying the Queen's grocers transition to the 21st century but juxtaposed against the former article it goes to show how little the general public get to understand the issues and activities that will change all of our lives as time moves on.

Mark Ryan at Microsoft brought to my attention a blog entry addressing optimal sizes for terrorist groups which looks at the break point points for effective small, medium and large sized teams.

30 months ago Ray Ozzie joined Microsoft, 18 months ago Ray became Chief Software Architect for that company (Bill Gates old job). In June I had the chance to meet up with 600 people at the Lotus 25th Anniversary including Ray. Having moved from Lotus (IBM) to Microsoft I was more than interested in Ray's view on the world of collaboration and innovation.

So you think you are running a team, well pull the knives from your back and read on.

OK, here is our first in a series of top tips to identify good collaboration rationale, technology and approach.

First things first are you really a team? Most effective collaboration tends to focus around groups of individuals with a common purpose. If you are not sure take a look at this (Goal Centric Networks) and start to build clear collaborative objectives.

If you want frivolous postings then my personal blog is normally the place to visit. But in the spirit that because we in the IT community can be a bit po faced from time to time, it is nice to show we have a human touch; I bring you a fantastic YouTube clip brought to my attention by my colleague Gareth Howell.

It is worth watching the whole clip and for those of you struggling with your home internet configurations this may make you realise - you are not alone

Dear Diary

Last Thursday I attended the BCS / Computer Weekly Annual jamboree. Gosh is was fun, met lots of spiffing people and was fed lots of tasty tuck in the Refectory. The Headmistress and staff then gave out the house prizes to the chaps and chapesses who had excelled themselves during the last three terms.

Mostly is was usual suck-ups but one of the school houses did very well namely Spinvox. I was very impressed with their project. They will go very far when they leave school and join the rest of us in the big world of commerce.

Computer Weekly editorial team has asked its bloggers to answer the following questions:

o What will be the dominant item on the CIO agenda in 2008?
o How will the predicted economic slowdown in 2008 impact IT professionals in the UK?
o What issues do you think will emerge around managing the ‘Web 2.0 generation’?

We lit a hookah and after entering the zone came up with a shimmering view of next year......

When you pull your Christmas cracker and put on the funny hat remember that while the joke inside may not be funny at least it passed the scrutiny of the thought police.

How did you do with your emails this year?

It's easy to slip into careless habits so here are a few tips to remind you what NOT to do for 2008...

We have a major collaborative project starting in the next few days as a result we have to set up a significant secure, agile and highly mobile team environment. Our sponsor and his elves have explained that although the project duration is very short the deliverables are very important ant and the whole thing needs to be 100% reliable.

You think you are working, but are you really? That is the question implied in a new Basex study (reported by ars technica). Their report, "Information Overload: We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us," estimates that email, IM interruptions and reading blogs by knowledge workers will drain the US economy of $588B this year. It claims that e-distractions are eating up 28% of a knowledge worker's day. Consider there are about a fifth the number of knowledge workers here as in the US. Factor in our higher average fully loaded salaries. Quite easily you are pushing £100B as the parallel cost to our own economy.

I was talking to a Don who is an assessor at a university court. A court that has had civil jurisdiction in all matters involving scholars or privileged persons of the university since 1244. We were discussing email and its dangers and how, as a consequence, telephones are ringing again between the the ivory towers.

This is my first Lotusphere 2008 blog and I have a captive blog source. As I travel from London to Orlando there are a number of delegates on the flight who I have asked to share with me their expectations of next weeks IBM event.

Wednesday’s theme (yes another keynote) was Social Networking for Business. Lotus Connections and Quickr were the lead products. Both of these products address elements in the delivery of social collaborative applications (wikis, blogs, affinity, etc). However they do overlap in some places and this will need to be addressed by IBM in coming product releases as customers on the whole respond better to a streamlined set of offerings.

I went to the second ever Groove User Group meeting last evening. We were entertained by Microsoft at their plush offices in Victoria. The space, furnishings and location makes my IBM friends location on the Southbank look positively East German!

Microsoft's bid for Yahoo has got myself and my fellow bloggers somewhat stimulated. There are assertations from Cliff and Jean-Paul that this is the end of MS as we know it. I agree to a small extent, but for me it is a leading indicator of something new. In a similar way to devices - if you can see and feel it then you are handling something that is out of date - Microsoft, like IBM, Cisco et all have been heavily re-inventing themselves over the past couple of years and what we see today making news is a pre-requisite to enable the new beasts that will emerge from the carcasses of the past.

I have been a bit frugal will my posts over the last few weeks. This is mostly due to the large number I posts I made during Lotusphere and a need to recharge my blogging batteries. However a small altercation has broken out on Ed Brill's most excellent blog that is worth bringing to your attention.

IT people know that the one thing you should never do if you want to retain access to all your applications, is change your name. Today one of my companies changed its name, from one nonsensical moniker to another. We risked more than just access to applications but we had two companies and now they are one, so one name had to go. Lincoln Burnett Associates vanished.

About this time last year I was taking a short break with my SO in Vegas, no business just pleasure.

This year the hordes of conventioneers have been led to Sin City by Microsoft at its third annual MIX event. To quote the event introduction:

Now in its third year, MIX is an intimate opportunity for cutting-edge technical, creative and business strategists to engage Microsoft in a conversation about the future of the web.

This seems very promising, however trolling through the news posts I have found a mixed bag of attitudes to MS (they will be a bit thick skinned to these by now). Considering it has only really started today (Tuesday) the nay-sayers seem to be jumping the gun a bit with thier prophecies of doom for Redmond !

It is unlikely that you will know Cartercar, LaSalle, Nash and Haynes, they are all examples of car marques that although popular when they we first introduced - in time (some short, some long) died out.

Similarly Digital, MicroPro (Wordstar) and Dbase are just a few examples of shining stars that have collapsed and have only left memories held in small alleys of the internet and of course Wikipedia

Right now I imagine there are lots of HD-DVD advocates telling anyone who is willing to listen how much better a standard it is compared to Blu-ray. Hey guys you are obsolete and it was the PS3 that killed you.

Some of the above simply failed and we are only left with examples of the brand, sometimes the innovation they introduced is revered or sometimes we are left with just a name as they were gobbled up and then maybe re-gobbled up by some large faceless corporation that did not care too much about what they represented.

Mr Darling if you want a modern Britain then you have to enable change. Today's budget did nothing to stimulate or facilitate the adoption and renewal of IT infrastructure in this country.

I have a vested interest. In my distant past I worked for the BBC, I still have a great deal of affection for the esteemed organ of the British establishment, but it is changing. I came across this very interesting article on the changes now being implemented at the Beeb.

The corporation has really grasped the possibilities afforded by the latest web technologies (check out its podcast and vodcast output) and within the next two years on the back of the iPlayer we are going to see a tons of innovations affecting both UK, European and world wide audiences. The world of broadcasting, narrowcasting and affintiycasting will never be the same again.

Do blogs matter, well maybe in the IBM universe they do... Ed Brill is one of IBMs most influential bloggers (as an IBM employee) and his reactions to my last post have stirred a fair amount of comment. Interestingly he directly quoted me (below) in his blog:

It is clear from even the most casual observation to see that the funds now being invested in product development are at a rate not seen for a decade. As much as I applaud this turnaround it seems that although the factory is running at 100% capacity the marketing strategy as to which customers should be buying the output and more importantly why they should be buying which piece of the output seems to have gone walkabout. Looking on at a distance, how all the pieces fit together within an 'over arching' structure frankly seems completely absent.

I have been impressed at the level of rational discussion engendered as a result of the excerpt quoted in his blog, however I am disappointed at the shortage of constructive suggestions generated. As a blogger its always nice when people agree with you and often as nice when they don't!

So the challenge is to those who care - come up with some pithy positioning (try to say that drunk) so that the senior IBM dudes who I know are reading this and other blogs can be inspired to do better than they are at the moment.

Ideas as responses to this post please

ps the emphasis is still on the why

Last week I started my Small Things post, each week I am going to look at the plethora of Web 2.0 collaborative (and personal) tools that are arriving on an almost daily basis.

This week I have had a week of Twitter under my belt, and an introduction to Symbaloo and some conversation around Plaxo.

After recent blogs on Plaxo, Twitter and Facebook I thought I was duty bound to spend some time on Linkedin. To be honest the UI has improved greatly over the last few months but it still feels a little bit of a mess. I can't help wondering about these types of inline advert supported sites and their ongoing viability in a business world.

My contention is that instead of charging money for additional features, the revenue should be generated as an incentive for the delivery of an ad-free environment. The BBC is considering this model for outside of the UK access to its web content, free access with ads, clean access with subscription.

Are Self-Organizing Neighborhood Wireless Mesh Networks the next biggish thing? - Well I live in a town with the most number of retired vicars, priests and ministers in the UK - a statistical fact. From where I'm sitting I can "see” the wireless network of the Baptist, Methodist, Anglican and Catholic Churches. Now, the Baptists don't talk to the Catholics who don’t talk to the.... etcetera .etcetera. However, the area is a flood zone so we are trying to 'mesh' the area so if waters of biblical proportions descend like last year we've better communication in place. Just shows you how a bit of enlightened self-interest breaks down barriers.

A recent study found that Internet use in communities' increased social interaction between neighbors, built up a community support structure, and improved the general well being of community residents. Community mesh networks facilitate communications and information sharing locally.

Walking round Infosecurity 2008 you realise how significant the change to commoditisation in IT has become. The once arcane secrets of IT security are now an applied science -- bolt on the black box and away you go. However, the calls from the demonstrators on the exhibition stands were all about people still being the problem.

it’s not the external threat -- it's the internal one

The recent Microsoft Mesh announcement at Web 2.0 provoked some calls of 'bias' by the BBC favouring MS. Some felt the coverage was disproportional with respect to the level of product being delivered beyond the usual promises and slide-ware. In a former life I worked for the Beeb so I have some interest in the veracity of this claim.

Simple research points to a broad market share figures (rounded on my part) which gives MS a 90% share, Apple a 7% share and all others (mostly Linux) a 3% share. Therefore it would be reasonable to expect news coverage in roughly the same proportion, using the following search terms 'Microsoft Windows', 'Apple Mac' and 'Linux' and out of curiousity 'IBM' the results were as follows:

The search was run on the BBC 'news' section only and I know the percentages are sort of spurious and that if I added in iPhone I would boost the Apple numbers, but by my reasoning the bias looks to be towards Apple not towards Microsoft.

By the way a search on IBM Lotus gave me 11 stories (and some of those are very interesting)

Last week I spent much of my 'after pool' time reading up on what was coming out of the Web 2.0 conference. Load and loads of stuff attracted my attention, however right now as I sit in a damp Cafe Nero in London, the key message that came across (to me) in a loud and clear voice was Ray Ozzie's pronouncement for support of OS's other than Microsoft's own.

This was of course greeted with howls of derision from those who have been both the benefactors or victims of Microsoft prior behaviour. I know Ray and I know his commitment to standards (proprietary and open), cross platform and scaleable solutions is fundamental of the man.

Time alone will tell, the scoffers may be right, my bet it that the model developing in Redmond right now is based on a broader appeal outside of its traditional patch and whether it controlled by MS or by some holier than though open-standards body will be moot to the outcome.

Love or hate Microsoft it is not smart to treat their stated directions with disdain.

Why do so many good business ideas bite the dust. For many it is because they are not really as good as they seem, for others maybe the economics don't work or they are simply to complex to execute. Lastly we have the 'ideas ahead of their time', the most frustrating sort is when a good idea bites the dust only to be resurrected some time later and then become wildly successful.

Watching last nights 'Apprentice' on BBC really brought the matter into sharp relief, two teams set the same tasks found their ideas built around it, support it and were convinced they could sell it until the cold bucket of reality was tipped over their collective heads. Ego had been nurtured but not tested against common sense. Looking back over ventures that I have directly and indirectly been involved with I can see how many time the 'good idea' became an end in itself with large groups of people either promoting or not opposing it because of the energy and support of the sponsor.

It does question the 'wisdom of crowds' which statistically may be true but as will all statistics there are sufficient variables to be dangerous!

Next time you have a good idea - try to test it both by restraining your own ego but by giving sufficient weight to the egos of others. The Alan Sugars of this world love great ideas but they also love the consideration of common sense to ensure that they can make money out of them.

I have just had to pull a posting due to an NDA that I had not been aware of. Emotionally its quite a drag having spent a fair amount of time crafting my entry. If you missed it then I am afraid you will just have to wait a couple of weeks for the 'secret stuff', it really is not that exciting !


So for now - that cat has been placed back in the bag

I am sitting in a quiet little back water in the City of London, sipping on a skinny latte. It's a sunny day, pleasantly warm for this time of year and a nice resting place in between appointments. Next to me are a tablefull of 'advertising' types who are unintentionally doing great impressions of Harry Enfield's 'feel my wad' character, Loadsamoney, from the 80's.

Its good to see that even in these recessive times ostentatious and loutish behaviour has not died.

Oh goody, we've moved on to cars now!

What makes teamwork, for that matter what makes a team work? I can't help but wonder. Over the years I have worked in many sorts of teams. Teams that are single purposed, clearly led with very differentiated tasks for each member. At the other extreme I have worked with teams where objectives are poorly defined, roles even more so and individuals left to determine amongst themselves what they need to do, when, how and why!.

Which teams structures were the most successful? Well neither, both had pluses along with other mixtures of team styles - simply put: you can't generalise.

Even with clear leadership and sharply focussed goals teams fail - this can be often caused by soft issues - personality clashes, internal politics and such like. Teams even with the most wooly of construction often deliver fantastic results. Individual commitment, professionalism and people engagement supplanting the rigid structures found elsewhere.

These are my top tips for effective technology supported teams:

o Clear team objectives - preferably written down and clear goal lines that can be crossed

o Effective communications - mandatory shared content, any emails that circumvent this should be stamped upon in a hard and ruthless manner

o Regular meetings - virtual or physical, set in stone and properly documented

o High visibility of slipping actions - stuff that at the outset was trivial can come back to haunt the team if not tracked

o Listen - Team members must be encouraged to contribute in and outside of their comfort zones, with luck this will drive out the 'gotchas'

Should I Pownce or Twitter?. I have re-started my examination of popular Web 2.0 technologies to see which are (at least to me) best.

I have been posting Tweets for a while and I thought I should give Pownce a go as there is a degree of overlap between the two. You can follow me via these links Twitter or Pownce and help me work out which is the best (if it can be established) between the two.

All of this comes on the back of an 'upgrade' to ease the problems associated with the current version of the blogging platform used across the Reed Business Information titles here in the UK (and elsewhere for all I know). For months all of us have been dealing with instability, poor performance and a general lack of facility mainly due the old system was about 3 full releases behind the latest supported release. The first tentative upgrade was scheduled for the 14th April and the upgrade has been on and off since then.

You can guess what has happened, Computer Weekly (and the rest of the titles) has experienced the sort of 'gremlins' that we in the real world of organisational computing face on almost daily basis. It was not for a lack of planning, there appears to have been a lot of that. It was not for the lack of testing, that too was extensively undertaken. As my fellow blogger Michael Pincher loves to say 'it was due to the law of unintended consequences'.

It is working now otherwise you would not be able to read this. I know it has been very embarrassing for them although the problems do not represent the end of the universe. It is however it is a salutatory lesson for the professional journalists who must have got very frustrated over the last few hours because of the service failure. They now know first hand the knife edge that afflict so many systems in the 'real world'. In future they might take a few more thought cycles before taking a 'pop' at some new IT disaster.

Talking to my colleague Gareth yesterday, we pondered over the volume of digital chaff that we were receiving at present due to our current activities. Gareth (as ever the practical one) bemoaned the fact we had not set up 'sacrificial email accounts'. So I went and looked up sacrifice.com hoping that it would not be too pornographic and that I would not be arrested by some over enthusiastic rozzer as I did my research. Amazing all I got was 'The site is being redeveloped please revisit in early 2004.'

It struck me that a pop3 only service that would simply allow you to create an account for (say) 3 months and come what may it would be deleted at that point would be a useful service. This would be a digitial 'poste restante' for the 21s century. 

I took a quick scoot around the net and could not find anything that meets my requirements so it looks like Gmail will have to do

Next time you need to set up a temporary subscription, recruit or apply for a job or have any shortish term project that you do not wish to be overwhelmed with spam, give it a go.

ps

for the uninitiated

rozzer = policeman (used on TV in the first episode of the latest series of Top Gear, not seen it in use for a while, very 50's_

According to IBM Lotus blogger "The Turtle" all we need to move fully into the wonderful post-apocolypse post-Microsoft world is an alliance of

Google: with the reach
IBM: with the technology
Apple: with the marketing nounce

All this is true but like all wishful thinking won't come true because:

Google: thinks it has all the tech it needs
IBM: is an a federal business and thus finds it almost impossible to work in a unified manner
Apple: promotes a sort of 'we're upper class' and looks down on the rest of the world

For those of you who wonder what it is like to be upper class check this out

An IT guy has been busted for insider trading after gaining info while snooping on an exec's email; see Financial Times web site. Insider trading is illegal but how confidential are emails.

Many organisations state in their policies that emails are not confidential. However, most people make the mistake of believing they are. Simple rule - if it's important encrypt it.

Just been visited by the gypsies. Two arrived with the usual mixture of  mystery and menace. "I can tell your fortune if you give me silver - if you don't misfortune will fall."

I was outside working on my laptop (they don't like to cross the treshold). Just as I was sending them packing, one turned round and asked "Can I check my email?" I said that for some silver she could. We compromised. I got my fortune for free.

It's time to revisit your Risk Register and reassess your organisation's Strategic Risk and how you should counter it.

The ecomomic weather is changing fast - it's mitigation time - get ready to apply powerful countermeasures.

As Neil Young crooned in Comes a Time, "In the field of opportunity it's ploughing time again."

With fines, taxes, penalties and draconian powers prescribed by politicians as the panacea, it's time to cool down the rhetoric.

Eco crime is just a short stop from thought crime

The behaviours listed below are based on careful observation of the behaviours commonly practised by those people who are successful when working with others. When used consistently they will transform your ability to work with and through people. They are: 

• Clarify what you are committed to
• Listen Empathically
• Speak Authentically
• Think Win/Win

One thing is for certain - the era of cheap electricity is over.

David Beckham, the iconic hero is alledged to only wear his underpants once. He can afford to - extravagance is a perk of wealth.

Gordon Brown, the flawed hero, has urged us avoid waste. His staff (i.e. the public sector) should take note.

Having worked in a publicly funded body and seen the waste of money that goes on, public sector workers often act with the same capriciousness as the rich - trouble is it's your money. Time to put Wuthering Heights' kitchen in order - Heathcliff!

There's talk on the radio about whether should you join a union as things get hard -- collective representation being a comfort when jobs are at risk. In the seventies I was a union convener for NATKE. Under the threat of job losses we walked out and managed to negotiate better pay and conditions.

A year or so ago I joined Tssa when I knew my employer wanted me out. Despite a just cause, there was little help; so if you consider joining a union -- make sure it has teeth.

Talking to a pal of mine the other day I noticed he had fifteen thousand contacts in his iPhone - he's an avid networker.

JP Rangaswami, speaking at an event recently, suggested the human being can satisfactorily cope with 120-150 on-going relationships at any one time.

So does the human being scale? Anyone got any views on the optimum size of a personal/business network?

Downturns are difficult times to be meeting strangers or business associates. What do you talk about?  A while back I was speaking at a central europe on a collaboration technology conference. Lunch was passed in silence. When I commented on this, my host said that was the way there. Silence means people don't embarrass themselves by putting their foot in it. 

I made two different types of gravy over the weekend. One for the carnivors, the other for the vegetarians - 1) Chicken stock, wine, and juices from the roast 2) Vegetable stock and cornflower.

They went on the table, got mixed up and nobody noticed the difference. It's a bit like software applications - we (I) tend to over complicate things when simplicity would do -- guess that's true of life too!

As with my first post in the interests of full disclosure I will rate myself for each one:

6) Semi-randomly download a widget or some piece of freeware that will help you become more efficient - fail

Widgets, freeware and gizmos are a bit like kitchen gadgets. These look terribly clever on Spiv TV (channel 1000001) but when you get them out of the box you realise that your expectations will not be met.

7) Spend time conceptualising (day dreaming) some maginficent Web 2.0 service that your teenage buddy who was one of the two first VCs in Google might like to fund - fail

I am gifted. I did not know that I was until I worked out that those around me seem to be making loads of money (family, friends and old buddies) and none of them have worked out the opportunity they are missing in not funding one of my bright ideas! My gift is that those around me make money - great....

8) Randomly create domain names in your browser address bar to see if they work - fail

It is amazing what two nuns will do to get noticed on the internet, not to mention how disproportionate some people are! 

Stop it - you might go blind.

9) Watching too many episodes of Battlestar Galactica because you now say 'Frak!' when you stub your toe or a program crashes - Fail

Frak me, this fraking word has got inside my fraking head. Roll on the closing fraking season.

10) Twitch - Fail

Twitch - to pull aside a curtain or peer through a window to see what a neighbour is doing / who has driven past your house / watch and consider if the furniture delivery man is going to drop the poorly handled settee (and also note that the neighbour has no taste)

I'm in Flaine in the French Alps and have just experienced a plague of frogs. Hundreds of thousands of tiny 'grenouilles' came out after a 'tempête' and covered every inch of ground we were walking on.

However, my french is not that good, so discussing it in the bar later was tricky - the international nickname for the French being what it is - I think I still have friends. Tonight we're going to discuss collaboration!

 What are the hidden costs of Virtualisation?

Free downloadable white-paper makes summer e-reading for those who have either stared a novel and lost it (me) suffering from tech-withdrawal (not Ian) or are still at work (neither of us)

My children were at home recently. Apart from the piles of washing and an emptying refrigerator it was a lonley feeling. They were on-line and connected most of the time - away in the world's of their own.

Connecting to a human by blood-line means you can be ignored, being connected to people on-line is another matter.

It wasn't all bad, at night, on the sofa, one miscreant took her mum through Facebook's photo-montage of university life. It showed up a difference between men and women.

Most blokes I know don't want to know what their children get up to (envy) whereas mothers do (living vicariously). The moral of the story is that at least we got to refresh parts of the bandwidth we never normally reach - A virtual Heineken moment. 

I've just been up Mont Blanc. I went to look at a glacier.

See picture Right.

What I found was somewhat different. A millennia of time breaking up in front of me. Melt water cascading down in torrents - avalanches happening as I looked.

See picture below. The yellow fill is now moraine  . It looked to me as though in a few years it will all be gone.  Go look at a glacier while you can. 

Maize was revered by the Aztecs as a gift from the Gods.

Human inventiveness now put us in a quandry. Do you use cornstarch for ethanol, as a food, or a miracle.                                       

If you or your boss want to walk on water check this out.

My first job was a 'sparks' in a theatre complex. Every Monday I walked round the building doing the 'lamp round' - checking for lamps that had blown (Bulbs, I was taught, are something you put in the ground). Different lamps had a different life, by in large they lasted the x hours they were rated for.

At home and in my workshop I've been moving over to 'energy efficiency' lamps. However, most (made in China and elsewhere) don't last nearly as long at they claim. So the cost of replacement far outstrips the energy saving (notwithstanding the carbon emissions of getting them here).

While I don't' like the esthetic of the radiated light spectrum of the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) I'm incandescent with rage that the traditional light globe being phased out. My advice -- stock up while stocks last.

August Bank Holiday sees my home town transformed. It's Plum Fayre time. The plum was brought back from the Middle East by Richard 1 (lion heart) and entrusted to the care of the monks of Pershore Abbey. The Benedictine brothers were diligent breeders and propagators of their charge until Henry VIII imposed a windfall tax on the monasteries and closed them down - the plum, however, survived and thrived.

From my house I can see what remains of the Abbey and the Fayre Ground including the goings-on from Teddy bear parachuting off the tower to Morris Dancing etc. While cooking lunch I burnt myself in a minor way on the finger - result three blisters. Foraying out, in search of a plaster, I came across a group of St John's Ambulance staffers helping out in case of an accident. I asked what the best remedy for a burn was.

I was immediately set upon, taken into their tent and a 'trainee' given the task of administering to me. Twenty minutes later after rubber gloves, ice pack, burn gel and a bandage that made my hand look like a boxer's before the gloves go on I was dispatched to the sunshine.

Why go on about all this? The useful tip I picked was that if you or your offspring want to get involved with London Olympics (in a non-competitive way) volunteer for St John's Ambulance and you'll probably get in.

Or more precisely, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "when politics imitates technology". In the beginning there was the simple world of DOS around which the computing universe evolved (with networking, communications, GUI, etc emerging in time from the primordial swamp). It was a creation about which a single person could understand everything. Latterly, that cosmos has fractured into myriad specialities (Mac vs. PC vs. Linux for starters) - each spinning away from the other, making it near impossible for one mind to map.

How like today's political landscape that has subdivided into global archipelagos that won't be divided into neat categories like democracies versus autocracies anymore, each drifting farther away from each other with different interests and values. We now live in a world of parts be it political or technical - and like all zero sum games it's a matter of hoping you back the winner.

1. Real Time Collaboration (RTC)
2. Group Decision Support Systems and facilitation tools (GDSS). 
3. Virtual Team Space (VTS) 
4. Distributed Project Management (DPM)

I'm itching to see which, if any will come home to roost, or if they don't how I'll not free fall into an impending sense of doom and panic. Only time will tell - I'll let you know in a month..

A collaborative, competitive game played since boys were boys is conkers. It required, good hand eye co-ordination and some wily construction skills. However, all across Europe and in the US, Chestnut trees are dying. This year the disease has gone, from about 10% of the population in 2006 to nearly every tree I've looked at in the UK and France. 

It's a sad state of affairs and yet another change in the landscape.  I'll miss the glorious rich brown of the conkers as they split out of their green prickly shells that break open as they fall. On the up side, as there's no sunshine in the UK any more, we won't need the 500,000 or more of these majestic trees for shade.

I play in a 'covers band' called Senior Service. We've just come back from a gig at weekend party for a toff bird's 21st. The morning after the night before I walked around the stage clearing up after an excellent Saturday night thrash. I found; 3 Iphones, 2 ipods and 4 digital cameras. I know we are a good act and drive people into a frenzy but dropping that much digital detritus looked more like carelessness than hysteria.

The 'youff' that made up the main throng of the party guests were pretty well-healed - and I say were, because some of them - work or worked for Lehman Brothers  and lost at least two of the items above. On the Sunday morning they were pretty hung-over and not particularly grateful at getting their kit back.

I link these two because of the carelessness that connects them both. Lehman Brothers described itself as "an innovator in global finance, that serves the financial needs of corporations, governments, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals." A lot of this innovation seems to have been done by people seemingly careless with stuff - others or their own.

Is the Web 2.0 bubble about to burst? An American who lives in the Valley seems to thinks so. All the signs of a looming Web recession are everywhere, he said yesterday, including the US mortgage market meltdown which could hammer online advertising, the liquidity crisis effecting internet business plans and a general slowdown in broadband adoption rates.

However, the optimistic case is the converse. It allows organisations to reduce travel/energy costs by the implementing cool collaboration applications. So choose your Web 2.0 partners well - they may not be around long.

Or to paraphrase Edward Grey. "The pools are going cold all over Europe." I was fortunate enough to grow up with a swimming pool. It was unheated. It means I can swim in glacial rivers, oceans and ice cold plunge pools.   Most people prefer the warm bath sensation of modern heated pools. However, with the end of "credit bubble" (buying things you don't won't with money you don't have) some people are being forced to turn the heating off - so if you want to tell who has still got dough, stick your toe in their water.

There's nothing worse than unplanned events overtaking a well-planned conference. In Mumbai, last Tuesday a CTO summit was held to look into the effective implementation of core banking technology. On the agenda was risk management, financial frauds, money laundering, data mining and information security. 

The breakout sessions focused on how information technology has enabled sophisticated product development, better market infrastructure and the implementation of reliable techniques for control of risks. I suspect events in the stock markets made for some interesting discussions.

In the aftermath of the financial melt down let's spare a thought for our colleagues who may loose their jobs. More importantly, let's also hope that when the blame-game starts it's not technology that's made the scapegoat again. 

Technology has never been a glamour business, attracting few women and recently, less young men. However, advertising is and has always been full of both. There's now a hybrid world - on-line marketing - it's a boom business.

A market that, if the demographic of Adtech a conference and exhibition at Olympia last week is anything to go by, is worked profitably and almost exclusively by attractive, cool, ambitious young men and women. These are the talented folk that bring us on-line advertising, pop-ups and a myriad of exciting offers. They are the peeps who understand database mining, targeted marketing and all the things that early adopters dreamt of. The leader of this pack is of course Google.

 
This morning I was invited on-line to join the Coke Club. Though enured to on-line temptation, I couldn't resist the double entendre. It was my first ever ad click through. Those money honeys' sure know how to turn a old guys head.

.