Some say the economy is recovering,
others say not yet... I for one am optimistic, always a good idea. But there’s one group of people
that don’t seem to care either way: the startup entrepreneurs.
Sure, they do feel the crunch;
funding is hard to come by. But this simply doesn’t stop these energetic young folks; wherever I go
I bump into people that are starting a new company, or developing a new software product, or
something. Some do it in their spare time, others actually leave paying jobs to initiate new
ventures in this time of uncertainty. And although not all will succeed, their ideas and product
prototypes tend to be very impressive.
Israel was always a hotbed of this sort of innovation;
it’s good to see that this continues in these harder times. I can’t wait to see the exuberant action
once the good times return!
Cheers,
In this issue News:Probing Twitter. Reflection: Online conferencing: are we there yet? From the Toolbox:
PureText 2.0.What's New Probing Twitter
I started experimenting with Twitter a few months ago, and
at first just enjoyed the easygoing nature of this lightweight social networking tool. However, I
fast realized that there is much more to this tool than just updating friends when you had coffee
(which, IMHO, is a better fit for Facebook). As more Tweeple started following me who are in my
field of work, including ones I never heard of before, the potential for serious business
development and learning became clear.
I’m learning, online and off, how to make use of
this phenomenon... stay tuned!
Observations, reflections and opinions Online conferencing: are we there yet? This month I spoke at Information
Overload Awareness Day, which – as befits the thrifty spirit of the times – was an online
mini-conference. Now, in truth, I had my doubts how this would work out.
It isn’t that you
can’t have a good interaction virtually: at Intel I led a team that investigated virtual
collaboration, and we held global virtual meetings that were just as lively and engaging as face to
face (of course, we were committed to try our own dog food). My uncertainty was with the technology:
experience taught me repeatedly that while online conference tools look great on paper, they seldom
work without a hitch – all too often Murphy has a field day. And IO Awareness Day was to have over
300 attendees, 15 speakers, a panel, all interacting during five hours via web and telephony. Lots
could go wrong.
So what happened? Well, Murphy did take his due: the web system got
overloaded at the start, and the technician who would have fixed it in a jiffy had to be rushed to a
hospital (he’s OK now, we’re told) – so it took a great many jiffies to get the conference rolling.
That said, it was a great success nevertheless, as I know because people contacted me afterward
about my lecture in a very positive way.
So, this proves two things: we aren’t there yet as far as having flawless tools – but we’re
far enough along the road to be able to make do with the current crop of tools and have good
conferences anyway. And if anything does go wrong, at least you aren’t at 30,000 feet when it does!
From the toolbox PureText 2.0 This month’s productivity tool is a humble utility, but one I really
cherish. It’s called PureText, and it does one small thing: strip all formatting from text copied to
the Windows clipboard. It adds an icon to the tray, and when you click it all the Rich Text
attributes (fonts, colors, styles, etc) are gone. You can now paste the text into any application
without carrying over the baggage that Office documents and Web pages usually add – saving much time
and hassle.
Of course this is something they ought to have included in Windows; but all
Microsoft gave us is “Paste special > Unformatted Text” in Office. In other cases, you had to work
around by pasting into a plain text editor on the way. Hence my delight when I found PureText, which
– like many great little tools – is freeware, thanks to Steve Miller. Get it here: http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/.
Snapshots of Ingenuity Check this lovely
piece of improvisation-turned-product: Gerber's Variable Scale, inspired by a pajamas elastic waistband and transformed
into a precision calculation aid. [Read more].
The Monthly Factoid NASA's new Kepler space telescope has just detected, in
its preliminary testing, an atmosphere around a known giant gas planet orbiting another star. No, it
isn’t breathable; and it would fry you in seconds, anyway. But this demonstrates the incredible
sensitivity of Kepler; we can expect untold wonders as it enters service.
Some say the economy is recovering,
others say not yet... I for one am optimistic, always a good idea. But there’s one group of people
that don’t seem to care either way: the startup entrepreneurs.
Gerber's Variable Scale, inspired by a pajamas elastic waistband and transformed
into a precision calculation aid. [
