Does Anyone Still Read Industry Publications?

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From: Andy2Boyz 

The possibilities are endless..., a custom daily briefing on virtually any subject of interest.

I was working my way through a professional membership application when the questions turned to demographics.  How big is your organization?  What is your budget?  How many people in your department?  Then they popped the question that I hadn’t been asked in ages:  What Industry Related Publications Do You Read?

I was taken aback and realized that the question was quite normal in 1995, even in 2005 or maybe even 2010.  But today, in 2013, with the vast increase in social media, blogs, twitter feeds, podcasts, and professional online communities, I must say that I don’t read any of them any more.

It was a good list, made up of the cream of the crop from 2003:  Business 2.0, Business Week, CIO Magazine, Computer World, Forbes Magazine, Info World, Information Week, Network World, Red Herring, Wall Street Journal, just to name a few.  But the reality is that it has been many years since I received any physical magazine in my inbox.  Come to think of it, for the last 18 months, I received nothing physical at work, other than a few vendor gimmicks.  All of my communications and my consumption of content has become digital.  The switch finally happened and I didn’t even notice.  Read on to see how this Social CIO keeps current today.

It started about four years ago when I began following thought leaders, analysts, and bloggers on twitter.  I found if I was selective with my “follow” population, I could get a customized feed in my twitter stream every day, throughout the day to satisfy my technical appetite.  Once I started following 400 or 500, I began to get overwhelmed, missing many tweets.  As a result, I found myself getting very selective about adding new tweeters to my stream.  That’s when I discovered the power of twitter lists. 

Twitter lists are an ingenious invention that allows you to segment those you follow into logical lists grouped by topic, locality, or anything you like.  I pulled together about 300 sources that I thought were most valuable based on my then-current interests around Enterprise 2.0 and Mobile trends.  That became “The Short List”.  It wasn’t so short, at 300 sources, but provided a very focused feed and allowed me to keep adding to my twitter “following” number without worrying about getting overwhelmed in the feed.

Later I created an additional list, simply called “list”.  I didn’t want to offend anyone on “the short list”, but this group was mostly professional acquaintances and a subset of my “short list” pared down to the 100 that I wanted to follow even closer.  Since then, I’ve added other lists for various topics, and followed lists created by others who’s opinions I respect, but I keep coming back to my “Short List” as the key source for my daily information feed.

Moving from Push to Pull

My personal daily paper 

I dabbled with Zite, and Flipboard, but found those too restrictive and never really liked the editorial choices they made.  But my Short List was just what I wanted to hear from every day.  Then, about two years ago, I stumbled upon Paper.Li.  This handy website takes my “Short List” and builds a daily paper based on the most popular feeds of this custom list of curators working just for me.  “The Short List Daily” as it is called is my daily paper giving me a quick briefing on all tech trends and topics.  It groups them into sections (business, technology, stories, culture) and sometimes even into hashtag groupings around events that might be taking place (#e2conf, #e20s for example). The paper has been indispensable.  I like it so much, I share each new issue every morning on my twitter feed.

Curated by the top influencers in
Enterprise Mobility

Just recently, I discovered a service called Littlebird created by industry veteran Marshall Kirkpatrick.  Littlebird does the work of finding the 500 most influential tweeters on any subject (instead of having to build my own “short list”) and allows one to build a twitter list from the result.  I took the list for Enterprise Mobility (created by @ITSinsider using the service) and fed it into Paper.Li and now I have a second “paper” to read every day, “The Enterprise Mobile Daily”.  Littlebird can also create a custom feed of blog posts from all of these top influencers as well.  Imagine a custom feed of all the blog posts from the most influential tweeters on the subject of Mobility, or Enterprise Collaboration, or DNA testing.  The possibilities are endless, providing today’s tech savvy information consumer a custom daily briefing on virtually any subject of interest.

Future this! collects future
oriented stories

I have also found a few other custom papers that I like to check into frequently.  “Future This!” is one of the best at following developments in future thinking.  I’m sure if you check around, you will find any list or “paper” on the subject that interests you as well.

I have just mentioned two sources of expert lists and content presentation platforms.  I expect there are and will continue to be other products continuing to evolve as they tap into the collective editorial skills of the crowd and produce custom feeds of news, trends, and developments in a handy easy-to-digest format.

So, getting back to that original question, What Industry Related Publications Do You Read? For many today, it’s the wrong question all together.  The real question should be How do you stay current in today’s fast evolving technology world?  My answer is a customer feed of self-maintained and custom generated expert lists, combined with the publishing platform of Paper.Li.  I would love to hear how you stay current in the comments below or through your return tweets.

Now, do you understand why the entire print news industry is on “death watch”?

Sections of The Short List Daily

Seven Days with my iPhone 4S

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I must confess, I held on to my 3GS for the full 2 years and I just finally got my iPhone 4 back in May. I really have been enjoying it, and by 2:30pm, on the day that iOS5 came out, I had quickly updated my phone, but had no plans to move on to the 4S.

When I was watching the 4S introduction at the Apple event a few days earlier, I remember immediately answering a poll on Mashable.com where they asked “Would you be upgrading to the 4S?” I quickly answered “No” and thought that was the end of it. But I am always interested in in these new devices so I keep a close eye on the technology. I was very intrigued by some of the new features of the iPhone 4S especially the voice control from Siri as well as the expected improved performance and speed.

On October 14, just a week ago, as I was heading home from some errands in the mid morning, I decided just to stop by my local AT&T Store. I noticed some barricades for the line and I noticed there were just two people standing at the front door (a worker and a customer). In fact, I didn't even realize it was a line and just walked right for the door and was stopped. I had no intent to buy, but thought I would just come by and check out the excitement for the phone. (There wasn’t much, by the way.)

While waiting, I realized I could simply renew a family member’s contract (who was quite happy with her iPhone 3 – she uses it for phone calls!) for another two years and go ahead and get my iPhone 4S. I would just have to transfer it to my account. About an hour later, I walked out with the brand-new iPhone 4S 32GB unit and plans to sell my only five-month-old iPhone 4 on eBay.

So it's been a week and I have some first impressions. First of all, the performance is indeed great. I ran a few benchmarks on the 4 and the 4S using BrowserMark from RightWare. (bit.ly/brmark) . When I ran it on the iPhone 4 running iOS 4.x, the reading came back 34,253. After the upgrade to iOS 5, that same device scored 53,353. So just by upgrading to iOS5, I saw a 55% increase in the benchmark. I ran the same on the new 4S and got a blazing 85649. That’s 2 ½ times the speed as my former iPhone 4 running iOS 4.x. The iPhone 4S is FAST.

I've been experimenting with Siri. In fact, I am dictating this now because Siri, not only is your personal assistant, but also provides a voice input for any application that would normally use the keyboard. I find it works well and gets most of the words right. Siri, on the other hand as a helpful assistant, is a bit temperamental. Yes she can read my calendar, tell me the weather, and do a Google search, but more often than not, when I need her, she cannot understand me and way too often, cannot connect to the Internet. Siri is a cloud-based app that depends on access to Apple servers in order to do anything other than local dictation.

I never really like talking to anything or giving verbal command in general. I enjoy talking to people through my phone but not to my phone, so I'm not sure if it will ever catch on for my normal routine, but it is an interesting feature nonetheless. I’m sure in time it will improve, but for me, Siri as a personal assistant is nothing more than a novelty.

Another nice feature is the introduction of shortcut keys, a little-known feature of iOS5. They have taken the much maligned “autocorrect” feature and allowed you to create your own abbreviations that help you rather than introduce errors. Nice concept! If you go into Settings, General, Keyboard, you will see the ability to create keyboard shortcuts. I created one for my email address because I type it so many times as a login entry.

Another feature of iOS5 that I certainly like is Twitter integration. For me it means being able to tweet directly from a picture. Now, it’s not such a big deal to add a picture in my Echofon client, but tweeting directly from the photo viewer is a nice plus.

The iMessage feature certainly looks good. It is an alternative to text messaging but, like FaceTime, it only works with the with Apple devices. We would be better off if we could get an open standard for this in the future. I’m sure the carriers don’t like this new competitor to their overpriced text-messaging feature.

The camera certainly is an improvement. Pictures are crisp and clear and the video is hi definition. Built in photo editing features also add convenience. Unfortunately you have no standard definition choice for video. So, here we go using up much more storage than we need. Plus, HD adds a lot of time to share your videos on YouTube or other services.

The new Newsstand features nice. So far, it is just a nice way to pull together magazines. That’s something I will likely use more on my iPad than on the iPhone

One of the real exciting new promises of iOS5 is the iCloud service that allows immediate synchronization of songs, photos and calendar entries. I found it works well with songs, but have been reluctant to try it with photos and disabled it for calendar entries. Using Google calendar I began to see multiple entries and, in some cases, missing entries so I turned it off. I think iCloud shows great promise but I think it can take some time: 1) for me to learn how to use it and 2) to see how it works with other Cloud services such as various Google services and 3) for all the bug fixes to be deployed.

One thing I did notice was that just by default it asked if I wanted to back up my device to the cloud. I thought that was great idea so I enabled it on my iPad, my iPhone and also my son’s iPod Touch. All began to back up immediately and I got a message saying I had used up all of my storage and I needed to purchase more. So the 5 GB provided by the cloud really is not enough and immediately you are encouraged to buy more.

They say the iPhone is really the same on the outside and totally different on the inside. I certainly won't argue that but I did notice the silent switch moved down ever so slightly, enough that most cases will have a little trouble. It is the switch on the upper left side just above the volume switch that has moved down about 1/8th of an inch. I might just have to carve out my speck case a little bit with a razor blade to make it work perfectly.

Overall I'm pleased with the iPhone 4S mainly for it’s blazing speed. I'm also equally pleased that I was able to sell my old 16GB iPhone 4 for nearly equal the price that I paid for a new 32 GB 4S. Judging from the HD video, it looks like I will need that extra storage.

So, for this early adopter, I found it a good experience to upgrade. It will just take a little more time than I thought to learn the new features, and sorry but in my experiences regarding iCloud, I can’t say “It Just Works!”

So what do you think? Please add your comments below or on twitter. Are you going to spend the money to get the new 4S or can you wait for the 5? For me I am fortunate to have three AT&T contracts in the house and a family where I am the only one eager to upgrade the devices as soon as they come out. So when the iPhone 5 comes out in June or so, I will probably get an opportunity to upgrade again.

It's Not the Tools; It's About the People

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We are all on Google+ now. It’s great because of who is here.
We were all on Quora at Christmas, because of who was there.
We continue to stay engaged on Twitter because of who is there.
We are bored with FaceBook because of who is there.
We use LinkedIn because of who we can find.
We use SocialCast in the Social Business Council because of who is there.
We use Jive with the Community Backchannel because of who is there.
We use Yammer in our jobs because of who is there.

It’s not about the tools, it’s about the relationship. The great thing about any social network is the socializing that takes place there. Yes, the tools are nice and a bad tool set can certainly squelch the conversation. But it's not about the tools it's about the relationships.

I've had the opportunity to speak with many people over the past few months who are not at all engaged in the social web. The line goes something like this…."I don't have time for all that social media." What they are really saying is "I don't value those relationships and what I learn there. I get all I need from other sources."

That’s fine. When people start to understand what they can get, the relationships they can build, and what an amazingly large diverse set of ideas is out there, they decide to connect.

Many stick with email and cocktail hour networking. That’s fine, I do that sometime too, but I find it is not at all efficient as a stand alone activity. It’s good when I want to go deep with someone, but at a typical event, I can only do that with 1 or 2 people. At best, I'll touch base with 5 or 10. During that same evening, I can touch hundreds or even thousands through online tools.

Through my Blog, Twitter, Google+ and various private communities, I can keep a conversation going with hundreds and my network can jump into overdrive when needed.

If you don’t want to use the social media tools now and think it’s too geeky, that's fine. We used to say that about CompuServe and then AOL came along to break the ice among the masses. Then came FaceBook and everybody went online.

It is indeed gone widespread. Google+ may not replace FaceBook. Everyone may not get on Twitter, but in the long run, the mega trend is that, more and more, our lives are moving online. What was once called a “virtual” meeting is just a meeting.

Do any of you call your FaceBook friends “virtual” friends? Do you call these virtual conversations? No, it’s a wall post, it’s a message, it’s real interaction.

Social is happening, it is happening in different rates for different people, but there is no going back. As my friend Chris Rollyson says, It’s an “and” world, not an “or” world. We keep getting more ways to connect, as a result we are more connected, and finally we can innovate and move faster.

That is just what’s happening. Don’t deny it.

So go ahead, get social. You can start by connecting with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ and while you are at it, subscribe to my blog.

See you online!

133 Curated Tweets from April 2011

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It was a hit last month, so here it is again.  My curated list of tweets from April.  As you can see, I focus on Cloud Computing, Twitter, Communities, iPad, Enterprise 2.0, Location Based Services, Gaming, Mobility, Social Business and a few other topics.

My Blog Posts

1. 150+ links, I tweeted in March, all in one place http://bit.ly/gUgKDV  
2. The Upside Down Enterprise Portal  http://lnkd.in/Dj5Dpa
3. Tune In to the Social Web http://t.co/HH2fkdA  

Chat (Twitter Chats)

1. Transcript for last night's #LeadershipChat now available http://ow.ly/4HQlg  on leadershipchat.net
2. Forrester: A webpage w/video is 50x more likely to appear on page 1 Google than 1 w/out http://t.co/nh73FQ7  

Cloud

1. The Future of Microsoft Office is in the #cloud http://dlvr.it/PdKTl  
2. HOW TO: Optimize Your Content for the Cloud http://on.mash.to/e6gi4Y  
3. Message from John Chambers: Where Cisco is Taking the Network http://t.co/1uOLfiI  
4. First look at Microsoft Office 365: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215883/First_look_at_Microsoft_Office_365 

Cloud Crash

1. This Amazon cloud crash is affecting no less than 4 of my daily activities so far! http://t.co/34kz58k
2. Amazon's cloud crash takes many with it http://t.co/34kz58k
3. Amazon's failure continues. I expect this will dampen #cloud euphoria a bit http://t.co/4YH0DPU 

Community

1. Community Managers: What They Do, Why You Need Them -- InformationWeek http://t.co/saLbr0g by @cflanagan
2. More on Community Managers: The Second Leg Of The Social Business Stool http://zite.to/dRkMjG
3. Are you building and managing E2E Communities? http://zite.to/dUeXw0

Enterprise 2.0

1. Corporate Microblogging Helps Employees Migrate Work Convos Online http://bit.ly/f4orbI  
2. Enterprise 2.0: Why All Business Software Must Go Social http://bit.ly/gNregG
3. Are you culturally ready for #e20 / #socbiz? http://cot.ag/fAGsiO  & http://cot.ag/gJl0uB  by @themaria
4. Social Intranet –The Intersection Diagram http://j.mp/kogbZ8  explained very well by @adowbor
5. Social Networking for Business - WSJ http://ow.ly/4GcnC
6. Looking at IBM's collaboration assessment tool: http://ow.ly/4I46c   Compares your best practices with 450 other firms.
7. Creating a Social Intranet Where Your Employees can Learn http://socl.ly/gLEPQp 
8. To bond or to bridge, is that the question? http://t.co/CMPYAbf   by @lammiia 
9. Congratulations to @GuatamGhosh on your move: Joining Social Business and Enterprise 2.0 firm Qontext http://t.co/IlI3diX
10. Beyond Quora: 9 Q&A Services for the Enterprise http://v.zite.com/ia1zxl  
11. 6 Ways to Use Curation for B2B Social Media http://zite.to/gESAo9  
12. Redefining RSS from tech terms to social collaborative behavior terms http://bit.ly/ft9kU5  by @dpontefract 
13. IBM Says Merge your Email into the Activity Stream  http://ow.ly/4ADGg  
14. Open the Activity Stream app on the mobile, see what's important to do that day/right now. http://t.co/8OdWi7q  

Easter

1. Four Lessons From the Resurrection http://t.co/xyaeR57  by @mhmcintyre
2. The Privacy of Jesus http://wp.me/p1jd28-cU

Gamification

1. Gaming the Enterprise, Part 1 of 2 http://bit.ly/humHTb  by Dachis's @tomcummings & @vzrjvy
2. Enterprise gamification http://bit.ly/ilCszu  by @webtechman
3. The purpose of gamification http://zite.to/eJFUkv  

Infographics

1. How Are Mac & PC People Different? [INFOGRAPHIC] http://bit.ly/fzwBgv
2. In the evolution of the mobile operating system, Apple was a late entry. INFOGRAPHIC http://bit.ly/hjUnq5
3. The 5 Best Free Tools For Making Slick #Infographics (by @ambermac) http://feedly.com/k/hRumnc
4. The Winners & Losers of Social Networking [INFOGRAPHIC] http://t.co/3o03kUj  http://yfrog.com/gzumxjrj   

iPad

1. iPad 2 gets glasses-free 3D display using front-facing camera for head tracking: http://aol.it/hUrqbo  
2. 5 Great iPad Social Networking Apps http://bit.ly/euQ8IL  
3. Ten innovative, unusual and just plain cool uses for the iPad: http://bit.ly/eWxH6L
4. News360 iPad App Review http://bit.ly/ezzUA0  new #iPad App gives you photo news in a unique format.
5. Revenge of the iPad? PC market tanks in first quarter: http://bit.ly/fhrTA8
6. Why the iPad Appeals to Older Users: They stick to basics http://bit.ly/g1m2KR  
7. iPad 2 vs. XOOM: sales comparison ugly for Motorola? http://bit.ly/gIvNZf  
8. Report: No Apple iPad 3 in 2011: http://bit.ly/i1mV7o
9. iOS 5 For iPad Features And News http://goo.gl/fb/hfpsZ
10. Ready or Not, iPad, Other Tablets are in the Enterprise http://ht.ly/4F0WP  
11. Sign of the times: iPad 2 heads to Toys R Us http://pulsene.ws/1kDEp
12. Essential iPad Apps For Network And System Admins | Your Network Toolkit http://t.co/uUbTTNw
13. The Best New Apple iPad Productivity Apps http://t.co/XREeJki  
14. Apple may outshine tablet rivals for years http://usat.ly/gUBhQI
15. Have an iPad? Get May edition of @wired iPad app free: http://wired.com/app
16. iPad for Business Round-Up: Tablets Cutting into PC Sales, Doctors Prefer iOS... http://zite.to/fMsLWR
17. One year after iPad: Is Adobe Flash still relevant? http://zite.to/iNtJ6z
18. iPad for Business Round-Up http://zite.to/ksyK4r

Job Search

1. How to Build Momentum in Your Job Search http://pulsene.ws/1ivMh
2. In transition? Great article about networking from HarvardBiz: http://s.hbr.org/h31Rzw  

Location Based Services

1. Promote Your Small Business Blog with the ShareThis Plugin http://is.gd/Ct3d3q
2. Why Location-Based Services Will be the Killer App of the 2012 Elections http://pulsene.ws/1tAs7  
3. Checking out of LBS http://t.co/ac9sTPF  by @peterkim
4. Foursquare in the Enterprise? The Two-Year Lag from Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0 http://zite.to/krqBaO  

Mobility

1. First Look @MapOmatic replaces your mobile map and shows where friends are: http://tinyurl.com/5wfktdx  
2. NYT: Augmented Reality Comes Closer to Reality http://nyti.ms/ikqQIQ
3. In case you missed it: FDA Issues Rules for Mobile Medical Devices http://bit.ly/f8r8BV
4. The 'post-PC era' might be closer than we think http://zite.to/hgjQxc  
5. Mobile Megatrends 2011 http://bit.ly/eIDyuK  
6. I'm getting more and more convinced that mobile will be the "tipping point" for #e20 adoption too http://goo.gl/Pcrio
7. Why we need the mobile, social, intranet... Mind Blowing Mobile Social Media Stats http://goo.gl/Pcrio
8. Employees Are Using Their Own Devices. Is Your Policy Up-to-Date? http://socl.ly/hhLjdY  
9. Square’s Payment Service About To Get A Huge Boost From Apple http://t.co/cocsmzY  swipe a Visa on your iPhone
10. Socialcast Mobile Feature Release – New Android App (beta) and iPhone Updates http://t.co/e2mVT6X
11. What Will the Smartphone Market Look Like in 2015? http://t.co/rP6eLPT
12. iPad and iPhone Really Taking Off In Enterprise http://t.co/SgYWpGD
13. Rumor: White iPhone 4 in June, iPhone 5 in Sept - Bloomberg http://t.co/un2Sozk
14. Now I just stumbled upon this gem of mobile resources from @ppk http://www.quirksmode.org/mobile/  

Other Stuff (unclassified)

1. April Fools 2011: The Big List http://tcrn.ch/hfkZ3e
2. Tech jobs boom like it's 1999 http://usat.ly/eDI5Gs  "Jobs plentiful in Silicon Valley"
3. Good advice in today's WSJ: http://on.wsj.com/e3oaRI 4 Questions CEO's should be asking about IT
4. Amazon, Love The Kindle Ads Idea, But The Right Price Is $99 http://bit.ly/fb2nPn
5. 18 Million WordPress Blogs Compromised In Attack http://rww.to/eU1aLS
6. the rest of the story to the "Jump The Shark" line, http://www.jumpedtheshark.co.uk/  
7. Hole in Plane Leads to Emergency Landing, Twitpic Shows Details http://tinyurl.com/3ubjkfq
8. Had a great briefing on semantic web. Starting to research on http://bit.ly/ehlxzR  & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSHALS
9. Curiosity piqued Royal Wedding lip readers decipher for the rest of us. http://bit.ly/jbYnKx
10. Royal wedding highlights: 5min video [Telegraph UK] http://bit.ly/lny5FQ  

Social Business / Social Media

1. Social business strategies that will take your business from the dark ages to the Renaissance http://bit.ly/9BAcrV
2. Oh, I could get lost here for hours: http://bit.ly/adHbI5  Google Social Circle
3. Social Networking Strategies for Finding More Work http://bit.ly/dHyVKI
4. [blog] social business summit london part 2 http://bit.ly/dXmVbH
5. The tweets are about to start for #sbs2011 Singapore. Read the London tweet archive for a preview: http://bit.ly/eh6YyD  
6. Read the tweet transcript from @dachisgroup #sbs2011 Singapore http://bit.ly/eiawsO
7. Serendipity Happens...insightful preso and post http://bit.ly/eK9pwU  by @anadatagirl
8. Why There Is No Facebook For The Enterprise http://bit.ly/eQEYV0
9. Summarizing Social Business in Asia from #sbs2011 http://bit.ly/fsPb3j
10. From @davegray: I'm open-sourcing all my Connected Company images under a Creative Commons license. Spread the word! http://bit.ly/fu1zji
11. 18 Social Networking Icons http://j.mp/e3lnuk  
12.  @CarlGriffith's #SBS2011 summit summary.  http://j.mp/esGiGN  
13. Social Business Design Cometh http://post.ly/1xsK6
14. Essential #socbiz stuff http://rww.to/dOiNTJ  
15. Authentication, representation, communication, personalization, reputation: 5 Pieces of Online Identity http://t.co/JFC2Z10
16. The flat organization is not a new idea...RWW post on #e20 #socbiz by @klintron http://t.co/nIoCuXR
17. "The 2.0 Adoption Council - Asia Pacific Briefing" May 10, Webinar http://t.co/UCg1iji
18. #sbs2011 reminder... there is a list of Summit presenter's Twitter accounts here http://t.co/XXyzfYT  
19. Why social business is different - Reusing stored collaboration http://zd.net/h5DDZ4  by @dhinchcliffe
20. Google: Larry Page Ties Employee Bonuses To Social Strategy http://zite.to/fdKIdR

Sunday Series

1. Sunday Series: "God Has Dwelt Well with Me" Click 4/10 message: http://bit.ly/9qjoaN  Or direct to mp3: http://bit.ly/kvYDTh  by @DavidGuzik
2. Sunday Series: "Blessed Is The Man..." Click the 02/13 message: http://bit.ly/agsqhz  or direct to mp3: http://bit.ly/dNP2rV
3. Sunday Series: "Living the Normal Christian Life" Click the 4/3 message: http://bit.ly/fAmPt4  or direct to mp3: http://bit.ly/f3Xgdh
4. Sunday Series: "Why Easter Matters" Click the Easter 2002 message: http://bit.ly/hQLCmq  Or direct to mp3: http://bit.ly/hQMy9l
5. Sunday Series: "Come Join the Dance" Click the 3/13 message: http://bit.ly/hwJfHh  Or direct to mp3: http://bit.ly/ecOHEU

Tablets

1. Admob: 43% of owners spend more time on their tablet than PC http://j.mp/dNlV00  http://yfrog.com/h2508rej
2. Tablet computers as seen from 1994 - http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2011/04/tablet-computers-as-seen-from-1994.html  
3. Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet with Honeycomb and an optional stylus to hit this summer | http://t.co/9q7rqQZ  

Tracking Your iPhone Location

1. Reading how to visualize your own iPhone tracking data. Requires OS X. http://bit.ly/hHYJyi  http://yfrog.com/h65nwnxj
2. Disabling location services won’t stop your iPhone from tracking your location http://dlvr.it/PdV3G
3. Here is the Windows version of iPhone Tracker. It works for me: http://huseyint.com/iPhoneTrackerWin/
4. Wall Street Journal take on the iPhone tracking issue: http://on.wsj.com/ePwOW1
5. Steve Jobs: Apple has "never transmitted" precise iPhone location to itself (WSJ) http://on.wsj.com/kTvzVL  "Will testify before Congress"
6. iPhone keeps record of everywhere you go http://t.co/i86jlg6  
7. Stalk Yourself: Use R to Analyze Your iPhone Location Data http://t.co/iRSSYh3
8. 3 Major Issues with the Latest iPhone Tracking “Discovery” http://t.co/YiNOX8f

Twitter

1. OK, so this give's some insight on the shuttering of tweet archiving services: http://bit.ly/f0n5ki  Twitter to make $$$ on APIs
2. Could Twitter Get “MySpaced”? http://bit.ly/f58Sao  
3. Netherlands passes Japan as most Twitter-active country in the world: http://bit.ly/hR6GNW  
4. 10 ways nonprofits should use Twitter http://bit.ly/kTbj3r
5. What Are Twitter Chats and Why Should You Care? http://bit.ly/llit8a
6. Have you seen Fizz? http://fizz.bloom.io/  It visualizes tweets in a way.
7. For Geeks—How to Capture Tweets in Real-time with Twitter's Streaming API http://oreil.ly/hLhBEt
8. Twitter Announces Fire Hose Marketplace: Up to 10k Keyword Filters for 30 Cents! by @marshallk http://t.co/0AJYRzA
9. London 2012 Olympics: it will be a Twitter Olympics – Telegraph Blogs http://t.co/Dxm2tSY 
10. TechCrunch report on Twitter vs. UberMedia battle brewing http://tcrn.ch/hA5tji  http://yfrog.com/gyjdshdj
11. Now I'm beginning to understand. I found my answers from Mr. Google http://www.thechasescene.com/the-usguys/

Tune In to the Social Web

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I often find myself describing the "social web" to my friends.  Many are interested and wonder what I mean.  I go on to describe it with a simple analogy.

The social web is like an engaging radio station, but imagine you have never purchased a radio.  The signals are moving around, there is great music, stimulating talk, and even some good educational content.  Until you get a radio and tune to the station, you will have no idea such interesting and engaging content is out there.  Buy that radio, tune in and presto! You discover a whole world of knowledge and conversation out there that had been passing you by.

The social web is much like that.  Through the combination of tweets and blog posts, there are exciting conversations taking place.  Most likely, you would really get value if only you knew they were taking place, listened in, and were confident in how to add your voice.

I was with a friend the other day who is searching for an high level business development position as a result of the, all to common, "corporate restructuring" of this day.   He is doing all the right things, making phone calls, attending networking events, and polishing up his resume, but he wanted to talk with me about twitter.  How would he get started and what should he do?  I gave him a short but simple tutorial, starting with my radio station analogy.  You see, he wants to join into the conversation about opportunities within his industry.  He wants to plug into the inside story on developing startups in his field and learn of trends and opportunities out in the market.  He just needed to get familiar with the new medium.

I took him through the basics:  get a nicely cropped photo for Twitter, turn off the protected tweets, start following a few interesting people.  I even told him to look for hash tags in his industry and then seek out and follow those interesting people tweeting with those tags. I think he is well on his way to get in on the conversation.

I have seen this repeated many times.  It is rewarding to bring others into the conversation and help them "tune their radios" to the right stations.  There is the blogging Mom who is now joining the conversation, the budding theologian sharing his thoughts through blog posts and tweets, and the computer network professional who is building his business through a reputation for good work ethic amplified by engaging blog posts and tweets.

You don't need a fancy website, a custom domain name, or even Facebook to do this.  You just need to dive into the deep end of the social web, join into the tweet stream, and maybe even blog a bit.  There is a big world out there with hundreds of millions of interesting people.  Why don't you just "tune your radio" to the right station and then join us in the social web.

Next thought...Building your personal brand on the social web.  Stay tuned.

The Upside Down Enterprise Portal

TweetA new type of “citizen editor” is emerging, becoming a trusted source of curated content on the web.

I’m a curator of news. Like many people, I use twitter to gather the latest in technology opinions and developments. My particular interest is Social Business and Mobile gadgetry. Other people follow photography, sports, science or one of any variety of focused niche topics out on the web.

When we find something interesting, we retweet (RT) it to our Twitter followers or share it with our Facebook friends. Sometimes we send it as is, other times we add a commentary and pass it on. Most of the time, we are tweeting links (URLs) to other content. We are sending “pointers,” so to speak, to content that we find interesting on the web. Over time, we gather a following and become a valuable editor or curator of the news. Some turn it into a business like Mashable or Engadget. Others just do it as a hobby and use their “passion” to build relationships with like minded people or those wanting to learn more about that particular subject.

This model of curating information has turned the traditional media on its head. Gone are the days when a few powerful editors of the major print and television news outlets decide what the world should know. Do you remember the days before CNN when just three broadcast networks decided what to share with the public every night on the evening news? Times are certainly different now with many varying outlets to source our information. The real value comes when our “social network” shares what they feel is relevant. A new type of “citizen editor” is emerging, becoming a trusted source of curated content on the web.

On a typical day, I will monitor twitter feeds early and late in the day to catch up on the events, attitudes, and happenings. I have become efficient with the RT (retweet) as a means to share what I am learning. In fact this innate desire to share is driving the explosive growth of the social web.

Twitter has the “ReTweet”, Facebook has the “Like”, and Google just recently announced the “+1”. In fact if you look around, the ability to share is everywhere on the social web. Aging systems have the "email only" share choice, but modern software is being fitted with increasingly sophisticated share mechanisms that make it easy to share relevant content with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, and a host of other groups.

On my iPad, applications like Zite, Pulse, and even Murdoch's The Daily all build in native functionality to share content that the reader finds interesting. YouTube even does it, but still ignores the "tweet this" option. It really is a new way to promote content and get the word out, taking advantage of the clout and credibility of friends or colleagues to share content that they find interesting within their social circle. Content goes "viral" quickly and takes on a life of its own when friends share it with friends.

So, where am I going with this? I had the "Aha!" moment recently as I was at the office reading news stories from the corporate intranet. I found a great story and wanted to share it with my corporate colleagues (aka followers). The familiar share button I always find on the public web was missing. Why don't we build this share capability into today’s enterprise portal? This new way of the emerging “citizen editor” can be applied to the corporate intranet as a means to share content relevant to the employee masses. It can be done much more effectively than the old Network News model when Corporate Communications comes up with slick stories and pushes it on all the employees.

This “secret sauce” of the modern intranet embraces the same concept. Abandon the old push model and embrace the “citizen editor” or “employee curator” concept as a means to share news and make stories and messages go viral in your company. Engagement goes up, good ideas spread, and information is quickly shared within a healthy collaborative culture.

Do you like the idea? Below is a straw man proposal to consider as you go through the next redesign of your corporate intranet.

Tomorrow's Social Intranet environment should have the following basic building blocks:

• Self Service Employee profile with IM presence
• Microblogging function (See Rawn Shah's Forbes post)
• Ability to follow / friend a colleague
• Corporate and user generated news feeds / articles
• Blogging platform
• Wiki platform (for collaborative authoring)

To make it truly social, add these advanced sharing (curation) abilities:

• Share ideas (tweets) internally with followers / colleagues / or the entire company
• Tweets should include any content on the intranet or internet
• Share button built into all content pages
• Metrics to track number of shares for each piece of content
• Most popular content is automatically featured on the portal home page

To make this content truly accessible it should be available on various form factors:

• Desktop / laptop access for all functions
• VPN remote access for all functions
• Mobile access on all popular platforms (Android, iOS, RIM, …) for limited functions such as news, microblogging, email, calendar, alerts
• Mobile access on employee’s personal devices

Finally along with the technology, there needs to be an equal or greater effort paid to the cultural change needed for a culture of collaboration, trust, authenticity, and transparency.

We are a few years into a revolution of content sharing and creation on the social web. It is only a matter of time before employees demand the same functionality within their corporate intranets. The smart communications officer will see the future being played out on the social web and begin to implement it within the enterprise today.

What do you think? Do you have examples where forward thinking enterprises are doing this already? Do you agree that this is the future? Or do you have another view. Please add your view in the comments below or in your tweets, shares and +1s.

Twitter, The Activity Stream of the Social Web

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I've been on Twitter almost 2 years now and have some observations. I love the transparency and the "Work Out Loud" attitude it promotes. It truly is the nervous system of the Social Web.

Let me mention some basics first and then dig into it a little on how I think this simple tool is revolutionizing interactions on the web. First of all the basics:

• A tweet is a 140 character statement that is sent to followers.
• A retweet (RT) is when a follower finds that interesting and sends it on to his/her followers
• A hashtag (#E20 for example) is a user generated tag that helps identify a topic in the tweet.
• One can search on a hashtag to find all recent tweets on a particular topic.
• When you first sign up to twitter, you have no followers, and you follow no one...boring
• In time, a new tweeter begins to follow interesting people and others begin to find the tweeter interesting and follow him/her.
• Once you get to a critical mass (50 or so followers and following you) it starts to get interesting
• A direct message (DM) is a private tweet delivered to one person
• A @message is a semi-private tweet that is delivered to that one person, but visible only to all who follow both of you that are conversing. You compose the message by beginning with @ followed by the recepient's twitter name.
• A tweeter's full tweet stream (except for DMs) is available for public viewing from the tweeter's profile.
• Many people use twitter.com for their tweet platform, but most use some other twitter "client" or program on their desktop, laptop, or mobile device. There are dozens of good twitter clients available for free.
• Tweets can contain a link to interesting content. Most often the URL is shortened by an automated URL shortener (remember, we are working with just 140 characters here)

The beauty of Twitter is the simplicity. When you put this all together, you have a constant ebb and flow of conversation. The conversations create community. Communities create relationships, and Relationships create lasting value. Let me give you some examples.

The transparency of twitter allows one to "overhear" a conversation. When two people you follow are messaging each other, you can monitor the conversation in your main twitter stream. It's interesting, you learn that a relationship exists just by witnessing the tweets.

Sometimes it's like "high school", you can see who is hanging with the "cool people". For example if there is a "rock star" on a particular subject (call him Jerry) and I see he and a good friend of mine (call him John) are having a back and forth conversation, I can watch and say "Hey, I didn't know John knew Jerry that well". John must be a "rock star" too. My opinion of John is elevated and I suddenly see him in a different light.

The openness of the platform makes it easy to join the conversation. Simply enter you thoughts with the twitter IDs of John and Jerry at the beginning and just like that, you are in the conversation as well. I think that is one of the great appeals of twitter, the ability to have meaningful converations and begin meaningful relationships with just a set of short messages.

Another great thing is the ability to join in and stay out at your convenience. Since the tweets are all captured, you can pick up the conversation later and not miss a thing. However, with the steady stream of tweets, many are missed. That's alright. If someone wants to catch your attention, they just need to enter your twitter name into a point for you and it shows in your @mentions stream.

Finally, there is nothing like the "now" effect of twitter. Again, a "rock star" may be on line tweeting and if you reply immediately, it is likely he or she will see it before it gets lost in the long stream of tweets from other fans. There is nothing else like the accessibility of those tweeting. Generally if you see a new tweet, you can bet they are online right now and reading what comes their way. Yet another way to cultivate the conversation and begin to build a relationship.

I wonder what you have observed in the subtlety of the interactions and relationships you have built in Twitter. Tweet me @jimworth or add your comments below.

Coming to Grips with a Social Way of Working

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Over the past years, I've come out of my shell. Having been in IT and also online for many years (CompuServe and before), I've come to really embrace my online activities and a new way of working and interacting with peers, colleagues, and friends.

I tweeted about it recently referencing this HBR blog post: 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life.

(note: originally posted July 16, 2010, and refreshed Dec 4, 2010)

It's true, my online life and my off line life are merging and the online aspect makes my off line aspect more fulfilling. Enough of that "navel gazing", lets talk about what has changed in my daily activities.

Mobile is the "Tipping Point"
First of all, I do everything on my iPhone or iPad. I was a blackberry user for many years and watched my social circle expand greatly when I switched to the iPhone 3Gs about 14 months ago. With a powerful mobile device, the 10 items listed below can be done very frequently throughout the day. Without a "smartphone", you're limited to finding time to fire up a computer on a wired LAN connection or locating a wifi hot spot and laptop to engage in social media. It's just too much trouble.

News is Targeted to me
1. Twitter is my central information source. I've stopped watching local and national news. I've stopped reading newspapers. Occasionally, I read the local page in my local paper, but other than that, most everything I see, I've already seen in twitter. I'm selective who I follow and look for people who have something to say that I find interesting and engaging.
2. I get my weather from my iPhone / iPad Weather Bug app. Often, I don't even check the thermometer outside when I wake up. I just check the Weather Bug app on my iPhone for the current temp and forecast.

Communities are "Where it's at"
3. I use Socialcast and Yammer all the time for several important communities. At work, it's part of a large network of 4000+ employees all around the world. Within a peer group (20Adoption Council) Socialcast is the platform for very active conversation throughout the day with others who think like me all over the world. Google Groups and Yahoo Groups along with a couple of private email lists still feel like communities, but they are losing importance.

Email is much less important
4. I use gmail for my personal mail and make a point to keep it completely separate from my company mail. My day job mailbox is squeaky clean with only company business. Anything personal goes to gmail.
5. Most of my gmail is made up of lingering e-newsletters and notifications of what is happening on my social sites. Very little actual 1:1 communication happens there any more. When it does, I often miss it
6. I text a lot, but still keep it within my current 200 message monthly limit

Professional and Personal Networking
7. I make a point to connect with nearly every professional I meet on Linked In. I started there about 4 years ago and have seen that network recently exceed 850 connections.
8. Facebook is great and I use it regularly to keep up with non professional contacts (family, friends, people who my family would join for dinner, you get it). I keep that very personal and generally closed. I have about 100 "friends" there, and stay away from the high school reunion crowd. That was a long time ago...Why would I want to share my personal life with them now?

Location Based Enjoyment
9. I enjoy experimenting with Foursquare and Gowalla right now, but limit my "friends" there to people I'm comfortable with knowing my whereabouts.

Central Document storage with Crowd based Authoring
10. I've been using Google Groups, Google Docs, and Yahoo Groups for some time now for controlled online sharing. These are good, but I see them being replaced by crowd friendly tools. I'm really liking my recent experience with a consumer wiki tool from PBWorks. I have found it very useful for crowdsourcing links. See what I mean at my E20 Wiki Workspace.

There you have the basics. The reality is most of my communication throughout the day is on my iPhone or iPad through Twitter, Socialcast, gmail, Foursquare and Facebook. I check into my corporate email now on my iPad, but am not tied to it like I am my personal feeds. I find I am more and more comfortable sharing my thoughts and ideas with trusted colleagues. This steady stream of information can be intimidating, but I've come to a point where it's OK to miss something even if it was a message addressed directly to me. If it is important, it will come again.

Willing to Foot My Own Technology Bill
It may go unsaid, but I'll say it. My personal technology and productivity tools are much more powerful and flexible than those provided by my corporate employer (or any corporate employer for that matter). I don't mind. In fact I prefer it that way. I like the flexibility and much prefer using my own tools just like I enjoy driving my own car and dressing in my own clothes when I come to work.

What do you think? Does this resonate with you? Please share this post (RT) and add your comments below.

JimWorth's List of Cool Tweets

I've been tweeting for about a month now. It's great to keep up with friends, follow trends, and generally stay engaged with a subset of my network.

They are all great, or I would not be following them. But a few of them stand out and make my list of Cool Tweets.

@jordanayan - email newsletter provider to the stars
@nealwiser - maniac and social networker
@aaron116 - insightful social networking
@DanielEndy - scary brilliant
@ericjsilva - brilliant and witty - but silent for months :-(
@salesleadertodd - more energy than a room full of toddlers
@csrollyson - linked in guru, midwest zone
@edcallahan - linked in guru, eastern zone
@wilreynolds - SEO guru, just short of the energy level of todd

2nd wave added 5/4/09
@kevinkruse - Health 2.0 research and analysis
@ChiefBeaker - keeping up with the Pharma industry
@timoreilly - Coined the term Web 2.0 - lots of updates / insight