Social – Page 9 – ɔimoɈɒ

Ghost (aka The Context Engine)

In January 2007, I wrote about what I wanted out of software and mobile devices. I called it my Ghost My Ghost has communication to the core. It reflects my status and copies that to all of my applications. When Iâ€™m busy, I set it to BUSY and it handles all of my email, voicemail … Continue reading “Ghost (aka The Context Engine)”

In January 2007, I wrote about what I wanted out of software and mobile devices. I called it my Ghost

My Ghost has communication to the core. It reflects my status and copies that to all of my applications. When Iâ€™m busy, I set it to BUSY and it handles all of my email, voicemail and instant messages. When I am available it allows them to come through. When talking on the phone, it changes my status to â€œon the phoneâ€ and when Iâ€™m busy playing â€œJet Set Willy for GHOSTâ€, it rightfully changes my status to â€œIn a meetingâ€. When Iâ€™m available, I want it to retrieve my GPS co-ordinates and use them as a tag so that my buddies and colleagues can see where I am. For when Iâ€™m somewhere I shouldnâ€™t be, I want to be able to switch that off too

Of course, a few days later Apple announced the iPhone, which began to seem relatively prescient. It would take another 18 months for iPhone to have GPS or third party software which would enable all of this, but I can see it on the horizon for the first time.

Half a year ago, Chris Brogan wrote some science fiction:

Chrisâ€™s context engine has 3 favorite orders for this particular coffeeshop chain. He clicks the second option on his phone, and waits to collect it, making smalltalk with the server. Meanwhile, the context engine has noticed that 14 friends within 5 minutes distance of the coffeeshop have revealed status and location information favorable for a visit. The engine offers up a â€œmeetupâ€ option, with checkboxes next to each personâ€™s name. Chris selects 3 of the 5 and invites them by for coffee and a chat.

When you see demos like Loopt which was on stage at WWDC coming to iPhone soon, you realise how close to the real world this all is.

I need software that will allow me to manage my attention, retain my memory, enhance my judgement:

More than just minding my eBay (I don’t use eBay) but telling me when friends are nearby and when their status isn’t set to ‘Do Not Disturb’, reminding me at opportune times (like when I’m in town or at a mall) that I need to buy a birthday present for someone, allowing me to set thresholds which are contextual (like telling me that I’m “twenty minutes at 30 mph” away from the next meeting and I really should get my skates on.)

We have persistent network links, we have GPS, we have social networks, we have electronic funds transfer and we have location-based mashups of all of this. Everyone is throwing in their little bits and it absolutely gobsmacks me that G A M Y haven’t jumped on this. Especially Yahoo.

We do have to consider the security and privacy aspects:

Some people don’t want this. Yeah, well, don’t turn it on. It’s a bit like complaining about privacy breaches on FaceBook. If you’re worried at all about your privacy, don’t put your data in there because your friends are the liability here and will likely give out all sorts of personal information.

I’m not worried about services which show my location to friends because, if they’re on my friends list then I don’t mind them knowing and as long as I’m where I’m meant to be, what’s the problem?

As for security, again – don’t use the service if you’re nervous about your security being compromised. Don’t put your birthday, the names of your kids and dog and other personal information on the net if you’re unsure about the safety, that’s just asking to have your identity compromised.

Now, we just need someone to build it.

Workplaces

I’ve never made secret my love of the concepts of ‘Going Bedouin’ or ‘Co-Working’. The difference between them is simple. Going Bedouin The principle of having your entire business on your back. Today you work in a coffee shop on Royal Avenue, tomorrow a coffee shop in Bradbury Place. And with 3G USB doohickeys being … Continue reading “Workplaces”

I’ve never made secret my love of the concepts of ‘Going Bedouin’ or ‘Co-Working’.

The difference between them is simple.

Going Bedouin

The principle of having your entire business on your back. Today you work in a coffee shop on Royal Avenue, tomorrow a coffee shop in Bradbury Place. And with 3G USB doohickeys being so cheap these days it seems that you don’t even need to find a WiFi-enabled cafe. Going Bedouin is going to be best for someone who has a relatively paper-free business due to the lack of printing facilities and they’d also be likely to stock up on extra batteries just in case their workplace of the day doesn’t have any convenient power points. Your expenses are going to be the amount of food and beverages that the coffee shop owner will expect you to buy in order to retain your seat. Some Bedouin workers have scorned the idea of ‘paying your way’ but it is an important part of the economy. If you don’t like it, shack up in a corner of the bus station or in another public space.

Co-Working

For the most part, this is about hiring a desk in a shared space. This is different to hiring a serviced office and sitting hidden in there knowing that the guy in the next office is working on something different. Shared spaces are all about getting the benefits of being in a busy office with less of the negatives. Candidates for co-working tend to be social people, people not irritated by the presence of others and people who might have worked for a big company before and missed the interaction at the water cooler or the photocopier when they went independent. Most co-workers will only use the shared space part-time due to other pressures in their lives. The Co-Work space should therefore be something of a refuge and it’s not conducive to have stressed-out, under-pressure individuals in your space (unless watching someone slowly implode really relaxes you). Co-Working is about relationships more than anything.

Excellence in workspace

An important point in changing your workstyle to add in Bedouin working or Co-Working is to make sure it provides an improvement.

The space you choose should fit in with the pattern of how you want to work. If you like working early in the morning or late at night, you’ll need to consider this (most half decent cafes in Belfast seem to close at 6). Consider your transport routes and, more importantly, your footwear. Consider that you may need to bring a coat of some sort even when the weather seems fine (and a warm sweater if you’re in Ireland).

For a Co-Working space, look at the other co-workers and make an attempt to be friends with them. Is the space tidy or well-kept? Do they have insurance? Or Alarm systems? What’s to stop someone walking in off the street? Do you feel comfortable leaving your equipment and content unattended? Do they have a lockup for your stuff when you’re out of the office? What ‘virtual office’ facilities do they have? Fax? Telephone? Receptionist? Do they have a kitchen? What about a breakout area for chat? Do the other co-workers have any odious habits? Does it smell fresh? Are the windows open? Is the carpet clean?

And when it’s restroom time – do you pack up your mobile office into your bag and disappear into the restroom to emerge later smelling faintly of cheap liquid soap? Do you leave it all out and hope that someone will look after your stuff?

Co-Working is all about relationships – do you trust these people?

Prerequisites

The first and most important element in considering Bedouin or CoWorking plans is whether or not you can make money – some businesses lend themselves naturally, while some do not. Services like Twitter give you a skewed perspective of work because there’s little visibility of time zones, business models and segregation. While you’re making your decisions, you can see that some people are re-installing their gaming machines or going for a walk, sitting in a coffee house drinking Americanos, giving talks or drumming in the park. You don’t see the work that they do because you’re always being updated by someone.

Another element that people don’t consider is outsourcing work that doesn’t bring direct value. Hire an accountant. Make sure your mail host and file server host are reliable. Make sure you have a reliable communications network with others in your team (if you are part of a team) because your team will need that interaction with you.

Ask yourself why you want to change your workstyle. Coffee is cheaper at home. Peace and quiet probably more achievable (unless there are kids involved). Talk through it with your partner at home as they may resent you changing from being a teleworker-at-home to a teleworker-in-cafe.

If you’re doing it, embrace it. Make the most of it and don’t be a wallflower.

Next Steps

I plan to talk more about possibilities in Co-Working over the next few days. I don’t know how much of my vision concurs with the vision of the individuals who make up the Co-Working Belfast group because I have some very specific ideas of what I want to see. I still have this business plan for ‘the new workspace’ which I wrote in 2006 and I think it deserves another crack of the whip.

BarCamp Belfast 08 mini review

Things that interested me most… Emma Persky’s Feature Recognition. Although challenged by being opposite Brian O’Neill’s freelancer talk (and let’s face it, what geek doesn’t dream of sticking it to the man and going ronin!). Best idea – move it to another time slot and that really worked I think. I thoroughly enjoyed it and … Continue reading “BarCamp Belfast 08 mini review”

Things that interested me most…

Emma Persky’s Feature Recognition. Although challenged by being opposite Brian O’Neill’s freelancer talk (and let’s face it, what geek doesn’t dream of sticking it to the man and going ronin!). Best idea – move it to another time slot and that really worked I think. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it gave me ideas for five, six, seven more applications that I don’t have the skill (yet) or the resources to build (again, yet). The possibilities with pattern recognition are fascinating and though this technology has been studied for a while, it takes a good demo to move it from ‘yeah, sure’ to ‘oh, that’s cool’. Good job Emma!

Tracy Dempseys Life Wheel/Spokes demo – I’d not really thought about my priorities that way. I have therefore resolved to work on the areas most deficient (quality time with my kids, general day to day job satisfaction) and not worry about the areas I’m happy with (how current I am with technology etc, money). The interesting thing is not thinking about how much effort you put into these things but how happy you are with the results. For those areas where I want more – I’m going to work on them with the theory that you get out what you put in. It’s funny, I’ve been results oriented (and passionate and loudmouthed about achieving them) for years in my ‘professional’ life.

Gerard McBreen’s Digital Circle. I wasn’t interested in the Adobe FLEX/AIR stuff anywhere near as much but Digital Circle is like a taster-for-10 of some ideas I’ve had for years (and the reason I tried to start Infurious). I’d still like Infurious to be a ‘publisher’ for a small group of developers but don’t know how to approach it just yet. I need to think on that but would encourage anyone creating any sort of digital content (software, eBook, movies, animations) to join Digital Circle.

And the rest?
All of the others were good though not especially relevant to me (Ruby scales? Whoodathunkit?) and next time round I’d like to hear Richard’s presentation on webcasting. Nick’s talk on the New Music Economy was an alternative path to my promotion of ‘1000 fans’ but as he said on the day – there isn’t just ‘one way’. As an homage to the existing model of music economy, I bought ‘Feel Good Lost’, by Broken Social Scene last night from iTunes after a short listen to a track during BarCamp. I’ve not bought much new music recently so that was nice.

Best Bits– conversations in the corridors and between talks – finding out how people got into their line of work, why they made their choices and also discovering some pleasant feedback on things I’ve done (or could be about to release). I do need to talk to Will King about his OpenGeo data but that can wait for a little bit. Mix that in with a little WiMax and you’ve got a spicy meatball!

Worst Bits – the WiFi disaster. Something was definitely rotten in Kislev. I’m blogging about this concurrently but it flummoxed me and Paul Dundas and in the end to supply two rooms with intermittent WiFi, we ended up having to use three infrastructure access points and one ad-hoc access point. The latter was my laptop which effectively kept me from vegging out and using it which was probably a good thing.

Next steps?

OCC BBQ is on the 16th July down in Terryglass, County Tipperary (about 200 miles away from where I’m sitting as I type this). I’m driving down and will be sorting out some accommodation in the next day or so. Current thinking is to trip down on Tuesday afternoon (arriving before closing time at the pub), enjoy the BBQ throughout the Wednesday and then trip back on the Friday. That would mean two nights accommodation though.

I also want to continue that chat with Andy McMillan, Andrew Gribben and Matt Keenan about Co-working that we started right at the end when I was packing up. David Rice should also be involved but only if he can find a ‘first name twin’ like the rest of us. I’m joking, David. Mostly.

There was also some talk of doing another ‘event’ in six months? Maybe a TechLudd? (Go on, call it TechNorn or something). I’m up for helping get this going – I’d wanted to start an ‘Expo’ for tech companies for years!

Fabulous stuff today. My only regret was that I didn’t talk! I’m going to remedy that at OCC BBQ by the way as well as talking to some interesting people I’ve wanted to chat with for ages.

MySpace Internet Predator indicted

ENN.ie with the news: “A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Lori Drew, from Missouri, for her alleged role in the hoax on the social network against her 13 year-old neighbour Megan Meier who committed suicide. Drew allegedly helped create a MySpace account with a false identity to contact Meier, who thought she was … Continue reading “MySpace Internet Predator indicted”

ENN.ie with the news:

“A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Lori Drew, from Missouri, for her alleged role in the hoax on the social network against her 13 year-old neighbour Megan Meier who committed suicide. Drew allegedly helped create a MySpace account with a false identity to contact Meier, who thought she was chatting with a 16 year-old boy named Josh Evans. In reality Evans did not exist. Meier hanged herself at her home in October 2006 after receiving hostile messages from the Josh Evans account, including one stating the world would be better off without her. Drew faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
…
“Any adult who uses the internet or a social gathering website to bully or harass another person, particularly a young teenage girl, needs to realise that their actions can have serious consequences,” said O’Brien.”

I was horrified when I read the account around the time it happened. This woman should be treated like any other Internet Predator – as if keeping 13 year old girls away from male internet predators who would molest them wasn’t enough of a challenge, we have the mothers of other children convincing your child to kill him/herself?

If she’d gotten away with this, can you imagine what sort of horrors she could wreak in the future? What sort of person lords power over teenagers like this (other than teachers, parents and celebrities).

It’s a matter of intent. She intended to cause Megan Meier distress and she should pay for it.

Co-Working

Andy recently posted that his efforts to build Co-Working Belfast have been bearing fruit as he gets QUB and Belfast City Council on board. For my part, I’ve pledged that Mac-Sys will buy a desk every month and put some loaner kit down there as well to foster mobile types into using it. Co-Working Ireland … Continue reading “Co-Working”

Co-Working Ireland started over a year ago and I was invited to blog about it. I wrote a few articles there

The Closed Door
Working anywhere you pitch a tent.
Coffee shops: spacial logistics

but not long after I changed jobs (long story) and being office based I’ve not really had the time or opportunity to blog more about it on coworking.ie though I have managed to put some stuff together here in my Bedouin and Co-Working categories.

I’ve got an article in the making for coworking.ie, a year after my last one. Woo-and-hoo!

Municipal WiFi failing again. Try FON.

I got this Businessweek link from DaringFireball this morning. “A few weeks after announcing it will shut down its municipal wireless network in New Orleans, EarthLink Inc. said Tuesday that it has notified its Wi-Fi customers in Philadelphia that it is terminating that network, too.” This is what happens when ideas are put out there … Continue reading “Municipal WiFi failing again. Try FON.”

I got this Businessweek link from DaringFireball this morning.

“A few weeks after announcing it will shut down its municipal wireless network in New Orleans, EarthLink Inc. said Tuesday that it has notified its Wi-Fi customers in Philadelphia that it is terminating that network, too.”

This is what happens when ideas are put out there without a plan.

I’m putting my faith in FON.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get free/cheap Internet access for my iPhone when I’m travelling around the Baltic capitals in August and with BT’s data roaming charges of Â£7.50 a megabyte (about $15 – which is 1.5 cents per kilobyte), there has to be another way.

Have FON, will Travel

Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki are covered in FON points. St Petersburg, Talinn and Warnemunde much less so. MUCH less so. A bit like Belfast, Bangor and everywhere else in Northern Ireland. But the potential to be able to access WiFi points while travelling is simply too strong.

I’ve never seen a FON WiFi signal when I’ve been out and about so I reckon I should be a bit pro-active and do something about that considering that there seems to be no-one else working on it for Belfast and I don’t have the time!

So, this morning I bought two FON routers and I’m putting one in the house. Not sure where the second should go.

Related posts:

Going Bedouin

Co-Working

Excellence in workspace

Prerequisites

Next Steps

Related posts:

Next steps?

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: