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Re: 19 Things That Make Moving Less Miserable

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 20:34:36 -0000

Buy and use a personal to do list manager that synchs across your phone, tablet, and desktop

Moving is an endless sequence of things to do, people to call, questions to ask and answer. Find a personal to do list manager that makes it easy to add or look up any to do item any time or place: in the store; on the phone with movers, landlord, or utilities; when you wake up in at 3am with a chilling vision of something you might forget to do. Make sure it works well and synchs across all of your devices.

Choose one with great support for lists, due dates, quick check boxes, notes you can write with links and phone numbers that you can click to dial.

I set up two master projects called “Move from X” (containing all to do lists relating to where I was moving from) and “Move to Y” and created over 50 lists and hundreds of checklist items.

I like ‘Things’ from Cultured Code https://culturedcode.com/th...

Re: Wherefore art thou Macintosh?

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 14:35:12 -0000

This is an excellent essay! A point I'd like your opinion on:

"The management thus has to focus on how to make the keyboard/trackpad interface better while still saying and believing that the future is touch."

I'd rather say the future is touch and voice - working together. This will require conversational interfaces - spoken or written - that are far better at handling context, the give and take of anaphoric reference, and understanding of intent.

One problem with voice is looking like a fool and losing privacy while talking to your invisible aide. I guess we could either

* Get used to wearing Iron Man helmets - not

* Get much better at understanding subvocalization. I thought there was some promising work on understanding silent speech years ago - or maybe it was science fiction.

* In the short term, I don't know why Apple doesn't offer a straightforward way to converse with Siri using the Mac's keyboard (maybe I'm missing something). Seems simple and natural.

Re: Archillect [85482]

Greg Lloyd — Sun, 04 Sep 2016 17:51:36 -0000

De Tomaso Mangusta Legacy Concept by Maxime de Keiser (2011): http://luxatic.com/de-tomas...

Re: Advertising Cannot Maintain the Internet. Here’s the “Secret Sauce” Solution.

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 12 May 2016 11:47:19 -0000

For completeness, it's good to recognize Ted Nelson as the originator of the micropayment model - in the mid 1960's - along with the word "hypertext" and one of its earliest conceptual and practical models. Ted has many books, articles and YouTube videos on hypertext, transclusion, and micropayment. Here's a Nelson quote from transcopyright.org.

"I'd like to put the Micro back in micropayment, and bring back the rest of the idea.

First, I must clarify one issue. The way Isaacson phrases it, I thought of hypertext in 1960 just in order to make micropayment possible: "Hypertext — an embedded Web link that refers you to another page or site — had been invented by Ted Nelson in the early 1960s with the goal of enabling micropayments for content."

This has it inside-out. I came up with the idea of micropayment to make hypertext possible. (Note that I coined both these words, hypertext and micropayment.) But the hypertext I envisioned was very different from what we see now. In 1960 there was no such thing as an "embedded Web link", since there was no Web, and my designs were very different.

Now, some people say the World Wide Web was my idea, but I make no such claim. My idea was better...

Should the unit of sale be the paragraph? No. Paragraphs come in very different sizes. The sentence? Ditto.

Should the unit of sale be some fixed number of characters, like a hundred or a thousand? No again. There is no need to fix any arbitrary unit.

Let me propose a simpler and more sweeping idea. Sell content by the arbitrary piece-- charging for whatever length of portion the user sends for. (Fully analyzed, this actually means selling by the character.)

Is this crazy? It is no more difficult than selling other units, and solves a number of problems.

Here's how it should work. [ see http://transcopyright.org/h... ]

The deep document structures I propose, and their different linkages, views and payment, have been prevented by the present methods of the World Wide Web, based on its viewer standard-- called the Web browser, based on computer traditions. I've argued about this with Tim Berners-Lee (whom I like and respect), but he is locked to his traditions. He created the original Web simplification of hypertext and now controls the Web through the browser standard. It will not change.

However, recently there have been breakthroughs in viewing methods that bypass the Web rules-- YouTube, and the view for veiled content offered by Amazon and Google. These work in the Web frame but outside the conventional Web page. This may be the best approach to finally getting serious documents. It makes the system "shovel-ready", in today's fashionable term.

Progress involves back-and-forward steps. Old thinking often takes a while to come alive in new minds. Back to the future."

From Ted Nelson's remarks http://transcopyright.org/h... circa 2008

See Walter Isaacson's 2008 UC Riverside talk, "A Bold, Old Idea to Save Journalism"
http://www.aspeninstitute.o...

And Isaacson's 2008 Time article "How to Save Your Newspaper" referenced by Nelson
http://time.com/3270666/how...
Read the Time article if you're a subscriber or willing to pay $2.99/month for the privilege ;-)

Re: Latin Words and Phrases Every Man Should Know | The Art of Manliness

Greg Lloyd — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 07:59:13 -0000

Ceteris paribus "with other things the same" or "other things being equal or held constant"

Re: How the Camera Doomed Google Glass

Greg Lloyd — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 04:59:33 -0000

Thanks!

L. Rhodes (@Upstreamism) 1/15/15, 6:23 PM
Hot take at the moment is that the camera doomed Glass, & that's true, but it's also what made it appealing as a consumer product.

Greg Lloyd (@roundtrip) 1/15/15, 6:32 PM
.@Upstreamism “what made it appealing as a consumer product” if you’re wearing Glass, not the person caught on camera…

L. Rhodes (@Upstreamism) 1/15/15, 6:41 PM
@roundtrip Exactly.

Greg Lloyd (@roundtrip) 1/15/15, 6:46 PM
@Upstreamism Not the same as Open Carry, but shares an asymmetric appeal.

Re: How the Camera Doomed Google Glass

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:21:07 -0000

I agree that the camera (rightly) sealed Glass's fate.

The issue for me isn't looking nerdy, but a ham handed or cynical attempt by Google to redefine social norms of what's acceptable behavior for conversation: shared by mutual consent but not recorded. And a social norm for privacy: overheard by others within the sound of your voice when in a public place, otherwise private; casually (or accidently) overheard, not recorded for potential misuse.

I object to the notion that pointing a camera in someone's face with a permanent record potentially going to someone's Cloud is socially acceptable behavior.

I don't always want people to have to assume they're always speaking on the record without consent, with access to that permanent, sharable audio and video record controlled by friends, government, or Google's drive to mine and monetize the record.

Yes, and I've heard all the arguments that "everyone has cell phones" (you would object if folk always pointed them at you), "you can see if the screen is lit" (not true), "sneakier and smaller tech exists" (yes, used by spies, sociopaths and perverts, not your friends), etc.

Google was aiming for mass market social acceptance, and I'm glad they lost. The net result is I trust Google's judgement and motives less than before Glass rolled out.

Re: Little Pork Chop coming back

Greg Lloyd — Sun, 04 Jan 2015 12:25:06 -0000

Please whitelist https://twitter.com/roundtrip Thanks!

Re: Enterprise 2.0, Finally?

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 17:43:26 -0000

Andrew -- As we've discussed in the past, I don't believe there's a specific 'Are we there yet?' for Enterprise 2.0.

The lessons I learned from your excellent book and research are still relevant today. Enterprise 2.0 technology enables but does not guarantee organizational change. Some organizational change is invented and purposeful, some is serendipitous and emergent.

The effect of new technology on an enterprise is too often like picking up and shaking a sleepy beehive.

We've come a long way towards the vision that software and devices used inside a company will become more like software, Web services and mobile devices people use at home. Enterprise software and services need to meet the same expectations for clarity, any time / any where access, and easy of use that people expect at home, which shakes markets as well as assumptions. Tracking the relationship of Apple IBM from Nov 2009 through Nov 2014 (and their market cap) is an instructive example.

As Peter Drucker taught, organizations need to adapt and innovate to make use of these capabilities, which opens the door to new technology, capabilities, and markets for enterprise software and services at every layer of the stack. Which opens the door to new organizational challenges and opportunities...

I'm not surprised that this takes time - and like Bill Buxton's analysis in his "Long Nose of Innovation" article from 2008.

I'll also keep my faith in Peter Drucker and Doug Engelbart as the twin patron Saints of Enterprise 2.0. As I said in Nov 2009, you have your own sub-numinous stake in the game!

cheers,
Greg

The Long Nose of Innovation. Bill Buxton, Bloomberg Business Week, Jan 8, 2008
http://www.businessweek.com...

Enterprise 2.0 Schism. Greg Lloyd, Nov 9, 2009
http://tractionsoftware.com...

Re: Uncovering Algorithms: Looking Inside the Facebook News Feed

Greg Lloyd — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 22:44:29 -0000

I believe the mood filtering controversy reflects a distrust of Facebook's motives and methods more than qualms about a limited sociological experiment. The methods of an ethical experiment may be applied for unethical purposes.

That Facebook redacted posts from “friends” to manipulate mood is the biggest factor in the current controversy, in my opinion. Folk are used to — and ignore — personally targeted ads and promoted tweets from third parties, as well as prioritization based on what friends like. Cutting off communication from a distressed “friend” to boost engagement by promoting happy thoughts is seen as a particularly creepy and loathsome violation of trust. Why not edit posts to make them happier, if that boosts engagement?

Questions only Facebook can answer: What are the intents of Facebook newsfeed algorithms? What kinds of newsfeed manipulation - if any - are off limits?

See Scott Rosenberg on frontstage/ backstage collapse and ownership of space: http://www.wordyard.com/201...

Danah Boyd's: What does the Facebook experiment teach us?
https://medium.com/message/...

Re: Larry Magid: Google Glass: I have better things to do with $1,500

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 13:19:08 -0000

Yes - It's no more complicated than Google's push to make walking around with a video camera/mike pointed at everyone you talk to socially acceptable behavior.

I don't care whether Google is being socially inept or cynically greedy. They should back down.

Re: Larry Magid: Google Glass: I have better things to do with $1,500

Greg Lloyd — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 16:00:49 -0000

The issue for me isn't price/performance or looking nerdy, but a ham handed attempt by Google to redefine social norms of what is acceptable behavior for conversation: shared by mutual consent but not recorded. And a norm for privacy: overheard by others within the sound of your voice when in a public place, otherwise private.

People naturally adjust what they say and how they say it depending on who they talk too and where they say it.

I object to the notion that pointing a camera in someone's face with a permanent record potentially going to someone's Cloud is socially acceptable behavior.

"But we have cameras and smartphones." Which are clearly raised and pointed in your direction as an overt signal, infrequently and by mutual consent (walk away if you object).

"But you can see if the screen is lit." I don't care what you're watching, and don't want to continually scan folk I'm talking with. I assume a hack is not that hard.

"But we have stealthy tech that's less obvious." Used by spies, sociopaths, and perverts. Not your friends, collegues, and normal people in everyday life. Google's goal seems to be mass market acceptance.

"But it's my job!" If you're a doctor at work, a journalist doing an interview, or a technician in a factory, that's fine. But please take off your Glass when you leave work.

"But I'm your friend!" Yes, and I trust you. You don't have to take off you Glass and feel free to turn it on if you wish. I'd still appreciate it if you ask before recording. And wearing Glass has a chilling effect on how I talk, even with you. If I don't know or trust you, feel free to ask about the weather or directions.

Re: Are you ready to improve the world?

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:58:44 -0000

"After spending my summer with scientists, business leaders, artists, technologists, and philosophers considering if there might be a fundamentally different way to be in the world, I began a reconnaissance mission on saving the world."
Bravo Marcia! Doug Engelbart would smile.

Re: Are you ready to improve the world?

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:54:33 -0000

"For nearly a decade I’ve been in the business of fixing organizational folly."

Smart to choose a market that's been high growth for the last 5,000 or so years!

Re: Narrating your work and Observable work are not the same thing

Greg Lloyd — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:01:09 -0000

John - I like your distinction and agree with it.

In our internal practice, we've found that people often choose to watch only a subset of a broad activity stream, e.g only relating to tasks or projects they work on or are especially interested in.

The full activity stream is logged for search, navigation by person or topic top down, but the full stream can be overwhelming, even for a small organization.

We all agree to write occasional Narrating Your Work updates in a shared space everyone keeps open (with auto update to pick up news).

The narrative updates don't repeat what's in the activity steam, but often link to a particularly interesting or important action that wouldn't normally be noticed by other folk - at least not quickly.

“Working out loud” can then be about why, what’s important, and questions vs an automatically generated, filterable activity stream of actions.

Re: Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you - Coding 2 Learn

Greg Lloyd — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:33:06 -0000

Marc - Thanks for the constructive venting and analysis. This morning Fredrik Matheson posted a link via Twitter, saying: "We've struggled to make the computer invisible. Maybe that wasn't such a great idea."

Which kicked off a little discussion on demystifying computers, software, and the Web. You might enjoy or wish to join, see Storify summary: http://storify.com/roundtri...

Do you have a Twitter handle? I'd be happy to add to the story.

Now I have to read all of the comments here!

Re: A Geek Technologist’s Summer Reading List

Greg Lloyd — Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:31:21 -0000

I'd suggest Belinda Barnet's new book: "Memory Machines", available in Kindle or paper form on 15 July 2013. The book is a fascinating history of how hypertext happened, how the idea developed from Vannevar Bush in 1945 (and before), though Ted Nelson, Doug Engelbart, Andy van Dam and others to Tim Berners-Lee and the Web. Belinda did extensive personal interviews with all of these people and others, making it a great read. It's a history of people and ideas, not just technology. The book is based on research she did for her PhD thesis (too often a flag for flat, boring prose), refreshed with a new round of personal interviews. Belinda however, writes exceptionally well and knows how to appeal to general readers, not just technologists or academics. She tells a a story that I believe you and others would enjoy, based on her deep understanding and high standards. I read her original thesis and reviewed a chapter of the new book last year, finding it fascinating and very well written.

Amazon link allows pre-orders now: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0...

Re: Why Google Needs A Style Infusion For Project Glass - by Dan Rowinski

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:32:10 -0000

It *does* look a lot like a red ethernet connector glued to a pair of cheap sunglasses...

Re: Jive Takes Off the Gloves and Takes on the Competition

Greg Lloyd — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:47:14 -0000

Jacob - Nice piece! Other than time-and-motion savings, I agree that quantifying business value requires measurement in the context of core business activities, and that almost always requires a level of commitment - top down as well as bottom up.

Deloitte's Center for the Edge published results of a long-term study that documented a 61% reduction in time required for compliance related activities after Alcoa starting to use Traction TeamPage for IT project planning, execution, and management.

Joe Crumpler from the same organization noted a 100 man-hour per week reduction in project meeting and coordination overhead during the course of a large IT project (links below).

These results come from before and after measurements by customers who are well organized and keep detailed time log records of activity.

You can't get the same numbers just from a kick the cover walkthrough or sandbox trial, but it's reasonable to look at documented case studies and use those results to judge the match between another organization's use case and your own.

In my experience, the greatest business value of collaboration platforms comes from measurable improvements in core business activities plus the potentially greater long-term value that comes from contribution to a sustainable competitive edge.

This last value depends on social factors, leadership and motivation for which tools and technology are necessary but not sufficient. That's why I nominate Peter Drucker as well as Douglas Engelbart as Patron Saints of Enterprise 2.0.

Social Software for Business Performance - Deloitte Center for the Edge
http://traction.tractionsof...

Enterprise 2.0 and Observable Work: Recap and Speaker Notes
Brian Tullis, Joe Crumpler
http://nextthingsnext.blogs...

Enterprise 2.0 Schism - Peter Drucker and Doug Engelbart as Patron Saints
http://traction.tractionsof...

Re: Want To Support Multiple Browsers In The Enterprise? It's Gonna Cost You - by Mark Hachman

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 11:47:20 -0000

Good story, but the analysis makes sense only if you consider a Web browser as a platform limited to a universe of internal Web apps and users. As you point out, it doesn't address indirect and opportunity cost of locking down applications to a single approved browser when:

1) Employees use iPhone, iPad or other "non approved" browsers as BYOD choices or from home;

2) Partners, suppliers - or customers - can't use applications designed to support broad stakeholder use. IT should not be able to dictate to customers: "only do business with us if you use IE6";

3) The cost of migrating from generation to generation of IE browsers on Microsoft's schedule, rather than building apps that support mainstream Web browser technology.

4) The cost of employees down to an obsolete or obsolescent Web browser that prevents them from doing effective work outside their internal applications, i.e. powerless folk locked into IE6 long after it was obsolete for most Web use.

Re: The Best Science Fiction Books of All Time

Greg Lloyd — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:54:09 -0000

A good time to read (or reread) "The Space Merchants" a Pohl and Kornbluth classic. Real pop-up ads, a world ruled by corporate hegemons and their ad agency mandarins. Ad agencies create markets by using circular brand addictions : Munchies addicts need to drink Popsi; Popsi addicts need to smoke Kools; Kools addicts need to eat Munchies. The adventures of star class executive copywriter Mitch Courtenay.

IMO even more outrageously funny and savage today.

Re: Can You Create a Collaborative Organization Without Technology?

Greg Lloyd — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:24:00 -0000

Jacob -- I'd say the underlying technology is necessary but not sufficient create what you describe as a Collaborative Organization, particularly for large organizations. I believe you need to connect people using means other than 1) physical travel; 2) same-time phone / video calls or conferencing; 3) time-shifted, explicitly addressed email (or snail mail).

Near-real time communication, the number of people potentially and actually involved in any act, and availability of an effectively unlimited shared, persistent, searchable record of discourse on everyone's phone, tablet or desk enables uniquely scalable patterns of communication.

The challenge is how people and organizations use these capabilities. I don't think iall new patterns of behavior are emergent (in the sense of Aristotle's tadpoles being generated from mud). They are evolved, improvised on the fly, and created - top down as well as bottom up. Organizations have always had their own patterns of communication, collaboration and power relationships.

Doug Engelbart describes the relationship between changing human systems and technology as "Co-evolution". I think that's a good framework. Your choice of technology and its capabilities will have a big but not entirely predictable effect on the evolution of human systems and vice versa over time.

The co-evolution of the Web's technology (particularly global-scale search) and the social and business systems enabled by the Web is the best example I can think of. You couldn't hope to duplicate the effects of the Web with older technology as I wrote in a tongue in cheek post on technology vs. culture vs. management:

"Without the enabling technology of the Web, plus search engines and other affordances based on Sir Tim Berners-Lee's innovation, the Strict Proletarian would find it difficult to fit the inhabitants of McAfee's inner, middle and outer rings into the same room, get them to participate in the same conference call, or exhibit their "emergent" behaviors using typewriters, copy machines, faxes and email. Speed, scale and connection patterns matter and the technology that spans these barriers is neither trivial nor insignificant to the phenomena Strict Proletarians value."

Enterprise 2.0 Schism
http://traction.tractionsof...
http://traction.tractionsof...

Re: Can You Create a Collaborative Organization Without Technology?

Greg Lloyd — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:24:53 -0000

Jacob -- I'd say the underlying technology is necessary but not sufficient to create what you describe as a Collaborative Organization, particularly a large one. I believe you need to be able to connect people using means other than 1) physical travel; 2) same-time phone / video calls or conferencing; 3) time-shifted, explicitly addressed email (or snail mail).

The challenge is how people and organizations use these capabilities. I don't think all new patterns of behavior are emergent (in the sense of Aristotle's tadpoles being generated from mud). They are evolved, improvised on the fly, and created - top down as well as bottom up. Organizations have always had their own patterns of communication, collaboration and power relationships.

Enterprise 2.0 Schism
http://traction.tractionsof...

Re: Marc Benioff needs an enterprise social history lesson

Greg Lloyd — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:29:50 -0000

It's encouraging to see Salesforce jump on board enthusiastically, particularly if it leads to more opportunities to cross link and connect systems of record and systems of engagement.

In my opinion the biggest opportunity for Salesforce (and other big players) is to use Web standards to make everything they build linkable and visible - with Web based authentication and permissioned access. Not even the biggest player will succeed by trying to encapsulate all parts of a business in a locked down, proprietary stack vs intelligent use of Web standards.

I believe that what people see and use on the public Web will set competitive expectations for user experience, mobile access and how linking, search and collaboration should work within their business - with additional attention to consistent identity, and permissions.

And thanks for the mention of Traction Software. We're pushing ahead on integrated task management and collaboration spanning business activities.

Re: The Web Is the Cloud’s API

Greg Lloyd — Sun, 20 May 2012 19:09:14 -0000

Jon -- Your OData example is sweet, and the principle is extraordinarily important: the Web's architecture isn't a straight jacket. What lies beneath the simple http protocol can perform deep magic while rendering content as pure URI addressable items.

User agent based dispatch allows alternate HTML / XML renderings to be delivered based on the client, making the HTML 5 vs dedicated client a delivery choice rather than a fork point. Every time someone says "The Web is dead," I shake my head and marvel at the inspired tradeoffs that Tim Berner's Lee made at the very beginning.

I believe wide use of layered protocols for identity and search would go a long way to making the Web an even stronger open platform, see this blog post inspired by John Markov's 2009 profile of Ted Nelson:

Re-Inventing the Web - Lessons learned and an appreciation of the Web as a hypertext platform
http://traction.tractionsof...

At Traction Software, we also perform a bit of deep magic inside the http box to support bidirectional links and relationships, a stable URI stable fabric with editable journaled content, granular permissions, context and permission aware search - all without violating the Web's external contract. I'll also take a look at OData itself, thanks for the nudge.