Quinn Lewis

The Nine

2009-06-19T02:44:41Z

Last week I finished reading The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. Overall, I enjoyed the read. I thought it was a fairly evenhanded. I particularly liked the historical context (e.g. overview of big cases) and some insights into how the court operates. I'm not a lawyer or judicial expert but it seemed to over-characterize the justices. The basic assertion seemed to be that decisions are determined by the common people, who pick the president, who picks the judges, who vote according to their political/social beliefs (of their backers). Unfortunately, this seems to diminish the otherwise veritable court to a popular vote. While there may be some partial truth to this, I'd like to think the Court is above this.

Even though I've read the Constitution, I don't think I appreciated how contested the different aspects of the First Amendment have been. I found the Lemon test to be interesting (p95) and fierce debate among the justices even when they agreed on the result (p97).

Software Ecosystems

2009-05-01T02:03:33Z

When I think of software ecosystems, I think of Microsoft. You can easily see how it has leveraged its common technology platform to create an entire shared market. It has developed some fairly symbiotic relationships with individuals (e.g. MVPs), academia (e.g. Education Alliance), and businesses (e.g. Certified Partners). It is enough to feed its own revenue stream as well as that of nearly 15 million other people.

However, one aspect of software ecosystems that I had not thought about until recently was the role non-profit standards organizations have in shaping for-profit companies. You sometimes need a more financially neutral organization to level the playing field, build consensus, and provide a more collaborative working model. I think non-profit standards organizations can help in the following ways:

Codify business processes
Establish data standards
Build tools to enable success
Create common knowledge
Develop relationships
Provide certification
Increase interoperability.

This is based on my observations and experience dealing with examples from upstream oil and gas (Energistics), process control (OPC Foundation), and energy trading (EFETnet). There are still issues (such as the length of time required to build consensus, catering to the lowest common denominator, dealing with various levels of commitment, etc.) but I think these types of non-profit technical organizations have their place in helping for-profit companies.

Controlling My Computer with My Eyes

2009-01-05T04:32:39Z

I enjoy seeing the different ways (computer) people create ways for other (non-computer) people to interact with computers.

While trolling for some information about ergonomics, I came across cameramouse.org (which just had a 2009 release). My (Lenovo T61) laptop has a built-in webcam, so I was up and running within a few minutes. I was pretty tickled that the software could track my head movement and move the mouse correspondingly, although the mouse movement was a bit jittery. (Perhaps my settings weren't configured correctly.)

Then I stumbled across someone who actually has developed something to track eye movement. For me, I think this would be more useful. Unfortunately, the software (or code) doesn't seem to be available yet. Supposedly, it uses blinking to click the mouse. Before I found this website I mentioned this same idea to my wife.

I speculate that one could make use of the UI Automation functionality (available in .NET 3.0) to provide extra information for positioning the mouse. For example, often there is deadspace on a window (or webpage) and a handful of controls. It may be possible and helpful to use the controls size and position to help "snap" the mouse to these areas. (While using Camera Mouse 2009, I found it somewhat frustrating to have my head perfectly still and yet have my mouse cursor bouncing all around a hyperlink surrounded by nothing but whitespace. The computer ought to know that the hyperlink was the only reasonable thing I would want to mouse over.)

Progressive Transportation Infrastructure

2009-01-01T05:47:26Z

While traveling through Missouri and Illinois over the holidays, I noticed a few things that caught my eye:

Variable speed limit signs.
Personalized/vanity license plates (everyone seems to have one).
Tenth-mile markers.

This transportation infrastructure seems pretty progressive. It looks like some of these ideas may have been stolen from Virginia. I particularly liked the tenth-mile markers, although I'm a little doubtful how this could be cost-justified. I wonder if they could make each marker a Wi-Fi hotspot?

Proud, American, and Ignorant

2008-11-16T03:47:10Z

Last week, on Election Day (November 3rd), I was at the polls before daybreak. I felt grateful to be a participant in the voting process. I left my house at about 5:40am with some flashlights, books, and a folding chair. I was 4th or 5th in line and camped out at the doors of the local polling station until it opened at 7:00am. Somehow I ended up getting signed-in fast and ended up being the first in my precinct to vote. I was proud to be an American!

Exactly one week later (on November 11th), I'm talking with an individual from Canada. He brings up the fact that it was Remembrance Day for them in Canada. He went to to describe the day's origin and how he had been having trouble keeping his poppies together during the last week. It sounded very patriotic and elaborate. At no point during the conversation did I realize that that same day was also our Veteran's Day. How ignorant of me not to recognize such an important day. Or more important than the day itself, the valiant efforts of so many men and women in the U.S. and the connection we share with Canada. I suppose that writing this is part of my penance.

None of this gelled until this morning as I was listening to a radio segment about geography on my way to school. Towards the end of the segment it mentioned that "Americans are said to be geographically challenged." It went on to mention that in a study done by the National Geographic Society "respondents from the United States were scoring absolutely at the bottom." Truth be told, I had no idea Monaco was the most densely populated country in the world.

Since I'm not a geographer, this indiscretion is probably forgivable. However, at a time when the world is looking for leaders, Americans (including myself) can't afford to be unaware of our surroundings (e.g. geography) or unfamiliar with our heritage (e.g. Veteran's Day). I'm proud to be an American but I don't want to be a proud, ignorant one.

Getting from Here to There

2008-10-12T20:54:47Z

Yesterday I had the strong desire to just simply copy some text from my laptop and then paste it on to my desktop computer. After mentally debating the different options (emailing myself, IMing myself, using a flash drive, or copying via a network share), I remembered how several years ago a fellow nerd had rigged up several (Linux) computers in a Computer Science lab to allow him to use his mouse to control the nearby computers.

A quick Google search turned up Input Director and Synergy. I reluctantly (since I don't like installing software I've never used before) gave Input Director a whirl. What a delight! Within a few minutes I was not only copying and pasting between computers but I was able to use the same mouse to control both computers. I'll no longer have to fight with the touchpad or the smaller keyboard on my laptop when I'm in my home office. I was also surprised that some of my voice commands from my Vista desktop (using Vista Speech Recognition) would get routed to my laptop, which runs Windows XP.

I tried to show my wife how powerful this was but she wasn't as impressed as I was. Kudos to the creative and dedicated people who make these sort of niche tools generally available.

We don't have a button for that...

2008-08-31T13:58:08Z

Yesterday, I took a few coupons that my wife had given me in to a local establishment. One was for a 20 oz. drink for only $1.79, normally $4.29. When the girl behind the counter gave me the receipt, I noticed it said "Free 20oz" and "-4.29". I pointed the mistake out to her, to which she replied saying, "we don't have a button for that."

This little phrase intrigued me. Was it a matter of the young lady not having enough training? Perhaps she couldn't remember the correct way to discount purchases and she could save face by blaming the system? Maybe the user interface wasn't designed intuitively enough? I'm highly doubtful that this company would distribute coupons that result in free items as opposed to discounted items.

I'm reminded of another story about my brother when he worked as a cashier at a popular fast food joint. After my brother demurred a little longer than perhaps expected while taking an order, the customer condescendingly said, "son, just do what the computer tells you."

In the case of the arrogant customer and the generous cashier, both seemed to believe that the computer controlled the situation and that humans were hapless bystanders. When did computers become so powerful? Or more importantly, when did we let them become so powerful? Science fantasy often portrays computers as getting smarter. Maybe it should instead portray people willingly submitting their will to the machine. This would indeed be gloomy... with both humanity and machine persisting in a symbiotic state of ignorance.

Obtain As Much Education As Possible

2008-06-28T03:45:29Z

The main conclusions mentioned in To Read or Not To Read are indeed startling. "Americans are spending less time reading. Reading comprehension skills are eroding. These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications." I also found several of the other points interesting: "TV watching consumes the most leisure time for men and women of all ages," "reading proficiency rates are stagnant or declining in adults of both genders" (declining for men which results in women leading men in reading ability), and "American families are spending less on books than at almost any other time in the past two decades."

The Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future report paints a similarly provocative picture about education as it relates to science and technology. Broadband Internet access worked itself into one of the answers to the questions: "What are the top 10 actions, in priority order, that federal policymakers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st century? What strategy, with several concrete steps, could be used to implement each of those actions?"


Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing ...

Read this FREE online! Full Book \| PDF Summary \| Podcast

James Michener is credited with having said: “A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”

Shared, Open Conversations

2008-04-27T22:34:40Z

I usually don't take the time to respond on blogs because it takes me so long to write but I did post a comment to the question about the potential and actual benefits of Enterprise 2.0. I didn't think much of it until today when I watched a video of Clay Shirky (that was Slashdotted), describing a few concepts from his new book. He said that if everything he was talking about could be captured in a single bullet point it would be that "group action just got easier." He also gave several examples of how "ridiculously easy group-forming improves: sharing, conversation, collaboration, collective action." This helped me better mentally frame my own comments about how having a sharing environment opens up conversations to more people to break down (collaborate) imaginary silos to really make a change happen (collective action).

Democratizing Innovation

2008-04-22T04:07:47Z

In the ForbesLife (April 2008) issue I was skimming today, I came across Bug Labs which sells products that allow you to mashup hardware more easily. The article referenced Eric von Hippel's book, Democratizing Innovation. My general professional interest is in providing standard and integrated solutions. I have not considered how lead users (those who introduce more and useful innovation/change) impact the "manufactured" solution. It seems that there is a natural tension between the degree to which you allow customization and what you keep standard that needs to be reconciled. How?

From IT to Transportation

2008-04-21T03:52:12Z

While reading the Executive Summary for The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 from the World Economic Forum that I saw referenced on Slashdot and News.com, I had the somewhat random, tangential thought about transportation. When (if ever) can we expect to see similar progress in transportation that we've seen with information technology? We have cars that can park themselves and potentially drive by themselves. Then there is the X PRIZE Cup and Rocket Racing League. The the green tech movement and high oil prices have begun spitting out hybrid cars (and wreaking havoc on the airlines). The maglev stuff seems fairly compelling and progressive.

I guess I'm really hoping to see teleportation sooner rather than later (or never). But 3D copying is good start for now.

Adobe Photoshop Express

2008-03-28T02:33:47Z

Since Photoshop is arguably one of the best applications ever, I had to try the new Adobe Photoshop Express. One of the first things I noticed was the "Transferring data from api.photoshop.com". Similar to what others observed, you have to wonder where Adobe is going with this. Are they catching the mashup bug?

For now I think I'll stick with my Paint.NET at home for financial reasons. I've only used Photoshop (and never Elements), so can't compare it to much. But I did find the Express interface fairly straightforward and responsive. When I hovered my mouse over my test image, I almost accidently discovered the "Photo Options", which touts a "Link" and "Embed" option. Here's an screenshot of a screenshot of Express in Express as an embedded image that links to the version in my public gallery. (That sure sounds confusing.)

I think there might be more value in doing this same sort of thing but with videos. (And I seem to recall seeing a few sites that do simple video editing.) Since it can take lots of horsepower to do video manipulation, I'd think you could do it "in the cloud" faster than on the average person's home machine. Plus, if you are mashing up with other (video) content already on the Web, it might make more sense to leverage the bigger pipes of some Internet hosted application.

Virtual (Augmented) Hobbies

2008-03-18T04:08:09Z

I realized it was taking me way too long to decide on a HAM radio, so yesterday I joined EchoLink and within 10-15 minutes I was in a conversation, no radio required. It works over the Internet. A number of folks on EchoLink use their normal radios or had them hooked up to the software.

I've also been wanting to get into astronomy for awhile. I met a guy about a year ago that had tons of equipment for deep space photography. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I'm not ready to commit thousands of dollars to telescope equipment. (I still don't have my HAM radio.) Then a few months ago I met another person that used to be a stargazer. However, he said big cities are obviously not conducive to watching the heavens. When I went to San Diego last month, I wasn't able to go to the Palomar Observatory due to the rain. (Apparently, due to the recent fires, sometimes driving is difficult during and just after rain events because of rock and mud slides.) Just when I thought the stars had aligned against me pursuing this hobby, I read a recent article about Google Sky. I've also seen some info from Microsoft about the WorldWide Telescope project. No telescope required.

About a month ago I played Guitar Hero for the first time. (I've even seen Guitar Hero for the cell phone.) While I don't have a HAM radio or telescope, at least I have a real guitar. But after replacing some strings on my guitar and my son's, I thought it may be easier or more economic to just play a silly computer game (although probably not as rewarding).

It occurred to me that all three hobbies (amateur radio, astronomy, music) can be done "virtually" on the computer/Internet. However, it isn't likely (or desirable) to only do these hobbies virtually. Most likely they are augmented by the computer/Internet. I think it also speaks to the pervasiveness of "the Net" and the spreading/integration of non-traditional devices... HAM radios, telescopes, and musical instruments.

Bird watching via remote sensing anyone?

7 Years of Blogging to No One

2008-02-29T04:15:18Z

I made my first post 7 years ago today. I've posted at least one thing each year since then. I have never really blogged for any particular reason other than I wanted some way to capture what I learned or thought. In my "blogging", I don't mention very much about my personal life and I don't mention anything about work. I tend to ruminate on technology and the occasional book, if there is any common theme.

I liked the Wikipedia description of personal blogs, "Personal bloggers take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by anyone but them. It is here that blogging becomes more than a way to communicate and becomes a way to reflect on life. ... Bloggers post about their day or their opinions on different matters. Personal blogs may not be important to readers, but for the people who write them, they are works of art."

I highly doubt anyone actually reads this blog regularly and this is definitely no "work of art" but it does help me remember (and later search) my previous thoughts. I can more easily tie seemingly disparate threads of knowledge together or notice "temporal shapes" or patterns that manifest themselves over time.

The FCC and Me

2008-02-09T21:26:41Z

Over the last number of months, I was always surprised by how “everyone” seemed to be selling various thin, large, and digital TVs. Then one day I stumbled upon the FCC Consumer Facts that explained why the TVs were going digital. In preparation for the February 17, 2009 cross-over to broadcasting in digital instead of analog, some hard dates (in March 2007) and regulations were set in preparation for the transition. Earlier this week a saw a commercial on television about it.

When I got my cell phone (also within the last few months), I was delighted to find out my cell phone could obtain my geographic position which could then be used to have my wife track my location or for me to get maps based on my location. I speculate one reason for this functionality is the recent Enhanced 911 (E911) rules which, under Phase II, require wireless carriers to provide the latitude and longitude of the 911 caller. My guess is that Sprint wanted to make the most out of the rules, so began (along with others) to use this functionality for other purposes (e.g. innovative new products, services, and applications).

Since I was worried about not having phone access in the case of an emergency, I postponed switching to a VoIP solution. With the cell phone, I felt I had more of a backup. Plus, I had more features for less money. I can use this money to purchase a HAM radio now that the FCC has granted me a technician license (call sign is forthcoming). So… I am able to use my fairly inexpensive and robust broadband connection and switch my existing local phone number over to Vonage, thanks to the Telecommunications Act of 2005.

I would not have been surprised by all of this if I had been familiar with the FCC strategic goals! It seems pretty clear.

BROADBAND. All Americans should have affordable access to robust and reliable broadband products and services. Regulatory policies must promote technological neutrality, competition, investment, and innovation to ensure that broadband service providers have sufficient incentive to develop and offer such products and services.

COMPETITION. Competition in the provision of communications services, both domestically and overseas, supports the Nation’s economy. The competitive framework for communications services should foster innovation and offer consumers reliable, meaningful choice in affordable services.

SPECTRUM. Efficient and effective use of non-federal spectrum domestically and internationally promotes the growth and rapid deployment of innovative and efficient communications technologies and services.

MEDIA. The Nation’s media regulations must promote competition and diversity and facilitate the transition to digital modes of delivery.

PUBLIC SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY. Communications during emergencies and crises must be available for public safety, health, defense, and emergency personnel, as well as all consumers in need. The Nation’s critical communications infrastructure must be reliable, interoperable, redundant, and rapidly restorable.

MODERNIZE THE FCC. The FCC shall strive to be a highly productive, adaptive, and innovative organization that maximizes the benefit to stakeholders, staff, and management from effective systems, processes, resources, and organizational culture.

While it may be true that few people directly think of the FCC, you can’t help but feel the impact indirectly. You know the CEO of Best Buy is considering the risk of moving to digital. The cable companies are trying to play defense against the FCC offense. And even apartment managers can feel the impact.

When I read Co-opetition, I read how McCaw bought up the lottery licenses the FCC dished out in the 80s. McCaw made FCC's objectives work for him. How do businesses (small and large) work the FCC into their strategic plans?

I'd love to see how companies are dealing with the influence of the FCC. I wish there was more comprehensive literature about the impact of the FCC on business. The government is adding an interesting dynamic between the (semi?) free market and the masses.

First Experience Using OpenID

2008-02-01T05:22:31Z

For the last few evenings, I've been cobbling together a simple (Javascript) math application for my son to practice (and speed up) his addition. He's been watching and beta testing as I've been coding it up. (Once I had to leave for a second and was amused when I returned to find he had tried to change the number of problems to be much less. He knew where the value was hardcoded but didn't realize he needed to save the file it was in.)

I thought about expanding the audience to perhaps other kids in his class but wanted to minimize my responsibility for creating and authenticating users. I thought about using the Windows Live SDK but thought I'd give OpenID a try...

I was disappointed to not be able to get either of the .NET libraries listed on openid.net working. (I'm thinking I should have never switched my hosted web site over to ASP.NET.) Fortunately, I was able at least able to use my OpenID to log into the OpenID wiki to add my two cents that I thought there were only really 2 libraries (instead of the 3 that are listed).

I liked how straightforward it was to use my OpenID. I think branding the OpenID "sign in" textbox with the little OpenID logo is genius. (Although, how many of these cute little icons can a user tolerate before they become meaningless?) I haven't played much with CardSpace but it seems it would be a little more daunting to users than OpenID.

Today, I may have found an OpenID implementation in C# and ASP.NET that will actually work for me, despite its deficiencies.

Opera Everywhere

2008-01-31T03:23:59Z

I few months ago I commented on how much I liked the Opera Mini browser on my cell phone. I've since begun using Opera on my home machine (Windows Vista). It is fast (just like they say)! We (family) also have Opera on our Wii, since it provides the Internet Channel. I can't get away from Opera, it's everywhere (phone, computer, Wii).

A recent OSnews posting referenced a blog stating that Opera is a "huge missed opportunity". However, as far back as 1998, Opera's vision of "the emerging Internet device market" seems to have been fomenting (or at least participating in it) which "materialize[d] in a project to port Opera to a multitude of platforms". They make a good browser for the desktop but I think the Opera company realized long ago that non-desktop devices would be a big part of their future. They've outlived Netscape.

Now for some constructive criticism... the Opera Mini needs some type of "Find" functionality. It is too hard to find stuff on a tiny screen.

The Boring HD DVD and Blu-ray Battle

2008-01-16T03:42:25Z

The news media seems to be placing Blu-ray ahead of HD DVD. Toshiba is cutting prices on one of its player, hoping to drive up sales and demand for HD DVD. Warner Bros. decided to go exclusively to Blu-ray. Paramount does an about-face and switches to Blu-ray.

I recently read the Wikipedia entry about Blu-ray that mentions one of the technical debates was around the "Java-based BD-J interactivity layer instead of Microsoft's HDi." The technical committee actually picked HDi in the battle but the war was lost to BD-J. It is also interesting that Sony's PS3 is Blu-ray enabled while Microsoft's XBox 360 is HD DVD enabled. Everyone is trying to push their agenda.

While the two camps battle it out for the hard media approach, I can't help but think the real war is/should-be/will-be around soft media. How close are we to just downloading high(er) quality media to devices? No wires or CDs required. Apple recently announced movie rentals via the iTunes Store and Bill Gates even suggested soft media might rule. It is just a matter of time...

Co-opetition

2008-01-03T03:48:22Z

I (finally) finished Co-opetition back in November. It had a colloquial way of describing game theory using a card game. As the title suggests, sometimes (in business) you cooperate, compete, or BOTH. The main take away is that we are part of a larger (business) ecosystem that is rich with options for dealing with friends and enemies. If you play your cards right (i.e. understand co-opetition) you'll have more options for dealing with others. Below are some quotes of some parts that caught my eye...

"Just as the movie studios feared the home video market, traditional bookstores see electronic publishing and the Internet solely as competitors. Once again, they see only half the picture. What bookstores fail to recognize is that sells in one domain may stimulate demand in the other." Grow the pie. (30)

"But the idea that it's always war with competitors is overly simplistic. More often than not, the win-lose approach leads to a Pyrrhic victory. Win-lose becomes lose-lose. The classic example is cutting price in an attempt to steal market share. Competitors match or lower prices, and the result is lower profits all around." (37)

"Simply dismissing someone as irrational closes the mind. Much better is to work harder at seeing the world as the other person sees it. This is a mind expanding exercise. Trying to understand what motivates the other person, what drives him, can help you anticipate what he's going to do in the future or how he's going to respond to something you do. In sum: the fact that other people view the world differently does not make them irrational. In fact, if you try to impose your rationality on others, who is the one who is really being irrational? To us, the issue of whether people are rational or irrational is largely beside the point. More important is remembering to look at a game from multiple perspectives – your own and that of every other player. This simple sounding idea is possibly the most profound insight of game theory. Many people view games egocentrically; they focus on their own position. The insight of game theory is the importance of focusing on others – namely, allocentrism." (61)

References "Getting to Yes" by Roger Fisher and William Ury about allocentrism and seeing things from another perspective. (62)

"Five years earlier, the Federal Communications Commission had divided the country up into 306 separate markets and allocated to cellular licenses to each one. One of those licenses had been earmarked for the local phone company, while the other had been awarded to be a lottery. McCaw had been going around and buying up licenses from the lottery winners." I need to track the FCC happenings more closely. (80)

"The surprising asymmetry between shortages and surpluses helps explain the re-occurring cycles seen in industries ranging from pulp and paper chemicals to hotels to memory chips to property and casualty insurance. Someone expands capacity and suddenly everyone's profits fall precipitously. Even a very little excess capacity can cause profits to fall a very long way. The sharp fall in profits leads to a moratorium on capacity expansion. Meanwhile, demanded continues to grow, and before long, there's insufficient capacity. Power shifts back to the producers, and now they're back in the black. Somebody gets enthusiastic and over expands, and even just a little, and the cycle repeats itself." (121)

1964 entrepreneur Robert Taylor, Minnetonka, and Softsoap (1977). (149)

"Some people think having more flexibility is one of those universally good things. It isn't. Sometimes you have more power when your hands are tied." Example of Cortes in Mexico. Beached and dismantled ships to eliminate option of retreat. (166)

Visa USA President and CEO Robert Heller wasn't impressed with GM Card (MasterCard). (184)

Principle… treat your own customers better than your rival's customers. (190)

"Whenever you turn down a project, you have a reason to hope it never sees the light of day. Granted, if someone else picks up the project and fails, your decision is vindicated. But you seldom earn brownie points this way. When you turn down the project, you were probably given the benefit of the doubt, anyway. On the other hand, if someone picks up the project and makes it a success, your judgment can now be faulted. Once you decide not to gamble on something, you have little to gain and much to lose from having people learn whether the bet would have paid off. You're better off if the fog is preserved." I hope I never intentionally do this. (212)

"The fear of being proved wrong leads people to move in herds. The scene is a familiar one. First, all the pension funds by IBM; then they all sell IBM. First, there's a merger wave at every company scrambles to become a conglomerate. Then the wave crashes and everyone divests unrelated businesses because 'focus' is the new wave. Economic forecasters all seem to come up with remarkably similar predictions – and, most often, all remarkably wrong. One reason is that they all use similar models and the same historical data. Another reason is that forecasters fear going out on a limb and being proved wrong. (Quote from John Kay.) If you follow the herd, you'll succeed or fail along with the herd. The fog is preserved. You'll never stand out if you're right, you're also less likely to get you to live if you're wrong." (213) Does SOA fall into this camp?

Hiding information. Having made a favorable oppression, people try to preserve it by: burying projects they've turned down, following the herd, and creating reasons to fail. (215)

Four levers of strategy: PARTS (Players, Added Value, Rules, and Tactics). "At a fundamental level, there is only one game. Everybody interacts with everyone else, directly or indirectly, to pursue their various ends. Everything is ultimately connected to everything else. Again they include all these interconnections might be enormous, but, in theory, that's the game." (233)

"No game is an island. Even so, people draw boundaries and divide the world up into many separate games. It's easy to fall into the trap of analyzing the separate games in isolation – imagining that there's no larger game. The problem is that mental boundaries are real boundaries – there are no real boundaries. Every game is linked to other games: a game in one place affects game elsewhere, and a game today influences games tomorrow. Even the mere anticipation of tomorrow's games influences today's." (234)

"Professor Dorothy Leonard-Barton of HBS explains that an organization's core competencies in one generation of technology can turn into 'core rigidities' as far as the next is concerned." (241)

"There's always a larger game." (260)

Getting Rid of Old Computer Equipment

2007-12-21T00:26:40Z

Some of my old computer and electronics don't work and aren't worth donating. Since throwing them in the trash is bad for the environment, I wasn't sure how to dispose of them. I found a number of places that would dispose of my old computer equipment for money but luckily the City of Houston had a place where I could do it for free. Their drive-through made it so easy. I was in and out in less than 5 minutes. Now I'm ready for some new stuff.

Making (Fast) User Switching in Vista behave like XP

2007-10-15T04:12:51Z

With a shared computer in the home, my family and I became used to the Fast User Switching feature in Windows XP. Whenever someone would leave their account logged in (and I wanted to get on), I would just hit the "Windows logo key+L" to return back to the Welcome screen and then select my account. Now after upgrading to Vista, I noticed the process requires an extra step. When I press "Windows key+L" with Vista, it locks the screen and then requires me to press a Switch User button before returning to the Welcome screen! I really want to go right to the Welcome screen. The other option of navigating the menus is equally awkward. Apparently, someone else had the same question and discovered WTSDisconnectSession. Using this information, I wrote a simple C# program (taking advantaged of info on invoke.net) to get the same behavior I had with Windows XP. I invoke this application via a Desktop shortcut with the "Shortcut key" set (I use Ctrl+Alt+L). I'm wondering if I this could be extended to allow switching to a specific user directly (instead of going to the Welcome screen first)?

Here's the code (that I compile as a Windows Application instead of a Console Application to avoid the command prompt from appearing):

using System;

using System.Runtime.InteropServices;



namespace SwitchUser

{

    class Program

    {

        static IntPtr WTS_CURRENT_SERVER_HANDLE = IntPtr.Zero;



        static int WTS_CURRENT_SESSION = -1;



        [DllImport("wtsapi32.dll", SetLastError = true)]

        static extern bool WTSDisconnectSession(IntPtr hServer, 

		int sessionId, bool bWait);



        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            bool status = WTSDisconnectSession(WTS_CURRENT_SERVER_HANDLE, 

		WTS_CURRENT_SESSION, false);

        }

    }

}

1491 and 1776

2007-09-21T02:05:48Z

I'm not much of a history buff but I've recently polished off two interesting history books.

I now better appreciate the miraculous turn of events that happened in 1776 that led to many of the liberties I enjoy today.

Some good phrases from 1491...

"It is always easy for those living in the present to feel superior to those who lived in the past. ... Throughout all of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, nationalism was ascendant, and historians identified history with nations, rather than with cultures, religions, or ways of life." (16)

"Having grown separately for millennia, the Americas were a boundless sea of novel ideas, dreams, stories, philosophies, religions, moralities, discoveries, and all the other products of the mind. Few things are more sublime or characteristically human than the cross-fertilization of cultures. The simple discovery by Europe of the existence of the Americas caused an intellectual ferment. How much grander would have been the tumult if Indian societies had survived in full splendor!" (137)

"Guilt is not readily passed down the generations, but responsibility can be." (147)

I'm also reading the Old Testament and had been confused by the discussion of the "two sisters, Samaria and Jerusalem," mentioned in chapter 23 of Ezekiel when I came across the following reference to the Lost Tribes: "At that time, according to scripture, the Hebrew tribes had split into two adjacent confederations, the southern kingdom of Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem, and the northern kingdom of Israel, with its capital in Samaria" (158).

I found a typographical error, a missing ")" on page 173.

While discussing why the Indians didn't make use of the wheel, the author points out that Europeans didn't make use of the moldboard plow until centuries later (and stole the idea from the Chinese). He goes on to say: "The complexity of a society's technology has little to do with its level of social complexity--something that we, in our era of rapidly changing, seemingly overwhelming technology, have trouble grasping" (250). Earlier in the book (101) it is suggested that "disease and political fragmentation" were the causes of the Indians loosing their battles with the Europeans (and not technology).

About the environment... he says environmentalists tend to live in rich places while advocates of development tend to live in poorer places. (364)

"If there is a lesson it is that to think like the original inhabitants of these lands we should not set our sights on rebuilding an environment from the past but concentrate on shaping a world to live in for the future" (366).

"Indian insistence on personal liberty was accompanied by an equal insistence on social quality" (375).

Location-based Call Forwarding

2007-09-02T01:40:30Z

Knowing that many new mobile phones come with the ability to locate their geographic position, I searched for what I could do with my cell phone. I was looking for something a little more free than the Sprint family locator option when I discovered Mobile GMaps. It displays your location on your phone (for free with a few hacks) and then the related GMap-Track site allows others to see your location from the Web. It worked well enough but seems to require you to manually load the GMaps application for your location to be provided to others. The more expensive Sprint solution didn't seem to have this limitation. You could have others "query" your phone's location. I was elated to receive an email from the Sprint Application Developer Program that covered the Wireless Messaging API (JSR 120), including how "to automatically start in response to an incoming SMS message, even if your application is not running at the time." Armed with this knowledge and the video that covered the Location API (JSR 179), I'm thinking the locator functionality could be developed (for free).

However, why stop there? I recently got an AIM Phoneline which apparently has an "auto action" or "call control" host API that allows you to hook into that short space of time of when your phone number is being rung (or is ringing?). I can't tell if this architecture allows you actually forward calls.

My goal in all of this would be to use a set of (location-based) rules to determine how to forward the call (for free). I'm sure someone else is doing this, you probably just have to pay for it. For example, if I'm physically at work (or rather my phone) and the person calling is not family then forward them to my voicemail. Or maybe if I am at work, use my calendar to determine if I'm in a meeting or not (and handle the call appropriately). Or maybe I don't even want the temptation of answering the phone while I'm on the road. Perhaps the rule might be that if I'm on the road and my wife calls, then she'd get a special message that says I'm traveling down the interstate at 20 MPH and given my current location I should be home in 25 minutes, so don't worry. Or how about if I'm at church on Sunday at a particular time, then go straight to voicemail. These are all personal/consumer examples. I'm sure there are several business scenarios too.

It is interesting to note that the FCC's mandate for cell phone (and VoIP) providers to be able to pinpoint someone's location as part of enhanced 911 (E911) is the real driver for making some of this possible.

Businesses are looking to capitalize on these types of innovations. As a consumer, I'm looking for the benefits (at as low a price as possible). The AIM Phoneline videos I watched encouraged the discussion of business models. Sprint offers a website for submitting your idea or opportunity (with some fairly formal legal documentation).

Who else is working on this idea? Is anything available now?

Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution

2007-09-01T22:36:07Z

This last week I (finally) finished Geoffrey Moore's Dealing with Darwin book. I really enjoyed his style of writing. It was clear, organized, and insightful. The basic premise was that not all innovation is created equal and it rewards different types of innovation in different ways and at different times. It is only differentiating innovation that delivers economic returns which is valuable. Thus, there is some innovation that isn't as useful. (Truthfully, from a humanistic point of view I find this view somewhat narrow. Can't you "innovate" to deliver something that is differentiating but rewards you something besides money? But I suppose this book is scoped to be about business...)

I found the separation of complex systems based companies from volume operations companies helpfully simplifying. You better figure out which type your company is because they are different animals and evolve differently too.

He talks about core and context. Core is what your company is really about and where innovation should be focused. Context is all the useful other stuff that is required but not differentiating. Some mistake mission-critical context as core and it saps an organization's ability to innovate. He mentioned that with context you won't get ahead by delivering more because no one cares, but if you mess up it will definitely get noticed. This seems like a no-win situation. Fortunately, towards the end he suggests a way you can innovate forever and repurpose context for core.

The book was riddled with examples to substantiate the types of innovation, phases, and how companies were rewarded. It even covered SOA and integration, two topics of interest to me right now.

I don't think this brief summary does it justice...

Lincoln Museum: New Technology and Old History

2007-08-21T03:56:54Z

I had the pleasure of visiting the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum a few weeks ago in Springfield, Illinois. The Ghosts of the Library was very engaging (although it was a little light on historical details) and effectively wove some special effects into the story. I thought it set the stage for me to better appreciate the history highlighted in other parts of the museum. It is tough to fathom the divisiveness of the times. One area of the library had several caricatures of President Lincoln from the media. He took quite a political beating. Another area covers the Emancipation Proclamation and how he (and it) was criticized by opponents and proponents of slavery alike.