making a difference. Justin Knabb's blog

The network/chronicle/time-capsule grows some more

Going against the grain of my last post, I'm actually diving deeper into cyberspace/nerd-land.

I set up a Twitter account to document cool things I find at arbitrary times in 140 characters or less.  And to follow other important people, too, like Carrot Top.

I also believe in the grassroots platform that Yelp.com provides.  My profile can be found here, although I can't promise you'll always agree with my impeccable, great tastes.

As I like to point out often, one of the great bonuses of these Internet/cloud-based social platforms lies in the phenomenal way that they all document our lives.  Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Webshots, and this blog are all ways that I can document my life and one day, on a rainy day, perhaps look back and reflect and re-live the glory days.

This is the new scrapbooking, and it's much, much easier to create and share... and I don't get glue or magic marker all over my hands.  Thanks to all the hardworking geeks around the globe for making this stuff happen.  Let's just all hope they can all stay cashflow positive so they don't pull the plug one day.  Keep the capital flowing fellas... thanks! :)

Still getting used to social media

It's been about a decade since I first started using the Internet.  I embrace it, I benefit from it, I take advantage of it... but it's still overwhelming.  This new ocean of much-saturated information... populated with millions of so-called experts... navigating through all the hype, spin, and everything-realtime... well, it will probably always be this way.

I'll never forget the day when Dad first had our family signed up for an AOL account.  When looking back at the communications schematic now, I feel as Alexander Graham Bell must have felt later about smoke signals after the first phone transmissions.  Our family couldn't even be on the landline telephone (all there really was then) because AOL was monopolizing the lines coming into our home.

It's incredible to reflect on how much has happened and changed since then.  Today our heads are almost a mere extension of this Internet that truly drives the brain of the world.

Two pretty smart and savvy tech guys from O'Reilly Radar also seem to be taking a step back to reflect too.

Check out Scott Berkun's post about "Calling Bullshit on Social Media," and then Joshua-Michéle Ross's rebuttal, "In Defense of Social Media."

The way our world keeps growing and accelerating and gyrating, who knows if we'll ever truly figure this new age of "social media" out.

I'm an addict.

This NYT article confirmed it:

Here.

Some days I'm not sure if the world spins faster-and-faster, or if the pace of news and buzz is picking up speed like a cyclone.  I think it's both, but regardless, the current affairs of the world quickly become a black hole where productivity goes to die.

With the election in full swing, with the economy in the trenches, with the Phillies in the playoffs, with Facebook blasting newsfeeds on my friends in real-time, and so much great content out there... it's just tough to ignore.

Will our information mediums and Long Tails continue to accelerate and evolve?  Or will we eventually grow tired and substitute our computers and TVs for actual, real life again?

As an addict currently living in the former world, I definitely aspire to head back to the latter.

Future of social networking

Michael Arrington predicts the future of social networking.  Basically, should his predictions come to fruition, "fateful encounters" and "coincidences" as we know them today may cease to exist?!

INSANE.

Streamlining everything. (no, really... everything!)

The past few months, I have been tinkering with different gadgets and websites... essentially trying to better automate my life. 

• My calendars, contacts, music, weather reports, stock updates, to-do lists, camera, photo albums, alarm clock, and notepad are all kept on my iPhone (I think I can safely say the investment made in this product was one of the best purchase decisions I've ever made... this thing is outstanding!)
• My personal journal or "diary," is now online, in the form of this blog.
• My fitness records are all kept online at Gyminee.com.  With my iPhone, I can now enter my exercise info while working out at the gym...even get ideas for new exercises... and then check my progress online periodically.
• My financial and spending records can be securely organized on the new, outstanding service provided by Mint.com.
• My photo albums, at least w/those photos from the past 5 years, are being put up on Flickr during spare time on weekends.  Not only are photos kept secure online (as in, won't get burned by fires, lost film, etc.), but they're all sorted by custom tags and geographic maps.  Plus anyone in the world could essentially view my photos now if they really wanted to... hugely exciting!  (But I do back these files up on hard drives whenever possible)
• I rarely use Word, Excel, or PowerPoint anymore either, thanks to Google Documents.  Why save these on my hard drive when I can access these from remote computers from anywhere? (again, of course, I do back these files up on hard drives whenever possible)

Which leads to my new enthusiasm for Google Sites, just launched recently.  I always wanted to try using Basecamp through 37signals.com as a collaborative engine, but Basecamp is expensive and carries a monthly fee.  Thanks to Google, this type of thing is now free.

Wow.

We can't help but take these FREE web services for granted nowadays.  We're so used to this now.  Craigslist.org.  Google search.  Free online stock trades through Zecco.  We just can't forget how phenomenal this digital age really is.  These services certainly didn't exist 10 or even 5 years ago.  Now they are so ubiquitous that we almost forget what it's like to pay for things online.

Which leads to my final item to post-- this outstanding (and somewhat scary) article by Chris Anderson on the present and future state of FREE.  "Free" is great for us consumers, but how will companies make any money going forward??

 

Logo is property of Google, Inc.

Test post: iPaper beta

Thought this post would accomplish 2 things: experimenting with Scribd's iPaper for the first time (this tool is amazing and looks to have tons of potential to give Adobe a run for its money) and to post my PowerPoint presentation from my workshop on social entrepreneurship from the Beyond Ideas conference held at Villanova University last month. Since the majority of the presentation contained high-res photos, it was impossible to upload this directly to the TypePad blog.

At this point, the viewer is a bit clumsy but definitely a step in the right direction with PDF technology.  My IE and Safari browsers are accepting iPaper but I'm not having any luck with Firefox.  Plus, default view for the presentation is too big right now and has my slides cut off... although this can be fixed by zooming out via the third button in from the top right.  Finally, Scribd document translator has scrambled up a few of my slides.

Overall, I'm impressed with this thing and look forward to (hopefully) using it in years to come.

Innovation in the forecast

For the second year now, IBM posts their Next 5 in 5: a forecast of the five innovations that will change the way we live, work and play in the next five years.

I was nostalgic a few months back and made this post showing IBM's "You Will" ad-campaign via YouTube.  In the words of my friend, Jeff Maurone, the only thing that didn't prove true from those IBM innovation forecasts was the fact that IBM wasn't responsible for many (if any) of them!

Whether IBM or some other company introduces these new technologies to us doesn't matter... just so we can march forward and make it happen.  Let's just mark these predictions in the sand here and now.  Like a sort of time capsule, when this post is unearthed 5 years from now, will we be able to confirm that these technologies did, in fact, come to fruition?

1. 3D representations of our human bodies.  Hopefully we can say soon say goodbye to our archaic, inefficient means of keeping patient records and have a functional, universal system as IBM proposes.
2. Food with a digital passport.  We have plenty of smart phones and smart Internet search engines... why not smart food?  Our food is what keeps us alive, after all.
3. Tools to manage our own carbon footprints.  For example, our financial and cell phone data are organized and streamlined so efficiently nowadays.  Why not use this same technology to regulate our energy usage and ultimately help minimize our carbon footprint on our environment?
4. Cars that drive themselves.  As well-oiled as FedEx and UPS run their logistical operations, can we manage our own logistics in a similar, smart way?  It's only a matter of time until GPS and satellites are taken to the next level as a fully-networked, geographic and logistical communications system.
5. Cell phones that (literally) manage our lives.  The ubiquity and impact of cell phones in and on our lives has grown exponentially in just these past few years.  And as mobility and freedom are so important to us, why not better incorporate our currency and shopping methods into our cell phone use?

And perhaps the sixth prediction that aspiring entrepreneurs can add to this list is: How will we be a part of these revolutions?

Here's a nice clip that summarizes the 5 innovations that IBM outlines:

 

I am officially a geek

I spent the last hour scanning the Internet for clandestine live feeds into the MacWorld 2008 Conference in San Francisco.  I must be as excited as a 60s child pushing to get into Woodstock, or a 12-year-old trying to scalp a Phillies World Series ticket.  Except, I'm really a nerd-at-heart trying to be among the first in the world to hear about Apple's new products and software updates for my iPhone.

I have officially reached geek-status.

But who cares?  I can't wait to log-in to iTunes tonight and play with the new features on my iPhone!

Finding Ben Zander

Many of my co-workers would be quick to admit on Friday that they are "old-fashioned."  Some of their remarks to me:

"Isn't it wrong that the Internet replaces the newspaper nowadays?"

"Where do you find all this weird stuff online?"

"I'll never understand this thing."

I love these people a ton, but I reply back: "You guys are missing out."

The shortcoming of the newspaper in today's world is that it's static, it's already old news, it's missing free media, it's littered with bullshit ads, and it's cumbersome to read.  The Internet, on the other hand, is dynamic, collaborative, customizable, and FREE.

Are there days where I feel that our online world of today is impersonal?  Yes.  Is it a shame that the accessibility of all the information under-the-sun--on the Internet-- is SO good, that people can hide away behind a computer screen for the rest of their lives?  I think so.

However, in the words of the remarkable Ben Zander (conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra), "These next 30 years might just be the most exciting 30 years in human history.  It's just a matter of what kind of world we want."

Exactly.  Exciting, I believe, because of the freedom and democratization of information we now enjoy and profit and benefit.  I never would have found out about Mr. Zander had it not been from me surfing from one blog to another, which had a YouTube post of this absolutely wonderful feature on him:

Thanks to the Internet, we can now listen to remarkable speeches from around-the-world that otherwise would have been forgotten. We can share interesting findings with others through our blogs. And we can communicate and collaborate to, hopefully, help create a better world. You're right Ben, there should be a great few decades ahead.

Google's information (overload) universe

This week's Business Week headliner is mind-boggling!!

It's about the likely future of "cloud" computing, and the astounding impact this will have on both (a) the scope of information available to the world and (b) the means to efficiently sort through this universe of information.  Of course, who else is leading the charge but Google and IBM, who are partnering in this new endeavor.  In the words of an IBM software engineer: "Compared to this, the Web is tiny. We'll be laughing at how small the Web is."

The Web, as we know it today... just the tip of the iceberg?!?  The web, which is so vast, seemingly second only to God... just the tip of the iceberg?

Google would literally add mountains of additional data on top of the Web.  Millions of super-computers across the earth would unite to process millions of more data requests faster and smarter.  Scientists who once needed to somehow tie-together thousands of individual disks to form coherent hypotheses, would now have all this information ready at their disposal for efficient testing of statistics, patterns, etc.   Oceanographers could now track, all at once, the zillions of receptors they have planted all over our oceans.  They, too, will process zillions of silos of information, all at once, and ultimately find better ways to predict weather, the oceanic impact on crops, and understand life in our oceans and earth.

Just when Google doesn't seem it could grow any bigger, any faster... it does.  Google no doubt rules the Web.  In a few years, they might truly rule the earth.