June 2010
1 post
March 2010
1 post
3 tags
The Machine Stops - Exactly how doomed are we?
“Man, the flower of all flesh, the noblest of all creatures visible, man who had once made god in his own image, and had mirrored his strength on the constellations, beautiful naked man was dying, strangled by the garments he had woven.” “Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with colors of colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly...
February 2010
1 post
3 tags
Yammer Communities - A great opportunity for...
A great opportunity for doctors has just been announced. Yammer will be expanding their microblogging platform to groups whose member’s email have different domain names. This means the networks are no longer limited to formal organisations, and can now emerge within informal communities. It is still a “closed” network in the sense that the content is not indexed by...
December 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Sunitha Krishnan and Prajwala - Fighting for...
The entire audience was silent after watching Sunitha Krishnan’s powerful TEDIndia talk on the issue of child sex trafficking in India in November this year. People needed time to digest her message. She spoke about the organisation Prajwala she began almost 15 years ago in Hyderabad, India, and its mission of helping trafficked children. Prajwala finds, extracts, and supports women who...
3 tags
9 Lessons From The First-To-Market Deadpool
This is concentrated lesson juice from the 10 First To Market Products That lost out to Latecomers from Business Insider. “1. Friendster took money from a number of large venture capital firms very early on. They promptly filled the board with VC all-stars who had grand visions for Friendster’s future, but little concern for the technical problems of its present. (Friendster vs...
November 2009
2 posts
5 tags
Stop Bribery and Prevent Corruption -...
This is inspiration, purified. Pick a root cause of much of India’s beaurocratic and economic pain, and wrap a simple business model around providing a solution to it. What you get is a company providing anti-corruption services to people experiencing roadblocks in their dealings with bribery ridden government departments. This is gold. This social enterprise is the brainchild of Shaffi...
1 tag
SVYM - Primary Health Care in action.
On my way to TED India I was shown around the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement activities in Saragur, rural India, by an old friend who worked there as a paediatric surgeon. It was started 15 years ago by 4 medical students from Mysore and comprises two schools educating approximately 800 students between them, and a 100 bed hospital supplying free medical care to the local population. Even...
June 2009
1 post
3 tags
Is your idea too valuable to keep quiet, or too...
Advice from the many corners of the web seems to be polarised on how free you should feel to talk to people about your “big idea”. Both sides make valid points and take an extreme position to prove a point. Is there a middle ground? Share-widely camp. 1. Without the idea there is nothing, but execution is everything. There will be plenty of people in the world with the same idea,...
April 2009
1 post
4 tags
Increasing signal-to-noise on H1N1/Swine flu
With social media gaining traction since SARS (2003) and Avian H5N1 (2006), it will be interesting to see what role it might now play as a media tool in the current pandemic du jour. The benefits of social media are clear, namely speed of communication, and monitoring sentiment. The cost in accuracy is not insignficant, and it will be simply a matter of how to best use it. Can new micro media...
March 2009
4 posts
2 tags
Trampoline - The Cross Disciplinary Ideas...
What a Saturday. I had the chance to sit in on some interesting sessions at the inaugral Trampoline Melbourne, an unconference organised by Pat Allen, Melina Chan, and Steve Hopkins. It was held at Donkeywheel, Melbourne’s newest social change projects venue. 100 people from various disciplines came together to speak about their biggest ideas. I heard some interesting talks on...
4 tags
Flow
There’s a resurgence in an interest in Flow amongst the lively online community here in Melbourne. Watching the ever-connected Ross Hill and Steve Hopkins at a roundtable discussion this morning reminded me of the most useful diagram I’ve come across in understanding the concept. Its taken from Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi’s slide presentation at TED.
5 tags
Human washing machines
Humour detour. @provoost just pointed me towards a peek at a future of less labour intensive aged care. “…..as the cleansing bubbling action kicked in, Toshiko Shibahara, 89, settled back to enjoy the wash and soak cycle of her nursing home’s new human washing machine.” I think it’s pretty self explanatory. I think the manufacturers may have taken inspiration from...
3 tags
The Girl Effect - Tackling a Root Cause.
This is effective. The presentation. The message. If you could spend one dollar on a significant root cause of many of the world’s significant problems, consider this. The Girl Effect
February 2009
1 post
2 tags
3 Privacy Tips for Social Media Virgins
Content is permanent, and search is maturing. Keep this in mind everytime you post a blog, send out a tweet, or fire off a traceable comment on a website. Nothing is deleted, and accessible data mining technologies are just beginning to come into their own (pipl.com, google.com). The exciting potential of open, online dialogue is not outweighed by the risks, by any means, but there are a few...
November 2008
1 post
4 tags
Hello to my great great grandchildren.
Whilst my body is long gone, I’m happy to still have the opportunity to talk to you like this, in a way my great great grandparents unfortunately didn’t have to speak to me. Little did they envision the opportunities we now possess to have a permanent record of our every online conversation built into a relatively accurate personality construct that can speak to you in the way that...
October 2008
2 posts
3 tags
abitofpluck.com - one weekend, one brainful of fun
Maybe its just that I’m relatively new to it, but it appears that the Melbourne web development/startup scene seems to have a lot to offer, and from others are saying, might be picking up speed with regular events such as Thehive.org.au, Melbourne Jelly and Pitchclub, The events are great for connecting entrepreneurs and developers and bringing new people onto the scene to inspire each...
1 tag
Lehman Brothers
Took this video of a hardened socialist protesting outside of Lehman Brothers the day it went down. With the element of truth to what he is saying about Wall St, people probably couldn’t help but wonder about the legitimacy of his tirades on international conflict. It’s the context of the current credit meltdown that now protects him from ridicule. Ride that wave mate.
September 2008
5 posts
2 tags
Digital war on poverty
[caption id=”attachment_166” align=”alignright” width=”450” caption=”Image courtesy http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/1106-sb-OneWeb-Mobile2/”][/caption] Here’s a link to a short article by Jeffrey Sachs on the digital war on poverty. Its interesting to see market forces accomplishing a feat NGOs would be unable to (assuming they had wanted to). As...
3 tags
Its all relative
Dan Ariely has pointed to the power of relativity when it comes choosing and experiencing those choices. Satisfaction with a meal, a job, a car, is often relative not only to what others around us are experiencing, but is also dependent on how the event is presented at the time when we choose. A small plate under a sandwich not only makes the sandwich seem bigger, but you will also...
4 tags
Thought networking
Good intro to the concept of thought networking from Primal Fusion who are developing what I’m hoping will be an interesting platform. Excerpts from original post below. “Thought networks provide a concrete semantic representation of our thoughts, ideas and interests. Encoded as data, our thoughts are accessible to the power of computing. Semantic synthesis provides the means to expand...
2 tags
4th screen, a genius ad.
Just came across this impressive ad (about a year old) at the end of a TED talk. I’m not a marketer, but the emotive brand association is clear genius.
2 tags
"Every effort made to execute your other in the...
From a past trip to india. Click on image to see the polite offer for a hitman service. and “All discharge are freshley made”.
August 2008
1 post
4 tags
The Internet as a Brain
Just came across this post by Jeffrey Stibel. The Internet is a Brain. It prompted this first post, as this is realy what I’m interested in exploring. How we can figure out how to use the internet to achieve global superordinate goals. Its not a new concept, but with the social web coming into its own over the last decade, it seems the tools are becoming available, [caption...