Inside View

Learning Positive Attitude

WE HAVE A THIRD level module in "Group Project" that has a hidden scoring system for initiative and enthusiasm. Simply put, if a team member lacks a positive attitude and has little or no pride in group work, only a poor result follows. We achieved approval by the Higher Education Training and Awards Council because we convinced accreditors that successful start-ups occur with teams of positive people working together and that team members who have the right attitude can succeed even when they initially may lack the software skills at the start. We know from feedback of graduates that people are often mistakenly hired for their skills or academic credential and then fired for their attitude. So we are assessing students for their positive contribution to the group dynamic in third year and then exploring this issue in fourth year as a major research topic.

---

Sent from my Nokia N8 while cruising Ireland's M8.

 

x_ref153

Trying to Keep Running Water

I FEEL GUILTY as my running tap trickles water straight back into the sewage system but I'm not going through another week with no running water in the house. I blame the builders for putting my main water supply only four inches below the ground. And I blame the local authorities for failing to enforce building standards. It's going to be another three weeks before the ground is thawed enough for me to dig a trench and lay some insulation around the main water supply. In the meantime, I have non-stop running water in the house.

---

Recorded with Nokia N8 in my kitchen.

x_ref125mw journal

My Most Valuable Gear

WHEN WE CLOSED THE COFFIN on my dad, we put his pocket memo pad with well-worn pen in his hand. I think when I pass away, my Bihn sling bag should go with me too. It's the thing I use nearly every day--even weekends. It's not as pretentious as a man purse and after four years of use, it has proven its resilience countless times. A plastic bottle of coke leaked inside one day, soaked the inner liner, but didn't affect the HD video camera just behind the middle layer. Clever little pockets keep all my stuff separated so I can slip my hand inside, pull out what I need and never look down to see what I'm doing. It's triangular in shape which means it fits in unused crannies overhead in aircraft, buses and trains. It rides comfortably on my back but I overpack it so it's a little destabilising when I cycle with it. Unlike a handsome briefcase or laptop bag, it doesn't look like it contains more than EUR 2000 worth of equipment and that has undoubtedly served me well in several crowded spaces. If I can find a little Bihn bag made in pink, I'm buying one for my daughter before she starts school.

---

Tom Bihn's staff makes excellent messenger bags, laptop bags, and accessories (i.e, the Field Journal Notebook).

 

x_ref125mw journal

 

Spam from Trusted Networks

I SUSPECT PEOPLE like Matt Cutts have waved a magic anti-spam wand over my in-box because the amount of spam I get via Gmail is remarkably low. I use my morning commute to catch up on email because when the routine is successful I have a zero in-box at 9am. However, spammy messages from other networks are sneaking into my message flow. I changed my Facebook email identity so I no longer get messages from Facebook into my primary account. Twitter doesn't know my real e-mail. But LinkedIn is sneaking unwelcome messages to me and that means squelching contact options for Premium LinkedIn customers. They're the ones with the time and premium access to beat Matt Cutts' spam filters.

---

Sent from my Nokia N8.

 

x_ref125mw mobile

Listening to the Technium

I LIVE IN AN AREA where remnants of the 18th century Industrial Revolution exist. I walk on towpaths where I can see hints of how live animals and mechanical creatures first started working together in farms and homes. They coexisted in a revolution that changed society. In 1802, Johann Beckmann, an economics professor at Göttingen University gave this perceptible force a name. He addressed the techne of architecture, the techne of chemistry, metalwork, masonry and manufacturing. He synthesized all these things into a unified curriculum and wrote a textbook entitled  Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen and I read parts of his translated view of Technologie while in university. Today, I'm reading Beckmann inside of Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants and discovering a clear understanding of a world around me that previously went unseen. It's a world with a vibrant technium, an interconnected network of systems, subsystems, machines, pipes, roads, wires, conveyor belts, automobiles, servers, codes, calculators, sensors, archives, activators, and embedded system memory. Kelly points to scientific research to document how large systems of technology often behave like a very primitive organism. As I read what technology wants, I get a better appreciation of the 18th century when people Ireland first placed major structures of technology on the landscape. I'm writing a series of scripts about the role the River Suir played in developing early examples of the Irish technium and I hope that I'll create a series of podcasts where people can listen to this story. It's fascinating to observe the origins of the Irish technological species and it's a story worth sharing.

---

Kevin Kelly -- What Technology Wants ISBN 9780670022151. On Flickr, most of the Technium images are bicycles.

 

x_ref125mc

My Qik Disappointmemt

I HAVE MADE more than 880 videos with Qik and think my first 888 were easier and more elegant with older Nokia and SonyEricsson phones than my last two with my Nokia N8. That's because the older phones were set up to work straight away with camera buttons and you could contol many of the live video features from behind the camera. Not with the N8. I cannot whip out the N8 and start a Qik clip perfectly every time. Something often hangs in the phone and that hung process stops Qik from getting the access to network services and camera optics. I am also frustrated that Qik downsources the N8's excellent audio when smaller video resolutions are selected. Next week an update should drop onto my N8. I hope that update solves my hassles and restores my frequent use of Qik.

Sent mail2blog using O2 Typepd service from my Nokia N8.

Direct link to today's Qik clip.

 

x_ref125sm video

Sunday News Horse Outside

Listen

I MADE QIK WORK of two Sunday broadsheets, noticing most of them wrote about Budget 2011 and the lack of any real incentives for the small business sector in Ireland. The budget reflects time-worn mandarin perspectives about cranking up taxes, reducing State services and ignoring the entrepreneurial sector. That ignorance will stall Ireland's recovery, if you believe any of the pundits in the Times or Business Post today.

News with Horse Outside

Horse Outside Christmas Number One

 

 

X-FACTOR NORMALLY parachutes a single into the Irish and British charts as the Christmas Number One but if the Rubberbandits get some traction their "Horse Outside" single could edge out the top spot. Its YouTube graph looks like a hockey stick at the moment and that should mean more than one million views within a week and a solid hold on the top 10 of iTunes shortly thereafter. I think the Irish charts count purchases made between 17 and 23 December in the calculation for Christmas Number One.

I stumbled upon the Horse Outside just after RTE broadcast a chilling expose of regeneration in Limerick. The YouTube video contains ample visual and audio markers for a social media module I teach, guaranteeing it permanent placement in a third level course where we analyse effective semiotics in multimedia.

Horse Outside

---

 

x_ref125mw news

 

Video Crits and Nokia N8

NOKIA'S N8 has the best point-and-shoot camera I have ever used but it's obvious that I need some special tuition with white balance so I'm posting some hob-top work here in the knowledge that Mike Kiely will be gentle in his one-on-one comments about my camera technique. I shot the short clip while holding an iPod Touch (iOS4) above the N8 and while making the video, it appeared that Apple was winning the white balance war. You can see what I mean below the break. I uploaded the N8 video using Ovi and the iPod Touch video using Pixelpipe.

I Followed Jangles

NEVILLE HOBSON (at right) is probably duly engaged in more meaningful tasks so he might not notice he's been tweeting for exactly four years today. I know the day because it's St Nicholas Day in some homes but St Jangles Day in my tweetspace. Even though I'm subscribed to many channels of Jangles, I actually follow him aurally because it's automatic. His business podcast has been on my mobile devices since 2005 and it's the one that most helps me through corporate business communications. I made the decision to hang out on Twitter because Jaiku started acting flaky. I liked Jaiku's channels but over the years, Twitter discovered its own version (hashtags) and the Irish twitter community grew into tens of thousands of people, even though the first three years of Twitter were filled with irregular service and regular worms that still attack the unwary. I've seen a change in the attention economy since thousands of potential blog readers started using Twitter (and publicity hounds have stomped off). Statcounter tells me that my daily readership is cut by more than 50% since 2007 on Inside View, my main blog. Gartner tells me that the workplace is changing how it handles communications too and that by 2014 systems like Twitter will reduce the importance of e-mail in the workplace. I believe Gartner and I'm embargoing a blog post today that will appear in late 2014, reflecting on the way my fourth year creative multimedia students see their workplace of 2014.

---

Twittergrader tells you who joined four years ago.

 

x_ref125sm twitter