Off Course-On Target

Is the Sky Really Falling?

I recently read the article "AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010", which is pretty much summarized by the title and the opening line:

"U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010."

You can read more in the article, although they digress into some net neutrality issues.  However, this latest prediction reminds me of similar predictions throughout history that "the end is near", and I'd like to explore them further here.

The "Limits" of Physics

I can recall back in about the late 80's when experts were making similar predictions and warnings that we had reached the upper limit of how fast data could be transferred through phone lines via modems—9600 baud! These same experts claimed that we'd reached the limits of physics and it was just a "fact" that we needed to accept. 

As we can now see (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) that entirely new materials and techniques, such as optical fibre, compression algorithms and other breakthroughs, were developed to get around some of the limits that existed for wire-based data transfer. Wikipedia has a good history of modems, bandwidth, and the inventions along the way.

It's interesting to note that these types of warnings and stories are usually accompanied by quotes from the experts and other "facts", which prove that they are "true" and inevitable.  It reminds me of this quote from a  great scene in the movie Men in Black:

"Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

BTW, you can find this quote and just about any other kind of movie-related trivia from the handy Internet Movie Database.

The "Limits" of Technology

Going much further back, dire warnings in the late 1800's said that we needed to seriously curtail the expanding use of horses, cows, and beasts of burden or else the planet would soon be covered in several feet of manure!  The experts had "done the math" and this was an inevitable and irrefutable prediction. But ooops! We didn't allow for the invention of the internal combustion engine, electrical power, and other energy sources that significantly reduced our reliance on animal-based power. Of course, we also didn't anticipate the whole new series of problems and challenges of global warming that many might argue make the manure problem look like a good one!

I sometimes have the sense that some of the more dire predictions about global warming and other imminent disasters are similarly exaggerated and misdirected. Please do NOT misconstrue my comments here to mean that we have nothing to worry about or to work on. I want to champion quite the opposite reaction!  To be sure, all of us have much to be concerned about. We need to be more diligent and work harder than ever to ensure the sustainability of ourselves and our environment so that we can ensure an ever brighter future for us all. 

The "Limits" of Human Capacity, Foresight, and Imagination

History has shown that we are capable of doing some VERY stupid things and can exhibit great ignorance and lack of foresight.  However, as illustrated by my prior examples, history also shows that we need to take into account our even greater human capacity for invention, discovery, creativity, innovation, and design.

I'm sure that many of you may have similar Chicken Little "the sky is falling" * stories, and I'd be most appreciative if you'd post these to your blogs or send comments here to help all of us learn from these historical examples.

I'm was in Mexico recently and I'm told that the story of Chicken Little (and the saying "the sky is falling") are well known there and translates to El Cielo Se Esta Cayendo. For those not familiar with this reference the previous link will give you the background.

In the end, I have huge faith in our collective powers for invention, creativity,  innovation and designing solutions. What we need to watch out for is the flip side of this where we become smug, arrogant, or cynical based on what we "know for sure" today.  I hope that examples such as this latest prediction about the limits of Internet capacity will only serve to help us balance these forces and inspire and motivate us all to work towards new ways to improve our lives and those of all others. 

Rather than imagine what we'll know for sure tomorrow, imagine if ................ Not only is the sky NOT falling, it is the limit of what is possible.

Google Oceans: Another wish comes true!

While I  can neither take credit for nor claim any influence on Google's recent announcement, I'm pleased to say that some of the things I wished for last year in my posting "New Perspectives; Looking Down and Under" are about to come true!  In that posting, I wished that we would soon have similar capabilities as those provided by Google Earth and Google Sky, but these would vary in that they would look down and under to the earth's oceans and seas. Well, the title of this posting pretty much says it all, and you can read about it in the WebWare article "Google Diving into 3D mapping of Oceans".

Google Ocean (the name is tentative), shares similar goals, as well as the potential of increased collaboration, mass contribution, and "networking" that Google Earth and Google Sky present.  See my previous posts "New Perspectives: Looking Up" and "New Perspectives: The Third Wave" for more details and context about how powerful this can be. These views were summed up in the article:

"In addition to the 'wow factor" Google Ocean will no doubt have for amateur oceanographers, marine enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by the movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the project has the potential to promote more collaboration and advance research."

They also reflect my previous comments about how little we know about the 70% of our planet that is covered by the seas:

"'We hope that one of the outcomes of Google Ocean will be an understanding of how much remains to be explored,' said Miller of Scripps. 'We know far more about the surface of Mars from a few weeks of radar surveying in orbit than we know of the bottom of the ocean after two centuries.'"

Unfortunately, Google Oceans is not yet released, and Google is not saying much officially yet.  I'll be watching for the first chance to start using this new capability, and let you know as soon as it happens.  Since I live full time at sea now, this announcement is particularly relevant and practical for me. I already use Google Earth extensively for surface information, such as exploring a port or anchorage I'm about to put into.  In addition to my charts of the area, the photos and the ability to fly over the area before I get there have made a huge difference in terms of safety and in my confidence for sailing to new places, especially at night or  in poor weather with low visibility.  But I suspect that many of you would have similar fascination with the earth's oceans and be just as anxious to learn more. Perhaps some of you will have research or other information to contribute, and we can add yet another way in which mass contribution and the power of networking helps us all get better at getting better.

This announcement about Google Oceans is yet another great example of the power of wishes and how they often do come true (you might want to read about another wish come true in my recent posting "The Future is about Winning!", which highlighted the wish that turned into Pangea Day).

Although we may want to be careful what we wish for, I could not be more serious or sincere about my wish that you'll keep believing in the power of wishing and do some of your own!  I'll continue to share some of mine. I'm also interested in knowing what are some of YOUR wishes for positive change.

Arthur C. Clarke: Discovering the Limits of the Impossible

Today (March 19, 2008), this world lost a great mind and great person with the passing of Arthur C. Clarke.  I suspect another world gained an equal or greater amount.

While I am not personally a big science fiction reader or watcher, I have long been fascinated by and most respectful of the thinking and perspectives of Arthur C. Clarke. Although I'm sure there will be a LOT of articles and other posts on this event, his passing gives me a chance to connect you to a phenomenal resource—fellow Canadian Stephen Downes.  He is one of the most active researchers and readers I know and a prolific and talented writer—skills I admire greatly.  While our perspectives are very different, Stephen and I are usually in "heated agreement" on most things and share a common sense about the priorities in life and learning.  I highly recommend that you check out some of Stephen's many sites and resources, such as his OLDaily "Online Learning Daily" and his "Half an Hour". blog.

With a nod to Stephen for the visual and the Clarke quote he chose, (copied here), here is one of the many reasons why I have such respect for and resonance with Arthur C. Clarke.

And you will also understand my sentiments when you read this Wired article about him, where they remember that when asked by Wired in 1993 if he had put any thought into what he would want on his epitaph, Clarke said he had:

"Oh, yes," he said. "I've often quoted it: 'He never grew up; but he never stopped growing.'"

May we all strive to find this often tricky balance between staying young at heart and in mind, yet constantly growing and "getting better at getting better"** as Doug Engelbart so concisely put it.  Sure helps to guide me through my journey in life.

Thanks Arthur!  You will be sorely missed but never forgotten.

** Marcia Conner and Erik Duval, two of my other favorite people,  also like and often use this Engelbart notion of getting better at getting better.

The Encyclopedia of Life and the Network Effect

We are rapidly evolving towards a networked world—NOT "network"  in the technical sense, but the concept of networks wherein literally everything and everyone is a "node" and is connected to every other node. As this degree of connectivity becomes more and more pervasive, a whole new set of characteristics begin to emerge and our world as we've known it changes dramatically. 

One of these characteristics or traits of a networked world is what has been referred to as the network effect wherein the addition of more "nodes" multiplies the value to all the other nodes and to the network overall. Historical examples include technology such as the telephone, cell phones, FAX machines, e-mail, IM, etc., where we can easily see the power of the network effect as each new "member" or node of these networks multiples value of the overall network of all the other nodes.  For example, the value of the first cell phone, FAX or e-mail was essentially zero, and the addition of each unit multiplied the value for everyone else in the "network".   As a result, as soon as you had one of these items you immediately started persuading everyone else to get one because otherwise the value to you was diminished.  An early example of the so called "viral marketing" effect we are seeing much more of now.

The term "network effect" was first coined by Robert Metcalf, a brilliant mind and the founder of Ethernet, among many other things. But what is becoming clearer is that the network effect is not limited to technical networks and is, in fact, extremely pervasive. The Encyclopedia of Life is one such application of this network effect.

Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is best summarized by the opening text on the site:

"Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of web sites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

And here is a good review of EOL by National Geographic News as well as the ubiquitous Wikipedia reference.

Of course pictures and video are even better so be sure to check out their video clip that will quickly show you how EOL works and and this collection of demonstration pages that show how rich and extendable the data will is. 

If you have a bit more time  (about 22 minutes) I highly recommend that you watch the following video:

As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.

But EOL represents even more than the two themes I've touched on here and in my last post. More about this next time.

The Encyclopedia of Life and Exponential Change

The day after posting my thoughts on "New Perspectives: Looking Down and Under" and Third Wave, I serendipitously came across a New York Times article called That's Life, which reviews a new project called "The Encyclopedia of Life" or EOL. This project is very similar in scope and importance to the study of the oceans, but also focuses more on life forms and the planet as a whole.

But what's particularly interesting about this project is how it's such a great example of a number of themes I've discussed here at Off Course - On Target.  For one thing, it presents more evidence of how we are "Living in a World of Exponential Change".

The opening of this article picks up right from where my previous postings left off:

"In one sense we know much less about Earth than we do about Mars. The vast majority of life forms on our planet are still undiscovered, and their significance for our own species remains unknown. This gap in knowledge is a serious matter: we will never completely understand and preserve the living world around us at our present level of ignorance. We are flying blind into our environmental future

Since the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus inaugurated the modern system of classification two and a half centuries ago, biologists have found and given Latinized names to about 1.8 million species of plants, animals and microorganisms — an impressive number but probably 10 percent or less of the total. Rough estimates of the number of species that remain to be discovered range from 10 million to more than 100 million.

But a new project in biology, an ambitious effort to create a vast new electronic database of known species, should make it possible to discover the remaining 90 percent of species in far less than 250 years, perhaps only one-tenth that time, a single human generation."

Sound too audacious? Impossible? Keep in mind that a related feat, that of cataloging the human genome, initially perceived as too big to solve, happened in a mere 10 years.

There's lots more to say about this fascinating project and I'll talk more about it next time.

Don't Mean to Bug You, but .......

Jonas Salk, the man who developed the polio vaccine, once said "If all the insects on earth disappeared, within 50 years all life on earth would disappear. If all humans disappeared, within 50 years all species would flourish as never before." There would be some debate as to the precise figures and outcomes here but the point is well taken I think. No reason to despair either, but humble pie should probably be a regular part of our diet, and here's chance to gain some more IQ points from taking this new perspective.

The earth without people

If you're curious about a scenario of the earth without humanity, check out "Earth Without People, an essay by Alan Weisman in the February 6, 2007 issue of Discover magazine. Weisman describes some possible scenarios. His article includes the the chart shown here, which lays this out on a timeline. 

His essay concluded with the following:

"During that same span, every dam on Earth would silt up and spill over. Rivers would again carry nutrients seaward, where most life would be, as it was long before vertebrates crawled onto the shore. Eventually, that would happen again. The world would start over."

And one bit of good news to some is that if all humans were to disappear, so too would some other species that have become dependent upon us, most notably the cockroach!  But for all of you cheered by this thought, remember that it requires that we leave first! 

Recommended Reading:

For more on this perspective, as well as a good read, I'm recommending you consider reading Alan Weisman's book The World Without Us. To help you decide if it's worth your time see Starting Over, the recent review (Sept.2, 2007) by Jennifer Schuessler who describes Weisman's book as

"wherein he imagines what would happen if the earth’s most invasive species—ourselves—were suddenly and completely wiped out."

"When it comes to mass extinctions, one expert tells him, “the only real prediction you can make is that life will go on. And that it will be interesting. Weisman’s gripping fantasy will make most readers hope that at least some of us can stick around long enough to see how it all turns out."

Next up for your reading consideration and taking us back to insects, check out  Buzz: The Intimate Bond Between Humans and Insects. For some "decision support" with this one, read the excerpt and review in Discover called "Bzzzzzzz: Why insects are vital to human survival."

Bee-ware

Let's do another one of those "inverted thinking" flips we covered in my posting "New Perspectives: The Benefits of Looking Up!" Rather than consider our elimination, imagine what would happen if all the insects were to disappear?  According to Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson:

"If all insects were to suddenly vanish overnight, it’s likely humans would be endangered. All the plants that insects pollinate would disappear. All our detritus would pile up to colossal heights. Even the oceans would be affected. Nutrients would pour down off the increasingly denuded land into the sea, triggering massive algal blooms, which would exhaust the water of oxygen and threaten fish. And the impact on terrestrial ecosystems would be enormous."

“If insects were gone, you would break a large part of the terrestrial food chain. A number of birds would starve in no time at all. Those birds and other animals that depend on birds for food would disappear. Small mammals in the soil that depend, in part, on insects would disappear. It would be a catastrophic chain reaction around the world.”

Not to be confused with extinction which is the much more gradual decline, does it sound too far fetched that entire species could suddenly go missing? Well, as you may have read, this is exactly what has been happening in the past two years to the  honeybee. Millions of bees all over the world, representing in some areas over 70% of their population, have have been disappearing. They leave their hives, never to return nor to be found. In the USA, the wild honeybees have all but completely disappeared. This been labeled "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD) and remains an unsolved mystery.

BTW, don't be distracted by the erroneous reports that linked the disappearing bees to cell phone radiation!  However the research into this very serious problem of CCD may also be leading us to even greater understanding. For example it has been noted that just as industrial agriculture has created problems with pollution, antibiotic resistance, mad cow disease, etc., colony collapse disorder may be a result of a number of poor practices, including the fact that they've bred a superbee and most of the bees hauled around the country for pollination purposes are genetically identical, making them more susceptible to a bacterial or viral attack. On the plus side, InfoShop News has a related article "Organic Beekeepers Not Affected By Colony Collapse Disorder", which goes on to say:

“The problem with commercial operations is in pesticides used in hives to fumigate for varroa mites and antibiotics that are fed to the bees to prevent disease,” she said. “Hives are hauled long distances by truck, often several times during the growing season, to provide pollination services to industrial agriculture crops, which further stresses the colonies and exposes them to agricultural pesticides and GMOs (genetically modified organics).”

Even if the biology side of a world without bees is of less interest to you, consider the economic and human perspectives. In just the USA alone, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture has estimated that CCD has the potential to cause a $15 billion direct loss of crop production and $75 billion in indirect losses. CCD has caught the attention of Fortune magazine with three articles in the past few months including this quote from "As bees go missing, a $9.3B crisis lurks";

"We wouldn't starve if the mysterious disappearance of bees, dubbed colony collapse disorder, or CCD, decimated hives worldwide. For one thing, wheat, corn, and other grains don't depend on insect pollination. 

But in a honeybee-less world, almonds, blueberries, melons, cranberries, peaches, pumpkins, onions, squash, cucumbers, and scores of other fruits and vegetables would become as pricey as sumptuous old wine. Honeybees also pollinate alfalfa used to feed livestock, so meat and milk would get dearer as well. Ditto for farmed catfish, which are fed alfalfa too. 

And jars of honey, of course, would become golden heirlooms to pass along to the grandkids. (Used for millennia as a wound dressing, honey contains potent antimicrobial compounds that enable it to last for decades in sealed containers.)"

Bees for Pets?

Perhaps the insect world has its own version of outsourcing and offshoring?  As you may know, honeybee originated in Europe and are not native to North America. This bee has put undue pressure on the native bees, whose populations until recently were in decline. They're still sorting out why the native bees are making a comeback, but interestingly, native bees called Mason bees have been successfully used by some farmers for pollinating crops. As noted in this Wikipedia entry on Mason bees:

"Most mason bees live in holes and can be attracted by drilling short holes in a block of wood. They are excellent spring season pollinators and, since they have no honey to defend, will only sting if squeezed or stepped on. As such, they make excellent garden "pets", since they both pollinate the plants and are safe for children and pets."

Wait!  Don't Buzz Off Course Just Yet!

But enough of insects for now. You may be asking what this has all got to do with YOU? As usual, I'm leading you along a path and toward a target, however unexpected, convoluted, and latent. In the next few posts. I'll provide a few more varied examples which have common powerful and pervasive patterns lurking beneath which will help provide new perspectives and new models for all of us to use to solve today's complex problems with innovative solutions. If, as I hope, you've previously made some great discoveries here at Off Course - On Target, please follow me a bit further, and I promise to do my best to lead you to more great discoveries along the way, and make it all worth your precious time.

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Technorati tags: insects, bees, colony collapse disorder, CCD, perspectives, books, patterns, research, Jonas Salk, Alan Weisman, Earth Without Us

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New Perspectives: Looking Down and Under

In "New Perspectives: The Benefits of Looking up!", we looked at the value of new perspectives in general and one perspective in particular—looking up more often to learn from the stars, sky, and space. Using the new Sky feature of Google Earth as an example, we also looked at gaining yet another perspective—by flying—and how we could tie two perspectives together to do things such as looking up at the stars to help us navigate our way on land and sea. Now I'd like to continue with our exploration of the power of perspectives by looking down and under.

The Power of Inversion

One trick I've found extremely useful for helping me solve problems and finding new perspectives is to invert things. For example, I remember how amazed I was as a young boy when I discovered that a telescope becomes a microscope (or vice versa), when you simply look from the other end!  Ever since, I've tried "looking through the other end" or inverting my thinking as much as I can to learn more, gain new insights, and see things more clearly from a new perspective.

Applying this inversion technique to the Google Sky example, what I'm hoping for next from Google or other providers of similar technology is the ability to point that camera in yet another direction—down! How about a "Sea" feature that would let us point our attention and camera the other way, down to what makes up over 71% of the Earth's surface; the oceans. It seems to me that we could learn a lot and gain many new perspectives by looking at what some call "Inner Space", the world's oceans and waterways, with at least the same intensity and resources we devote to Outer Space. Here is a brief and sobering overview of how little we currently know about the watery world around us, and some equally exciting projects that are tackling this deficit and revealing just how much we can gain from looking at it.

Networking the Oceans?

Let's start by checking out the Sept. 4th, 2007 article in the New York Times called "Bringing the Ocean to the World, in High-Def", which covers the new Ocean Observatories Initiative as well as some other very exciting major projects aimed at filling in a lot of our missing knowledge about the oceans that surround us. These endeavors are important because the oceans contain the vast majority of the earth's living space.

The Ocean Observatories Initiative involves two very different approaches:

• Placing a range of sensors in the oceans to provide directly measured data.
  
• Connecting all these sensors through the Internet so that all of the information gathered is accessible to the public and the scientific communities.

The new Ocean Observatories Initiative is:

"a multifaceted effort to study the ocean—in the ocean—through a combination of Internet-linked cables, buoys atop submerged data collection devices, robots and high-definition cameras. The first equipment is expected to be in place by 2009."

From my perspective, we are in DESPERATE need of this proliferation of study and these approaches. I always thought it curious that we know so much more about "outer space", relatively speaking, than we do about the oceans around us or our "Planet Ocean" as it is sometimes referred. Think I'm being too hyperbolic (who me?!!)? Check out some of the following facts—some fun, but many that are are very serious and sobering.

Fascinating Ocean Facts

 

 

• Water is the only known substance that can exist as a gas, liquid or solid within the limited temperatures on Earth. 
• The oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface and contain 97% of the Earth's water. 
• Less than 1% this is fresh water, and 2-3% is contained in glaciers and ice caps. 
• All life on earth is thought to have originated in the ocean. 
• An estimated 80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface. 
• Over 1 million known species of plants and animals live in the world's oceans, and scientists say there may be as many as 9 million species we haven't discovered yet ( = almost 90 % UN discovered!). 
• 96.5% of the total water on earth is in the global oceans. 
• Oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet. 
• Less than 10% of that space has been explored by humans. 
• The average depth of the ocean is 3,795 m. The average height of the land is 840 m. 
• 90% of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. 
• The top ten feet of the ocean holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere. 
• One study of a deep-sea community revealed 898 species from more than 100 families and a dozen phyla in an area about half the size of a tennis court. More than half of these were new to science.

 

At best, it is estimated that we have only mapped about 10% of the ocean floor in any detail. So what?  Remember the US submarine San Francisco that crashed into an underwater mountain near Guam back in January 2005? While the details are still under investigation, the biggest factor is the simple fact that we didn't know the mountain was there!   

Don't know what we don't know!

As stunning as some of these facts are in revealing how little we know about "Inner Space", recent studies are strongly suggesting that our ignorance is MUCH larger!  And this isn't just because the oceans are so obviously vast. We don't seem to do much better with waters that are very close to us land lubbers. For example, consider the recent study (Jan.2006) of the Gulf of Maine done as part of the Census of Marine Life, with the Huntsman Marine Science Center of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which found in their first count of known marine species in the Gulf of Maine region (3,317 and counting) was more than 50% larger than previous estimates!

But there's hope at hand. Going back to the New York Times article, it also points out many more and equally promising projects for the direct study and measurement "of the ocean - in the ocean." Each project is directly and very accurately measuring different sets of characteristics, such as temperature, currents, life forms, and also detailing their effects on land, current changes, role in climate change, etc. But what struck me the most was that all the individual projects are adopting a common approach of being open, interactive, and connected. As a result, these individual projects are similar to nodes on a network and benefiting from the same network effect where the whole is indeed so much greater than the sum of the parts. One of the studies, for example, involves a series of underwater cables that will crisscross the tectonic plate known as Juan de Fuca in the Pacific Northwest, which as Dr. John R. Delaney put it:

“For the first three or four years, people just laughed when I said we’re going to turn Juan de Fuca Plate into a national laboratory,” Professor Delaney said. “Now they’re not laughing.”

As an added bonus and as a Canadian, I was also tickled to learn that Canada is putting in its own cabled network for more of the Straits of Juan de Fuca off the coast of British Columbia, which is where I last lived in Canada and where the rest of my family lives.

In another post, I'll add some overview comments on the meta-trends and patterns that are emerging in both these recent marine examples as well as the likes of Google Sky, which we covered in New Perspectives: The Benefits of Looking Up.

Until then, as sailors say:

"May you have fair winds and following seas."

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del.icio.us tags: perspectives, ocean, oceans, marine life, water, marine, ocean facts, fun facts, Ocean Observatories Initiative, networking, Juan de Fuca, submarine, inverted thinking, lateral thinking, thought sparks

Technorati tags: perspectives, ocean, oceans, marine life, water, marine, ocean facts, fun facts, Ocean Observatories Initiative, networking, Juan de Fuca, submarine, inverted thinking, lateral thinking, thought sparks

New Perspectives: The Benefits of Looking Up!

Alan Kay (sometimes referred to as the father of the PC, object oriented code, and much more) is credited with saying that "point of view is worth 80 IQ points". This is a catchy way of saying that consciously looking at problems and situations from multiple perspectives and constantly looking for new perspectives to solve problems is an extremely powerful technique and skill to develop.

I suspect that you have many examples in your own life, where you've come up with solutions or have been more creative in your problem solving using some version of this idea. This idea of helping others, as well as myself, to discover and utilize new perspectives is a strategy I use in most of my work, and is a primary goal for Off Course - On Target. So with this in mind, let's see if we can get a bit "smarter" by finding and using a few new perspectives.

Looking up

We humans have a natural tendency to look ahead and down much more than we look up.  It was always a successful strategy as a child playing hide and seek to climb up a tree or onto a top shelf in a closet. And anyone unfortunate enough to have spent time in a hospital bed or on a gurney knows how different the world looks from this perspective and how little attention is paid to ceilings! On the other hand I've noticed that dentists have taken notice and are putting things on the ceilings, such as paintings or televisions, for you to look at while you are reclining in the dentist's chair.

A very recent example of this new perspective of looking up is an exciting new feature in Google Earth called "Sky".  This simple,  but powerful new feature gives you the ability to choose a location on Earth and then turn the "camera" around to look up and see the sky. This amazing tool lets you see and explore stars, animations of the planets movement, zoom in on fabulous Hubble imagery and more. Here is a short video tour that shows Sky in action:

Based on my brief time with this new feature I see this as fun and functional.  How well did your school science courses help YOU understand the spatial relationships of the moon, earth, sun, and stars?  How well can you point out the different stars and constellations in the night sky to your children or others, explaining why they change depending on date and your location? Sky sure seems to help me a lot with this.

To continue with your experiential learning, something we are so fond of here at Off Course - On Target, I highly recommend that you download the newest version of Google Earth and take the Sky feature out for a spin. I think you too will find that it offers some serious fun and lots of learning as well.

And while you're up in the Sky, why not fly?

In some recent posts, I   emphasized the need to avoid what I've characterized as "flapping", that is, copying experts and models of the past, and instead have urged you to focus on the essential characteristics you are seeking to take off and fly.  So it struck me as a nice bit of serendipity to read of the recent discovery of a hidden flight simulator in Google Earth. These secret capabilities, referred to as "Easter eggs" are a favorite of some application developers.

Adding motion is a great way to gain a new perspective, so strap yourself into one of the two airplane options, an F16 Viper and the more manageable SR22 4 seater, and try flying your way over your home region or anyplace else in the world you'd like to see.

To access the hidden feature, open Google Earth and hit Command+Option+A (must be capital A) or Ctrl+Alt+A.  Here is a full list of the keyboard controls for the Google Earth flight simulator. Fasten your seatbelt low and tight and welcome aboard! 

BTW, as you are flying around see how much the realism that comes from flying over photographic images of the "real" earth and sea starts to address some of the limitations of your experiences with less accurate virtual worlds that we've also mentioned in previous discussions, such as in my posting Virtual Lift Off?

Stars to Sea

Another way to use new perspectives is to find ways to tie two or more of them together.  For example, how can the benefits of looking up at the stars, help us when we are down on earth looking out and around us?   

Well, consider sailors who venture out into the open ocean and how extremely dependent they become upon knowing their precise location.  This, of course, helps us just as much with navigation on land. Many of you have experienced the benefits (and aggravations) of onboard GPS and navigation systems installed in new cars you may own or rent.  While modern day technologies, such as GPS and electronic charting, look after navigation with unprecedented ease and extraordinary accuracy, you always want to have a backup or two or three when your life depends upon it! Therefore, the ancient method of celestial navigation is still used as a backup by most who sail the open oceans. 

As an aspiring global sailor myself, I'm busy learning as much as I can about this art and science of finding your way by the sun, moon, stars, and planets, and I'm acquiring skills with sextants and the like. You can just imagine how much Google's Sky makes me "smarter" by helping me to learn these new concepts and skills.  Besides, I just love the juxtaposition of setting my sextant, an 18th-century technology, down beside my oh-so-very 21st-century latest, greatest, high tech GPS system and digital charting screen. 

What examples do you have of using inverted thinking and new perspectives to help you learn more, and be more creative in your thinking and problem solving? Please share your examples through your comments here at Off Course - On Target or in your own postings and I'll continue to do the same.

Thanks!

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Ambient and Informal Information Filtering

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If you are reading this, then you are probably aware of the growing challenge that we all face of information overload. Even if you don't suffer (as I do) from the medical version of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), a global level of ADD seems to be affecting us all, because we simply have too many things to pay attention to. 

The Internet has helped us to discover that the more you learn, the more you find things that you don't know, but are interested in. On a daily basis, we are discovering more people, places, things, topics, professions, gadgets, and problems through more avenues than ever before. 

How many times do you find yourself asking "How did I get here?" after following some thread of interesting and related web links? How often do you ask a similar question in a conversation with a colleague or friend?  At least for me, this opportunity for overload on the Internet is one of those love/hate relationships...yet I want more!

BUT I also want to do more RELEVANT finding and learning. Now, I don't want anyone or anything to MAKE the decisions for me, but I'm desperately seeking assistance in making more decisions, faster and better. In other words, I'm looking for "decision support" that is designed to match the exponential increase of learning and information out there. 

This is hardly a trivial problem, nor is it one I suspect we'll have mastered anytime soon, but what I'm finding is that there is an increasing amount of decision support available. So I wanted to bring two kinds to your attention today (if you've got the time and attention?!).

I like to think of information as "that which informs".  It is a simple yet profound perspective that I've found extremely helpful. Claude Shannon, often referred to as "the father of information theory", put it best when he said "information causes change; if it doesn't it isn't information"  For me, information can take almost any form—text, people, drawings, graphics, machines—literally anything I can sense, I suppose. And it is only information if it is new to me, which could mean it is something I've seen before, something that itself might be very old, but is now in a new context, or now I'm able to understand it or see it in a new light. In other words, information is something relevant to what I'm thinking about or working on at the time. 

You can see how this is topic is such an important part of my focus on mass personalization, the Snowflake Effect, and getting everything "just right" as in just the right information to just the right person(s) at just the right time in just the right way, etc.

Because if what IS information is all so personal and contextual, then information filtering is itself a tricky business. We only want to filter out the irrelevant stuff, yet that saying about "one person's garbage is another person's treasure" certainly applies to information and ideas. But I worry that serendipitous discoveries of great things will get lost in these information filters.

Therefore, I think that we humans will be a significant part of the process of successful information filtering, and at least right now, what we need is that decision support layer between us, along with the delightful deluge of choices. We need something to act as our personal agent to bring us more things which have a high probability of being relevant, while providing some tools and techniques that help us make better decisions faster.

Ambient Information?

Some of the best information filtering today seems to work very informally or indirectly. I've heard this referred to as "ambient information" by some and I think it's a good description. Ambient information is aimed at reducing data overload. It acts as a "decision support device" by moving the information into the world around us. It is a bit like staring up at the night sky and discovering that you can see clusters of stars best when you don't look at them directly but rather, off to one side. Here are two examples of what I'm referring to as informal information filtering and ambient information:

PARTiCLS:  Paying Attention to Personalized Aggregation

PARTiCLS is a web-based RSS application that appears on your desktop as a constantly scrolling set of headlines for you to consider. It's a bit like a scrolling stock ticker. Developed by the Australia-based startup behind APML, its co-founder Chris Saad described PARTiCLS as "an attention management engine for busy people who deal with a constant stream of incoming information." "Particls to take RSS Mainstream" by StartupSquad provides a more detailed review. I've been experimenting with a "pre-beta" version for the past few months and now it is available as a public beta (fascinating how the whole beta phenomena has evolved, isn't it?).

PARTiCLS is also a good example to me of the maturing of RSS. In particular, it provides a very "Grandma-friendly" interface (this is a reference to my recent "Going after Grandma" post). While RSS is popular with some audiences, it has not been at all friendly to the true masses, who have been slow to use it. Nor has RSS even begun to reach its potential. I'm convinced that RSS will continue to grow and evolve in importance, and applications such as PARTiCLS will help it to make inroads with the masses. It's worth a look.

I'm recommending that you try "learning by doing" with PARTiCLS is so you can experience a form of informal information filtering that I referenced at the outset of this post. To get started with PARTiCLS, you can simply enter any number of words, in any order. No syntax, no forms, just stream of consciousness; whatever comes to your mind at the time. The entry box is available at any time.  It lets you see what your terms are, and you can add or delete them as your interests change.

What I was REALLY hoping to see in future releases of PARTiCLS is the ability to monitor my "attention" and then for it to either start automatically adding appropriate terms to my list or recommending ones for me to add. I'm delighted to see that they have started down this path with "Auto-detected interest" and "Auto subscribe" features that scan your browsing history and detect some of your attention data, and then automatically subscribe you to new sites that you are visiting regularly. 

Something else that really sets PARTiCLS apart from other RSS readers and applications is its ability to sort out how important new information is to you and then use proportionally different means to alert you to it. For example, general information might be displayed on the news ticker that I mentioned earlier, whereas more important items might appear as a popup alert, and urgent information might be sent via SMS to your phone. PARTiCLS has also just added a new "inTouch" option that enables you to embed a PARTiCLS link on your web site or blog. When readers click on it, they can automatically use PARTiCLS to monitor topics that you cover.

I recommend that you take it out for a test drive, and let me know what your experience is like when you do. Does it have the right balance between being a form of "ambient information" or is it too distracting? How well does it help you sort out the important and relevant stuff for you?

Orbs

Even more indirect, informal, and perhaps effective are some emerging "ambient information devices" such as the Ambient Orb pictured here, as well as an ambient umbrella that glows when rain is likely to occur.  Ambient Devices (the company) positions this as being the best of both worlds of "push" and "pull" types of information distribution. In their article about the orb device, the New York Times said :

"This is ambient information''—the newest concept in how to monitor everyday data. We've been cramming stock tips, horoscopes and news items onto our computers and cell phones—forcing us to peer constantly at little screens. What if we've been precisely wrong?"

Since their introduction, some of which were dismissed as "just a fad", there have been some very successful and "serious" implementations. For example in the recent (Aug/07) Wired magazine article "Psst! You're Wasting Electricity", reporter Clive Thompson thinks that "the desktop orb could reform energy hogs".  His article cited the growing use of orbs or other forms of ambient information by power companies to help customers reduce their bills and their energy consumption. For example, Southern California Edison power company got its customers to reduce energy use by 40 percent. This was also after several very unsuccessful attempts using automated phone calls, text messages, and emails. 

With this success, I noticed that Ambient Devices is now selling this "Energy Joule" device that plugs into any wall socket and provides up-to-date readouts of the cost of the energy you are currently consuming. 

But it is this success at changing behaviors that I found to be most interesting and promising here. It fits very nicely with my previous notions of "decision support", since these devices are helping to manage the information overload and helping us make better decisions. 

You may have experienced another form of this if you have ever driven a vehicle with some a real-time fuel consumption readouts on the dashboard. Even better might be one that added the current cost of the fuel and read out in units that we all seem to understand very well and react to—money! 

Thompson goes on to suggest:

"Maybe the real killer app for ambient information isn't alleviating data overload or tracking investments. Maybe it's taming global warming. To improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions, we first need to make omnipresent the hidden facts about our usage—paint them on the world around us." 

Sounds a lot more effective and immediate that many of the other ideas out there and it is one that I could see actually changing behaviors and trends.

Already one company, DIY Kyoto has a device called Wattson that both monitors your energy consumption AND sends the data to a web site so you can compare your usage with others worldwide. As Thompson astutely notes in his Wired article: 

"The hope is that it could spawn a cascade of conservations. It's fun seeing your personal energy tab go down by kilowatts but just imagine watching the world's usage plunge by terawatts or petawatts.  Now that's fun."

For whatever purpose you might have, I'd strongly encourage you to do some experiential learning with these new forms of information filtering and decision support. I'd love to hear about your use of these models and how successful or not they are at changing behaviors and improving decisions.   

In future posts, I'm going to pick up on this idea of using fun for serious purposes, while it seems to produce important results. Stay tuned.

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Mishmash of Mashups

In the past two years or so, one of my most popular topics and the one that I've been asked to spend most of my time on is mashups. Notably, this topic seems to be popular across a widely diverse range of my audiences and across many countries and cultures.   

My recent audiences have spanned four continents, and included such diverse group as IT professionals and CIO’s; commercial sales executives; military organizations; technology-enabled learning and e-Learning professionals; and higher education professors, deans and ministers. Given all the interest, I thought a short summary of the topic, along with some recent examples, was due. Hence... today’s post. 

If mashups (or my views about them) are relatively new to you, you can find more details by searching for “mashup” on the Off Course – On Target site. Some of my previous postings on mashups include: 

• The future is a Monstrous and Marvelous Mashup! 
• Mashed Up Snowflakes?

The main point I try to make (and why it seems so relevant to so many) is that mashups should be thought of as a conceptual model rather than a technology. While the term "mashup" is somewhat new, the concept is neither new nor complex. In simple terms:

A mashup is a unique assembly of bits and pieces from more than one source into a single integrated whole. 

Even more simply (and a surprisingly robust metaphor for it) is that mashups are like Lego blocks; you have a lot of small components which can form almost infinite numbers of assemblies to create just about anything you can imagine.   

With mashups, the ‘bits and pieces’ or individual Lego blocks are pre-existing things that can come from any source and often from multiple sources. Furthermore, these “bits and pieces” can truly be just about anything and everything, from content to code to hardware to events to teams.

Two things that are accelerating the rise of mashups are what I call MC² (with apologies to Einstein and others):

MC² = Mass Contribution multiplied by Mass Customization

Mass contribution and mass customization are part of the deeply pervasive metapattern of mass personalization, which Erik Duval and I refer to as "The Snowflake Effect." All of us are becoming increasingly enabled by mashup technology and the plentiful availability of mashable objects.

We are becoming mashup creators ourselves. Fewer programming skills are required, and many essentially require none, so we can focus on finding and assembling the specific components we want to put together into a unique assembly. You can get a sense of the depth and diversity of mashups by spending a few minutes looking at some of the examples listed by the likes of WebMashup.com.

Perhaps because my audiences who work in information technology (IT), as well those who are CIO’s, have shown such an interest in mashups, I took note of today’s posting (July 23^rd, 2007) "A bumper crop of new mashup platforms" by Dion Hinchliffe and his previous posting from May, Mashups: The next major new software development model?. Dion’s blog, Enterprise 2.0, focuses on “leveraging the convergence of IT and the next generation of the Web”. He too makes note of this shift in focus from the current practice of creating  “raw components” to creating assemblies instead.  In the larger context, I’ve noted that this is also bringing with it a rethinking about the scope of design and how we are all becoming “designers”.  As we create these assemblies of solutions to match our  unique requirements, context, and situations. we are becoming more involved in design and design related tasks.   

Dion provided this diagram which I thought was a good summary of the situation:

   

He also provided a reference to a recent McKinsey "Web 2.0 in business" survey which noted that 21% of organizations globally said they are using or planning to use mashups. He went on to note that: 

“...there appears to be considerable demand for mashups at the enterprise level even though the majority of existing offerings are primarily aimed at the consumer space.”  

In other recent news, I saw a good example of the Snowflake Effect and mashups on TV, or perhaps better put, in video content. This example is called Chime.tv and you will find a good summary and even better video coverage on David’s posting "Chime.TV’s subject-based channels cut across Internet video sources with one UI".

Even more apropos to today’s topic of mashups, Chime.TV is but one of the many examples coming out of the recently completed Mashup Camp run by David Berlind and others from Ziff Davis. David posted some of his observations on mashup trends yesterday in his posting Mashup culture shatters crusty, stodgy old approach to business app dev.   

Returning now to this idea about mashups as a conceptual model, I want to recommend that you look at these examples and consider how mashups fit into your world and work. Consider that mashups also apply to people!  Think for example about putting together a great project team. Ideally you want to be able to find just the right collection and combination of individuals who possess just the right set of skills, knowledge, experience, and attitudes (the Lego blocks) to form a new “assembly” that best matches the needs of the project and the context of the specific situation. Or consider how valuable it will be to be able to find just the right individual(s) to meet and talk with at a conference, in an online chat, or on IM. 

Rather than leaving this to serendipity (even as powerful as I believe that to be), imagine a future where you and we collectively can start to increase the probability of finding “just the right” people to create the mashup of individuals you need. To some extent, this is already happening at some “unconference” events and more broadly with the newest “dating technology” whereby changing the context from romantic to professional or other purposes, the exact same technology can be extremely effective at helping you to find the right people to talk with, work with, and meet with. 

I’ll continue to keep an eye on mashups and talk more about some specific applications and diversity in future postings. In the meantime, send me some of the ways you are going to mashup your world. This may sound “off course” but it sure is “on target” to improving our overall learning and performance, don’t you think?

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