On The Acquisition Of Knowledge 1/2

The road to the acquisition of knowledge is a well-established path: we've always been supposed to get our knowledge from other people. Parents, teachers, preachers, masters, gurus, and the like, they are the intended intermediaries for us

Before the invention of writing information was handed down through people, from one to the other. The one possessing the information determined who would receive it, and who wouldn't. As such, it was a very effective way to control people

Even millennia after that, information used to be scarce. By 1424, Cambridge University library owned only 122 books. In 1440 the printing press was invented that sped up the speed of printing thus reducing the cost of books

Twitter is everywhere is Twitter

At the Web 2.0 Expo in New York, there's a lot to talk about. And especially, to Tweet about. Which is great, because I'm not there but can follow it now anyway

Some speakers have a huge screen where a live Twitter feed is presented following the Web 2.0 Expo hashtag #w2e. Danah Boyd, a Social Media Researcher from Microsoft gave a presentation that wasn't well received. While she was staring at her paper notes reading her "speech", tweeps in the audience were sharing their frustration - which were of course immediately visible on the screen in the room itself, sparking off other tweets. Cause and effect unsure, Danah was speaking so fast that it was hard to follow as well

Redefining the meaning and goal of Social

Julie Cottin and Alex Williams plea for cutting through the wood by bringing what I call a countermessage

This usually happens when a hot topic or hype gets picked up. A hype is nothing else but a new way to do pretty much the same thing, albeit (much) faster, better, cheaper or more efficient. In that, it is a new means to (roughly) the same goal

After a while, means are being mistaken for goals. Then people start criticising the hype because their perception of it (it is a goal) doesn't allow for a business case, or ROI

Changing ecosystems: who will be 2010's dinosaur(s)?

The Dinosaur was a mighty beast, highly respected and deemed insuperable until that perception was suddenly 180-ed. There are several theories of course as to why this happened, but the one I like most is the fact that the cause (action) was simple, and the effect too: an insufficient reaction (to changing ecosystems)

Jeff Jarvis thinks there are new ecosystems out there: that's part 1 of the equation

Part 2 is right here as well
Rupert Murdoch may be the first dinosaur, announcing he wants people to pay for his news in stead of be

Business case for Social Business Design

In my view the best opinion about Social Business Design or Enterprise 2.0 is from Stowe Boyd, who names Andrew McAfee and Dennis Howlett, as well as the Dachisgroup itself

I like the criticism, the nasty questions, and what that triggers

In essence, all of us / them are already proving that extended global collaboration works. All the discussions, tweets, blogs, conferences, disagreements and the hand wavers (quoting Dennis there) are speeding up the definition of it, its goal and its purpose

Do either of them make money out of that? Not that I've seen any mention of that, but it sure keeps them

No cure no pay? Let's turn the IT business model around

We had the Internet-bubble. And its burst. Before that, you were pretty much considered a fool if you didn't borrow money to invest in dot.com businesses

We also have the credit crisis. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Wall Street fell in 2009. After religion and politics, now also economics have proven to not be sustainable in their extreme forms

There hasn't been much applause for new technologies during either of those two periods. Currently, Cloud computing is meeting a lot of resistance, and the rebranded E2.0, Social Business Design, is receiving some tough questions as well

But, in between those periods, we welcomed CRM, ERP, ESB, SOA, UML, BPEL, and lots of other

XML and partnerships don't mix nor match. 1 + 1 doesn't equal 3

After some last fights about EDIFACT/X12 versus XML on LinkedIn, Matt Asay on Twitter tweeted about Fudge, a hierarchical, typesafe, binary, self-describing message encoding system

And I actually like that. But, there's one showstopper to me: the self-describing part, which it has in common with XML

I have two wonderful daughters, who often play with eachother. Most of the time they'll just invent a game, making up the rules as they go. Especially the oldest is great at changing the rules during the game so she can keep ending up winning. The youngest usually puts up with that until she's fed up with it, and quits playing with her sister