OSN 2005
At the staff meeting today I spilled the beans on OSN 2005. I got the atypical glazed over look. Sometimes I just lack the lanaguage to properlly explain why I think something is really interesting. I think OSN 2005 has been really exciting to tap into, discuss ideas, toss your 2 cents on table and read anothers 3 cents. Yet taking my passion or interest for social networks and trying to show folks at work how truly awesome this stuff could be if we used it and applied it work and research processes is like so..... draining. I can't do it.
After the meeting, after the glazed eyes and seemingly sleepy head nods to.. oh ya.. social whatever the heck you are doing Dan. A few folks did stop by to recap just what the heck i was talkin about. Some of them got the essence of it, maybe they'll run with it like I have.
Later on in the day I saw some data input on another project. A branding focus/product type project. Seeing all these manual input methods, an access database here, a hand printed book over there, I see all of that and think to myself. The new and better way to do this is here now. It exists. How do I get it in place. How can I ramp folks up on this idea of using these tools better, heck not even better, its pure adoption. How do i get them to adopt it. Is my idea really all that? Is it lacking anywhere? There are some aspects you dont have control over. In our system the media, the data is locked down, i hold, it, i have it in my hand. I take it from there. A social network on the net means the data is out there, out in the fuzzy gooy place called the web. It maybe under some level of secruity but its still out there not here. It could be locked down with passwords and such but its still not in my hands.
In other news I've been rambling to some folks about how the one of our tablets in use in the field is running so damn slow. I was convinced it was the new XP service pack 2 update or the new tablet fixes that came along with that update. As usual, people think i'm nuts. But my other tablet which hadn't had the new "wow" update was fine, speedy as much as it could be with a transmeta chip. Its a first gen tablet, the HP-TC1000. Then today.. I read this. Damn those bastards.. i knew something was up.
On another note, I've been meaning to talk a bit on OSN 2005 about sponatous creation of social networks thru mobile devices and smart enviroments. Awhile back I read an interesting article on an MIT startup that was working on bluetooth mobile connectivity groups. This proximity dating is kinda like that. In my ramble about that, and perhaps i can find it in the archives. I thought about smart bar enviroments, where the enviroment senses your phone, knows your preferences and in your area, your circle of influence, you get lighting and minor changes to what you see and hear. The building knows yer there. And then I think recall talking about social networking while yer oblivious to it, your phone tells you theres another raving wrestling fan like yerself in the room. It tells you, beeps at you, you know and you can opt to interact, or maybe you tell your phone to interact for you. You suck at making the first contact, maybe we all suck so our phones do it for us. Our mobile devices que up the conversation, compare likes and dislikes and when it feels we have enough to go without its assistance, it glows at us and says "that guy over there... the tall one" it reads off the description the other person put in their phone. Just enough detail so that you can make that connection and start that conversation. I think i need cut and paste this ramble on OSN. .... Done!