I'm re-reading Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational right now. It's still amazing to me how completely manipulable we are. I just finished the first chapter, which deals with the phenomenon of how our decision-making processes are so predictably skewed by changes to the choice pool. The example Dan brings up in the book is an experiment where photos are taken of students who … [Read more...]
Recalling Total Recall
It's been 2 years since I was poring over footage from a trip made to San Francisco to interview Gordon Bell about his book, Total Recall, and to discuss how computers were quickly taking their place as our surrogate memory. I recently went back and looked at the finished product and find the content more relevant today than I did then. I depend more than ever on Evernote and … [Read more...]
What Chefs Can Teach Us About Social Media
It's easy to begin using Social Media and the cost of entry is very, very low. As a result, many organizations feel compelled to begin using social channels without thinking through exactly how they will use them. Even though it's easy to begin using social media, using it effectively can be difficult at best. At the core of the problem is that most organizations ignore … [Read more...]
Melting Rock with RockMelt
I've been using RockMelt for a week or so now. For those of you unfamiliar with RockMelt, it is a new browser that functions as a social desktop. If you're wondering what that looks like, consider a browser with social functions built right into the chrome of the application. The far left border displays the profile pics of your Facebook friends online, while the border to … [Read more...]
The Shape of a Social Enterprise
Much has been made of the idea of a Social Enterprise. The idea of increased transparency both within and without the organization. Internally, tacit knowledge is given a new degree of latitude. Externally, the line between inside and outside the organization begins to blur. I think we've done a lot of thinking about how social media will change our relationships with our … [Read more...]
The Age of the Nano-Demographic: P2P Marketing
In college, I learned about new music from my friends. Like it or not, I picked up tips about personal style from them, too. You can blame them for some of the looks I've sported through time. The important point here is that my market-facing tendencies are not defined by my age, race, or socio-economic status as much as they are by the people I hang out with. This is why … [Read more...]
Google Instant Search: Backing into semantics
What It Is Google recently released its Google Instant search product. It is basically a recommendation engine on steroids. The way it works is that, as you type, search terms are recommended; starting with the first letter. For instance, typing "W" will present you with the weather forecast based on your geographic location. That's because it assumes the word you are … [Read more...]
I Had a Dream (Update)
Back in June of 2008, I wrote a post detailing a vision I had for Apple tech working with television for enhanced viewing. Well, ABC Television just released the My Generation Sync app for iPad which behaves pretty much how I imagined it. The video does a better job of explaining it than I can: Of technical interest is how the app syncs with the show. It uses the … [Read more...]
Toward a More Usable City
A B-Cycle kiosk was just installed in front of the John Hancock Center in Chicago. It's good to see bike sharing make its way to this side of the Atlantic. I've already seen bikes being rented from the kiosk. I think the fact that the bike can be grabbed from a kiosk is critical to the success of the program. If people were forced to go into an office, fill out paperwork, … [Read more...]
When You Assume…
Recently, there was a post over at DiscoBlog on the Discover Magazine site that mentioned a study that claims that women who wax have better sex. It reminded me how quickly we can be led astray by settling on the first assumption. At first blush, one would assume that if you are a woman and you want to have better sex, wax. Reading the comments on the post showed me that the … [Read more...]
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