Jack’s Whiteboard

musings of a visual thinker and unremitting creative

Seth Godin’s New eBook

I’M A BIG SETH GODIN FAN.

Here’s his new ebook, “What Matters Most”.

Digital engagement is fundamentally changing the way in which humans communicate and interact. In this space (which ALL of us are in... whether you participate or not), the more you give, the more you get.

From Seth, “Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up. Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I've organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you'll find it worth it the effort.”

“Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here.”

Click here to download:
what-matters-now-1.pdf (3.09 MB)

2009 Ironman Championship on NBC This Saturday

I HAVE YET TO QUALIFY FOR THE KONA CHAMPIONSHIP RACE. But I’ll keep doing Ironman races until I do qualify. I had an opportunity to go to Kona about five years ago to watch the race when I was doing some work with the World Triathlon Corporation which owns the Ironman brand. It was inspiring.

I’m looking forward to watching the broadcast on Saturday. It will highlight the physical and emotional journey during the renowned 140.6-mile race which actually took place on October 10th. Veteran sports commentator, Al Trautwig, narrates.

Like the Olympics, watching Ironman races moves me to tears. I’m a big baby when it comes to watching well-made telecasts about big human achievements.

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When Grocery Shopping Becomes Ancient History

Watermelon

I’VE BEEN FASCINATED RECENTLY BY THE TERM “WEB SQUARED”. Web 1.0 sorta blew up when the dot-coms tanked. Web 2.0 is the hot topic now. “Web Squared” is a fairly new term that isn’t getting a ton of press yet. Here’s how web strategist, Dion Hinchcliffe, defines Web Squared:

“Web Squared articulates a broader fusion between the world-at-large, the Web, and the people connected to it. It’s a more extreme view of Web 2.0 while at the same time hinting that while social computing has been a major transformative force recently in the consumer world and beyond, the relentless growth of devices, network connectivity, and sensors into our lives across our homes, workplaces, and external environment is casting an growing “information shadow” that is increasingly hard to ignore.”

Google’s Holodeck is a glimpse of what this virtual interaction may feel like. So, picture this...  The holidays are upon you and you haven’t done any gift shopping yet. It’s snowy and cold outside. Yuck. You sit down in your living room at your panoramic computer workstation and do a “fly by” over your city as you consider the various shops below. “Hmmm... There’s Nordstrom, there’s Target, there’s Outback Steak House...”, etc. You choose Nordstrom. As you virtually walk through the store (wearing digital gloves), and reach out with your hands, you’re actually able to pick things up off the shelf, rotate them and read the labels. Holding a bottle of bath beads, you think, “Yes, Sally would love this,” as you place it in your virtual shopping cart. You stroll over to the men’s clothing, thumb through the shirts thinking about a gift for Fred. Picking one up, you think, “I wonder if Fred would like this one?” A little unsure, you ping five of Fred’s friends on Facebook and show them the shirt in real time on their mobile devices. The conclusion? He’ll love it. After your gift shopping is done, you decide to stop by the grocery store to pick up a few items. Again, a fly by over your city, a swoop down to enter Albersons, a virtual walk through the aisles, and the grocery store’s courier service has your order in their delivery truck and on its way to your home before you know it.

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O’Reilly and Battelle write, in an article entitled “Web Squared and the Internet of Things” that the Internet is “...no longer a collection of static pages of HTML that describe something in the world. Increasingly, the Web is the world—everything and everyone in the world casts an ‘information shadow,’ an aura of data which, when captured and processed intelligently, offers extraordinary opportunity and mind bending implications. Web Squared is our way of exploring this phenomenon and giving it a name.” 

The implications and impact on the way in which we live is mind boggling.
“A movement is underway to add any imaginable physical object into the Internet of Things. In Japan, for example, many cows have IP addresses embedded onto RFID chips implanted into their skin, enabling farmers to track each animal through the entire production and distribution process. In the words of journalist Sean Dodson, we are facing a future ‘where pretty much everything is online,’ or according to O’Reilly and Battelle, ‘the web is now the world’.”

Just warning you up front...  The video below is REALLY long. Almost an hour. But if you’re feeling über-geeky, it’s cool stuff.

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(watermelon image, courtesy laughlin’s flickr photostream)