Last Friday I spend my day at a seminar on Innovation, aimed at civil servants and focussing on new trends in social media, the cloud and crowdsourcing. Actually, we didn't get to know a lot about that last subject. The whole seminar was sponsored by the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, Cap Gemini etc and the host mentioned a Twitter account at the start of the seminar (forgetting about the hashtag, by the way, but that was remedied after the first coffee break).
The first two sessions after lunch were so blatantly commercial Adobe talk that the people twittering started to be annoyed. Which led to an unexpected result: the host entering the auditorium and cutting the presentation short, quoting the negative reactions he'd seen passing on his Twitter account. (#inno2020)
One could argue that, in an auditorium of maybe 150 people, only 10% of them were actively posting comments. Maybe a little more. The tweets were, by the way, very polite: nothing nasty or indecent, just commenting on the commercial nature of the presentations and their lack of relevance. So yes, power to social media, if tweets can cut a presentation short. On the other hand: power to a very small minority whereas the majority of the people in the room had nothing to do with it - and no choice about it either.
And certainly very embarrassing for the Adobe guys ...
Monday, May 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Hmm .. Europe (and it's not meant nicely)
Spending two days in a depressing conference room in a depressing building talking about benchmarking and measurement of e-government initiatives, made me feel like I have landed on another planet. Portal presentations on existing initiatives that have been around for some time. Someone suggesting that it might be interesting to do some webanalytics if we want to learn about the usage of these e-government services (deuh? "Google Analytics, anyone? Heard of Alexa.com?" ... what?)
Meanwhile people from the European Commission and from the contracting party Cap Gemini pretend that the opinions of European experts around the table mean something. But I got the distinct feeling it doesn't matter anyway as decisions on what needs to be done won't be taken here anyway. And lo & behold: by the end of a long discussion decisions 'will be made' as what we talked about were just 'individual opinions'.A small survey with a number of other delegates confirmed my feelings.
Lot's of running around, travelling, leaving an unacceptable eco-footprint ... I don't have a lot of "European" mileage but it frustrates me when some of the clichés seem to be true.
Meanwhile people from the European Commission and from the contracting party Cap Gemini pretend that the opinions of European experts around the table mean something. But I got the distinct feeling it doesn't matter anyway as decisions on what needs to be done won't be taken here anyway. And lo & behold: by the end of a long discussion decisions 'will be made' as what we talked about were just 'individual opinions'.A small survey with a number of other delegates confirmed my feelings.
Lot's of running around, travelling, leaving an unacceptable eco-footprint ... I don't have a lot of "European" mileage but it frustrates me when some of the clichés seem to be true.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Sue me, I said 'app store'
The New York Times had an interesting piece on the legal squabbles of tech companies when involved in the use of daily language and everyday words. Microsoft sues Apple and Apple sues Amazon for the use of the words "app store".
Suing over app store is not only an Apple privilege. Facebook has tried to trademark words like 'like' or 'poke' and also 'wall' and 'face' and 'book' ... And Windows is no stranger to trying to play at the same game, trademarking words like 'windows', 'office' or 'word'.
The New York Times cites a Web branding expert, Christopher Johnson, saying there is 'a land grab going on'. Apparently the US Patent and Trademark Office lags about 5 years behind in allowing companies to claim generic words. An basically, the giants can fool around all they want, it's the small companies that get hurt (like Placebook that changed it's name when lawyers came calling).
As always, it's the lawyers who benefit from these very expensive and lenghty trademark proceedings ...
When I try to explain what a personalised citizens' portal, containing government services, could be like, I use the term 'app store' instead of portal. Because portal is the wrong word whichever way you turn it. And because everybody understands "app store" Am I going to be sued now too?
Suing over app store is not only an Apple privilege. Facebook has tried to trademark words like 'like' or 'poke' and also 'wall' and 'face' and 'book' ... And Windows is no stranger to trying to play at the same game, trademarking words like 'windows', 'office' or 'word'.
The New York Times cites a Web branding expert, Christopher Johnson, saying there is 'a land grab going on'. Apparently the US Patent and Trademark Office lags about 5 years behind in allowing companies to claim generic words. An basically, the giants can fool around all they want, it's the small companies that get hurt (like Placebook that changed it's name when lawyers came calling).
As always, it's the lawyers who benefit from these very expensive and lenghty trademark proceedings ...
When I try to explain what a personalised citizens' portal, containing government services, could be like, I use the term 'app store' instead of portal. Because portal is the wrong word whichever way you turn it. And because everybody understands "app store" Am I going to be sued now too?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
better together, indeed
Last week, the 20 year old son of a well known and very much respected advertising professional, died in a stupid-stupid-stupid accident during a party with fellow students. The kind of thing that scares the shit out of you when you have teenage kids and the always present 'so-much-can-happen-to-them' fear pops up, again.
His friends have started a remembrance website where people not only can leave their condolences but where friends can upload pictures, video's, even songs.
The very thoughtfull thing about this very simple site is that it's really meant for the family. Apparantly thousands have already uploaded a personal note but except for the occasional quote on the homepage, you cannot browse them. Not like on other condolences-sites where you sometimes get the feeling that they are meant as public platforms ('see what I wrote? And how eloquently too?'). The upload function for songs and video's has been deactivated, probably due to too many uploads. If there are any, they are not for the public eye. And the small selection of images suggests that there's probably much more but that these are gifts to the family who lost a son.
This is actually what a condolence site should be about.
His friends have started a remembrance website where people not only can leave their condolences but where friends can upload pictures, video's, even songs.
The very thoughtfull thing about this very simple site is that it's really meant for the family. Apparantly thousands have already uploaded a personal note but except for the occasional quote on the homepage, you cannot browse them. Not like on other condolences-sites where you sometimes get the feeling that they are meant as public platforms ('see what I wrote? And how eloquently too?'). The upload function for songs and video's has been deactivated, probably due to too many uploads. If there are any, they are not for the public eye. And the small selection of images suggests that there's probably much more but that these are gifts to the family who lost a son.
This is actually what a condolence site should be about.
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