What is the next wave after Mobile? Services beyond devices

I've spent 33 years in the tech industry.  Working at HP, Apple, and Microsoft was great to ride the wave of desktop computing.  In the world of Mobile there is so much going on I find it much better to figure out what is going on being independent.  Last night I spent a few hours with some of the thought leadership folks going to GigaOm Mobilize, chatting about new services.

Microsoft had a vision of a computer on every desk.  The new vision is a mobile device on every person.  You can continue down this track to think the future are google glasses, implants and more hardware stuck to you.  I don't.  Although I am sure we will see plenty of people who will think they are so much better than the rest based on what mobile gear they have.

Every week day, I spend an hour in an aerobic workout and reading a book on a Kindle Paperwhite.  I've been doing this for about 2 months now.  At first 45 minutes, and now an hour.  At the beginning I was using my Galaxy Note, reading with the Kindle app.  This setup though had me reaching to check e-mail and surf the web.  No. I am going to spend an hour a day just reading.  No distractions.  This turns out to be a good aerobic workout routine and a good exercise for my mind to focus on learning something new.  It is well documented that contrary to popular belief multi-tasking is less productive. Juggling a bunch of different things may feel better, but it is an illusion of control.  You can't see your mistakes.  The things you drop and don't do as good as a job.  Or things you completely miss.  Opening your mind to see every day you are making mistakes recognizes you are human.

So, what is the next thing after Mobile?  Services that help you see you focus and see your mistakes.  With everyone having a mobile device connected to the cloud, new services can be created that let you know where you stand in relation to others.

There are so many people who did not have the benefit of an education in math or science.  They may take this statement as saying they need to live the life of Mr Spock.  No.  They would find it much easier to face the facts.

Here is one article on where Astrology is Science.

Astrology is not a very scientific way to answer questions. Although astrologers seek to explain the natural world, they don't usually attempt to critically evaluate whether those explanations are valid — and this is a key part of science. The community of scientists evaluates its ideas against evidence from the natural world and rejects or modifies those ideas when evidence doesn't support them. Astrologers do not take the same critical perspective on their own astrological ideas.

What happens when your data mining is flooded with SPAM? NSA's data center problem

Washingtonpost discuss the problem of the NSA data center being flooded with SPAM.

The NSA's data-collection activities are so resource-intensive, the agency can't complete its new server farms fast enough. But when it does, a significant share of what gets held on those servers could wind up being worthless spam.

We now know the NSA collects hundreds of thousands of address books and contact lists from e-mail services and instant messaging clients per day. Thanks to this information, the NSA is capable of building a map of a target's online relationships.

The abundance of SPAM is probably one of the top reasons so many users try not to use e-mail.

The writer closes making the point that part of what is stored in the NSA data center is lots and lots of SPAM.

Industry reports show spam accounts for an overwhelming share of all e-mail. Other internal NSA documents obtained by The Post's Barton Gellman appear to agree. If what the NSA is downloading is at all reflective of the broader Internet, then it's fair to conclude the agency collects a significant amount of spam and has little choice but to store it — meaning that of the "alottabytes" of storage the NSA brags about in its Utah data center, a heap of them will be filled with junk.

Rethinking what is the Truth in Economic Data, Premise Challenges Government Reporting

The movie Trading Places with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy made millions gaming the government disclosure of OJ futures.

It does seem pretty fragile that the future prices are determined by decades old manual methods.

A startup came out of stealth mode today.  I caught the news first in the WSJ print version, and there is a SFGate article that also covers the new service.

He began to wonder what information the government was relying on, and how they were gathering and analyzing it.

"They're reporting on about half a percentage point of reality," he said.

Soloff thought that in the digital age, there had to be more complete, reliable and rapid ways to collect the data that informs critical monetary decisions, here and abroad. A year and a half ago, he co-founded a company that aims to prove it, using an unusual online and offline approach that could offer fresh economic insights.

It's called Premise Data Corp., using the term from logic meaning the assumption that something is true. But it remains to be seen whether the company's own premise is true - that it can make money selling better data, indexes and tools than vast government agencies.

Office vs. Office-less workers, HP/Yahoo! vs. 37 Signals

One of the biggest daily carbon footprints is the daily commute.  Notice how more and more start-ups are having workers scattered around the world?  I started a company with friends and we are separated by 900 miles, but we are on the same time zone.  Google Hangout is our main method of connecting.  Some may think e-mail is for the old guys.  Well we are a bunch old guys, and at the stage we are in now e-mail works to allow everyone to be in their own mode without an interruptions. This e-mail approach is opposed to a quick collaboration Agile type of solution.

Here is a post by 37 signals on their office setup.

“Everyone in the same office” is less true now than it ever was. People are waking up to the benefits of remote working. From quality of life to quality of talent. It’s a new world, and thus a new set of assumptions.

The interesting, and tricky, part of choosing a work pattern is comparing these different worlds. What’s the value of a group of people who a) can only be picked from amongst those within a 30-mile radius of a specific office, b) who have to deal with the indignity of a hour-long daily commute, c) but who’s Agile with that capital A?

Versus a team composed of a) the best talent you could find, regardless of where they live, and b) who has the freedom to work their own schedule, c) but can’t do the literal daily stand-up meeting or pair in front of the same physical computer?

37 Signals followed the above post with another one focusing on HP/Best Buy/Yahoo!'s call for "all hands on deck" everyone must be in the office.

Neither is the hilarious corporate doublespeak that’s being enlisted to make the case. Here’s a choice bit on just how important employees are to the Vapid Corporate Slogan of The Day.. uhm, I mean HP Way Now:

Belief in the power of our people is a core principle of the HP Way Now. Employees are at the center of what we do, we achieve competitive advantages through our people. HP has amazing employees who are driving great change.

So we have great people, but we can’t trust them to get anything done unless we see butts in seats from 9-5? Who cares whether all these great people have designed a lifestyle around not having to commute long hours or live in a given city. That’s all acceptable collateral damage in the “all hands on deck” playbook for sinking companies.

Having a space where you can do your best work is your goal. Some companies think this way.  Some don't.

What is so often true is management doesn't give you the reasons why they are changing policy.

It’s sad when you see once-great companies reduced to this smoldering mess of mistrust and cargo culting. But hey, at least we know now the pitch of the whistle that says its time to abandon ship. It’s “all hands on deck”.