Category: Uncategorized

Link: Google embeds YouTube videos into Google Earth.

The thought experiment:  The satellite imagery in Google Earth is just data, information, bits.  What if Google recreated Google Earth using the underlying Google Earth engine, but instead of skinning it with satellite imagery, they started it as a blank sphere (tabula rasa) and they let common, everyday folk create what a (building, block, township, county, state, continent) looked like?  And then let folks create their own world by weaving together the terraformed creations?  That would kinda be like SL, wouldn’t it?

image: lat long blog

Keith Hopper: "The more I learn about VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), the more I hear about the importance of benefits for both the buyer and the seller.

The big question that remains then is, how is VRM good for business?
As we consider and construct tools that put the customer in control of
their data, how will existing businesses be convinced this is a good
thing? And what opportunities are in store for new businesses that can
leverage VRM models? In short, how will companies make (more) money in
a VRM world?

Here are some initial thoughts."

  New Uses 
  Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

Are there ways that existing customers of your product can use it that perhaps they hadn’t thought of?  Think about…

• Using baking soda not only for baking, but also in your fridge.
• Using cotton swabs not just for cosmetic uses, but also to light a hard-to-reach candle
• Using an iPod as a tip calculator when out at a restaurant.

What new ways can your product be used?

I’ve written an article entitled "Social Networking for Business: Measuring the Results" for the October edition of Communication World Bulletin, the monthly publication of the International Association of Business Communicators.

An excerpt:

"The online world is abuzz with talk about social networking. With
companies such as Facebook seemingly constantly in the news, 2007 has
been the year that social networking took its first adolescent steps
beyond being the sole purview of, well, adolescents, and started to
become a tool that is getting noticed in the business world. But with
all the hype out there about online social networking, how can
organizations begin to better understand the tangible business impact
of their forays into this area?"

You can view the whole article here.

"The Department of Technology Services (DTS) has notified us that the Federal Government inadvertently deleted the CA.GOV domain."  Story here.

I hate it when that happens.

"Consumers are statistics. Customers are people." – Stanley Marcus (via Forrester’s Bruce Temkin)

I love these images, which were found at SelvasCano.  (Read the post here.)

Where we are:

Where we’re going:

Spot on!  That subtle shift…providing the community capabilities that enable customers to connect with each other (and not just viewing customers as captive assets) is the secret sauce.

Deb Schultz just posted about a dozen great links to thoughts on how enterprise social networking, marketing, and CRM/VRM are all weaving together.  So, I don’t have to.  Go read Deb’s post.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WEB, regarding all this "Social Graph" buzzword bingo:

My connections are not yet another resource to be strip-mined; my
relationships are not intended to be the impetus for your next Bre-X
adventure.  Facebook and now, allegedly, Google are finding more and
more ways to give unfettered access to the "connections" I’ve
acknowledged publicly.

On a pragmatic note, I’m far from the least-connected person out
there.  I’ve had the good fortune to connect with many people at a
more-than-superficial level over the past couple of decades in the Real
World.  As such, I am happy to accept the LinkedIn and Facebook bacn
as it comes across the wire from those with whom I’ve had
interactions.  I see accepting these requests as a form of social
grooming.  It’s as much reciprocal validation as anything. 

But it needs to be an individual decision to share this information. (Ross is trying to find a way to get IP protection on his information, for example.)

The thing that’s missing from the majority of the social networking
conversations I’ve seen and been involved in over the past few years is
that the importance of context
is almost never mentioned.  My connections all have a context to them
(and the others to whom I’m connected my have a different context from
their perspectives). 

My attributes also have a context; you may not
care about what I had for dinner last night, but a cardiologist (or
officemate!) might place a great deal of importance on that information.

So we need to be thinking about the context in all of these conversations.

Developers, designers, futurists, users…I pose you a question.  When you look out ten years, do you want to be in Minority Report or the Global Village?

Make your decision.

Then make it happen.

CHRISTOPHER CARFI
Half Moon Bay, California
September 21, 2007

My friend Susan Mernit just dropped me an email letting me know about the upcoming "She’s Geeky" event, being held in Moutain View, CA on October 22 and 23.

"She’s Geeky (
http://www.shesgeeky.org)

More on the event here and here.

Bonus question: Which band/song inspired the title of this post?