A new kind of telescope

From the TED conference:

"Science educator Roy Gould and Microsoft’s Curtis Wong give an astonishing sneak preview of Microsoft’s new WorldWide Telescope — a technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and weaves them together holistically to build a comprehensive view of our universe. (Yes, it’s the technology that made Robert Scoble cry.)"

(found via Don Dodge’s blog | client disclaimer)

Ten Canadian software companies to watch

IDC Canada has highlighted ten emerging Canadian software companies in a new research study (press release; research store). According to IDC, these companies have “the potential to make an impact in the information and communications technology (ICT) market”.

I haven’t gotten my hands on the study but a ComputerWorld Canada article provides some very high level pointers on criteria and take-aways. In the article, executives from a few of the selected companies talk about what they see as key factors to success, including:

• Networking through industry associations and research groups
• Seeking the right partnerships
• Building a strong customer base
• Staying close and listening to the customers while keeping an eye on the evolving market
• Clarity of vision

The ten Canadian companies examined in the study are:

1. Apparent Networks
2. Casero
3. Coveo
4. Halogen
5. Idée Inc.
6. Loki Management Systems
7. M-Tech
8. Objectworld
9. Osellus
10. Privasoft

Links of Note - April 10, 2007

1) “How To Live Up to the Innovation Hype” - Business Week innovation and design writer Reena Jana on former “next big thing” companies that didn’t live up to the initial hype but are now seeing an upswing in business growth because they have “refined their technologies, remade their business models, and reached out to new audiences.”

If these [new] technologies weren’t taken to market, their owners may never have found that better use,” Chesbrough writes in an e-mail. “Innovators need to learn how to play poker in pursuing these technologies, rather than playing chess, where the objectives and possibilities are clearly defined at the outset.”

Henry Chesbrough, executive director of the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business

2) “How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job” - The Wall Street Journal

Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they are also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can’t get from résumés and interviews.

PR Blogger Kevin Duggan is quoted in the article. He says that his blog generates “about one job lead a month”. 

Blogging still plays a minor role for PR hiring practices in Canada. But the importance is growing. Blogging can definitely help people get a new PR job here, too. Just ask Chris Clarke or Michael O’Connor-Clarke or Tamera Kremer of Thornley Fallis.

The blind camera: Taking somebody else’s photos

The networked camera has no objective. No lense, no zoom. It’s just a black box with a button and some electronics inside. “Buttons is a camera that actually shoots other’s photos, taking the notion of the networked camera to the extreme.” Sascha Pohflepp, a student of visual communication at the Berlin University of the Arts,  has created it:

Photography has become a networked process. It no longer ends with pasting prints into an album. Instead, making them public through services like Flickr is rapidly becoming one of the main ways how we treat our visual memories. The photographic process extends from preserving a moment to an act of telecommunication, with numerous implications on how we perceive reality, how we make our memories and how we create a narrative from it.

If you liked Michael Wesch’s video (“Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us”) that has been posted all over the blogosphere recently, you might also enjoy the concept of Between Blinks & Buttons. You can watch a video here.

Red Herring comes to Canada

Looks like May and June will be busy months for tech people. After ICT Toronto recently declared the last week in May to be ”Toronto Technology Week” (featuring mesh, BarCamp and the Canadian New Media Awards), Red Herring today announcend the launch of Red Herring Canada and its own tech conference in Montreal from June 13 to 15.

“With Red Herring Canada, we will help shine a light on a whole new crop of Canadian technology innovators who deserve more recognition.”

Joel Dreyfuss, Editor in Chief, Red Herring

I haven’t seen any details beyond the standard press release yet. But that’s good to hear. There are already a number of great events and awards for technology innovators in Canada, for example CIPA. But we can definitely use more help. Welcome to Canada, Red Herring!

Rediscovering innovation over and over again

“Innovation seems to be rediscovered in each managerial generation (about every six years) as a fundamental way to enable new growth. But each generation seems to have forgotten or never learned the mistakes of the past, so we see classic traps repeated over and over again. Some of these repeat offenders include burying innovation teams under too much bureaucracy, treating the innovators as more valued corporate citizens than those who work in the current business, and hiring leaders who don’t have the relationship and communications skills necessary to foster innovation.”

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School in Lessons Not Learned About Innovation, an interview by Harvard Business School Working Knowledge for Business Leaders

Professor Kanter’s article on her research, Innovation: The Classic Traps, can be bought here.

Daily Mail: Big brother is not only watching you - now he is barkinging orders too

According to an article in the Daily Mail, the Closed Circuit TV in Middlesbrough now features a number of loudspeakers, so control room operators can publicly berate bad behaviour and shame offenders into acting more responsibly. 

‘This isn’t about keeping tabs on people, it’s about making the streets safer for the law-abiding majority and helping to change the attitudes of those who cause trouble. It challenges unacceptable behaviour and makes people think twice.’

Ray Bonner, manager of CCTV at the City of Middlesbrough, in Daily Mail, September 16, 2006

Not sure if the clocks are striking thirteen yet (some would probably argue they already did when CCTV was introduced). It’s a debatable innovation and use of security technology but in today’s world, it’s hardly surprising. Let’s see if more cities in the UK will adopt this idea.

From Wikipedia to Citizendium

There will be no logged-out editing and no anonymous editing [in Citizendium].  Anyone may participate, but all must be logged in under their own real names (we will use the honor principle to begin with), and with a working e-mail address.  Where Wikipedia shares the culture of anonymity found in the broader Internet, the Citizendium will have a culture of real-world, personal responsibility.

Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, has started a new project called Citizendium, which initially is supposed to be a “progressive fork” of Wikipedia. One of the key differences is the inclusion of editors (vs. authors) who must state their credentials on a user profile page. With this system, Citizendium hopes to fight the “widespread anonymity that, according to Sanger, has led to a “troll problem” in Wikipedia. He also want to make Citizendium attractive to academics, “so that they can contribute in a way they feel comfortable with”. He explains his approach in detail in an essay called “Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge“.

Trying to get rid of anonymity and trolls is a good idea. It will bring who-edited-my-wiki-page feuds to an end and make it easier to call out people for editing an entry a certain way. The proposed editorial system could be a challenge, though. Larry Sanger suggests that Citizendium editors and “chief subject editors” act as “facilitators and organizers, not dictators”. I think it is a great idea in theory but in the end, when there are differences in opinion, somebody has to make a decision. But overall, I find the notion of taking personal responsibility for writing or editing entries very appealing.

Larry Sanders wants to have software and servers for Citizendium set up by September 30th.

What is innovation?

“Innovation is, first and foremost, a business philosophy — that’s the message that must be sent to Canadian businesses. Change the workplace culture first, otherwise your IT investment achieves little. Innovation is little more than a buzzword if you can’t see that.”

ITworldcanada.com’s Dan McLean on innovation in When bad practices happen to good IT concepts