YouTube From the Self Indulgent to Global Outreach

One of the more popular social media tools on the Internet is YouTube, which started off as means for millions to upload self-indulgent videos of themselves, has now become both an information resource tool and a means of connecting with others on social causes. The challenge for those who would use this resource to connect with others, especially new converts, is gaining the trust of those you would use to help disseminate the videos through social sites such as Face Book or MySpace without having to spend a fortune. The New York Times published two stories that deal with these issues.

BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | January 18, 2009

Ping: At First, Funny Videos. Now, a Reference Tool.

By MIGUEL HELFT

YouTube is rapidly morphing into a popular search engine and a new entry point into the Web.And now YouTube, conceived as a video hosting and sharing site, has become a bona fide search tool. Searches on it in the United States recently edged out those on Yahoo, which had long been the No. 2 search engine, behind Google. (Google, incidentally, owns YouTube.) In November, Americans conducted nearly 2.8 billion searches on YouTube, about 200 million more than on Yahoo, according to comScore.

BUSINESS / MEDIA & ADVERTISING | December 14, 2008

Digital Domain: Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

By RANDALL STROSS

Web advertising experts see a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites.

And when they try to take advantage of new “social advertising,” extending their commercial message to a member’s friends, their ads will be noticed, all right, but not necessarily favorably. Members are understandably reluctant to become shills. IDC, the technology research firm, published a study last month that reported that just 3 percent of Internet users in the United States would willingly let publishers use their friends for advertising. The report described social advertising as “stillborn.”

Change-agent organizations do not have the same goals as companies such as Procter & Gamble. They will face similar issues when attempting to get others to put videos or other social media outlets on their websites.

Youtube, itself, has become more of a social outreach advocate than merely a social gathering site. One example is their work at Davos, the location for the world's latest economic forum.

New Videos from the Davos Question Matthias Lüfkens - The Davos Debates continue... Dan Shapiro joins the Davos Debates Ramazan Salman and Rabbi Soetendorp join the Davos Debates Imam Abu Eesa joins the Davos Debates Ramazan Salman -Social Entrepreneur- joins the Davos Debates Cindy Ehnes joins the Davos Debates Harvard University's Peter Galison joins the Davos Debates S-G of the OECD Angel Gurria joins the Davos Debates Tammy Haddad and Andrea Newman networking at Davos 2009 Ricardo Young Silva joins the Davos Debates Professor Muhammad Yunus responds to the Girl Effect Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Jeff Nathenson fails to join the Davos Debates Zurich Financial Services CEO James Schiro joins the Debates Arthur Yap joins the Davos Debates Olivier Piou of Gemalto joins the Davos Debates Social Entrepreneur Fernando Nilo joins the Davos Debates Professor Mohammad Yunus joins the Davos Debates Ann Veneman talks about the Girl Effect at Davos

Curious And Curiouser Layer By Layer

Curious via Seth's Blog offered the following on 1/21/08

Nic created the video below--the subtitles and edits are his. The bad cold is mine. I hope you like it (the video, not the cold).

Also from Seth's Blog Layering on 1/22/08

Here's what we used to do:
Create ---> Edit ---> Launch

Here's what happens now:
Create ---> Launch ---> Edit ---> Launch ---> repeat

Someone asked me which post on this blog represented the turning point of its growth. The 'breakthrough' post. It turns out that there wasn't one. Instead, there were 2,500 posts, one after the other, each building (and I was learning from each) as we went. And thus the challenge. We live in a layered world now. Those that plan and plan and then launch are always going to be at a disadvantage to the layerers.

The Entrepreneurial Mind on 1/17/08 also has a perspective on whether To Plan, Or Not to Plan.

I don't believe that this is in opposition to what Seth Godin had said, just said differently from a different perspective. Dr. Campbell also expresses the idea that plans are not the holy grail of entrepreneurship and when he writes that he will have to adjust my plan each step along the way, I think of Seth Godin's layering.

We set business plans up on a pedestal as if it is the holy grail of entrepreneurship. Just look at BusinessWeek.com's most recent special issue on entrepreneurship -- it is all about business planning.

It is as if we are telling aspiring entrepreneurs that once they unlock the secrets of the business plan, the world of entrepreneurial wealth will come pouring out at them. Sorry, but this is just not true.

On the other hand, there is now a debate raging as to whether we should even teach entrepreneurs about business plans.

All of this -- and I mean both sides of this debate -- is missing the point.

So why do we teach about business plans? It is because they are a way to help organize what can be a complex and overwhelming array of issues. It is because it forces us to integrate our marketing plans, or operating plans and our financial plans into one, coherent story.

But I still plan. I just know that I will have to adjust my plan each step along the way as I begin to implement it as I start and grow my business.

The Entrepreneurial Mind also tells us that Growth is Never a Smooth Curve

The truth is that growth is a messy thing. It never follows a smooth path. The real curves that signify growth are jagged. Growth is lumpy, not smooth.

Growth requires us to make leaps of faith as we commit to significant new overhead, including more space, more equipment and more staff.

And in today's dynamic economy, a growing business is like the shark -- it has to keep moving forward, or it will drown.

The commitment to growth requires careful thought and careful planning. Never grow simply on faith and hope. Grow with a careful plan that tells you what challenges your decision to grow will create.

Is this in disagreement with what was said above? I don't believe so. This goes back to Seth Godin's point about maintaining curiosity, because curiosity is to my mind the pre-commitment to immerse our selves in a chosen field to learn all we can and endeavor to make it better. This post only touches lightly upon Dr. Campbell's ideas. His full post better expresses the balance that entrepreneurs need to achieve.

Attempting To Update Videos

My favorite means of learning on the web is watching educational videos like Professor Lewin's physics lectures, MIT World, Econ 100B Macroeconomic Analysis with Professor Steven Wood , TED videos and many others.

I have finally updated the video tag of this weblog so that it includes all embedded videos or slide shows. Also updated to FireFox 3 beta which I learned about from the Wired article. The problem is that all video players are not created equal, at least not on my regular computer. For some reason embedded TED videos using Flash 9.0 have a hard time usually stopping and flashing a continuous 'loading video'. This despite having had enlarged the storage capacity that may be needed by the videos. I don't know if its just my computer, my wife's works fine, but I hope that not too many others are suffering from this. One can always go to the TED talk site itself but having the video handy was nice. It use to work better I don't know what changed. Another video on the blink now, at least for my computer, is Like Trying to Milk a Fish which featured Sam Davidson. Now it stops after about 1 minute.

For the good, the video at the The Fine Print Of Good Design post did not even load up before I upgraded my Firefox. Now it works fine.

All of the YouTube Videos also work fine, but then its Google. Besides updating the video tag, I have also added a diigo sticky note to the video tag link as an explanation and link back to this post. Of course, you need diigo to make it work.

The Broad Stroke Of Good Design

I decided to break this in to two posts. For a more worldly view, below is a TED video on William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle To Grave Design

Finally, does any of this work in the real world of business and entrepreneurship? Here is a link to The Value of Design Factfinder, which makes a strong case that it does.

The Fine Print Of Good Design

I am not a designer. Any glimmer of understanding I may have about design at this point is from working on this weblog. Regardless though, I have made a variety of comments concerning design which have for the most part been broad-based philosophical generalizations.

This weblog is designed as a learning tool. So I th0ught it proper to provide some links to websites on design that involved information that was more directly relevant to design itself. What is thinking as a designer? Not that there is any lack of philosophical insight from these designers.

Design Thinking... What is That? by Mark Dziersk From Fast Company Magazine

The methodology commonly referred to as design thinking is a proven and repeatable problem-solving protocol that any business or profession can employ to achieve extraordinary results.

Although Design is most often used to describe an object or end result, Design in its most effective form is a process, an action, a verb not a noun. A protocol for solving problems and discovering new opportunities. Techniques and tools differ and their effectiveness are arguable but the core of the process stays the same. It's taken years of slogging through Design = high style to bring us full circle to the simple truth about design thinking. That it is a most powerful tool and when used effectively, can be the foundation for driving a brand or business forward.

Fine Print A journey through the world of typography with graphic designer Michael Bierut

originally via kottke.org :: home of fine hypertext products

BrightCove

Read Virginia Postrel's related story: Playing to Type from The Atlantic, January 2008

"Given its subject, Michael Bierut's Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design, published last May by Princeton Architectural Press, is remarkably plain. It has no pictures. It isn't oversized. It doesn't even have a dust jacket."

"Yet the book is a graphic extravaganza."

I decided to continue this in a second post.

Forwarding webpages with highlights and sticky notes, powered by Diigo

More On Fair Use And Free Culture (Not Free Use)

I found this at Matthias Zeller Memento post Larry Lessig’s Talk - Software Patents and Free Culture from earlier this year. The slide show was originally by Rashmi Sinha’s weblog.
In this slide-show Larry Lessig provides more background on Fair Use from his perspective.

Larry's Talk - Free Culture

From: rashmi, 5 months ago

| View | Upload your own

SlideShare Link

A more updated talk by Larry Lessig is available here:TED | TEDBlog: How creativity is being strangled by the law: Larry Lessig.

Tech Bubble Burst and Blown Again and Again

This is an update on the Tech Bubble video. The original was first found at Businesspundit where it stopped working and still doesn't work. Same with a number of other sites that featured the video. Below is a working copy of the banished version of the video found at Marketing Pilgrim. This time the video is through Metacafe instead of using YouTube.



Here Comes Another Bubble - video powered by Metacafe

Now we have the 'legal', 'authorized', 'well nobody is complaining as much so we can enjoy it' version below. I wrote that if it was Fair Use then Richter Scale should be able to keep the video up, but if it was not then they should re-edit the video (which they did) and apologize (which they did not). This version has a list of credits at the end. Whether or not this was truly Fair Use has still not been settled. At least not to the point where we have a legal and even moral principal to base future decisions on. We have a problem if that question can only be settled through long legal battles or if Fair Use becomes the easy out for not paying for artistic or private content. You have your choice to not view the first video if you think Fair Use did not apply, or you can compare to see the difference.

Richter Scales did not to my knowledge and according to their blog make any money off of the video. That does not settle the issue, but it does go to the idea, at least to my mind, of artistic parody. What it does not do is provide a means of protecting artists and small entrepreneurs (or artists actually trying to make a living) who have to take risks in the marketplace. We still have not defined how we protect them except by Larry Lessig's quip, "Fair Use is the right to hire an attorney."

My original post and follow ups on this are here. It seems that we can put this little Internet imbroglio behind us. The larger issue, however, has not been resolved, merely put aside. The industry is still coping with the concept that there is a difference between fair use and free use. As this post is getting too long, and I am still tossing this issue around in my own head more will come later.

Philosophy For Kids Starting Paradigm Shifts Early

BPS RESEARCH DIGEST: Philosophy for kids

I found out about this at the TEDBlog but the original post was from BPS Research Digest. This weblog cited two other articles from BPS previously. Some highlights from the Philosophy for kids article:

Philosophy for kids

Keith Topping and Steve Trickey first reported the short-term benefits of using "Thinking through Philosophy" with children in an earlier study

Teaching children the art of collaborative philosophical inquiry brings them persistent, long-term cognitive benefits, according to psychologists in Scotland.

.

The philosophy-based lessons encouraged a community approach to 'inquiry' in the classroom, with children sharing their views on Socratic questions posed by the teacher. The children's cognitive abilities were tested using the 'Cognitive Abilities Test', a measure which has been found to predict children's performance on external school examinations.

A number of educational weblinks have been found during the last four months of web-trekking. Most of these were placed under the section at the left hand column titled Pearls of Paradigm Processing Paradigm Shifts Through Innovation. Critical thinking is a common thread among them. Before starting on this endeavor the original title was simply Cool Stuff. It changed to Innovation because most of the cool stuff dealt with innovation. Education, on further reflection also belongs in there because it is an essential source for innovation. The concept of Education expands even further when using tags, science, civic media, social entrepreneurship have all been interrelated with education and all benefit from Socratic and critical thinking.

The Bricks For Building Dreams

CoolPeopleCare | There's a Rumbling
"Passion is key for anyone looking to start something new. It's not all you need, but it's a big part of what's necessary when you set out on your own. Finding the right balance of passion and realism is key."

Those are the words of Samuel Davidson, a blogger who appears to be at the cusp of Generation X and Y, and who has provided food for thought for this weblog before. I like him because he combines idealism with pragmatism. This weblog has talked about his 4 step process from dream to reality before.

"That's the thing about passion – it's always there with us. For some of us, we wear it on our sleeves and those who know us know that we're about something..."
"Because when you have a passion, you know it. And there's no way you can't not follow it." But passion is never all we need. It's the first thing you need during the early stages of start up, but it alone won't get you to the finish line. It may not even get you to step 2. As Robert Greenleaf so eloquently pointed out:"

"Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it to reality; but the dream must be there first."

I am not quite as ready to accept his position on Schumpeter.

"Schumpeter was a very early advocate of entrepreneurship, believing that individual invention was what powered a capitalist economy, and not the role (or non-role) of the government. McCraw points out that while Schumpeter's ideas didn't immediately catch on in the first half of the 20th century, he now looks like a genius." McCraw writes:

"One of the hallmarks of Schumpeter's 1911 book is that he ventured into territory where no economist had gone before - namely, the psychology of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, he insisted, are not propelled solely by a wish to grow rich or by any "motivation of the hedonist kind." Instead, they feel "the will to conquer: the impulse to fight, the prove oneself superior to others, to succeed for the sake, not of the fruits of success, but of success itself...There is the joy of creating, of getting things done, or simply of exercising one's energy and ingenuity.

As someone who identifies with Schumpeter's definition, I believe that the organizations and companies that will succeed in today's economy will be those that embrace entrepreneurship at every level.

While I can readily agree with, "There is the joy of creating, of getting things done, or simply of exercising one's energy and ingenuity" Schumpeter may be getting better press than he deserves because its a quick sell for the ideas people want to get across, but Schumpeter does not philosophically epitomize the ideals being expressed as he may seem on first look.

I do appreciate the concept of creative-destruction but keeping in mind the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

We need to appreciate the effect of the destruction as well as the creation.

Global Paradigm Shift Through Global Innovation

Innovation
In attempting to be more precise in assigning relevant meaning to tags I have been using, I have used the tag innovation as applied to those creative changes that have had some economic impact, whether we classify them as high or low or business or social entrepreneurship, as opposed to pure creativity as in art.

The Entrepreneurial Mind back on 12/10/07 gave us Innovation Around the Globe which cites the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship's reports on two new studies highlighting innovation in Asia and Europe.

"A new World Bank study examines the state of innovation in East Asia with a focus on three primary sources of knowledge flow into the region: international trade, acquisition of disembodied knowledge, and foreign direct investment. East Asian economies still rely heavily on knowledge flows from Japan and the US, but the region's economies are beginning to build their own home-based knowledge industries as well."

All three primary sources of knowledge are of interest but what is especially in disembodied knowledge. The second study is a new Information Technology and Innovation Policy Foundation report:

"[F]uture European prosperity depends upon Europe's ability to more effectively deploy information and communications technologies (ICT). The study notes that European productivity growth rates have lagged in recent years, and it identifies lagging use of ICT (especially in service sectors) as one culprit in the process. Like the US, Europe needs to boost productivity rates. But the pressures in Europe are even stronger, due to a more rapidly aging population. How can Europe reverse these trends? The report's author, Rob Atkinson, recommends greater overall private investment in ICT, the creation of public incentives to support such investment, and expanded efforts to promote digital literacy and adoption among the general population of European countries."

Professor Cornwall makes it clear where he falls on the economic philosophical continuum.

"Let us hope that by the phrase "more effective government supports" the authorsare referring to what has proven to be the most effective government support for entrepreneurship -- bureaucrats and politicians getting out of the way of entrepreneurs and letting free markets work. Central planning efforts where government agencies try to pick winners and losers have never proven to be a wise long-term strategy. "

"The most effective means of encouraging private investment is making favorable policy decision for an entrepreneurial economy. Lower taxes, less regulation, and stronger property rights are all key elements. I am afraid that most of Europe has a very long way to go on all three of these critical issues of public policy."

I have to confess to some doubts to this position when I consider the amount of support that Asian countries, especially Japan, have given their businesses. I also have to wonder about the technological bump Asia got from the IT infrastructure investment that was made and how we keep on falling farther and farther behind. I am definitely not in favor of centralized planning but I am also still not willing to fully depend upon the unfettered free market. Perhaps after a few more economic courses I will change my mind.

Define How We Communicate Define Our Culture

What is Civic Media and Fair Use?

MIT World » : Copyright, Fair Use, and the Cultural Commons
I am still on about the Fair Use debate. There was, my memory was telling me, another MIT panel discussion on Copyright and Fair Use. The links to the MIT World video and the websites that are cited in the post's synopsis are again being added to the "What is Civic Media and Fair Use?" online folder. The other choice, which will likely be taken as well is to tag the related websites with a common link. Still haven't decided which is best. Perhaps focusing on a specific subject is good use of the diigo webslides.

ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION:
Moderator William Uricchio sets the scene for panelists' discussion of current copyright wars with a brief historical overview of copyright protection. In 1790, when news traveled by horse and carriage, copyright protection was good for 14 years. Today, when a digital, networked society enables instant transmission of data, protection lasts 70-plus years. Uricchio notes, "Bizarrely, the faster information circulates, the longer we're extending copyright protection. It seems totally at odds with where our constitution framers and case law emerged from."

Copyright came into being not just as a way of protecting authors' rights, says Wendy Gordon, but as a set of liberties for the public as well.

There is also a further aspect to this which gets into the expansion of culture. MIT and other resources have dealt with in insightful that I also want to explore.

Secrets Of Movement Mysteries Of Design

This is the post that was intentionally moved and fixed with the post below. A second look at the TED video convinced me to place it up front in the main section of this weblog. As I said below this post is also being placed under the tag design. Robert Full does incorporate functionality into design. His approach struck me as being a combination of J. Craig Venter and Saul Griffith. This also leads back to my burgeoning concept of intentional personal paradigm shift. While Maira Kalman seemed to fit without doubt under the tag creativity, this post seems better fitted to innovation though sometimes its hard to determine the difference, both provided inspiration.

Biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic "distributed foot." (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:24.)

This one went under Paradigm Pathways Science Pathways.

Principles of Uncertainty Laws of Serendipity

This post was moved to here from back in November unintentionally. I was intentionally moving the post above this. However, embedding the video for the later post wasn't working and I used this video to edit so that it would. Regardless of that accident, these two posts do tie together under a tag that also has a wide and varied application - design. Originally I did not tag this post under design but I am rethinking that now. The concept of design has changed for me as a result of this weblog more than any other concept that has been dealt with, both in terms of its importance and its intricacy. I am no longer applying the concept of design only to things, particularly to only inanimate things.

The Principles of Uncertainty starts one off on a strange journey starting in the past, both in terms of the work and of Maira Kalman's life, and moving with uncertainty but also serendipity with no particular place to go. Maira Kalman doesn't bring functionality to design, she brings style.

Tech Bubble Burst and Blown Again

This was originally from Businesspundit and as rob says, "Its Fantastic" Unfortunately it stopped working. Same with a number of other sites that featured the video. Undaunted, I found it again at Marketing Pilgrim. This time instead of using YouTube the video is under Metacafe.



Here Comes Another Bubble - video powered by Metacafe

Here is why it stopped working on YouTube. This came from NewTeeVee and was posted by Liz Gannes.

Which happens to be one of those topics I have been wanting to get back to write about. What is Civic Media? is another Ask.com web-available folder that contains a number of different webpages on this particular subject. Despite my new found fondness for del.icio.us, I still, conceptually, like the idea of having a repository or file folder for a set of related webpages. I know that at a certain level there isn't that much difference but having it all together under one title with a specific purpose still appeals to me. My "Generation Jones" side overshadowing my fletching "Generation X" side. The main link that caught my interest in the folder is MIT World » What is Civic Media? The latest to be added was TED | TEDBlog: How creativity is being strangled by the law: Larry Lessig.

Beauty & Truth Is The Essence Of The Universe

Paradigm Pathways Science

Beauty and truth in physics: Murray Gell-Mann on TED.com

What is especially striking and remarkable is that
in fundamental physics
a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right
than a theory that is inelegant.

Like Trying to Milk a Fish

The Entrepreneurial Mind wrote Like Trying to Milk a Fish on 11/30/07

The concept of social entrepreneurship has also been explored a number of times by this weblog. Jeff Cornwall introduces us to social entrepreneur Sam Davidson has a thoughtful reflection who at his blog tells us about what it is like being an early-stage entrepreneur.

Those who know me know that I never planned on being an entrepreneur, but that I enjoy every single minute of it. There's risk, there's reward, there's freedom, there's excitement, there's disappointment, there's opportunity - and that's just Monday before lunch. And so when people ask me what it's like to start my own company and be a social entrepreneur, I tell them:

"It's like trying to milk a fish."

Sam is a co-founder and President of CoolPeopleCare

Below is a short video from their website on who they are.

Why design? Philippe Starck on TED.com

Why design? Philippe Starck on TED.com via TED | TEDBlog by on 12/4/07

The importance of design is made ever more apparent through the explorations done through this weblog, not only in terms of marketing, technology and architecture but biology and physics. Philippe Strarck provides inspiration beyond his physical designs.

Legendary designer Philippe Starck -- with no pretty slides behind him -- spends 17 minutes reaching for the very roots of the question "Why design?" Along the way he drops brilliant insights into the human condition; listen carefully for one perfectly crystallized motto for all of us, genius or not. Yet all this deep thought, he cheerfully admits, is to aid in the design of a better toothbrush. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 17:07.)

Excepts

You will understand nothing with my type of English. Is good for you because you can have a break, after all these fantastic people. I must tell you I am like that [shakes hands], not very comfortable, because usually, in life, I think my job is absolutely useless. I mean, I feel useless. Now, after Carolyn [Porco], and all the other guys, I feel like shit. And definitively, I don't know why I am here, but -- you know the nightmare, like you are an impostor, you arrive at the opera, and they push you, "You must sing!" [gasp!] I don't know.

So! So! Because I have nothing to show, nothing to say, we shall try to speak about something else.

Because there is different types of design. The one, we can call it the cynical design, that means the design invented by Raymond Loewy in the '50s, who said, what is ugly is a bad sale, La Laideur se vend mal, which is terrible. It means the design must be just a weapon for marketing, for producer to make product more sexy, like that, they sell more, it's shit, it's obsolete, it's ridiculous. I call that the cynical design. After, there is the narcissistic design; it's a fantastic designer who designs only for other fantastic designers. [laughs] After there is people like me, who try to deserve to exist, and who are ashamed to make this useless job, who try to do it in another way, and they try, I try, to not make the object for the object but for the result, for the profit for the human being, the person who will use it.

That is our poetry. That is our beautiful story. It's our romanticism: Mutation. We are mutants. And if we don't deeply understand, if we don't integrate that we are mutants, we completely miss the story.

And here is something: Nobody is obliged to be a genius, but everybody is obliged to participate. And to participate, for a mutant, there is a minimum of exercise, a minimum of sport ... The first, if you want, there is so many, but one which is very easy to do, is the duty of vision. I can explain you. I shall try.

Combining Efforts, Connecting People - Nokia and Pangea Day Work on a Paradigm Shift

Nokia and Pangea Day combine efforts, to connect people around the world through film via TED | TEDBlog by on 12/4/07

Pangea Day, was the subject of my first blog post two incarnations ago so I am happy to put it back up again to promote this effort. Now they are partnering with Nokia who has been featured at one level or another in this weblog.

Pangea Day will be broadcast globally to millions on television, in digital theaters, online and via mobile devices.

"From the earliest days of movies, film has had the power to bring people together. But today, Internet technology is allowing film to bring together not only neighbors, but an entire global community," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia president and CEO (pictured at right). "Nokia is proud to work with Pangea Day as we embark on this important shared mission of connecting people across the globe."

"Perhaps Nokia's greatest contribution to Pangea Day is the ability of our technology to give a voice to people who previously were unable to take part in the global community that is the Internet," Kallasvuo said. "By integrating the power of wireless technology into Pangea Day, we can help it meet its goal of bringing together people from around the world."

"Pangea Day was created by TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim"

For more information on Pangea Day, visit www.pangeaday.org.

About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions and services for communications networks.

Reading to Discovery, to Know, to Understand

One past web journey included a Marginal Revolution post by Alex Tabarrok that pointed to Nepal It’s a blog world, which included a number of useful connections by the writer Ashotosh Tiwari. I can agree with him that the Marginal Revolution posts can provide an education in economics. Trouble is separating out the politically based diatribes and the fact, as somebody else pointed out, that they are impossible to keep up with. Especially, with not being focused solely on economics.

Online readings seem to come across at different levels 1. Quick review to see if it is of any interest. 2. Browse through to get basic facts and positions. 3. Reading to compare to other posts and stimulate thinking. 4. Deep reading for new knowledge and understanding of issues. The first three are usually short posts or responses which are prevalent on the web. They are necessary because there is so much interesting stuff available and one does not want to miss out. The last are full length articles and scholarly papers which take time to read and digest and are a requirement to my mind for learning. The instantaneous nature of the internet seems to discourage this approach. I have found a good deal so far to read and digest and knowing the nature of the net will likely find far more. Posting to this weblog sometimes becomes less enticing because there is more interesting things to read or watch than there is to write about. Then, to help put it all together and have it make sense, comes again the urge to write or comment, like today.

For today the video below gives a pretty good synopsis of the current economic situation

Power of Web 2.0

The good folks at Google found my second incarnation. So now I have the ability to pick and keep the good and leave behind the bad. If only life was like that. There were a number of posts that I liked, not because of anything I did, but because of what they connected to. They also connected to the flow of what I am trying to learn and accomplish with this weblog. This one in particular puts my desire to learn more about Web. 2.0 in a concise framework.

The Best Explanation of Web 2.0 So Far.