The AWS Dev Garage started first. The presentation was good, presenting a lot of information regarding the benefits of the platform, as well as some information about using the built-in features that Amazon offers to make money by selling products that Amazon offers. A nifty bonus for those who have this interest. The presentation that we had was light on the technical detail that I really wanted to see, so we didn’t get into the nitty gritty of actual usage. I think a lot of us there were developers, and would have liked to see this. To be fair, when I originally got the invitation for the AWS, it did list lab stuff after the presentations that were supposed to last until 4, but the afternoon was usurped by the iPhone Dev Camp. I made a suggestion that we should have an all day lab sessions to cover account creation setup, image loading, and applications deployment, as well as S3 integration. I’m going to be hunting for an AWS ninja to help me out with this, I think.
The iPhone Dev Camp satellite started after lunch. Despite a few projector and technical difficulties, we finally got a chance to watch the iPhone Dev Camp introductions, as well as the keynote speech by Andrew Stone (@twittelator). After the fascinating keynote, we spent a bit of time drinking root beer floats and chatting about the platform. There was a lot of opinion regarding the future, and the was, rightfully, a small amount of fear when chatting about Google Voice and what has transpired recently. In a room full of people relatively new to the platform, there is always a moment of hesitation in spending your time learning a new platform, programming a great app, and then having it rejected from the app store, or worse still, accepted and then completely removed later for arbitrary reasons. There are definitely issues that have to be addressed to allow developers to be more comfortable on the platform, befre
We discussed the Android platform, too. There was a general feeling that the Android platform still has plenty of room for growth, and the adoption of Android by multiple carriers as well as the various Android devices coming to market are sure to create and expansion of demand for applications on that platform as well. The issue with the Android system is that the “open” nature allows the system to take a number of forms and work on a number of devices with various configurations. This means that applications developed on Android may be limited to specific devices based upon the applications configuration needs (screen size, device/processor speed, etc). In the end, for all it’s faults, the iPhone looks poised to remain the largest “develop-once” mobile application platform. 40M strong, and likely to grow.
After the discussion, we broke off into a few groups. Most of user were essentially newbs, so we all broke off into a single group to review application basics, as well as getting familiar with XCode. It was an enlightening introduction, and really gave us an starting point for understanding how to get our application going. We also discussed books for the beginning iPhone developer:
Beginning iPhone 3 Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
Programming in Objective C 2.0 (Second Edition)
A shout out to Chris Stewart (@socialtopher) for running our group of fresh iPhone wannabes.
Additional shout outs go to Ray Gao for setting up and running the AWS Developer Garage, Gene Kim for setting up the iPhone Dev Camp Satellite, and Blake Burris for letting us chill out at Cohabitat to do it all. It was a great time, and I met a lot of interesting people.
]]>Having worked for, and currently working for, a Fortune 500 company, I was not always fortunate enough to be in a position with creativity and input. Like many people, I started in a relatively low position before being given the opportunity to grow beyond. At times when performance did not meet expectation, or when it seemed that the collective had strayed from a shared value or goal, you might hear these same intonations buried in veiled threats or sideways worded improvement plans. But in the same breath that a manager might denegrate his own staff, he is speaking to those he is accountable to about their accomplishment and skill.
In the end, the phrase “Lucky to have a job” really means one thing to a business: We are not employing those who would best serve our market/customer/tasks. It means that the business believes that it has settled, or is willing to allow it’s employees to believe this, which sets an expectation of failure. A business should strive to hire the best that it can for the resources it has available, giving it the tools that it needs to succeed while ensuring that low-hanging fruit is not dragging down those efforts. To address the masses with the idea that they are lucky to be employed is to admit that you have settled for less than what your business deserves.
If you, as a manager or business, believe that this is the case, then it is probably in your best interest to review your hiring policies and requirements. If you truly believe that you have done a sufficient job of filling the seats with the best for your money, then remember that is not only they who are lucky to have a job, but you who are lucky to have them in the first place.
]]>I had really meant to wait until after I’d finished some current projects to get into the iPhone. Unfortunately, the folks at Cohabitat decided to throw an iPhone Dev Garage, and so I had to finally download and install the SDK. Drat it all.
Anyone have some recommendations for the best resources to get started? Web sites, blogs, communities, books?
]]>The Semantic web certainly feels nice on paper, and in practice, the idea of linking data objects and allowing intelligent agents to understand these objects seems extremely logical. The ability for an object to be sorted, recognized, stored, and even manipulated and calculated by the agent without human interaction opens the door to promising applications and real leaps in the future of the web. Imagine a web store that had objects built right into the products, that allowed your browser to understand a “price”, and let your agent perform tasks that it knew belong to prices, like automating currency conversion or calculating sales tax, without the web store needing to involve itself in the discussion. Not only that, but it knew what the item you were purchasing was, knew that it was something you needed for a defined task, and knew it no matter which store you purchased it from. Without you needing to browse, your agent could find the best fit at the best price at the closest location, and you’d never even need to click a button beyond defining your needs. Even this simple example is only the tip of the Semantic iceberg, and developers far smarter than I am are likely to find new ways to link and manipulate data that is beyond this simplistic example.
But this example, while very simple, highlights some problems that I see with semantic web data.
In the example of the web store above, we may be quite happy to allow the developer to define our experience for us. A price is a price, for instance, and a 4×2 wooden dowel is just what it says it is. But what if you are not on a store? What if you’re reading a blog post by a friend, talking about your dog. Your friend may define the dog as an object, but how would you tell the web and your agents that this dog was YOUR dog? How do you create a web that is relevant to you, beyond the definitions provided? How do you tell an agent that you are the manufacturer of an item, and carry that data across the web?
I believe that this leaves some room open for clients and services that synchronize to create social semantic webs. Instead of defining the semantics on the server side, the client could be instructed to create connections, and synchronize them to a social web service. You could define a cat as a cat, and your dog as your dog, and as the system began to crawl, your definitions would shape the way that your agents viewed the web. The social web service would create a background layer to share trusted data and definitions, to link and identify commonalities, to establish identities and build peer relationships that would increase relevancy. Indeed, these clients and services could even stand in the background, browsing your web patterns for relevant content, and presenting you with options on linking, and slowly attempt to intelligently build new links based upon data you have provided it previously, with simple options to allow you to accept, reject, or redefine an identified pattern.
I believe that the search for a pure semantic web won’t be so easily found in defining RDFs and creating server-side code. There will always be the lazy, and those who simply lie about objects and data to take advantage of or obfuscate themselves from a search system or agent. In order for a truly semantic web to be realized, it will take client-side applications (browsers, OS, agents), services (semantic banks, trust center, universal ids, social connections), and back-end semantic definitions to allow us to utilize the data intelligently in a way that applies to us personally.
]]>When I got to the office, they were experiencing an issue with the power. Though it was originally assumed something within the house was awry, the electrician made known that the issue was actually on the line coming into the house. While there was power downstairs and to the router (thankfully), the upstairs was dead and the A/C didn’t work. Texas in the middle of summer with no A/C made for a slightly less pleasant work environment, but everyone seemed to make due without issue.
I really enjoyed the conversations that I had today as well. I can see why people benefit so greatly from the coworking experience. I got to rattle out some of the thoughts that I had bouncing around my head, as well as hearing ideas I hadn’t even thought of (go go, http://www.charityfusion.com/). I really enjoyed the experience, and I can understand how the presence of even more people would have an exponentially greater effect. I’m even more convinced after today that coworking is an important part of innovation in the future. These personal social communities are spurring conversation all over the country, and I recommend that you be involved whenever you have the opportunity. I’ll certainly be returning for some of the developer garages. Now, enjoy some pics.
]]>Cohabitat – http://cohabitat.us
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the coworking phenomenon, allow me to turn your attention to this convenient wiki for more information: http://coworking.pbworks.com/
I hope to get some pictures and video while I’m there.
]]>Ten year ago, the Cluetrain Manifesto book and website made waves on the net and in the media. In them, the authors envisioned a scenario that dictated a new landscape for consumers and the companies that served them, based around the rise in tools that enabled market conversations. In those days, the nascent tools were mostly underdeveloped and emerging, and represented a slowly swelling promise of a greater tide to come. Instant messaging, blogs, and the vestiges of social networking began to crest the rise and demand attention. The Cluetrain Manifesto surmised that these tools and capabilities would create a new market conversation, as consumers learned to trust the ‘human voices’, both internal and external to the companies, that allowed them to make smarter market choices. Driven by product reviews, blog postings, conversations with fellow users, and interactions with company representatives, customers would be a powerful force in the conversations that drove the way that companies operated, in addition to contributing to the products they produced. Ten years later, the interactive market promise has been fulfilled, the train has arrived, but the company cars are still frustratingly empty.
It isn’t that the conversations aren’t taking place. If anything, the conversations have grown and flourished perhaps out of proportion with the original authors’ visions. The rise in social networking and the increased interactivity of the new generation of consumer has created a constant and real-time feedback system for conversations of all types. Blogs, tags, texts, and tweets, among other things, have created a system of information distribution that many marketing machines dream of matching. The conversation can carry every triumph and every foible of a company to the far reaches of the globe, and the social networking and “blogosphere” influence has slowly gained a foothold and an ear in traditional media, leaving a company exposed to a virtual wildfire of negative or positive publicity before it has time to formulate a response. But for all the risks of being excluded from this broad market pipeline, companies are still strangely absent, and those who are present are by-and-large still speaking with the same mechanical drone voices that sound hollow and unwelcoming as ever.
The question that opens before us is this: What is the new market, and what challenges do companies face when joining these conversations? Truthfully, it is both easier and more difficult to join the market conversation as a company today. An infinite variety of avenues is open to you. Do you need a corporate MySpace or Facebook? Do you sign up for Twitter to keep up new product announcements? Do you have Flash games, forums, or maybe a corporate blog for your CEO to talk to your consumers? The barrier of entry is low, making it easier than ever for a company to dive in to the stream. On the other hand, the new generation of consumer is now ‘always on’. They have grown up connected, speaking with each other and sharing in ways previous generations have not. The powerful interactive forces are interwoven into their lifestyle, rather than being viewed as mere tools to utilize for a specific purpose. This generation has lived on the net, and has openly shared its most personal and private moments and thoughts with audacious transparency. It has little fear of repercussion or outside opinion, choosing to form groups and circles of trust that encourage and support them. Ten years ago, the thirsty markets would have responded to a corporate presence that approximated a human voice. Today, those markets demand transparency and reality, they filter hundreds of marketing bullet points every day, and their circles are difficult to penetrate without the right tone. Finding a voice to engage these consumers involves the kind of risk and discomfort that companies have always strived to avoid, but finding that voice is increasingly becoming a necessity.
So how does a company succeed in finding a voice that is both real and relevant?
First, a company must start internally, from the bottom down. As you approach the bottom of the company, you begin to reach the real market. Each day, those employees that come to work and enable your productivity are leaving and becoming potential consumers. It is not usually at the top of a corporate structure that you will find voices and ideas aligned with the every day decisions of your market. Engage your workforce on all levels and encourage the honesty to begin inside. Provide open forums for workers to aggregate and share ideas transparently and with the appropriate people.
A company must also empower its workers to speak with the consumers they serve. Truthfully, these people who already have passion for your products internally are likely having the conversations already, under the anonymous cover the internet provides, in blog posts, forum replies, and comments. Companies must work to legitimize these conversations, so that they can be part of the trust formed when these conversations take place.
Next, a company must reach out to its consumers. It must strive to express its ideas and passions with a market eager to hear the real stories inside the trenches. We are not perfect entities, we are comprised of imperfect people. We will make mistakes, we will misjudge. Companies will put out products that consumers love, and the stories behind them, but they’ll also gather to hear a company honestly discuss its failures. To engage a generation that shares it’s triumphs and tribulations openly, companies must work to find ways to do that same.
Companies must also work to engage communities, often beyond the scope of their core products. The act of running a company often requires many passions and capabilities, which often relate to communities outside of your market. In addition, consumers can come from anywhere, and becoming part of the conversation means becoming part of the community. These communities often share for the sake of doing so, posting free reviews, comments, videos, images, and ideas regarding products and services you offer. Actively becoming part of these communities, for the sake of the community, helps to empower companies to join the conversations that take place without them today. Hosting events, sponsoring conferences and interest groups, and empowering groups to engage their own interests, free of market push or spin, brings the communities to you instead.
Finally, and most importantly, companies must find a real human voice. They must learn to engage beyond the realm of press release and stale ghostwritten blog. They must find a way to navigate the minefield of legal minutiae and corporate correctness and come out on the other side with something that is still transparent and full of life. The word is already awash with the dry corporate blog, which is too often a thin masquerade of marketing pamphlet with a public relations photo tacked on for good measure. At best, these are ignored, at worst, they are publicly derided. Only by creating a real voice can you have a real conversation, engaging your customer and market in ways that you wouldn’t have envisioned.
The concepts presented aren’t new. In many ways, the basis for these concepts is older than the Cluetrain Manifesto which inspired these writings. Being honest and open in your business dealings is one of the oldest tenets in business relations. It is the technologies and capabilities, combined with the changing expectations of consumers old and new, that transforms this topic and creates new relevance in ways that companies have been slow to embrace. The Cluetrain Manifesto laid out a path for communicating with a market that was going to come in a bigger way than could have been imagined, ten years and a bubble too early. On the tenth anniversary of it’s release, the concepts they championed, the concept of transparent interaction with consumers, the concept of information driven not by marketing but by customers, the concepts of getting out of the towers and down in the trenches to engage your market in real conversations about topics that they care about deeply, have become more important and relevant to business than ever. The train may be late, but the train’s destination, and the need for companies to get on-board, is more critical than ever.
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“Welcome to the Web 2.0″, they say. You know who they are. EVERYONE. They throw up a list of sites that you’ve undoubtedly heard of and read about and used a thousand times. 43Things, Basecamp, Upcoming, Flickr, YouTube, digg, Google Everything, MySpace, the list goes on and on and…wait. I think I threw you a curve there. While MySpace is often touted as the new-new thing, it’s not Web 2.0. While we have to sit and watched the uninformed utter “MySpace” and “Web 2.0″ in the same breath, relax, because they have it all wrong.
MySpace isn’t Web 2.0. It has a clunky and cluttered interface. It has constant page submits and reloads. The data is nearly impossible to find without exacting detail, and cannot be related once you’ve found it. It lacks APIs to extend MySpace, or new ways to use the data that MySpace houses. Your ‘community’ options are limited to a group of friends, a list over which you have some very limited control, and the new ‘groups’ feature, which feels tacked on at this point. Absent are dynamic data refreshes, clean interfaces, data control, the ability to establish relationships and move fluidly from one data point to another. MySpace, for all the freedom it’s users have to uglify their home pages, is a rigid tyrant, forcing you into routines that the successful Web 2.0 application consider anathema. Perhaps its only saving grace was its open registration, which allowed users to flood the network without having to be ‘invited’ by another user. MySpace is successful despite that fact that it is merely Livejournal with more wallspace to clutter.
As a designer, it’s important to understand that MySpace is NOT the new web. It’s the old web leaving too slowly. As a developer, you have to remember that MySpace is NOT a new-new thing. It’s a new-old thing, a code and feature dinosaur yearning for some real Web 2.0 DNA. It’s safe for us to raise our hackles a little when MySpace is compared to the amazing work being done on the web today.
But don’t pat yourself on the back for too long. Because, for all it’s mistakes and flaws and hideous flashing user pages, MySpace is the most succesful social site on the web. While I’m not going to do a detailed breakdown of the success of MySpace, there are some things we can comment on immediately that have contributed.
MySpace is big, but there have been many big things on the internet that have faded into the dust. Building open and accessible systems that incorporate the broad strokes of what MySpace does right while avoiding and improving upon the many things it does wrong will be the key to building the next MySpace, which you should able to finish just in time for Web 3.0 to mock you.
]]>Please pardon the construction dust.
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