scrambledmindsMixed up thoughts on the web world, photography and life.

Thought this was pretty funny.  Language alert!

Ever worked for a company with an IT department?

Ever had a run-in with that department and been left feeling frustrated and without a solution?

Ever decided that getting someone other than IT to do it is cheaper, faster and far less painful?

Would IT even have a job anymore if you could run all your business tools through a web browser?

The short answer is no. The long answer follows

It may seem a little oversimplified but I believe that the IT of today is becoming a thing of the past. It’s a dying beast when an organisation can find better, specialised services to support their business over the web. Better, specialised services without even talking to IT because they have a web browser and an Internet connection.

It’s more intriguing when you consider that you can run a whole business using web tools today. New and emerging businesses are going to use as many as possible because they’re quite often free for small use. More importantly they eliminate the requirement for technical knowledge within the business. My business, One Zero One, is a case in point. I’m just starting out and I don’t want to pay for expensive services, or people to support them. I can pretty much run my whole business with free tools from the Internet. I can run my Business in a Browser.

Now, this Business in a Browser approach is called a couple of things by the technical folks. Cloud Computing. Software as a Service. The outcome is the same to the general Joe on the street. It means that you can get tools and services to support your business through the Internet.

The easiest example of this, but by no means the only, is Google Apps. They are busily soliciting businesses to convert to using their enterprise suite of products delivered through a web browser. Email, calendaring, instant messaging, word processing, intranet sites, voice calling and some other services I’m probably forgetting. Paying Google $50 a head per year for that seems like a no-brainer. No more complaints about email quotas, SPAM, viruses, corrupted mail files, slow delivery, blah blah blah. No more sunk costs until the number of users makes it worthwhile to expand. Not more costs for upgrading software when the new versions are released. No more complaints that people aren’t ON the latest version.

In this scenario the complexity and costs have just dropped dramatically. You just need a web browser and an Internet connection. Any web browser. Anywhere.

Now, I’m not completely ignorant that this scenario has it’s risks. Problems of privacy, security, regulatory implications, integration and availability of your internet connection are all buried in this discussion somewhere. In fact these things are absolutely necessary to consider but they will be addressed over the coming years as the strength of the benefits are realised and the tools and strategies to deal with them are delivered. This is where IT will play a part. Advising and assisting the businesses in getting what it needs to get done, done. A completely different skillset

This discussion also opens a number of other threads. If you only need a web browser and an internet connection, why do you need corporate office space? If you only need a web browser and an internet connection, why do you need to full time employees? I haven’t managed to think through all the implications yet but they’re forming.

Well, that’s it for now.

Check out a further definition of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service at wikipedia.

Image from Flickr (striatic)

Welcome to the first What if? post.

During the startup of my business I’ve had a problem. Actually, I’ve had this problem for some time but it’s come to a head while starting my business and throughout evaluating a few opportunities over the last couple of years. I find it hard to find all my stuff.

There’s an answer to finding other people’s stuff. It’s called a search engine. Your friend Google does a pretty good job of finding stuff that other people have published.

There’s an answer to organising and categorising stuff online. It’s called tagging. You can assign tags or keywords to your bookmarks (e.g. Delicious), your blog posts, your photos (e.g. flickr) etc. Other people can assign tags as well. Everyone is in tagging heaven.

There’s an answer to finding stuff on your own computer, and now mobile phones, through local search. Things like Spotlight on the Mac, Google Desktop and the like. You can search your files, emails and contacts. It isn’t perfect because you can’t alway find exactly what you want.

There’s and answer, albeit a very inefficient one, to organising and categorising stuff on your computer. It’s called a Folder. Folders have limitations such that it may be necessary to create two files in different locations to be able to find it when you’re looking for it. For example, if you want to organise your invoices, do you put them all in an invoices folder or do you stick them in a customer specific invoices folder. Maybe you put it in both? There are a few options for introducing keywords and tagging to files and information on your computer but they are either specific to a file type or they aren’t integrated with the underlying file system or miss certain types of information. For example, iPhoto allows you to tag photos, Punkea allows you to tag all broad range of files from across your computer.

So here comes the what if.

What if I had a document in google apps and wanted to be able to see that next to documents I may have created on my computer? What if my gmail contacts showed up next to to documents on my computer authored by that person. What if their twitter feeds and facebook updates showed up with that person as well.

What if there was a universal way of tagging all the information that you create, whether it’s offline or online, and a way to search all of that information, irrespective of what and where it is? It would definitely make my life a lot easier . With the proliferation of new online services every day, I would hazard a guess that it will make other people’s lives easier as well.

Another way to look at it would be – What if there was a search box that allowed me to look at all the stuff that I have created and saved on my computer and in online services?

Hmm, just a thought.

As with all of my posts, I’m happy to be corrected. Let me know if you’ve come across anything that already exists or if you want to expand on the What if? Maybe you’re in a position to solve the What if? I’d love to hear from you.

This is the fourth video from xplanevisualthinking on youtube.  It gives a great rundown of some interesting statistics about social media.

Here’s a very interesting talk about New Media by Leo Laporte, the founder and main face/voice of his online tech media network Twit.tv.

A piece of shameless self-promotion. I’ve finally managed to take the leap and launch my own business – One Zero One. It’s taken some time and I’ve still got a long way to go but it’s exciting (and challenging) times.

Anyone that know’s me personally knows that I’m always talking about “new ventures”. Read that as I’m always talking about new ideas to do my own thing. One thing that I noticed once you’ve taken that step is that you start identifying potential opportunities left and right. I have a list as long as my arm of potential opportunities for someone to solve a problem.

Now, I’d love to be working on all of these but there’s one problem. I only have about 16 waking hours in the day and they’re already full. I wish I had more more time as there is so much opportunity out there. Particularly as the Internet and Digital world grows and matures there’s going to be more opportunities than ever.

So where am I going with this? Well, I thought I’d start a series of posts that highlight some of the problems that I run across. Where a problem exists, so does and opportunity so I thought it would be a good idea to put the ideas out there. What if I shared some of the ideas i have? What if I could have more hours in the day? I think that last one was solved in Harry Potter with that Time Turner thing.

Stay tuned.

Image courtesy of Adreanna

The other day I was working on trying to distill the different elements of the online world to help in classifying the benefits it brings.  I came up with core online attributes (i.e. those things that make online what it is) and then the key categories of activities that those attributes have fostered.  I thought you might like to see what I came up with.

Characteristics/attributes of online

So what are the fundamental characteristics of the online world?

So what do the characteristics they mean?

• Ubiquity – You can get online from anywhere now.  No longer the desk.  It’s the mobile phone, it’s the aircraft, it’s the airport, it’s the TV, it’s the fridge (what ever happened to that?).  You can get information anywhere now.  It’s also getting closer to real time each day.
• Equality – The barriers to entering the online world are very low.  Cost and the required knowledge are continually dropping.  One website and/or service is fundamentally (technically) the same as the other.
• Reach (another word ending in y?) – The sheer volume of individuals that have access to the Internet.  Over a billion at last count.  Borders mean nothing, apart to those still protecting the borders of old.

Online activities

So what are the core activities that I think these attributes foster?  This is really about the uniquely identified activities that happen on the web.  We have a word processor on our computer and one online.  What’s the difference?  Collaboration, ubiquitous availability etc.

The activities are relatively self-explanatory I think but for the benefit of all:

• Communication and Collaboration – converse and interact using online technology.  This allows businesses and individuals to stay in touch and solve problems without having to be physically present.  Guess what?  The fax is dead (really?).  This is the foundation of Social Media as well.  Maybe I should call it Creation, Communication, Collaboration.
• Selling – Where people go, the selling follows.  I don’t know if that’s a saying as I made it up.  Just then.  Big bucks are where it’s at, or so you think.  Selling is getting a revamp due to online cutural and social changes (e.g. “Free” by Chris Anderson) .
• Searching – You need to be able to find and be found.  There is a lot of information online.
• Outsourcing – I wasn’t sure whether this should be a characteristics.  I put it here because it really is something that you “DO” as a result of online being available.  Why do it yourself when the tools for someone else to do it are far more powerful these days?  I would also consider a lot of services that are online

So what?

I think this kind of structure is important for understanding where to focus your attention if you want to do something with your business using online technology.  It helps structure thoughts as to where to invest your time and effort and some of the reasoning behind it.  I’m sure it will be out of date by tomorrow.

What do you think?

iiNet have started touting their new “Broadband in a Box”.  A new, snazzy looking piece of hardware to replace the beige-box adsl modems of old.  It connects you to the Internet, includes a phone that can be used to make calls over the Internet (VoiP), USB for charging devices like iphones and connecting usb storage and wireless network features.  It looks like nothing else as well.

You drool all over BoB over here.

I just read Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute – Government Calls For Comments over at TechNation which mentioned that the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institue (CCI) had opened it’s kimono for public comment.

From the CCI website:

As announced in the 2009-10 Budget, the Australian Government is establishing a Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute to provide a radical new approach to commercialising the best Australian research.

The Institute will support talented researchers, entrepreneurs and innovative firms to take their research and ideas to the marketplace.

…

You can contribute to the stakeholder input by completing the online form on this website. It is recommended that you read the Discussion Paper on the background and policy principles of the Institute before completing the online form.

This is great for two reasons:

1. They’ve started moving on getting the the money to those ideas that have potential.  In particular, opening it to the public for comments and a chance to influence how the Institute will operate.
2. They’re using social media (in this case a blog) to get it out to the widest audience possible.  It’s great to see the government’s continued push to use the web as a valuable resource.

Great work.  I beleive that Australia needs to get focused on fostering its entrepreneurial spirit and this is a step in the right direction.

Now I’ll have to try and contribute.