Happiness: invest in the process, not in the outcome

I don’t agree with every single nuance in this great talk by Srikumar Rao, but there is definitely gold to be mined here:

(Especially the Coach John Wooden quote!)

Innovation & collaboration panel at VX2010: audio now available

During the Olympics here in Vancouver, the Digital Media and Wireless Association of BC (DigiBC) hosted VX2010 … the “Vancouver eXperience” … V for convergence; X for intersection.” They brought in many of the entrepreneurs and business leaders who were attending the Olympics and hosted mixers, conversations, and showcases.

I was fortunately enough to be asked to sit on the Innovation and Collaboration panel, held at Robson Square on February 25th (the day before my birthday, actually). We had a great conversation: Olivier Vincent, the CEO of Canpages, Par Singh, the president of Intellectual Ventures Canada were also on the panel, and the moderator was Dean Prelazzi from DigiBC.

The audio is now available – all 39 minutes and 43 seconds of it – on the VX Conversations blog.

I arrived early to take in the previous panel, and was pleasantly surprised to find Robert Scoble on-stage. We briefly chatted about dark fibre and Google and other geeky goodies, and then I was whisked away to prep.

That night there was a reception at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The event was just perfect: we watched the Robson Square Olympic fireworks show, met dozens of smart creative people, and at cake:

State of the internet 2010

Thanks, Phil, for posting this video:

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

Fairly wow indeed. I’m very glad not to be a server jockey for Facebook.

Google Stars: is the big G taking aim at social bookmarking sites?

Google’s blog just announced that they are adding a new “star” feature to web search. Essentially, when you see results you like, you star them, and they’ll appear higher in results next time you perform a similar search.

From the Google blog post announcing the new feature:

With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant.

My first thought on seeing this is: hmmm … watch out del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, and any other social bookmarking service. For starters, this eliminates the need to save the search result on some external site. For finishers, you can bet your last red Olympic maple leaf mitten that what data Google collects, Google will find some means of collating, utilizing, and monetizing.

You can already star, favorite, and share items in Google Reader. Buzz is bringing social connectedness (sometimes too much!) to the earliest of internet media, email. How long before Google Stars make search more social as well as “more personal?”

My guess? Not long!

. . .
. . .

More discussion on this here, here, here, here, and here.

Apple’s HCT lawsuit: shot across Google’s bow

So Apple is suing smartphone rival HTC for the Touch.

This is not about HTC … this is about Google. Specifically, about Android.

Android is the only competitive threat to Apple’s iPhone today. Windows Phone 7 may become one tomorrow, Nokia may have something else up its long sleeves, Palm may catch a miracle and become an actual player … but only Android is a real threat right now. Google’s fairly recent addition of multi-touch support was the final straw.

And now Apple’s throwing down the gauntlet. This is going to get interesting!

More coverage:
GigaOM, AppleInsider, Engadget.

The patents that HTC allegedly infringes:

• The ‘331 Patent, entitled “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States,” was duly and legally issued on April 22, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
• The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
• The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.
• The ‘381 Patent, entitled “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display,” was duly and legally issued on December 23, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘381 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit D.
• The ‘726 Patent, entitled “System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device,” was duly and legally issued on July 6, 1999 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘726 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit E.
• The ‘076 Patent, entitled “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices,” was duly and legally issued on December 15, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘076 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit F.
• The ‘105 Patent, entitled “GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality,” was duly and legally issued on December 8, 1998 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘105 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit G.
• The ‘453 Patent, entitled “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor,” was duly and legally issued on June 3, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘453 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit H.
• The ‘599 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Graphic System,” was duly and legally issued on October 3, 1995 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘599 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit I.
• The ‘354 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods,” was duly and legally issued on July 23, 2002 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘354 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit J.

SWAT the systems thinking: highly recommended

I’ve read more than a few books about systems thinking and business processes, including All That Matters About Quality I Learned in Joe’s Garage, a few on the Toyota Production System, and several on kaizen and lean manufacturing.

But I have to say that Timothy Johnson’s latest book SWAT: Seize the Accomplishment ranks up there with the best of them, and maybe beyond.

It’s another in Tim’s series of business books that are written around stories: business realities woven into narrative. It’s definitely his best yet.

Systems thinking is not natural for most people. In today’s complex business processes, inputs and outputs are widely separated in space and time … often by continents and months, if not years. So inefficiency and worse, ineffectiveness are hard to spot and harder to fix.

(Inefficiency, of course, is doing the right thing in the wrong way, and ineffectiveness is doing the wrong thing, period. You want to improve the first, but you need to ensure you’re locked on to the second.)

Since systems aren’t things and can’t easily be visualized, it helps when SWAT makes the system come alive. Embedding the information in an engaging story is something that makes the teaching transparent and the learning effortless. Plus, the book is brief and to the point: perfect for busy people.

I learned from SWAT while enjoying SWAT: I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve business (and other) processes while focusing on the outcome.

The world needs all kind of minds

Wow. This is an amazing video of a presentation at TED by Temple Grandin, who is an autistic scientist and the subject of an HBO movie.

Open Office for Kids

Just saw this today – an Open Office for kids. Essentially, it looks like a slimmed-down set of features that would be simpler for kids to useL

Would be nice to see them go the extra mile and completely redesign the interface from the bottom up for kid friendliness. My company is currently releasing exactly that – more details later!

Techmeme pulling a Google, mixing sponsored ads with content?

Recently, Google has been spotted moving ads closer to and mixed in with their “content,” or search results. This is the first I’ve seen Techmeme doing the same …

This is where sponsored posts usually live on Techmeme:

Just tonight, when checking if anything was new in the world of technology, I saw this:

Notice the difference? The sponsored post is right in the flow of all the new content.

Now, it’s entirely possible this has been happening for some time and I just haven’t noticed it. But I’ve been a regular Techmeme visitor over the past few months, and haven’t seen it before. Nor have I seen it in the past years that I’ve browsed Techmeme’s stories.

The story is marked as “sponsored,” which is a good thing. Interesting that it’s now in the regular flow of site content, however.

Minority report comes alive with Oblong

As TechCrunch is reporting, touch computing is hot … but touch-free computing will soon be white-hot.

You’ve seen Minority Report. Here’s the reality:

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Learn more about the gestural interface in this video:

oblong’s tamper system 1801011309 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

One of my opening ceremonies friends …

. . . was interviewed on Global TV.

Geoff Squires talked about the practice, the touch skating conditions, and more:

Just for the record, I’m not one of the “figure skating friends.” I’m very definitely a hockey player, thank you very much!

(I’m in the photo they show of the Peaks of Endeavor cast for the Vancouver 2010 opening ceremonies: back row, far left.)

Opening Ceremonies cast: cream of the crop?

I’m in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics opening ceremonies (actually, the closing ceremonies too) with probably thousands of other performers. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to be part of an Olympic games.

I know only about a hundred of the performers: those in my immediate cast group. But as we’ve gotten to know each other over the almost a year of meeting, practicing, and preparing, I’m more and more amazed at the talent and intelligence in the group.

A young guy behind me is a pediatrician specializing in childhood skin diseases. A woman in a parallel section is an educator, company founder, consultant, and speaker. A big bald guy a few rows down is a serial entrepreneur. The guy two people in front of me is a young architect. Many of the participants are students at UBC or SFU. Others are young professionals. And it goes on and on …

Last night we had a dress rehearsal with 30,000 people in attendance (including my wife Teresa and our 3 kids). Since we were called in early and needed to be there most of the day, I took my laptop along and worked for a few hours. The number of people who came up, chatted, dropped business cards or connected in other ways was amazing.

I applied to be in the Olympics ceremonies for a chance to participate in a major local event with global implications. (It’s also been great fun and great exercise!) I never dreamed it’d be great networking and relationship-building as well.

Tomorrow we do a second dress rehearsal in front of 45,000 people, and Friday we go live to the world, with 70,000 people in attendance live and perhaps a billion or more tuning in on TV and online.

It’s a great privilege to do this, and an even greater privilege to do it with such wonderful companions.

Big question: Microsoft on the iPad

I’ve been wondering lately what Microsoft will do for the iPad.

As everyone knows, Microsoft is one of the major software developers for Mac … Office being the most obvious example. They’ve also dabbled in iPhone applications.

But now we have the iPad. And now mobile apps have an opportunity to be more and do more than ever before. And … Apple has thrown down the gauntlet by developing special (and cheap!) versions of its own office applications for iPad – the iWork suite.

iWork includes Keynote (PowerPoint), Pages (Word), and Numbers (Excel). How is Microsoft going to respond?

Putting their own apps on iPad is a big, big move, from a lot of perspectives:

• It would require huge redesign (lots of work)
• It would implicitly be blessing Apple’s new semi-mobile platform (both annoying and strategically dangerous)
• It would be at a much lower price point than desktop office … iWork is about $15 on iPad, versus about $100 on a Mac (also strategically dangerous and very financially risky)

And yet, to not do it risks being left in the starting gate as the race for mobile software really starts taking off. Above all else, after all, Microsoft is a software company.

What will they do? My guess: not get in until it’s too late, then jump in with both feet.

By then, Microsoft risks becoming irrelevant.

Going pro on LinkedIn: this is evil

Today I paid for a subscription to LinkedIn (site, me) for the first time.

I’ve been using LinkedIn for at least 3-4 years now, and never needed any pay features before. But now I’m looking for sales agents for my company, and want access to more search results and increased ability to contact people not in my network. So I upgraded.

It’s the usual payment form, with this at the end:

The two checkboxes are off by default … but you cannot buy the subscription without checking the first one.

In other words, LinkedIn is gaming their payment page to screw people. You cannot subscribe without selecting the option to automatically re-up … and you cannot change the automatic re-up without emailing customer support.

Notice how it’s not even a link to a web form? Not even a link to pop open an email?

This is designed to take unfair advantage of people. It’s designed to make it hard to unsubscribe. It’s designed to maximize revenue for LinkedIn.

In other words, it’s evil.

Get used to the spinning YouTube wheel of wait

I was trying to watch a short clip on YouTube today … this one, in fact. Unfortunately, it stuttered and stumbled like an aged man on a cobblestone path.

The problem? 1080P, streamed over an internet originally designed for bare, simple, small … text.

The solution, of course, is simple: take it down a notch or two. To, perhaps, “380P,” which must be a YouTube special as I haven’t seen it on any TVs in Best Buy lately.

I have broadband, as fast as I can get in my neighborhood, but I guess I’m not quite up to snuff. I wonder how many are? Things will change, of course, as they always do.

But the last mile moves slowly.