Digital Dialects

While it has been reported that many languages are dying via globalisation and nationalised education, language is fighting back. But this time it isn’t geographic. It’s jumping boundaries and hardware devices to find like minds who want to invent their own lexicon. Language likes to be unique. Language likes to treat insiders differently. Language likes to evolve, change and even judge.The connected world is developing an entire cadre of digital dialects in. Most of which are geographically dispersed and happen virtually.

For me it’s another proof point of the world we are all now living in. As soon as we think we understand what’s happening, it evolves. But more important than the change is the fact that it never asks for permission.

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The last industrial relic

You probably don’t know this but the office is a weird thing that only turned up when factories did. Sure Lawyers and accountants had them, but not in the corporate form they exist in today. The office was an addendum to where stuff got built. It was there by accident, it was there because the tools of the trade (office machinery) had not been democratized to the point where we could own and have them in our home. The strange thing is that, now we can work from home, the large majority of us still don’t. Not because we don’t want to, but mainly because large corporations lack trust.

Many of us would save time and money if they did not exist (both people & corporations)

I think it’s the last industrial relic. It needs to be radically changed, even the name office is wrong. It sounds ‘official’ and full of rules. Sure we do need to work together sometimes – but personally I’d rather do that in some kind of creative collaboration space.

If offices really add that much value, then why do startups never have them? It’s because entrepreneurs know they are expensive to run, out dated and redundant.

Jason Fried gives us his synopsis on this topic at a recent TED talk. Which I love – it’s 20 minutes worth investing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs]

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Revolutions and pleasure

In the October 1994 Issue of Wired, Gary Wolfe said in an article,  article about Mosiac (the worlds first GUI web browser) and the coming internet revolution.

“When it comes to smashing a paradigm, pleasure is not the most important thing…

it is the only thing.”

Startup blog asks this:

What kind of pleasure is your startup bringing to its people?

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Brand Trust

Apple Inc sold an amazing 700,000 ipads on launch day. That’s around $350 million in revenue in one day. Most of the eager purchasers didn’t have full knowledge of what the gadget was even capable of. Which makes me ask these simple questions:

(A) Is Apple the most trusted brand in the world with loyalists? (B) And if so what creates such zealotry?

Startup Blog Answers:

(A) Yes, I think so.

(B) Abridged answer: Over delivering to expectations on multiple occasions.

The only other brands I can even think of people buying into without knowing what they are actually getting is the ever lasting life that comes with most religions!

Startup blog says: Over deliver, be patient and get compound returns.

Inside the minds of others

When our genes could not store all the information necessary for our survival, we slowly invented brains. But then the time came, maybe tens of thousands of years ago, that we needed to know more than could be conveniently stored in brains. So we learned to stockpile enormous amounts of information outside our bodies. We are the only species as far as we know to have developed a communal memory, and the warehouse of that memory is called the library.

Something extraordinary has been happening on the planet earth. Rich information from distant lands and peoples , has become routinely available. Computers can now store and process enormous amounts of information extremely rapidly. In our time a revolution has begun. A revolution perhaps as significant as the evolution of DNA and nervous systems and the invention of writing. Direct communication among billions of human beings is now made possible by computers and satellites.  The potential for a global intelligence is emerging, linking all the brains on earth into a planetary consciousness.

The above words were spoken 29 years ago by Carl Sagan (in Cosmos 1980). Well before the personal computer revolution, the graphical user interface, before the internet had left military installations and Universities. Carl was a prophet, with great insight. He’s just described our world so poignantly, well before it arrived.

It makes me excited to be able to share my thoughts so easily, like Carl said we would all this time ago. It makes me want to ensure my digital contribution is positive and leaves a valuable legacy. It makes me want to make sure we all know how important this gift of omnipresent communication is, at a time when our species needs to collaborate so strongly for our survival.

Now that we can so quickly enter the minds of others, we should all make sure our contributions are positive, that we add something of value to this collective consciousness.

Quote about design: Steve Jobs

In preparation for teaching a Brand Management Class today at Melbourne University when I came across an important quote from Steve Jobs about the industrial design of the iPod. When the first generation iPod was finally complete and ready to be unveiled to the public Jobs looked back on the process of how the iPod was designed:

“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s the veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it feels like and looks like. Design is how it works.”

Startup blog says: When it comes to design – it should facilitate function before fashion. After which time the human instinct takes over…. the function becomes the fashion.

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