Saturday, December 14, 2002

ANOTHER COOL BLUETOOTH TOOL: I'm running out of space on my desk at work (as well as power outlets) because of all my gadgets.  I just picked this one up CompUSA.  It's the Jabra Freespeak Bluetooth Headset, which will talk to any Bluetooth-enabled phone, or, a version is available that uses a mini-RCA adapter to plug into a non-Bluetooth phone.  I bought the latter and am really happy with it.  It seems to have about 3.5 hours of talk time when fully charged and the device has indicators so that you don't forget to turn it off between use.  Haven't tried this out yet, but the docs indicate that it uses the standard headset config if one wanted to use it with a Bluetooth enabled PC. 4:38:04 PM

TWO THUMBS AND EXPONENTIAL REACH: Kevin Werbach's Supernova conference was quite interesting, with the discussion centered on the decentralization of technology. By far, I found Howard Rheingold's opening comments the most interesting of the bunch. Ray Ozzie got me fired up about complex adaptive systems a little over a year ago, and Howard's discussion of the findings that led to his new book "Smart Mobs", was nothing short of fascinating. It was this notion of using edge-based technology, fused with wireless, to facilitate "flocking" between large groups of people with a common interest. Real, ad-hoc groups of people coming together for collective action, facilitated by nothing more than social contracts and inexpensive communications gear. The only real affinity they shared was political interest and a desire for change. Rheingold opened his talk by referencing a phenomenon he saw a couple of years ago while visiting Japan. Upon leaving Shibuya, a very busy train station in Tokyo, he witnessed something odd. People were looking at their cell phones instead of talking into them. Thumbs were clicking and it became evident that he was seeing a brand new social use of technology at the extreme edges of the network. While largely social in nature, these teenagers were using wireless text messaging to form "flocks" of teens around a specific location, or virtually through a discussion of interest. Perhaps most interesting was his description of the downfall of Philippine president Joseph Estrada, who was driven from office after accusations of massive corruption. Rheingold attributes Estrada's political demise to "flocking", citing a grass roots usage of text messaging and wireless to mobilize more than one million demonstrators in less than an hour. Text messages were sent instructing people to wear black and white, and asking them to converge on the plaza at Epifanio de los Santas Avenue. Hundreds of cell phone text messages went out initially, but it was the subsequent viral forward of the initial message to millions that mobilized the masses. That viral reach was facilitated because of the ease of moving messages with nothing more than two thumb-clicks. While there's a lot to be said about the social uptake of technology to affect change, the real story here is in the implementation. 12:29:39 AM