Alright, so this was just too cute not to post.  July 4th weekend we introduced my dog Bandit to my nephew Jayce.  We were a little worried about the whole thing since Bandit is a very pack oriented animal who we thought might see Jayce as a threat to his place in the pecking order of the family.  Bandit has also been tormented by small children before and always acts a little nervous around them.

Anyway, the fears turned out to be unfounded.  He absolutely loved the kid and spent the entire weekend guarding him zealously.  He would perch by the kid and would immediately start whimpering to get our attention whenever the baby would make any noise.  He even kept his voice down, refusing to bark around the baby.  Here we see Bandit on guard protecting Jayce from the evil mosquitoes of Bridge City.

So here's an idea I've been trying to flesh out in my head the last couple of days:  I've been reading up on network topology and came across Milgram's experiments which illustrated the 6 degrees of separation concept (which states that everyone in the world is separated by approximately 6 links).  The general perception of this theory is that it is at most 6 links that separates people, but that is untrue.  Most people (I would venture to say around 90-95%) are separated by no more than 6 links.  But if I remember from some reading I did, the number has been as high as 10 in some instances.  This is all very hard to prove in real life, but mathematical models, the work of Paul Erdös and others seem to bear this out.

In the course of all this research one thing struck me as rather counter-intuitive until you really think about it.  In every network similar to the Internet (an open ended, hybrid of ordered and random linkage) there are two types of links: weak and strong.  For example, take a social group of people.  Everyone that is a close friend is a strong link.  Everyone that is an acquintance is a weak link.  Perfectly understandable and obvious. 

Here is the counter-intuitive part.  When a token (information, virii, chain letters, etc.) spreads out across the network it is not the strong links that do most of the leg work.  Information travels more efficiently among the weak links.  It's counter-intuitive because you are more likely to tell your best friends all the nifty gossip you hear in a given day, and they're likely to tell their best friends first and so on.   However, all your strong links are the same strong links that all your friends have.  When you tell your best friends and they tell their best friends, you are simply telling the same people more than once.  Most hybrid networks have clusters of strong ties that are more or less closed.  What this means is that information travels rapidly among this group and then never escapes.  All the traveling is done on a small number of weak links that bridge the closed clusters.

All this got me thinking about job searches recently and all the articles that say you need to utilize your social network.  This is all well and good when you are staying in the same industry or location and have established a strong network of contacts.  But what about the person who moves to a new location and/or wants to enter a new industry?  Their best bet is to disseminate information along the weakest links in their social network.

As I got to thinking about this I realized that the number of links between our job hunter and the person who could offer him or her their ideal job was about 6 and probably no more than 10.  The key issue would be harnessing the collective self interest of the network.  Then I thought of the idea of utilizing the Internet to accomplish this purpose.

So my idea is essentially this:  Post on a website (a blog or some other public site) that you are looking for a job, post your resume, the details of the job (skills required, location, work hours, etc.) and post a cash prize amount you will pay to anyone who can lead you to the job that you eventually accept.  In the case that the information has to hop along more than one link the prize money will be split among the participants that help you get the job.  I was thinking a $2500 cash prize would be sufficient.  In the case that the information had to pass through 5 hands before the job was taken, each person would get $500.  Even at 10 people, $250/person is a decent sum for a negligible amount of effort.  Headhunters and employers would not be considered for payment of this transaction as that would skew the incentive structure and create possible hire and fire scenarios.   In addition, payout probably should only occur when a job is accepted, not brought to your attention.  I would try it out myself but I'm not looking for work.  However, if anyone else is, feel free to try this and let me know how it works out for you.

The key issue in this would be verifying the veracity of the people who come forward to claim the prize money.  And that I have no easy answer for.  I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

For some reason, Radio seems to hang every once in awhile on WindowsXP.  This was never a problem on Win2k.  It's something I'm going to have to monitor.  It may turn out to be nothing.

Today is turning out to be a relatively light day, workwise since I'm mostly hanging out and waiting on some people to get done with their end of several projects.  I'm mostly going to be playing catch up on some good old fashioned office cleaning.  Relegating things to the "circular file," etc.

So what's new in the World O' The Web?  Well, it seems that pubs in the UK are going wireless (via boingboing).  As many of you know, I am completely in love with wireless access and can't wait for the day when I can walk from here to Timbuktu and never drop access to the 'Net.  Like  Shirky, I don't think it's going to make much money for those who are basing their companies around wifi infrastructure, but I think the commercial push of the technology is enormous.  Not revolutionary, but enormous.

Back to the pubs.  Once a pub is wireless it can start using the technology to make it a unique place that draws clientelle.  For example, (and this is off the top of my head so forgive the lack of true economic analysis of the viability), you could have photographers with digital cameras dispersed through the pub to take pictures of clientelle, post em on Shutterfly and give people the option to download photo albums from their night out, and give them the option to do so while they are still at the bar.  Or you could have "crazy photo" competitions in real time as you photograph or video patrons doing outrageous things and broadcast them around the bar, or the net.

Clubs could allow patrons to download mixes in mp3 format from DJs while they're spinning and make mix tapes to take home.  Like I said, these are just a few things that could be done.  Think about it for more than 5 minutes and it becomes obvious that we haven't even scratched the surface.

Certain service businesses are experience related.  By that I mean you pay for the "experience" as much as for the service and products that go along with it.  Restaurants, clubs, bars, and resorts are examples of this.  You expect a different experience at the Four Seasons than you would get at a Fairfield Inn.  You pay for the difference.  And this difference can be enhanced with wireless technology.  Once you start offering features to clients, they will become more fanatic about using your services.  For instance, I can almost guarantee you that any club or bar that offers semi-professional photos to their patrons of their night out would become a must visit for most bachelorette parties.

The business world doesn't get it of course.  There was some criticism over McDonald's announcement to roll out wireless access in their restaurants and I'm sure some of the franchisees are balking at the extra cost.  McDonald's isn't a "sit and surf" environment.  Still, I know there are plenty of times I'm out of town and need to check my e-mail at night and would rather pay the few cents to use the T-Mobile access at Starbucks than use the phone lines at my hotel.  In other words, I visit Starbucks solely for the wireless access!  If a McDonald's were closer than the Starbucks, I would head there.  This will change as wireless becomes ubiquitous, but my point is; don't discount how your customers will use the technology.   In the case of McDonald's there might be online games that the kids could play against each other or cooperatively, or updated sports stats for the parents.  Imagine a Happy Meal toy that would have an access code to download extra unseen footage for the movie that's being promoted that week!   Just as cell phone manufacturers probably didn't foresee the use of cameras in cell phones as a tool for fans to track celebrities through a city, most of the really cool uses for wireless won't really become apparent til its out there.

Alright, so I got Radio up and running on the laptop.  This will make posting much easier going forward as prior to this I was only posting on my lunch break when I'd go home for lunch (which was actually quite often) and right before I went to bed.  Didn't leave a whole lot of time for in-depth posts.

Well, now that that's done...time for work!  I'll be back a little later.