Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Social networking Are you LinkedIn? How about on Facebook? MySpace? LinkedIn is the social network of business, Facebook for college age and MySpace for kids...right? Actually, no. Facebook is aggressively developing a platform and enticing business people away from LinkedIn. These are social networks. Ways to connect with people. I am on LinkedIn and have some contacts there, but I don't really use it. Facebook is sweeping Silicon Valley types, and I think it may be my next venture. I've been reading many people on PR. Some of the best talk about the value of a PR person in knowing editors and working closely with those most likely to appreciate the information that they are pitching. Steve Rubel at Micropersuasions thinks maybe the future of PR relationships is in social networks. He may be right. 6:38:05 PM    comment []

RFID Certainly the hype generated by misinterpretations of the Wal-Mart mandate has subsided. I just interviewed someone for my September feature article who pointed out many limitations to the technology. Here's a sober assessment. Now, if they can just solve some of the laws of physics that seem to be in the way... RFID won't deliver, says wireless expert. Despite a push by companies like Wal-Mart Stores, RFID technology may not be the supply chain solution it has been billed to be, according to wireless security expert Ronan Clinton. [Computerworld Breaking News] 3:18:26 PM    comment []

Productivity tip Great tip from Jerry Seinfeld through Lifehacker for building good work habits. Hint: figure out what you need to do to succeed, for Seinfeld it was to write every day, for you it may be go to the gym every day. Then get a calendar and mark off the day you do it. Look for the chains to build, rather than a sparse scattering of x's. 10:39:00 AM    comment []

User Conference Info If you are a Wonderware user or investigating the company's products, you can now register for Wonder World, October 23-24 in Las Vegas. Most likely Wes Iversen from Automation World will be there. You might do what he'll be doing--attend Pack Expo the week before, spend the weekend with the attractions of Las Vegas, then attend Wonder World. I will most likely be at another user conference that week. 9:34:45 AM    comment []

Wireless I received a report from Wes Iversen last night from Vancouver and the ISA Wireless Summit. The gist of his message is that wireless suppliers stress the great benefits of wireless sensor networks, but that user adoption is painfully slow. Even some people who thought they'd have applications to present at the summit don't have them up and running, yet. ISA doesn't expect a final standard (of part of the standards work) until the first quarter of 2008. This is beginning to remind me of my first year as an editor. I left manufacturing and joined a magazine that had decided to proclaim 1998 as the Year of the Network. We ran features almost every month. But the critical mass of fieldbus networks came several years later--actually almost without fanfare. I thought that we'd see some critical mass for wireless starting to build in 2008. But 2007 is going so slowly that I may have to rethink my predictions. But I still intend to devote a lot of space to the subject next year. I think it will come. What do you think? Do we need a new generation of engineers who will try things much like this generation did in the 1980s and 1990s? Is there just too much FUD? Are users concerned that there is more hype than substance (people are inundated with so much hype every day from consumer advertising, they get a little jaundiced about messages)? I don't know. Tell me. 7:25:20 AM    comment []