I've been reading Fred Wilson's blog for a long time. He always provides intelligent, incisive observations and ideas.
He recently gave a talk at Google about why the internet is disruptive, what it's disrupting and where we are likely headed from here. Worth contemplating. Here is the slide show:
If the New York Times is writing about the utility of Twitter, then you know it's go to be useful for something, right?
Maybe I'll refer to this article when people ask me why on earth I think Twitter is worth it.
And then there are the vast majority who just look at you and say, Twitter? What's that?
So, what's so great about Twitter?
So ignore Twitter, or not.
But this will likely go the way of the blog...and spread.
In January I noticed that it seemed like everyone I knew was starting their first Facebook page.
By that I mean people my age. Or older.
But here's when it really hit home.
My 70 year old mother in law is now on Facebook.
So no surprise that Nielsen Online is reporting that Facebook has added almost twice as many 50-64 year old global visitors (13.6 million) between December 2007-December 2008 as it has added under 18 year old global visitors (7.3 million).
David Armano is one of those rare people that can think deeply but clearly and articulate complicated things in visual, emotive and uncomplicated ways. Thanks, David, for always making a trip to your blog Logic + Emotion well worth it.
Here is his latest killer presso:
Source: Fast Company via YPulse
Anastasia Goodstein says it right. I work with technology all day long. But all the technology in the world won't help you unless you have a flexible, smart and creative team that understand how to work and accomplish goals with other humans.
Fast Company uses IBM as an example of a company actively encouraging this behavior.
“IBM puts emphasis on employee contributions of ideas, collaboration, and motivating people to engage in…pro-social behavior.” The company seeks out instances where employees help others succeed. “Too often, we have measurement and reward systems that are focused on how many transactions did you process, how many orders did you ship, and how many deals did you close -- rather than who helped these other people succeed.”
And as you know, I'm also quite obsessed with sustainability and the ongoing issue with bags.
So when Eric Denison sent me a link to this map and story from the New York Times, my antennae began twitching away.
The map shows world wide paper consumption based on
country per capita GDP. Take a look at the US - the world's most egregious consumer. On the positive side, we are on the decline for paper use. China? Paper usage is fast on the rise.
Eric writes, "Personally, I find visualizations like this fascinating and think they help put a variety of complicated issues in perspective."
Right on. With the mountains of data we're generating every day and our innately human visual acuity, mapping is more important than ever. How else will we unlock and communicate the critical information that dwells in the 1s and 0s?
The New York Time covers the fact that more and more American households are going paperless, "perhaps more for efficiency than for environmentalism." We all love the convenience of online bill-paying, tickets and gift buying. The truth is, for most things today, the digital copy is the record copy.
But paperlessness is most striking to me in my work. I write and create media for a living. But there is almost no paper involved. That's especially so, now that my column doesn't run in the dead tree version of the Globe.
How about you? Are you trending toward paperlessness?
Thanks for the map, Eric!
