Quantum-playshuns

Cactus blooming in Albuquerque

2009-10-05T23:36:00.001+02:00

Posted via web from colbyco's posterous

Posting from iPhone

2009-09-04T22:36:00.001+02:00

This is an experiment to check blogging software.

Only problem is no way to include images.

Posterous - post everywhere

2009-08-30T16:06:00.002+02:00

via posterous.com

Dead simple posting through site, by email or iPhone app.
Tried it yet?

Posted via web from colbyco's posterous

Global Travel Sites for Taxi's & Hotels

2009-05-25T11:49:00.006+02:00

Two new travel tools are now part of my travel toolkit. I recommend them for everyone who has to travel to many different cities in different countries.

First, the International Taxi Fare Calculator. Taxi costs vary from city to city. Even though this site is still in Beta, it can calculate your fare from airport to accommodation in major cities listed in their drop down menu. I've used it a few times already, and it has been pretty close to what I've had to pay.

The second recommendation is Wotif.com to find amazing accommodation deals at GREAT RATES for a broad range of hotels, motels, apartments, resorts and bed & breakfasts around the world. You can even book last-minute for rates you would never expect - at 5 star hotels as well. They are taking the empty rooms and managing "room sales".

Would like to know how you've experienced these.

Start-ups - the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

2009-04-14T10:28:00.007+02:00

Everyone is looking for the next big thing. Business organizations use their experience on all levels to take advantage of trends, indicators, brand behaviour and assessments to identify the perfect gap to fill.

What do start-ups do?

No start-up is the same, except in their naiveté.

My experience in helping start-ups or participating in them is that it should be all about the people and how to mobilise their expertise. A start-up is a joint venture at its most basic level. What is the inventory of each person's assets in four arenas - personal, relationships. creativity and knowledge, and material? How have they applied those assets in the past? What is the potential for applying those assets in the future? What assets do they have that are not yet valued? Look for the demonstrated and forensic evidence that each person can contribute something necessary to actually build a business around a great idea.

After that, it's all about how well they work together and learn how to handle situations together. Are they solo players or team players? Have they identified the essence of their brand and its unique behaviour? Do they understand basic business practices and how to work as an organization to deliver that unique brand - including managing the relationships that will help build their business? Have they got evaluation criteria in place for making decisions together - and how much value those decisions generate?

Finally, who is going to ground the pie-in-the-sky big idea into a working framework with blueprints to actually build and grow a business around that idea? Who is going to position that idea with the right communication so that everyone who needs to know about the idea will be drawn into the business of that idea? Who is going to lead the people and the business in the direction it needs to go?

What do start-ups do? What's your experience - the the good, the bad and the ugly?

Periodic Table of Typefaces

2009-03-12T16:50:00.003+01:00

I really enjoy people turning their ideas into Periodic Tables. Here's a new one thanks to Download Squad: Periodic Table of Typefaces

Awhile back I also posted the Periodic Table Printmaking Project and a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.

Aha! Twitter Is Personal

2009-03-03T17:55:00.005+01:00

When I first decided to make the plunge and start Twittering (actually pushed by some serious users), I thought I would do that as @quantumbrands. Branding, technology, and social media are woven together by people and their communities. It became very quickly obvious that I needed a business Twitter and a personal Twitter.

We see the world through such a different perspective in our roles in business than through our human being roles of just being ourselves. I have contact with different groups of people in business - and follow them for different reasons. With Twitter @colbystuart, I reach more lofty ideals and more conscious choice about my personal interests and fascinations.

Are you Twittering in different identities? Why?

EnlightenNext - Magazine for Evolutionaries

2009-02-04T11:17:00.003+01:00

"EnlightenNext - The Magazine for Evolutionaries" is sharing a digital version of its December 2008-February 2009 edition. Definitely worth a read for inspiration and to provoke some new thinking on evolutionary processes.

Their own description of the magazine: "Through in-depth interviews and insightful cultural analysis, EnlightenNext offers new ways of thinking about ourselves, our world, and the future we are here to create."

After you read it, ask yourself "What did it awaken in me?"

A Deep Breath, A Fresh Beginning

2009-02-03T09:35:00.007+01:00

I'm sitting here enjoying a cup of tea. The installer has just moved the telephone line from the old studio to my flat - a temporary solution until I find a new work studio. It's quiet, and I feel relaxed and reflective.

What a change from this upheaval of 2 months of moving out of our work space. We've unloaded so much "stuff" that no longer served a purpose in our lives or our way of working. It creates more space - to think, to do, to create.

Creative Awareness

I want to do for myself and my business partner what we've been doing for clients for years - re-purpose and re-launch our brand. When you've been in the creative industry of communication, advertising and media for 30+ years, you need a fresh look at the world and your role in it. We want Quantum Brands BV to have real meaning for our clients - and to create more virtual work and learning environments. We want to build on the values that have meaning for us: creativity, adventure, wisdom, joy, passion.

poster www.MarkAndrewWebber.com

Today, I am making a list of things I really enjoy doing. ( I already have that list of things I never want to do again.)

I am also reading through the blogs I've aggregated in Bloglines with pleasure - seeing what catches my eye and my interest. What's hot? What's not?

Though I will continue to dedicate much of my time to Kids 2020 Foundation, I need to discover the kind of work that gratifies the soul of my creativity. Without that, how I can expect myself to inspire others?

What are you doing that really awakens your creativity and brings you to life? Take a deep breath...and...

Trend Map for 2009

2008-12-27T19:15:00.008+01:00

Ross Dawson posted a fascinating explanation of a multi-tenacle hydra trend-map for 2009. He identifies the vital trends, risks and danger zones for 2009. Ross is Chairman of the Future Exploration Network, whose Chief Futurist - Richard Watson of What'sNext - created this Trend Map for 2009.

Ross Dawson has identified the following themes :
"SOCIETY: Search for control, enoughism
TECHNOLOGY: Simplicity, Telepresence, Gesture based computing
ECONOMY: De-leveraging, 2-speed economies, Shorter product lifecycles
ENVIRONMENT: Bio fuel backlash, Negawatts, Nuclear power
POLITICS: Virtual protests, Globalisation in retreat, Immigration backlash
BUSINESS: Networked risk, Transparency, Asset price uncertainty
FAMILY: Debt stress, Allowable luxuries, Middle class unrest
MEDIA: Flight to quality, Facebook fatigue, Skimming, Micro boredom"

You can find a larger version of the Trend Map posted on Cambodia4kids.org's photos on Flickr.

Grab a cup of tea and take the time to really explore the Trend Map and Ross Dawson's explanation.

Anthropological introduction to YouTube

2008-12-23T11:37:00.003+01:00

A message about communication and media - an expression of the times.

This is the story of the impact of social media and what creates meaning for people - and how people choose to express that.

Book on High Speed Networks & Social Computing

2008-11-03T13:19:00.007+01:00

The Tower & The Cloud - Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing is an e-book that addresses high speed networks and social computing, two powerful forces that have been shaping our economy and our lives. This is extremely relevant in the context of not only learning, but also in the scope and implications of the global financial debacle we are facing.

This industrial scale computing - consider the global financial networks - has implications that are far-reaching in their impact. Human beings have limits in their levels of competency in their standards and practices when dealing with computational environments. They do not meet the oversight practices required for such highly advanced networked technology. We tend to compartmentalize how we deal with these standards and practices.

This leads us to ask very weighted questions.
"Who is actually responsible for the oversight of this?"
"Do they really comprehend the complete dynamic of what humans are capable of understanding and what realistic compliance practices they can put into place to evaluate the implications of such a global financial network?"
Perhaps, more importantly, "Who is teaching our children the evolutionary practices they need to cope with advanced computational networks?"

The Tower & The Cloud - Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing awakens insight into these issues. It is available for download as an e-book - according to Common Cause agreements - or purchase of the hardback

Kids 2020 Beta Website Live!

2008-10-16T16:47:00.003+02:00

I've been back and forth the USA quite a bit this year. We've been trying to get a prototype for the Kids 2020 Learning Programme in place. In the meantime, we've also been hard at work trying to get the website ready to open to the public.

In my role as Chairperson for the Kids 2020 Foundation, I proudly announce that today, parts of the Beta 1.0 version of the Kids 2020 website are now live.

We appreciate any feedback you would like to share with us. Of course, the site is very limited at this time. We are only a small group of volunteers making small steps forward.

Many, many thanks to Hans, Marcel, Gwyn, Sierd, and Rob. They have shared their expertise and shown their dedication to bringing Kids 2020 alive online.

Firefox Download Day is Today!

2008-06-17T13:03:00.006+02:00

Spread the word to everyone! Firefox would like to break the Guinness world record for the most software downloads in 24 hours. Mozilla's Firefox Download Day 17 June 2008 is harnessing the power of social networking for this viral campaign.

The launch download begins at 10 am PST, which is 19:00 this evening in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

NOTE: Mozilla broke the Guinness Book of World Records record - 8 MILLION people downloaded Firefox3 within 24 hours

Periodic Table Printmaking Project

2008-02-10T12:28:00.002+01:00

Promoting both science and the arts, The Periodic Table Printmaking Project is a collection of 118 prints. BoingBoing posted this with links to an interview with AzureGrackle, the organizer of the project, in Etsy.

The Periodic Table Printmaking Project is an international collaboration of 96 artists who produced 118 prints, each representing one element. Each print is a unique woodcut, linocut, monotype, etching, lithograph, silkscreen, or a combination of these techniques.

Check out the Flickr photo blog with additional images.
Find out more about the project in the AzureGrackle blog.

The 96 artists came from 8 countries - Australia, Canada, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Scotland, USA (with 29 states & Puerto Rico from the USA: Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin).

New Logo for Quantum Brands BV

2008-01-31T14:57:00.000+01:00

We're starting year with a new look for the old logo - designed by my partner, Sierd Loman. With all the digital applications, he wanted something that would take the symbol into new dimensions. He's working on a "moving" version, a bit like the gyroscope from the film "Contact".

Almost Recovered

2008-01-09T16:19:00.000+01:00

The immobilizer comes off next week - hooray!

After 6 weeks in this thing since the shoulder operation, the active me is screaming to get out. I have a renewed appreciation for the efforts that people have to make when they only have use of one arm. Simple things like putting your hair in a ponytail are impossible.

Once I get the motion back in my arm, I will return to blogging.

Thanks for all the emails and books!

Recognizing Patterns in Life - Fibonacci numbers

2007-10-24T16:02:00.000+02:00

There are beautiful patterns in life. Mathematics is beautiful, and its beauty is in its language of patterns. There are mathematical formulas for expressing these beautiful patterns in life. One of these is called

The Fibonacci numbers - the mathematical formulas for the patterns of nature. There is also the the Golden Spiral sometimes called the Fibonacci spiral, which captures growth patterns in nature. Many think that the nautilus shell follows this concept, but in reality its growth patterns follow a logarithmic spiral, similar to spiral galaxies, spider webs and the approach of hawk to its prey.

Another beautiful mathematical formula is the Golden Ratio, governing ethestics.

We need a certain distance to recognize patterns. Sitting in an airplane, we recognize the patchwork quilt of fields, hedgerows, or city blocks below. Yet, standing among them, we can’t see them because we are too close. In other words, we can’t see the forest for the trees.

I love puzzles because I like figuring out the patterns. This is why I can easily see things that others cannot. Images, sounds, smells, rhythms, textures, groupings.
Training our minds to recognize patterns helps us put things together and move easier through our lives. This is called strategy. Some also it call it magic.

This is part of what unifies us - our lives, society, business and the economy - and holds us together. These patterns are concepts. These concepts are the stories of our lives. These concepts hold the secrets and beauty to everything. If you recognize them, you know the secret.

Our lives are made up of concepts within concepts.
The next time you’re trying to figure something out, go for a walk and look around you at the wonders of nature.
Get some distance from what you’re trying to figure out - and then look for those patterns.

Share what you have discovered by looking at the same things through a different lens. What did you find?

The Difference between Values, Principles, Ethics & Morals

2007-09-15T13:39:00.000+02:00

As we take the philosophy behind Kids 2020 out into the world, we open the discussions with the role that values play in making choices. The wonderful tendency of value-based discussions is that they quickly reveal content and separate it from “spin”…much to the chagrin of the spin-masters.

What is becoming very apparent to me is that most people do not have a clear understanding of the distinction between values, principles, ethics and morals. These four terms seem inter-exchangeable for most people…even for those responsible for defining company values.

This creates confusion because each of us works with our own personal glossary of terms, and with our own definitions for those terms. No wonder people get confused - we make glaring assumptions and just keep charging through the communication…establishing our authority, whether it's validated or not.

So, what is the difference between a value, a principle, an ethic and a moral? Rather than just give people clear guidelines, I prefer to engage them in exploring the differences. Each of us has to discover why that is relevant to us, so that we can adopt the meaning and significance of what differentiates these terms from one another.

For instance, terms like “liberty”, “discovery”, “compassion”, “joy”, “duty” are values. These are concepts that drive our choices - hidden deep inside our DNA or culturally adopted - consciously or unaware, we depend on them to construct the frameworks of our lives. Values influence how we make choices.

How you would carry these values out into practice would become guiding principles. You could also establish a standard of behaviour for a moral code from them, particularly if there were lessons to learn from not adhering to this code with a resulting judgment. Or, you could establish ethical practices from them, a set of principles to guide behaviour and manage expectations in a civil society.

Once we begin to engage in conversations about values, we begin to learn more about people, situations, business, and the many different kinds of community. We also learn so much about the different lenses through which individuals choose to view their world…perspectives.

What conversations are you having about values? Are these discussions helping you make more informed choices?

NowPublic - crowd powered media

2007-07-20T09:58:00.000+02:00

I discovered Now Public - this crowdsourcing site - when Ryan Nadel sent me a request to use some of my photos from the Acropolis in Greece for a story he had posted about the work on the Acropolis.

What caught my attention about Now Public were the different perspectives about the same topic captured by each contributor. Without the journalistic training and filters, these contributos add their view through their own personal lens. This gives us not only insight into the topic, but insight into the mindset of the international public's engagement with the topic.

Now Public is easy to navigate and offers a tabbed menu with drop-down menus for choices like "popular good stuff".

If you run across any other crowdsourcing sites, please share them here so we can build a resource list.

Kids 2020 Foundation is Official

2007-06-18T18:57:00.000+02:00

Kids 2020 creates meaning for me. Learning the role that values play in making choices - and putting them to work in creating value - is the heart of Kids 2020. What if parents could help their children learn the strategic skills to use values to make wiser choices - and identify their vision of a preferred future and build a clear path of value to their preferred future?

Kids 2020 is a powerful idea and an ambitious movement to put that powerful idea into practice.

It's been a long road. We've been gathering a force of believers along the way with expertise in their special areas to help us bring Kids 2020 to life. With the potential to change the world, this is such an ambitious undertaking.

Follow us as we take Kids 2020 into the world. You can also contribute in your own preferred way. Within a few weeks, you can visit our Kids 2020 Foundation website to participate. Please be patient while we're under construction - building the web infrastructure takes time - and lots of expertise.

We're committed to only using Open Source applications. Arjen Kamphuis has joined our team just to keep us on this track. We've chosen Plone for our content management system and Zope for our content management frameworks.

“We are Smarter than Me” Book Project

2007-03-22T12:46:00.000+01:00

The “We are Smarter than Me” project is another form of crowdsourcing.

” Students, faculty and alumni of two illustrious institutions, as well as leaders, authors, and experts from the fields of management and technology are invited to harness the power of community.”

I’ve received an invitation from Wharton Business School to participate in writing a book in collaboration with others from MIT Sloan School of Management, Pearson Publishing and Shared Insights - with a commitment from Pearson to publish it. They are ”an ambitious community addressing a crucial shift in how businesses operate as they learn to leverage the power of "community." This American academic community and their worldwide network are uniting with publishing and IT services to create an environment where they can explore how to write a book in collaboration online. This book will document the evidence of that process.

Just check out the “We Team” to see the strength of leadership for the project.

Read the Community Proposal to understand the rationale behind this.

Crowdsourcing in Journalism

2007-03-20T17:21:00.000+01:00

Journalism is known for its networks of sources in tracking down their stories with due diligence. That has been the point of differentiation between journalists and citizen journalists until now. Now - journalists and readers and all of their related sources and experts can contribute to stories and articles.

Assignment Zero is a collaboration between Wired and NewAssignment.net.

Assignment Zero is an experimental website set up by Jay Rosen, a Professor of Journalism at New York University. Using the "wisdom of the crowd" and good reporting skills, this new method creates opportunities and evidence of "crowdsourcing". They are using software to build newsroom scenarios where people collaborate on specific topics. They develop them through discussions where citizens with expertise in these topics will contribute and the sourcing will be aggregated into a story by the reporter.

Though I love the open-source reporting idea, I am very curious how these contributions will be rewarded. If anyone participates, please let me know how you experience this. I've signed up to give it a try.

The HBR List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007

2007-02-04T16:26:00.000+01:00

In the February issue of the Harvard Business Review, I came across The HBR List of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007.

This is the result of an annual survey of
-- “emerging ideas that consider how nanotechnology will affect commerce,
-- what role hope plays in leadership,
-- and why - in an age that practically enshrines accountability - we need to beware of “accountabalism.”

The following is an excerpt of the highlights. I highly recommend that you take the time to read the full article. It is insightful and, at times, witty.

1. The Accidental Influentials by Duncan J. Watts
In his best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals. The idea seems intuitively right—we think we see it happening all the time. Nevertheless, this isn’t actually how ideas spread. It’s better to focus on getting enough plain, ordinary people to sign on.

2. Entrepreneurial Japan by Yoshito Hori
Japan’s economic rebound is generally attributed to the turnaround of corporate giants and to industry consolidation. But it is also fueled by the emergence of new companies led by entrepreneurs in their twenties and thirties. An entrepreneurial Japan—no longer an oxymoron—may ultimately overshadow the much touted start-up cultures of China and India.

3. Brand Magic: Harry Potter Marketing by Frédéric Dalsace, Coralie Damay, and David Dubois
Most brands target a specific age group. The big problem with this approach is that it positively discourages customer loyalty— and, as we all know, it’s a lot cheaper to keep customers than to find new ones. To get around this problem, companies should consider creating brands that mature with their customers.

4. Algorithms in the Attic by Michael Schrage
For a powerful perspective on future business, take a hard look at mathematics past: the old equations collecting dust on academics’ shelves. Just as big firms need the keen eye of an intellectual property curator to appreciate the value of old patents and know-how, they will need savvy mathematicians to resurrect long-forgotten equations that, because of advancing technology, can finally be applied to business.

5. The Leader from Hope by Harry Hutson and Barbara Perry
Most business leaders shy away from the word “hope.” Yet hope has been shown to be the key ingredient of resilience in survivors of traumas ranging from prison camps to natural disasters. So if you are an executive trying to lead an organization through change, know that hope can be a potent force in your favor. And it’s yours to give.

6. An Emerging Hotbed of User-Centered Innovation * by Eric von Hippel
Most countries, developing and developed alike, view innovation as a vital input to their economic growth and spend varying portions of their national budgets to support it in companies and research labs, for the ultimate benefit of essentially passive consumers. Denmark is taking a different tack: It’s making “user-centered innovation” a national priority.

7. Living with Continuous Partial Attention by Linda Stone
“Continuous partial attention”—distinct from multitasking—is an adaptive behavior that presumably allows us to keep pace with the never-ending bandwidth technology offers. Now there are signs of a backlash against the tyranny of tantalizing choices.

8. Borrowing from the PE Playbook by Michael C. Mankins
Company coffers are overflowing these days, and inevitably executives are turning to the M&A markets in their quest to put the cash to good use. If they’re to avoid repeating the disappointments of previous M&A waves, they will have to take a few leaves from the acquisition playbook of private equity firms.

9. When to Sleep on It by Ap Dijksterhuis
Use your conscious mind to acquire all the information you need to arrive at a difficult decision, but don’t try to analyze it. Instead, go on holiday and let your unconscious mind digest the information for a day or two. Whatever your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.

10. Here Comes XBRL by Robert G. Eccles, Liv Watson, and Mike Willis
A new software standard for financial and business reporting, soon to be adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, will make it dramatically easier to generate, validate, aggregate, and analyze business and financial information—which in turn will improve the quality of the information companies use to make decisions.

11. Innovation and Growth: Size Matters by Geoffrey B. West
Newfound general mathematical relationships between population size, innovation, and wealth creation challenge the conventional wisdom that smaller innovation functions are more inventive. They may explain why few organizations today have matched the creativity of a giant like Bell Labs in its heyday.

12. Conflicted Consumers by Karen Fraser
Your customer data indicate strong consumer satisfaction: Repeat purchase levels are high, and many customers have been with you for years. Good news, right? Well, appearances can be deceptive. Buried in the data may be a “stealth” segment of apparently loyal customers whose ethical concerns make them ready to bolt as soon as an alternative emerges.

13. What Sells When Father Knows Best by Phillip Longman
The link between conservatism and fertility is found throughout the world, and it portends a comeback for patriarchy and other traditional values. Business leaders must learn how to profit from, or at least prepare for, this trend.

14. Business in the Nanocosm by Rashi Glazer
Though the scientific and technological revolution that may occur as a result of nanotechnology has been much discussed, the sociocultural and business implications are of potentially much greater impact. Nanotechnology may change society over the next few decades just as much as information technology has over the previous few—and in ways that are still hard to grasp.

15. Act Globally, Think Locally by Yoko Ishikura
Companies are usually told to “think globally and act locally.” But thanks to their own global information systems and the Internet, knowledge from faraway places can be acquired relatively easily and cheaply. This means that firms have to discover and quickly incorporate good ideas from these diverse sources before their rivals do.

16. Seeing Is Treating by Klaus Kleinfeld and Erich Reinhardt
When several technologies can be leveraged simultaneously, the possibilities for real breakthroughs in medical care multiply. That is occurring today with the convergence of imaging technology and biotechnology, which promises to radically change the diagnosis and treatment of many chronic diseases, greatly benefiting both patients and the companies that serve them.

17. The Best Networks Are Really Worknets by Christopher Meyer
The assumption is that if you build a network platform, people will come. If you expect to get real value from your initiative, though, you must think hard and in advance about exactly what function you want the network to perform. That will help you choose the participants, the nature of their experiences, and the technology. In other words, put the work in “network” first.

18. Why U.S. Health Care Costs Aren’t Too High by Charles R. Morris
Contrary to popular belief, health care costs, broadly defined, are quite probably falling. It is spending that is rising, which is not the same thing at all. The benefits of health care for individuals, society, and the economy—such as getting people back to work faster—more than outweigh its direct costs.

19. In Defense of “Ready, Fire, Aim" by Clay Shirky
The bulk of open source projects fail, and most of the remaining successes are quite modest. Still, open systems are a profound threat to many businesses, not only because they outsucceed commercial firms but, more important, because they outfail them.

20. The Folly of Accountabalism by David Weinberger
Accountability has gone horribly wrong. It has become “accountabalism,” a set of related beliefs and practices that bureaucratize morality and make us believe we can control our lives by adhering to specific rules. But grown-ups prefer clarity and realism to happy superstition.

Breathingearth.net

2007-01-15T18:20:00.000+01:00

Since we started the Sustainable Futures Foundation last year, I have been tracking what people are doing about implementing sustainable ideas. That brought the New Zealand company Celsias onto my radar, and I blogged last week about their website to track and trade carbon credits. I've been reading their very informative Celsias blog. Today, Craig Mackintosh spotlighted the Breathing Earth site in their Celsias blog.

Breathing Earth maps the carbon emissions and birth and death rates of every country in the world. Just mouse-over any country and see what is happening. This is a very interesting visualization of data.

David Bleja from Stillwater Microcosm has taken data from Wikipedia, the World Factbook and the United Nations. If he were able to map the real live data into this map, it would give us a live tool for watching our impact on the earth.