Nokia's twango - multimedia sharing for mobiles

Here's a new media sharing site just acquired by Nokia. Features like flickr, but includes audio and video as well. Twango - Media Sharing and Hosting: Photos, Video, Audio and More

The image is from the twango/google mashup. Twango also features a process for organizing the media in "channels" which can be used for editing and for embedding in blogs or websites.

Innovation-What's Luck got to do with it?

From Erica Driver at Forrester Research - a fine article on how serendipity(LUCK) may be more important than all the other keys to innovation.

Forrester Information and Knowledge Management: Serendipity: A Critical Innovation Success Factor

Here is a clip from Erica's article:

"As part of the run-up to the Business Innovation Factory summit (BIF-3) currently going on in Providence, Rhode Island, attendees participated in an online social network.On the social networking site, the most common one-word answers to the question “What are 5 keys to innovation?” were rolled up into a tag cloud (see figure). Words that rose to the top of the list included creativity, collaboration, and passion.

But as I sit in the back of the theater listening to the storytellers (they each get 15 minutes of stage time to share experiences they’ve had with innovation or to participate in a short interview) I realize we missed something big: serendipity — fed by sheer dumb luck. According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, serendipity is the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought after. And luck is a force that brings good fortune or adversity, or the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual."

While I liked Erica's article, I take issue with her characterization of serendipity as "fed by sheer dumb luck". Louis Pasteur is quoted as saying in a lecture in 1854 "Chance favors only the prepared mind". From my own experiences in founding and managing innovative startups, having a prepared mind enabled me to recognize my luck when it knocked on my door.

Erica's article also features a link to Icosystems founder and Chief Scientist Eric Bonabeau whose company applies complex adapative systems technology to help clients prepare their minds - and create their own luck. Might be worth checking Icosytems out to improve your luck. Icosystem Company Overview

fact checking - a 5,000 year error - Lascaux

When I posted yesterday about the Reuters story of the "world's oldest painting" I was reminded by a commentor about Lascaux and the cave paintings which predated the Aleppo paintings by 5,000 years.

It seems that Thoughts Illustrated commenced a lot earlier - in the caves at Lascaux and at Altamira in Spain - 5000 years before the "world's oldest painting"

It amazes me that a person in the blogosphere would care enough to set the record straight and that I could correct the error of the Reuter's "headline" story about the world's oldest painting.

From 9000 BC - the world's oldest painting?

This 2 square-meter painting, in red, black and white, was found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo, team leader Eric Coqueugniot told Reuters.

"It looks like a modernist painting. Some of those who saw it have likened it to work by (Paul) Klee. Through carbon dating we established it is from around 9,000 B.C.," Coqueugniot said.

Looks like thoughts were being illustrated 11,000 years ago. Quite a legacy.

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SOA - music to your ears?

Evolution of Communication: From Email to Twitter and Beyond

This diagram leads a very provocative post by Alex Iskold from Read/Write Web (1) which reinforces my own prior point about Twitter versus Blogger. (2)



(1) http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/evolution_of_communication.php

(2)Thoughts Illustrated: A Brief Message - twitter vs blogger?


Amy Jussel commented to my Twitter post as follows:

"I actually appreciate Twitter's free form spontaneity, and can see how I might use it as almost a "Jott" style app to reach thought leaders under severe time crunches who seem to be living on the short form tools. (David's a case in point, eh?)

That said, your database filtering idea is a 'value-add' that would put it off the charts in my book...

To me, that would be the 'killer app' of relevance that would truly give Twitter the chops to be a 'collective knowledge depository' with value far beyond its current uses as mental floss....

The widget below may just be Amy's "killer app".