All News Travels Fast!

June 25th 2009 was the day Michael Jackson was reported to have died from cardiac arrest at his rented home in Los Angeles, later that same day the story was confirmed. This post isn’t dedicated to the story of Michael Jackson though - fear not, there are already enough pages out there on that already - but instead a look at the ‘how’ and the speed of which the story broke.

On the very night the story broke, I was out at the time and had just climbed into my car when my phone started to vibrate in my pocket followed by the tone of the SMS text message alert.

Checking the message, it read “Looks like all those people who thought MJ would cancel are going to be proved right!” in reference, of course, to the proposed 50 gigs planned at the O2 arena starting this summer. Thinking it was yet another publicity stunt and having just got in the car to drive home, I placed the phone in cup holder and set off towards my home-ward bound destination, thinking no more of it and enjoying the sounds of Coldplay in glorious MP3 format on the stereo.

It was only when I got home that I did my customary switch on of the laptop to take one final check of the emails for the day and catch up on any tweets I’d missed whilst I was out that whilst the laptop was booting, I text back asking for an update on the publicity stunt or announcement that had been made. The reply came almost instantaneously, reading “Maybe you should log on for a second”, further fuelling my interest in just what was going on.

Firing up TweetDeck, the application seemed to take forever to open up – before I departed towards home, my Twitter stream had hardly been no more busy than usual – when it eventually opened, the pop up of messages suddenly seemed out of proportion. Diving into my stream I quickly spotted the MJ reports and discovered reports that he had died – or was it hospitalised? The message was blurred at this point and the doubts of whether to believe everything you read on the web were starting to creep into my mind.

Finding the link to TMZ (the site that initially broke the news), on a number of tweets, I read the story that MJ had in fact died; but then with that doubt in my mind, fired up another browser tab and darted off to Digg the very same TMZ article was ranked number one, this was obviously big news and the message had started to spread rapidly. Wanting more information however, I needed a search engine – remembering an article I’d read on TechCrunch regarding real-time indexing, I headed for bing.com for further news. Finding the LA Times website and some other linked to news stories, the articles suggested that Jackson hadn’t died after all and was just “in a bad way”. Scooting over to Google, the news stories were less apparent in my search and I was presented with Wikipedia articles and other Jackson related websites (it seemed the TechCrunch article was correct in the speed to index stakes).

My SMS messages continued to make my phone beep and I fired back reply messages in between my searching of the web for a definitive report on what had happened. TweetDeck continued to stream messages into me and reminded me that the best place for breaking news was Twitter’s own search facility. I quickly set up a ‘search stream’ within TweetDeck that monitored the latest postings – whilst simultaneously switching on my TV and turning to Sky News, who were broadcasting the story as “BREAKING NEWS”.

My Twitter Search reported the news that Jackson was in a coma – this was minutes later reported on Sky News. The real-time stream of Twitter and the television broadcast were now competing for my attention; twitter reporting the news first, and using Sky as my ‘verification’ on the tweets that shaped the story.

It was only at that moment that I realised that it wasn’t the death of the “King of Pop” that actually had caught my attention, but the speed and power of web 2.0 social networking and the technology that brought this whole story together for me and possibly for millions of others.

From the very first text message, once again the sheer power of the Twitter to spread the speculating message and then the confirmations, the TMZ website initially breaking the story, social news site Digg working as expected bringing the breaking story to the very top of its feed – thanks to all those that had clicked the button to “Digg It!” and give it further attention, the search engines that helped make news and information on Jackson available right at the fingertips of those who wished to know, Facebook statuses also changed to spread the message. Strangely, I also saw YouTube videos posted of cafes that suddenly switched their stereos to play Jackson classics – and no doubt online music websites also saw an increase in MJ tracks being played.

Most Twitter users have already experienced its real-time stream and the power of spreading messages quickly, using hashtags and re-tweets – only recently, we’ve seen the power it’s had on the Iran elections. Being asked to re-arrange scheduled maintenance, Twitter kept their site up in order to allow Iranians and others around the globe to express their views, support and outrage. Campaigns involving avatars changing to show a green filter were organised and implemented – the power of the crowd speaking with one voice. None of this was evident on Facebook – or at least not within my circle of friends.

The vast increase in traffic on Twitter pushed their system to the limits, apparently with the “Fail Whale” only appearing a couple of times. Twitter shut down “search” and “trending” features at various points and a noticeable lagging under the strain placed on their servers was more than evident.

Removing myself from the tragic events, my fascination with the internet taking over, it was difficult to yet again ignore just how much the internet has changed in its “Web 2.0” guise. Social media sites working overtime and under strain to help spread the news appeared very apparent. Twitter being the most obvious service put under immense pressure during the breaking news cycle.

Viva La Internet and long live innovative real-time solutions.

Back To The Fu....ndraiser!

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”

Right, this may sound harsh, but I’ve had enough of it! Last week a guy dressed as a cowboy carrying a jar full of jellybeans and a girl with a clipboard circled the building at work, looking for just about anyone and everyone to put their hands in their pockets and donate some money in return for a guess at how many jellybeans were in the jar. A none too unusual occurrence in the charity ‘money raising’ schemes world and something I have no qualms participating in for many of the good causes.

However, what I object to is the way it was done. An email circulated the company stating that the jar would be available in reception for all those who wished to participate to get involved. I’m even not too objectionable to the fact the jar was brought round person to person, no, what does rile me is the “tuts” and judgemental attitude given when you declare you have no money (made especially worse by the fact that everyone around me had gladly dipped into the wallets to donate and get involved in the guessing of how many brightly coloured sweeties were in the jar).

Believe me, if I’d have had more than the 25pence in my wallet, I would have gladly dropped in at least the 50p asking price to participate in the charity game, if only to donate than to actually win the prize of the jellybeans. Which brings me to another question, which person has manhandled those sweeties during the counting phase that would make me actually want them?
No, my problem is that I was judged by my lack of effort to put my hand in my pocket.

Really though, in a world where carrying actual real-life money is becoming less and less, and paying with plastic the preferred method of payment for just about every other item being the norm, why should I be judged for not having change about my person? Give me the option to pay via plastic and I might have donated...or even better in this ‘internal charity fund raisers’ let me pledge an amount to pay prior to the prize being drawn. The admin goes up, but it would surely give people the opportunity to source some additional cash funds to donate?

Changing the subject slightly, these last couple of weeks I’ve been totally immersed in a book that I’ve enjoyed just about every word of reading. Michael J. Fox’s “Always Looking Up”, provides a look back at events in this celebrity’s life since quitting the political comedy sitcom “Spin City” (of which the DVDs are still not available in the UK for some reason – surely they’d sell well here?), after deciding it was getting increasingly difficult to precede with the series due to his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD). The book is split into four different sections; Politics, Life, Faith and Family. The most interesting of these sections to me (in relation to this blog post), is politics.

J. Fox describes the feelings he experienced quitting the popular “Spin City” at the height of its popularity, quitting on the 100th episode, and then leading onto his examination of what to do next. The inspirational J. Fox however, through a chance meeting with Lance Armstrong and connections with Christopher Reeves, decided to set up a foundation focused on the research battle with PD.

A bit of research or background information for anyone not fully up to speed on PD, the research required to come up with a cure lies within ‘embryonic cell stem’ research; which opens a whole can of worms into the ethical rights and wrongs into the use of these cells and the prospects of the rouge few using this research to successfully clone human beings. Whilst I admit, it was never a topic I’d fully considered before both sides of the arguments are laid out by Mikey J. Fox and as he explains how he’s worked closely and campaigned for both those Republican and Democratic candidates who support cell stem research to get them elected, pushing the benefits any breakthrough research can bring to PD and other brain wasting diseases can bring to the quality of lives for suffers. Mikey J. also valiantly states that those people he is unable to convince into support cell stem research, either through ethical or religious objections, he fully respects their decisions and conclusions, but asks for their respect in allowing those supports to have their own views and allow the human race (and especially the US – the land of scientific development and reaching for the stars), to push ahead for the breakthrough so many people pray and hope for.

I now have an awareness of cell stem research and I think I’m now a supporter of such an action – I’m however, am not religious and as far as I can tell, the ethical implications are stale in comparison to the benefits allowing scientists to push ahead for a breakthrough in cell stems is no different to any other medical research that already takes place - a thought occurred to me, if the US is so against it, why not move top scientists to pro-cell stem research countries to partake in research and development? Although fortunately, President Barack Obama is a supporter of science and cell stem research (J. Fox tells of his vote for Obama for President and the wearing of his “Barack To The Future” t-shirt on election day!)

I wouldn’t normally promote a book for others to read, as not everyone would have the same taste in books or subject content as I do, but I would recommend “Always Looking Up” to just about almost anyone. Not only is it a great, thought provoking read, but also the profits from book sales are plunged straight into the “Michael J. Fox Foundation”, a truly worth cause. I’ve order J. Fox’s other book “Lucky Man” as a result of my enjoyable read and again any profits made from those book sales are donated to the Foundation.

For those who don’t fancy the read, and have a lack of change in their pockets, point their browser towards the Michael J. Fox Foundation website and donate generously using your favourite plastic card, no judgements will be made.





Additional: Even if you don’t donate, please check out the website for more information on PD and cell stem research and the efforts taken by Michael J. Fox and his team – this Foundation really could be “The Secret Of His Success”.

British Industry

Past week or so I’ve been running into the question “Should America start making things?” as a solution to the recent economic global crisis. In America that answer is a complex question given that most large American based companies have an European/Global presence and possibly outsource quite a bit to developing nations, especially when it comes to writing software code and telephone support lines. Bringing all of these things back ‘in-house’ for a US company may prove costly in comparison and cause more problems than such a move was intended to solve.

However, ambitious plans for new projects – especially in the tech sector – do seem to make sense for American companies to start “making at home” and allowing home grown talent to shine. Take the Web 2.0 scene for example, Silicon Valley is still the heart-land for any web/computer technology to gain traction and launch on a major scale. President Obama has already made pledges to make money available for developing roads, improving broadband (in a country where broadband is still slow in uptake, especially in some of the more remote areas – or so I’m lead to believe by the reports I read in the UK), and improving communications – getting Americans back to work and re-laying the foundations for continued growth and development in a country that prides itself on development and growth.

Plans for wide scale use of electric cars are already well into development and talk has already been made about developments of fast electronic planes that are silent in operation and have capabilities of vertical take-off, both of which could revolutionise the aero industries (if it is actually possible to create such a plane to start with – I’ll leave you make up your own mind on that one). But America actually making things or use and consumption in their own backyard makes perfect sense, reducing the amount they need to import from a far where possible and “doing thing for themselves” to drive down costs and improve profits in their own companies, perhaps also driving up demand and increasing export.

The US is one of the countries at the forefront of science with a Commander in Chief looking to increase funding for science and technology and with an expectant hope that results will be returned, not only will America be making things for themselves, but its also entirely plausible that these “things” will be highly developed and sophisticated, placing them ahead of many other companies and countries in terms of quality, features and smart developments.

Of course, this begs to question, if America does start making things for themselves in an effort to boost their national economy, then what are we doing in the UK in an effort to make things for ourselves and could this be an answer to our own economic problems?

Thinking about what the UK has traditionally done well in, we’ve traditionally been engineers; from the railroads, steam trains, tunnels, glorious buildings with ingenious design, steal makers, ship builders, etc. More recently in the UK, we’ve developed a talent for highly efficient call centres, that have increasingly been moved out to India and beyond purely in search for cost savings – yet the skills of the UK worker in this sector are still highly available.

A quick look at the flip side shows that we no longer build on the grand scales we used to (our country is becoming smaller and the population denser if anything), the stream train has been replaced by the automobile – and despite the UK car industry being alive (or just about barely alive), we no longer have any British car brands, like Jaguar and Land Rover any more; instead our roads are now filled with German and Japanese cars – not that I have any qualms about those cars, I myself drive a Japanese car, but the British alternative has disappeared entirely via a variety of different reasons. Our steal factories are closing, our ship building has been halted, and our coal mines have closed and as previously stated our call centres have been outsourced.

Try thinking of an industry now that is entirely British; the only ones I can think of are Government “essential” services such as the NHS, Police Service, Military and Fire Brigade – all of which are hardly unique industries to the UK.

Our televisions are from Japan – even the programme we watch are no longer British with most being imported from the States, from cable and satellite companies that don’t even belong to us - our computers and the software that runs on them are from the US, and the clothes we wear are from retailers who outsource their production far and wide. Our mobile phones are from anywhere but the UK and the biggest mobile operators aren’t UK companies – even good old British Telecom isn’t so British anymore, preferring instead to be known only as “BT”.

Fortunately, whilst our science perhaps isn’t as advanced as our cousins in the US, we are advanced and it would be great to see the UK Government have a real big push at getting more people into developing UK Science and Technologies, mirroring those commitments made by President Obama, and hopefully opening up new markets for UK companies to expand and develop into our own unique products or heavily licensed to other countries where the expertise exist in exchange for a percentage of the workforce to be based in the UK to protect our investments in such fields as new technology and developments – partnerships in other words.

The last partnership in the field of “development” that I can remember from the UK was that with France in the search for supersonic flight. That particular partnership resulted in the birth of the Concord, capable of journeys from the UK to New York in only three hours! A truly remarkable feat of design, science and engineering that should have changed flights across the globe forever. Unfortunately, as money dried up for further development and flight on “traditional” airlines grew cheaper, Concord became a more extravagant and costly form of transportation. Upkeep of the supersonic plane declined and after the fateful crash of the Air France Concorde, the fate of the most advanced passenger airliner was sealed; Concord now collecting dust as a museum piece, standing as an icon as the “first” in a long line of more advanced super sonic flying machines, it instead stands only as an icon for advanced technology, through collaboration and partnership that was ceased in development and longer a fixture in our skies.

The question is not “Should Britain start making things?” but instead should be “What should Britain start making next?”. What are the unique skills, scientific and technological advances do we have in the pipelines in the UK and what are we are doing to exploit and unleash these assets in order to build new industries that we can call British. Perhaps we have nothing, which is unlikely, but if such is the case, then at least we should be taking steps to correct that first and foremost.

Rule Britainia I say!

Web 2.0 Tech

As an avid reader of the TechCrunch blog and with an interest in all that is Web 2.0, even partaking in writing for two blogs (this one and http://www.craigbutters.com/ – nothing like a bit of self promoting), an active Twitter account, a Facebook account, Gmail accounts and user numerous online services – not even mentioning the amount of times I’ve recommended online services to others, who have promptly adopted them and shared with the online world.

Keeping on top of all of these different individual websites is a massive undertaking (for which I thank TechCrunch for taking all of the work out of it and keeping track of them), but actually getting dug in and working with these online services, understanding their uses and working out where they fit in either with your personal life or into your “IT Business Strategy” is a black art and misunderstood by most non-web based businesses (or so it seems in my experience).

Fortunately I think I have a solution; hire me! If your business doesn’t know it’s Facebook’s from its Twitter’s or it’s Picassa’s from its Flickr’s, then look no further; drop me an email and lets discuss where or how you want your business to utilise online services and I’ll do my very best to guide and help develop your “online strategy” in return for the usual cash payments.

Even better, hire me full to work on “special projects” to develop long term strategies on web 2.0 and web research projects. It’s a gap in the market that most IT department don’t have someone looking into.

In my experience, most IT Managers are too focused on their hardware, software, business strategies to even think about what their long term IT/Business Strategies might be. Questions of how to integrate your business into Twitter or what are the benefits of outsourcing email services out to Google mail are often left unanswered or badly researched using return on investment analysis and cost of ownership models. I would like to volunteer for hire, as someone who would do just that for your business.

Looking at the strategies of “Software as a Service” (SaaS or if your Microsoft, “Software Plus Services” – which is the model I think I most subscribe to), and Cloud computing, which business have dedicated people on their staff looking into these things? Sure, most have virtualisation specialists, but where does that virtualisation fit into their longer term business strategies and what else could they be doing? All questions that I would like to get involved in and try to answer.

This last week or so we’ve had a plethora (that’s the right term, trust me), of brand new web applications – most notably Microsoft’s new search decision engine Bing, Google’s announcement of “Wave”, both potential massive game changing platforms that have gone mainly unnoticed by anyone not actively keeping track of these news stories. In the hardware world, the Palm Pre launched in the US, showing off it’s new “WebOS” operating system which connects to all of these existing web 2.0 social networking services, demonstrating just how much potential outsourcing to third party online web platforms has (Gmail, Microsoft Exchange/webmail, Google calendars, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, etc).

We’re not all “Palm” and most businesses aren’t trying to develop a smart phone technology that takes advantage of all of these online platforms, but with a bit of knowledge on what’s out there already how integration can be achieved, with a push in the right direction from someone who knows and can spot these potential opportunities, can that person be a game changer in that business? I believe they can.

In a world where outsourcing can be achieved to any where in the world and with some online services already well established and able to “do the job”, why are companies trying to reinvent the wheel or operate their own similar services? Over the next few years, with the evolution of the smart phone, I’d be very surprised not to see more “mobile working” start to take off and be the accepted norm. Businesses need to tie their users into using their own expensive in-house solutions or outsource these items to a standard online service (or even if multiple online services have the capability to make them communicate between themselves on an effective level – I’m thinking calendar and appointments specifically here, but I’m sure there are many other examples).

I don’t see how it can’t work and I don’t understand why businesses haven’t hired people specifically to look into these things on behalf of the IT Department and the business in general. Google’s search engine and proper “search” on the web changed how most companies worked, providing efficiency to employee’s roles within the company, where information and data are king and vital to that person’s success or failure. Other web services exist to provide the exact same “efficiencies” yet are not taken advantage of or even considered as part of business platforms.

If something of what I’ve just said makes sense, and you would like to hire me, drop me a line, my rates are reasonable and you never know, it just might be exactly what your business needs as the future approaches fast and “Web Tech” grows larger.

The Best Apprentice

“There are always two; a master and an apprentice”

“The Apprentice” is an interesting show, no doubt about that. Blending the worlds of business, professionalism and education into a entertaining hours worth of reality TV, where you are often left bemused at what you just saw some supposedly some of the ‘best business minds’ in the country have just done to end up in such a precarious and dangerous position to be fired – although every week, someone has to go.

I’ve been a fan of “The Apprentice” ever since the first series of the US version, fronted by the business tycoon Donald Trump, and in my opinion that very first series has never been beaten, it set the standards in business entertainment and those boardroom scenes seemed terrifying compared to the ‘some-what’ easy time the candidates got in later series. The UK version of the show, fronted by Sir Alan Sugar, took a number of seasons before I could actually start to enjoy it in comparison to the US version, but I got there eventually. I think it was more to do with Sir Alan trying to be too like Donald Trump and failing miserably in the first couple of series that put me off – he couldn’t pull of scary and the ‘rewards’ for the winning team were no where near as comparable.

After a quick chat with my colleague this morning, who also watches “The Apprentice”, we got onto the subject of hoping that one day he could be the best in his field of expertise and having the ability to pick and choose when you worked and who you worked for and hell, even what types of projects you undertook in your super knowledgeable status. To be a “House” like character, who is the “worlds best diagnostician”, and has the freedom to take on only the cases that interest him most, act inappropriately with his patience and his peers and play games to keep ones self amused: it’s surely a dream ticket!

Being the best in your field is a huge aspiration, especially in an arena such as IT (returning back to my conversation this morning), which has so many different aspects and areas of interest; science, technology, entertainment, hardware, software, networks, the Internet, telephony, video, the social, environmental and ecological affects, etc, etc. It would take years of study to gain even a basic grasp and scratch the surface of just some of these subjects. In fact, its unlikely that you find anyone with such qualifications, although I’m sure there are many who could ‘talk’ about all of these things with some conviction.

All of this got me thinking a little bit though, if most of us have these aspirations to become ‘the best’, why aren’t we doing more about it? There is no reason why, the people in my office or even the people in your office, aren’t aiming for higher goals, for better understanding, or tweaking designs proactively instead of sitting or standing by content that things are as good as they can be.

I’ve worked for companies that have done something in a certain way for years and never looked to change those practices despite some hit or miss results along the way. They’ve always took for granted that their way, the way that it “has been done for years”, is the best way, but that attitude is just plain wrong. There are always better ways to do things and I would like to hope that I’m always open and willing to learn something new along the way in a quest to change some of these broken down practices and methods.

Every morning I have a ritual of checking through my RSS feeds for all of the best stories from the IT world and then exploring those opportunities in my mind to see if there is anything I can apply to my work. I realise that most of what I read is irrelevant to my actual job, but I still feel that by being aware of what is going on it gives me an advantage and keeps me learning more, with an ability to explore and hopefully expand my horizons. I write this blog every week, for example, as not only a way to entertain myself (and hopefully those who read), but also to improve the way I write and to share my thoughts and ideas in a constructive way, whilst at the same time, allowing me to embark upon some of that “Web 2.0 culture” I have come to take an keen interest within and wish to embrace more in those areas I can. Being involved in the Twitter craze is another of these whims, but is especially useful in connecting me to some of those people that have ‘made it’ in positions of where I may potentially like to be given the time, its an educating line and it sets an inspirational barrier that I would one day like to achieve.

If my current employer would look away now...thanks...I think it has become obvious that my position doesn’t offer the kind of challenges that I hoped for and the projects aren’t up there with those that I’m used to working upon. Without sounding like a show off, my last project at my former job was securing half a million pounds worth of investment in a new telephony switch that the company were unwilling, at first, to make investment within and then following that project through to installation (I sadly and perhaps stupidly, departed the company before the installation begun). Installing WebSense technologies, although a lot of learning has been gleamed, is hardly an inspiring and exciting project in comparison. But rough with the smooth I suppose.

Being an F1 fan, where the race for tenths of seconds are fought for by huge teams of people, searching for ultimate perfection and precision to the nth degree, I’ve never understood why businesses don’t strive for similar results in their processes and practices. Alright, inspiring the uninspired is a difficult task, but those that aren’t on-board, willing to aim for ultimate perfect shouldn’t be there or should be sidelined until they are ready to re-enter the race for better results. Perhaps is a question of company cultures, especially those that don’t allow its employees to grow and reach out for more ambitious projects and developments, those that are close-minded and unwilling to accept or embrace change in the hunt for innovative solutions and environments where things are designed to just happen, almost by nature than by forced design.

“The Apprentice” is designed to find those that are able to navigate themselves through a series of tasks and business games to find a winner, it finds the person who is best suited those that are able to think on their feet and implement and deploy strategies and of course make them work. What “The Apprentice” often forgets about itself, is that instead of finding the best, it should find the person who is most malleable and has the most potential, those that demonstrate a willingness to learn and to grow, who will search for perfection and a desire to become the best within their field of expertise.

I hope I never become the “best in my field”, but I certainly hope that my desire for improvement and to learn more never becomes depleted or extinguished. Whilst becoming a “House” or a “Russinovich” would be a dream, I don’t for one minute ever expect to stop learning, and that is what is more important to me than anything else.