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Turning technology from mumbo-jumbo into rich tasty gumbo
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June 21, 2006
Phone Problems
From “Tale of a Lost Cellphone, and Untold Static”: “I never in my life thought a phone was going to cause me so many problems,” Ms. Gomez said.
It wasn’t the phone. It was the failure to return what was obviously stolen property to its owner. Phones don’t cause problems; lack of morals do.
Posted by Glennf at 7:40 AM | TrackBack
June 11, 2006
Bloggenfreude
Okay, so I admit I’m jealous that Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s blogger-in-chief (actually, a fairly important product marketing evangelist), has received a remarkable amount of coverage for his decision to leave the Redmond, Wash., giant for PodTech Network, which produces and distributes podcasts and vidcasts. See this Wall Street Journal coverage, for instance.
I’ve known Robert for a few years through several companies he’s worked for. He’s turned the idea of blogging into a personal brand that’s extended far beyond his particular day job. It’s a remarkable tour de force.
He’s not a polite or calm blogger, but he’s not a jerk and he’s not particularly angry. He doesn’t do the whole marketing-speak thing, which has made his work at Microsoft fairly incredible. A few days ago, he met with Sun’s CEO and blogged it, for instance. He’s also helped push the developer-oriented Channel 9 at Microsoft, which now get 3.5m unique visitors a month.
The company that’s he’s joining is headed by John Furrier, who I first talked to in association with Etherlinx, a firm that the New York Times once pointed to as the future of broadband wireless. Etherlinx didn’t fulfill that role, although their idea—pairing point-to-multipoint broadband wireless with Wi-Fi for distribution—is the dominant modality in hundreds of out-for-bid, in-progress, and deployed municipal networks.
I don’t blame Furrier for excluding it from his bio, but it’s significant how much attention he secured for Etherlinx. He wasn’t involved in the engineering side, as far as I can tell, and he left the firm just a few months after the NY Times article appeared.
Posted by Glennf at 5:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 10, 2006
Ear protection
Ben got interested in headphones when he got to taxi with his grandpa back east in grandpa’s plane. These are just ear protectors, but he seems to like to wear them. “Ground control to Major Ben!”
Posted by Glennf at 9:49 PM | TrackBack
June 2, 2006
Hazlett on Throwing Laptops at Kids
Hazlett says eloquently in the Financial Times what I believe. Pushing technology at children with no goal, no measurable (objective, social, or subjective) results, and little training for teachers is a waste of money unless you’re training drones for office jobs. Which maybe we are and don’t want to say.
I’d rather my son spend years learning to draw than years learning to PowerPoint, a restrictive interface that limits everyone’s thought processes and creativity by defining one path for communications.
Posted by Glennf at 3:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack