March News and Links

Here’s a selection of links shared during February via Google Reader, Delicious and Twitter. Organised into the usual overlapping categories: Systems and the bits and pieces that make them work.Hot topic this month- games and reputation starting to be examined seriously as social media rumbles on into the workplace. Enjoy!

Systems

• Rwanda’s laptop revolution – the ‘one laptop per child’ programme in practice and enabling change
• Lessons from Chile – better building codes work and the importance of architecture
• Social media protest against Nestle may have long standing ramifications – other brands, take note
• Social Media cheat sheet – nice guide for any looking to use social media to enhance their business
• On unintended consequences – three unrelated examples remind of the unforeseen
• Keep Moving Forward vs Defend & Extend – Opposing strategies: how Apple and RIM took mobile market share from Microsoft and Palm
• Planning is very important … it doesn’t work – the plan is not the goal, it is the current best picture
• Blog post: Did the clouds just get darker – global cloud services get entangled in local borders
• Blog post: Social Media judges the Olympics – trending topics on Twitter show real-time analytics

People

• Blog post: You cannot walk in another’s shoes – how our perception trumps reality
• Blog post: How to lower productivity – monitor what everyone is doing
• The Performance Paradox – focus on movement rather than timing
• 10 principles for leading and managing in the networked knowledge workplace
• Cognitive learning theories and e-learning – how cognitive learning abilities are acquired
• Before they were titans: putting rejection letters in perspective – nice reminder of priorities in life
• Will Twitter Spam Ruin Your Reputation – the challenge facing social media and the systems depending on it
• Should Doctors Google Their Patients – revenge of the professional? 🙂 but a serious question… changes diagnosis?
• Games entering the workplace as a topic is hotting up – and not before time
• Gaming can make a better world – TED Talk
• Thinking the unthinkable – 12 months ago, who would have thought Toyota would be in the position its in today?

Information

• Unifying probabilistic and rules-based approaches to artificial intelligence – human and machine-based approaches to learning and decisions
• Analysis of the UK budget on a human scale – puts deficit in perspective (FT.com – subscription may be required)
• Blog post: Do Search and Social Networks mix? – Does all information want to be found? Google Buzz thoughts
• Blog post: Blogging mistakes help improve policy – sometimes you need to learn the hard way
• On risk – defining the boundaries between good policy and excessive application gets harder
• Pew Internet on how we get our news – latest statistics: Of those who get news online, 75% forwarded through email or posted on social nets and 52% then share onwards – suggests participation is increasing over pure consumption
• Stanford Uni Workshop on Algorithms for Modern Massive Date Sets – presentations
• Why privacy is a human right – an old post by Bruce Schneier worth dusting off once in a while as data goes public

Technology

• Blog post: SharePoint 2010 and Adobe PDF indexing (updated from SharePoint 2007)
• Blog post: Microsoft’s Productivity Hub (add-on site collection for SharePoint)
• Analysts review of SharePoint 2010 – Gartner, IDC, Forrester
• Blog post: Concerns with cloud computing – looking beyond the technical issues
• Blog post: Private Public Sector Clouds – how commerce is creating dedicated cloud services for government
• Microsoft on cloud computing – gallery of video talks
• Redesigning school from in-world out – how a UK school used SecondLife to 3D model plans and avoid costly mistakes
• Do experiments, not projects – IT is no longer simply automating existing manual processes, it is trying to change the way people think and behave. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen (the need to move away from the fixed delivery boundaries of IT projects)

…and finally, finishing with the usual bit of fun. Well two bits this month as couldn’t decide between them:

1. Dilbert highlights a painful reality for too many projects

2. Why companies needn’t worry too much about how people blog – stuff usually catches up with you and lessons are often best remembered when learned the hard way…