In an article on eHomeupgrade research advisory firm, Gartner Inc. have predicted that mashups that mix data from publicly available sources will comprise about 80% of new enterprise applications by 2010.
The ease at which mashups can be created and the possibilities of combining many sources of info into one application has many benefits. We have all (or at least some of us have) seen the uses of Facebook applications in gathering information from people and this model is bound to go from strength to strength.
With the rising need for information on clients and potential clients, the use of hybrid web applications might be the only way to satisfy the demand for precise, timely information. Social media has been the starting point for the generation of most of this available information but most people are wondering where the next source will come from.
The next billionaire might just be the person who finds a non-intrusive way of getting people to freely part with their infomation…
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One of my favorite writers once said; “Being the best is the enemy of being good“. By that he means that to succeed you don’t have to be the best. If you are good at what you do you can be successful. If you strive to be the best you often just end up losing. (both the plot and the race.)
It is more evident now than ever before with the amazing amount of interaction on the web. If you strive to be the best in your field you are going to be competing with a lot of others. The only way to be the best is through hyper-segmentation and even then you might have competition. It really goes hand in hand with the idea of the long tail, with the amount of information on the flattened web there is so much knowledge and you can never really know it all.
You can no longer sit around resting on your laurels, you need to be out there learning, getting it wrong, getting it right… Collaborating, learning together. It’s time to let go.
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An interesting development in the information age is the lack of necessary information required to function in the digital sphere. As colleague Max Kaizen put it: “even without knowing about electrical circuits you flick the light switch and the lights come on”.
A lot of benefit can be gained from collaboration and with connectivity at an all time high it is now much more feasible. There is a lot to be said for Albert Einstein’s quote “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. There is so much information out there and it is all readily available that you don’t have to be an expert on something to know how it works… You just need to be able to bring the right expertise in to help when necessary, it’s all about synergy…
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We’ve all been in the situation where we are in an online meeting and we want to share a something with the other participants and couldn’t. Well there is now an answer, Dimdim.
Dimdim is a service that lets everyone everywhere to communicate using rich media in real time. For free. Though if you want to customize or brand your own meeting you can pruchase Dimdim Pro for $99 per year.
A major draw card is it’s open source so you can add to it or extend it to meet your needs, what’s more is that participants don’t need to install software on their machines to participate, they just sign up for free…
Dimdim’s mission is “to enable web collaboration for everyone. We believe that we can improve the world by providing easy, open and affordable collaboration software that anyone can use.” A noble cause indeed.
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For the last few months I’ve been tracking the development of a concept called Supercool School. The idea is to create a peer-produced, on-demand learning environment that will revolutionize the way people learn online.
Check out a demo of it in action on Blip.tv
My only concern at this point is whether the teachers will be rated - I am keen to sign-up for classes, but the idea that anyone can step into the teacher’s seat makes me worry that I might waste an hour with a bad teacher.
I am impressed with what the Supercool School Principal, Steli Efti, and his team they’ve put together so far, and I have no doubt that it will get even better as more people start attending classes.
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If you have a few spare minutes in your hectic schedules you should check out http://wikieducator.org Just be warned it might take up more of your time than you might expect…
What is Wikieducator? It is a collaborative space for the planning of education projects linked with the development of free content. A space to develop free content on Wikieducator for e-learning and to work on building open education resources (OERs) and a space to network funding proposals developed as free content.
It was voted by Stephen Downes as the best educational wiki last year and if the developments that have happened are anything to go by, watch this space.
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While doing my usual browse through my favorite websites I came across Piers Fawkes‘ Article on A Deeper Look At Co-Working on PSFK.
These days it is becoming more common for companies to open up their work-places to other businesses. There are various reasons to do this (aside from the obvious shared-cost benefit)
With the move towards collaboration many companies prefer to have fellow creative close to hand in case there is an opportunity to develop or to share a project. There is also the added bonus of another set of skills in the same office that can be tapped into.
The general trend seems to be the feeling of community that people get from working together. There is a more social aspect to how people interact and this makes for a better working environment. While many companies are hesitant to join forces with others, for some the benefits are too real to pass up.
So if you have spare space in your office it might just benefit you to rent it out to a firm that you work with. Not only will you save on the rent, but you will also have them close at hand when you need to deliver on a project. You get the benefits of hiring a freelancer while having them around all the time, paying you to be there…
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