Categories
Education Globalization Reading Technology

Latest read: Naked Conversations

With a lot of anticipation I read Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

naked conversations

For some time I had been skimming his blog Scoblizer since he became Microsoft’s first official blogger and rose to instant superstar.

As if that ‘permission’ by Microsoft made blogging okay for Corporate America. While his feed is loaded in my NetNewsWire this book is really really entry level…or if you have not read any book about blogging.

While many on Amazon rave about it (maybe my expectations are too high) it really is a rehash of plain – common – sense approaches to having honest communication or “chats” via a blog.

Maybe for the mid-size corporation looking to communicate to their customers…but don’t good companies talk to their customers already?

Categories
Education Globalization Internet2 Technology WiscNet

Boreas comes to Wisconsin

Wisconsin is moving in the right digital direction, literally at the speed of light. Announced yesterday the UW System is connected to a new network named Boreas.

Boreas was the name of the Greek God of the North Wind, but today it is knows as the Broadband Optical Research, Education and Sciences Network. This enhances UW-Madison’s connection to the high speed Internet2 network about 20,000 times faster.

Yes a leap in network speed x 20,000. Its part of a larger Regional Optical Network or RON, connecting the UW system to Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota.

This serious bandwidth increase cements Wisconsin (and the Midwest) as a base for future economic development, federal research and education. Quite simply to be “in the arena” of computing power and research collaboration the jump was necessary to remain at the top in today’s globalized world. Update posted at The Chronicle

Tags: , Boreas, Internet2, network, Madison

Categories
Design Education Globalization Internet2

Visual plagiarism

While searching for Masters hilights I found AT&T’s Blue room media directory. Their visual identity jumped right out as a copy of Terena, Europe’s version of Internet2, a high speed academic research network.

 

terena at&t blueroom

Terena’s brand identity was redesigned in late 2006 and incorporates their identity into their website layout. AT&T’s blue room favors music, sports and gaming media….but no idea on when it was introduced.

So who is hurting who’s brand?

 

Technorati Tags: , branding, Terena, at&t, creative, graphic design, logo

Categories
Design Education Technology Virtual Reality

Copywrong

The real golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
I’m always disappointed to see how copyright handcuffs what an artist can create. For example:

stitcher

This message is from RealViz’s Stitcher program, a photographic virtual reality rendering program. “Due to legal issues” you cannot look at an image if the camera focal length is really wide.

What could a visual artist create without this man made limitation?

Technorati Tags: , photography, virtual reality, artist, creative

Categories
Education Milwaukee

Saturday Night Massacre Remix?

A chance to remix history? Confused by the current developments inside the Beltway regarding the firing of attorneys in the Justice Department? Millions of emails regarding this process are “missing” resulting in another Bush Administration scandal. Now the Democratic congress is seeking communication as to understand the process that lead to the firings. As the NYTimes reported:

“Taken together, Democrats asserted, the e-mail supported their contention that the ousted prosecutors were dismissed to make room for favored candidates who were chosen on the basis of their political qualifications as much as prosecutorial experience.”

Today the Times revealed Rachel L. Brand being considered the top political appointment for Federal Prosecutor in the Western District of Michigan admitted she “never prosecuted so much as a traffic case.” Brilliant.

The Saturday Night Massacre October 20, 1973: Special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox subpoenaed tapes of key White House conversations regarding the growing Watergate scandal.

october 21, 1973President Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. Richardson resigned in protest.

Nixon then instructed Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused and was fired by Nixon.

Facing a crisis, Nixon turned to Solicitor General Robert Bork (third in line to the Attorney General) who fired Cox. The event was hyper escalated when the FBI sealed the offices of Richardson, Ruckelshaus and Coxs.