Category: Design

Latest read: What the Dog Saw

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 15, 2009

I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Joining The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success comes his latest work What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures which is a collection of his writings with the New Yorker. I have enjoyed all of his books and this new release is no exception.

And to prove life again is all about timing the NYTimes has it’s book review hitting tomorrow’s Sunday paper. The book’s title is from his writing about Cesar Millan, the noted animal trainer with the hit cable show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.

Gladwell breaks the book into three parts: Minor Geniuses, Theories – or ways of organizing experience and Predictions we make about people. From these points Gladwell shares those articles that have stuck with him long after the New Yorker articles were published.

I was pretty amused in reading What the Dog Saw right after finishing SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

To say the data and stories by Gladwell and Dubner & Levitt may overlap, it was nevertheless a lesson in looking beyond the regular story to take the opportunity to learn hidden lessons.

Tags background stories, cesar millan, chris anderson, datasets, economics, freakonomics, geniuses, horseradish, jana novotna, levitt, malcolm gladwell, nassim nicholas taleb, odd facts, Reading, suicide bombers, tipping point, trends, watergate, What the Dog Saw

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Latest read: Superfreakonomics

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 15, 2009
1 Comment on Latest read: Superfreakonomics

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have released SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance a long awaited follow up to their hit Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
If you enjoyed Freakonomics (my review here) or even Sudir Venkatesh‘s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the runaway hit from chapter three, then you will enjoy SuperFreakonomics.

I recall learning the book would be released in late 2009 but as soon as I saw it on the shelf I picked up a copy and began reading that night. They have done another great job exploring new datasets. Most readers will enjoy reading the data underlying a murder in New York of a woman in-front of 38 witnesses. Nobody called the police for help. They explore what this says about society. The book is more of the same: exploring the hidden side of everything.

From comparing street prostitution to a department store Santa to why suicide bombers should buy life insurance, Levitt and Dubner succeed in sharing unique datasets and telling a compelling story. How did television empower women in India? On the surface it may sound strange until you consider how they tell the story.

They provide inspiration as well. Their segment ‘The garden hose to the sky’ about global warming sounds funny on the surface until they share the idea is from Microsoft’s former technology director. He is the principal owner in a scientific research firm that is developing tools to cool the earth. It gets more interesting when you learn Bill Gates is an investor in the company.

Tags datasets, economics, energy, population, poverty, stephen dubner, steven levitt, Sudir Venkatesh, superfreakonomics, Technology, terrorist

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OLPC XO-2: Dead on arrival

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date November 4, 2009

No sooner did we expect to see prototypes when Nicholas Negroponte announced the XO-2 was being killed for a OLPC XO 1.75:
It will be interesting to see the development of the next OLPC XO 3.0 unit, but overall many were looking forward to the 2.0 release.

Tags: OLPC, XO-2, laptop, XO, Negroponte, globalization, trends

Tags arm processor, laptop, nicholas negroponte, OLPC, olpc xo, prototypes

Design Education Google Innovation

Google Apps for Los Angeles

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 29, 2009

Life seems to be all about timing. Slashdot posted a story today that the City of Los Angeles has approved a 5 year, $7 million deal with Google to adopt Gmail and Google Apps for Business WITH money from a Microsoft class action lawsuit. Yet another organization migrating away from Novell GroupWise email.

Tags: Google, Google Apps, City of Los Angeles, Novell, gmail, City Government, trends

Design Education Globalization Google Innovation Milwaukee Network OpenSource Rich media Smartphone Technology

Google’s AWESOME offer to K12 Schools

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date October 24, 2009
2 Comments on Google’s AWESOME offer to K12 Schools

Act Now – Deploy later. Google’s offer ends July 2010

Google has been helping K12 Schools and Colleges save money by giving free access to their powerful tools in an enterprise setting. Google began offering Gmail and have continued to add more tools to their suite specifically tuned for schools. Known as Google Apps for Education (GAE) this collection provides an excellent solution for schools just as most technology budgets are shrinking…or should I say…being slashed to the bone.

Google Apps for Education

To no surprise Gmail has been a hit with schools. In 2006 Arizona State University was one of the first colleges to migrate to Gmail. They moved 65,000 student email accounts saving over $400,000 in ANNUAL related email costs. Since then more higher education institutions including Northwestern University (case study) and Notre Dame (moved 15,000 students and 150,000 alumni and saved $1.5 Million) have migrated to Gmail.

For Students, Faculty and Administrative staff, GAE has grown to include 7GB of individual email storage, integration with GoogleCalendar, GoogleDocs (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations) and GoogleSites (websites and wikis) for web publishing. Google has even added 10GB of storage to their Google Video offering. These tools provide a tremendous savings for schools who can retire in-house or expensive outsourced systems.

From Good To Great:
A necessary email-related tool schools need is anti-spam and anti-virus protection. And Google has recently responded with an AWESOME offer for K12 Schools that’s too good to pass up:

Until July 2010 K12 Districts can migrate to Google Apps for Education AND receive FREE anti-spam/anti virus-protection via Postini

Postini is a popular (Google owned) industrial strength anti-spam & anti-virus solution. And Google is even offering deep discounts on email archiving, malware protection and web filtering for K12 Districts as part of Postini.