Category: Resources

Power to the Edge:  A new book by Dave Alberts and Richard Hayes – open sourced in its entirety by CCRP. 

This book is truly a must-read for anyone interested in decentralization and the social and organizational relevance of shifting power to the edge, whether in a commercial or a defense context.  As you read about the technology enablers of the edge, it'll become clear why products such as Groove – as COTS enablers of the fully-networked collaborative environment – have such immediate relevance to the defense community.

A debt of gratitude goes to John Stenbit and Lin Wells for catalyzing the creation of this tremendously timely, useful and relevant piece of work. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]

Something to add to my high-priority reading list (as opposed to my much longer “get to it someday” readling list). There's certainly major new possibilities in organizational design that make it feasible to distribute decision making more widely and the competitive environment makes that distribution much more strategically relevant.

Classic Video Games And Computers. While looking up music lyrics i found myself clicking on one 1980s site's link to classic video games. They turned out to be implemented in Flash — yuck, but in the usual Net way it lead to me reading up on early VideoGameHistory. The real gem on that front is Stewart Brand's 1972 article from Rolling Stone, on Spacewar and computing in general:

I asked Alan Kay if Spacewar had been played over the Net.

Since I was looking for emulators anyway, I also dug up the most recent version of VICE, which among other things emulates the CommodorePet, my first computer. [AbbeNormal – Abbe Normal]

Another example of all the good stuff you can find on the web. Brand's Rolling Stone article is one of those classics that I've been wanting to lay my hands on for a while.

Of course, this is available as a labor of love. While you're at the site, check out the rest of the coverage about the original Spacewar.

RSS feeds galore.

Dan Bricklin has finally attached an RSS feed to his blog.  Thanks, Dan.  Over the past year, the number of Web and eMail holdouts has been steadily (and thankfully) decreasing.  A few remaining that I'd love to see embracing RSS in their subscriber notification & distribution models:  Mark Anderson's SNS, Esther Dyson's Release 1.0, Dave Farber's IP.  C'mon, Mark, Esther & Dave … it's truly a “reader-friendly” approach. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]

I've been reading all my news exclusively via my Radio aggregator for sometime now.  One site I really miss – is “Good Morning Silicon Valley“. I really wish they had an RSS feed.

[Marc's Voice]

Another blogger sees the light.

As Ozzie says, RSS is “truly a 'reader-friendly' approach.” If making it easier for your readers is one of your priorities, there's no excuse for making them come to your site if they want to focus on your words and ideas in an aggregator.

Communities of Practice Documents.

Communities of Practice Documents: “The Community of Practice resources identified below represent some of the finest work available on communities of practice research and development.”

[elearnspace blog]

Good collection of resources on communities of practice

Turns out that the Donella Meadows article on Places to Intervene in a System is indeed online after all. I got the following comment posted over the weekend pointing to the original source from Whole Earth magazine.  Very much worth your time to read her reasoning behind the simple list of intervention points. Thank you Alex.

Comment on post 3618 on 8/23/03 by Alex Gault. Jim, Note that the this material is sourced from “Places to Intervene in A System”, published in the Winter 97 issue of Whole Earth magazine (… I was publisher at the time). The article provides much more depth and texture. For those interested, it's available at: http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ArticleBin/109.html [chaosplayer News]

 

12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System. I found a nice summary of Donella Meadow's 12 Leverage Points to Intervene in a System in wikipedia. Places where a small change can have large effects, and if you are a participant in the system, awareness and use of… [Ross Mayfield's Weblog]

Thanks, Ross, for pointing this resource out. This particular piece from the late Donella Meadow's has long been one of my favorite short pieces on how to think about complex human systems and how to influence them. I have a scanned copy of Meadow's article tucked away on my laptop, but it's so much nicer to have an online version to point to. Worth your time to read and reflect on.

“Crash different.” Oh, this is making the rounds at Microsoft. Heh. No, we don’t condone this kind of video, but oh, it is so funny!

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

This manages to nicely capture the essence of too many of my interactions with technology on a daily basis. And all vendors are more or less equally culpable.

Quotes for the Week. On Technology Management — From Quotes of the Day…

“Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.”
— Putt’s Law

But on the other hand, from the same source…

“Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.”
— Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845)

Spoken like a true consultant – [Frank Patrick’s Focused Performance Blog]

More goodies from Frank Patrick. His Focused Performance Blog is a consistent source of insight and resources on the broad topic of project management.

Story. Mastering the inner life of stories [Recomendo]

Another great recommendation from Kevin Kelly. Among his observations:

Halfway through this book, it altered me as an audience; I was watching and reading differently. By the end, I realized that this was actually a book about living. Constructing a story that works is similar to constructing a life that works. For people trying to write a story, for people listening to a story, for people trying to compose an interesting life, this is a profoundly important guide. I find it worth rereading every couple of years.

I've already ordered a copy.