Remember that great idea you had – the one you took to your boss? The one that was rejected out of hand? The one you’re still convinced is a great idea?
Well hang on to it. It might just be the Next Big Thing.
Hanging on to it is just what Tim Berners-Lee did 20 years ago. When he wrote a memo in 1989 on a great idea he had for a hypertext system, his boss was less than enthusiastic.
18 months later, the boss gave him the go-ahead, but on the strict understanding that Berners-Lee was to do it in his own time, as a side project.
And thus was born the World Wide Web.
Years later, when Berners-Lee’s boss died, the memo was found among his personal effects.
Vague but exciting, he’d written in the margin.
20 years on, Berners-Lee has been giving his vision for the next phase of the internet – what he calls ‘the huge unlocked potential’ of the web.
Linked data, he says, is the way forward. Not just hyperlinks to pages, but data with relationships that make it interesting, exciting and useful.
His 16-minute talk to TED last month is a fascinating insight into where the web has been, and where it’s headed:
Find out more:
Economist.com talks about social networking and ‘walled gardens’ – the very opposite of linked data, in an article called Everywhere and Nowhere.
The missing link(ed data): one password and you’re done with OpenID (be sure to check out the quirky video about Dave).
All work and no play is a really bad idea. Because play is work.
Need a break?
Of course you do. So put your feet up, forget about your worries, and take a minute to relax.
Or more exactly, 27 minutes and 58 seconds.
That’s how long it’ll take you to watch Tim Brown’s presentation at the Serious Play conference held in Pasadena, California, last May.
Brown is CEO of Ideo, a global design consultancy. In his talk, The powerful link between creativity and play, he makes a compelling case for why all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.
Or dull designer, marketer, entrepreneur or just about anything else.
In an entertaining performance (watch out for the bit where he comes under attack from ‘finger blasters’) he asks why we fear the judgement of our peers when children don’t. What happens to us when we open our minds to the many possibilities through ‘exploratory play’.
And how mescaline – the ultimate hippie drug of the psychedelic 60s – actually increased problem-solving abilities and creativity.
From ‘learning by doing’ to ‘thinking with your hands’, he explores some fascinating ideas that may fundamentally change the way you think about work – and play.
Silly socks, dripping taps and fishing for compliments
OK, it’s been one of those weeks.
No one thing has inspired me, but lots of little things have caught my attention – like fireflies in a garden at dusk.
And I’ve learned three interesting lessons.
The colour of money
First was a really silly idea – that’s been fabulously successful.
Let’s play a word-association game. Think socks and you think what? Matching. Pairs.
Wrong.
Little Miss Matched is a hugely popular site that sells socks that don’t match in odd numbers.
So you don’t get two red-and-white socks. You get three socks – a pink one with yellow polka dots, a blue one with turquoise stripes, and a puce one with orange polka dots.
Pick any two and wear. And if you lose one, who cares? You’ve still got two (that still don’t match).
A crazy idea – that works.
Lesson 1: don’t discount crazy ideas. They might work (and make you lots of money).
Water, water everywhere
I’ll never be able to look at a grande skinny sugar-free hazelnut extra-hot decaf latte in the same way again.
Last week, it was revealed that Starbucks wastes 23m litres of water every day, by leaving a cold tap (translation for US readers: tap = faucet) running in each of its 10,000 stores worldwide.
Why? To prevent germs forming in the taps, apparently.
In one of those gloriously irrelevant comparisons, The Daily Telegraph in the UK reported that this was ‘enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 83 minutes’.
Starbucks cited ‘health and safety’ as the reason.
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said:
“We recognise the opportunity exists to reduce our total water usage. Starbucks’ challenge is to balance water conservation with the need for customer safety.”
No kidding.
Lesson 2: discount crazy ideas (when they’re certifiably crazy). And when you’re caught out, don’t resort to corporate double-speak.
Because you’re worth it
Over at TED.com, I watched a brief talk by Laura Trice, a ‘counselor, life coach – and purveyor of wholesome junk food’. (Did I mention that she lives in California?)
She says we don’t get enough thanks for one simple reason – we don’t ask for it. So we should ask for it.
Intriguing.
Lesson 3: intriguing ideas aren’t necessarily good. Just intriguing.
It’s not the first time (for the iPods, not the resurrection). This time last year, he did the same thing, launching a new range in time to make them the must-have Christmas present.
I have a Nano. It’s not the square-ish one. It’s the original – the one with the screen that scratched easily.
“There was an issue with some Nanos,” said the salesman at London’s Apple store when I bought mine, “but it was very limited.” (A week later, I realised I had one of the limited-edition Nanos.)
And so, to the new new Nano. Or Nanos, because there are eight funky colours to choose from. And it’s curvy.
So far so superficial. So what are the real changes?
Well it’s now either 8GB or 16GB (I already have enough space with 4GB). It lets you cycle through album covers in 3D (not interested). It picks similar tracks and creates compilations for you (not interested). It helps you organise your music better (I listen mainly to spoken-word podcasts). And lastly, you can ‘shake to shuffle’ to let it randomly jump to another track (not interested).
So why am I still interested?
Hats off to Apple. I have no logical reason to upgrade my Nano. But they’ve appealed to my emotion, knowing that that’s the reason behind most sales.
Clever move.
iPod. Do uPod too?
You’re tempted, aren’t you? If you do end up getting a sexy new Nano, you’ll need something to fill up all those gigabytes. So here are two suggestions to get you started:
First up is Jonathan Drori, an ex-BBC man whose presentation at TED questions how (and what) we learn. Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do is funny, informative and thought-provoking.
Second is the Internet Marketing Podcast from AI Digital. It’s a monthly podcast, with insider tips and advice for online marketing. The current episode is #39: Writing for the web revisited. It’s packed full of practical advice on web copy. Even if you think you know all there is to know (and remember what Jonathan said) it’s still worth a listen. To visit the subscription page, click here.
It was 1994, and I was trying to explain the enormous potential of the internet to a sceptical friend.
I could barely contain my enthusiasm.
“It’s big, it’s global and it brings everything together,” I burbled. “Just imagine – shopping online, finding information, making bookings. Think what it’ll be like when everybody’s there. All the things you’ll be able to do.”
My friend stared at me blankly. He looked back to my PC screen, and frowned. Then he delivered his verdict.
“Personally,” he said, blinking uncomprehendingly at a web page, “I can’t see any practical application for it.”
I often remind him of it. Wouldn’t you?
That was then. This is now.
5,000 days. That’s as long as the web’s been around as we know it. According to Kevin Kelly, that is. He’s publisher of the Whole Earth Review and executive editor at WIRED magazine.
And I’ve just been watching his talk to last year’s TED convention about where the web’s been in the last 5,000 days and where it’s going in the next 5,000.
It’s fascinating.
He does look a little like an Amish grandpa – but the similarity ends there. He starts with what we thought the internet was going to be (‘TV, but better’ – we were wrong) and ends up with convergence into what he ominously calls The One.
He reckons that by 2040 the total processing power of the web will exceed that of humanity. And long before then, we’ll become ‘co-dependent’ with technology.
