I was recently researching top technology trends and compiled the top 10 technology trends for 2014 from different sources.
While Internet of Things, Wearable Technology and Big Data
are of course common trends that most people are predicting, I was surprised to
find 3D Printing as a key technology trend to watch out for.
Here’s the compiled document with links to the original
sources:
Came across this video blog by Matt Gonzalez in which he talks about augmented reality apps. I tried three of these apps and found two of them quite cool.
Word Lens Translator app is a translation app that is really useful while traveling. You can just point to the words and viola, you get the translated version. Here's a sample of what I tried.
Augment is a little harder to master but once you do, it seems quite cool. You can select objects and place them on real time camera pictures to see how they might look at the place. Quite useful say when selecting some furniture or appliance and seeing how it will look at your home. How do you think this table lamp would look on my bedside table?
Layar is the third app I tried. Point the camera to a Layar-enabled magazine and it bring alive the magazine. You could potentially point to products in the magazine and buy them instantly online. I didn't find this very useful since I couldn't really find any Layar enabled magazine around me. The newspapers these days are beginning to come print QR Codes that you could point to and go directly to a website that might show you the video. Boring, in my view. If I wanted to watch a video, I wouldn't be reading the newspaper or the magazine. I think the really cool futuristic gadget would be the newspapers shown in Harry Potter movies, the ones where the video is viewed on the newspaper itself. Now that would be really cool gadget to have.
The other day we were discussing how can we build an
environment where everyone in the organization will continuously learn from
each other.
I feel there are three key elements to build a learning
organization.
Technology:
This in my view is relatively the easiest component to set up. While it is the
easiest, care must be taken to ensure that the technology solution chosen is easy
to use and flexible enough to change with the times. It also helps if there is
one common platform across the different departments of the organization.
Framework: By
this I mean a process framework that makes it easier to share and learn. These
could include defined project wash-up meetings, periodic forums that invite
people to share what’s happening in their area of work, or defined networking
groups that allow exchange of ideas.
Culture: The
most critical element of a learning organization and perhaps the hardest to
build. The culture of sharing is where people share without fear, where the
greatest reward for sharing is more sharing by others.
I got a chance to talk about how companies can use technology internally to collaborate and share more effectively. I started with examining what’s currently in use in organizations.
Email is the most commonly used collaborative tool. Unfortunately it is also perhaps the worst tool for open collaboration in an organization. You can only collaborate with people you send the email to. And the information is then trapped in email inboxes of people who were communicating with each other, with no access to others. The information isn’t shared beyond the people who the email was marked to.
There are other tools used for collaboration, like project-based collaboration using Microsoft SharePoint and wiki-based project workspaces. Amongst synchronous collaboration tools, there’s chat, video conferencing and online web conferencing tools like WebEx and Microsoft Office Communications Server. There are also tools like Salesforce that have the potential to be great collaboration tools if they are used correctly. And many employee portals also provide some collaboration features like discussion forums.
Of the tools that companies can use for collaboration, I am a proponent of micro-messaging in the workplace. Tools like Yammer, Socialcast, and Socialtext are great micro-messaging tools. Cloud documents is another collaboration tool that I feel companies should probably use more frequently. Services like Google Docs, Windows Live SkyDrive and Zoho are great online collaboration tools. Companies could also try Skype as a free video conferencing and web conferencing tool.
But I feel collaboration in companies is not really about technology. It’s about the culture. It’s the culture to:
-Broadcast yourself: Can you simply broadcast what you are doing without anyone necessarily anyone asking you? Executives in companies might be a little shy of doing this but unless you broadcast what you are doing, how can you collaborate?
-Openly seeking help: Don’t be shy to seek help, don’t worry what people will think about what you might not know.
-Respond to others: Collaboration is not one way. You have to be open to responding to others if you want collaboration as a culture in your organization.
-Share information freely: Do I even need to explain this?
-Build personal networks: The bigger your personal network is, the better your chances of collaboration. This is true even within an organization. The more people you know in an organization, the better your chances of collaboration.
-Not be afraid to make mistakes: You will make mistakes online. Can you build the culture where people are not afraid to make mistakes?
-Constantly be open to learning: Do you have a culture in your organization where everyone is eager to learn? The more open the culture to learning, the more collaboration you can expect in your organization.
It’s important to understand why companies should collaborate. Some contexts that have changed for me personally over last few years:
-I am as knowledgeable as the knowledge I have to I am as knowledgeable as the collective knowledge of my personal network.
-I am node of reference because I know things. Of course that’s true. But I am also the node of reference because I know who knows.
-I am expert because I know things, which is absolutely true. But if I don’t share what I know with others, I will soon lose my status as an expert. I am an expert because I share what I know.
-I can learn only from gurus. That’s something we should all let go. I can really learn from anyone irrespective of their position in the organization.
In the recent few months, I have encountered situations that required multi-location teams to collaborate and customers requiring almost real-time status update. I have tried to encourage usage of the “cloud” for the team spread across locations working on the same documents/spreadsheets. We have SharePoint Server as an option but that’s mostly used as file storage, if at all. I have explored Google Docs and Zoho. However for some reason working on the cloud just hasn’t take off. Here are the challenges I face with cloud computing:
INERTIA: We just aren’t really used to working on the cloud. Change is always hard and we just fall back on ways of working that we are comfortable with. It is always easier to simply email the document. It is easier to work just double click the document and start editing it rather than log on to the separate system in the browser and then navigate to the folder to edit the document.
NO INTEGRATION WITH EXISTING SYSTEMS: Using Google Docs or Zoho was hard because of lack of integration with existing systems. For example, we don’t always have a list of Gmail IDs for everyone in the team. This means an additional step to make the collaboration document accessible to all. Each cloud service requires a different login ID and password than the regular network sign-on on the machine.
ACCESSIBILITY AND SPEED: Many of our team members are traveling and are on the road so to speak. They don’t always have access to the Internet. So having documents on the cloud severely handicaps their ability to access the documents when there is no Internet connectivity. And working off the Net is slower than working off the local machine.
SECURITY FEARS: While we explored Google Docs and Zoho, there were fears whether we should actually store our company and client data on the cloud. While I am personally very confident that Google and Zoho will safeguard data stored on their server, there is still an inherent fear of putting up company and client data on their servers.Perhaps this fear is to do with the added responsibility that the individuals don’t own the data. There is no problem in having personal emails and chat on these servers, but putting company data on the cloud is just too much added responsibility.
LACK OF OFFICIAL ITS EVANGELISM: While we have SharePoint Server available to us, it is primarily used as file storage (if at all) rather than a real-time collaborative tool. Even with our SharePoint Server installation, there’s very little official ITS support available. There’s no one really evangelizing cloud collaboration as the new way of working. I would look for the ITS team providing awareness about official tools available and training on how to use them. This has to be driven by having cloud collaboration as part of the ITS strategy. I think this is the biggest hurdle to cross if cloud computing is to be embraced.
Just discovered Microsoft Office Outlook Connector. The Outlook Connector provides allows you to manage your Windows Live Hotmail email and contacts from within Outlook. According to the Microsoft website, it is ‘free of charge’. It installed without any problems and now I am using my Hotmail email in Outlook. Pretty cool. It seems you can do a lot more with this connector.
Twitter is a stream. Facebook is both a stream and a stopping point (but mostly a stream). Your blog is a stopping point pretending to be a stream. It’s important to think about where you want information to live, and how you want it to impact the world. For everything you toss into a stream rolls past, and if I’m not at the stream when you throw your leaf onto the waters, I’ll miss the leaf entirely, or perhaps catch only the ripples.
I think I am somewhere in stage 2, 4 and 5!!! I have had some 1x1 conversations, published some useful information. I have made met new people on Twitter, just like I did when I started to blog or using Facebook. But I still don’t really get why people love it SO much.
Tools I used for Twitter?
I started with using Twitter in the browser. I tried Twhirl client. However I have now settled on using TweetDeck. TweetDeck is an AIR desktop application. It provides up to five multiple column display (if you set it that you can set to to Narrow columns in Settings). I usually have one column for replies, one for friends, one for search results. Remaining two column can be used for Direct messages (don’t have many so don’t use it for this), another search result or seeing info about Twitterers (!). Update: Now that I have used TweetDeck for a while, I have figured that it allows you to organize people you are following into groups. You can add columns for your groups. This really makes it easy to manage the large volumes of tweets.
Other interesting tools/utilities about Twitter?
I found some useful and some completely useless but fun stuff services/utilities that give you information about Twitter accounts.
follow cost provides you with useful information about average number of tweets by a user. Useful to know what you can expect when you start following someone.
TweetWheel in an interesting application that shows how your friends are connected to each other. This may take a long time if you have many friends.
TwitterFriends provides some stats about your conversations. Not useful if you are just starting out.
Bottom line:
If you are feeling bogged down with email, don’t even think of trying Twitter.
Would I recommend or encourage Twitter’s usage in corporate environment? Well, I am not really sure but I am tending towards a ‘No’ at this time. If there was a Twitter behind the firewall with only employees of the company as users forming a reasonably homogenous user base, then maybe. But in its current state, Twitter can be a real distracter. It needs quite a discipline to manage your follow list. So if you typically work with 10 tabs open in your browser and multiple windows open on your screen, then yeah sure. But Twitter is not for everyone.
Update:
Based on inputs from Tom, I have started Yammer in my workplace. It was slow start initially but seems to be picking pace now. I started with introducing a few people to Yammer and the tribe has now grown to 55 of us on the Yammer network for our organization. The message are now starting to come in from more users.
This post is part of the Work at Learning/Learning at Work blog carnival hosted by Dave Ferguson on his blog Dave's Whiteboard.
[Interesting side alley: I was talking to a friend yesterday and encouraged her to speak at an upcoming conference. She said, "No way. I don't know enough." I explained that volunteering to speak was the best way to be sure that she'd end up knowing enough by the time she was through.]
When I recently got a chance to speak at our annual strategic input conference, I thought Why Not. I am no expert (yet J) and opportunities like these help me learn more about areas of my interest.
I spoke about the web and mobility. My presentation was divided broadly into four parts. I started with a recap of Web 2.0 and some changes from Web 1.0, and getting the audience to check their Web 2.0 Quotient. I followed this up with some trends that I have been observing and how companies can/should use the Web to connect with their customers. Finally I left the audience with what I believe are two critical tools to get started on the Web and some next steps for them to get started with Web 2.0.
My main message – You can’t ‘learn’ about Web 2.0 in classroom or in a conference. You have use it and experience it to leverage its power.
Here’s my presentation on SlideShare and some notes about what I spoke.
-There are enough demographic studies to tell use that the workforce is getting younger. The younger workforce is more adept at using technology, and this is not limited to a particular socio-economic section. Depending on where the audience is from, they will be relatively more tech savvy. How are we going to connect with them, train them and also leverage their inherent tech savvy mindset is going to be the opportunity in coming few years.
-While Second Life is clunky, slow and can’t be accessed through most corporate networks, we should watch out for 3-D virtual worlds. While the current use in training and business is limited, their use will increase in times to come. I encouraged everyone to get a Second Life account and try out the 3-D worlds for themselves just to get an experience. It is a little hard to imagine what it is like without actually being in one.
-Telepresence will increase and will not be limited to just high quality video conference, even though that is what it seems in the first instance. The video of John Chambers and Marthin De Beer is a good example of what telepresence can do and give rise to new applications.
-Mobile phones have a far greater penetration than the Internet, at least in India. In India, while 3.7% population has access to the Internet, nearly 30% population has access to a mobile phone. With the increase in sales of the smart phone, the Internet will reach the people faster on a mobile phone than on a PC. It is going to be a great tool to reach out to the customers and applications using mobile technology will increase significantly.
-Web 3.0 will provide even more freedom to the users.
Connecting with the community
-When you see Baba Ramdev talking about Google Chrome in his billboard advertising, you know times are a changing. So how are you connecting with your customers? Your customers are everywhere on the Web. What’s your company’s web strategy in connecting with your customers?
-With the Web, there are a lot more channels for your customers’ voice. Your customers may not always communicate directly with you. With so many websites primarily aimed at carrying customer’s voice, it is imperative that companies listen to what their customers are saying in public forums.
Critical tools to get started
-The most common issue with managers is that they don’t have the time to do all what I have said above. While all this Web 2.0 mumbo-jumbo is fine and sounds great, where is the time to try all these things? Well, I suggest that all managers start with Feeds and Google Alerts. Feeds allow you to scan your selected sites quickly for updates. Alerts help you track what’s being talked about on the Web. Most managers have a smart phone with Web access. We need to start using the smart phones for more than just email.
-Most feed readers have a mobile version available allowing you easy access to updates without necessarily being on your laptop.
-Google Alerts provide you with daily email alerts about your search keyword. This is a great way to track what’s being said about your company or your area of interest.
It must be the technology bug in me or just the man in me wanting to play with new toys. In my quest to explore different blogging platforms, I have tried my hand at Blogger, Wordpress.com and self hosted Wordpress. Typepad required me to provide credit card information to sign-up and other platforms just didn’t seem popular enough. I searched and researched the comparisons between Blogger and Wordpress. Most comparison posts compare Blogger and self hosted Wordpress. However I found this really useful post that compares Blogger and Wordpress.com, which in my mind is the true comparison.
My personal preference is now with Blogger as compared to Wordpres.com, if you want to get started quickly and without any expense. In addition to the comparison in the link above, some additional comparisons are:
Blogger allows Javascript code in widgets. This allows you to add more variety of widgets on your blog. Wordpress.com doesn’t allow Javascript widgets.
Blogger is Adsense ready (read 'it allows Javascript code'). Wordpress.com doesn’t allow advertising. Now rest assured, getting your first $100 from Google is going to take you a few years, but still no harm is trying. You need to earn minimum $100 before you get any cash from Google.
Blogger allows you to add new templates which Wordpress.com doesn’t allow. You are limited to the themes provided by Wordpress.com.
Blogger provides email alerts for comments (and posts too). Wordpress.com (and self hosted Wordpress too actually) doesn’t provide any email alerts for new comments.
Blogger has an in-built poll widget. Wordpress.com doesn't have a poll widget.
So there you are. In my view, get started with Blogger. The other criteria for choosing between the two could also be the availability of the blog name. You might need a blog name that may be available on a platform not of your choice.
However, notwithstanding the technology debate about the blogging platform, I finally figured that it is the CONTENT that matters most. Do I have the content on my blog that will pull readers or which is personally satisfying to me? That is far more important than the blogging platform!!!
In the many blogs that I follow, much is being discussed about the use of virtual worlds for learning and game-based immersive learning. Now imagine if virtual world had not the avtars or characters, but real people interacting. Imagine what this would do to education and training. This isn’t a new story but I didn’t find this mentioned on the various blogs I follow.
Human Productivity Lab runs a story of Cisco’s "On-Stage" Telepresence experience at the launch of their Globalization Center East in Bangalore, India.During a presentation to the media in Bangalore, Cisco CEO John Chambers "beamed up" Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology Group at Cisco, and Chuck Stucki the General Manager of the Telepresence Business Unit from San Jose. The photorealistic and life size virtual duo from San Jose then interacted with the Cisco CEO and presented to the audience in India. See the video of the presentation below.
Cisco in their demonstration used the telepresence display technology of UK based Musion and the Cisco Human Network that hooked together Bangalore and San Jose. This is done using a sheet of Musion's patented, transparent Eye-liner foil that is stretched across the stage.The ultra high-definition image captured in San Jose and the images of the virtual humans are then transported over the Human Network to be displayed in Bangalore.
Will this change the way training and learning happens across the world? It sure should solve the problem of shortage of trainers across the world allowing one trainer to train many people at the same time.
Digital Video Enterprises (DVE) is another telepresence provider using similar technology for their seamless tele-immersion room.
Welcome to Learn and Lead. I write about learning, leadership, performance, management, elearning, training, blogging, tools, trends. Looking forward to your valuable comments.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by my employers and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of my employers.
This work by Manish Mohan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License.
