Yi-Tan hosts a weekly 40-minute conference call about navigating change in technology and society.
Participate in the call by joining the list.
A live chat takes place on IRC here during each call.
(Learn more about IRC.)
Follow @yitan on Twitter.
Subscribe to the Podcast Full Version: Feed
Summary Version: Feed |
June 15th, 2011 |
Do you wake up with the cold sweats some nights, worried that Julian Assange is about to release your super-secret data to the world?
Or have you set up your life (and global enterprise) so there aren’t really things you’d be worried to see printed on page one? Or (Plan B) have you ordered everyone to use semaphore signals, or long walks in the orchard every time they discuss anything sensitive?
It’s tricky merely to be in today’s 24×7, hyperlinked, superempowered-citizen-journalist, spiky world. As they say, in a more transparent world, you’ve gotta be buff.
With Mike Nelson, who’s been diving into these matters, let’s discuss:
- What threats worry organizations the most these days?
- How are the savviest organizations dealing with these risks?
- Where is the Wikileaks World headed?
- Are we witnessing a secular shift toward greater organizational transparency?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
June 10th, 2011 |
Ever think you’d agreed to something with someone, only to realize later that you both meant completely different things?
It happens all too often, doesn’t it? And at all levels: between spouses, friends, companies and countries.
One path to shared meaning is putting people in a somewhat disorienting situation and letting them work out their own shared meanings. Laura Schwartz has been experimenting with that, and with other ways of or sorting out what we think and how it intersects with what others think.
In that quest is an interesting observation about innovation.
With Laura, let’s discuss:
What do borders do to and for us? How are you exploring them?
How can people with different opinions find common meaning?
Where does innovation fit in all this?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
May 29th, 2011 |
Ideas gain and lose currency over time. So do values.
Just as reengineering was hot in the 1990s, design thinking and gamification have their time in the sun right now. Wellness is eclipsing health care or medicine. Listening is on the rise over broadcasting.
What ideas and values will gain currency over the next 15 years? Why?
Together, let’s discuss:
- What values and ideas are on the rise? What are the dynamics?
- How do these ideas travel and grow? Will these dynamics change, too?
- Where might the next big themes come from? What groups or countries?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
May 23rd, 2011 |
Boy, do Zennstrom and company know how to profit over and over from a startup. Microsoft is buying Skype, and not at bargain-basement prices.
The strategic fit might be better than with eBay, where the only rationale seemed to be to increase eBay’s user numbers for Wall Street. Microsoft does have some similar offers — but not enough folks are using them.
There are clearly many questions of fit and strategy that we’d like to ask, but we’d also like to broaden the discussion.
Together, let’s discuss:
What’s the best possible rationale for this deal? What’s the best outcome you can imagine?
Will Skype thrive or wither under Microsoft’s rule? Microsoft isn’t the best acquirer.
Why is real-time collaboration still so difficult and expensive?
What would you do if you had these assets? Is there a more open path?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
May 15th, 2011 |
Icelanders — practically all 318,452 of them — were shocked when the global financial crisis precipitated the collapse of their banking system.
The resulting crisis of confidence provoked Icelanders to rewrite their Constitution, a step that most countries don’t take.
Getting citizen’s opinions heard required smart software, which is how Gunnar Holmsteinn got involved. Gunnar is a co-founder of Birdcore, a text mining startup from Iceland that’s still in stealth mode.
With Gunnar and Finnur Magnusson, the CTO of the constitutional council, let’s discuss:
- What happened? Then what happened? What’s happening now?
- How does a country go about rewriting its Constitution?
- Where did the process hit snags? Is it working? What’s next?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
May 6th, 2011 |
Want to deliver an app to zillions of people’s pockets and purses? Odds are you’ll use Apple or Google’s platforms. (Ok, not zillions — yet.) Want to make a fortune selling casual games? Build them atop Facebook!
Once upon a time, Microsoft dictated the platform terms that mattered. Who else does today, and how is this battle shaping up?
Together, let’s discuss:
- What are the characteristics of platform ecosystems of value? How do they differ?
- How are these platforms evolving? How much value do they trap?
- Will they become commoditized?
- Where do smaller platforms fit in? Who are these? Medium-sized?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
May 2nd, 2011 |
One of the mechanisms that keeps the present Intertubes humming is contextual search.
Without markets made around what it looks like we want and what others have to sell, most of the things we take for granted on the Net wouldn’t be available. (Some would argue the Net would be better that way, but that’s for a different call.)
For a long time, the biggest players in this space were Google’s AdSense and Yahoo’s Content Match. Now Facebook has convinced us all to pour our private lives into its inviting domed city. Ken Sena of Evercore Partners has been studying this market, and will take us into it. With Ken, let’s discuss:
- What has happened to contextual search with Facebook’s rise?
- How are corporate clients participating in this space? What do they wish for?
- Who has the upper hand? Where are the best opportunities?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
April 26th, 2011 |
From this week’s BusinessWeek, a quote that gave us pause: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” he says. “That sucks.”
Ads are the Plutonium of the Net’s market valuation. Ads are the lion’s share of Google’s revenue. Getting “eyeballs” to click on things is the new mantra. Or at least some days it seems that way, as Facebook, Twitter and Groupon race one another for pre-market valuations in the tens of billions.
It seems that so much more is possible.
Together, let’s discuss:
- Are we in an ad-fueled bubble? If so, when will it pop?
- What else will fuel innovation? Who else has found sustainable funding?
- How naked are you without data?
- Where are you most hopeful? What sectors or initiatives?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
April 15th, 2011 |
Bill Liao has been our guest host before, first about Xing and then Earth Citizens of Integrity.
He’s since taken a step deeper into being an environmental diplomat; one of his new vehicles in this quest is WeForest, a site that helps heal the Earth by getting people to plant trees. But that’s just the start of what Bill’s up to.
On a neighboring path, Nicole Lazzaro (also a frequent guest and participant) has developed an iPhone game named Tilt and is connecting its hero, Flip (a very cute lizard), to real-world opportunities to heal the Earth — such as Bill’s project.
With Bill and Nicole, let’s discuss:
What is happening in movements to heal the Earth? What works and what doesn’t?
How might games connect to real-world problems? What actions can we take?
What’s it like to really try to reduce your ecofootprint?
Where are the big opportunities in this space?
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
April 14th, 2011 |
Many people have gone to great trouble to explain important things to us, in lectures and documentaries. Think TED Talks or the amazing RSA Animate videos. Vast quantities of these videos are now accessible on the Net.
Which of them do you think should be top of everyone’s list? Which make extremely important points that we should all understand? What is your video canon?
Here, for example, are some of mine:
For the adventuresome, here are lecture series and documentaries in context, in my online Brain.
Together, let’s discuss:
- What movies and videos do you think are essential viewing?
- How do these videos build on one another to make bigger arguments?
- What might we do to express these ideas more powerfully than video alone can?
Tip ‘o the hat to Dick O’Neill for the inspiration for this call.
Podcast (yi-tan-full-version): Play in new window
| Download
Podcast (yi-tan-summary-version): Play in new window
| Download
|
