Yi-Tan hosts a weekly 40-minute conference call about navigating change in technology and society.
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April 3rd, 2011 |
It’s time for another of our speed rounds, in which we take a quick tour through what’ll be on our minds some time in the future.
For this call, let’s think a year ahead: Will Facebook, Twitter, cloud computing, smartphones and apps still have so much of our attention? If not, what will replace them? Where are the new opportunities?
Together, let’s discuss:
- What technologies and forces will show up over the next year?
- How will they make themselves manifest? Are there amazing, dark-horse startups in the wings?
- What concepts are we paying too little attention to these days?
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March 28th, 2011 |
Japan’s relative peace in decades of economic stagnation and demographic decline was shattered recently by the 9.0 earthquake, resulting tsunami and Fukushima nuclear plant crises. We wish Japan a rapid return to better-than-normalcy.
These events have raised many questions, some of which I’ve listed below.
With David Hodgson, let’s discuss:
- What facts about earthquakes can help us put these crises in context? About tsunamis? Nuclear accidents?
- What lessons might we derive about nuclear power? Coastal fortification? Coastal living?
- How might we best help Japan? What’s needed most?
- When will we know that the nuclear reactor events have settled down?
- After this and the Deepwater Horizon spill, how should we change energy policy?
- How can we as humans cope better with the new flood of information during crises?
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March 21st, 2011 |
What if we understood better how the ways we perceive affect the ways we interact? Would we make better decisions? Achieve peaceful solutions?
John Furey is the founder and CEO of MindTime, a company built around a theory of thinking styles that focuses on our attitude toward time. Some of us look back on time and are convinced by facts — certainties. Others focus on the present and zoom in on probabilities. The rest look toward the future and are most lit up by possibilities. When people with different styles interact without understanding these mixed priorities, bad things can ensue.
Which are you? You can try their “GPS for the Mind” before the call (this version is a Facebook app). If you’re feeling adventuresome, add yourself to the MindTime Map for our community that John has created, John has created, here.
With John, let’s discuss:
- What is this model and how does it apply to self knowledge? group dynamics? ecosystem shifts?
- How are organizations using this meta-knowledge to improve their teams and processes?
- What insights has the MindTime model yielded? Where is this research heading?
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March 13th, 2011 |
You only need to read a couple of articles in the Wall Street Journal’s What They Know About You series to imagine the pejorative term “stalker economy” might be closer to the truth than we like. “Consumers” leave a lively trail that others are avidly tracking.
What should individuals do? Disconnect entirely? Go on the Do Not Track list for every site? What should companies do who would like to build respectful relationships with their customers and prospective customers?
Kaliya Hamlin and Mary Hodder are the Executive Director and Chairwoman of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium, an industry organization that is shepherding the construction of open systems atop the work of the Internet Identity Workshops and Doc Searls’ Vendor Relationship Management efforts. Their outputs should give all parties much better alternatives than stalking and de-stalking.
With Kaliya and Mary, let’s discuss:
- What is a personal data ecosystem? How do parties use it?
- How are corporations looking to implement PDEs? How will this change their relationships?
- What obstacles lie in the way of these implementations? What benefits are shining at the end?
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March 6th, 2011 |
This call is a double-word-score podcast. It’s not only our Yi-Tan call this week, it’s also part of the “Future of Green” podcast series, which EDF’s Innovation Exchange creates in collaboration with Stanford University’s Center for Social Innovation.
As developing countries hit new levels of prosperity, they have traditionally increased their consumption of goods, often emulating the U.S. As you might imagine, this pattern isn’t so good for sustainability.
Some of the larger economies around the world are tackling this problem directly, and are coming up with surprising answers.
The rise of new tools and practices that help balance consumption and sustainability is top of mind for Aron Cramer, President and CEO of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), and co-author of Sustainable Excellence.
With Aron, let’s discuss:
- What are the effects of rising consumerism on national resources? on economies?
- How are large economies shaping their sustainability agendas? What is surprising?
- What trends and movements are harbingers of these positive changes?
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March 1st, 2011 |
ARM was once a risky fringe processor company (yes, pun intended). It got ahead of other players, notably Intel, on low power consumption and dominates the mobile phone market — for now. In fact, Apple’s modern lineup is built around Apple’s A4 design, which incorporates ARM’s Cortex-A8 CPU.
It doesn’t help Intel that its new, DRM-heavy Sandy Bridge package hit a bug.
Plenty of interesting things are being said about what this all means for the future of device processors (not to mention packaging architectures, like SoC, PoP and SiP).
With our most excellent semiconductor analysts Carl Johnson and Nathan Brookwood, let’s discuss:
- What does the market for mobile processors and packages look like now?
- How much of an advantage is the ecosystem around ARM’s designs?
- Which way will non-Apple tablet makers go? Are netbooks going away?
- How do these innovations affect customers? Manufacturers? Devices?
- What might ARM and Intel do next? Is there room for both?
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February 19th, 2011 |
Does QE make you queasy? It does investment advisor Keith McCullough, who sees the Administrations’ policy of Quantitative Easing as big trouble brewing.
If Keith is right, we may well need alternative currencies soon. Europe’s tottering economies, he says, are just precursors to the US economy’s crisis.
With Keith, let’s discuss:
- What are the key global macroeconomic figures and trends to watch now?
- How does QE factor into the equation? What should the US Government do instead?
- When might this all play out? How severe will it be?
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February 13th, 2011 |
This will be a special, full-hour Yi-Tan call. (Those of you who are still snow- or cyclone-bound may appreciate the extra time around the communal fire.)
Over the past five years, Google and Apple have transformed the technology platforms that dominate the software, Internet and entertainment businesses. Now app stores and tablets are popping up like paperwhites in spring, video over the Net is looking pretty viable and magazines may — repeat, may — have found a path to the future.
Developers and investors have to place bets on which platform will be the better opportunity. Android or iOS? Native apps or web apps?
With Carl Johnson, Nathan Brookwood and Dave Bujnowski, let’s discuss:
- One phone to rule them all, or 4,231 phones? What do developers say?
- Will tablets cannibalize laptops, or are these two distinct markets?
- What happens at Apple if Jobs isn’t around? How long will current momentum last?
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February 5th, 2011 |
Home design has been integrating sustainability, smaller sizes and simplicity, but it’s still mostly mired in antiquated intellectual property regimes, conservative building codes and wasteful practices.
Michelle Kaufmann, a pioneer in sustainable housing design, has been wondering what the new-media tools and ethos could bring to sustainable home design.
With Michelle, let’s discuss:
- What is the state of home design and construction? Where is there room for improvement?
- How might new media, open content and the Net change those dynamics?
- What examples exist already? How might this change home design?
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January 26th, 2011 |
In 2008, Salim Ismail co-founded Singularity University, which has focused on exponential change in computing, biotech, nanotech and more. One of Salim’s big interests is in what these changes mean for organizations.
Lately, smaller organizations have achieved big things. Think of the reach that TED Talks now have, or how many people the Khan Academy can help.
With Salim, let’s discuss:
- Can modern organizations outperform previous ones? Do they have more leverage than ever before?
- What are the characteristics of an exponential organization? How do you turn yours into one?
- What further changes might we see along this trajectory? What does it mean for society?
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