Yi-Tan hosts a weekly 40-minute conference call about navigating change in technology and society.
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January 22nd, 2011 |
Last year’s CES was funky in a couple of ways. The economy was still slow. The iPad was imminent, but wasn’t announced at CES. And 3D TVs were promised everywhere — which have yet really to materialize as a significant market. (Maybe 3D will flourish on Nintendo’s new 3DS instead.)
This year’s CES had a better vibe and some interesting products. Motorola had two standout Android introductions, the Xoom tablet and the Atrix 4G smartphone-into-laptop transformer, which wowed David Pogue.
With Dan Ernst of Hudson Square Research and Stephen Jacobs of SEJ Media Solutions, let’s discuss:
- What happened to 3D TVs? (Were we simply right?)
- Is CES reflecting what society wants, or is it just where vendors push ideas?
- What other trends did we miss?
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January 14th, 2011 |
Welcome back! We’re glad you’re all refreshed and ready for 2011.
As the holidays started, I learned about San Francisco’s Emperor Norton, a self-proclaimed ruler of the United States (and protector of Mexico) back in the Civil War era.
That got me thinking: What if you were Emperor? If you didn’t have to mess with Congress or polls or reelections, what would you do? (Assuming you wanted to be remembered well, of course.)
Would you re-regulate or deregulate? Motivate or punish? What key bits of law or social infrastructure would you mess with? Would you add departments to Government (Dept. of Peace?) or remove them?
To make the exercise a little sharper, let’s say you get only three directives. No more than three.
Feel free to post an answer to your blog before the call, or to draw or act it out, and bring our attention to it. Take a leap. We’ll join you. (Your politics will likely show here. That’s OK, too.)
Together, let’s discuss:
- What changes are needed in Government and society?
- Where are the biggest points of leverage to achieve those changes?
- What underlying beliefs are you drawing on to reach those conclusions?
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December 26th, 2010 |
Complexity sure is complicated. When should you trust experts? When should you experiment? When can you just press the button and let the known algorithms work their magic? When should you be really worried and try to stabilize the situation?
Dave Snowden has been tackling these and other tasty questions for a long time. We’d like to skip having Dave talk us through his framework, so we can have a deeper conversation with him. To that end, please digest the following before Monday’s call:
That’ll let us chew on next-order issues.
With Dave, let’s discuss:
- How do chaos, complexity and systems theories differ, overlap and interact?
- How do people frequently misuse them? What are the consequences?
- What should we keep in mind for better sensemaking?
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December 17th, 2010 |
The topic for this week’s Yi-Tan call was easy to choose. Because this issue is so timely, significant and chewy, our call will be an hour long instead of the usual half-hour-plus. Please join us, and pass the word.
The WikiLeaks case shines a bright light on all sorts of relationships, such as those between journalism and activism, secrecy and transparency, government and the media, national security and freedom of speech (not again!), and watchdogs and terrorists. The Times, they are a-changin’.
Together, let’s discuss:
You can find all these articles in context in my online Brain, here. If you have time, read Milton Mueller’s piece, and watch the #PDFleaks meeting that took place on Saturday (replay here).
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December 10th, 2010 |
The facilitation community has dozens of processes from which to choose, from Dynamic Facilitation to NonViolent Communication and Open Space.
In this call, we’d like to open up a few processes in order to understand some of their component parts, distinguishing the processes from the practices they include, the communities involved and other dimensions.
Our goal is to deepen our understanding of how groups function, particularly how facilitation and structure affect group process.
With longtime group process leader John Abbe, let’s discuss:
- What do these processes have in common? How are practices different from processes?
- What aspects of group process should facilitators nurture?
- How might these processes and practices be collected into pattern languages?
- How might more of us have instinctive access to such insights?
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December 5th, 2010 |
‘Tis the holiday season, and gift-giving is in the air.
If you’re overwhelmed by the choices, we’re here to help. Here’s one way to manage the process.
Get: There are a few obvious things everyone needs (though surely we’ll differ on what exactly they are). I’d nominate the Canon S-95 camera.
Choose: Will you follow Steve or Sergey and Larry? Will you get the (one model of) iPhone, or an Android phone? (and if so, which one??) An iPad or a Galaxy? An Apple TV or a Google TV? Are you feeling lucky? What other important choices are out there?
Postpone: What products are coming up for a refresh, or a technology shift? Do you buy a plasma, LED or OLED TV?
Avoid: What’s today’s 8-track tape? Is it the standalone GPS? What should we avoid buying this holiday cycle?
Together, let’s discuss:
- What’s on your holiday wish list?
- How would you make the decisions listed above? Why?
- What unusual gifts are in the air? What must-have accessories?
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November 24th, 2010 |
What are we not paying attention to that might turn out to be major news in a few years?
Many innovations have been promised a long time but have yet to materialize, such as gene therapies, supersonic transport, nanobots that roto-root plaque from our arteries and self-writing software.
On the other hand, who knew 20 years back that today 4.3 billion people on Earth could call one another while walking around? That we would have access to so much of the world’s information? Or that three-year-olds could figure out a poke-and-pinch interface on today’s computers?
In that context, what are today’s weak signals?
Together, let’s discuss:
- What domains have been simmering a long time, productively?
- Who is working on a clear breakthrough that is underappreciated?
- What very simple things are bigger than we think? When will we notice?
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November 16th, 2010 |
After a long drought, the market for mergers & acquisitions is heating up. It isn’t at dot-com frenzy levels, but it is active enough to provoke questions about strategy by the biggest players in tech.
It’s not easy to decide where the high ground (and the margins) will be, especially in spiky territory dominated by Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and only a few others. Infrastructural services have undergone their own evolution and are sorting themselves out.
Together, let’s discuss:
- What are the major players up to? Will they consolidate?
- Who has a useful strategy? Who is flailing aimlessly?
- What will the EU allow? What is up with HP?
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November 14th, 2010 |
We talk plenty about markets and theories and technologies. What about you? What is meaningful to you?
The holidays are almost here. The year seems to have sped by so far.
Together, let’s discuss:
- What recent events or experiences have affected you?
- How has your life changed over the past years?
- When do you feel closest to your purpose? Your self?
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November 2nd, 2010 |
These are messy times.
Business models are being flipped upside-down, tearing up old industries. Stakeholders have found new voices. Our many Commons are showing up as viable participants in the economic sphere, shifting how companies act. (How do you negotiate with Nature?)
One way to manage this change is to connect with higher consciousness, which is what Marti Spiegelman helps people do. Marti focuses on connecting senior executives with their own intent, as well as with the greater forces in the world, by guiding them on shamanic journeys.
With Marti, let’s discuss:
- What is shamanic journeying? How do you apply it to a business context?
- How is global consciousness shifting, or becoming more manifest?
- What effects might that have on our society? on business? on governments?
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