tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:20:15 +0000http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)Blogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-8705847323757225330Tue, 20 May 2008 17:50:00 +00002008-05-20T11:20:47.442-07:00The 2008 Alamden Institute had the theme Innovating with Information. There were two days of excellent, varied speakers.Hal Varian mused about why many innovations occur almost simultaneously. He suggested looking at all the conditions surrounding them rather than the innovator. Eli Whitney might get credit for interchangeable parts but there was a long lead up to them going back to the French ofhttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2008/05/innovating-with-information.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-3992909476544498929Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:31:00 +00002008-02-25T09:34:44.673-08:00climate changeCiscotransportationJohn Chambers made a commitment to the Clinton Global Initiatives Foundation to do something about the environment and the Connected Urban Development is it. My initial suspicion that it was Cisco-serving was dispelled. From Chambers on down, all the Cisco people at the conference were focused on higher goals, were businesslike, and sincere. Because 50% of the world’s population and 80% of thehttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2008/02/ciscos-connected-urban-development.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-6459755064377248230Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:12:00 +00002008-02-10T20:14:33.989-08:00Here are my suggestions with how to communicate using various tools, ordered by increasing urgency of message.1. Post an event on a calendar or a public calendar. If someone is curious they can look.2. Invite, via Google Calendar, someone to an event or meeting.3. Send an email via Google Calendar to the invitee.4. Send a regular email to someone.5. Send a repeat email to someone with "[Second http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-get-attention.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-1028830229547076550Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:06:00 +00002008-01-16T21:22:14.625-08:00refereedebatetrialReferees play a vital role in sports. Since political campaigns verge on being a sport, why don't we have referee's who say "Five yards for evading the question" or "Fifteen yards for talking bullshit"?The referee is a relatively recent invention. According to Wikipedia:The term referee originated in association football (soccer). Originally the team captains would consult with each other in http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2008/01/we-need-debate-referees.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-725886349284799012Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:43:00 +00002007-12-11T21:48:47.895-08:00As Al was getting his Nobel Prize I was finishing his book, The Assault on Reason. Chapter 1 is an intriguing assault on television, arguing that it has destroyed citizen activism. Chapers 2 through 8 are an assault on Bush, rehashing the past six years. Chapter 9 is a call for protecting and exploiting the internet to renew public communication.http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/12/al-gore.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-1295848315188178196Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:42:00 +00002007-12-17T16:40:55.516-08:00All of my reading and writing energies recently have gone into exploring climate change issues. See The Temperate Zone for a wiki. I'd appreciate advice about both the content and ways in which I could build that document into a growing forum for discussion.http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/12/climate-change.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-3023994368802425804Sun, 11 Nov 2007 00:06:00 +00002007-11-10T16:10:06.251-08:00I spent two days at this meeting in Sacramento. They had been hoping for about 120 people and 500 showed up. There were excellent talks and the vibe was great. How could it not be with 500 idealistic, altruistic activists there? My take-aways: When marketing an innovation you need to decide what to present as new, what to present as old, and what to hide. Edison said Electricity was http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/11/behavior-energy-and-climate-change.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-4363104645732783452Sun, 21 Oct 2007 20:41:00 +00002007-10-21T13:50:41.664-07:00I recently returned from a trip to Korea and was struck again by my exemption from Asian social discipline. It's nice that they don't mind our ignorance of their language and social customs. I almost think I could behave boorishly by American standards and get away with it.I also realized how hard it must be for American children of Asians to visit these countries. They look like natives so are http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/10/second-generation-diasporans.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-1753199054292419252Mon, 15 Oct 2007 01:53:00 +00002007-10-15T04:52:47.422-07:00There are many issues about climate change, but arguing about whether we caused it or not is not worth our attention. The important questions are about what to do about it going forward."Breakthrough", a new book by Nordhaus and Schellenberger is a bracing lecture about getting beyond guilt.A good test of one's feelings about this is how your react to putting a mirror between the Earth and Sun tohttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-doesnt-matter-if-climate-change-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-6380638675415639718Tue, 11 Sep 2007 04:20:00 +00002007-09-11T09:23:41.439-07:00 Using Google Reader, I find it increasingly important that writers use the subject line of their blog entries to accurately represent the content. One of the virtues of pay-to-click advertising is that advertisers are motivated to do so. Is there any way to motivate bloggers in the same way? Alternatively, Google Reader could try applying a little artificial intelligence to the content to http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/09/truth-in-subject-lines.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-2095551931945099763Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:38:00 +00002007-09-02T09:39:42.856-07:00I would like a service that traced the origins of an idea or phrase. I’ll call it “MemeSourcing.” I would enter a phrase like “swift boating” and up would come a picture of a directed graph showing the people who said it, plus a theory of who learned it from whom. Before the web, such an endeavor would be the task of obsessive scholars hanging out in libraries and newspaper morgues. William http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/09/memesourcingcom.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-2856292385755828823Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:36:00 +00002007-08-24T14:38:01.207-07:00Every news outlet behaves as if its readers read it exclusively. Each day the New York Times writes the next installment of a continuing story where its last one ended the day before. Don’t they know I’ve been getting hourly updates on the story? My biggest problem as a news junky is avoiding getting the same information repeatedly. Information retrieval experts like Jaime Carbonell noticed http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/08/tell-me-something-i-dont-know.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-8289789818581591297Sat, 18 Aug 2007 14:32:00 +00002007-08-18T07:36:23.486-07:00blogsmediaLike many bloggers, I’ve come to believe the traditional media is suspect—not criminally so, but simply because of natural forces. It was all symbolized for me by the spectacle of David Gregory, the enfant terrible of the White House press corps dancing with Karl Rove at a correspondents’ party. Once you get big you get co-opted; there’s no escape. The symbol of incorruptibility was I. F. http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/08/for-regenerative-blogosphere.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-5384869388296561859Tue, 03 Jul 2007 14:33:00 +00002007-07-03T07:35:37.493-07:00The printing-press-to-paper-boy distribution system is going away fast; get out while you can. Google and Craigslist are taking away your publisher’s want-ad business while they distribute your news stories for free. Your skill at discerning what is newsworthy will be valuable in the internet age, but you have to find a way to monetize it as the existing system disintegrates. Start a blog, if http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/07/advice-for-newspaper-editors.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-722880174708833335Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:12:00 +00002007-06-18T14:29:50.884-07:00global warminggenesenvironmentaltrusimWhy would greedy US investors create clean technology and desperate Chinese buy it so as to spare some cheese-eating Europeans from catching a chill? That is our global warming problem in a nutshell. In Collapse, Jared Diamond presents extensive evidence that humans faced with a disaster that is generations away won’t act to avoid it. Each chapter covers a collapsed or threatened http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/06/selfish-gene-vs-global-warming.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-8757610520265922514Sat, 02 Jun 2007 05:43:00 +00002007-06-01T22:49:17.281-07:00The SRII symposium last week was meant to persuade us that research on services is needed. The most compelling speaker was John Seely Brown who told stories rather than lecturing. Hebeleives that many important innovations have already appeared if we could only recognize them. <!--[if !supportLists]-->· <!--[endif]-->From a study of an accounts-payable department, he learned thathttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/06/john-seeley-brown-on-service-innovation.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-6340468124275847192Fri, 25 May 2007 17:53:00 +00002007-05-25T11:00:29.320-07:00Last month Microsoft Silicon Valley hosted a Carnegie Mellon/UC Berkeley conference on the New Software Industry. They provided a nice auditorium and an excellent lunch. Generally, Microsoft has been a good neighbor to our campus, which is one freeway stop away.Every Silicon Valley business discussion has an implicit subtext of "How do we avoid being crushed by Microsoft?" or "How do we overthrowhttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/05/microsoft-is-nice.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-5959049708381562336Sat, 19 May 2007 14:39:00 +00002007-05-19T12:12:31.031-07:00At a recent venture capitalist panel hosted by Carnegie Mellon West and UC Berkeley (http://west.cmu.edu/sofcon/5404216.html), VCs Ann Winblad, Bill Burnham, and Scott Russell made the following suggestions:Invest in the Deep Web. Seek out data sources that are public, yet hard to find for Google et al. and build services based upon them. Opportunities like the sources for auto navigation systemshttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/05/vcs-yes-to-dw-de-no-to-os-aaa.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-7144617620064570388Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:43:00 +00002007-04-13T12:44:36.112-07:00Some friends and I, who met on the internet, are mounting a project to unite the thousands of spiritual Pittsburghers in the world. Some live there, some used to live there, some attended college there, and some are just Steeler fans. Ultimately, we hope this movement can help the actual Pittsburgh. Local foundations are supportive, and Carnegie Mellon has hired Donald Bonk to spearhead the http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-pittsburgh-project.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-3855830072056449775Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:27:00 +00002007-04-06T08:30:11.260-07:00For centuries, folk wisdom had it that smoking was bad for you; but it wasn't until the 1950s that scientists established a link between smoking and disease. Controversy continued, but after the US Surgeon General and Congress put the warning labels on cigarette packs, behavior started to change. When I moved to Palo Alto in the 1970s, smoking three packs a day, I was assaulted with anti-smoking http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/04/gasoline-is-new-tobacco.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-612122134563690218Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:06:00 +00002007-03-26T11:07:27.217-07:00I often find myself in bitch-sessions about how unreasonable bureaucrats are. Everyone has his or her story. Are these people from another planet? They're not, but you should understand their situation and motives. For most, they are in a job with no positive goals and little upside potential. They have been put in place to enforce rules, reduce an organization's risk, and control others. When http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/03/understanding-bureaucrats.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-7441132063588039776Thu, 15 Mar 2007 04:44:00 +00002007-04-05T11:30:19.675-07:00In Reframing Business, Richard Normann outlines a principled approach to value chains, outsourcing, and restructuring. A key idea is to reframe the whole customer experience in the way IKEA did. He suggests that services thought to be secondary to products, e.g. maintenance and updates should be considered primary. For example, your cell phone is just the physical link to telephone service and ishttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/03/reframing-education.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-7248280312878272636Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:10:00 +00002007-03-14T21:41:11.085-07:00universityIToutsourceCarnegie Mellon’s Andrew system was created in an era of closed systems twenty-five years ago. The internet decisively ended that era by connecting all the world’s programmers, bringing forth a storm of innovation and diversity in software applications. Now, students arrive at college with their own computers, software, games, and internet habits fully formed. Generally, the services they can gethttp://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/03/campus-it-strategy-challenge.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-9200563621410720123Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:09:00 +00002007-02-21T17:11:23.019-08:00Twenty-five years ago, I started a project at Carnegie Mellon that created a campus computing system called Andrew. IBM paid for the development. Parts of the system still run at Carnegie Mellon and other places, but it’s time to rethink campus computing strategies. While I ponder that, here is an essay I wrote back then. If some of the technology ideas seem strange, please remember it was http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/02/twenty-five-years-of-andrew.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29143496.post-7423523869746336960Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:34:00 +00002007-03-14T21:44:35.957-07:00Dave Farber has often been described as the grandfather of the internet because so many of his students made crucial contributions. He’s also the grandfather of blogging: his “interesting people” mailing list has been running for several years. It is read and contributed to by a Who’s Who of technology and policy. You can read the archives at http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/http://jimmorris.blogspot.com/2007/02/dave-farber-master-blogger.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Jim Morris)0