Different folks, different strokes!

I had planned, imagined a total different post for this last week of August, but then something came accros and made me change my mind.

Two years abroad is quite a bit of time. Enough to set your mind into another culture, to put your life into a different perspective, and most of all, enough time to get to know this new culture, at least its basics.

France was not new to me, but the habits, everyday tinny little things that build up life as we know it were unknown. There was lots to observe and to learn on my experience.

I just loved it!

The french approach towards life is something to appretiate, for the ones with a bit of sensibility. Past history of nobles and kings, emperors and rulers, a revolution to mark the history of mankind, gave the French people a fine sense of citizenship and a taste for discussions on politics or economy. It is part of their culture.

It is always taken in a serious base, well argumented. France loves “un debat politique ou économique" once in a while mixed with some local humor – which is unique, and better appreciated after some time around......

All this to state that I was well used to the ‘hexagon’standard of discussing events on the subjects of politics and economy. Everyone has something to say, to add to the discussion. It is then up to you to gather all that has been said and make sense out of it, or even to come up with your own judgement and comment.

Then I landed in Brazil mid Augsut, a come back in the midst of a pandemic flu, when the world tries to push the economy out of a crisis.

The Brazilian way of dealing with current events is different. The disussions are taken on a faster pace compared to the French way. In Brazil the argumentation has to be shorter if you want to be listened. But unvariably the discussion ends up on a joke, on a funny tale, or on a passage that makes you laugh......and think.

Last night I went to a friend´s b-day party, and I was reintroduced to the Brazilian way of wrapping up a discussion, this time on financial crisis. I heard the following (with my free translation into English) story:

I may call it “Braking it even”, or "Simple math"

In a small coastal village in southern Brazil, during the winter, the cold weather and agitated ocean make it look like a ghost town. No one is out, locals wait for the summer season, not only for its warm weather, but also for the tourists, who are the source of everyone's income.

So, on this cold and windy winter day, a tourist walks in a small hotel. He places on the counter a 100 euro bill and asks for a room.

While the tourist sees the room, the manager takes the 100 euro bill and runs to the butcher to pay his debts. On his turn, the butcher takes the money and heads for the farmer who raises cattle and pays him what he owned.

The farmer then goes to the veterinarian to clear off all the past bills.

With the money on his pocket, the vet goes to the local night club and pays what he onwed to a prostitute (during crisis this class also works on credit).

The prostitute takes the money and goes to the hotel, where, some times, she takes her clients. Once there she pays all her bills she had left behing due the times of short cash.

At this very moment, the tourist comes bak to the front counter and asks for his money back as he decided not to stay due the terrible weather. He thanks everyone and leaves town.

No one has made a penny, but now all the people in town live without any debt. And the most important, they start to see the future with stronger confidence.

“There is no crisis when money circulates”

Voilà, maybe someone out there has heard or read this same story, or different versions of it.

But at this pedriod of my life, the environment where this story was told, and the way it was put...the whole scenario set me thinking of how wonderful it is to have cultural differences. Upon listening the story, observing others, doing my own silent intelligence, I felt like a "local outsider" observing my own peers.

MS-Yahoo, Google, Social Medias & Web Tendances

The other day I had the chance to be surfing the web on my daily "veille" (i just love this French word for monitoring, watching, surveillance) almost at the same time as the announce Microsoft Yahoo alliance came out. It was a matter of minutes, so the article here at TIF Consultants was indeed one of the first ( first thousands... : ) as there was a crowd following this "scoop") out on the web.
Then I wondered: what are they up to besides ads and shares of services? Or what could they explore after this union of forces?

Time to dig about email use, Internet tendencies and the players.

Email Use

It is fact yahoo is known for its web-based email tool market share. It is also a fact that Outlook plays a major role as client email software.

This graph below shows which are the most popular email clients that people worldwide are using to read /open their emails. The stats represent email client usage of over 300 million people all over the planet, done by Campaign Monitor for a period of about six months.

Methodology:

A tracking image is embedded into Campaign Monitor email messages. The referral information is then used to determine which email client was used to open the message.
The only problem, if the person reads his emails off-line or for some reason turned off the automatic download of images (like Gmail does), or yet, uses a client with no image support (old version of blackberry phones), this message will not be counted.

But it is necessary to make two remarks:
1 - Note that the above graph represents popularity of email clients and not email services. If one uses POP or IMAP to read his Gmail messages inside Outlook, it will increase the share of Outlook and not that of Gmail.
2 - There’s little doubt that Yahoo! Mail is the most popular email service out there. Another reason for its high ranking is that the free version of Yahoo Mail doesn’t offer POP functionality! So, people use web browsers to check emails.

Google with the card up his sleeve.

Of course the Mountain View’s giant would not rest. For the end of the year, it is planned the launching of Google Waves, which is a a platform designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki and social networking all into one. Others say it is to merge instant com with google doc environment.

Features on Google Wave:

Wiki in Wave – Just like how wikis function, a wave can be edited by anyone.
Live Transmit – You can see your friend typing live.
Natural Language – It auto corrects your language and suggests similar sounding words (e.g. Met, Meet, Meat).
Drag & Drop File Sharing – No attachments needed. Just drag and drop your files in Google Wave and share them with your friends.
Embed your Wave – Your waves can be embedded on any website or blog.
Gadgets – Similar to Facebook applications, gadgets are applications built compatible with Google Wave.
Robots – This little bot is an automated participant on a wave. It can read, edit and share outside content to a wave. It can also create new waves, blips and add and remove participants.

Read all about it, watch explanatory video and others here.


Internet tendencies, how users make use of it

Universal McCann has released a new report on social media as of today. It seems not to be slowing down. On the contrary, it's still growing. Make yourself known on the web is a world fever: photos, blogs, micro blogs.... However, the report shows that web users are beginning to center their digital life. Where ?

On social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut, sharing their content within these sites instead of using «single focus» ones, like Blogger or Flickr.

After four surveys of active Internet users, estimated in global audience at 625 million (or one in thirteen of people worldwide!), UM found that the usage of social networks is rising. UM questioned for this last report 22,729 active Internet users in 38 countries between November 2008 and March 2009 to come up with what is on of the largest global analysis of social media.
As you can tell by looking at the chart below, social media is and important part of users' web habits. Several activities have seen increased growth since last year, most notably those involving social networks, and image

Surprisingly, the only activity to see a dip is uploading videos to video sharing sites. Still, video watching is now seeing a high penetration rate among active Web users at 83%, a number consistent with last year. But when you look at how many people are uploading video to social networking sites, it's there that you see the growth. 33% upload videos to their social network profiles, up from 16.9% last year, as previously noted.
Blogging apparently reached a saturation point, 71% of users report reading blogs - an increase of only 1% since last year. This seems to correlate with recent findings from Forrester Research, who also reported that no increase in blog reading was reported over last year.

PEOPLE ARE WATCHING RATHER THAN READING.

Users are still sharing photos and videos and posting blog entries, they just tend to do this within a social networking site these days.
Social networks are an extremely popular destination right now. Two-thirds of active Web users have managed an on-line profile and 71.1% have visited a friend's social network page. When you look at active social net workers instead of just active Internet users, that figure is even higher: 96% of that group has visited a friend's page. Even though these figures represent an average across 38 different countries, UM says that the figure has increased in every market except Brazil and Mexico.
The U.S. is a dominant player in the social media space with 60% of active Internet users in this country managing a social network profile - a number up from 43.2% last year.
Thanks to a coinciding increase in mobile access since nearly a fifth of active internet users have mobile access today. However, speculating as to why social media usage is on the rise goes beyond what this report seems to focus on.
For more information check out UM's report here.

Now, what to expect from the all-new MS-Yahoo deal ?

If there is a way to try to overcome Google is by using their qualities.
It is obvious the supremacy on email users is the top one. What to do? Simple math!

Web trend + Market share = PROFIT

This profit in the form of better image, e-reputation, visibility and $$$

/I have a vision mode on/

Now it is the visionary TIF Consultant who speaks, with ideas to go further, to innovate. The web leaps towards image ans sound. MS-Yahoo could very well add video and audio/radio functionalities into their products.

My proposal:

A video micro blogging. If people are watching, why not share what they watch, what they see at the very moment of their lives, what they contemplate during special moments of the day? Infrastructure is available to some extent in good part of the planet. Phones with built-in cameras and acces to the web is a reality.
A sort of videotweet service would be my call had I active and decisional voice at MS-Yahoo. Maybe this would dim a bit the Mountain View web services dominance.

/I have a vision mode off/



sources : http://www.digital inspiration.com, http://www.universalmccann.com/, intelligence factory blog , http://www.readwriteweb.com, http://www.penn-olson.com

Dealing with the Web

Take one -July 1988, First year of college: back then I knew beans of informatics, and so did great part of the class I had began studying with.

Every time we came across difficulties to find out more about a subject, say, "databases", we had no other way but to run to the library. There it was possible to find some books, papers, magazines. And stay there for hours selecting what we wanted! Then it was just a matter of getting on the line to make xerox copies and go back home with some material.

Now and then the librarian could try to find something extra for us elsewhere, and that could take a few days, maybe a week. If that was the case, back to the library, and repeat the process described above. And that for as many times as the librarian could have his hands on the material we suggested as the research went deeper....

At the end we could have a good list of articles, from, say, 100 to 150 initial sources.

Take two - August 2009, writing this article: I have Google! And I may use to do the same research done during my scholar experience some twenty years ago. Out in the garden, wireless, without taking a step out the security of my home, I get the astonishing amount of 97.200.000 references to the same keyword "databases", 96.300.000 if we stick to English only. Add to that all the magics of selections which allow me to see the most recent articles, images, time line for the keyword, related subjects, and so on....but we will stay simple, and work with the raw figures. Now, let us make believe I have developed a super intelligent software capable of analyzing the content of each document of my research result in just ONE SECOND. Not bad!

Take three, august 2012: My super intelligent content analyzing software finishes its task. It did a perfect job telling me what was accurate and relevant to my research. And most of all, it indicated me the reliable data to be used.

I do not know about you, but three years is a long time!

Conclusion: I have two possible solutions: Whether I develop an even better software, or control what in Information Technology is called overhead, which is, basically, the cost-benefit and the generated lack of capacity when we deal with excesses.

As I am no genius in software development, I skip the first option. But I am indeed a consultant on Intelligence Economique, who is, say, prepared to deal with this data avalanche. So let us take a look at the scenario as it is presented today.

1 - It is wise to think that great amounts of information WILL NOT bring you good learning. Even when we have reliable information (which is not always the case on the web) the misunderstandings and distortions due to non contextualizing and lack of integration - of this good information - may take you off the track.

2 - Needless to discuss that the web has made knowledge available to everyone. More recently, it has become a two-way experience. You access the information (web 1.0); and you react to it, or you publish what you want (web 2.0). Everyone can be a reader an author at the same time, on any given subject! The PhD in Rocket Propulsion will share his favorite tacos secrets, as he may give you a hint on a home-made rocket too. The clerk at the gas station will have his word to say on soccer, and give his opinion to the national coach for next year's world cup. And these two fellows may share their ideas to fight the swine flu....

It is super cool! I agree.

However, an evil side awaits the unprepared seeker for information - the good one. This two-way knowledge democratization has its drawbacks. The author of an article, or the one commenting an article should be responsible for what they write. But it is not always the case. Reasons are many: the lack of ethics, pride or complete lack of responsibility.

3 - Information comes from all over the place. The rocket scientist mentioned above may write brilliant articles which will fulfill us with the latest knowledge on the technology to propel us into space. But, a 15-old-weekend-warrior-rocket amateur MAY ALSO write about the same subject, giving imprecise, dangerous.....and irresponsible information.

4 - Knowing to distinguish one form the other is crucial. Trust is the key word here. The principles of meritocracy have to be applied. The rocket scientist has had years of study, privations, and efforts to be where he is at, and write about what HE KNOWS.

On the web, his opinion may be confused with those of the teenager, who THINKS HE KNOWS, who is a self-claimed specialist.

5 - To get get the good information today is more difficult than it was in the past.

Small example: Get a good blog on politics. Some have over 200 daily comments on a hot subject. Great participation of the readers in numbers. But quality wise, we see all kinds of grammatical faults and opinions with no statistical value whatsoever, to say the least. Sure there are good comments, but at what price to find them? As the make-believe software of the beginning of the text, it may take you long to find them, making a Pirro's wining battle.

6 - As time is money, we need the good information fast. But the ocean is way to big to catch the good fish all the time. The image of a needle lost in a haystack is long gone for the web, where its contents doubles every few 5.3 years, according to Chinese researches. So, we can imagine that the time and cost to find the relevant information increases all along.

What to do to face this issue?

1 -The Quality web site stamps are a good start. It may add some criteria to the web. By sorting out the good guys form the bad ones, we will see who is who in the pack.

2 - The raising of web users' responsibility. It is crucial to have the participation of all on this process of developing a new awareness, or cyber maturity as some prefer.

3 - Application of Intelligence methods that work with the cycle of information are absolutely necessary: sourcing, research, fetching, validation, cross referencing, analysis and diffusion - these are stepping stones to help us all. And trust me, it is a heck out of work. This has become so important that forced a new breed of professionals to be born: intelligence consultants, true information architects, dedicated to the seeking of data. Let us make cleat that this new area of professionals has nothing to do with that of the spies. These consultants are but ones with great capacity of providing the good information.

4- See what web 3.0 may brings us in terms of innovation. It is for sure able to provide us some good results on understanding and satisfying the requests of people using the web.

So, let us not be caught by the singing of one of Ulysses' sirens. For the time being, stay critical and vigilant all the time, and try to find some training on how to better explore web resources.

Umberto Eco once said that a society with excess of information may not be different from one lacking it.

He might as well be right, but on what depends on us, Intelligence Factory Consultants, we will do our best to prove him wrong.

Swine Flu

Foreseeing. It is all about foreseeing.

What is ahead of Europe regarding the swine flu provoked by the H1N1 virus for this coming fall and winter can be somewhat predicted. Maybe it can be avoided, but definitely it will have to be faced. So, let us be prepared to cope with human losses and economic slowdown! And why not, develop a business that will help out others and bring you profit ?

How? By practicing "la veille" as French charmingly define -watching/surveillance. Governments do it, but in a rather social than economic way. Obviously the target is to spare human lives. But we can not forget the ones who escape this misery. Their lives go on, and so do the services to support them.

Europe will certainly face what is now being experienced by southern hemisphere countries like Argentina and Australia. These nations go through the winter now, they have the same latitude and economic level of development as to Carpathian countries as well as Greenwich time zone ones. These austral countries have been suffering economically due the presence of the virus. In Argentina the H1N1 flu epidemic that has affected at least 120,000 people in the country, more than 150 of whom have died, has led to a slowdown in economic activity. Theaters, cinemas, discos and gyms were temporarily closed, school vacations were extended and fewer people have been going out to eat.

Australia, the Asia-Pacific region's worst-hit country, has already placed an advance order for 21 million dosages - enough to immunize its entire population. But is it enough? "Having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has been proved safe," said World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan to Britain's Guardian newspaper. Australia said its total of H1N1 flu cases had reached over 10 400, more than 10% of the WHO's global total. The country suspects H1N1 flu was the culprit in the deaths of some 20 people.

Many say a vaccine will be out soon. WHO director of vaccine research Marie-Paul Kieny, calling the pandemic "unstoppable", had said early July that a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September. Will there be enough to everyone? How will manage the poor countries? Argentine President Cristina Fernandez suggested that developing countries should be allowed to "lift patent rights" so they can produce more vaccines to battle the A/H1N1 flu epidemic. In a speech at a regional Mercosur leaders summit in Paraguay, Fernandez said changing the status quo "does not mean disavowing the patents law," according to a report by the state news agency Telam.

Things are serious. But the press does not alarm the population of the profound problem we are in for. Maybe it does not appeal, or does not sell...

Now supposing a vaccine does come out in time, labs all over the planet work full time to produce enough doses to cover all needs, and amazing logistic will be put in place to deliver all production to where it is needed....will we have reasons to feel safe? Unconcerned and relieved?

Mankind has been fighting the cold virus for over centuries and has not come to a complete eradication because it mutates constantly....from season to season.

Regardless of the vaccine efficiency, as the virus will undoubtedly change on his trip up the northern hemisphere..it is time to watch, learn and act to prevent the worst. Because there will be losses, in large numbers.It is not necessary to be an alarmist to agree with that.

Disgrace for some, joy for others. I will never forget during the "El Ninõ " season back 1998...i have seen hundreds of homeless due the severe rainfall and ocean rage.
But it was a classic, consistent month of swell - one of best surf trips I have ever made.....
So, intelligence view on this matter shows that the H1N1 virus will certainly bring human losses, but on the other hand it may generate great business opportunities.

So, why not grab one as we help out others in the need ?


Sources: AFP, SAPA, The Guardian, news24 and newsmap.