Dimen Designs

Cousin Will Beatboxing

I posted on Kid Beyond's beatboxing, after seeing him perform at the Imogean Heap show, for two distinct reasons: he's amazing and my cousin Will is into beatboxing and I knew that he'd appreciate Kid Beyond's skill.

Below is my cousin Will doing his own beatboxing thing. It's a few years old and therefore not his best work but inspiring nonetheless.

Black with Green Dots

  black_green_dots 
  Originally uploaded by cherbert.

New Music of the Day/Week

  the rapture 
  Originally uploaded by elchicodelaleche.

I went to the Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers concert at Jammin’ Java a few weeks back (didn’t post about it but the show was a lot of fun, best 80s mashup songs I’ve ever heard) and saw The Dan Band recently too (yes, the guys that sing the alternative version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in Old School).

But I didn’t attend the We Are Scientists show this last week or see the GWAR show either.

So it’s about time for another new music post of the week (well actually from last weekend), thanks to Murky Coffee’s great musical tastes. I last posted a Murky recommendation when I commented about the Dallas Does Indie podcast and the band The Voom Blooms.

The band is The Rapture and the song is “Get Myself Into It”

Sounds a little like Kasabian but much more dance oriented so crank the volume and start rocking out.

CalacanisCast with Fred Wilson

This post is via my blog rather than an audio comment to Jason for the next CalacanisCast episode because I can’t find my microphone right now. I’ve been meaning to send a comment to Jason on his new podcast and given his recent job announcement about joining Sequoia Capital, this seemed even more pertinent.

I can’t remember where I first hear about Jason (maybe back in the ‘ol Gawker vs. Weblogs days or the NYT article from soon after he sold Weblogs to AOL- the was back when a blog network being worth $30 million was a fairly novel concept and Jason deserves kudos for having the insight to develop a blog network) but I’ve really enjoyed him on the Gillmor Gang (R.I.P.) over the last few months. As a result, I’ve been a more frequent reader of his blog, keeping up with the new Netscape redesign, and now listening to his new podcast.

But I first realized Jason’s great sense of humor and how long he’s been in the game for, when he joined Fred on his Positively 10^th Street podcast back in May. It clicked that Jason being with Silicon Alley Reporter and Fred being in the NYC VC scene that their work paths crossed. The resulting podcast was great, hearing them relive the old days of the NYC bubble days. Funny stuff indeed, though maybe not as funny as Jason’s Adam Curry impression (see the 10/15 Gillmor Gang).

Jason asked for interviewee suggestions so I’d like to see Jason return the podcasting favor and have Fred on an upcoming CalacanisCast as one of his first official podcast interviews. I’m an avid reader of both tier blogs and their insights on new media and the future of the web are always right on target. So if you’re listening Jason (or Fred), would love to hear you two do another podcast, talk about the new media and the internet, and discuss the VC landscape of the “Web2.0” world.

And two other things: the background song for the CalacanisCast sounds cool but what is it? And props to Jason for the citation in the 11/16 Economist blogging article, “Blogging for a Living.”

Woz at Politics and Prose

  woz11 
  Originally uploaded by easement.

The Woz spoke at Politics and Prose two weeks ago to promote his new book, iWoz, and since this was the night before leaving for Thanksgiving on Nantucket with my cousins, I haven’t had a chance to post about the event.

I’ve heard Woz before thanks to the 2600 crew interviewing him and knew some of his history, mostly the hacking (blue boxes and phone phreaking) and pranking stories, so to hear him describe his childhood and early computing work was fascinating. He likes to have fun and he’s passionate about what he preaches, whether it was about playing pranks or about how technology can help change the world. He was humble and gave great pointers about how to make do with less (not having money or access to all of the newest computer chips, he studied electronics manuals and self-taught himself chip design by drawing out everything- because he couldn’t afford the physical parts to actually build the designs).

What did I learn?
Woz pursued activities that he was passionate about and didn’t worry about if other people recognized the value: designing electronics on paper, while still in high school, was what he liked to do even though no one else would understand it or appreciate it. He used scarce resources to his advantage by creating the most efficient systems possible, reducing chips and saving power whenever possible. Here's a video from an earlier Woz book tour stop, with Guy Kawasaki interviewing him.

Use your limitations or scarce resources to your advantage because they can make your designs, products, or services more efficient and beautiful than if you had everything at your fingertips. See Jason Fried's "Small is Beautiful" presentation for more details.

Ben's Favorite Children's Book

Ben cozying up to his favorite children's book, "Everyone Poops."

Social Bookmarking at the Enterprise Level

I used to think that being a CIO was my dream job but that’s changed over the last 2-3 years, in part because I was working in a large enterprise and experienced the slow, grinding gears of corporate IT departments. More importantly, however, I was spending time blogging and getting on the what-would-become the Web2.0 bandwagon (but I was into it then and into now because I think new technology is cool and will change the future, not because I think there's money to be made from it).

So it’s weird to know hear recent posts about Web2.0 entering the enterprise world, for good or for worse. I think MIT fired one of the first mainstream salvos on this topic with their article, Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration. While listening to the Gillmor Gang and Dan Farber and Doc Searls (both great and fascinating journalists and bloggers) commenting on the recent Novell/MS deal, I had to say, “God, the enterprise space is boring.”

My team at work recently completed a Knowledge Management research report so I enjoyed a recent Scoble Show video about how social bookmarking could become the new knowledge management and content management platform for the enterprise space (he interviews the CEO of ConnectBeam.com)

Can Web2.0 be used in the enterprise? Despite my feelings that corporate IT departments tend to be slow and risk-adverse, there are always a feel individuals who do get it and are willing to experiment. Calacanis (CalacanisCast #4 maybe) said as much when commenting on the JotSpot/Google deal and explaining that JotSpot is better than SocialText for enterprise blog needs (paraphrase):

How will it (Web2.0) infiltrate the enterprise space? It will be by rouge characters who install wiki-powered software outside of IT protocols and it will catch on so much b/c of the productivity advantages, forcing the IT department to accept these web2.0 apps

And I keep an open mind for another important reason: I believe in the social or peer production mindset of Web2.0.

Here are the two takeaways from the video:

1) Why will social bookmarking will be the future tool for KM and Content Management at the enterprise level?

If you look at Web2.0 tools to use for knowledge management, instead of wikis, blogs, social networking, we think it's social bookmarking for two reasons:

a) Social bookmarking is the simplest to use; and people now how to bookmark, the idea is so familiar to users already
b) Social bookmarking is at the higher level because blogs, wikis are essentially web pages that can be bookmarked; most tools now are via a web browser so they can be bookmarked

2) And why is ConnectBeam better than del.icio.us?

a) Enterprises behave and use knowledge differently than consumers; consumers have personal desires to do social bookmarking because it helps themselves and in enterprises, you need extra incentives beyond those of the consumer space

b) Enterprises need boundaries, guardrails around the knowledge artifacts, who can share what, etc.; del.icio.us can't quite do this in it's present form