VIDEOS. Estonia. — Estonia is not a well known country.
This video might give you a sense of the creative spirit of this Baltic nation, across the gulf from Finland.
With its neighbour Latvia it once formed part of the powerful Soviet Union. Estonians are not Russians per se, and there are some tensions. Estonia still wears some of the scars of former communist countries.
But Estonia has a distinct identity. A sense of which is visible in the preceding video.
Technology focus.
Tallinn is a grand old city, capital of Estonia.
Tallinn also is famous …

COMMENT, California, USA – Today we noticed on SlideShare an interesting presentation drawing attention to influential women in Web 2.0.
The slides are based on Fast Company’s original article.
Supporting Trends.
2thinknow have commented that with the rise of California, East European capitals, Boston, Netherlands and India as IT destinations (among others) — there has been a rise in the number of influential IT women.
The geek-level hard-coder is still predominately male. CeBit 08 or WordCamp 07 will confirm that. 90%+ wired males at last year’s San Fran WordCamp.
But now it’s beyond C++ & …

What do code and classics have in common? An interesting insight from Jon Dahl.

SLIDES — Web 2.0 & social media are the part of new media of the digital age.
This includes blogs, wikis like Wikipedia, RSS feeds and sites like youtube or stumbleupon.
Business, Not Tech.
These slides set out the 10 key technologies. with a business focus, in business language. not tech-speak. So many explanations out there are technical.
We created these slides for clients, which along with a verbal presentation, explain what the technologies are, and why business should care.
2thinknow also have a proprietary web 2.0 strategy matrix that assists business to make rational …

This is one of our very popular earlier 2008 articles working to rebalance the criticism that Generation Y attracted, and pointing out that non-linearity may be an asset in a networked world. Enjoy the ‘Creative Generation’, reproduced for your reading pleasure…

COMMENT, Australia — Call centre workers are an unloved occupation. But industry practise, and individual behavior are at least partly responsible.
The reality is basic infrastructure and services no longer work in Australia, which by Western standards has approaching the worst service ethics of any English-speaking country. Even worse than England, and that is saying something.

I still remember the Telstra monopoly float, wasn’t that supposed to improve telecommunication industry service?
Now to the latest debacle…
Primus Telecommunications: a herd of slovenly telecommunication cows wandering across the ‘fibre-optic’ dirt-track of Australia
To connect a single …

VIDEOS, Youtube — We all like Lego. But not only is it a great toy to teach your children spatial and logic skills, now it’s a tool.
The increasingly complex robotic tools made available by Lego Mindstorms allow your child to become a little engineer at a young age.
And quite a few university labs use them for various projects.
This great example is using Mindstorms to solve a Rubiks Cube.

Web 2.0 enables all new types of communication, for many reasons, the medium is indeed the message…

COMMENT, USA — There’s a lot of fear and loathing about Microsoft buying Yahoo.

The initial discussion seems to focus on Yahoo as a search offering for Microsoft, to strengthen Microsoft against Google. That won’t deliver value.
Fact is Yahoo has a strong email brand, but few people use yahoo for search. Google is widely used, and mostly returns the best results.

Yahoo & Microsoft merger/takeover is not really a threat to competition as a younger, more powerful competitor is likely to emerge as the innovator in the search sector.
A young unknown start-up …

ANALYSIS, Australia – In the first 70 days of Australia’s new leadership, the 2thinknow assessment is that things look promising for innovation under new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The 2thinknow scorecard on Rudd and innovation is an 8 out of 10.

Why?
The main reason, is that unlike some politicians he is actually personally championing change. And it’s not change of ideology or dogma, but the sort of practical change Australia needs.
Shortly, I will list the 7 steps Rudd took towards innovation in the 70 days.
But first some background.
The Howard Year’s …

COMMENT, Global – One of the trends I have noticed amplified whilst updating my book the Global Innovation Review 2007, is a return to the figurative in art and culture.
Why is this important? It shows direction in art. Away from post-modernist ‘I am a painter so why do I bother to paint?‘ thinking that typified the 90s. The 90s were however that kind of decade perhaps…!
Even moreso it shows a return to seeking meaning. It’s tiring looking at noir films, drinking black coffee and talk about meaninglessness.
Remember the artist …

COMMENT, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA — Thanks to all of you who attended our joint Web 2.0 seminar in our Melbourne offices.
It’s an emerging topic in Australia (Australia is about at early-adopter stage (2%), whereas the USA is in adolescence on Web 2.0 adoption.)
We had quite a few big Melbourne companies, government, and some fellows from the press…
Sydney Seminar Tuesday, November 20th.
It was informative, interesting, and please remember when it comes to Web 2.0 you are not alone.
Our partner firm simple, can help; wherever you are on the growth curve.
Take care,
…

COMMENT, Global – A couple of months ago I was in San Francisco at a business event. The topic was citizen journalism. The women next to me was writing paper notes.
However, every single person, almost in that room was writing on a laptop.
The wireless internet crashed in the first 15 minutes. A few people were asked to turn off ‘Bit-torrent’ a heavy duty file downloader/sharer. Napster-ish.
We’ll contrast that later with an event in Australia last week.

ANALYSIS, Melbourne, Australia — We have to look at technology as something to utilize for a practical outcome.
Australia needs new ICT policies.
Why we don’t have an ICT Export industry!
According to the AIIA, domestic production of ICT is worth between 4 and 5% of GDP.
ICT exports were once around $7.8 billion per annum, in 2000, according to AIIA.
Now, under Howard, these have declined to $5.4 Billion according to Austrade.
There’s no reason we cannot more than double ICT exports in 5-10 years through government policy.
Canada is a country closes to Australia in …

ANALYSIS, Global: Web Media –
The media has the wrong idea on what YOU and I want to read and watch.
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong.
News flash for the Media.
People are not obligated to read /watch your media.
Relevance will determine if they do.

COMMENT, Global: 2thinknow ® have identified Web 2.0 as one of the big trends sweeping the business world in a short to medium term.
If you feel Web 2.0 is a buzzword. it is. But then again unlike most, this one is useful.
What is Web 2.0?
In short Web 2.0 is the new new printing press, wireless and TV Tube.

ANALYSIS, Global – We have a lot of goods. Cars, books, stereos, DVDs, printers, computers, Walkmans, toys, clothes, kitchenware, etc.
Even jeans (I don’t know about you, but I’ll never fit into them again!)

When we are finished with goods we throw them out. Doesn’t have to be that way…

ANALYSIS-IN-BRIEF, Global –Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the internet as a useful tool, in the form of the Web. He was there at the web’s birth, as the picture of the CERN web server following shows.

If you want to understand the future of the internet, as a communication medium then read Berners-Lee’s book, “Weaving the Web”.

COMMENT, Global — The modern world seems complex.
That’s because we’re trying to understand it with modernist 1950s metaphors from the age of the soon-to-be-gone Oil Economy.
The Neo-Cons were really the last hurrah, and just look how well Iraq is working out for them.
That’s despite all the freedoms they managed to crush in Western countries by invoking a straw man of terrorism and turning a blind eye to some desert-dwelling nutcases.
But the fact is they don’t get it. The modern world. The internet. Or trends.