The System Comes First

In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.

This in no sense, however, implies that great men are not needed.

On the contrary, the first object of any good system must be that of developing first-class men; and under systematic management the best man rises to the top more certainly and more rapidly than ever before.


-Frederick Winslow Taylor

Analytics

So my grassroots social networking campaign to win the Supernova Future of Work award is almost coming to an end as tomorrow is the last day of voting.   I've been paying close attention to the traffic analytics since they are probably a good indication of the amount of votes I'm getting.  I figure since analytics and the future of work go together like cornflakes and milk I'd share what I've been looking at.

As you can see from the graphic above the top three traffic sources coming in to my post are social networking sites.  It's important to note that I made plenty of phone calls and sent out emails to pretty much all my contacts but the traffic doesn't lie, social networking sites are the best way to get the word out.  Here is a more detailed view:

I have drawn 2 conclusions from Facebook's mobile site moving the most traffic:  

1. The concepts that we have put in to place at Industrial Mold related to the future of work being based around mobile information portals are fundamentally sound.
2. You can always count on your friends.

What surprises me most is that more pageviews came from LinkedIn than Twitter.  I use Twitter far more than LinkedIn but mostly for information consumption, I don't post very often compared to most Twitter users.  Since I am on Twitter so much more I just assumed that it was generating more pageviews but again,  data doesn't lie.  Truly you can make all the assumptions you want but until you have the analytics related to your decision, in a lot of ways you are flying blind.  

Here is another interesting twist, because I was so certain LinkedIn was a dead end from a traffic standpoint I decided to test the waters and do a paid campaign.  LinkedIn Ads will let you pay to put your message in front of targeted groups of strangers.  I thought it would be an interesting experiment so I unfolded a crisp ten dollar bill and handed it over.   I paid per impressions instead of clicks which is another discussion entirely, but the gist of it is my ad was put in front of about 5000 people.  So obviously the higher than expected traffic from LinkedIn was due to my super PAC level ad campaign BUT a detailed look at the analytics revels that is not the case.  Here are the actuals from my campaign (click to expand)   

This data tells us a couple things.

1. I actually got zero clicks from my ad campaign.
2. LinkedIn jacked me for twenty cents.
3. I should have gone the pay per click route. (which LinkedIn actually recommended)

The bottom line is that when data is collected and communicated in a meaningful way can tell you a lot of things about your circumstances.  Whether your trying to win an award or run a business, analytics can be a powerful ally.  This is the kind of stuff that the future of work is all about and it's the backbone of what we are doing at Industrial Mold and Machine.  Lastly, and most importantly, if your still reading this and you haven't voted for us yet CLICK HERE, read about what we are doing and support us with your vote.

Vote for The Future of Work

Today, imagine 10 years from now. 

Last time I posted in this blog was right after I got my hands on one of the first iPad's coming off the UPS truck.  I felt it was worth writing about back then because it seemed like the tablet was going to dramatically change the way we use computers.  Since that day I have been working tirelessly with Wendy Wloszek and the rest of the team at Industrial Mold & Machine in an effort to leverage tablets as a tool for manufacturing organizations.  The result has been an information system unlike any other, a shop floor with portable, real time information.  This innovation effort has been an incredible learning experience.  I have worked along side some very talented and hard working people who have continued to put out a quality product while constantly adapting to our growing digital environment.   I have always had a positive outlook on the future of manufacturing and after watching the shop floor at Industrial Mold absorb new technology and begin to utilize rich digital information, I am more optimistic than ever.

Our efforts have not gone unnoticed, we've done articles and webinars with the help of people who believe that what we are doing here at Industrial Mold is a glimpse of what is to come.   Most recently we have been named as a semifinalist in the Future of Work category of the 2012 Constellation Research Supernova Awards.  Constellation Research is a specialty research firm that is dedicated to helping businesses find value in emerging and disruptive technologies.  I am very excited about being a part of what they are doing at Constellation and look forward to pushing the limits of what information systems can do for manufacturing.  Please help support our efforts by voting for Industrial Mold under The Future of Work category at the link below:

Here is the link direct to vote: Constellation Voting Page

Here is some background about the nomination: Voting Profile

iPad, first thoughts.

The UPS driver told me he couldn't see any use for it.  He held up his iPhone and went on to talk of his laptop.  I couldn't argue with him, if he couldn't see the use of it then it wasn't useful to him.  I know plenty of people who don't think computers in general are useful.  I asked him how many he was delivering, he replied that his entire truck was filled with iPads to be delivered.  Usefulness it would seem, is relative to the user.

The "why use it" argument goes back to the devices introduction.  Apple calls it a "middle" device, it's not portable computer like a laptop, nor is it a device you can pull from your pocket and use anywhere like a phone. True but middle device is a bad label. After using it for the last day it seems that it's more like an imperfect next generation computer.  Let me lay out a few things I learned while confirming that the iPad is neither a phone or a laptop.

It is not a phone:

It's way to big to be a personal communication device.  It's socially acceptable to pull out a phone size device and tool around on the Internet, but the iPad's size makes it obvious that you are ignoring the situation around you.  An iPhone allows for casual surfing while waiting in line or generally disinterested in your surroundings but the iPad sticks out like a sore thumb.

It is not a laptop:

The iPad is not a laptop class machine mostly because it is not a computer the way we understand them today.  A laptop is a computer, it's a crunched down version of that huge gray box humming next to our desk.  It's size enables us to be mobile, free from our desks and offices so to speak.  An iPad can't do everything a computer does but it is portable to an extent that has never existed in the computer world. Laptops are mobile but they are not portable.  Laptops are big clunky beasts that need to be booted up, put to sleep, charged, plugged in, opened up; they are not portable by any stretch of the imagination. The iPad is portable, it travels with the convinance of a small book.

I started this blog entry on the iPad, but writing on it got old quick so I switched to my laptop.   I have grown up on a keyboard and it still remains a fundamental piece of computing.  Getting used to the keyboard on the iPad I think will be my biggest challenge.  I would be interested to see what is like to use a hardware keyboard with an iPad.

The iPad operation system has effectively killed the mouse cursor.  The keyboard is here to stay but the mouse, and it's touch-pad/JMouse/trackball counter parts are all dead.  I say good riddance (and if Flash is reliant on a mouse cursor then I say good riddance to it as well).  Touching the iPad screen it feels elegant, it's right out of Minority Report.

So what is the iPad?

To me it is a portal to the Internet, nothing more. At a certain point in my computing life accessing the Internet trumped all other uses of a computer.  One thing the iPad can do, is access the Internet. I will take that first and wait for everything else to catch up.

Kevin Kelly compares the entirety of the Internet to a single entity, the only machine created by man that has never stopped working. I am a fan of "the Internet" and the iPad is the best tool for using Internet since "Hello World" so I am by default a fan of the iPad.

Other notes:

• My iPhone now seems like an iPad nano.  It's seems really small now compared to three days ago.

• I can hold it to read and watch shows with little effort but typing of any length is notably uncomfortable, so far I use my thumbs while holding it up.

• Twitter + the iPad =  Happiness

• It handles web browsing so well that no App is really needed for Facebook, you can just use the full site.  (Except for one little detail, no local file system means that you need an app if you want to post pictures and stuff like that.)

• The battery is hardcore. Lasts all day under heavy use.

A view of flight patterns from space.

A very cool video of flight patterns.

WEB 2.0 the machine is using us.

A great look into how the Web is currently taking form.

This video was put together by an anthropologist. When I think of an anthropologist I think of some guy wearing a safari outfit watching a a local tribesman hunt a boar. Judging by all the anthropology gurus putting together these type of videos it would seem that the Internet is now the best way to study humankind.

Windows Defragment Utility Tutorial

In case you have never defragmented your hard drive before this simple tutorial will walk you through it.