Ged Carroll

Blog

  • Unskilled and Unaware of It?

    I came across research on unskilled hubris, whilst reading the latest article by Bob Cringely.

    Bob Cringely’s column for PBS.org, the online version of America’s undervalued public broadcasting service usually provides an unusually clear window into tech industry issues that affect us all.

    Microsoft vs. Burst Networks

    This week Cringely is talking about a court case between Microsoft and Burst Networks about alleged sharp practice and intellectual property theft by Microsoft (glass houses and stones seem to spring to mind).

    Unskilled and unaware

    What was of more interest however was a link to an American Psychological Association publication: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology – Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments by Justin Kruger and David Dunning Department of Psychology at Cornell University

    People that would fulfil this category are not new. Peter Ustinov was quoted as saying that he got in his career because he wasn’t good enough to be held back. In his case, this was self depreciation, but the  humour of it taps into an essential truth. 

    Office based sit coms are usually based on this premise. The talent but put upon underlings with an unskilled boss who thinks that they are they are under. This can be seen from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and 9 to 5, to The Office. 

    Conversely many capable senior people that I know suffer from feelings of impostor syndrome. More consumer behaviour related content here. 

  • Plaxo Is the New Google?

    Plaxo is a useful addition to the arsenal of the knowledge worker. We go through lives developing thousands of connections but probably only keep in regular contact with a couple of hundred. (This is broadly in line with the Dunbar number proposed by anthropologist Robin Dunbar.)

    Plaxo vs. Google missions

    Where Google plans to organise all the world’s information, Plaxo seeks to organise all our address books.

    With Plaxo you complete an account and update it if you move jobs, that way your looser network can keep up to date if they are members of Plaxo too.

    Pros

    – Cheap, free software, you only pay for support. That also means limited growth

    Cons

    – Only works with Outlook at the moment, so not great for people orientated businesses like the creative industries, how about conduits for Lotus Notes, Entourage and Apple iSync?

    – Privacy concerns, where there’s data there’s risk and businesses are increasingly using online services to run their businesses; it makes sense for consumers to use similar services to run Me, Inc. Privacy restrictions makes it harder for Plaxo to monetise customer data held

    – Is reliant on a critical mass of users; Plaxo only updates less than 9 per cent of my contacts and its user base does not seem to be expanding at the rate of Friendster or LinkedIn

    Anyway, make up your own mind by watching an interview on CBS Marketwatch with the founders. More technology related content here.

    More information

    Dunbar, R. I. M. (1992). “Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates”. Journal of Human Evolution.

  • Hold onto your old cell phone

    Hold on to your old cell phone for at least another six months. New Nokia phones should be due out in the next six months or so and they look half decent. Nokia software and build quality in an LG/Samsung style case has got to be a surefire winner. Read more at Gizmodo (mainly because they have lots of pretty pictures).

    Clamshell designs to replace old cell phone

    Nokia has doubled down since hitting turbulence in its plans for world wireless domination. Part of Nokia’s problems was attributed to the fact that it had no foldable in their old cell phone range currently on the market.

    To remedy the situation they have come up with three foldable handsets for poor, well-off and rich people. The stinking rich still have to put up with a Vertu ‘chocolate bar’ handset instead.

    Nokia Bluetooth keyboard

    They have also announced a Bluetooth keyboard that at first glance looks like a Think Outside design. More gadget related content here.

    Blogging and PR industry

    OK, I lied, my ex-colleague Stephen Waddington has written a down-to-earth paper on blogging and its implications for the PR industry. His advice on PRing to bloggers seems to be similar to trying to influence a Usenet group, is to do so CAREFULLY!

    Give the article a quick read, its worth it. The main thing they missed out is the use of employees or interest group members personal blogs to raise a search engine position. This has been used in recent Googlebombs attacking George Bush.

  • Sleeping problem

    Japan has a sleeping problem. On the face of it, you might think that the sleeping problem was that people were getting too much sleep. It is a high trust society, so you occasionally see drunks safely left alone where they are to sleep. A drunken salary man can rent a catacomb like sleeping capsule to crash out, if they can’t make it home. You see people sleeping on the commuter train in the morning.

    But that is only half the story of sleep in Japan. In a society famous for its neon cities, long office hours, high stress levels and horrendous commutes. Since the start of the economic miracle there were some who indulged in even more methamphetamine abuse than an Australian roadtrain driver. And some parents enroll offspring in cramming programmes for infant schoolchildren.

    You may expect insomnia to be a problem. You’d be right.

    Its also big business, Matsushita (the mega-corp behind Panasonic, Technics and JVC) will be launching later this year a ‘sleeping room package’ that consists of a plasma screen TV, a tricked-out bed and ambient sound recordings. This is expected to sell for about 20,000 GBP.

    In the UK we have an assortment of reality TV shows to send us to sleep. For more Japan related content click here.

  • Microsoft security spin

    I read a classic piece of spin in The Business, Microsoft races to stop bank account hackers by Tony Glover. Tony who has been shortlisted in a category for Business Journalist of the Year wrote “Technicians at the US software giant Microsoft are working flat out to prevent a new security threat that this week could give criminals access to computer systems used worldwide by banks and governments.”

    The general threat that Tony outlined called phishing has been covered for quite a while by national newspapers, something that wasn’t made clear in the article. In fact eBay, HBOS and Barclays customers have all been exposed to phishing attacks. The article was an excellent piece of PR work (my hat goes off to the members of the Microsoft press team) that failed to point out:

    – Phishing has been going on for quite a while now, though the vulnerability in Microsoft Internet Explorer is new. It is one of many security vulnerabilities in the product and phishing as a security risk is well understood

    – Microsoft was trying to plug yet another security gap in their software that facilitates phishing? . Despite repeated promises to get tough security, Microsoft have failed to do so

    – Using an alternative browser like Opera can help prevent the risk of phishing (though nothing in IT systems can be labeled foolproof)

    – It is yet another good argument against software bundling like Microsoft (and increasingly Apple) have been doing and is an excellent riposte to critics of the EU competition commissions case against Microsoft. Bundling of software restricts the ability of competition to spur innovation and improvements in both quality and service

    Free Internet calls move a step closer on page six goes on to talk breathlessly about a new feature in Microsoft Office that provides Internet calls. Its not that big a deal, I know of people who used Skype and before it Net2Phone and other over the net software phones. In fact Stephen Waddington, managing director of geeky PR firm Rainier was quoted in a newspaper case study talking about his firms uses of voice over the ‘net for international conference calls a few years ago.

    In addition, many instant messenger programmes such as Yahoo! Instant Messenger, AIM and iChat offer audio and video calls between users. Another fallacy in technology circles is the concept of ‘free’, you’d think that technology marketers would be mature enough to realise that nothing ever comes for free, even ‘free’ pirated MP3s or DiVX movie files via a P2P network is partly financed by banner advertisements, spyware and adware in the P2P software itself. Freeware is often produced for altruistic reasons, even if it is to build a community of users or make ones mark with an elegant solution to a problem. In the case of ‘free internet calls’ it will help increase sales of broadband connections, where calls leave the domain of a connection between IP addresses over PCs some sort of ‘interconnection charge’ will be due. Its not new, its history repeating.