The rise of the spatial earth

Last century there was a dream of the spatial earth, described by Al Gores famous speech. Well google might have made it come closer, with 60% of google map hits now via the API.


http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

And another example of how copyright can not only hinder progress but be dangerous.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Vic-Govt-limited-Google-s-bushfire-map/0,130061791,339294916,00.htm

Innovation blockers

What stops innovation?

Many organisations harbour systemic cultural problems which act as innovation blockers, these may include :

• Pervasive risk aversion
  
• ill‑designed and non‑inclusive workplaces
  
• focus on the short‑term at the expense of the longer term development of capabilities
  
• lack of continuing investment in people

.



http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx

Five Words from Obama

Obama has an amazing gift of language, here are 5 words that he has used in various speeches.


cohere
syncretic
endemic
abrogate
sui generis

The Impossible University

Some people like to do 6 impossible things before breakfast, this might be the place for them to study.

http://www.hss.adelaide.edu.au/philosophy/inconsistent-images/impossible-uni/

Gov 2.0

The incoming Obama administration has an interactive website that lets users post their ideas. Ideas can be rated up or down by other site visitors so that popular ideas float to the top of the list.

Seems like a great way for improving democracy in the true sense of the word.

Human Factors

Human Factors is generally associated with aviation but many of the principles can be applied to other areas of work and life.

Seven Deadly Sins

It is that time of year when people think about the 7 deadly sins.

• Envy
• Lust
• Sloth
• Pride
• Wrath
• Avarice
• Gluttony

Here is a list of seven deadly IT sins.

For example, Fisher says this year's mortgage debt crisis might not have been so severe if the IT organizations in lending institutions had paid more attention to data quality and accuracy.

"A lot of the data collected from mortgage buyers was incorrect," says Fisher. "There are easy technical ways to validate this information and incorporate it into the system, but it was never done. They just took the information provided at face value. The mortgages were wrapped up in financial packages and sold to mutual funds and banks, but without any attempt to validate whether they were good financial purchases. Whether this was the fault of the business or IT is hard to say. But it's a problem technology could have solved."