A common theme in my work, and in many of my conference talks, centres around a very simple message – appropriate technology. It’s nothing new, and as a concept has been around since the 1970’s with Fritz Schumacher’s defining book, “Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered”. During my recent interview with Nokia’s “New … Continue reading Bridging the knowledge divide
Month: April 2007
Preening
Santa Cruz, Sunday 15th April, 2007 (from kiwanja’s Flickr)
Citizen journalism or citizen empowerment?
It’s been a funny old week. After last weeks Mongabay.com interview, news broke on another subject – the use of my FrontlineSMS system in the monitoring of the Nigerian elections this coming weekend. NMEM, the Nigerian NGO who are running the project, will be using volunteer observers to text in any observations (good or bad) … Continue reading Citizen journalism or citizen empowerment?
VC? Not for me…
Today on the Reuters Digital Vision Program we had the opportunity to mock pitch to three Venture Capitalist (VC) firms from Silicon Valley. As my fellow Fellows honed their pitches and made final tweaks to their presentations, I was ‘absent with leave’. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the opportunity, it’s just that I … Continue reading VC? Not for me…
Static on the radio
I’ve been thinking more and more lately about how human behaviour divides neatly into good and bad, positive and negative, constructive and destructive, helpful and unhelpful, kind or evil, and so on. But however you describe it, for every positive there is a negative. For every person fighting for something, there are people fighting against … Continue reading Static on the radio
Who’s afraid of Google?
I was passing through WHSmith at Heathrow airport yesterday on my way back to San Francisco when the latest BusinessWeek magazine caught my eye. The cover story addresses fears that Google may be getting a little too big for its boots. The timing was quite neat. Only a couple of days ago I blogged about … Continue reading Who’s afraid of Google?
Thomas J. Watson, Sr. – Right after all?
Thomas John Watson, Sr. was the President of International Business Machines (IBM) during its years of spectacular growth in the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s. It was during this time that he nurtured IBM’s innovative management style which, until recently, kept Big Blue at the top of the global IT league (although, with over 350,000 … Continue reading Thomas J. Watson, Sr. – Right after all?