Archive for January 17th, 2006

(Hear the MP3 version with additional commentary in beautiful monophonic audio.)

New Programs Last Week

Because of our switch to the new ratings system, we don’t have accurate ratings for our most-recent programs. Here are last week’s programs without listener ratings.

• Alex Lindsay – The Next Generation of Digital Craftsmen As ‘Chief Architect’ of PixelCorps, Alex Lindsay merges the very old idea of a guild system made up of independent craftsman with the demands of mastering new and emerging media. PixelCorps serves as ‘a guild for the next generation of craftsmen–digital craftsmen.’ They are currently transfering skills in digital imaging and animation to regions in the developing world, so that those citizens can capitalize on the coming media revolution.
• Tony Gaughan – Open Source Licensing Open Source software has yet to make substantial inroads into the Enterprise market, but when companies as established as Computer Associates not only release a technology as powerful an the Ingres database but also continue to build their enterprise applications on that platform, the combination adds stability to Open Source efforts. In this Keynote from O’Reilly’s 2005 Open Source Convention, Tony Gaughan, Senior VP of Product Development at CA, discusses CA’s decision to release the Ingres database to the open source community.
• Saul Klein – Skype Voice over IP is a technology which is changing the way people view telephony, and Skype is a major player in this paradigm shift. The host of Larry’s World, Larry Magid, speaks with Saul Klein, the Vice President of Marketing for Skype. The talk about changing the playing field for telecoms, Skype’s new video capabilities and what is upcoming for Skype and its partners.
• What is a Sustainable Business for Data? Thanks to the internet, people have access to maps like never before: you just point and click. The data contained within the maps, however, can be much harder to acquire. This panel discussion, moderated by Simon St. Laurent of O’Reilly Media, brings together five leaders from diverse sources to talk about the challenges inherent in the collection of mapping data.
• Jamais Cascio – Personal Memory Assistants More and more people are using mobile phones with integral video cameras to capture events. Some of the most harrowing pictures from the London bomb attacks in July came from amateur video taken underground by passengers with camera phones. We seem to be heading towards a future where everything we experience will be captured and stored for retrieval. Perhaps only the sheer scale of the numbers of people involved will be the biggest safeguard we have against the nightmare of ‘Big Brother’ surveillance.
• Lynn Fritz – Using Supply Chain Innovations to Save Lives A few days after hurricane Katrina hit, Lynn Fritz, Director General of Fritz Institute, opened the Effective Disruption Management Seminar convened by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and shared his vision for the enhancement of disaster relief operations to a floor of highly engaged humanitarian disaster relief actors. Check out the free DVD offer for humanitarian disaster relief organizations.

So what have we learned after one week of The Conversations Network new website and features?

• Listener-Supported Audio Works. Well, it’s too early to declare complete success, but so far the rate at which our listeners have signed up for paid memberships ($25-$200 per year) has met our expectations.
• Communities Give Great QA. As much as we tried to find and fix bugs before launch, nothing is as good as a few thousand people who beat up on your web site. I continue to be impressed that so many people take the time to carefully document problems they find and send them in. Even the typos.
• Restricting Access to Anything is a Delicate Business. Did we make the right decisions as to what features and access to limit to paid members? Again, it’s too early to know for sure, but it may be that we’ll need to loosen some restrictions in the months ahead. For example, since the rating system is now for members only, we’re getting far fewer ratings — not even enough in some cases to provide statistically accurate results. The same may be true in our new discussion forums. Since only members can post, very few people have done so.

We had forums on IT Conversations about two years ago, and they failed to gain traction then even though access was unrestricted. But listenership was very small then, and perhaps we didn’t give the forums enough time to succeed. We’ll be looking at all of these issues over the next 30-60 days and make adjustments as necessary. Ain’t the web great? I love that unlike the old packaged software business it’s so easy to have real conversations with listeners and change course with relative ease when listeners tell you what to do. It’s like Doc Searls keeps saying: The demand side is taking control. I’m just along for the ride.

After one week, 5.2% of the registered members of IT Conversations have take advantage of the offer of free membership in The Conversations Network through March 31. One reason that number isn’t higher might be that as many as half of the members are inactive, but I’m sure we can get the number up to 10% by the end of the month. If you haven’t converted your membership, here’s your chance.