Fusion View

As a writer, one of the most difficult tasks is keeping my notes and research in order. For my fiction novels, I had a lot of research on geology and the structure of buildings (for The Flame Tree, which involved a defective tower that collapses) and on digital technology and brain function (for Mindgame, which turned on a plot to manipulate the minds of Asians). That was just over a decade ago and most of the research was in the form of articles from journals and photocopied pages from books. There was also all my handwritten notes. I stored them all in folders and ring-binders and after awhile it got really difficult to find the particular bit of information I wanted. I also had some recorded audio interviews on cassette tape which I stored in boxes.

Aah, how I longed to go paperless and be able to find what I needed “just like that” (snap of fingers!).

Working on my current non-fiction book on New Trends in International Public Relations, there is even more research than for the two fiction books put together. Fortunately, now that we are in the age of social media there are some great tools to help me sort, file and access my notes easily. First off, I have a del.icio.us bookmarking account. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is an free online service where you can bookmark webpages that are of interest and that you want to return to again. You can “tag” them with keywords eg asia, social-networks, copyright etc so you can retrieve them again by searching that keyword. You can also add a short description and later, search the text of that short description to retrieve the item you want. It’s part of the social media world because you can share your bookmarks - all of them or only those tagged with a certain keyword, as you choose. You can share them with the world or with only the people you choose or no-one at all. People can subscribe to follow what you are publicly bookmarking.

On the wiki site I’ve created for the book, you can see the feed of my public bookmarks of the webpages that are relevant to the theme of New Trends in International Public Relations - scroll to the bottom of the page. Not only am I able to save the webpages, I can also share them so whoever comes to the book wiki can see what I am currently researching.

The only problem about del.icio.us is that it only saves webpages and I’ve had to find some other means of storing my non-webpage research eg notes of discussions, recorded audio interviews, random thoughts I’ve had while on the bus, articles scanned from or torn out of journals. They have so far all gone into the trusty paper folders again.

However, I recently found Evernote, a virtual note-taking and note-storing site that is in beta trialling. It allows you to bookmark webpages as well as add your own notes and attach photos and audio files - which means that I can keep pretty much all my research in one virtual place so that I can chuck out the paper folders. They don’t support pdf files but a workaround is to upload those into my online storage account at Box.net and link to it from Evernote. I’ve installed their mobile application on my PDA so I can take notes on the fly and upload them directly to my Evernote account. That application also optimizes the Evernote site online for viewing my stored notes from my PDA so I don’t have to clog up my PDA’s memory with old notes. I can also forward emails to the account - so if someone sends me email replies to interview questions, I can keep that email together with my other notes on the same subject. And I’ve taken to snapping a photo of any handwritten Post-Its or other notes and sending those to Evernote as well. And it’s all searchable by text or keyword.

There are some limitations in Evernote’s functionality regarding sharing, private/ public options and elements of their filing logic compared to del.icio.us but hopefully, they’ll be able to improve on those with the feedback that their beta users are giving them. The main thing I’d like to see is greater flexibility in being able to share by reference to specific tags. I’m not switching entirely to Evernote for the current book project since I’m committted to del.icio.us for that but I will certainly be using Evernote more fully for my next book project.

For all you writers, students, researchers out there, I’d say that Evernote is certainly worth a try. It’s currently in beta trialling by invitation only - I have 9 invitations left so if you’d like one, add a comment below and I’ll get back to you on a first come first served basis. Remember to leave your email address in the relevant field - I’ll be able to respond to you but it will not be visible by anyone else.

Photo: of files thanks to Stephanie Asher from flickr.com (CCL)

This film was made by Ed Saunders and a team of his friends who challenged themselves to make a short film in 48 hours from scratch, including story line, filming and editing - and all for less than £10.

Ed is one of the volunteers involved in Dulwich OnView, the online magazine that I’m co-editing, and this film was first shown on that site.

Ed says, “I organised the film weekend to give my colleagues a break from making boring corporate videos and to give my friends and family a chance to get involved in the filmmaking process.”

“To get the films started I wrote out the first lines of thirty novels and stuck them in a hat, each team then pulled out a line and had to incorporate it into their film either as dialogue, a scene, or just let it serve as a stylistic reference.”

The film was inspired by the first line: ‘Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in the seat across the aisle was staring at him intently.’

“I hope you enjoy it, it’s very silly but we had a great time making it!”

My father continues his series on Memories of Malaya with an account of the renowned Victoria Institution.

He writes:

So the years came and went without any major mishaps: no illness or injuries to the body. However when I was in Standard two I had to be away from school for six months to have my right eye taken out because there was a growth inside it. I felt a little disorientated when I came back but I soon caught up with the work.

This school where I was is called the Pasar Road School together with another school called the Batu Road School in another part of the town were the feeder schools of the grand secondary school called the Victoria Institution which had boys from form one to form five and later to form six, lower and upper. These three schools in the town of Kuala Lumpur were government schools which meant that they were built, maintained and had teachers all paid for by the colonial government administering Malaya and the boys had to pay only a token fee per month and one could be exempted if the school was satisfied that one’s family could not afford it and if a family had two boys in the school, one was automatically exempted. Eventually our family had 3 boys in the school but because father was a medical doctor we did not claim this privilege. Although Pasar Road School and Batu Road School were feeder schools it did not mean that all the boys were automatically fed into the V.I. Form one of the V.I. could take only 200 boys; the total number of boys in the class before Form one in both the feeder schools amounted to 400. So this meant that fifty percent had to be eliminated by means of a common entrance examination set for both schools. Those who did not make it to the V.I. had to find either jobs or join trade schools. The common entrance examination was a vigorous one but I was extremely happy to have been placed fourth in the combined results of 400 boys.

So I had realized one of the aspirations of every school boy to be a student of the Victoria Institution (V.I.). The V.I. is set in the town of Kuala Lumpur which is the capital city of the state of Selangor as well as of Malaya. The school is a solid building of two storeys standing on a slight hill. It has a playing field the size of six football fields and it has a swimming pool which is unique for a school. It also had science laboratories and other schools would send their students there when they had to do sixth form science.

The British Colonial Administration in the 1850s found the educational facilities inadequate for a regular supply of junior grade administrative and clerical officers who had hitherto been recruited from India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The founding of a school was mooted. With the lead provided by a British Resident donations were collected from magnates of the three races to build the school. Most of them are still remembered by the names of the school houses.

The school was ready to take in students in July 1884. It was then in another location and being near a river it was continually flooded during the monsoon seasons. Eventually it was moved to the present location where it stands till today.

Photo: thanks to kelvolution from flickr.com (CCL)

memmlya

Ever been challenged by new technology? Well, this should make you feel better….

My source* tells me that the scroll gradually disappeared in favour of the codex between the second and fourth centuries. It was the Romans who first started to sewing together wax tablets for legal documents, gradually replacing the boards with parchment and thereby creating the objects that were the pre-cursor to the modern day book. The Christians really took to the codex, partly because it was cheaper than scrolls, more durable and allowed for numbered pages and a contents list which helped with accuracy when making copies, all important in a new religion.

*Ideas: A history from fire to Freud by Peter Watson

The following forms part of the book I am co-authoring with Silvia Cambie on New Trends in International Public Relations. This follows on from the sections on the Commercialization of the Web and Computers Get Personal, which I have also posted on this blog and my social media blog ZenGuide.co.uk.

The text is a verbatim section from the book and the links are set out at the bottom of this post as footnotes rather than embedded links. The text is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

Connection speed is the other significant factor in the online revolution. Connecting to the internet from the mid-1990s to around 2003 was generally via a dial-up modem and a telephone line. Connection speed was slow and the cost meant that most people used it for email primarily and only surfed during off-peak periods. For the average user, sustained video and audio interaction was practically impossible.

And then along came broadband.

The broadband story is similar across the globe, with the amount of take-up by consumers being directly linked to availability and cost. In 2002, broadband connection in the UK promising 40 times the connection speed of regular dial-up cost £55 a month, plus an additional set up fee and the cost of a broadband modem. By 2007, it was down to around £18 a month and became available nationally. By 2005, broadband connections outstripped dial-up and by 2007, 60% of UK households had broadband[i].

Across the European Union. 25% of all households were connected to the internet via broadband by 2006[ii]. In Asia (excluding Japan), a survey of internet usage in 2006 revealed that “broadband access continues to have a major impact on consumers lives” with the highest broadband usage being in Korea, closely followed by Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Th iland and China[iii].

In 2007, Hong Kong came top in a survey of the best cities in Asia for getting a broadband connection due to robust competition and web-enabled mobile phones[iv]. In India, the home broadband market is growing while internet café access is slowing, with 23 million home users accessing the internet via broadband during 2007[v]. In South Africa, business leaders and communicators there have indicated to us that the lack of cheap, universal broadband is a factor in the slow growth of online engagement.

When considering your web strategy across borders, it is crucial to assess the range and cost of internet connectivity not just for businesses but for personal users. But there are also other factors which are likely to be relevant, such as language and literacy. Take India, for example. We think of it as a country where English is universally spoken. It is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of the East, especially with tech-savvy, internationally well-known entrepreneurs like Sabeer Bhatia[vi] returning home to develop internet-based businesses over there. As we mentioned, growing personal affluence is enabling 23 million Indians to purchase computers for the home. But dig a little deeper and there are other factors in play that will be relevant for your communications strategy there. There are still just over 18 million internet café users, indicating that cost remains an issue. Also, for every Sabeer Bhatia, out of India’s of over 1 billion people, only 52 % are literate. And for those who can read, there is little online content available in India’s many local languages[vii].

It may be that you are only aiming to reach the population who can read and write English in their own homes, as they will be the most affluent and attractive target demographic. If so, then your web strategy may not look all that different from one for any other affluent, literate, English speaking market. But if you are aiming to reach those beyond that group, you may need to think beyond English or even text-based content – and perhaps beyond online communications to mobile outreach or you may have to stick to good old-fashioned travelling roadshows[viii].

In general across the globe, however, cheap, universal broadband has been a significant factor in evolving our relationship with the internet from the specialised domain of geeks to an always open window in our households that lets us reach out to the world out there. As we will see, in particular, there is a close correlation between the growth of broadband in the Asia-Pacific and the rise of social media engagement in that region, with a number of countries such as South Korea, China, Singapore and Malaysia topping the charts of worldwide blog readers and blog creators[ix].

Photo: thanks to Edward B. from flickr.com (CCL)

We’ve been re-watching that old series from the 1990s, Northern Exposure, where an urbane, young New York doctor finds himself stuck in small-town Alaska. It’s a classic fish-out-of-water story but with many twists and turns along the way as our expectations of the town and local people are confounded by surprises and moments of magic realism. I loved it when it first came out and I’ve been delighted to see that it has stood the test of time very well and still has us laughing out loud.

The one refrain of the hapless young protagonist, Joel Fleischman, is that he is the perfect catch for any girl in New York - he is a Jewish doctor from a good university and in his prime - and here he is stuck in the sticks where there are no women who appreciate his qualities. What is it about doctors that make them such a desired species in Jewish culture?

It’s like Chinese families - they have the same awe for doctors, too. Most sons get pushed into being doctors - and many daughters too. In my family, both my grandfathers were doctors and a number of uncles and aunts on both sides are doctors. There are lawyers, engineers, professors, too - but the pinnacle of ambition is being a doctor. What’s that all about?

I was under huge pressure to study medicine, notwithstanding that bodily fluids and signs of pain make me weak and wobbly. At school, we had to do an experiment about amino acids or something and the biology teacher and lab assistant had prepared for us beakers full of their saliva. I almost threw up on the spot. No way was I going to survive medical school - yet, for a time, I kidded myself - and my extended family - that I would study hard and get the science grades necessary to do a medical degree.

Well, that lasted all of five minutes.

I ended up reading English Lit before going to law school.

I am respected for being a lawyer, and a writer. But it’s not the same kind of awe that is reserved for doctors. For the Chinese, and also the Jewish community, having a doctor in the family is the ultimate achievement, it seems to me. It’s as much about the quality of the family as it is about the individual’s personal achievement - there is that sense of reflected glory that comes with being able to say, “My son is a doctor, you know.” And I have a sense it’s similar for Asian communities - I’m reminded of the Asian comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me where the two elderly Asian women sit and compete about their sons’ achievements. It seems to me these three communities value doctors much more highly than Anglo-Saxon communities. Why is that?

Is it about the healing magic? The money? The brains that it takes to get through medical school?

What’s your take on this cultural phenomenon?

Photo: thanks to happysnappr from flickr.com (CCL)

Is Jim flirting with Paul?

Following my post about the Commercialization of the Web on my social media blog ZenGuide.co.uk, which forms part of the book I am co-authoring with Silvia Cambie on New Trends in International Public Relations, here is the section from the book that outlines the rise of the personal computer. What fascinates me about the history of the Personal Computer (PC) is how it developed from a military machine to something that most of us need to function in the modern world today - and how that evolution has changed society and human culture across the world.

The text is a verbatim section from the book and the links are set out at the bottom of this post as footnotes rather than embedded links. The text is copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

Computers Get Personal

The evolution of technology is a mega-trend today that no business can ignore. A brief tour of the evolution of computers illustrates the importance of keeping your eye on technological developments.

In 1948, IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator, which was to calculate the position of the moon for the 1969 Apollo mission to the moon, took up floor space of 25 feet by 40 feet. In 1951, the computer for the US Census Bureau was one of the early commercial computers and it took up 943 cubic feet, selling at US $1million each plus US $185,000 for a high speed printer. By 1968, the cost of a computer was down to US $8,000 with Data General Corp’s Nova which was the size of small writing bureau.[i]

In 1975, the MITS Altair 8800 could be bought by computer hobbyists from Popular Electronics magazine for US $395 as a kit or US $495 pre-assembled[ii]. The next year, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created Apple 1, which sold at just over US $600[iii]. In 1981, Radio Shack’s TRS-82 Model III retailed for US $699. By now, computers were housed in boxes that could be used on a normal office desk and had the shape and set up that we are familiar with today. There is a screen and keyboard and a joystick for navigation. Software came via cassette tape, which was beginning to be replaced by the floppy drive. The data appeared as text or figures and there were no graphics. While available for consumer purchase, it was still the math and science geeks who were the main market demographic for these personal computers.

In 1984, the first Apple Macintosh appeared, with a graphical interface – ie the data could be accessed by activating icons on the screen and navigation was by way of a device called a “mouse”[iv]. At around the same time, Microsoft released the first version of Windows, its own graphical interface sitting on top of MS-DOS, the text-based version of Microsoft software used by most computer manufacturing companies at that time, including IBM and Compaq[v].

By the mid-1990s, you were also getting more bang for your buck when it came to computer processing chips with Intel unveiling its Pentium chip at under US $1,000[vi]. While business and industry had been using computers for decades, plummeting costs, greater processing power and increased ease of use meant that for the first time, it made sense for the public to buy a computer for personal use. People were becoming used to computers from their work environment. It was a natural transition to getting a computer for home use. PCs, as personal computers soon came to be called, were also fun – computer games loaded by CD-ROM became a serious contender to TV-based consoles in 1994[vii]. With PCs arriving in many homes bundled with Internet Explorer for access to the internet, Outlook Express for email and a host of other useful (eg Calendar, Paint and CD-ROMs packed with dictionaries and encyclopedias) and not-so-useful applications (eg Minesweeper and Solitaire games), our personal relationship with our home computers as a source of productivity, fun, information and communication truly began.

In 1995, there were 50 million personal computers sold globally.[viii] By 2000, computer sales in China alone were growing faster than any market in the world, with 4.1 million PCs bought in that one country during the second quarter[ix]. Now in the first decade of the 21^st century, there are over 257 million personal computers sold worldwide[x] and sales are likely to increase over the next few years, in particular of laptops and other mobile computing equipment as affordability, performance and wireless access improve. Gartner, the IT consultants, calculate that emerging markets made up 70% of the growth in overall computer sales and projected that laptop sales during 2008 would grow by 11%. They are confident that a looming global recession would not slow sales[xi]. Experts elsewhere in the industry also seem to agree that mobile computing will bring the next wave of growth for the sector. Loren Loverde, the Director of data firm IDC’s PC Tracker, says, “It will be increasingly important for PC vendors to have a strong portable offering to stay competitive as the market continues its rapid shift to mobile computing.”[xii]

It took 30 years for computers to evolve from military and government use via business and industry to become affordable for a limited geek market, with prices dropping from US $1,000,000 to stabilise around US $700. But from the 1970s onwards, major developments in processing power, size and ease of use surged ahead in leaps and bounds. And with each technological leap and bound, we adapted the way we communicate, relate and work. Even as some businesses are only now thinking about getting their first website (and there are quite a few of those still around), the market is already surging ahead towards online social media and mobile communications. For anyone engaged in business nowadays, it is critical to keep one eye on the latest technological and communications advances if you don’t want to be left behind.

I’m pleased to report that my article about Blogging for the Finance Sector is being included as a chapter in The Handbook of Internal Communication, edited by Marc Wright of simply-communicate.com, which will be published by Gower on 6 June 2008.

The article is a case study of THFC Space, the online discussion space which I created and currently edit in my day job at The Housing Finance Corporation. The site uses blogging software (Wordpress) and is members only space for senior housing finance professionals to discuss finance related issues relevant to the social housing sector. Wordpress is well-suited to being styled and designed as an online magazine with the opportunity for reader comments while allowing multi-media items to be uploaded easily.

Do check out the article and if you know of any other finance related blogs, please add a comment here with a link.