Writing for life

Published in the Wow! supplement of The Evening Echo

Technology does a lot of things to make our lives easier. Every day we use our mobile phones, our computers, ATMs, credit card machines, POS systems (or computerised “tills” to you and me) digital television systems that automatically record the programmes we like… without tapes. The list goes on and on and on, and everything is talking to everything else over myriad global communications networks.

(image by Homer Township Public Library)

If you think about it for too long your brain would starts to sizzle gently in your cranium… but that’s okay, because you tend not to. Most of us aren’t that interested in how it all works… we’re just happy that it does, because all of this digital wizardry makes our our lives just a little bit easier, allowing us to squeeze more into our busy lives. There are times though, when technology makes life harder, and that can be especially true for parents.

Why? Because technology is everywhere and our children are often better at using it, and embrace it more readily than we do. Mobile phones and the internet are obvious examples… while many parents struggle to understand them, to the children of today they’ve become practically second nature. That’s worrying on lots of levels – but mostly because it means we’re incapable of keeping up with them… let alone keeping track of them.

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This week’s Career Moves is a bit interwebby, so I’ve posted it over on Digital Marketing Success instead of here.

It’s the first in a series of articles I’m doing for the Evening Echo on using the internet for market research when setting up/growing a small business.

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Published in the Evening Echo 21/04/2008

Telecommuting, remote working, working from home… call it what you will, the whole concept of working out of the office is an alluring one. The technology that enables remote working – a decent internet connection, mobile computing and mobile digital communications devices – is starting to become practically ubiquitous in our lives, bringing the prospect of remote working out of the realm of fantasy, and making it a very real possibility for many.

If you work on a computer, then you can do pretty much everything you normally do at work sitting at your desk at home (or even in your local coffee shop, if you prefer). Liberating yourself from the shackles that bind you to the office desk isn’t complicated or costly any more – but does demand very careful consideration. Ditching the daily commute, traffic jams and office politics may appear idyllic, but it’s not always the panacea it promises to be. Remote working comes with its own set of problems, in their own way every bit as challenging as those you’ll find in an office environment.

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“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 24/03/2008

I’ve published this week’s Working It column — a review of the Internet Marketing seminar “Getting Results in Online Marketing” by Praxis Now — to my Digital Marketing blog, because the subject matter fits.

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“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 17/03/2008

I’ve started using LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) a sort of grown-up social network for business contacts. It’s kind of like the business world’s equivalent to Facebook and MySpace, but it’s serious stuff – no Vampires, no throwing sheep, no movie quizzes and no posting embarrassing photos of your friends for all the world to see. LinkedIn may be an online social network, but it’s all strictly above board.

The reason I mention it is that, though I’ve had the account for quite a while, I only started to use it last week. I uploaded by e-mail address book into it and hey presto, it found loads of people in my contact list who were also on LinkedIn. Great… I invited the ones I actually knew to connect to my network. Some of them even accepted. Wonderful. I looked at my profile. There was nothing in it.

I needed to dig out what I’d been doing over the years, and when… now, where was I going to find that sort of information? Certainly not in the sieve like contraption that serves as my memory. Oh yes… it would be on my CV: that long neglected document languishing somewhere in the bowels of my hard drive.

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I’ve just posted a piece about “Reality Mining” on my digital marketing blog. From a marketing perspective it opens up all sorts of options. From a consumer and privacy point of view, I don’t know….

I’m not really comfortable with the concept that my phone will be better than my friends and family at diagnosing depression.

How about the fact that using data from your mobile analysts will be able to predict exactly who you’re going to meet, and even on which day of the week you’re going to meet them.

Yikes!

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I was intrigued to read this week that UK scientists are developing a technique to coat the steel sheets used in fabrication of industrial buildings with a solar powered paint which could, theoretically, result in warehouses whose entire surface area could convert solar energy into electricity.

Steel sheets are painted rapidly in steel mills by passing them through rollers. A consortium led by Swansea University, UK, hopes to use that process to cover steel sheets with a photovoltaic paint at up to 40 square metres per minute.

The paint will take advantage of dye-sensitised solar cells. They’re less efficient than conventional silicone based cells, but are also much cheaper, and can be applied to surfaces as a liquid.

“We should see a commercial cell in two-and-a-half years,” Dr David Worsley, leader of the Swansea team, told New Scientist.

There are still plenty of obstacles to overcome — but it’s an intriguing technology with potentially enormous global potential for harnessing the sun’s energy.

Technorati Tags: Environment,solar-power paint,New Scientist,climate change

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“Working it” column published in the Career Moves section of The Evening Echo on 18/02/2008

After years of waiting I finally got hooked up to a broadband internet connection just before Christmas. I was over the moon. No more clunky dialup, no more dropped lines, no more waiting around for sites to load, no more being tethered to the phone line when I wanted to check my e-mail.

I was delighted with my 1Mb/sec fixed wireless connection – at last I could experience what this much touted “Web 2,0” had to offer. Then my wife’s sister and her family, who live in France, came to visit for New Year. I was waxing lyrical about the joys of my new broadband connection, when her partner took the wind from my sails. He told me that in France they enjoyed a 24Mbit/sec unlimited download connection for just €15 per month. My contract, for something 1/24^th of the speed with a download cap of 15GB, costs me more than twice that at €37.50… and it’s the only game in town.

Suddenly my enthusiasm began to wane.

When I couldn’t get broadband I was complaining about lack of availability. Now I have it I’m relieved… but not satisfied. Why should we have to endure sub-standard connectivity compared to our European neighbours, especially when the Irish government is touting this country as a centre of technology excellence, and harbours ambitions to become a leading light in Europe’s emerging “knowledge economy”?

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Published in the WOW! supplement of the Evening Echo 06/02/2008

I’m a digital immigrant.

Yes I embrace technology: I have a mobile smart-phone with built in WiFi, I use a computer for long periods every day, I do much of my work from home via e-mail and the Internet, I use Skype, I recently set up a Facebook account, and when I need to look something up Google is my first port of call. I’d say that makes me pretty connected… but in an increasingly wired world I’ll never quite fit in.

I’m a hybrid – spanning the divide between generations – understanding both of them, but never truly belonging to either.

In the ’70s, when I was a child, computers were hulking great things that occupied entire wings of universities and needed their own power stations. Today they’re a small, self contained hub for communication, productivity and entertainment. Computers are everywhere: in your car, in your fridge, in your toaster, in your music player and in your wristwatch. Pretty soon they’ll even be able to put computers in your clothes!

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At the IT@Cork Technology in Business conference last week, a fantastic day was rounded off perfectly when my name was drawn at the end-of-conference drinks reception and I walked away the proud new owner of a HP iPAQ Voice Messenger Smartphone.

The HP iPAQ 514 voice messenger — so much more than just a phone

First impressions are great — it crams a fully functional Windows Mobile 6.0 pocket PC into a package that’s no bigger than your average mobile phone, and with WiFi and Bluetooth onboard, VoIP capability, and support for push e-mail, POP3 and IMAP it’s got everything you need stay productive on the road.

I’ll post a more detailed review when I’ve had chance to play with it — but up to now I’m delighted with it. I was thinking of upgrading my clunky old Nokia anyway — and this, as they say, will do nicely.

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