Odds and Ends of Week

Evert Bopp is following up on his idea for a co-working space in Ireland. Eirpreneur uses Twitter to have a virtual watercooler for teleworkers. Bernie Goldback does the Sunday Papers via Qik, the instant video solution from your smart phone. Oh Yeah, and Ireland gives James Enck some serious link love around his return to the world of Blogging, and being "cutdown in subprime". So what's it all about?

Well in a way there are some fairly big themes going on here and they have to do with broadband, broadband availability, and the impact of this on work patterns and social communications. From ip-networks to social networks, if you will. I have to admit that I am more than a little interested in how people can maintain social networks, and business networks through a combination of online conversation, webinars, and physical presence. Ken Thompson calls it 3 types of network dialogs "Getting Things Done, Grooming, and Emoting", and a viable network has to have all three to be sustainable.

I've been around a few years now, and I think that I've found that particular people can be great networkers, but it is so very very hard to extend that capability to groups, and to organizations as a whole. Yet, everywhere we look the researchers are telling us that "open innovation", "networked organisations", "virtual organisations", are the future of our global economy.  Cisco have put very big bets on just this kind of social change and collaboration (thus their purchase of webex).

I'd love to hear of great examples of these virtual networks. How far do people have to be apart for it to fall over? Is it iterative or or are they like the may fly that dies once its purpose is completed?

For my book, I am watching the guys around Twitterphone with great glee, (www.maxroam.com, www.dial2do.com, www.zong.com). What I love about it is that for a relatively small amount of money, three players were able to get together and make a big bang in the world of early adopers. Perhaps it isn't the belly of the whale, but its on its tale, and its making it way.... "press 2 to talk to the whale".