Molecularist

Seth brings up something that I’ve been saying for a long time, but from a different perspective. He talks about being in a local high and having to go through a low to get to a larger high.

As a scientist, we always talk about equations finding the minima – the place where the parameter of the equation are optimized. But, some parameter combinations may exist that are wrong, but optimize on a local minima, meaning that somewhere else there is a better minima, maybe even the global minima.

In regression analysis parlance we used to say that we had to add energy to the equation solving to get us out of the incorrect local minima, over a bunch of local maxima (where the parameter do not want to be), to find the global maxima.

To make it simpler, think of it as one of those ball games where you need to get all the balls into the right holes – you give the game a shake to get the ball out of the wrong holes and into the right ones.

All this to me was basically to tell folks that we might be stuck in a comfortable minima and unless we add our energy to the system, we will never know if it is the optimal minima.

Eh, don’t know if that makes sense, so maybe you should go read Seth.

Link: Seth’s Blog: Understanding Local Max.

My guess is that you’ve been wrestling with your Local Max.

Link: The Impact of "Ambient Findability".

Intelligence is moving to the edges, flowing through wireless devices, empowering individuals and distributed teams. Ideas spread like wildfire, and information is in the air, literally. And yet with this wealth of instantly accessible information, we still experience disorientation. We still wander off the map.

How do we make decisions in the information age? How do we know enough to ask the right questions? How do we find the best product, the right person, the data that makes a difference?

In Ambient Findability, Morville searches for the answers in the strange connections among social software, semantic webs, evolutionary psychology and interaction design. And, he explains how the journey from push to pull is changing not only the rules of marketing and design, but also the nature of authority and the destination of our culture.

Sorry for only posting links that I find most relevant here (more general links in the left sidebar), but I’ve been using up my brain waves for other things. More later.

I’ve been asking folks for a long time: how can the mobile enhance the PC experience and vice-versa.

I’ve seen many examples of SMS from PC to phone, such as bookmarks. Here’s some more info from the Primate.

Link: The Pondering Primate: A New Opportunity For SMS?.

This opens up some possibilities. SMS service that ties the PC and the cellphone for instant messaging.

Excellent thoughts.

Link: The Pondering Primate: Should WalMart Be Afraid Of Google?.

The simple answer… YES.

This is a great story. I’ve highlighted the goodies. An online advertising company that now threatens numerous Fortune 500 companies. Who said the Internet was a just a fad?

I spent the previous week in San Francisco meeting some really smart folks. One thing I did was listen closely to what they were doing and what they wanted to achieve.

Of course, my mind was in ‘mobile’ mode, so I kept asking if we, Nokia, provided any value if these guys were already so web proficient and could easily (at least to me) mobilize their services.

The answer, that surprised me, was that we have a much better idea as to what mobile device users do, better access to user and market information, and better understanding of the technologies involved. In contrast, most small web companies do not have the resources to learn all this stuff that we take for granted, and they fear spending money and time on a project that looks good by is seriously faulted.

Jan Chipchase is part of a group at Nokia that does this cool research and analysis into behavior. Check out his site for interesting insights into how and why people do what they do.

Link: Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect: Why do People Carry Mobile Phones?.

Why do people carry phones?
Why do people carry what they carry?
And if we can understand why, how can we use this knowledge in the design of future products, applications and services?