The Blogpost of Awesome

 A book recently became a best seller on the New York Times infamous list, by stating some well-known truths, of what we in the Western World consider to be “Awesome”.   Everyday things that just rock, from the smell of a camp fire, to passing through a door just as it’s closing, just all round wicked to be alive type things.

With that in mind, there is a growing list of things that connected culture has also contributed to the species of wickedus-awesomus.

Being safe – Guardly

I’ve never called 911. Ever.  I grew up thinking that pressing those three buttons on the phone was insanely scary, and would probably lead to me getting grounded.  As a suburbanite, my experience with the police in my teen years involved getting traffic tickets, and being told to “go home, the party’s been shut down.”  As a result, I never built up a trust factor with the boys in blue.  When things went bad, I always have, and to this day, rely on my personal network of family, friends and colleagues to deal with things.   Enter Guardly, an app that does this for you, but also includes the pros, and does it faster than you can type “ help, I’m lost at wonderland and I think the Cookie Monster has his eye on me”.  The power of leveraging your network for safety, well that’s awesome.

Knowing how your doing – Rypple

We grew up playing collecting coins and saving princesses with Mario, scoring goals and winning titles in NHL on Sega, and collecting manna or whatever it is they do on World of Warcraft…my point is, we like the gratification of receiving rewards for good performance.   Yet, we enter the professional world, and we get an annual review.  Once a year, do we get a chance to know if we’re stomping goomba’s or if we should let Luigi get a turn.   Enter Rypple, a performance management company that allows employees to earn rewards based on performance in real time.   Knowing your goals, and having the incentives to hit them on a micro level appeals to that gamer in all of us, and is, in a word – awesome.

Seeing how you’re connected  - inMaps

“ I know a guy”.  Ya, we all do.   Being able to refer someone you trust, or finding out that you actually know the person who possesses the skill your looking for is a huge bonus.  But actually being able to tap into who you know that is unique from others’ networks can be a difficult task.  Enter inMaps, a tool within linked in that makes it clear as day as to what your network looks like.   While at first glance it looks like one of those super weak Spirographs, its taking your Rolodex, brain and professional experience and putting it into a visually immersed and accessible display.   So in the words of the Jersey Shore it’s Aue-sum.

When old meets New

This morning, in Augusta Georgia, William Porter “Billy” Payne

The face of progress?

, the 6th chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, in took the opportunity to address the media about the upcoming 75th Masters Golf Tournament.

When you think of The Masters, you generally have images of deep south tradition, an “Old Boys club”, unspoiled, restrictive, and the feeling of exclusivity. What you generally don’t think of are things like “Internet, Smartphone, IPad, and New Media”. Well, today, Mr. Payne focused his message on how Augusta National, yes, the Wonder of the World on Magnolia Lane, is embracing technology, and their leadership group says they may actually be the leader among the major golf championships with regards to allowing fans at home to “capture the essence of being at Augusta”.

The Masters will be providing access to tournament coverage in a variety of emerging mediums that will have a distinctly social element to it.

They don’t just have a site --> They have a great site powered by IBM. Checking out their site, you immediately get taken for an HD ride down historic 18, I got shivers, I can’t wait to send to my Dad, this thing is going to suck up hours of his life he'll never get back.  And, what's exciting for us normal folk, for the first time in the tournaments history, tickets for tournament play will be available  online (for the 2012 tournament).

Is there an app for that? Yup. Billy (who is a southerner through and through, and pronounces amateur with a southern drole “Amatoor”) says the mandate comes from the concept of the original founders that events do not stand still, but either get better or worse. Thus the decision to take the Masters mobile. So if you have a Sunday afternoon lunch or you’re caught at some event that takes you away from the TV, you can still tap into the 9 live video streams. Billy even said Android, and called it an “immersive experience".

And then there’s the Ipad App. With streaming video, interviews, live leaderboard, live updates and more, this captures what Payne says was their attempt to integrate the simplicity of Augusta and the “messiness” of the internet, into something that is uncluttered, yet Immense in substance and beauty”

Just when I thought ol’ Billy had done all we could to impress me, he spoke about the decision to allow for Augusta to be included in video games for the first time. “Video games are a popular form of entertainment, and our involvement just may, inspire greater appreciation to golf, and further participation”.

Couple all of this with the fact that leading golf journalists from Robert Thompson, to Alan Shipnuck, to Lorne Rubenstein will be blogging, tweeting and keeping us engaged through social media and it adds up to the Masters, yes the Master’s, as the potential to push the frontier of how the casual golf fans experiences a major tournament,

In 2011, even the quintessential, unchanging tradition of the Masters recognizes that digital, social and mobile media is to be embraced, and that with an integrative approach can be done well, not just done big and loud.  To quote the Chairman, I think all of these developments signal a direction for the tournament that “ Is pretty doggone good”.

Ensuring a Market for Ideas

With an announcement that Nortel will be selling off it's patent library, While it is strange for many to witness what was once formidable player in telecom reduced to it’s final asset, R+D patents, it begs the question of whether this is the most effective use of R+D patents of “expired” companies.

The patents will provide a stream of revenue to the eventual owner, and in some cases, innovative companies may be able to leverage patents for commercialization and push the scientific frontier. These patents will also be purchased to ensure new comers can be barred entry by incumbents. Essentially, with the price tag set to go in the Billions, regardless of their intended use, incumbent leaders seem to be the only ones able to acquire them and will leverage them as a way to protect market share.

The patent system was not designed for this reason. It is meant to maximize the potential for novel idea creation and materialization through the understanding for researchers, entrepreneurs, and risk takers that their new ideas will be protected. The clearing house auction of Nortel’s patents suggests that they maybe used for just the opposite – stifle the ability of the entrepreneur to take the risk in the first place. This is the crux of the argument put forth by leading professors in idea creation.

This concept applies to connected culture, as many of the greatest strides over the last 10 years have taken place in dorms, research labs, incubators and startup events. With entrants having faith that their patents would protect them, and incumbents like Oracle, Ebay, Intel and especially Google, encouraging independent innovation through cooperation or even acquisition allowed for an open paradigm and an effective market for ideas. Had R+D been used as a weapon to protect market share, than as an opportunity to change the way we communicate and create, you might not be reading this right now. At time when the telecom industry is facing an alarming shortage of talent, and seeing the talent pool undergo a significant shift, the market for ideas needs to be used for it’s intended purposes, and not as a corporate fence for an exclusive gated community. ,

Hopefully, with enough champions of innovation leading the charge at industry leading incumbent firms, we can see that come to fruition.

The Denim of Social Media

There's a wise saying that goes, " In a Gold Rush, you want to be a Levi Strauss" . When the crowds are rushing in to a certain area, you don't just want to join the pack, but find out what the crowd needs, and fill that void. In Strauss' case, he was able to outfit the hordes of Gold Rushers with good quality denim jeans.

Today's flood of attention, investment and time spent on social media begs the question of who and what will be the Levi Strauss and bluenotes of the current rush on social gold.

The need for investors, users and entrepreneurs seems to be that "blackbox" for actually measuring the success of social campaigns and tools. While companies like radian6, matchstick and Facebook (with insights), among others, each possess their own solutions for analyzing social success, it still remains an elusive, and mysterious process, at least to the average on-looker.

The company or innovators that can bring these metrics to the casual observer, the small business under, the brand manager and finally the investor, will, in my opinion have a solution for the masses rushing in to social enterprises, that is worth it's weight in...denim.