MashedPotato Tech

Like a lot of people in the tech world, I try to read a variety of publications (both online and physical versions) to keep up with what is going on in the dizzying world of technology. Recently, I read a great article in a recent issue of Wired entitled Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up . This article explains in some detail, with examples, the problem of 'failure blindness' in scientific research. This phenomenon causes scientists and researchers to ignore anomalies in their results they didn't expect, which are therefore categorized as 'failures'. The article goes on to state that one of the best ways of overcoming this bias is to involve other people from outside of your immediate speciality in discussions about your results. For me, this triggered the thought process of why it's important to encourage participation in your communities (Open Source or internal) from folks on the periphery of your project - non-specialists who have somethin...

I've seen a lot of information recently in social media spaces and RSS feeds I follow that portends a bit of a change in the way people approach social media, and the inevitable ' information overload ' we've all heard so much about. A lot of people compare today's information environment to a stream, and I think that's a very apt analogy. There are two primary ways that people seem to be reacting to this glut of information: more filtering or scaling back who they attempt to have 'relationships' with online. I honestly believe the answer to this dilemma is to incorporate both approaches. In a nutshell, the way I've always approached 'social media' is to remember first and foremost, it's about people and relationships, not about how high you can drive your Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, or Facebook follower count. It's also important to utilize tools to help you filter out the most important pieces of information. One of the most...

'Community Management' is a hot topic, & a hot job field , but I think it's important to articulate that it's not a role which should be approached as a 'job'. What do I mean by that? Community Management should NOT be: A role you 'settle' for because you can't do other things Something you do as an ancillary part of your 'real job' Something you get into 'because it's hot right now' A position that you can perform in isolation, without constant upgrading of your skills/knowledge I've talked in the past about what kinds of skill sets I believe are necessary to be an effective community manager, and as I thought about my own career path, I realized that early on in my community management career, I considered myself an engineer doing community management, whereas I now think of myself as a community manager with an engineering background. It is a subtle, yet hugely important difference - one that allows me to draw on a...

There has been a lot of drum beating of late on the topic of the increasing irrelevance of Open Source licensing, & the loudest drummers seem to be Tim O'Reilly & Matt Asay . Matt's recent blog post touches on some great points in this discussion, not the least of which is: "The real value in open-source software is no longer the software, but rather the resultant services that are delivered over the Web" This is spot on, and we (the industry) need to move beyond the 'licensing hiccup' that seems to permeate every conversation we have around Open Source (especially in government & enterprise). While I'll preface my statements with the standard disclaimer of ' IANAL ', for 'community source', or ' innersourcing ' discussions, I think that everyone gets way too wound around the axle on what the license is, and the relative merits of each possible alternative. I completely agree with Matt's point about the licenses ...

Like many Americans, I tried to keep today, Memorial Day 2009, focused on those who have served (and continue to serve) in our armed forces. Whatever your political leanings, I think we can all agree that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to those brave men and women to put their lives (and their family's livelihoods) on the line everyday. So, what does this have to do with technology, Open Source, and social media? Given that I'm helping create a new initiative ( Forge.mil ) to enable those building technology for our troops do so in a more efficient manner, I think there is a strong connection. It should go without saying that our armed forces deserve the absolute best technology to help accomplish their mission and keep them safe. I'm heartened by the fact that technologies and methodologies that we in the consumer space take for granted are now starting to be accepted in the Department of Defense as the most expedient way to help build out the tech that our warfigh...

There is nothing quite like the sound of a very insistent police officer knocking on your door/ringing your doorbell at 5 am on a Thursday. No, for those of you wondering, they weren't there to serve a warrant or arrest me. :) As it turns out, we had a MAJOR outage of communications service in the South County area of the California Bay Area. Specifically, the towns of Morgan Hill (where I live), Gilroy , and part of South San Jose were all completely isolated from a communications perspective. No E911 services, no long distance (calls within the local telephone central office would go through sporadically), and no cell phones. Basically, back to the 'good old days' (or at least the simpler times). The friendly police officer was at my door to fetch me as one of the leaders of our volunteer emergency response team since there was literally no other way to activate our team. I serve on both the Amateur Radio Emergency Services team ( ARES ) and the Community Emerg...

The concept of a 'back-channel' during presentations, meetings, classes and similar events has been around for a while (the analog version was called 'passing notes', and who knows, maybe even the cavemen did that during boring recitations on hunting/gathering strategy :)). The modern equivalents started with email, but now even that quaint old service is derided as 'too slow' in the world of instant messaging, and more recently, Twitter . There are two types of back-channel - private (usually in instant messaging), and public (Twitter). I know very few people who don't utilize the former during long conference calls (especially if they are with clients, and you need to address something that came up during the call privately with a colleague). This can be a huge advantage if someone can go off and get an answer/research an issue while the call continues. I can easily see a role for junior-level associates to perform this function, as I think it makes go...