FiberGeneration

The Big Biz 3.0 Picture

Because everything * Web 2.0 For The Customer * is in there, here is Patricia Seybold' s Biz 3.0 again.
There is no priority list, as every single 'principle' is as critical as the others. Keep in mind : customer relationships is a constant, open loop.

   

Back On Opera

After a few weeks with Safari 3.0 beta, then with Camino 1.5, I'm using Opera again as my primary browser.
Safari 3 is a neat piece of software but still in beta, which causes far too many hassles in daily use (e.g. incompatibility with some websites). Camino is far better than Firefox, lighter/faster/slimmer but it gets screwed by all those Java/Ajax/Flash stuff that are embedded into each and every modern (read : Web 2.0) website.
So, as long as Leopard is not released (my guess is that Safari 3 is optimized for Intel' Macs running Leopard, not for PowerPC under Tiger), I'll continue to switch from one browser to another. Waiting for Opera 9.5 beta, scheduled within the next couple of weeks.

Note to all modern browsers developpers : a nice feature to add to the Import-Export menu would be the 'Session Recovery' import/export.
Example : when I get stuck with, say, Camino, I kill it and start a new session with another app, for instance Safari. In this case, I'd like to be able to automatically recover all the windows and tabs which were opened last time on Camino, so I don't have to look into the history file.
Of course, I do have a kind of default set of windows/tabs on every browser I use, such as my Netvibes and GoogleReader feeds pages, my TypePad, etc. But, as I do surf the Web, I do open pages which are not in this default set. When there's a crash, only the session recovery will save me time to open those pages again.
I know I can record my sessions using some online tracking tools, but I want to keep some privacy (ever heard of business intelligence ?...), hence the need for a local yet universal piece of software on my PC - er, on my Mac ;-)

Private Message 2d Edition

To my unknown reader from Eningen : please don't hesitate to give me a call !

Enterprise 2.0 vs. Biz 3.0

There is an ongoing discussion all over the Internet about the impact of the Web 2.0 technologies onto the internal mechanisms and behaviors of the enterprise. Of course, the tagline is Enterprise 2.0.
To get the flavor, read those detailed articles here and here, and watch the slideshow created by Scott Gavin here.

For all mind-opening or comprehensive those works are, there is one big yet crucial mistake done by their authors : they completely forget the customer. The client. The guy who pays you for the service you offered to him. In summary, the guy who makes your business.

Patricia Seybold, author of Outside Innovation, has it right : " our customers lead us beyond a customer-empowered Web strategy to a customer outcome-driven business strategy ".
Her article "WHAT’S BEYOND WEB 2.0 AND ENTERPRISE 2.0? BIZ 3.0!" is a must-read for those of you who want to understand what Web 2.0 can real bring out to your business, today, and tomorrow.

See the table Patricia has created to summarize her thoughts (and mine ! thanks to... the Wbe 2.0, I don't have to do it myself ;-). It's all in there.

Put the customer at the center of your enterprise flow chart instead of somewhere at the right hand side, and you'll be ready for the Biz 3.0 era. Which will come pretty soon, when one knows how quickly the Web 2.0 has changed our daily lives.

This Is A Poor Poor World

Another SocialNetworking/Community/Rating site went live last week : FriendChart. You might guess from the name : it's about rating your friends. The level zero of the Web 2.0 (and Humanity), IMHO. When "BigBrother" meets the Internet.
The design says it all : it's just crap. To learn more about it, read this article on C/Net.

post-scriptum : I created an account (under my real name, as usual when testing a new site) on FriendChart, because you actually can't browse the site without signing up. A very smart way to get plenty of subscribers, and then go to investors...

Study: Wind power soared in 2006

The wind power industry made big strides last year, reports Jennifer Guevin for C|Net

15,200 megawatts of new wind turbines were installed around the world last year, representing a 26 percent jump in global wind power capacity, according to the Worldwatch Institute' study released yesterday.

By year's end, total wind power capacity exceeded 74,200 megawatts, enough to offset 43 million tons of carbon dioxide, the institute said.

Germany, Spain and the United States are currently the world's top wind power producers, putting out 60 percent of the global total, but the report says the alternative energy winds are shifting eastward. India and China were No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, in a list of countries installing new wind turbines. Senior Researcher Janet Sawin predicts the U.S. and China will compete for the top spot in window power output in the coming years.

More details from the report at the Worldwatch Institute's Web site here

Just This (20.07)

Ed. note : this photo just because the very first time I saw this house, back in 1991, I had the strange feeling that she and me have something to do together. 16 years after later, it should be time do really do something about it ;-)

post-scriptum : I then was visiting the wonderful Bicycle Odyssey in Sausalito, California.

See this post's geographical context.
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The Next Big One More Thing

According to Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer at yesterday's financial earnings report, " there will be a product transition [he] can't get into."
So, the Mac-iPod-iPhone maker is up to something. My take is that the actual iPhone is the first item of a brand new product line, aimed at mobile communications. Obviously, I'm not the only one on that ;-)

Pro. Go. Whoa.

Apple now worth more than Hewlett-Packard.

post-scriptum : to understand why this title, go here.

Behind the Web 2.0 door

Someone came visiting FiberGeneration this morning, looking apparently for " The Light Fantastic " or something. As usual, I followed the link to her own blog. This guy don't speak about technology or global warming (at least not in the Al Gore sense ;-), so I won't insert hyperlink...
Quickly going thru the sidebars, my curiosity drove me to this site *. The Web will never stop amaze me.

* no adult content, at least not on the front page but I didn't go further, granted !

About Web 2.0 and Telecoms

Web 2.0 in 2007, a (quite old) funny note from Ray Redactophobia Scott Raynovich, Editor 2.0 (sic), Light Reading. So true.

Telcos Face a Web 2.0 Identity Crisis : Identity management technology will give telcos a valuable mechanism for customer retention – unless next-gen competitors beat them to it.

Why Telcos Need Web 2.0, the presentation of LightReading' report " Telco Web 2.0 Mashups: A New Blueprint for Service Creation ".

Private Message

To the unknown Test & Measurement fellow who recently searched for " Web 2.0 test measurement " on Google.de : Sie können mich jederzeit anrufen ;-)

ps : funny, I was to work with JDSU, Eningen, Germany, two years ago.

Working On The Next Big Thing ? Watch Your Kids

Some years ago at a Customers Seminar organized by Agilent Technologies, right in the middle of the Bubble tornado, the keynote speech was held by one of the key executives at UK telco BT (sorry, don't remember his name nor his actual job). We were in the early 2000, and the guy was telling us that the next big thing in mobile communications was going to be SMS, MMS, and IM messaging. Heck, the iPhone was still a dream, my Ericsson was featuring a 2-colors 2-lines liquid crystal display (well, you know what I mean), and MySpace was just the name of one of my directories on my PC...
BT found out that teenagers were to be the largest group of cell phones users, spending their time to chat with their friends all day (and night) long.
Almost all of us in the audience were kind of dubitative : no way the kids were to become so IM-addict that they would spend hours typing on their cell phones. Well, six years after, BT was right, and we were wrong.
That's why this article is a must-read for all of us working on changing the World. Its title : "Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead.". Got it, folks ?

About Innovation In Fiber Optics Technology

Japan Telco & R&D leader NTT was the first to come on the market with a new type of fiber aimed at Fiber-To-The-Home easy deployments. That is due to the fact that FTTH roll out started earlier in Japan than in the US. The question is : how about Europe, and France especially ? Local Telcos and ISPs seem not to be concerned by technics, and the local fiber optics industry has been almost wiped out after the crash, back in the early 2000's. So, no industry, no innovation, no innovation, no more industry. Time to do something, Mr President !

Why FTTH helps vendors to innovate

Worldwide leader Corning announced a breakthrough optical fiber technology, performing over 100 times better than standard fibers. The N.Y.-based fiber maker worked closely with Verizon to resolve FTTH installation challenges.

"This is a game-changing technology for telecommunications applications," said Peter F. Volanakis, president and chief operating officer at Corning. "We have developed an optical fiber cable that is as rugged as copper cable but with all of the bandwidth benefits of fiber. By making fundamental changes in the way light travels in the fiber, we were able to create a new optical fiber that is over 100 times more bendable than standard fibers." Corning's newest fiber technology achieves this while maintaining compatibility with industry performance standards, existing manufacturing processes and installation procedures. "So, customers don't have to sacrifice one benefit to get another," he said.

Now, the need for trained outside plant technicians is a bit less critical. The only issue still to be resolved : testing...

Fibre in the Last Mile in Europe

About broadband access : " Fibre in the Last Mile in Europe ", the recent report from Frost & Sullivan, published: 9 July, 2007.
F&S claims fibre-to-the-home deployments reached over 2.5 million homes in 2006 and estimates this to reach over 14.0 million in 2012.
There's still business to do in Fiber Optics ;-)

iPhone apps : imagination beyond boundaries

The SW Developers community was kind of disappointed when Apple decided not to set up a SDK software development kit for the iPhone, preferring to enable third-parties Web applications using Safari, Apple's Web browser (which, by one of the smartest à-la-Sun Tzu moves ever, also runs on MS Windows now). An offense to all the guys used to think VisualBasic...

Just a couple of weeks after the release of the iPhone, the first apps were popping up everywhere on the Net, and new concepts emerged, to overcome the limits fixed by Apple.

Among several other interesting stuff, there is one idea which seems to be a real killer : Storing iPhone apps locally with data URLs. It opens the door for amazing vertical applications for professionals - I can't wait putting my hands on an iPhone and create a fiber testing solution on it ;-)

To better understand the tremendous possibilities offered by Apple's latest gadget, read this article on MacDailyNews, official press release from Heart Imaging Technologies here.

Still sticking to VisualBasic, anyone ?

FiberGeneration featured on the Wall Street Journal (online ;-)

The BlogoSphere will never stop surprising me. FiberGeneration is listed in an online article published... March 28, 2006 (no typo ;-) by Leila Abboud. Read : " How France Became A Leader in Offering Faster Broadband " here, and go to end to find the link to this post.

Mapping The World

Searching for information on the Global Information Grid, I found this awesome/mind-opening/think-out-of-the-box article : "Network Maps, Energy Diagrams : Structure and Agency in the Global System", by Brian Holmes.
Holmes describes current researches aimed at mapping networks of all kinds, from the obvious Internet to illegal sea-going immigration routes to pedestrians' s everyday itineraries in Amsterdam.

To document its very detailed yet comprehensive explanations of the background and applications, Holmes links to lots of websites which are worth the visit. Among all those sites, you may check this one : Each frame of this movie-map is a snapshot of Internet usage across the world during a few hours time; five different images were compiled every two days, over a period of some eighteen months. The result is an extraordinary visual experience. The ISPs turn green and advance toward the center as their connectivity increases; the link lines shift as the routing structure reconfigures to meet the moment’s demands. We watch the diurnal flux of the Internet, and feel the complex, disjunctive rhythm of the global information machine. It’s like the pulsing of a hive, a planetary brain: the cognitive and imaginary activity of untold millions of individuals, establishing far-flung connections.

To give you the flavor, here's the introduction :

The Internet is the vector of a new geography – not only because it conjures up virtual realities, but because it shapes our lives in society, and shifts our perceptions along with the ground beneath our feet. Networks have become the dominant structures of cultural, economic and military power. Yet that power remains largely invisible. How can the networked society be represented? And how can it be navigated, appropriated, reshaped in its turn?

Reflecting in the early 1980s on the spatial chaos that technological and financial developments had impressed upon contemporary cities, Fredric Jameson pointed to the need for “an aesthetics of cognitive mapping” to resolve “the incapacity of our minds, at least at present, to map the great global multinational and decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves caught as individual subjects.” He conceived this cartographic aesthetics as a collective pedagogy, whose challenge would be to correlate the abstract knowledge of global realities with the imaginary figures that orient our daily experience. Epistemological shifts, pushed forward by the use of sophisticated technical instruments, would need to be paralleled by the deployment of radically new visual vocabularies, in order to produce a clearer understanding of contemporary symbolic relations (social roles, class divides, hierarchies) and a fresh capacity for political intervention in the postmodern world. Only by inventing “some as yet unimaginable new mode of representing” could we “again begin to grasp our positioning as individual and collective subjects and regain a capacity to act and struggle which is at present neutralized by our spatial as well as our social confusion.”1

Twenty years later, what has become of the mapping impulse? What new forms of cartography have arisen to chart the virtual/real spaces of the present? What kinds of agency do they permit? What modes of social organization do they foster? Can critical and dissenting maps be distinguished among the established and dominant ones?

Full article and much more, here.

Well, that was true...

"A power outage hit downtown San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, leaving thousands of residents without power and knocking popular Web sites such as Craigslist, GameSpot, Yelp, Technorati, TypePad and Netflix offline for a few hours", says Erica Ogg for C|Net

Luckily enough, I was to post a thank-you note to Tour de France star Alexander Vinokourov for his tremendous victory on Monday when TypePad went down. Imagine how I would feel now :-(

Anyway. " Never Give Up " was the title of this never-to-be-published post. So, never give up, Folks !

Breaking News : All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Officials confirm that all online data has been lost after the Internet crashed and was forced to restart.

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

Ed. note : I stopped downloading the latest iTunes playlist while watching '24' online with some BitTorrent stuff in the background and Twitter open ;-)

France : The Broadband Heaven ?

"French policy has nurtured competition among providers, advancing the country to the cutting-edge of broadband technology", writes BusinessWeek correspondent in Paris Jennifer Schenker in her article Vive la High-Speed Internet!

What a difference a few years make. In 2001, France had one of the weakest markets for broadband Internet access in the developed world, with less than a quarter of the penetration of the U.S. Today, it has sailed past the U.S. to become one of the world's most wired nations, with more than one in five inhabitants enjoying high-speed Internet connections.

What's even more interesting is what the French are doing with their fast hook-ups. According to tech research firm Analysys, a remarkable 52% of broadband connections in France today are used for voice-over-Internet protocol, or VoIP, phone calls—far and away the highest level in Europe and perhaps in the world. In Britain and Germany, by comparison, just 6% of broadband connections are used for VoIP.
The Battle of the Boxes

The French also have gotten off to a fast start in Internet TV. Analysys figures 2.6 million households in France now get TV over the Net using Internet protocol technology (IPTV). That's about 10 times the number using IPTV in Britain, qualifying France as the European leader in video-on-demand services.

How did the land of wine, cheese, and luxury goods become a world-beater in cutting-edge Net services? Part of the credit goes to what could be called the Battle of the Boxes. Paris and other cities are plastered with ads for state-of-the-art home Internet gateways—with names like Livebox, Freebox, Neufbox, and Dartybox—that offer connection speeds of up to 28 megabits per second, plus voice calls, TV, and Wi-Fi. They usually come for free with a monthly broadband subscription starting around €30 ($41).

This and much more in the full article here.
Comparison of pricing for consumer broadband in Europe here.

Just This (19.07)

Souvenirs from...

See this post's geographical context.
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A True Truism

Ma Bell : same player shoot again ;-)

Sustainable Readings 07-23-07

Cities 'key' to solving world's environmental woes
With 80% of Europeans living in urban areas, cities hold the key to sustainable development, said Commissioner Margot Wallström, outlining her "vision" for sustainable cities at the opening session of Brussels’ Green Week event. A must-read (incl. EU official documents).
[tags : environment cities sustainable development]

EU commission chief calls for more eco-technology
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has recently called on Europe to boost its climate technology efforts if it wants to stay a world leader and benefit from the business likely to be made from low carbon technology in the future.
[tags : eco-technologies climatechange]

Abu Dhabi to become a global leader in clean energy
The UAE has one of the world's fastest growing economies and is experiencing the most significant real estate growth in its history. Masdar will capitalize on this unprecedented economic growth by becoming the premium developer and installer of photovoltaic systems in the region. Within two years Masdar will provide up to 40MW of capacity -- equivalent to 10,000 homes.
[tags : eco-technologies middle-east]

Business of Green: Burnt out on climate?
Has the flurry of green exuberance made people concerned about climate change and committed to stopping it? The answer in many parts of the rich, developed world appears to be a resounding "no," according to a survey released last week by HSBC, a British bank.
[tags : Green business europe environment]

It's about customer relationships management, er. : it's about your business

Andy Hanselman has posted a must-have presentation on Slideshare. With this "practical guide to creating competitive advantage and improving business performance", Andy goes right to the point : the only way for any business to be successful on the long run is to get what he call " devoted customers " (ed. note : i prefer using the terminology " loyal customers ", as I am myself devoted to their own success ;-)

post-scriptum : Slideshare seems to become more business-oriented those days. A very good news.

Am I a bad blogger ?

That is the question I'm asking myself since a while. Actually, since I couldn't find the time to write down some in-depth reviews of the numerous Web 2.0 tools and apps I'm currently testing in regards of the Testing 2.0 project, or comment the way French President Nicolas Sarkozy does Sun Tzu per the book (in french), or explain why Fiber-To-The-Home helps going Carbon Neutral.
Today being a Celebration Day for me and lots of other human beings on Earth, it's a perfect day for a new start. Hence my decision to blog each and every day (well, as long as I'll get access to the Web), publishing short posts like many others do with great success. Not that I'm looking for success - at least not for this blog (anyone willing to participate to Testing 2.0 : please don't hesitate to call) - but I realize that " Less is More " also can apply to blogging : short notes posted on the go finally create a coherent way to let your message spread the World - I mean, the Blogosphere.
See you soon, on Twitter then ;-)

Just This (18.07)

It's about the employment situation in France

To date, no French astronaut went on the Moon. The reason : recruiters are asking for a 5-years experience.

Half the world's population will live in cities next year

" By next year, more than half the world's population, or about 3.3 billion people, will live in towns and cities, a number expected to swell to almost 5 billion by 2030, according to a United Nations Population Fund report released [last month]", Celia W. Dugger writes for the International Herald Tribune. Quite scarring, when one thinks about the implications. However, the threat can turn into the very chance to save the World.
Read the full article here, U.N. report and much more here.

Note : to view the World "as you've never seen it before", go to Worldmapper. A collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest, Worldmapper features more than 360 maps online, also available as PDF posters.

Freaking Cool User Interfaces

Ever wanted to know who's behind those innovative yet beautiful user interfaces featured on the computers shown in your favorite movies ? Mark Coleran is one of the most famous * visual designer * on the place. Watch his amazing track record large video here, small video here.

To My Friend Robert (of Germany ;-)

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publikenthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vordskontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl

FYI

Dear Readers :

I do apologize not being more productive on this blog over the last couple of weeks. Reworking on Testing 2.0, selling menswear suits - I've got to write more on this, because it's a so cool way to a) keep up with the salesman tips & tricks, and b) do networking ;-), finishing some kick-ass consulting missions with painful people... And preparing my next move to the only thing that matters today: Green Tech.

post-scriptum : I'll be playing the Pierre Cardin' luxury menswear salesman again this week-end. Shall I have an iPhone, I would twitter the best stories. Selling a 300 euros suit to a Chinese businessman is way more difficult than closing a $1M deal with an Egyptian telco !

To My Friend Abubakr

An Arab in an airport:

- Name?

- Abdul al-Rhazib.

- Sex?

- Three to five times a week.

- No, no. I mean male or female?

- Male, female, sometimes camel.

- Holy cow!

- Yes, cow, sheep, animals in general.

- But isn't that hostile?

- Horse style, doggy style, any style!

- Oh dear!

- No, no! Deer run too fast.