pinoyceo

This is a follow up on my previous post regarding Generativity.

Now, what’s generative and what’s not among the following examples? 

Legos and Dollhouse. Legos are highly adaptable, accesible, and easy to master. They can be built, deconstructed and rebuilt into whatever form the user wishes, and third parties can publish "recipes" for new forms. The less-generative dollhouse supports imaginative play but is itself unmodifiable.

Hammer and Jackhammer.  A hammer is accessible, easy to master, and useful in any number of household tasks. A jackhammer is less broadly accessible, harder to master, and good only for breaking up asphalt, concrete, and stone.

PC and TiVO. A PC is an adaptable multipurpose tool whose leverage extends through networked access to new software and other users. TiVO is an inflexible tethered appliance. Though based on the same technology as a PC, it can be modified only by its maker, restricting its uses to those that TiVO invents.

Bicycle and Airplane. Bicycles are accessible, there’s no license to pedal, relatively easy to master, and adaptable by large communities of avid users and accessorizing firms. Airplanes are highly useful for long-distance travel but not very accessible, adaptable, or easy to master.

The above examples were taken from the Harvard Business Review magazine.

Many people or even bloggers are not yet aware of this term "Generativity" and I’m also not aware of this until I read this from HBR magazine. So I’ll try to share this information as best as I could.

There are four main features that define generativity:

• Leverage - How strongly a system or technology leverages a set of possible tasks, meaning it makes our difficult tasks easier.
• Adaptability - It’s adaptability to a range of tasks. The ease with which it can be modified to broaden its range of uses
• Ease of Mastery - Compare the mastery that’s needed to use an airplane and to use a paper
• Accessibility - The easier it is to obtain the technology, tools and information necessary to achieve mastery - and convey changes to others - the more generative a system is

The greater the extent to which these features are represented in a system, the more readily it can be changed in unanticipated ways - and the more generative it is. For example, many tools can be leveraging and adaptable but are difficult to master - thus decreasing generativity.

More information about generativity here. 

I read this article from the Harvard Business Review magazine and I totally agree with David Weinberger. Some organizations fear to share their data with aggregators but they might be surprised to learn that they can benefit from letting other firms disseminate their information online. Just take for example a real state industry website. Buyers are not after the design of the house and location of the property anymore, they need other information like crime rate, nearest school, market, mall, church, foot trafic, nearest airport, number of banks, opening time of local stores and a bunch of other concerns. These informations are not the primary concern of the real state website but it’s a concern of their customers. So by letting other firms talk about or aggregate their information or in other term setting their data free broadens their presence in the marketplace and lowers the cost of providing information to customers. It also gives customers a better experience and allows the company to focus on its core competencies. So in most cases, companies shouldn’t resist aggregation, they should make it easy for aggregators to scoop up and disseminate their information.

The folks at Apple announced yesterday that the public beta of Safari 3 has been downloaded 1 million times in the first 48 hours after it was released, woot! I’ve already downloaded it too and so far it’s meeting my expectation.  I’m also having second thoughts if I’ll stick with my old internet browser especially that Safari claims to be twice as fast as IE7 and 1.6 faster than Firefox talking about speed huh!

Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, based on the industry standard iBench tests.* Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update, and the first update for Safari for Windows Public Beta which fixes some early reported bugs was released last night.

 

Safari 3 for Windows requires Windows XP or Windows Vista, a minimum of 256 MB of memory and a system with at least a 500 MHz Intel Pentium processor.

You can download the Safari for Windows here

My congratulations to my good friend Ariel "Ayi" Molina for winning the Sanguniang Bayan race. Ayi, I was secretly vouching for you because I know that you are a good man. Do not disappoint us :) Help our kababayans in their quest towards a better Catanduanes. My great wishes to the success of your term in the office. Mabuhay ka!

If you’re having trouble in printing, there are detailed instructions here that can help you. Or if these instructions really doesn’t work I think it’s better to change your printer.

• WRITING CHECKS - Switch to online bill paying and you’ll save a half hour a month. (We timed it.) Likewise, mortgage payments and savings deposits should be completely automated.
• USING ONE E-MAIL ADDRESS - Your broadband deal - you’re not wasting your life waiting for dial-up, are you? - includes a bunch of in-boxes. Use one e-mail for friends and family, a second for shopping and spam.
• USING FOUR E-MAIL ADDRESSES - See #2. Unless you’re buying broadband from Yahoo, Google, or MSN, forget ‘em.
• JOINING - You have your office badminton. Basketball at your village. The fantasy-basketball league. Poker night. Give up two, because your leisure time is killing you.
• WATCHING NETWORK NEWS - It’s crap - overwrought, oversold, overbiased crap. Fifteen minutes on the internet, boom, you’re informed.
• ONE UPPING - So you were the first in your circle to score Hot Hot Heat’s new CD. Maybe your friends just have better taste.
• JUGGLING THREE WOMEN - Let two down gently and hold the third up for everyone to see.
• OVERPROMISING - No one believes you anyway.
• OVERPACKING - Have you ever needed the extra shoes?
• OVERWORKING - The more you do, the more they’ll give you.
• OVERNEGOTIATING - You spend the day nibbling the guy down to a hundred over invoice. We’re going to read book.
• UNDERVACATIONING - Take a three-day weekend immediately. And don’t overpack.
• OPENING JUNK MAIL - Their willingness to welcome you into the DVD club should not be linked to your self-esteem.
• BLOGGING - Fine, your observations inspire. But your best girl just bought a Plastic Plumber and six D batteries.

    - Mike Zimmerman

This article was adopted from the FHM magazine

The guys from MIT who made the Lego Mindstorms created a software application that teach kids to create graphic software programs, including games and simulations. The application is called Scratch and it runs on Windows and Macintosh OS X. Also even if you’re already an adult you might enjoy tweaking it.

Guys, I found this smashingmagazine.com goodness.

Recently, Paypal opened in our country but it didn’t fully offer all of their services, like collecting money from their respective outlets. All you can do right now is deposit your money. What? money leaving our country? I understand that Paypal has certain conditions to be met. It depends on PayPal’s policies to work in conjunction with the exisiting financial laws, banking system and online readiness of the country. Most of the time this will relate to the anti-money laundering laws. Now there’s the problem, our government and the banks in the Philippines should fully adopt to this online readiness thing. India is really overtaking us. We have lots of Filipino developers and designers who can compete with the rest of the world but are hindered because they have no Paypal accounts. What a sad story, so sad that it makes me mad. I believe in Filipino talents and it’s time that Paypal and the Philippine goverment act on it.

To the respective individuals what are you waiting for? You’ve already reached this far so how about spare a few more second of your time. Please visit this url and support this petition: 

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/paypalphilippines 

Thank you in advance. Mabuhay ang  Pinoy!