Magnatune: A record label for the new world

Apr 11.05 

Magnatune bills itself as “the open music record label.” Here is the deal:

• All of their music is available for listening. Not 30 second snippets, but full albums worth.
• You select how much you want to pay for an album from $5 on up (suggested price is $8.)
• The artists gets half of that — no muss, no fuss

They have 356 complete albums in genres from classical to electronica. Take a listen. Finally a publishing model that makes sense for most music artists!
Magnatune: MP3 music and music licensing (royalty free music and license music).
IT conversations has a great interview with the founder of magnatune, which is well worth a listen.

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As Funds Shrink, Universities Must Emphasize Their Value, Says Official and Former Politician – Chronicle.com

Everyone has to be out talking about the value,” he said. “We need to renew the idea that economic development is based on a quality higher-education system.”

Practical Analysis: It’s Not Disruptive If It’s Not Cheaper — Practical Analysis

We often talk about virtualization and the automation that should come with it as a disruptive technology, but by definition a disruptive technology must change the cost of doing business.

Wired Campus: An Unusual Attempt to Shape a High-Tech Future, Singularity U. Gets Under Way – Chronicle.com

“Today’s institutions of greater learning — where you go and get your doctorate degree — teach you to focus so narrowly,” he said. “Where do you learn to pull way back and think about the biggest issues on the planet? That’s what we hope to bring you here today. Not to compete with the great institutions out there but to give you a different way of thinking.”

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• Fast start — most products have simple technical requirements and little-no cost
• Easy to experiment — low cost to failure
• User-centric designs
• Active user communities — highly adaptable capabilities
• Short implementation timeframes

An example?  You can have an organization-wide multi-user  Content Management System up and running, fully configured in less than a day — with 2 staff people.  Hardware-wise you need a standard apache/LAMP web server — a service that you can contract externally for under $1,000 annually (and for smaller organizations more like under $200).  Many of your peer organizations are already doing it (especially if you are in higher education.)  How do you accomplish this?  WordPressMU.  No months-long RFP process — no need for thousands of dollars of  hardware/software investment — no mulit-tiered approval process — no consultants.  Start small, start fast, see what works, gather user reaction, adapt, innovate.

Corporate IT done ‘lite’: open source, Web 2.0 gain appeal as budgets shrink

CIOs are turning to cheap, lightweight tools to get the job done fast.

Internet Evolution – IT Clan Editor’s Blog – Why Most IT Projects Cost Too Much

According to Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group consultancy, a whopping 54 percent of IT projects worldwide came in over budget in 2008, with large enterprise projects a bit more likely to spin out of cost control…Hopefully, ongoing progress in Internet-related technologies will help alleviate some of the complexity of today’s IT projects.

Millions of Dollars Later, U. of Wisconsin Still Lacks New Payroll Software

More than three years and $36-million dollars have not been enough to fix the University of Wisconsin system’s payroll computer program…a system budget official said the project, originally budgeted to cost $1.6-million and be finished by last fall, will now cost at least $12-million.

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Tim Chester from Pepperdine University discusses his changes towards development of an ‘IT versatilist.’  They made this move recognizing that as IT becomes more central to the organization’s mission, technical competencies are not the most important quality to measure and develop.  Skills such as communication and business process knowledge are equally, if not more important.  With significant staff involvement, Pepperdine completely reorganized their structure to create career ladders, and competency charts to track advancement in these tracks.  The end result is greater staff retention and improved morale.  There is also significant costs savings, as an employee who comes up through the ranks is better prepared for an advanced position, knows the organization better, and is more vested in the success of the group.  Maybe Pepperdine will show up on next year’s top 100 list.

Best Places to Work 2009

• #4 University of Penn: Top 10 ranking: No. 1 for benefits, No. 2 for diversity
• #10 U of Miami: Top 10 ranking: No. 9 for retention, No. 5 benefits, No. 1 for diversity, No. 5 career development
• #58 George Washington University: The IT department reimburses its workers for some certificates and other technical advancements that they choose to pursue and offers a comprehensive service-improvement initiative, training programs and a career development program.
• #90 Temple University: Employees at this Philadelphia-based university pay no tuition for undergraduate and graduate programs. Spouses receive half off all tuition, and children pay no tuition for up to 10 semesters of undergraduate education.
• #93 Cornell University: Managers and employees are being trained to identify individual strengths and align the work that employees are assigned with those areas. Managers are encouraged to invest time in developing employees’ strengths rather than remediating weaknesses.

Competency-Based Career Ladders for IT Professionals | EDUCAUSE

This ECAR research bulletin examines how CIOs can adopt competency-based human resource practices in their information technology organizations to enhance the versatility of IT professionals. The bulletin is based on practices adopted at Pepperdine University. In 2007 Pepperdine embarked on a project to deliver a competency-based set of career ladders for all IT professionals across the institution and reorganized its IT practices to emphasize versatility. The results have been extraordinary: the organization has gained more credibility with faculty, students, and staff, and escalating salary costs have been brought under control.

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CO Students Score a Chat with Cory Doctorow – 5/26/2009 – School Library Journal

After reading Cory Doctorow’s 2008 novel Little Brother, students in Anne Smith’s Language Arts class at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO, wanted more insight. So they gave the author a call.

School Library Journal’s Best Books 2008 – 12/1/2008 – School Library Journal

DOCTOROW, Cory. Little Brother. Tor. Tr $17.95. ISBN 978-0-7653-1985-2.
Gr 10 Up–After a terrorist attack, 17-year-old Marcus and his friends find themselves victims of abuse and, along with the rest of San Francisco’s residents, under constant surveillance. This exciting techno-thriller asks readers to think about tough topics and to question authority.

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Active Conference Plan

While driving home from NERCOMP in the snow I started thinking, why, at a conference where active learning and technology-enabled learning is all the talk, are we still stuck in the old teaching model. The speakers sit up in the front of the room with their carefully prepared PowerPoint slides and we all sit dutifully in neat rows facing them and taking notes. Isn?t it time for something different? Here is my active conference plan:

Registration ? The registration process is done online.

Registrants create a username/password that will give them access to conference materials and activities. They also fill out a detailed questionnaire that is designed to assess their specific interests, learning goals, learning styles, opinion on conference topics and even personality characteristics. Think of this as a combination professional questionnaire and personality test. All who respond are treated to a summary view of all the responses, so that they can see where they fit into the mix.

Based upon the topics that people are interested in, the conference planners develop several broad questions/issues that are to be addressed by conference participants during the conference. Teams of registrants are created and are assigned to address one of these questions/issues. The team assignments are planned to be cross-functional/cross-disciplinary based upon the survey responses.

Pre-conference activities

Once teams are assigned, registrants participate in a pre-conference introduction forum. They upload a picture, describe themselves, post a link to their personal websites, etc. The first team activity, conducted online, is to design a team logo. From the logo a t-shirt will be created and given to team members when arriving at the conference. Maybe the team also selects their topic/question from a list of possible topics?

The conference website also would include short FAQ/training information on technologies to be used during the conference ? podcasting, RSS, blogs, etc.

At the conference

The conference itself would have many of the standard trappings of today?s conferences ? the exhibitor floor, continental breakfasts, keynote speakers, topical presentations, panel discussions, etc. But there would also be extensive time and dedicated space set aside for team activity. The expectation would be that team members would each attend the sessions they personally found of interest, then return to review the information with their team, share information, and discuss how it all related to their topic. Information learned at the sessions, from discussions with vendors, and other conference activities would now be used immediately in discussions with fellow professionals.

Individual blogs ? each member is assigned their own blog to post notes/impressions during the conference. Blogs are organized by team, making it easy for members to share information.

Wireless networking ? everywhere, with participants encouraged to bring their laptops everywhere. Encourage session leaders to work laptop use into their presentations (having all access the same website, etc.) Also have a vendor who can rent/loan laptops for the time of the conference.

The final activity would be presentations from all team groups on their findings/conclusions regarding their topic. Presentations would be brief, 10 ? 15 minutes in length. If there are a lot of teams they may need to be multiple sessions, as any one sessions shouldn?t exceed 90 minutes in length. And food should be included. Final presentations posted online and become a part of the collective blog postings.

Implementing the Plan

This idea is flexible enough that it could be executed with a small group of people registered at a larger conference. There could be ?normal? conference goers there alongside the ?active? conferences.

There are a lot of details to still hash out with this idea, BUT this is starting to sound like the kind of conference I would like to attend. Everyone gets to be a active participant, you get to work with and meet new people, and you come out of the conference having really done something.

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Welcome to BAR

Hard Rock Cafe LONDON – HOME

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A content management system (CMS) is a common way to organize data and tools, and WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs. One reason for WordPress’s ubiquity is the availability of over 4,000 plug-ins, offering Webmasters seemingly endless ways to expand and customize their blogs.

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The Social Life of Technology

There are often fears that the growth of technology will isolate its users from the physical world. I remember a picture in a local newspaper, a couple of years back, of a kids’ birthday party. The group was all seated in neat rows in front of computer monitors, apparently playing some type of interactive game. It didn’t really seem like your typical kids party, and it seemed a little sad.

Consider the introduction of other technologies — specifically the radio, then television, and then home video player. At each turn the demise of the movie theater was predicted. The prevailing wisdom at the time of each innovation was that people would no longer have any reason to go out to the movies when they could get the same entertainment in their home. Well, the movie industry has certainly changed, but plenty of people still go to the movies. It turns out the social aspect of going to the movies is still a strong draw, and watching movies at home is not an acceptable alternative to that experience. It does seem to be an alternative to watching network television, but that’s another discussion for another time.

In The Social Life of Paper, Malcolm Gladwell reviews the myth of the paperless office and why it has never appeared. It fact paper use is at an all time high. It turns out that paper is a really good medium for collaborating with others, and a valuable way to park ideas that one is still working on. In fact the messy desk with piles of paper really is the sign of an active mind — I knew I was doing something right.

It turns out that other technologies also have their social aspects. In The Social Life of Information John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid explore various promised and fears of technical advances, and the ability of human social nature and institutions to adapt. Getting back to my earlier example of the technological birthday party, my 13 year old son has recently gotten hooked on the on line game Runescape. This is a massively multiplayer on line game which occupies hours of his time. Hours that is with his friends who join him there to explore. And talk on the phone to him at the same time (Do you see me? I’m at the top of the stairs. Look out!), and stop over to see what he is doing, and he goes over to their houses, etc. etc. His gaming experience is incredibly social, not isolating at all.

As education courses move into the digital realm we need to remember that there is critical social interchange on a college campus. Sure some of it doesn’t seem very educational, but it is an important part of the experience. On line courses and digital libraries have their place, but they don’t replace the benefits of the collegial atmosphere, and won’t eliminate the need to physical centers for learning.

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Intel Social Media Guidelines

We expect all who participate in social media on behalf of Intel to be trained, to understand and to follow these guidelines. Failure to do so could put your future participation at risk. These guidelines will continually evolve as new technologies and social networking tools emerge—so check back once in awhile to make sure you’re up to date.

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