Hans Rosling helps visualize economic development over the last 200 years

You can now find the entire video from the BBC by way of Rosling’s Gapminder website. I certainly wish both Rosling and this technology had been available when I was doing my undergraduate degree in statistics. I did have the benefit of excellent teachers, although none quite as gifted as Rosling. As for what the technology makes possible in terms of both extracting and explaining the stories hidden in the data, it is well and truly a brave new world.

I’d also recommend his blog, Schneier on Security.

Hans Rosling: Asia’s Rise – How and When – TED India

A version of the tool that Rosling uses for his data analysis and display is available at Gapminder World.

• Online Database of Social Media Policies
  Here’s a site that has collected social media policies from a growing list of organizations. Looks to be an excellent resource
• The FASTForward Blog – Eight Issues to Consider in Your Enterprise’s Internal Social Software Policy: Enterprise 2.0 Blog: News, Coverage, and Commentary
  Tech Republic recently posted on 10 things you should cover in your social networking policy. There has been a lot of discussion on this topic, including my prior post, Social Media Policy Guidelines Can Encourage Use Outside Enterprise and Adoption Within. Like most policy discussions I have seen, this one focuses on social software use on the Web. However, it remains no less importance for effective enterprise 2.0 adoption to have guidelines that also cover usage inside the enterprise. I think the ten points are very useful and eight apply to internal use, some more than others.
• 10 things you should cover in your social networking policy | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com
  As sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook become intertwined with business uses, organizations need to establish guidelines for employees on workplace access and appropriate usage. Deb Shinder looks at 10 key considerations that such guidelines should address.
• SAP Social Media Guidelines 2009 | SAP Web 2.0
  The following guidelines describe private, individual participation in social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs, forums, YouTube, Flickr etc. for SAP employees. If your job requires you to be an SAP evangelist in social media channels and you have questions, or you want to establish social media channels on behalf of SAP or an SAP group, contact the SAP Social Media Group by sending a mail to [redacted]. For any other questions about social media at SAP, please visit the SAP-internal SAP 2.0 Community.
• RightNow social web employee policy | RightNow
  These are the official guidelines for social computing at RightNow. If you’re an employee or contractor creating or contributing to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds, or any other kind of social media these guidelines are for you. We require all who participate in social media on behalf of RightNow to be trained, to understand and to follow these guidelines. Failure to do so could put your future participation and employment at risk. RightNow has an open participation policy for all employees. The choice to participate in social media is yours. If you decide to participate, you are making a commitment to following these guidelines.
• Intel Social Media Guidelines
  These are the official guidelines for social media at Intel. If you’re an Intel employee or contractor creating or contributing to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds, or any other kind of social media both on and off intel.com these guidelines are for you. 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.
• Sun Microsystems Communities: Sun Guidelines on Public Discourse
  Many of us at Sun are doing work that could change the world. Contributing to online communities by blogging, wiki posting, participating in forums, etc., is a good way to do this. You are encouraged to tell the world about your work, without asking permission first, but we expect you to read and follow the advice in this note.
• IBM Social Computing Guidelines
  In the spring of 2005, IBMers used a wiki to create a set of guidelines for all IBMers who wanted to blog. These guidelines aimed to provide helpful, practical advice, and also to protect both IBM bloggers and IBM itself, as the company sought to embrace the blogosphere. Since then, many new forms of social media have emerged. So we turned to IBMers again to re-examine our guidelines and determine what needed to be modified. The effort has broadened the scope of the existing guidelines to include all forms of social computing.

Image via Wikipedia

I’m looking forward to meeting and hearing Clay Shirky at the upcoming FASTforward ’09 conference, even if it is happening in Las Vegas. I’ll be attending in my role as one of the contributors to the the FASTforward blog. I’m being lazy and simply passing along the notice posted by Hylton Jolliffe there.

Please join us next Tuesday, January 27th, at 2:00 p.m. ET for a webinar with a name surely familiar to followers of this blog – Clay Shirky, the keen commentator on all things Internet and author of “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations“.

Clay, who’ll be a keynote speaker at FASTforward’09, will explore topics of great interest to us all: the effects of open networks, collaboration, and user-created and disseminated content on organizations and industries – and the need for enhanced solutions that meet today’s new information management challenges.

To reserve a spot for the webinar, please register here.

And to find out more and join us in Las Vegas for FASTforward’09 from February 9-11, head to the conference’s website. The contributors to this blog will all be there as will a host of other interesting participants such as Charlene Li and Don Tapscott.

Find out more and register today!

Webinar with Clay Shirky: Preview of FASTforward’09
Hylton Jolliffe
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:03:40 GMT

I’ve also tagged a number of links at delicious; both of sites we may check out and references to follow up materials. Those links can be found here.

One of the things I’ve been helping Allan with is understanding how new technology tools can help him get his ideas out there. One thing we’ve come up with is to make use of the great social media tools at Ning to support a community of those interested in the ideas in the book and in Allan’s work. To wit, here’s an announcement from Allan of an online book group for the book.

Greetings, READERS!

A few people in the Your Inner CEO Community (yes, there is one) have been lobbying for the launch of an online study group for the book itself: Your Inner CEO. In the beginning I wondered about the practicality and “doability” of it and then after pondering the idea for a couple of months became enthusiastic about it.

So we’re doing it! We’re going to do the book as an online reading group, much as many of you have no doubt done in reading groups among friends in each other’s living rooms or some sort of community facility. We won’t be face-to-face, of course, but we’ll go at our own pace and cover whatever we deem important at the time. I’m confident we’ll deepen our relationships and open up and deal with subjects, over not too long a time, in a spirit of trust and candor. I look forward to participating fully in this with you.

The day of the launch is—you guessed it—TODAY! Come explore. Find out more at the link below. As a heads up, newcomers will have to sign in to participate.

http://yourinnerceo.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1978871%3ATopic%3A2221

All the best,

Allan Cox

Online Book Study Group Formed for Your Inner CEO

What makes this interesting to me, and accounts for why I’ve made time to work on it, is that Allan has committed to work with the group and participate fully. Moreover, he’s brought along a number of his friends and colleagues from his work. These are some seriously smart and senior folks who are all thinking about the importance of leadership in today’s complex world and how to get better at it.

Get yourself a copy of the book, find your way over to the Your Inner CEO ning space, sign up, and join in. I think we’ll all find it an excellent return on our attention.

This 2.5 minute video is a result of feedback from our fans. We’ve received a number of requests from people who want their
friends to use the micro-blogging service Twitter, but can’t seem to explain it well. We hope this video helps.

If you’d like to follow us on Twitter, we’re @leelefever and
@sachilefever.