Web sites

I’m back!

Posted on 12 July, 2009. Filed under: Web sites |

I have been off from my blog for a long time.

Now, it’s time to start it again.

It’s nice to find many improvements in the wordpress site! As it has become more user friendly than before, it’s up to me to benefit from it  and keep going.

I wanted to separate English and Japanese blog threads, but it looks I can’t do it. Or I may not have found how to do it.

Never mind. I’ll start with what I understand.

Yoshiko

Intelligent companies on the Web

Posted on 18 June, 2007. Filed under: Web sites |

I surf web sites for hours for research every day as my job. I search company webs most of the time. Through huge hours spent for web surfing, I may have got a nose to feel “This company must be good!”. These are, Verizon, Boeing and IBM, to name just a few.

For Verizon, the company posts valuable industry in its web, such as “Telecommunicaitons Industry Overview”. Its study co-sponsored with Microsoft on collaboration in a corporate environment is eye-opening.

For Boeing, I’m a fan of Randy Baseler’s blog (link)  and Current Market Outlook (link), a long term view of the civil aviation and aircraft market outlook.

For IBM, — One of the richest in intelligence, Innovation (excelent think tank on the web!), strategic thinking for enterprises, easy search, cross references, very well organised, e.g. customer case studies, video, documents, — varuous media on the web

What made me feel “this company must be good!”? Where does this inspiraiton come from?

Intelligence, mind-stimulating thoughts, and analysis

The information posted on the web makes me feel these companies have vision, a corporate culture to create their strategies based on the strong thinking, and are open minded not to hesitate to share their thoughts and results of thinking with the wide public. like me.

Above said, I’m not in a position to stand by any company. I’m a user of web sites without commercial interests. Web sites are my archive and windows to the real world.

I don’t inted to favor any country, language or culture. My evaluation is merely my personal one. I think I like hacing good food for thoughts when searching the web.

Simplify and assemble

Posted on 25 February, 2007. Filed under: Web sites |

What a handy site it is! — but why didn’t I thought of creating a site like this? — These are my first thoughts when I clicked the link pasted in an e-mail circulated by my colleague. –> IT Facts

The idea looks simple but the work involved in not. The site lists a number of IT-related terms and provides the facts, mostly in terms of numbers. These are grouped in 40+ categotires. Each category contains a number of short description of the relevant facts. For example, in “3G” category, a fact like “402 mln 3G subscribers worldwide” is listed with a short article. Likewise, in “Digital imaging” category, “11% of Americans have more than 10,000 digital photos”, “10 mln digital cameras shipped in Asia-Pacific in 2004”.

I was impressed by the sources, too. The site lists 50+ sources, that include many famous names, such as Forreetse, IDTec, Jupiter Research, Gartner, Deutsche Bank Researcn, to name only a few.

Simple things are important, but we know from experience that ways to find simple numbers are not as simple as the numbers in search. When we write something, when a simple question occurr to me, I sometimes spend hours.

These numbers are however important in making me aware of the facts closer to the reality, allowing me to feel the size of the market or problems.

There is a large value-added in collecting simple facts and displaying them in one place. We all need it but not many people dare do it.

A challenge of this site would be up-dating of these “facts”. I don’t know how often the facts are up-dated in the site, and will see.

Financing of the work could be a challenge. Everyone would agree that this site is convenient, but who’s ready to pay for that? There may be many who’d pay, then how would the web organisers collect money? I have learned with surprise at the LIFT conference in Geneva (7-9 February, 2006) that Wikipedia is supported by donnation and the people behind Wikipedia have the remaining chash to run it for the soming three months only! I wonder how the IT Facts is funded.

Above said, I fully congratulate ITFacts for its idea and the work to make it happen as a user. Is it user’s egoism to enjoy high quality intelligence free of charge from the web?

Interested in the web? Here it is! –> http://www.itfacts.biz/

The Web that has formed a community — LIFT

Posted on 18 February, 2007. Filed under: Web sites |

I attended LIFT conference held in geneva on 7-9 February, 2007.

What a conference it was! The fresh shower for my brain!!

What a smart web it is! –> LIFT
AND What smart people they are who exploited the web power for the conference!

The LIFT web is an intelligent and hard-working colleague for the conference participants and organisers. It works as an information board, e-commerce, blog, self-service who’s who?, archive, pod casting collection, LIFT wiki, and more. Unlike us, it doen’t get tired.

Interactive communication empowered by the web has given birth to a new working style

1. Administration, as usual — conference information, registration, notice board, inquiry, etc.

2. To get idea widely from the people and select the ones for the conference agenda — To ceate a conference agenda, the organising group didn’t stop with their ideas of agenda items, though they were good. They went out of the group to get other good ideas from the people. Thy left created one and a half day free within the three day conference for the open session, which was the place to put good and most supported ideas sourced from outside world. The LIFT web enabled this idea. Participants could post their workshop proposals directly on the web and vote to the ones they wished to join. Workshops were selected by a collective opinions of the participants. No authority was there.

3. I witnessed during the sessions my neighbourors typing their lap tops. They were surfing web sites and writing something. I came to know later by looking at the LIFT blog that some were reporting what was going on in the sessions with their comments. It was a real-time volunteeered reporting! Conference infrastructure enabled these activities – WiFi network all over the conference venues, 8 out of 10 people brought their own lap top PCs & Macs with WiFi card equipped.

4. The web site is the means to carry on the opinion survey of participants on the conference.

5. The web site is a cyber archive of conference sessions by video podcasting on the web. The podcasting started only one week after the conference. So quick and efficient!

6. The web site is beautiful, light and pleasant appearence. The organising team has pleasantly convinced us that colors and design are as important as technical functions.

7. All were voluntary work! No commercial interests were involved.

Joining in the conference community via the web site is fun, because people will look at me & my postings, and I may get reply to someone I may not know otherwise. It’s a nice feeling to know that someone is reading to my views and that s/he responds to me. This experience grows a feeling that I’m in a community.

The web has successfully created a self-forming community. Laurence Haug and his team stimulated responded to people’s desire to be connected. Their open-mindedness was the key to the success. Congratulations!!