Students at Umeå Institute of Design at Umeå University in Sweden imagine how seamlessly handheld devices will integrate with our lives in the future.
Rimino – A Human Touch on Mobile Experience from Amid Moradganjeh on Vimeo.
H/T John Haydon
Unlike the 70 percent of Americans without passports, I am eager to fill mine with entry and exit stamps as time and money permit.
In fact, it is a life goal to live and work in London at some point in the next decade or so, in order to take advantage of the city hopping opportunities afforded by long weekends in a country with a more generous vacation policy than in the States.
Oh, to ride the gondolas in Venice before rising seas sink the city for good. Or revisiting Giverny, this time when Monet’s gardens are in full bloom. And I’m enough of a speed demon to want to drive the German autobahn.
Doesn’t everyone want to know what Holland sites are must sees? Though I’m not much of a skier, everyone should experience a getaway to a real Swiss chalet at least once.
The possibilities for adventure are endless within the bounds of a several year stint in London. Realistically, I’m more likely to save up for several multi-week treks across different parts of Europe. But I’m still open to the opportunities that could move me abroad.
What travels are on your bucket list?
The above is my fourth entry in the #Trust30 for the Ralph Waldo Emerson self-reliance blog challenge. The task: Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?
It’s not too late to sign up and participate.
The Doggelganger website has been popping up on blogs all over the place since it started going viral earlier this week.
In that event you have not run across it yet, The Pedigree Adoption Fund (in New Zealand) launched a site to match you with a rescue pet using facial recognition technology. Yes, people joke that they look like their dogs and vice versa, but now you can actually seek out a pet the looks like family.
I just have one question: Where is the American version?
After the past few months of soul searching, my deep-rooted dream is to track toward life as a technology evangelist.
Yes, plenty of people focus on the relationship drawbacks of the digital universe.
But I prefer to focus on the transformative nature of social technology and its many products, networks and interfaces. Culture shift is taking place rapidly. Affordable mobile phone service in Africa made independent contracting possible for those who had otherwise limited work options. Text4Baby provides a valuable public service in sending subscribing moms regular text message updates with relevant information on maternal and baby health. And tools like Twitter have connected and enhanced interactions between private citizens and their political representatives; #weinergate disappointments aside.
In the not too distant future, I could very much see myself on the conference circuit with a book under my belt, as an expert in that arena because it just lights me up to talk about social technology. And when I get going in conversation, the giddy is contagious.
But to do that I need to get my foot in the door, preferably in mobile.
I need to parlay communications and project management experience, paid and unpaid, across academic, corporate and nonprofit environments, into a contributing position at a start up or technology company moving full speed ahead in that space.
Of course, the best place to be is in San Francisco, so I’m applying for relevant jobs there and seeking out connections in my network to try to find an in.
My biggest obstacle is just asking for help, just putting it out there. While I prefer to be radically self-sufficient, I see the truth in Marthe’s words that “only when you share your dreams do you create space for people to reach out.”
Last Tuesday, I posted about my job hunt in a private Facebook group. By late afternoon, I had an interview scheduled with a company that I had applied to the Friday before. Immediately after a promising first round, I ran into a neighbor I have spoken to just a handful of times in the 2 years I have lived in here. Turns out she’s a flight attendant who can potentially set me up with a discount flight, should round 2 come through. And I’ve found at least one sofa that’s freely available to me should I get the call for round 2 with this company or another in the Bay area.
Just because I dared to speak my dreams to the people who would listen.
What do your dreams look like?
The above is my third entry in the #Trust30 for the Ralph Waldo Emerson self-reliance blog challenge. The task: What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue?
It’s not too late to sign up and participate.
One relative that hates his job has been counting down to retirement for over a decade, preferring to stay in a high stress job that takes a physical and psychological toll than float a resume or two to headhunters, even when the economy was booming. Another can spend hours agonizing over the interminable drama of tertiary relatives, rather than focusing on the aspects of life that she actually has the power to change and improve. A third goes through the same repeated motions, without ever considering new tactics, acting as if the world conspires against him, when he just isn’t ready to do the work.
It’s an exhausting co-dependent network. To call out the fearful behavior would be opening the door to addressing one’s own boundaries and limitations.
So it’s just not done.
Stretch goals and dreams are imagined lottery wins and alternate realities in which the possibilities are endless. They are fanciful what ifs that remind you of what is not, rather than opportunities to develop game plans to achieve objectives.
And I just can’t live as though the best of what life has to offer is only for everyone else. What is the point of struggle? The uphill slog helps you learn and grow, and often times you find a better destination off the map as you go.
While it’s frustrating to still be unemployed almost 9 months after a layoff, I have been busy exploring a variety of avenues that could lead to new adventures. Countless webinars, trainings and conferences have provided insight into my interests, the good life and the community-at-large. When one road doesn’t feel right I pivot and apply for different types of jobs. And along the way I’ve been picking up new information, contacts and advice that’s helping me fine tune.
Having found the sweet spot for me — where technology and human connection intersect — it’s a matter of teasing out how I can plug my skills into the space.
While I’d prefer any job hunt to be fast and easy, I know the meandering road is more likely to lead to a life that is of my own making, not one of shared inaction against situations I actually have the power to change.
The above is my second entry in the #Trust30 for the Ralph Waldo Emerson self-reliance blog challenge. The task: What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?
It’s not too late to sign up and participate.
Regrets? I’ve had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.
- Frank Sinatra, My Way
My grandmother is a rule breaker with an independent spirit that went surprisingly untamed for a woman born in the 1920s.
The eldest daughter in a traditional Italian family in New Jersey, she ran off and eloped (in Louisiana!) with a nice guy from the neighborhood bar. Who happened to be on a break from dating her sister, Frances.
While nice, H was a merchant marine turned house painter, with no government pension for his service and shaky prospects as a house painter, so money was always tight. Meeting an untimely demise due to a congenital heart condition, left my Grams with 2 tween daughters and financial commitments to meet.
Most women in the late 1950s probably would have found another nice guy from the neighborhood. Given the photos of my Grams from back in her hey day, it probably wouldn’t have been much of a challenge for her. But she looked around at her married girlfriends and decided she didn’t want to answer to anyone.
So she went to work. She was a girl Friday to a family friend who ran her ragged because she had no other options. Until she did. A girlfriend helped her get a job at a local factory — as I recall, she started out sweeping floors and worked her way up to putting filaments in light bulbs, a task that is probably automated today. And she stayed in that job until she retired, spending all day on her feet on a factory floor. (Knowing my Grams, she probably went for style over comfort in her shoe choice — she swears one of her biggest regrets in life is pointy shoes.)
At almost 89, she’s not moving as fast, nor can she clean the house from top-to-bottom every day (why anyone would voluntarily do that, I will never understand). She has bounced back from hospitalizations more times than any of her family would like. Grams still reads the paper every day, will correct you if your current events facts are inaccurate and will occasionally go off on tangents about what’s wrong with the world today — her words loaded with experience she doesn’t discuss.
I like to think I take after her. I want to succeed on my own terms and do it my way, which my Grams has made a life practice.
This above my first entry in the #Trust30 for the Ralph Waldo Emerson self-reliance blog challenge. The task: You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live; write the story that has to be written.
According to the website,
#Trust30 is an online initiative and 30-day writing challenge that encourages you to look within and trust yourself. Use this as an opportunity to reflect on your now, and to create direction for your future. 30 prompts from inspiring thought-leaders will guide you on your writing journey.
It’s not too late to sign up and participate.
I’m a sucker when it comes to dogs.
The owner not only puts her dog Jesse to work,
She helps keep the talented canine in shape.
Have a fabulous Saturday!
Smart phones pack a lot of bang for the buck. From email and texting to apps for shopping, networking, traveling and working to the potential that mobile payments offer, a person can consolidate much of her life on a hand-held device, with just enough time left over for a round of Angry Birds. But is it starting to get to be too much? Can we ever walk away from work and the rush of information about our connections to relax?
The Q1 iPass Global Mobile Worker Report shows the extremes that tech dependency and a lack of boundaries push workers toward. Employees tapping into work from a mobile device on a non-corporate network are logging an average of 240 more hours per year than those who don’t. Of this group, ninety-one percent are checking their smart phones during down time, with sixty-four percent of those identified as Gen Y checking three or more time per hour!
And Gen Y is taking their technology to bed. Forty-five point three percent sleep within arm’s reach of their smartphones; another fourteen point six percent keep them steps away within the bedroom. Fewer are getting a full night’s sleep with nearly half checking their phones in the middle of the night from time to time. And nearly half are checking their phones in the middle of the night at least sometimes, with forty-four percent checking email before rolling out of bed.
Members of Gen Y are increasingly suffering from FOMO — the fear of missing out — thanks to increasingly ubiquitous technology in our lives. And it’s not just our work lives that trail us around the clock.
JWTIntelligence recently reported on the social aspect of this trend. Their researchers officially define FOMO as “the uneasy and sometimes all encompassing feeling…that your peers are doing, in the know about or in possession of more or something better than you”.
The steady stream of status updates running through social media sites in a drumbeat of events and happenings in your backyard and in distant locales. It’s no wonder that eighty percent of 18-33 year olds see people as using these communication channels for bragging rights. Over-scheduled teens have become the same over scheduled adults planning for every minute, in an effort to keep up.
As increasingly powerful technology crunches all aspects of our lives into smaller and smaller devices, it will become even more difficult to avoid the temptation to check-in on the weekends or your lunch hour or an evening out with friends.
What realistic boundaries can be set so that we can all tune out and just revel in the moments we should have to ourselves?
Long overdue for a phone upgrade, I used Wirefly to save an extra $20 on the new Droid X2 when I extended my contract with Verizon.
After placing my order on Saturday afternoon, I was extremely impressed that my order was not only processed but shipped the same day.
The only down side to ordering through Wirefly is that Fedex is their shipping provider. In the 2 years I’ve been in my current apartment, I can’t recall receiving a Fedex package without drama. UPS and USPS have no problems finding me, but Fedex always insists I don’t have a valid address.
And without fail, Fedex failed on Tuesday. Online tracking indicated my address was incorrect. I called Fedex — which confirmed my address — and I explained where my apartment is and had a chuckle with customer service about my invisibility to their drivers. Rep assured me that he would forward extra delivery information along to dispatch.
And my phone is still being held hostage by the Fedex facility on Wednesday night. I call Fedex again — customer service is now telling me that there is NO address in the system for this package. The package was shipped from Wirefly with no street address — sorry, an incomplete street address of “South Apt 100″. My street address does not include the word south, nor do I live in Apt 100.
I provide my correct address to customer service who assures delivery on Thursday, but it is not to be. The person processing the address change calls me back to let me know she cannot approve shipment to the correct address, regardless of the fact that it was in the system on Tuesday when I called, until Wirefly.com calls to approve the address change. Doesn’t matter that I’m the paying customer, they are contractually obligated to get the permission from the sender before making that change.
All Wirefly needs to do is call the 800-number, provide the tracking number and OK my address.
That’s all they need to do. That’s all. That. Is. All.
It is actually difficult to get to a human being at Wirefly. I forgot about GetHuman until I was 40 minutes into my call with Wirefly. Their automated system is chock full of directions and helpful information that was neither relevant or helpful. After trying a few different numbers listed on their site, I found my way to the customer service queue.
I explained the situation to Rav.
Unfortunately it is not Wirefly’s approved process to call Fedex to straighten out shipping snafus. Instead, they recall the original package and ship a new one. And they’d expedite shipping for free so that I’d get my package the next business day, but because it was so late in the day that really meant 2 days later.
It seems like a lot of paperwork when a 3 minute phone call to Fedex would get me my phone on Thursday. Rav agrees but it’s not the approved process. Rav speaks to his manager, but no go. It’s not the approved process. I spend much time on hold and in verbal round robins that go no where.
Fine, ship me a new phone ASAP. Rav now has to explain the situation to Marcus, the guy who approves orders. Marcus has concerns that the same problem could recur if he approves the shipping of a second phone, so he can’t approve the order. He has to get permission from his corporate overlord before he can do so. And it could take 24 hours to get that approval. Rav informs me that the worst case scenario is 24-hours, but the escalation is being flagged as the highest priority for UPPER MANAGEMENT.
There are now at least 4 people involved at Wirefly. I have been on the phone for an hour. Think about how much paperwork this problem is generating. All because there’s a specific process that must be abided by in lieu of a 3-minute phone call. Yes, a 3-MINUTE phone call.
(The one bright spot in this hour is that Rav realizes the situation is absurd and notes that he will raise this situation with the appropriate channels in an effort to generate process improvement. Front guy line realizes there is a need to improve the process by which these situations are handled. It doesn’t make up for the fact that I don’t have my phone or that I spent an hour on the line when a 3-minute call would resolve things, but it gives me hope that someone at the company has a clue.)
As of this morning, it appears that upper management agreed with me and thought the 3-minute phone call was the most prudent option because the tracking number shows that my phone is out for delivery. Again. But now my hope of new smartphone ownership hinges on FEDEX finding my apartment.
Best part, I received a customer satisfaction survey email from Wirefly starting off with, “We hope you are enjoying your recent wireless purchase.” The form email goes on to note its awesome benefits to online customers including “100% customer satisfaction” and “Fast, reliable FEDEX SHIPPING”. No. Just No.
To say I’ve been underwhelmed by Wirefly is an understatement. And all to save an extra $20 off Verizon’s pricing online. Some discounts aren’t worth the hassle.
The media loves to stir up controversy. Sensationalism and outrageous ideas help with the ratings and ad revenues, but that doesn’t do much to educate the public.
Jay Smooth asks whether it’s too much to ask of the media to not feed the trolls?
Recent Comments