25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself

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Rajesh Setty [PDF]:

Why should you distinguish yourself?
Short answer: Being part of the commodity crowd erodes your value.

Long answer: Technology professionals worldwide are getting caught in a tsunami of massive commoditization. Technologies are changing very fast. What seemed hot today is not hot anymore. There is a constant pressure to give more, be more effective, be more efficient and be more productive. This forces most technology professionals to go after “short-term skills”. Of course, going after “short-term skills” will provide “short-term results” but will hurt them in the “long-run”. Competency in technical skills is necessary to succeed in this world but they are not sufficient to thrive. The question is what can one do differently so that he or she can distinguish and move above the commodity crowd ? The goal of this manifesto is to provide 25 ways to do just that.
Bonus: You have reached where you are by doing whatever you have done so far. If you need to leapfrog and succeed beyond dreams, continuing to do whatever you have done in the past may not be the answer. You need to think and be different. In other words, you need to distinguish yourself!

The Broadband Explosion, Thinking About a Truly Interactive World

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Sara Grant:

Robert Austin: By “broadband explosion” we mean the coming together of real-time communication and rich media technologies to produce a truer form of interactivity across geographic distance than has been possible up until now. We’ve had some forms of interactive technologies for a long time (e.g., telephone) and many kinds of media too, but real-time interactivity at a distance that comes anywhere near what we experience in face-to-face communication has been elusive. That’s too bad, because people have been anticipating profound effects from the ability to collaborate in real time at a distance for a long time. One of our favorite examples of this is described in a paper written in 1968 by Internet pioneers J. C. R. Licklider and Bob Taylor, called “The Computer as a Communication Device.” These guys imagined human capabilities moving to a new level when real-time interactivity was realized. They expected an acceleration of our abilities to innovate and work creatively. The vision is compelling. The only thing they got wrong was how long it would take us to get there. We are suggesting that the day may finally be arriving. The implications, if so, will be numerous and important. Various chapters in the book describe how business strategy, production technologies, and marketing—to name just a few—may be changed dramatically.

Road Trips: Dylan & Bono on Minnesota’s Highway 61

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Steve Dougherty:

Back on the highway, Doc and I followed the Mississippi as it curved wide and muddy between skyscraping bluffs sculptured by glaciers and smoothed by wind and water. We passed through Wabasha, where posters remind visitors that the town was the setting for the “Grumpy Old Men” films and the National Eagle Center offers tips for birders who flock to the surrounding bluffs to watch bald eagles make their seasonal migrations.
At Lake City, where the Mississippi widens into Lake Pepin, strollers on a two-mile riverfront walkway can look out upon waters where an 18-year-old Ralph W. Samuelson is said to have “discovered” the sport of water skiing in 1922.

Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness Page

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Nassim Taleb publishes a useful website that includes a number of useful articles following up on his wonderful book, Fooled by Randomness. His latest is: The Scandal of Prediction (PDF):

“My major hobby is teasing people who take themselves & the quality of their knowledge too seriously & those who don’t have the guts to sometimes say: I don’t know….” (You may not be able to change the world but can at least get some entertainment & make a living out of the epistemic arrogance of the human race).

The Cost of Online Anonymity

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Dan Simmons:

After 10 years in the business, Anonymizer has two million active users. The US government pays it to promote the service in China and Iran in order to help promote free speech.
But these programs are becoming popular in the West too.
The software encrypts all your requests for webpages. Anonymizer’s servers then automatically gather the content on your behalf and send it back to you.
No humans are involved and the company does not keep records of who requests what.
However, there is some censorship. Anonymizer does not support anonymous uploading to the web, and it blocks access to material that would be illegal under US law.