Ender's Game – 35 years on …

When Orson Scott Card first wrote his novelette Ender’s Game in 1977, I was 10 years old – the age at which Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin was in the midst of saving the human race from *evil* aliens in the story.

Coming to this Sci Fi classic 35 years after it was first published and before a new blockbuster film based on a fusion of two of the ‘Ender series’ books is due to be released in 2013 has been an interesting and timely experience.

As with many Sci-fi novels from the last 100 years it prophesied how some aspects of our society could developed over the subsequent decades.

The full novel was published in 1985, predating the web and a time when the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was the peak of home computing and gaming.

The ‘newsnets’ that the story refers to were no doubt based on Card’s understanding of the rudimentary communication structures on the Internet at that time, before Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the hypertext mark up language that made the environment accessible to everyone.

Continue reading →

Confessions of an amateur herpetologist

Throughout my childhood, if someone asked me what I feared most I would always say ‘snakes’. Contrary to this professed phobia, which is believed to be an innate fear in humans, I was fascinated by the idea of finding snakes in the wild and would spend hours in the fields close to my parents’ home and alongside the railway line, where they were believed to bask, hoping to see them. Despite the efforts however, sightings were rare; a glimpse of a grass snake in a field of thick grass once; the discovery of a dead grass snake on the side of the road from which I cut off the tail as a trophy; and the even rarer sight of an adder swimming across a pond and slithering into the undergrowth very close to my feet. Beyond such fleeting encounters, my fascination and curiosity remained limited to studying them through the glass of zoo and reptile centre enclosures and watching documentaries.

I was in my late twenties and married before I took the opportunity to handle a snake for the first time. I still remember the occasion well as it was during a ‘reptile encounter’ session at a zoo local to my home to which we had taken some young relations on a day out.  Recollections of the snake itself are a bit fuzzy but I seem to remember it being a young python or boa constrictor about a metre long. What I remember more than anything is my heart pounding and my hands shaking as I took hold of the creature for the first time. Typical of such scenarios however, that initial fear turned quickly to wonder and also the realisation that the experience was very different from the one I had perhaps imagined.

Continue reading →

To engage or not to engage – that is the question:

Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them …

This slight adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy seemed fitting in a week when the ‘engagement’ debate has raged again.

Amongst the various discussions on Twitter, I noticed reference to an article on the Marketing website describing what it called ‘The great brand engagement myth’.  To set the tone of the article, it is accompanied by an image of Gone with the Wind character Rhett Butler and the phrase “Frankly marketeer I don’t give a damn”.

You will need to be registered to read the whole article. If you are not, it isn’t the most ‘engaging’ registration process or ‘customer experience’ so I hope the publisher’s don’t mind if I give the article more exposure by quoting some passages from it in order to give you a flavour of the comments from pundits and marketers …

A comment that stood out to me particularly was from Ben Hammersley, editor of Wired UK magazine:-

Continue reading →

Reasons to be cheerful – one, two, three

Well, we’ve made it through Blue Monday, which is reckoned to be the most depressing day of the year – and presumably the rest of the week isn’t deemed to have been much better.

If I was looking at things on face value I’d have to say they weren’t looking so good right now. This last year has been the toughest I have known it since first entering the workplace in the mid 1980s and a lot of commentators are talking about us teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession. Some recent number crunching by The Guardian illustrates quite well what this latest recession looks like graphically in comparison to other major downturns.

Ian Dury - legend of the UK new wave scene - had a good list of reasons to be cheerful in the dire 1970s

Although young at the time, I remember the effect the recessions of the 70s and early 80s had on family members. In the recession of the late 80s/early 90s, I lost the first main job I’d ever had when the construction industry I was working in virtually imploded overnight. In the early part of this century during the dotcom bust, the two big companies I worked for, NTL and Lucent, lost billions and laid off many, many thousands.

It doesn’t surprise me therefore that this current recession looks graphically closer to the great depression of the 1930s because, based on experiences of other recessions and market bubble bursts, it feels like it too, as it grinds on year after year.

On face value this doesn’t look like a great time to be trying to start a business but then this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone against the flow. So, as new wave rockers Ian Dury and the Blockheads sung back in the 1970s …

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
A little drop of claret – anything that rocks

Reasons to be cheerful – one, two, three

Continue reading →

#cmsconnected – Message received loud and clear

As a deafened person, I am celebrating the latest format CMS Connected is using for its webinars. For those who haven’t seen one of these events yet they are run using TPN’s Webinar 3.0 solution which delivers high quality real-time video, excellent digital sound, contribution via Skype and Twitter for interaction.

As mentioned elsewhere on this site about hearing difficulties, I hate noise and crave clarity. Also, as my hearing continues to worsen, I rely more and more on lip-reading – so being able to see someone’s face and lip movements helps tremendously in giving clarity to what is being said. Beyond that, I enjoy being able to participate but unfortunately as many CMS/IT related discussions and debates are held in very noisy locations like bars, restaurants and exhibition halls I often forgo the opportunity to do this as I know from past experiences that it will be frustrating and stressful trying to follow the topic of discussion and contribute relevantly and meaningfully.

So, from the comfort of my home office, with the video displayed in a comfortable size in one window, Twitter in another, my favourite noise cancelling earbuds in place and the volume turned way up, I sat back to enjoy the latest CMS Connected offering – 2011 Year in Review with Scott Liewehr and Seth Gottlieb (AKA The Unpronounceables 😉 )
Continue reading →