Standards for High Speed WiFi

Jeff Jarvis raised an issue last week that was one I had blogged about at the ALI Social Media Summit, when as part of my presentation I showed the group how easy it is to start a blog. We created a blog in just a few seconds based on the premise that “high speed” is seriously false advertising for the Chicago Hyatt’s wireless internet.

I don’t know whether Jeff’s call for legislation is the answer, but I’m happy to report that based on my experience so far at the Omni Orlando at Championsgate, I’m going to have high-speed wireless worthy of the name for the next couple of days. What’s more, it’s free.

That’s an interesting difference you see among hotels. The lower-priced hotels and motels put up banners advertising their free wireless internet, because they know it’s a differentiation that could get them extra business. The higher-priced ones that are frequented by business travelers with advance reservations must think most of their customers are getting reimbursed for wireless, so they just add it as a separate charge.

Maybe instead of legislation someone should start a social media site that would let travelers rate the wireless service at hotels, so we could know in advance whether it’s worth the $11.95 or so…or whether the hotel is among the enlightened ones who provide truly high-speed wireless as an amenity for customers.
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More for Your (No) Money

For several months, I’ve thought it was odd that YouTube and Blip.tv let users upload an unlimited number of videos for free, and just put a 100 megabyte limit on each video, while Flickr has a 20 megabyte per month limit on its free service (more than that costs extra.)

Clearly, Flickr was operating more like a traditional business, offering a low level of free service, but then charging for heavy users, whereas YouTube was giving it all away all the time to generate maximum traffic. So, I was working around it by taking screen shots of my photo files (such as those of my daughter’s wedding below), and then uploading them to Flickr, reducing the file sizes by 90 percent or so. And since I was only using Flickr for blogging, I didn’t need the super high resolution.

So, when I was uploading some full-size photos earlier this month, I was shocked to see that after uploading several pictures I had used only 6% of my montly allotment…which led me to see the limit had been raised to 100 megabytes.

So, now Flickr is an even better value: instead of 20 megabytes for nothing, you get 100 megabytes. That’s a lot more for your (no) money.

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Dr. Brent Bauer on Complementary Medicine

Brent Bauer, M.D. is Director of the Complementary and Integrative Medicine progam at Mayo Clinic, and is an expert at sorting out what has been scientifically established about various herbal supplements, vitamins and other complementary medicine alternatives.

Dr. Bauer is the medical editor for a new Mayo Clinic book on this topic, which will be coming out soon. Below is a sample news story we did for our content task force earlier this year, to show what kind of stories we might be able to produce on a quick turnaround with a miniDV camera. Dr. Bauer is an excellent resource for news stories about complementary medicine, and the book will be a good resource for consumers who want to know which supplements have scientifically proven benefits, and which ones may have interactions with medications.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmDvp_-3zJo]

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8 Steps to Successful Change

I just read a really good new book. Today. Twice. It’s about a 45-minute read.

It’s by John Kotter of Harvard Business School (with Holger Rathgeber), and it’s called Our Iceberg is Melting. In it they use a fable based on the Emporer Penguins of Antarctica to communicate the change-management principles outlined in Kotter’s previous book, Leading Change. I’ve just ordered that on Amazon, and look forward to reading it, too. I understand it will give some of the research and background for the 8-step process outlined in Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions:

1. Create a Sense of Urgency
2. Pull Together the Guiding Team
3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy
4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy In
5. Empower Others to Act
6. Produce Short-Term Wins
7. Don’t Let Up
8. Create a New Culture

They also talk about how thinking differently can help change behavior and lead to better results, but feeling differently can change behavior MORE and lead to even better results.

The authors have a companion web site that has helpful information, too.

The site, and the book’s dust jacket, also have several testimonials that are interesting, such as this one:

“As a result of the book and my sharing it with a few people in the organization, we have moved quickly on several fronts. We are galvanized to go ahead instead of further studying, more organizing, and so on. It is making a difference for us.”
— Tom Curley, President and CEO, Associated Press

Apparently the AP doesn’t have the aversion to change that the former editor of the LA Times, does. I guess he would be NoNo. If ever there was a melting iceberg, it would be the newspaper business.

Several other organizations are using the fable to lead change efforts, having many if not all employees read the book and using it as a launching pad for discussion. I know I will be reading this again and recommending it to others as we confront our own melting icebergs at work.

Getting Things Done is about personal change. Our Iceberg Is Melting is about how organizations can change successfully. I think there will be lots of synergy, if you’ll pardon the buzzword, between the two.

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