It’s satisfying when an articles comes around that proves that what I’ve believed to be true, is! I’m glad to see that ‘thinking’ is actually something that is starting to be recognized as a valid way to spend your time. ‘Daydreaming’ isn’t really that – it’s the time where your mind is let free to associate all your experiences. This ‘free association’ is what gave us many of the things we take for granted nowadays.

Here is an interesting article on why you should let your employees think, or ‘daydream’, as some people still refer to it: http://bit.ly/beP0jt

Social Media keeps growing at a pace that’s hard to keep track of. Danny Brown has put together a list of attributes about the major social media sites here: http://dannybrown.me/2010/07/03/cool-facts-about-social-media/.

While these types of data are fairly easy to come about, it is still amazing how quickly ‘social media’ has taken off. These trends are only accelerating as new technology such as smartphones, tablets and any number of great new devices will become cheaper, lighter, easier to use and therefore more popular. Whatever it may be called, the boom in portable and personal technology is allowing us to be constantly interconnected. And that means we can always be within the reach of someone willing to contact us.

In visual terms, there are a few good videos on youtube that show the fantastic growth of this new method of communication. Enjoy!

At 1:45pm the office space in Toronto, Ontario shook for about 15 sec.

By 1:48pm anyone searching ‘earthquake’ on twitter could see messages coming from all over southern Ontario, Quebec, New York state, Michigan, even as far as Ohio. The speed of social media updates rapidly built a virtual ‘map’ of the earthquake with users starting to guess the magnitude of 4-5 based on reach. Shortly after, the USGS posted the details and the exact location being on the Ontario/Quebec border with a magnitude of 5.5: http://bit.ly/9IidwX.

Social Media is incredibly powerful. With so many people plugged into it, the level of information available and the speed of which it becomes available overwhelm even the fastest automated systems. This ‘real-time’ information dissemination is what social media is all about. And it’s something everyone can tap into. The hard part is having something interesting enough that people actually want to talk about.

And here is another, more humourous point of view:

which begs the question – what was he doing during the quake? It looks a lot like drawing…

more here: http://xkcd.com/723/

UPDATE: Social Media monetization at its best! Less than 2 hours after the actual even you can now buy an ‘I survived Toronto Earthquake 2010′ tshirt: http://bit.ly/9yWmbh. It’s not always about making money off the Social Media platforms, but figuring out how to make money off the stream of information that the platform delivers.

solar powered phone

Just saw the Puma Phone. Neat device that’s supposed to re-charge just by leaving it in the sun.

I could think of many uses for that including camping out, sailing, riding – pretty much any activity that would involve NOT being around a socket 24/7, as it currently is with regular smartphones.

This could also open up phone usage in areas where electricity isn’t as consistent as we’re accustomed to in NA or Europe. Could also help with disaster relief efforts, too.