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Community Gardens – a walled garden with a cool handset

Social Engineer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 06:23:49 +0000

Do you remember when you couldn’t even send a text message outside your mobile operator’s network. These were very tall walled gardens, now operators have agreed to connect at least text messages, however as of today (Sep’09) many simple multi-media messages don’t get through to another operator, you have no idea they didn’t get delivered or sometimes get delivered days or weeks later.

So you join a community garden, where those of you – the chosen ones – can share information and load endless applications until you run out of memory. So here is the next generation smart-phone (the "APP" phone) – I am sure you will have a great experience playing with this endless dead-ends. Though there are many useful applications for smart-phones, the killer-applicaiton is allowing people to network without any regards to whether they have the latest technology, or are on the "in vogue" oeprator, with the right data plan, without concern of running up a $1000 bill and on and on. It needs to work, inter-connect, save you time, and create efficiencies with your pprofessional and social networks, oh yeah one more thing, make a voice call.

Network Fabrics targeted at First Responders & Interoperability

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 17:04:30 +0000

Interoperability between federal and local agencies is still a huge problem.The problem can best be summed up with an excerpt from the Department of Homeland Security dated 9/27/04: “Fact Sheet: Achieving First Responder Communications Interoperability – a Local, State, and Federal Partnership – The challenge of communications interoperability has plagued public safety agencies for decades. Together, technology and leadership can give first responders and public safety agencies the ability to exchange voice and data on demand, in real time, when needed and as authorized. However, as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 made clear, true radio interoperability requires first responders to be able to communicate not just within their units, but also across disciplines and jurisdictions. Reaching the goal of full communications interoperability requires the coordinated efforts of leadership at the local, state, and federal levels.

Great progress has been made, but there is much more work to be done. The Department of Homeland Security is providing national leadership to a local, state, and federal partnership to ensure interoperability objectives are met in every community across the country. In addition to providing centralized guidance on the federal level, Homeland Security is also offering detailed management tools for state and local leaders committed to addressing this challenge within their own communities.”

This problem of interoperability connecting and communicating based on the role of the person, the organization and in many cases only for the duration of an incident is what needs to be done. Not after the event, but before the event, a pre-built network fabric should be built that is structured for the event whether a natural disaster or other catastrophe. With a proactive approach using best practices, these events can be managed using the flexibility of a incident based network fabric - pre-defined roles and responsibilities assigned by role. Role based communications allows for sophisticated work flow without resources assigned. This is done in construction all the time and should be applied to incident management. As long as the fabric can stretch and adapt to the situation, then it will be a highly valuable tool to the many participants.

Over Connected and Overwhelmed

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:56:40 +0000

Every mobile and internet enabled user is different in their requirements for data, services and connectivity; yet every user shares one common problem of being over-connected and overwhelmed with choices and options. Look at this display of some of the thousands of information services and networks that you can join and require you to sign-up, give personal information, setup preferences, visit and check-it periodically. I am sure you recognize some of the names and logos. Each of these companies has a common objective and that is to engage and capture individuals with a service that provides a reason for them to visit their site. Each of these services is tailored to specific types of users based on affiliations, demographics, age, behavior, demographics, or other attributes, so people opt-in for the service that best fits their needs. With the addition of internet-connected cell phones, these services extend to the mobile world making instant internet access, services and data available for everyone. This creates an almost unlimited number of choices for information exchange and creates a significant information management problem for people that are trying to integrate their mobile, social and professional networks. All of these online services combined with the myriad of available communication methods (RSS Feeds, Blogs, Email, Voice Mail, SMS, Instant Text, Picture & Multi-Media Messages, Social Networks, and voice-to-text, text-to-voice and other vertical services) have created needless complexity, and distractions. In the workplace, these interruptions have been measured and result in a loss of U.S. workplace productivity of $588 Billion[1] annually. Society in general has become information overloaded, over-connected and overwhelmed.

[1] Workplace interruptions cost $588B in lost productivity

By: James Gaskin IT World January 8, 2008