The 3 A's of Awesome

I didn't know this until after I watched this video on TED, but Neil Pasricha won the 2009 Webby award for Best Blog. You can see his blog here: http://1000awesomethings.com/

In the video, he talks about his "3 A's of Awesome" on which his blog are based:

1. Attitude
2. Awareness
3. Authenticity

After my first business trip these past two weeks away from my wife and daughter, the video really hit home as to what is really important in life and how much we take the little things for granted.

I wish I would have watched this video before my trip because instead of concentrating on my perceived fears of flying that I had learned as an adult, I might have paid more attention to the little things that made the experience fun when I was a child.

In his video, Neil describes how kids are more aware of the little things. I remember my very first airplane ride when I was 7 years old. My mom was taking me to Texas to see my Dad who was stationed at Fort Hood. I was fascinated with the flight crew, the informational card in the seat pocket that tells all about the airplane (that as an adult nobody ever reads), the little plastic wings they used to give all the kids, and how the toilet in the airplane lavatory sucked all the blue water down (did it get dropped on the houses below?). Above all, I was flying... I mean, I was really flying!

Then of course, there was the experience of my trip in general... picking up the rental car was painless (they just scanned a bar code on the car and I was on my way), my room was always cleaned with fresh sheets when I returned from work each day, and my cell phone told me when and where I needed to be during the entire trip. That in and of itself is pretty darned cool.

There really isn't a "technical aspect" per se that I can tie into my Futuring and Innovation class. However, looking forward does not always have to be about technology in and of itself. Looking forward is having a different attitude towards life, being aware of the little things around you, and being authentic in how you carry yourself and who (family, company, etc.) you represent.

2010 Horizon Report

The 2010 Horizon Report predicts that within the next year, mobile devices will become more utilized in the classroom. As early last year, I was already observing students downloading their textbooks in electronic format so they could view the course material on their mobile phones.

Open content is also supposed to become "mainstream" within the next 12 months. I've actually used open content such as that found MIT's OpenCourseWare and the Kahn Academy to help me in my classes. I have the benefit of looking at this prediction from two different angles, one as a private university adjunct professor and student, the other as a former student of a state university. At the state university level, yes I do see open content becoming more popular. I've taken several classes within the past two years at the University of Colorado that utilized publically available online material (including material the instructor's have made freely available on their websites) as their main course material. However, at the private university level this has not been my experience. This could be because private universities are more limited by copyright restrictions, and courses are more standardized.

In 2 to 3 years, electronic books are predicted to be used more by university courses.With the number of students who travel for work and students who are in the military, I'm really surprised that electronic textbooks have not yet become a REQUIREMENT for most courses. I hope this becomes "mainstream" much sooner.

The key trend that seems to be pushing both the technologies of open content and electronic books is the growing demand to work and learn remotely.

Gesture-based computing is set for widespread adoption in 4 to 5 years, according the report. I'm blown away and quite impressed with the accomplishments that Microsoft has made with its Kinnect game system. The fact that it's worked so flawlessly is frankly just amazing to me. It should only be a matter of time for their engineers to adapt the technology as a regular computer interface. What's even more encouraging is how cheap the Kinnect system is $150. Within 5 years, I can envision a replacement to the mouse for under $100 and I expect Microsoft to be the market leader for such a device. This could also start a new trend of end users requiring larger monitors (50+") so they have more space in order to efficiently move and manipulate objects on the screen.

Welcome to my Blog!

I'm starting this blog for as a deliverable for the Futuring & Innovation course I'm taking for my doctoral program at CTU. I'm not really sure where to start since I already microblog via Facebook, so in my next few updates I'll be posting my thoughts on our readings from Week 1 of the course.

Our reading material for the course include the following books:

• Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish
• Technology's Promise by William Halal
• The Fortune Sellers by William Sherden