Twitter Cubed

I use Twitter. As do an estimated 4 to 5 million other folks. Is this a revolutionary social media application? Nearly all large commercial portals such as MSN and Yahoo plus Facebook have added Twitter-like functionality to their platforms. Or is this a one-hit wonder with a limited shelf life? Sixty percent of people who sign up for Twitter end up ditching their Twitter account within a month.

I'm the last one to predict the fate of the Twittersphere. But, if anyone is looking to see what the next generation of Twitter might look like, see the video below. (Warning: it's a spoof, and very well done.)

So much sun energy, so little time and investment.

National Geographic recently had a fantastic feature on the state of solar-generated energy and how the world is progressing--or not progressing--on harnessing power from the sun. The article pointed out how Germany is leading the world in adopting solar power and making it a viable energy source in that country. As I was reading the story, I asked a visiting German student--a friend of our family who was spending a few days at our house--if he knew about Germany's solar energy leadership role and why it had evolved that way.

He said the German government years ago committed itself to an unwavering national policy to deploy solar power as widely as possible. Any German household with solar panels producing excess power not used by the home sells it back to the power company at a very nice price (nice for the homeowner, that is). Power companies are required by law to pay that handsome price to all residential solar resellers. As National Geographic points out, Germany has attained this leadership position not by building scores of centralized, massive commercial solar generating facilities--that would be prohibitively costly--but by advocating a do-it-yourself, empowerment policy agenda that encourages individual homes, businesses, institutions to adopt solar power solutions whenever and wherever they can. It's kind of the solar equivalent of decentralized networks and servers and PCs vs. the mainframe.

And this week, acclaimed New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote another gem of an opinion piece on the global "solar economy:" how countries are targeting solar energy as an industrial-development, jobs-growth opportunity. Friedman profiles Applied Materials, a U.S. based company that builds machines that build solar panels whose factories--all 14 of them--are located outside the U.S. Why? Because he must locate manufacturing close to where the demand is, and the demand is not in United States.

Writes Friedman: "Let’s see: five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials’s solar business: “Invented here, sold there.”

"The sun provides enough energy in one minute to supply the world's energy needs for one year. In one day, it provides more energy than our current population would consume in 27 years. In fact, the amount of solar radiation striking the earth over a three-day period is equivalent to the energy stored in all fossil energy sources." (Source: Alternative Energy.org)

Sometimes, government can get it right.

If you were in need of hospital-based diabetes care and needed to choose a hospital in your area, how would you choose? Especially if there are a dozen choices close to your home?

The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services has a Web-based service called Hospital Compare. It is a database of questionnaire responses based on Medicare patient experiences, comprising scorecards on medical centers across the U.S. You can compare aggregate patient responses covering basic diagnostic categories of adult diabetes, heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, chest pain and chronic lung disease. You can get data in chart or graph form, and can compare hospital results side by side for any group of hospitals you choose.

I chose three hospitals in my area to see what resulted. The numbers, in general, were not miles apart, but there were several care categories in which one hospital might be 9 or 10 points higher or lower than its peer hospitals. That could make a difference in decision making.

My only question is, how come we can't assemble this data for all patient experiences, not just Medicare patients?

Anyway, kudos to the feds for building this valuable information source. As health care reform moves forward (hopefully) we'll need more of this actionable data.

Microfinance - An innovator brings "microcapital" to developing-nation entrepreneurs

What if you were a talented, enterprising goat farmer in sub-Saharan Africa who could produce enough meat and milk to feed only your family. And what if, with a little capital infusion, you could acquire several more goats for breeding stock and be able to expand your herd in order to sell extra meat and milk in a nearby city market. And with that extra revenue, you might be able to pay for one or two employees to help build your capacity and expand your goat product market even further. And, eventually, you've built a business that not only sustains your family, but can also help your kids get inexpensive computers, attain a much better education than they might normally, and, ultimately, build a higher quality of life.

Kiva is the outgrowth of a single idea by a TiVO programmer, who, several years ago, set his mind on creating a "microlending" system to do this very thing. Kiva uses a very robust web platform to assemble individual investors around the world who provide seed capital used in very small increments--$75 to a few hundred--to help a farmer acquire a few animals, a textile merchant acquire a loom, or a village pharmacist provide new medicines to patients. Lenders, people like you and me, can communicate directly with those receiving the funds.

It is one of the kuhlest concepts I've come across. And one that is changing the world.

Creativity 401

This is a graduate seminar in what the creative mind coupled with obvious editing and packaging skill plus musical arranging and performance ability can achieve. All by one dude with a camera.

He's no Josh Groban, no Steven Spielberg. But the end result is captivating nonetheless.

An auto plant unlike any you've seen

If they weren't moving car chassis and engines through this palatial facility, you'd probably think you're inside the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles or the European Guggenheim in Spain. Truly astounding story here. My dad sent this to me.

Since I work with a client that builds robotics, I'm especially taken with the robotic material handling equipment. Not welding robots, which we've all pretty much seen, but ones that carry stuff across the entire plant.

The Credit Crisis explained in 11 easy minutes

Take a look at this video. It's a pretty cool summary of why we're in the mess we're in.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.