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Irrational Decision making maybe set in stone

Mason Fok — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:42:52 +0000

I love a good experiment and especially one with monkeys. You have to give credit to the universities that fund this kind of research as the financial rewards for themselves as I think the majority of this researches findings will be on the broader society.

Anyone feel like undertaking a study near the Newcastle area of this nature give me a buzz

Could this be a mouse (and keyboard) killer?

Mason Fok — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:01:38 +0000

It is a pretty strong call!!! But it is NOT every day that you get to see a new computer interface device that could (possibly) one day replace the mouse.

This technology has all kinds of highly practical applications and I personally cannot wait to see where this will develop throughout the years.

Emotiv systems is selling the unit to developers now… in the USA only…
(hope Australia isn’t toooo far away)

Raising kids to be Entrepreneurs

Mason Fok — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:39:38 +0000

This talk should really be entertained by the Department of Education. Lots of important life lessons are learnt growing up with an entrepreneurial spirit and Cameron Herold has outlined some key lessons as part of his own experiences.

I did a few entrepreneurial activities as part of my formal schooling but unfortunately the experiences where branded as youth leadership and entrepreneurship only leading me to discover it was really “this is how to wear a tie and work for a living”.

If anyone is interested in developing an after-hours program or even class curriculum on how to teach entrepreneurs, I would be very interested in helping out.

The future of online security, privacy and society.

Mason Fok — Wed, 05 May 2010 03:58:03 +0000

Brad Templeton is the Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and this talk describes the future of online security, privacy and society. One highlight is his coverage of data privacy. More specifically: What happens when your data is in the hands of third party providers such as “the cloud”?

Hunter Business Chamber, Bob Ansett and customer service

Mason Fok — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:51:38 +0000

At a local Business Chamber event today I noticed a couple of interesting things.

The first was that the speaker Bob Ansett referenced “Think Global but act Local”, which I could not agree with more especially considering we are about to launch Local.net. Bob is a great speaker; it was a great pleasure to listen to his fun and fantastic on the job and life experiences.

The second was a brief talk by Andrew Meyles of Forsythes that referenced the “United Breaks Guitars” music video, highlighting just how important customer service is and how the Internet can effect your business even without your being online.

I imagine the people at United Airlines would be following this (with over 5 million views at the time of this blog). But if you or an employee was to do something that resulted in such a response then you really need to really look at things in-house and you would really want to know of and engage with those effected in aid of a solution. Customer service in the web world very much requires business to keep a pulse on social interaction related to their business. Web2 people would much prefer spend 4 minutes typing up a blog post that tells the world about an experience then spent for the third time over twenty minutes on the phone explaining in very simple English without being understood and little hope for a solution.

It also intrigues me that people think it will not happen to them because they are not as big as United. Just remember this, not everyone you have a negative effect on is going to upload such an enlightening video, but as soon as someone does you can safely guess there would be lots of people willing to comment and share it within their own networks. That video has 5.4 million views but 22,000 people have added their comments to the story and 35,000 have rated it highly.

Insights on Institutions vs. Collaboration

Mason Fok — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:38:06 +0000

This video from July 2005 has some great concrete examples on how the world has and is changing. Clay Shirky’s insights on Institutions vs. Collaboration will help enabled you to consider this change and importantly it’s potential to effect your current or future initiatives.

Parts I like:
- Mass Amateurisation of typically professional roles (touching on pros and cons)
- How he has to define what Flickr is and what Tagging is. (As this was in 2005)
- His reference to Kubler-Ross model (a.k.a. The 5 stages of grief / dying)

The cooperative systems he talks about have now been around a little longer and some relevant and effected institutions have moved further down the Kubler-Ross model.

Authenticity and the Experience Economy

Mason Fok — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:10:00 +0000

This mans words could not be more true. Required viewing and reading for anyone wishing to be in business beyond this year.
The experience economy has brought with it a range of risks and opportunities. Moving to the next level sooner rather then later gives you a future.
Further to this a little thought I had on this subject is how valuable is experience… are you selling a high stress or low stress experience like home buying or a drink, then the value of experience in my opinion is greater. I would love to see someone do a study on this as my common sense is saying experience value increases on the fringes of difficult or easy purchase decisions. For those selling the ordinary you need to read some Seth Godin material because being average in an experience economy is very dangerous.
Joseph Pine has written a couple very valuable books to those of like mind. If you can only read two books this month (you poor person) then check out his books on Authenticity and of course the The Experience Economy.

Is Google Rewiring Our Brains?

Mason Fok — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:00:27 +0000

Internet Savvy users have higher-level of cognitive function!!!

Keeping in mind there may well be a difference between being smarter and having your brain more active. In my opinion this further separates Internet users from TV channel surfers.

Full details see Search Engine Land

Common Sense needs a new name

Mason Fok — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:15:15 +0000

This video is of Dr. Doug Lenat speaking at Google in 2006. Dr Lenat is an expert in Artificial Intelligence and is the president of Cycorp a very interesting project that aims to give a computer common sense. Which makes sense, raise a computer as you would a child, teach it common sense and it will have a greater ability to “reason” and “interpret” data.

Please correct me if I am wrong but the more I meet people fresh out of school or university the more I think common sense is not as common as it suggests.
Those with advanced common sense seem to handle money efficiently, retain more information and have a greater lateral thinking capability.

Universities should test for common sense before accepting students. It should be tested on the way in and on the way out. Analysis of this data would make for one very interesting university index.

Until this process is adopted by educational institutes I would recommend employment agencies and human resources work on such a process, even if it was at a premium to employers it would be worth a trial or two!!!

Mason’s First Blog Post

Mason Fok — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:20:25 +0000

This is the first post of many to come. I have been encouraged by a few friends to get out there and start a blog and so I have done the typical thing and added it to my New Years Resolution. We will see if I can maintain this with time but to ensure that I make at least one post per month at the very least I will offer a reward.

If I do not make a post at least once every 31 days the first person to pull me up on it will win themselves a $50 Amazon.com voucher.

This should be an interesting experience. A lot of fun and look… I have resorted to bribes on my first post…