Tom Purves – Product Management, Fintech & AI

Whant to learn more about how social media is transforming business. From internal blogging to wikis, tagging, and wisdom of the crowds, come see how and who are putting these ideas to work in the Enterprise.

We’re doing it properly this time. Come out thursday (July 20th) for an Enterprise 2.0 Pub night. The show will be run in a somewhat informal workshop format, we’ll have a schedule of three presenters covering the areas of Tech, the Business and the Human Factors of “Enterprise 2.0”. Followed by networking and beer consumption.

If you plan to attend or would like to present, don’t forget to sign up.

All are welcome from tech to business minded. Admission is freedom. (But please do buy a drink or two to support us and the venue).

Monocrom setting up to perform for Toronto

Had the enormous pleasure of meeting up with Yohanes and the crew from Monochrom last night (official site, wikipedia) the manic genius art-interventionist collective from Vienna. Thanks to Fran (a sometime collaborator herself) for the tipoff that they were in town.

There’s still time to catch them in Montreal later this month if that’s were you are.

monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism.

” [Monochrom has] established a 1 baud semaphore line through the streets of San Francisco, started an illegal space race through Los Angeles, buried people alive in Vancouver, and cracked the hierarchies of the art system with The Thomann Project. In Austria they ate blood sausages made from their own blood in order to criticize the grotesque neoliberal formation of the world economy. Sometimes they compose melancholic pop songs about dying media and hosted the first annual and inevitably leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics.”

The show it’s self consisted mostly of Johanes regaling us with stories of their past projects each making slightly less sense than the one before. accompanied by Johanes dancing and belting out a few songs, a few odes and a general stream of techno-politico-art mashups of varying degrees of piercing absurdity. recommended.

Oh and I’ve been made an official citizen of Zombia. Let me know if you’d like a zombie passport as well, I’ve got all the paperwork. “Just one thing you should keep in mind: once a zombie always a zombie. There’s no turning back. Unless maybe you happen to find a way. Again, that is none of our business either. Zombie or not to be — this is no question!”

Phil Holden of Microsoft.

So Microsoft is launching all this new “Windows Live” stuff. All this new all new stuff. new! new! beta! beta! new! beta! oh my. The list is pages long. Awakening from a little power nap having dozed, oops, a little (just a year or 3) longer than intended, the great vole of software is up with a start. oh my! the consumer internet has left us down the tracks. quick! somebody do everything!

“Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.” – the inimitable Stephen Leacock

And thus we have Windows Live. Windows Live Everything.

Q: Anything really knock-your-socks-off-innovative thus far? can’t say anything jumped out at me.

Q: Is it bad we have more competition for all manner of Web services? of course not, as consumer one can’t complain about more options. Interoperability (open api’s, rss, import, export, standards etc.) would be greatly appreciated though. (Microsoft will you ever listen?)

Q: Is the brand from name to execution a little ambitious (to put it charitably) as to what they’re trying to wrap their arms around all in one bite (to muddle metaphors)?
Hmm, No doubt. Many of the apps do certainly have a true beta feel about them from teething performance issues to certain UI oddities. But then, before Google hijacked the idea, this is what Beta’s are for.

Q: Not worse than MSN? oh god yes, and for now cleaner and less ad strewn – at least until ms channel partners (sympatico in canada) get their paws on this stuff.

link

More pictures here

fact of the day: between hotmail and messenger services, MS has 300 Million users.