Most people have heard the term mashup by now. Ever since the open API release of Google Maps, companies have been going ape over enterprise mashups. For businesses, mashups represent the convergence of data of disparate sources to produce something new and useful. It's interesting that businesses are just "getting" this concept now. Disk jockeys have been doing this for decades. In fact many DJs have become VJs -- simultaneously mashing up music and video. One of my favorite artists from the Ninja Tune label, Hexstatic, has an exemplary mashup on Youtube, watch it here. What are some of your favorite mashups?
Programmable Web has a listing of mashups that worth a look -- and well, it's kind of a mashup on its own :-)

Macworld is January 15-18th, 2008. You can get a free expo pass (normally $25) through the link at HotDealsClub.com.

During a particularly long day yesterday, I let myself get stuck in an officer meeting that ran long and ended up missing a personal meeting. I ignored an alert from my PDA telling me that I was supposed to be somewhere else because I felt obligated to remain in my officer meeting. Afterwards I realized that I was trying to be too many things at once and had to get clear on my roles. It was not really a question about priority, rather I had forgotten who I was supposed to be at that moment.
To help solve this, I've started to list my roles and responsibilities each day. Some roles change day to day, others remain constant. This has helped me group common goals and schedule roles around the moment. The next time I find myself in a similar situation where roles conflict, I simply have to remind myself how what role I'm in, and how it's measured. In retrospect, I realize that my performance as a leader is ultimately measured by my ability to motivate others.

As part of my High-Tech Entrepreneurship class, we went to see the Red Sox play at Fenwey. We were assigned a case "Fenway in Your Pocket" to discuss at the game. During the game Professor Walske introduced us to Michael Porter, a name that should be familiar to all MBAs. He authored the ubiquitous "Five Forces" of business, and his theories form the crux of many fundamental business arguments.
These days, Porter is turning his eye to healthcare reform. He is giving talks around the country on a value-based system of healthcare and how IT can bring us there. You can see a video presentation of this talk here.

"What we've learned from studying every other system on the planet, is that private systems are good. That's what we have in the US. That's supposed to be good. We have more competition in this system, than in any other system in the world. That's supposed to drive value. Efficiency and quality should improve... But that isn't happening in healthcare. The unthinkable is happening. We're high cost and low quality, despite the fact that we're private and competitive. The simple answer is that we have the wrong kind of competition, on the wrong things."

See a list of upcoming events where Michael Porter will be speaking.

There are two Boston area technology events coming up this week: InterEthos' Roundtable and the 501 Tech Club's monthly gathering.

InterEthos' presentation is this Tuesday, September 18th 4:30-6:00pm
Charles Hotel
1 Bennett Street
Harvard Square, Cambridge

"On September 18th Josh Shortlidge will present a new technology designed to 'catalog and share the character of internet users in real time'."

The idea is to have an identity and personality verification service, so that you can better understand the character of people you meet online. It's an interesting idea that could fill a need in the social networking space.
Following the roundtable, the 501 Tech Club has their monthly happy hour. I went last month and met a ton of great folks using technology for social change. Many of the attendees were hiring, and asked me to spread the word for more MBAs to come. The focus is on non-profit technology work in the Boston area.

Boston 501 Tech Club

Sponsored by TechFoundation

Join us the Third Tuesday of evey month for free food, drinks and technology news at the 501 Tech Club networking events.

What: The 501 TechClub

Where: The Charles Hotel, Cambridge MA

When: Tues, September 18th, 6-8pm

Sun Microsystems is hosting Sun Tech Days in Boston this week, Sept 11-12. This is a great opportunity to learn and network the tech sector in the Boston area:

Advance your development ability and shape your future with cutting-edge technical education; Sun Tech Days are loaded with practical information, examples of real-world solutions, and hands-on training. Whatever your focus, you'll find sessions to take your skills to the next level and advance your career.

Registration is free, click here to register. The schedule is here.

James Gosling will be the featured keynote speaker on September 12 and the day will include sessions and hands-on training for a wide variety of technologies, including Java, scripting languages, etc.

Only about 1 out of 5 people are left-eyed -- meaning that the left eye is dominant. Most people do not realize the significance of eye dominance, because it's something that the mind does on its own. Perception is funny thing. The image that the brain receives through the eyes is actually a flipped image; so when we were just a few days old we saw things upside down. Then gradually the brain translates this image so that things appear right side up.
Eye dominance is similar. For most people, the dominant eye gathers important sensory information that forms the basis of one's perception.

Here's how you can see for yourself:
Make a circle with your thumb and index finger and hold it at arms length from your head. Look through this circle at an object in the distance. Now close one eye at a time. If the object moves out of the circle when you close one eye, that is your dominant eye.
Your eye-dominance does not always follow your hand dominance. For example, I'm left-eyed but right-handed. If you ever do anything that requires precision like lining up a pool cue, you should be using your dominant eye to aim.

I'm in the process of converting my old blog KFIT to Left Eye. Please excuse the appearance for a few days.

This month's McKinsey Report has a good article about how to capitalize on user-generated content. UC has been all the buzz since the advent of YouTube and Blogger, but marketing groups are still struggling to figure out how to use it. The McKinsey article brings into focus that A) the contributions of a small minority comprise the content viewed by the mass majority and B) their primary motivation for contributing is notoriety -- they want the world to recognize their contribution.

We also found that a few users posted the most popular content. Depending on the site, just 3 to 6 percent of the membership added 75 percent of the videos available for download, and videos from just 2 percent of the member base accounted for more than half of all videos views. (As the "long-tail" effect would suggest, half of the videos posted accounted for only 10 percent of all downloads.)
-The McKinsey Quarterly, Sept 2007

The concept of the "long-tail" fits UC perfectly. Just do a Google Video search for your favorite obscure musician and your bound to get a few hits. But how can companies influence their UC position? In other words, what would it take to generate UC favorable to a firm to be part of the %50?

What's lacking in most companies efforts to get UC is quality control. When you're dealing with contributions from the masses, you can't expect quality to just happen...you have to plan for it. You can plan for UC quality by providing tools that make it easier for people to contribute, collaborate, and to become part of the process. Just awarding prizes for cool videos, will not ensure quality. There must be a way to turn the "long-tail" inside out. Reaching out to high-quality contributors and communicating back out is a good way to foster a HQ feedback loop.