Podcast Update

Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine talks about The Long Tail (he wrote an article in Wired on the same subject too). This is a very interesting topic. The long tail refers to the long and thin area under a sales curve. The items under this curve are many and distributed individually to few. Amazon, eBay, and other net based distribution models are finding profitable ways to deal with thelong tail. Traditional distribution channels do not fare so well.

Jory des Jardins, Heather B. Armstrong, Ronni Bennett, and Koan Bremner talk about blogging "naked". In other words, exposing one's real self and personal details via one's blog. I guess I am sort of doing this. They talk about folks revealingthings about themselves that can potentially lead to bigger backlashes then I would expect (e.g., revealing that one is changing one's gender). Interesting discussion.

Scott Kriens talks about the relationship between applications and the network. He basically builds the case that the network should have more intelligence to help deliver richer behaving applications.

Alan Zelicoff and Michael Belloma talked about fighting virus outbreaks and bioterrorism. Specifically, they talked about the importance of tracking symptoms instead of diseases. Currently, doctors are required to submit information based on the diseases they diagnose. But, they grossly under-report.

Joshua Schachter (del.icio.us), Stewart Butterfield (Flickr), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) and Clay Shirky talk about folksonomies. If you have an interest in opening up a taxonomy to "folks" then I recommend this podcast. We are using Wiki to collect documentation for one of our product frameworks at work. I liked this presentation.

Brian Dear, founder & CEO of EVDB.com talks about EVDB, a database for events. Imagine one stop to learn about events with views that change depending on whether you have registered or not. Further, what if you can register for an event and have the registration site update your calendar. Very cool and great presentation.

Jerry Weissman, Media and Presentation Coach, talks with Dr. Moira Gunn about well, making presentations. He offers advice about how to use (or how not to use) PowerPoint. Specifically, he recommends using slides to support the presentation not to contain lots and lots of details on each slide. Each slide should have nothing much more then a graphic and a few words to support the content be presented by the presenter.

Dennis Bakke talks with Dr. Moira Gunn about having fun at work. He indicates that it is more about having a work environment where folks can take a stake in what they do and be accountable. It is not just about freebies and benies.

Darwin Prockop,Director of Tulane's Gene Therapy Center, talks with Dr. Moira Gunn about adult stem cells and how they may prove to provide benefits for a variety of medical uses in the future. Very interesting presentation.