Mercury, Gemini and Apollo … these were space programs which fascinated me in the 1960's as a child growing up in northern Minnesota. When President Kennedy dedicated our country to land on the moon by the end of the decade, this quest inspired me and many other young children to life long love of science and technology. I still remember getting up in the middle of the night to watch Apollo moon walks live on TV.

We need this kind of inspiring science to attract a new generation of young scientists. In the short term, rather than these heavy thoughts, I will relive that first moon flight (Apollo 11) … and you can too starting this Thursday. Link to:

• We Choose the Moon
• NASA: Apollo 11

Definitely visit the "We Choose the Moon" web site … it's big time cool. Click upon the image to view a copy of the root page full sized.

Do you know how to work with the digital wave? Think of how many industries have been changed forever because of the internet. The business plan of yesterday is history, but do you know how to adapt?

With that preamble, it's worth taking a look at Chris Anderson's new eBook which is titled "Free"! He is earlier book was "The Long Tail". Chris practices what he preaches; his book Free is available for Free! My thanks to iLibrarian who made me aware of this resource.

FREE (full book) by Chris Anderson

As I head off the grid for nine days in northern Minnesota (no phone, no TV, no microwave … just R&R with my family in the deep woods with a glass of wine!), it somehow seems appropriate to leave you with this post … and thought from Demos, A London based think tank (thanks to Jane Hart for the link).

Hopes and dreams matter…

Personal
dreams must be taken more seriously, especially during a recession.
 Demos travelled the country asking people about their lives and what
they wished for in the future. Far from a 'broken society' we found an
optimistic, realistic and altruistic Britain.

In addition, you'll find a report on the state of education in the United Kingdom … The Edgeless University. The full report may be downloaded from this link. Here is a very brief overview, which could really be about almost any service affected by technology. Do you fear it, or embrace change? Time for my first glass of wine!

I just found a great research study on effective internal use of micro-blogging to enhance collaboration in a distributed engineering environment … or should I say it found me via Twitter (thanks to Carrie Young).  One of my favorite quotes from the executive summary: "93% of the answers were from a different NASA center". Explained in my own words, the NASA pilot participants received answers to their technical questions from fellow employees who they often did not know … and who did not work at their own location. If you focus upon collaboration inside the firewall, and are exploring the use of Web 2.0 tools for the enterprise, this is must read. After all … you have an elite university (CalTech) reviewing a complex distributed engineering environment (NASA). NASA's pilot project used Social Cast, but I found the findings to be software tool agnostic.

• NASA Collaboration Study: Executive Summary | Full Report

You may also wish to see my prior post on Collaboration in the Cloud.

I originally learned from WikiAngela that Google News was testing the idea of adding Wikipedia as one of the prime news sources on their Google News. Selected Google News accounts are now being presented with links to stories from the expected players … the New York Times, NBC, the Associated Press, etc., but also Wikipedia. Well, my account is apparently includes in the test. Take a look at the screenshot included below (click to view full at full resolution). Consider the implications!