The software community understands how dramatically open source has changed the playing field, but do folks in other technologies appreciate how one must look outside one’s own organization if you truly have the desire to innovate and grow?  With that thought in mind, I want to recommend two great podcasts. The first is an interview with Patrica Seybold over her book, Outside Innovation. In an interview with Business Week she reviews the story how Lego used lead customer input to help them design the Mindstorms product:

"Lego: The company has tapped thousands of customers to help it design its Lego MINDSTORMS robots. We’re talking kids, math teachers, college professors, and software hackers. Back in 2004, the company held a two-day workshop at MIT with a handful of what Seybold calls its "lead customers," getting their help in identifying the features that should be put into the next generation product, MINDSTORMS NXT. Later, a couple of the members of this MINDSTORMS User Panel were invited into the top secret lego labs to make detailed suggestions on some of the physical pieces that should be added to the kits. Then before the commercial launch of the product, Lego recruited about 100 customers to be beta testers. The company also opened up its software APIs and encouraged customers to create extensions to its operating system or to actually replace its core software with theirs. The company also created a community to facilitate sharing of software and ideas between its customers. All of this customer engagement work is paying off for Lego. Its revenues climbed 11.5% last year and it swung from a loss to a profit."

Thus, here are the two podcasts:

• Patrica Seybold Interview: Innovation Meets the Revolution
• Lego Mindstorms NXT: Lead Users and Viral Marketing

I will add both of these podcasts to my Innovation and Networked Economy Podcasts page.
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For some time I’ve used GreatNews (my screencast and overview). This RSS feed reader has great features, and allows me to read my premium internal corporate feeds (i.e. content inside the firewall).  While I expect to continue to use GreatNews at work, I may have to switch to Google Reader at home.

Why?

Google Reader has recently added a new feature which recommends blogs to which I should subscribe based upon my usage history (i.e. my subscribed sites and what I actually read). Maximize the two screenshots to see what I mean. One can easily export all one’s feeds to an OPML file and then import them into Google Reader.  It’s an experiment worth trying. You may monitor what Google is up to with their RSS service via their Google Reader blog.
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Take one Winter storm, mix in one stranded couple at the Super 8 in Waverly, Iowa … and you have all the makings for a gourmet dinner! While the snow and ice were paralyzing the area, we walked to a local store and made our huge purchases:

• One bottle of red wine (screw off top … we had no cork screw)
• One Orange
• One Box of Crackers
• One tub of seafood salad

For our dining entertainment we availed ourselves of Super 8’s wireless and used my laptop to listen to NPR’s live stream of Prairie Home Companion!  In fact, we used only the finest plastic cups for our wine! Life is good!

Later that evening we still managed to get over to Christmas at Wartburg.
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The amount of information found via the web is amazing, and hard to assimilate.  One method for finding new content is to check reputable awards sites. One very good award web site to follow is the "Eddies", also known as the Edublog award site. Dating back to 2004, these awards recognize top blogs in the educational field … from corporate to educational.

This year’s nominees find me reviewing and subscribing to three new blogs (and maintaining my subscription to Tony Karrer’s eLearning Technology):

1. Clive on Learning – from the United Kingdom
2. Mobile Learning – from Australia
3. Technology Enhanced Learning – from Germany

It goes without saying that without the use RSS, you receive only imited value from new content. If RSS is still a new concept to you, link and watch this short video. You will then need software. Here is my software recommendation, GreatNews, along with some screencasts.

One final point, note how the three blogs which I am newly monitoring are from countries other than my own. If you don’t believe that culture affects one’s viewpoint on many subjects, please reconsider. The intelligent person recognizes the affect of their own cultural norms, and tries to move beyond those imitations.

This is hard to believe, but true. TechSmith is offering older versions of both Snagit and Camtasia for free. Actually, this is a great marketing move on their part to capture an increased share of the screencasting and eLearning authoring market. I’m sure their strategy is if you like the product, you’ll pay for an upgrade in the future.  Act fast! Who knows how long this offer will be active.

My thanks to Tony Karrer who keyed me into this offer.

• Download Camtasia 3.1.3
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• Download SnagIt 7.2.5 (English)
• Download SnagIt 7.2.5 (German)
• Download SnagIt 7.2.5 (French)
• Register product