Monday, August 18, 2008

Paid in full with a glass of milk - a parable

I don't usually write up these kinds of posts, but I liked this one and if you're reading this from a rainy, grey place this morning like I am, then it might bring you a moment of sunshine.

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.

Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he
looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, then asked, "How much do I owe you?"
"You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness."
He said, "Then I thank you from my heart."

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also.. He had  been ready to give up and quit.

Many years later that same young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled! They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.
Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room.

Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to her case. After a long struggle, the battle was won.

Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words.....

"Paid in full with one glass of milk"
(Signed)
Dr. Howard Kelly.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed:
"Thank You, God, that Your love has spread broad through human hearts and hands."

There's a saying which goes something like this:  Bread cast on the waters comes back to you. The good deed you do today may benefit you or someone you love at the least expected time. If you never see the deed again at least you will have made the world a better place - And, after all, isn't that what life is all about?
Now you have two choices.

You can send this page on and spread a positive message. Or ignore it and pretend it never touched your heart. The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Locomatrix in London Lite


Locomatrix in London Lite
Originally uploaded by twhume
Locomatrix and Future Platforms are doing a fine job defining mobile virtual gaming with a location element to it too.

Well done!

Alfie’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitters model is partially broken: Europe the first casualty

Alfie Dennen (of Moblog fame) has done a write up on Twitter's recent decision to stop the free SMS element of its service. I've seen quite a bit written about it and most of it lacks any understanding of how SMS or the operators work but this post makes some sense of it so worth a look.

For the record, I would pay to receive my (selected) DMs (that's direct messages to the twitter uninitiated) via SMS as well as email. I don't get a huge amount each week, but enough to warrant me buying some kind of bundle.

And for those on the facebook group on this topic who think that the pay to receive SMS on twitter is tantamount to paying to receive junk text messages then they clearly don't understand how the privacy and DM settings work - it doesn't *all* happen on SMS you know. Most of the interaction is web-based - be that mobile or full-fat internet.

Alfie’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitters model is partially broken: Europe the first casualty

Google Ads: Emphatic 'No' on Homepage, but Mobile Will Be Big | Epicenter from Wired.com

Well at least that's what Google's Eric Schmidt says:

Now mobile, that's different. That niche has such potential, Schmidt believes, that it will eclipse the tethered business it already does by way of home and office computers.

"Over time we will make more money from mobile advertising," Schmidt said. "Not now, but over time."

Google Ads: Emphatic 'No' on Homepage, but Mobile Will Be Big | Epicenter from Wired.com

Monday, August 04, 2008

Ever wanted to know the gender and age breakdown of social networks?

Then Rapleaf has answered your prayers. They've just released the full dataset of the 49.3 million people included in the Study of Social Network Users vs Age. It covers the main online social networks including Bebo, Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, LinkedIn, Flickr and more.

Overall, it appears that women are significantly more active on social networks than men as they're more interested in nurturing relationships (confirmed by higher membership on sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook. Men on the other hand are more interested in transacting and therefore have a higher representation on LinkedIn (I wonder if that also exposes the gender gap in the workplace at executive level?)
Rapleaf tell us: "women spend more time on social networks building and
nurturing relationships, whereas men are less likely to spend as much time
nurturing relationships as they are 'transacting'."

The missing link in this study is of course the mobile element. None of the mobile social networks are included such as Mxit, Trutap or Peperonity. We also know that online social networks such as Facebook going mobile drives mobile data usage. My question is does that mean *women* will be driving the mobile data revolution (as they seem to be driving the online social networking revolution)? And if so, how are we tailoring mobile data services and the marketing thereof to women. In the UK at least, network operator advertising feels either masculine or gender neutral. It certainly doesn't feel very feminine to me (and I'm not talking about the expectation of seeing pink and pastel colours).

And if my hunch *is* right, then shouldn't we be designing this stuff with women in mind first if we really want to drive mobile data services forward? And if so shouldn't women have more of a voice in making decisions about their digital lives - be they on the mobile internet or the fixed line internet?

[gets off soapbox!]

Friday, August 01, 2008

Museums are embracing mobile technology

Mike Short tipped me off to an interesting event coming up in September showcasing how museums like London's Tate Gallery are using mobile technology to enhance the visitor experience. (It's a one-day event "From Audiotours to the iphone" on 5th September and costs £150.)

And it got me thinking as to what museums are doing in the field of mobile marketing, advertising and media. And it seems they're up to quite a bit. And I imagine some of these things will be explored further at The Tate's forthcoming Symposium.

Across the pond, Cellit ran 'The Digital Post Office of Love', a Valentine's Day promotion, for the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art as part of its ongoing SMS marketing effort. This featured a large, interactive display where visitors could use their mobile phones to instantly post messages via sms to woo other visitors, all in the spirit of Valentine's Day.

Dan Sutch from Nesta's Futurelab has some ideas as to what mobile learning and mobile experiences could be like, particularly from a youth marketing and youth engagement perspective. The slides are interesting and should be food for thought.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts launched a mobile initiative, MFA Mobile. Through MFA Mobile, users are able to personalize a mobile device with works of art from the Museum’s extensive collection of art, ranging from a Claude Monet water lily or Edward Hopper lighthouse to an Egyptian sculpture or African mask.

However, I'm slightly more cynical about this as they were charging $1.99 for an individual image or $4.99 a month for a subscription. I suspect that you could actually take a picture with your cameraphone of *most* of the exhibits which would negate the need for the download. And not only that, if you go to the website, it's easy enough to save the images for free.

I think if I were running this service, I would look to make a donation optional but easy to do to help generate revenues. And perhaps provide the subscription package as an added value bonus to some other fundraising scheme. Maybe Boston museum-goers are happy to pay these prices?

I've been a fan of TXTual Healing for some time and they help create public performances with text messages, some of which are at museums and art galleries. Check out their blog for details of past events.

And if that's not enough, then a rifle through Textually's blog using the tag museum will come up trumps with some interesting examples of what's happening with mobiles and museums, including a lot of art exhibits.