Monday, June 20, 2011
Social Media and CCTV
If this has not been done yet then I'm hoping that Crimewatch picks up on the idea of using Twitter to add an extra layer of citizen/voluntary monitoring/feedback to the general Crimewatch suburb crime monitoring service. I'm suggesting that concerned citizens tweet about suspicious activity in their immediate area. Such tweeting is already common practice. Crimewatch could then verify any accidents, transgressions or potential transgressions by checking their CCTV system at the time-stamp of the tweet. Our local policing service (1011) could monitor the same public network.
The reality is that it costs a lot of money to offer a 24-hour monitoring service. This means that it is not financially feasible for the likes of Crimewatch as well as our Police service to have a car on every corner, patrolling every street. I'm sure that even the 24-hour CCTV monitoring team occasionally takes their eye off the ball (toilet, microwave, naps :)).
Think Smart City where monitoring and reporting is built into its fabric, where citizens do not tolerate other citizens blatantly breaking the law. The building blocks already exist, just not in a integrated fashion.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Mannerisms
Two brothers, one 4 and one nearly 2 with two completely different personalities, in fact they look completely different as well. Our eldest is the gentlest soul, he does not fight, is sensitive and loves to understand what makes the world tick, how things work, a thinker. Our youngest is fearless and not concerned with consequences, a doer. He bounces out of bed in the morning, usually the first one up. He has an immense amount of energy. He has a permanent smile on his face and will probably grow up to be one of those people who jumps the queue and gets away with it, way too much charm. Both of them are unique combinations of our traits, fascinating. They are truly little people, mini-me's with so much to discover, the whole is still a mystery to them (it's still to me).My opinion? We carry the best and the worst of both our parents (or who ever our primary caregivers were). It's up to us when we grow up one day to choose what we keep and what we discard when it comes to our introjected values and habits. I was privileged to be coached over a two year period and later completed a coaching certification as part of my life quest. This has helped me to become much more aware of my own feelings and my impact on those around me. I intend to pass these super essential life skills (not yet taught at our local schools) on to our boys so that they have the best possible start to life.
To the parents, what has your experience been like with your children ito helping them to develop the much needed soft skills required to cope with the emotional-stuff that life throws at us?
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Joy is...
watching cartoons with my boywith him explaining in detail
who the baddies are,
what their super powers are and
what the names of the various characters are :D
His favourite at the moment is Ben 10 Alien Force. Great for dads and boys alike. I give it an 8/10 for its great story line and subtle infusion of adult humour.
Joy is...
reading a story to
my nearly 4 year old boy
and, at its end, him asking:
"Read it again pleeeaase daddy?"
Dodging a Nr 2 Nappy Change :D
What follows is my account of one of those unspoken (and probably unwritten) experiences that parents of babies have when it comes to changing nr 2 nappies, enjoy the comedy.We've somehow managed to potty-train our eldest boy a little while ago. Our youngest is still using nappies (about 20mths at the time of writing) which means that we probably have another year of nappy changing to go. Both my wife and I are quick to change a nr 1 nappy, no wet wipes required. However, a nr 2 is where the fun and games begin. The list of excuses we've both used are endless when it comes to NOT wanting to change a number 2. From having a headache, to a backpain, to claims of nausea, to running out of the room before the other is aware of the impending change.
We had a nr 2 experience last night. So, there we were watching TV together as a family when I became aware of a nr 2 odour in our midst. Within 2 minutes the odour had invaded the entire room. So, I asked the question which led both of us to instinctively haul excuses at each other as mentioned above. At some point I ran out of our bedroom and locked the door from the outside. My wife, suffocating, ran through the other door into the bathroom, leaving our youngest boy in the nr 2 cloud. About 15 seconds later I caved, and fetched our boy to take him to the changing station. The nr 2 changing process was regularly interrupted by sprints out of the room to take a few deep breaths and then back again into the war zone. I can't imagine changing someone elses child, with my boys I do it out of love for them and for no other reason.
Needless to say we found ourselves in a catch 22, i.e. either we opened the bedroom window and then introduce a mosquito problem or we could leave the window closed and deal with the odour in another way. We eventually lit an incense stick and within 5 minutes we were watching TV again :D
Monday, October 12, 2009
Picking up Stompies
We had two friends (a couple, let's call them Neo and Trinity) over the weekend for a mince curry over the fire. The curry tasted superb and no, I was not the cook. I made the fire (imagine me beating my fists against my chest and screaming out like Tarzan). Our friends brought along 2 of their 5 God children. The kids had tons of fun, from playing on the jungle gym, racing their bikes around the house, watching cartoons, playing with a variety of toys, playing in the sand pit and they even attempted to set up and play (unsuccessful though) the Nintendo Wii all by themselves. At some point in their visit, Neo mentioned to me that the older kids (ours and theirs) were attempting to play the Wii game all by themselves. He also pointed out that they were unsuccessful. I was busy pushing our youngest on the swing (a different left-field story on its own) at the time. BTW: My eldest plays both Mario Kart as well as Sim Racing quite well. I, however, usually start the console and ensure that the remotes are working before play time comences. On scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is really bad and 10 is excellent, I score Mario Kart an 8/10 and Sim Racing a 5/10.It never occurred to me to help the older children set up the game so that they could play. I only realized this earlier this evening, 2 days later. At the time, I remembered my eldest son saying that the game remotes were not working and that the batteries were probably flat. I'm not sure what triggered me to recall this specific experience of their visit. I was filled with a ton of guilt when the realization hit me, i.e. I wasn't paying attention when my boy needed my help. This may be something small to you and me as adults but to my son it was a disappointment probably followed by a little embarrasment (I know him like this, an introvert who has to muster up the courage to join a group of children who are strangers to him, i.e. he takes a little while longer to warm up to new people (big and small). While I may not be in position to protect him from every disappointment/injury in life I usually and instinctively protect him when I happen to be PRESENT.
Two take aways:
1. It's 'usually' never to late to apologise. It was, however, a little challenging to find the vocabulary to adequately explain why I was apologizing to him, a 3.5 year old boy.
2. Also, no need to overcompensate with sweets and toys, a mistake is just that, a mistake. The bribery thing can do a nasty thing to a child's habits later in life so use this card sparingly.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Short-term Twitter functionality horizon, possibilities
The CEO of Twitter recently disclosed some exciting new features on the Twitter functionality horizon (CBS News article). This includes plans for an embedded reputation management system, LBT (Location-based tweeting/tweets) and the introduction of user groups aimed at improving follower/followee management. He also said that they (as in Twitter) understand that things don't always unfold as you think they will on the Web. The message? They are not trying to be too clever about what Twitter should be. A related message was echoed by a Cloud Computing speaker at a recent Gartner IT symposium I attended in Cape Town in August 2009. The speaker said that in the Cloud Computing space application developers will not always know how application consumers will use their applications. This could be viewed as an invitation to us to actively experiment with the technology to see what we can co-create. You and me, the community. It's truly exciting times we live in!So what could LBT bring to our Twitter experience? Consider the following as one possible scenario. The idea: location-based real-time customer experience management. Imagine a big retail chain that monitors Twitter for LBT about its brand (could be made visible via a dashboard in the retailer's call centre). Imagine a customer service representative solving a client's problem before the client leaves the store out of frustration without making a purchase? Remember, it's easier to keep an existing client happy through great customer service than to find new clients to replace that ones you've lost. Think about the business opportunities that this could spawn?
And what additional value will an embedded self-organizing reputation/credibility management system add to our Twitter experience? One possibility is that it could help me to build a cleaner and thus healthier Twitter community, one that automatically weeds out the spammers. The principle is that I may know a twitter subscriber in person in the offline world. I then rate this person on Twitter based on my personal relationship with them. When this person chooses (for what ever reason) to follow you on Twitter you can immediately get a sense of that person's reputation as a direct result of me having previously rated the person (as well as others ratings of the same person) concerned.
Offcourse their could be many other benefits. Your thoughts?
Thanks to @ronjsauer who brought the original CBS News article to my attention.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Extracting real business value from Twitter
Twitter is a global database of near-realtime 'life experience' data (sales pitches included, spam as well). Companies have been quick at finding innovative ways of extracting real business value from the ever growing Twitter database which is reported to have more than 50 million active users (data contributors in one way or another). @brandmonday is a great example of such an initiative on Twitter by @capetown, a social media consumer activism project in South Africa. Check out their website: www.capetown.peeps.co.za. The IDEA? Take two hashtags (#brandplus, #brandminus), include the company name being rated on customer service and provide concise real-time client experience feedback wherever you go via your mobile phone. The whole message in less than 140 characters means becoming creative and cleverer with the feedback. Imagine the possibilities for how this data could be mined? Example, @brandmonday could engage with the companies that have been rated via their realtime rating service to help them better manage their brand reputation online and offline, i.e. to assist them with achieving and maintaining the status of a #brandplus company. The addition of geotagging technology such as flickr could create a location-based realtime global dashboard of customer service (pictures and text). Just imagine.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Being a dad, what it feels like ...
I am the proud parent of two young boys, one nearly 2 and the other nearly 4 years old. They have a brought kind of joy to my life that is beyond words. When I'm away from them I miss them all the time, not now and then, all THE time. To those of you who do not have any children, consider the following analogy to get a better sense of just how profound this experience is for me: Imagine life without the air that we breathe. I know, it sounds crazy and it's almost impossible to imagine such a thing, right? The idea of losing either of my boys is infinitely more inconceivable than the idea of no air. Just the thought stream generated from the previous sentence makes it difficult to breathe right now. Chances are that if you are fellow parent then you could be feeling the pang as well.On a MUCH lighter note, my boys are mommy's boys. I am at a loss for words when it comes to attempting to describe the intense emotion associated with the rejection I experience as a result of the intense loyalty our boys feel to their mother, the centre of their universe, I just don't compete in this arena. I know, its not a competition. That's not the point. My wife experienced a 5 minute dose of this rejection with our youngest son about a month ago. She has no idea what it feels like to live with this rejection every day.You see, I know what it's like to be a mommy's boy, after all, I'm a mommy's boy and, for most of my life, my father was the villain, the obstacle, the one who hurt my mom's feelings. Karmah is truly a beach and I say this with a smirk on my face.
Your thoughts?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Ghosts from Girlfriends Past
Just watched Ghosts From Girlfriends Past on DVD on my PS3. The movies stars Michael Douglas, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner, all superb actors in their own right. Even though the movie was predictable (happily ever after stuff) it still scores a solid 8/10 for its excellent humor and good as well as deep acting. Not for the younger viewers though, way too much tits, ass and cuddling for my 4 year old son, way too much explaining :-)My two take-aways as follows:
- Loving another means making yourself vulnerable. Remember those wise words ... "It's better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all."
- Karmah is a B*I*T*C*H so be careful whose heart(s) you mess with. The table does turn and each dog gets its day.
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