The Internet turns 40 (no, really)

It always ceases to amaze me that at the business end of 2009, nearly ten years after the narrow escape from the millennium bug, people frequently continue to refer to the Internet as this just-landed-from-space, unrecognisable, new thing that we should dare to consider a fabulous and exciting business opportunity (once we've let it bed down a bit, naturally).

When I tell those same people that I've spent my entire career (11 years and counting) delivering content online, it normally produces a tremendously baffled look - so I can't imagine how they'd feel if they found out that the Internet's genesis can be traced back a whopping 40 years to the development of Arpnet in 1969

Welcome to the future... It really is already here.

Is it impossible to innovate in large organisations?

Perhaps not, but Orange's engagement with Nesta (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) - an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative - on their Orange Service Call + Reward (#OSCR) initiative marks a very visible acceptance that small companies have a lot to offer in the digital media space.

In brief, OSCR provides an opportunity for "innovators" to put forward ideas, developments or products that may ultimately be implemented by Orange in the future - but with a bit more of a twist.

Uniquely, a pot of £100,000 has been made available to help nurture up to 10 successful initial propositions for presentation to Orange. During this initial phase, applications are managed by appointed independent parties and money can be allocated to help originators Intellectual Property protection and patents - or to help refine and polish the proposition or product.

Orange gets no sight of the proposals until a formal submission date. Then it has a tight 90-day window to progress them, after which the originator is perfectly free to take the idea elsewhere.

It's an innovative, open approach to Product Development that seems to exploit the strengths of both camps; a company like Orange (and there are similar approaches being adopted by other large organisations) can bring their refined brand vision and the standing of an established, existing proposition to groups of people who are monitoring technological development closely - and are nimble enough to capitalise and create.

You can read about the specific mechanisms of the project on the OSCR website and there are videos and comments on NESTA's Connect blog

Can a bunch of bloggers change the world?

I hope so.

Today, thousands of bloggers across the world will unite for Blog Action Day to post on one issue - climate change.

The goal is simple; to influence the thinking of world leaders at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15 Copenhagen) in December so that a unilateral political agreement to lower carbon emissions worldwide can be agreed.

Given that the world is still talking about how to begin to tackle the problem in 2009, it’s bewildering that I wrote my first significant ‘work’ on climate change more than 20 years ago in 1988 – a secondary school project completed at the age of 13 which even then highlighted the threat to the ozone layer, the horror of deforestation in the Amazon and the need to explore cleaner fuels to power our cars and to generate electricity.

This is not a new issue. This is no longer a scientific debate about whether global warming does or doesn’t exist. The evidence is accepted as being clear and irrefutable. Climate change is happening - and it’s happening at an alarming rate.

Still cynical? Then take a look at the frightening images being catalogued by the Extreme Ice Survey’s remote cameras from the world’s retreating glaciers. The clip below – representing just two years of retreat between 2007 and 2009 – needs little explanation, justification or ratification.


AK-03 Columbia Cliff from Extreme Ice Survey on Vimeo

Perhaps more disturbingly, recent evidence collected by Polar explorer Pen Hadow, subsequently analysed by the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, supports what Professor Peter Wadhams calls a “consensus view” that Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years.

No, this is no longer a debate about the science, this is a political issue. Copenhagen should represent a vital opportunity to make unprecedented progress – and failure by the world’s leaders to take that opportunity must not be an option, according to incoming COP15 president, Connie Hedegaard on the COP15 website.

“If the whole world comes to Copenhagen and leaves without making the needed political agreement, then I think it’s a failure that is not just about climate.

“It’s the whole global democratic system not being able to deliver results in one of the defining challenges of our century. And that is and should not be a possibility. It’s not an option”

So, if you feel strongly. Pop a few wise words on a blog and submit it to the Blog Action Day site as soon as you can.

What does power look like?

I've been inspired to trawl through my extensive collection of photographs to see if I have something strong enough to submit to Wired UK's current photography competition.

The magazine is asking for entries inspired by the following words: power, disruptive and future.

For month one, the focus is power - a word which has a startling 32 definitions according to Dictionary.com and provides a challenge to relish in terms of photography.

I don't have a favoured entry yet, but I'm building a shortlist set on Flickr which includes the Plugged-In Space Invader below (found quite lost on a wall in Kensal Rise), some interesting shots of London landmark Battersea Power Station taken at a public presentation of proposed plans to revamp it, and some some more interesting displays of political power: The Berlin Wall and historic Apartheid-era signage from Cape Town's enlightening District Six Museum.

But, if a picture can paint a thousand words, there's no reason to delay the imminent full stop (you can always simply click here... to take a look for yourselves).