Advertising in the school

Norway's Minister of Education and Research, Øystein Djupedal, is banning commercial advertising in the Norwegian school.

It's a pragmatic ban; Djupedal states that he doesn't want to see advertising in school books, but he says he accepts that pupils are exposed to advertising when surfing the net for educational purposes.

But here's a dilemma for you; what if I sell your pupil an online, digital school book, can I freely put advertising in it?

Probably not. My interpretation of this is that whatever resources that are under the schools control (think procurement) should not contain commercial advertising. So no "Google Apps Education" for our pupils then?

Here's the story: (in Norwegian)
http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/innenriks/1.2150726

The digital video marketplace

Interesting news for us digital media addicts; Microsoft claims that their Xbox live video market place has grown to become the second biggest distributor of digital video just four months after launching it (you guess right, itunes still rule).

Microsoft has finally come to their senses and understood what a potent media center their xbox 360 is (You could say it has taken them a while considering just how good their old Xbox runs with the illicit Xbox media center). They are even adding IPTV support for the 360.

The question is; how long will we have to wait before they manage to negotiate digital video rights here in Norway... I suspect that we still unfortunately have to live in the grey area between piracy and crappy tv-industry solutions.

Security and learning platforms

Sven Andreas is trying to spark a discussion surrounding security, learning platforms and full disclosure (the practice of making the details of security vulnerabilities public). I've contributed to the discussion (Norwegian), feel free to join in...

Recruiting and linkedin.com

So one of the things that kept me busy before going on holiday was finishing off yet another round of recruitment. Since we're not a very large organisation we don't have an HR department to facilitate the process. Department managers handle most of the recruitment themselves. I like to take the 'shotgun' approach on getting the best candidates. This usually means (online) classifieds and getting candidates in from external recruitment agencies. This year added to the ammo something new: linkedin.

Most of you probably have heard of linkedin, the social network that allows you to set up connections to colleagues, ex-colleagues and re-unite with friends from university (if you haven't, visit www.linkedin.com). I have, as most users, infrequently maintained my profile for the last few years (click the linkedin profile on my blog to see my public profile), without really taking much advantage of the social network capabilities (other than keeping updated on what my old friends are busy with). So after reading Guy Kawasaki's praise to linkedin I decided to experiment with posting one of our job openings. I must say that I didn't expect much response, Bergen with it's 150.000 inhabitants isn't exactly Silicon Valley.

A few minutes after i posted the job opening I received three applications. Over the next couple of weeks more kept coming in. Unfortunately all of them where from places that would require significant relocation cost, not to mention the cost with just interviewing somebody from South America. But then suddenly: a Job application from someone actually living on the west-coast of Norway! To make a long story short, he got the job.

A job classified in the newspaper costs somewhere along the line of 3-5000$. A traditional online ad - 900$. Recruitment agency - 10.000$. Linkedin? 100$.

I know what you might be thinking and what my contacts in the recruitment agency will say; 'It's just a cheap classified ad, a full recruitment process will give you much more'. Wrong. Linkedin is a social network. Recruitment happens through your extended network and gives you the same possibilities and advantages as traditional recruitment through your network - but the effect and the scale of the network is enhanced ('on steroids') by using modern social software techniques.

Will I still use recruitment agencies? Yes. As a growing company we need the best candidates regardless of the source. But they will now hopefully be under some competition from linkedin.com...

The world is flat

So i guess I sort of promised to stay away from blogging during my holiday. I had naively assumed that I could escape modern technology here in South Sinai, Egypt but not so. Free wi-fi in the hotel allows me to check my e-mails, do blogposts and talk to people for free using skype - all this from my windows based mobile phone.

One thing I am not going to use my phone for? Making phone calls. This is quite a paradox and I believe this is a significant observation. The over- regulated, mobile industry is becoming passe. Quickly. They are not so much a key factor in the flattening of the world (have me excused, I am 200 pages into Thomas Friedman's epic book on globalization 'the world is flat') as a hinder. It would cost me hundreds, probably thousands in roaming fees to receive and make phone calls, answer my e-mails and text messages and browsing the net using GPRS.

So just for the record, here's my prediction: mobile companies not able to transform their services to an open, cheap, deregulated and global platform will suffer a slow death.

Old classics

Yup, this is pretty much the weather forecast for the next week (and actually for 200+ days of the year) in my hometown. Lucky for me then that I am spending next week on the beach somewhere far away...

There will probably not be any postings in the coming week so I thought this might be the opportunity to revisit some of my earlier posts (cheap trick?).

• Personal data (august 05). Might help you understand some of the basic challenges with upholding the Personal Data Act and going web 2.0.
• The business of software (October 05). My finest work, as if that matters :-) Pre-Ray Ozzie thoughts on Microsoft, SaaS and open source.
• I want a new button part 1 and part 2 (January/April 06). How complex it really is to develop new features even without getting into the incomprehensible technology stuff...

Google Apps Premier Edition Followup

So I've read a quite a few analysis on the significance on Google going enterprise through their new Google Apps Premier Edition. The funniest of them all comes from Fortune:

Google's enterprise ambitions are modest. It's unlikely to dislodge more than a
fraction of the 450 million users of Office. Even a rousing success would barely
move the needle for Google. If all 100,000 of its current users signed up, for
example, it'd mean an additional $5 million in annual revenue. That won't even
help defray food costs at Google's cafeterias.

So even if every current single one of their current users signed up, it would not even cover the expences of running Google's infamous, free gourmet cafeterias...

Perhaps not the best analysis written, allthough it scores high on entertainment. But they have a point; the biggest treat is probably not to microsoft but to a range of other up-and-coming SaaS offerings like 37signals collaboration suite. (point taken from SaaS Blogs).

Here's a few other comments worth reading up on:

• http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/02/google_apps_tak.html
• http://amys.typepad.com/amy_wohls_opinions_on_saa/2007/02/will_googles_en.html
• http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/02/28/google-apps-premier-edition-faces-rough-acceptance/
• http://www.masternewmedia.org/office-productivity/alternatives-to-Microsoft_Office/Google-Apps-Premier-opens-key-road%20to-online-collaboration-for-SOHO-and-SME-20070223.htm