“Back-to-school angst isn’t just for kids. To keep senior citizens up with the times, several Nordic countries are currently debating a proposal to send them back to school.”

Nordic politicians are debating making school mandatory for senior citizens

Why not the unemployed? Part-time employees?

For a generation we have spoken of “life long learning”. How do organizations, schools and governments facilitate this?

“You can’t even wish them luck.”

Here Are the Many, Many Ways Your Business Can Get in Trouble for Tweeting the Olympics

Why would you sponsor an event and then stop people talking about it?

However, what interests me is how are they policing this? What’s the process? Is there an organisation covering this? What’s the rule book?

If you know, let me know.

Pumpkin est une application mobile conviviale qui permet les paiements et remboursements spontanés et décompléxés entre amis ! Gratuit, instantané, sécurisé, Pumpkin est disponible sur iOS et Android.

Pumpkin – Le remboursement simple et instantané

Pumpkin is clever, VERY clever.

Apple Pay, the banks, PayPal and others are all trying to capture the payments space, however Pumpkin is different. They’re doing something that the others (who all seem to be replicating the image of a traditional bank) cannot, Pumpkin is social and fun, small and friendly.

Talking to the team, they say that the average user is a student, which is also clever, high values users of the near future.

Where does a city begin and where does it end? Alasdair Rae at the University of Sheffield analysed point-to-point commuter data from the ONS in an attempt to build a truer picture of the economic footprint of cities in England and Wales, one which goes beyond simple local authority boundaries

How far is too far? The distance workers commute to cities – mapped | Cities | The Guardian

As an industry we need to improve the service to remote workers. When commute maps look like this it’s impossible to consider working 5 days a week in the office.

Even when the employee makes it in, they’re too tired to work effectively.

If anyone doubted that Cloud infrastructure is a winner takes all battle it’s now time to give up on the debate and just read the sales figures…

“Its data shows that the “big four” are already much larger and growing more quickly than their nearest competitors, which include Oracle, Rackspace, Salesforce, HPE and Fujitsu.

Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft collectively saw their revenue rise by 68% during the second quarter, while the next 20 largest providers achieved 41% revenue growth.

Within the big four, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now about three times the size of Microsoft, its nearest rival, with IBM third and Google fourth.”

Gap between biggest and smallest cloud infrastructure firms is growing

The industry is now in the position that economies of scale are going to move the leaders into a position where the level of investment required will prohibit new entrants.

Until the next wave of technology arrives!

“The suggestion last week that Apple may be discussing the acquisition of the Formula One group has led to a lot of interest and a lot of opinion. Traditional technology people argue it would never happen…”

Thoughts about Apple and F1 | joeblogsf1

I’m quite excited by this. F1 is the perfect two (three and four) screen sport. The problem with F1 is that there is so much happening that it can’t be shown on a single screen.

This could be THE application to justify an Apple TV. Designing the interface could be a nightmare but it really could change TV forever.

This is without the issue of making the sport interesting again!

“After debuting in the U.S. earlier this month, Pokemon Go launched in Japan on Friday and became available in Hong Kong on Monday.

The correction comes after Pokemon Go’s release almost doubled Nintendo’s stock through Friday’s close, adding $17.6 billion in market capitalization. Nintendo is a shareholder in the game’s developer Niantic Inc. and Pokemon Co., but has an “effective economic stake” of just 13 percent in the app, according to an estimate by Macquarie Securities analyst David Gibson.”

Nintendo Slumps By Most Since 1990 on Dashed Pokemon Go Hopes – Bloomberg

This is madness. Nintendo has spent years looking for a future. Trying to find a new profit stream, they’ve just found it. The 13% is for Pokemon Go, not all the other games that can reuse the same principles. 

Nintendo has just discovered what it’s future looks like but the markets are punishing them because they needed a guide to help them!

“The breakthrough seems to have come from Mochizuki explaining his theory in person. He refuses to travel abroad, only speaking via Skype at the Oxford meeting, which had made it harder for mathematicians outside Japan to get to grips with his work.”

Mathematicians finally starting to understand epic ABC proof | New Scientist

It’s interesting that Skype is mentioned without explanation but it also shows the limitations of the technology without training. We still have progress to make.

“That is why Tesla engineering has transitioned to focus heavily on designing the machine that makes the machine — turning the factory itself into a product.”

Master Plan, Part Deux
https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux

This is something that the Toyota has always understood. TPS is the Toyota Production System and is the real secret of the company. The most important thing to Toyota is the factories.

Telsa have learnt this lesson faster than most.

In services organizations we forget this. There has been a history of under investment, hiding the benefits of automation and not implementing the basics of good organisation and team management. Where are the checklists, morning meetings and Problem Management?

This now has to change as we move to the Cloud, delivery on a massive scale and moving to the on-demand future.