Global warming screwed the earth 55 million years ago too. They think...

"Cores drilled from the ocean floor reveal an ancient emission of 4500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere led to catastrophic global warming

FIFTY-five million years ago the Earth warmed rapidly, the oceans turned acidic and deep-sea creatures died en masse. A massive release of carbon gases has been the prime suspect, but no one was sure how massive. And it wasn't clear just how long the oceans remained acidic.

Now, sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor have revealed that the emission of nearly 4500 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere led to the catastrophic global warming, and that the resulting acidification of the oceans lasted more than 100,000 years. It serves as a warning and backs up computer models that have predicted similar long-lasting effects if, as seems likely, humans release comparable amounts of carbon dioxide over the next few hundred years. "

New Scientist 15 june 2005

Many companies are discovering the real gold in knowledge management

Here's a link to an article on The Limits of Knowledge Management.

"In the last few years many companies have used the internet and other new information technology to link professionals across the globe to share documents or compare data. But many are discovering that the real value in knowledge management is in sharing ideas and insights that are not documented and hard to articulate. This undocumented, hard-to-articulate knowledge is what has been called tacit knowledge (Polanyi, 1958). A group of systems designers for a computer company tried to share their knowledge by storing their documentation for client systems in a common database. They soon discovered that they did not need each other’s documentation. They needed to understand the logic other system designers used — why that software, with that hardware and that type of service plan. They needed to understand the thinking of the other system designers. A petrophysicist trying to interpret unusual data from a deep sea oil well needed help from a colleague who had seen similar anomalies and could help him think through how to interpret it. Only in the course of the discussion were they able to understand the anomaly. A geologist faced with an array of new seismic tools needed to know which would be most useful in his particular application. A product development team at an auto company found through their internet that another development team had developed and rejected a design ideas similar to one they were considering. They needed to understand the reasons for the rejection and get feedback from the other team on the approach they were considering. A sales manager working with a particularly difficult client needed to know how sales managers for other product lines had dealt with that client. In all these cases people needed tacit knowledge; knowledge that was not documented, that their peers had never previously articulated, and that needed to be thought about to be shared (McDermott, 1999a)."

thanks to Commmunity Intelligence Labs and you can read the article here.

Reboot 7.0 in Copenhagen this weekend

Ton Zijlstra and Elmine Wijnia are headed to Reboot 7.0 in Copenhagen this weekend.


They'll join the bloggeratti in exploring the impact of social media and its tools on our many worlds. We're looking forward to hearing about their adventure next week.

Among the cast - Jonnie Moore, Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Jimbo Wales Cory Doctorow, David Weinberger, Loic Le Meur, Dina Mehta

Crossing Signals Discussion Group June 1st

Crossing Signals Discussion Group June 1st
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Marks.

Colby and I just took part in a fascinating discussion on the challenges facing distance education and training. This was held at the new restored castle owned by one of the Baan brothers. Interesting to see that many business courses have become totally ineffective as people find it difficult to apply the theory in their job. Likewise, there are problems maintaining interests once the seminar is over. Social software and more advanced collaboration tools may help to address the problem. Dutch Connection is building expertise to capture the conversations- now in high-definition TV (1080i). That way, these conversations will still look fresh a decade from now...

Congress Culture and Economy: The Hague 28 June 2005

Colby posted the note about this conference. You may recall that the Creative Capital conference earlier this year was intended as input for this government conference in a few weeks time. That was the reason for coming up with their "Amsterdam Agenda", although one got the impression this agenda was made before the conference started and was not sufficiently adapted to include input from participants. The creative capital conference website is still showing the same version of the agenda from a month ago -they need to do something fast to regain the momentum lost since March 21st. In the meantime, another website has gone up about a conference in The Hague on June 28th.


 

Personally (Jonathan Marks saying this bit) think it is REALLY stupid that the research backing up the conference will only be released on the day itself. So no-one will have a chance to read through the reports before the official presentations....that is mind boggling in its old fashioned approach. So I fear the congress will not be a conversation, but a series of Powerpoint presentations.....

Can China build its own Silicon Valley?

 
Well ok, I am spreading quite a bit of U.S. news today and interesting reading it is for the curious of mind. Michael Rogers report on changes taking place in China.

Courtesy of MSNBC.

"It’s hard to spend much time among the enthusiastic entrepreneurs at Zhongguancun and Tsinghua without worrying about how the U.S. will measure up in years to come. While the number of U.S. science and engineering graduates declines, year after year, China’s numbers are surging. China already graduates more English-speaking electrical engineers than does the U.S. Last month the U.S. came in 17th in an annual international collegiate programming contest; a team from a Shanghai university came in first. And U.S. middle school math and science scores continue to lag behind those of other developed nations — even as school boards debate how to teach evolution."

Read the gripping 2 page story here!
And the as important user comments to the article.

Policy implications of the U.S. brain drain's changing face

Within the initial paradigm of a brain drain, there was a clear answer to the question of who wins and who loses. Namely, it was generally accepted that the countries of origin suffered from the brain drain, while host countries benefited by experiencing a “brain gain”.

During the 1960s and 1970s, much discussion and analysis took place about the mobility of highly skilled professionals. Interest in this topic subsequently dropped as a combined result of economic recession and limitations in the analysis of the problem.

But in recent years the issue has returned to the spotlight, largely due to growing interest in the so-called global knowledge-based economy. As a result, it is now widely debated, as reflected in various recent international official publications and meetings. [1,2,3,4] The debate has focused on the nature and impact of the mobility of such professionals, and in particular its negative or positive effects on both their countries of origin and their host countries.

Until the early 1990s, the “brain drain” was the predominant (if controversial) concept used to frame such discussions. This implied a one-way, definitive and permanent migration of skilled people from developing to industrial countries. It had a basically negative connotation, namely that it involved a loss of vital resources. However it was also argued that – at least in the developing world – it avoided a “brain waste”.

More recently, however, the idea has been gaining momentum among scholars, decision makers and journalists that policy makers should characterise the issue in terms of a “circulation” of skills and manpower. Certainly the conditions that govern mobility have changed dramatically, in terms of new forms of communication, transportation, geopolitics, intercultural relationships and commerce.

To read the rest of this article here's the link.

Snow in Somalia!

"The first snowfall on this part of the world has claimed one life and caused extensive damage to properties. Puntland, northeastern part of Somalia has never recorded snowfall before last night when snow storms with high winds destroyed homes in Rako town.

The storm left a blanket of snow on the ground, something residents had never seen in their lives before. Aside from this unexplained snowfall on this tropical land, Somalia has experienced very strange weather in the past few months.

Floods killed people and forced rivers to overflow banks in almost all parts of the country. Many cities from Hargeisa in the north to Baladweyn in central were affected badly by heavy rains and floods. Many people were killed and thousands of livestock washed away by this strange weather. The country is still struggling to recover from last month’s killer weather.

With no effective central government, Somalia doesn’t have weather prediction or climate monitoring systems in place. Somalis think this unusual weather and last night’s previously unheard of snowfall are part of the global warming phenomena. "
SomaliNet