Add USGS Geologic Units to Google Earth on your iPhone

The United States Geological Survey’s website provides map downloads of geologic unit data. You can download and view these files in Google Earth. This makes Google Earth a “killer app” for geologists, paleontologists, and other earth sciences explorers. What an amazing resource for understanding and exploring the surface rocks of a given area!

My partner Heidi and I love to camp and explore areas in which the terrain may have fossil bearing rocks. So, we use Google Earth on my Mac to do a lot of our planning. Once out in the field, I like to have the same data on my iPhone, too. But that’s a bit tricky.

Here are some tips and tricks that I have learned about using USGS data.

USGS data, KML files, and Google Earth

KML files

The USGS digitizes geologic units in Keyhole Markup Language (KML). KML is a text format that uses an XML schema originally created by Keyhole, Inc, the original creator of Google Earth. (Google acquired Keyhole in 2004.) Google Earth is free–meaning there is no financial cost to download and use it–and can open and render KML files. (An alternative to Google Earth is the Free Software project called Marble.)

KML file extensions: .kml or .kmz

KML files can get quite large, especially when it comes to mapping a whole state’s geologic terrain. For that reason, KML data is frequently found in a compressed (zipped) version with a .kmz file extension instead of .kml. Both are referred to as KML files. Google Earth can use .kmz files directly, without being first unzipped.

Getting the USGS KML File for Your State’s Geologic Unit

The USGS provides geologic unit data for each state on their website as KML files. Open one in Google Earth, and each geologic unit’s regions display as opaque colors layered atop the terrain. Zoom into an area and click one of these colored units open a balloon showing the info contained in the KML for that unit. The data is pretty lean, but the Detailed Information link in it will take you to the USGS web page containing more information.

Using USGS Data on the iPhone

Can you put USGS data on your iPhone? Yes.

I have found a couple ways to do this, each with its pros and cons.

There’s an App for That

The App Store has a series of applications from Integrity Logic called “Geology,” plus the state two-letter code. For example, Geology UT is the app for Utah.

This is essentially one of those apps that just re-packages public domain data. What makes Geology UT any different from Geology CA? Essentially, it’s the data (USGS, mainly) bundled with the app. At $7.99, it’s not too steep for the functionality it provides. Unfortunately, Integrity Logic has yet to update it (despite having graciously thanked me for providing several ideas for enhancement).

To be sure, this app is not nearly as slick as Google Earth. The main advantage of using this app is that it works offline (unlike Google Earth), and includes descriptive data from the USGS website that is not in the USGS KML files. If you work in the field, far from a cellular signal, I definitely recommend this app.

Using KML Data on the iPhone in Google Earth

To be sure, Google Earth on the iPhone presents a challenge when it comes to using KML files, but by no means an insurmountable challenge. Here’s how to make KML data usable through the iPhone edition of Google Earth.

Requirements

* A Google account
* Google Maps (maps.google.com)
* A Computer with Google Earth
* An iPhone with Google Earth on it
* USGS KML file

Overview

You’re going to use the Google Maps feature called “My Maps” to import the KML file. Then, you can use Google Earth’s My Maps feature on the iPhone to see the data.

There are a couple inconvenient issues to get around. First is the 10MB maximum file size that you can import. This restriction applies to the uncompressed file size, which may prevent you from importing. The .kmz for Utah is 6.9MB, but it contains 25MB of data when uncompressed. Second is the default opacity of the data layers. These big, opaque shapes mask the underlying terrain, which is inconvenient. I’ll show you how to get around both of these obstacles.

Steps

1. Download the USGS KML file that contains the data that you need.
2. Open the file with Google Earth.
   • All of the geology data will display on the landscape in numerous opaque layers. It will also display in the left-side Places navigation.
3. Right-click the unit that you want to add to your phone, and select Get Info from the menu.
4. Now, go to the Style/Color tab and set the opacity to 50%. (Also, you may want to change the color to something that will show up well in Google Maps, given the iPhone’s small display.)
5. Once you have set the color and opacity to your liking, you can export that unit as its own, self-contained KML file for that unit. Right click the unit again and choose Save Place As… and give your file a name. This should yield a file that is well below the 10MB import restriction imposed by Google Maps.
6. Now open a browser and go to Google Maps. (Make sure that you have logged in with your Google Account.)
7. Click the My Maps link (on left, near Get Directions).
8. Click the Create new map link.
9. Create the Import link, and upload the file that you saved from Google Earth.
10. Before clicking Done, consider whether you want this map shared. (Google Maps will default to Public.)
11. After clicking Done, you will see the geologic unit in Google Maps. (If it appears to be incomplete, scroll down through the list of elements at left, and you’ll see why: Google splits the list into multiple pages. Google Maps is not very good for viewing numerous polygons that often comprise a geologic formation.)
12. At last, it’s now time to get your iPhone and open Google Earth.
13. Click the Options button (i) in Google Earth.
14. If you have not already done so, log in with your Google account. Once you have, you can use My Maps to enable the map you just imported into Google Maps.

And with that, you have brought USGS geologic units onto your iPhone.

On API Replication and Web App Compatability

Commandeering Applications by Replicating APIs

I recently met with Jesse Stay to discuss some plans and ideas I have been working on at Mozy. As expected, Jesse’s insights and feedback were tremendously valuable. (Thanks, Jesse!)

One of the items Jesse directed my attention toward was the recent implementations of the Twitter API by three different sites: WordPress.com (the host of this blog), Tumblr (another popular blog hosting service), and identi.ca (a prominent Twitter alternative which has supported the Twitter API since 2008). By providing 100% API compatibility with Twitter, people can use any application built for Twitter with these other services (as long as the app allows you to modify the service URI/endpoint it uses). Because services survive or wither based on use, supporting a popular and relevant API can instantly yield a slew of applications to support users better. As a result of their work, WordPress.com has gained applications like the iPhone application Tweetie. Although many of the applications for Twitter currently do not allow you to modify the API endpoint (Tweetdeck, for example), most developers want more users, and API-level compatibility makes it short work for developers to support your service. I suspect that soon, nearly all applications created for Twitter will let you modify or add to the default API endpoint.

This got me to thinking about GroupWise, Novell’s strong alternative to Microsoft Exchange.

Novell: Align with Google for Developers

Novell GroupWise has a complete web API, and has for quite some time. Unfortunately, Novell seems to neglect developers these days–especially in their legacy products (as evidenced by GroupWise having only a SOAP API). Aside from their list of close partners, few developers use the GroupWise API.

Meanwhile, with Google’s enormous cachet with developers, numerous applications support Google’s collaboration-related APIs (such as Contacts). Perhaps even more importantly, developers can easily integrate Google’s API into new and existing apps through the numerous source code libraries available for Google’s various API’s (again, see Contacts, this time for the list of libs). Google’s Atom-based REST API’s are popular, well-understood, and widely used.

Consequently, Novell has an opportunity to serve their dwindling fan base better: replicate the Google API’s that are most relevant to GroupWise. Make it so that developers can easily adapt their apps to serve GroupWise, and so that end users can select from a wider assortment of 3rd party apps. This would give nothing over to Google that they don’t already have. It can only increase the relevance and extend the life of Novell’s venerable old product.

It also makes it possible for Novell to get on board with the biggest technology trend of the latter half of the last decade…

GroupWise in the Cloud

Since my time at Bungee Labs, I have been considering how Novell could offer GroupWise as a hosted SaaS offering as a way of acquiring aspiring new companies. As Salesforce has shown well, small is beautiful, and there is big business in the “No Software” proposition. This is where GroupWise competes (entirely ineffectively) with Gmail (“Google Mail,” actually) and its related collaboration components. It’s very easy to set up a Gmail account that uses your own company’s mail@domain. You can’t do that with GroupWise today.

But GroupWise does have something that Google lacks: a rich client. With all the apps that Google enjoys, none do a complete enough job of unifying all the typical collaboration features of an enterprise collaboration suite. With legacy collaboration being such an unsexy subject in the age of the social web, it seems unlikely that Google will re-solve some of these relatively mundane features. Finally, although there is a de facto rule about “everything through the web,” that does not mean “everything in the browser.” GroupWise has browser-based access, but it also has a full client that works online as well as offline, giving Novell a complete end-to-end advantage.

So put it all together–SaaS + Google API compatibility–and Novell has a viable technical path for GroupWise. All that remains is to figure out a  freemium model that can viably compete with Google. (This is where I clock out.)

Note I realize that it’s kind of cheap to sit back and throw out directives for how some other company should manage its API strategy while sparing any mention of the company over which I may have actual influence. Some of the above thinking applies to our planning at Mozy. However, we do not offer a public API (yet), so it’s a challenge to directly discuss this subject without getting mired in caveats and cautionary or indefinite statements. If you have any more than a casual interest in where Mozy is heading with our API, please contact me by commenting on this post.

iPhone Apps for Field Science

In a parallel universe, I am a field biologist. In another, a paleontologist. In yet another, an ornithologist. And several very useful applications now available for the iPhone have recently re-kindled a yearning to live these parallel lives.

Mobiles Go Wild

The utility of mobile phones for field science keeps getting better and better. Behind this are three inter-related trends, the advances in which can largely be attributed to the iPhone.

1. The first is the long-running convergence of mobile technologies. GPS, compass, and camera are now integrated on a single hand-held device that not only offers broadband Internet, but also adequate storage capacity for storing data for offline use.
2. The second is richer user interaction. Beyond large, high-resolution screens, a combination of diverse gestures allow interaction directly through the visual interface. The result makes it possible to provide user experiences that go way beyond the classic constraints of keypads and standard buttons.
3. The previous two trends yield a device that can be purposed many different ways, which is what makes the third trend–application programs–so powerful. App programs give software developers a means to create applications that use the advanced hardware features and rich user interaction for special purposes that phone manufacturers could never produce on their own. (For that matter, even fathom on their own.)

The result is a wave of new applications that promise to revolutionize–among other things–scientific field work. In the forefront is the iPhone, but I expect that Android devices–with their more permissive developer model–may show similar promise. Nevertheless, the iPhone can take credit for setting a new high bar for the current wave of mobile devices. Consequently, there is an emerging treasure trove of high-value applications for doing field science. Let’s take a look at a few.

Example Apps

These are a few of the iPhone apps that I find to be essentials for planning and conducting explorations in the natural world. If you have some suggestions for me to add to this list, please leave a comment. An asterisk (*) notes an app that does not require live Internet.

The Ground

• Geology UT* is one of several similar Geology apps, each using a different US state’s set of public domain data. The app uses on-board GPS with its own map to help you  find out quickly what the US Geological Survey knows about the age and composition of the surface wherever you may be. I use the Utah version extensively while I search for fossils or wonder about the age of an outcrop.
  Because the app stores all of its data on the device, this is also a good example of an app that works in the field without a data connection. Tap any area of the map that you might want to know about, and it presents details that normally require a browser when using Google Earth and a kml file on a computer.
• Geotimescale* is a simple reference app, providing a visual guide to the age old question: “What on earth does Cenozoic mean?”
• Google Earth is an excellent tool for understanding the terrain. Using the on-board GPS lets you quickly see where you are. Various layers, including Panaramio photos, further enrich the virtual exploration experience. And  similar to the desktop app, Earth features tilt, which allows you to virtually explore the terrain relief of an area before heading out.
  For example, here is a tilted view showing Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef National Park. In the bottom right (at the ’s’ in technologies), there is a trailhead for a trail that follows the ridge across from the rock “cathedrals.” Although this screenshot was not done on site–there is no data connection in this part of the Utah outback–you can see how studying it can help you to understand the landscape you intend to explore.
  I should also note that the desktop application is an essential companion to the mobile version. I often start investigating on the big screen, especially since the USGS makes various .kml files available for many areas of the US.
• GPS tracking apps enable you to record your tracks so that you can know where and when you were at a given time. That’s great for when you find something that you want to come back to later. I have yet to settle on a single one, since they each provide different features (for example, some can download the topo map for a given location).
• Compass* is a default application that Apple introduced with the 3Gs, eliminating yet another piece of equipment to carry.

The Sky

• Pocket Universe* satisfies my long-running desire to know the night sky. Books always frustrated me., mainly because I have a hard time mapping them to the sky. “pUniverse” tells me which constellations and planets are visible on a given date, at a given time, from a given location. That’s handy, but the application uses the iPhone’s compass and GPS in what pUniverse calls “planetarium mode.” Imagine simply holding up your phone and seeing a labelled map of the night sky in any direction. Tap any labeled celestial object to find out all about it. This is the kind of app that makes you feel smarter than you are without your phone.
• Weather happens, and meteorological surprises can be the difference between a great excursion and misery. There are many, many applications to let you know what’s in store. I use the free (ad-laden) app Weatherbug, mainly because I have yet to research and find a better tool.

Biology

• iBird Explorer Pro*, at $29.95, will likely remain the most expensive app I have ever purchased. There are several lighter-weight versions of iBird Explorer, but I’m an avid admirer of birds–I had to have the full catalog of North American birds.
  With this app, you can quickly narrow down a species by its shape, family, markings, colors, habitat, and flight style, and range (with options to filter using the data and your current location).
  Content is an age-old trade-off with field guide books. For example, each bird’s range map in my trusty old Peterson’s guide is stuffed in one of the book’s appendices. As an application, iBird Explorer makes each range maps simple–each species has a Range tab. Similarly, the trade-off between illustrations and photos is settled handily. (Most birders favor illustrations, but the debate becomes moot with iBird Explorer.)
  Much as I love my Sibley’s guide–which became my manual of choice while out birding–no printed field guide allows you to play a bird’s call. Not only does iBird Explorer play calls, it does so loudly enough that Heidi and I have been able to use it to draw in Ravens and Pinyon Jays in from a good distance. (Now I want a selection of calls, since the Common Raven’s vocalization, for example, varies considerably from region to region.)
  My one critique is that I would like a sightings and life-list feature, similar to Audubon Mammals.
• Audubon Mammals* is a splendid reference for identifying the mammals that you see–and those that you don’t. Beside providing photos, you also get range maps, track and scat illustrations (sometimes with comparisons), and a thorough description. Designed to help you quickly identify a creature, the app flows in ways that you always wished your field guide would. The app also allows you to record sightings, as well as a life list, which get GPS-tagged and allow you to add your own notes and observations.

General Field Tools

• Camera* taking a picture or video not only documents what you saw, but where you saw it. Each photo has latitude and longitude coordinates applied by the GPS. That means that you can document exactly where you saw a specimen. However, rather than use the on-board camera application, you might consider using it through a notetaking application, such as…
• Evernote* is an application whose importance I can’t emphasize enough. What a great tool Evernote is!
  Geo-tagged photos are a great start, but there are other ways you may want to document your experiences.
  Whether recording simply for your personal memories or for detailed field notes, Evernote geo-tags your notes. Notes can be text–of course–but you can also record your voice as a note. And that means that you can even record a location’s ambient soundscape. Evernote also allows you to take geo-tagged pictures, and if a picture contains text, Evernote will even process the text so it becomes searchable.
  One of the most important features of Evernote is that it’s not just an iPhone app. All of your notes get uploaded to your account on Evernote’s servers. That means that your notes are effectively backed up each time the Evernote app synchronizes. And…you can access and update your notes through any browser. And…you can also access your data from an Evernote on your computer. In fact, Evernote will sync between applications on Windows, Mac, Android, Blackberry, and PalmOS. Simply put, Evernote is a life tool.

Prediction

Even if the iPhone represents the upper echelon of expensive mobile phone gadgetry, the various applications available on it for working in the field allow you to replace numerous books, maps, and other reference materials. In short, the iPhone has opened access to scientific participation by laypeople–amateurs and enthusiasts–as well as professionals. However, the applications I list here are mostly popular applications–primarily made for laypeople, but able to provide substantial support for actual field biologists, botanists, archeologists, paleontologists, and so on. I expect that there is a huge raft of more  applications ready to be made…applications that are custom-tuned to the specialized technical details of various types of field research and data recording.

My interest in sharing this is not simply to bring about more awareness so that more specialized science applications get created. With many, many science-friendly tech geeks like me starting to make field observations through iPhone and Android devices, science may now face a huge opportunity in crowd-sourcing. In the 90’s, SETI@home demonstrated how willingly geeks will apply effort to help science. In the past decade, Wikipedia used volunteerism to produce one of the foremost social-informational triumphs of the web. Now with an army of geeks readily equipped with powerful mobiles, and with strongly overlapping areas of interest between tech-geeks and science nerds, perhaps a new era of scientific data gathering is waiting to be unlocked by innovative, creative minds.

Post Scripts

(last updated 28DEC09)

Apps

Here are some additional apps relevant to the list subject:

• Field Assets is “a field data collection application for the iPhone and iTouch.” Some further web research uncovered this app. It appears that this could easily be purposed for science work. At $12.99, I have not tried it yet.

Links

Also check out these links…

• Could an iPhone be a useful field tool?
• Is the iPhone 3G Good for Geologizing?
• The iPhone: A Field Tool for Geologists?
• The top 10 science applications for the iPhone
• Top 10 life science related apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch
• 22 iPhone Apps for Science Geeks
• 50 Useful iPhone Apps for Science Students & Teachers
• 10 Best iPhone Apps for Science Majors

“Are You Volunteering to Own It?”

I have heard this phrase way too often in my career. Someone submits a good idea in a meeting, and since there is no clear owner already in the organization, the person with the suggestion gets asked to implement it. I regret to admit that I have even on occasion done this to others in a meeting.

The first time I ever heard it used, it impressed me. How clever! What better way to make someone’s suggestion become a reality? Assign ownership to the person who had the idea as sort of a “put your money where your mouth is.”

But consider its effect on your organization’s culture. It only takes a couple “are you volunteering?” instances to train people to keep their good ideas to themselves. In most organizations, people with good ideas are likely already busy. They’re the ones who naturally have skin in the game. Can your organization really afford to stifle the free exchange of ideas?

You want an innovation culture–one in which great ideas come forth–make sure that people don’t get punished for sharing their ideas.

That’s my idea. Can I get you to volunteer for it?

Personal Cloud: A Microsoft Employee’s Take

An interesting and well articulated take on Personal Cloud from Vu Ha, a Microsoft engineer, states:

I believe that there is an excellent opportunity to build an open user-centered data platform that comprehensively addresses data silo and privacy issues, and thus catalyzes dramatic improvement in agent applications.

Me, too!

I recommend checking out his post.

Nat Friedman & the Personal Cloud: “Personal data warehouse”

Ximian co-founder and intrepid technologist with SUSE Linux, Nat Friedman recently blogged about a “Personal data warehouse,” stating:

What I want is a giant elastic bit bucket in the cloud, with a powerful search engine on top of it.

He goes on to describe several capabilities that he wants the search capabilities to have, essentially bringing together several disparate services available on the web today–such as face recognition (Polar Rose) and Optical Character Recognition  (OCR, the simplest form right now may be Evernote’s)–in order to make his data imminently accessible and usable.

Nat describes several other aspects, all of which in my view comprise not a single service, but a data platform. This Personal Cloud concept really cannot be delivered well by a single service provider–you don’t want it to be. Once you have your personal data in the cloud, the next step is to have a selection of relevant applications to choose from for helping you to manage your Personal Cloud. That means APIs that allow developers to offer best-of-breed services, such as face recognition, as applications that you can use with your cloud-hosted personal data.

All of that reminds me that I really need to write up a post about the necessity for data owners (you and me as individuals) having ultimate control over who can access our data (and what data they can access).

More Cloudy Thoughts: Protecting Your Lifestream

So there is a huge rift between how we work in the cloud-based, online world and our long-established storage media-centric behaviors. We accept it today, But that’s about to change.
–Me, October 6, 2009

Only a completely self-absorbed, arrogant bastard would quote himself as the opener to his own blog post.
–Me, today

In discussing online backup in the context of the Personal Cloud, I related how cloud-based sites & services like Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail have been shifting our expectations. More and more, we expect to be able to access our stuff from anywhere. Email services are doing this even moreso, since they generally allow you to work online as well as sync up before going offline. But I omitted something that is of key importance when it comes to preserving one’s personal data. How are you protecting all your stuff that you do in the cloud?

Say you’re using an online backup service like Mozy (and I commend you for doing so), that means that you have protected the bulk of your personal data…arguably your most important data. But there is also your lifestream data.

Lifestream (noun):

In it’s simplest form it’s a chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline. It is only limited by the content and sources that you use to define it.
–Lifestream blog, which is someone else’s blog

My lifestream is dispersed across many services around the web. Every day, I use Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Delicious, WordPress.com, and a host of other cloud-based services.

The recent T-Mobile Sidekick debacle, brought to you by our always-entertaining friends at Microsoft, resulted in a lot of backlash regarding keeping stuff in the cloud. Personally, I think that the anti-cloud hysteria it has spawned is overblown. Real people were indeed affected severely, but you can find much better reasons to be wary of the cloud. For example, the future of many Internet start-ups that provide cloud services hangs in the balance sheets of venture capital firms. When a VC firm deems a start-up as nonviable, sometimes there is little time before the lights go out and whatever data it hosted for you effectively evaporates. Now what?

Backupify is one interesting service that addresses this. I’m trying it out right now to see how it does with backing up my Twitter data. (That’s the free part of their service. If I like it, maybe I’ll expand how I use it.) I wonder who else offers this kind of service…

Note I confess to having a shameless ulterior motive for posting about Backupify. (And I think that they should consider adding WordPress.com to their list of target sites.)

The Coolness of Clipperz

And now…a short recommendation for an under-appreciated service called Clipperz. I use it every day.

Clipperz is an online password manager. It can help you do the following:

• use different passwords for each site on which you have a login account (if you use the same username/password combo on some new user forum that you use for your online banking, you’re asking to get robbed)
• generate complex, secure passwords for each account you use
• sign on to sites quickly with one-click “Direct Logon”

And a lot more…

Even though I am these days mostly using a Mac, and therefore I can use 1Password, Clipperz remains my primary tool for password management. It’s both free of charge, and Free Software. Please check it out.

That’s the main point of this post. Unless you’re interested in Free Software licenses…

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Note Clipperz did not solicit me to post this. I chose to do so after seeing their upcoming “gamma” release. That same preview prompted me to send them $20 as an appreciation for the service they have provided me for the past year.

Free, as in GNU Affero General Public License

I came across Clipperz while I was still at Bungee Labs. I was doing some research on open source licenses, especially the Affero GPL (AGPLv3). I spoke about AGPLv3 in several posts around that time.

Clipperz is a perfect example of a product that should be licensed under AGPLv3. First, open source has big advantages for security-related software so that flaws can be identified and fixed quickly. Second, since Clipperz is essentially Software-as-a-Service, AGPLv3 provides the creators with protection against the SaaS Loophole (that is, someone taking their source code, replicating their service, making improvements, and choosing to keep the source code closed). Third, it means that if you’re the deeply paranoid type who doesn’t trust having someone else host your passwords, you can use the software to host the your own service. And if you have the technical chops for it, you can examine the code and determine whether it meets your standards for security.

Thoughts on Vodafone & Mozy

The Weekend’s Data Loss Headlines

I went out camping in the Utah desert this weekend, and I came home to these headlines:

• Microsoft, T-Mobile Apologize For Data Loss, Offer Month Credit (Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek)
• Apple Mac OS X 10.6.1 Snow Leopard deletes user data (Richi Jennings, ComputerWorld)

Uh oh.

Predictably, the first headline incited yet another round of anti-Microsoft jeers from Apple fans. Then, the second headline put a quick, sobering damper on the party. If you were one of the people affected by either of the two incidents, what help or influence does such fanboy bickering offer when you have lost significant personal data?

Ultimately, you really can’t equate choice of vendor, platform or device with a plan for protecting your personal data from accidental loss. Furthermore, while incidents like these may be infuriating, when it comes to data loss incidents,  Pogo’s famous phrase applies: historically, I have caused most of my own incidents of personal data loss.

Whatever the cause, the threat of accidental data loss is a real thing. So how do you ensure that you don’t accidentally lose personal data?

Online Backup on the Rise, Vodafone Partners with Mozy

The popularity of online backup is rapidly growing. In my previous post, I mentioned that I now work at Decho, whose focus is to help people protect, organize and enrich their personal information. Decho operates the popular Mozy online backup service, which protects millions of consumers (and tens of thousands of small businesses) against data loss. Two recent partnership announcements–one with China Telecom, the other with McAfee–show how online backup is moving into the mainstream.

Today, Decho announced a strategic partnership with Vodafone. (Some US-based readers may wonder, “Voda-who?” Vodafone is the world’s largest international mobile telecom company, serving over 70 countries, and over 300 million customers, and, they own 45% of Verizon Wireless.) Vodafone will first offer remote PC backup, but the announcement further states that Vodafone will use Mozy to develop “a range of cloud-based services to consumer and business customers.”

The Personal Cloud Emerging

My take on the Vodafone announcement? Along with the other two announcement mentioned above, this further sets the stage the emergence of the “Personal Cloud.” As I stated in my previous post, the Personal Cloud will become the focal point for individuals to manage and safeguard their personal information. In fact, Forrester analyst Frank Gillett states that the Personal Cloud will be the key impact of cloud computing on individuals.

Mobile phones are already extremely personal devices, and as they continue getting smarter they keep getting more personal. So to me, it makes sense that Vodafone would look to the Personal Cloud to intensify that personalization. Having not been involved in any of the negotiations with Vodafone, I’ll be interested to see how they apply it beyond backup.

More Info, Press & Media Inquiries

If you would like to speak with Decho about the Vodafone news, data backup best practices, or the personal cloud in general, I can connect you with Charles Fitzgerald. In addition, I can also see about arranging an interview with a Vodafone spokesperson, or possibly Frank Gillett of Forrester.

My Next Gig in the Cloud: This Time It’s Personal…

The Latest in Cloud Computing

Every now and then, someone introduces me to an idea so novel that it seizes my attention and makes me want to become part of it. That recently happened to me with the concept of personal Cloud Computing, or more simply Personal Clouds. (If you are not familiar with Cloud Computing, it’s all the rage (and hype) in the industry…see Wikipedia’s first paragraph on it.)

The idea of having a Personal Cloud is pretty simple: all your data stays available to you over the Net–reliably, simply and securely. Forrester’s Frank Gillett defines Personal Cloud as…

An Internet-based digital service for individuals that acts as a permanent and flexible resource to 1) organize and preserve personal information, documents, media, and communications; 2) deliver that information on demand to any device or service; and 3) orchestrate integration of personal information across all digital devices and services.
“The Personal Cloud: How Individual Computing Will Shift From Being Device-Centric To Information-Centric,” Frank E. Gillett, Forrester Research.

Maybe that doesn’t strike you as that significant of a concept, but this will drastically affect our online experience and behavior. (I say “will” rather than “could” because this is one of those concepts that is so powerful as to become inevitable.) To understand how, let’s take a look at how we relate to our personal data today.

The Personal Data Condundrum

Most people store their personal data on a specific device (a computer, mobile phone, etc.). I’m talking about your various office documents; all those photos and videos that you eventually intend to get organized, upload, and share; that huge collection of music that you synch to your MP3 player. You may be able to get your email or onto Facebook from anywhere, but unless you’re both technically savvy and much more organized than the average person, a lot of your stuff is still effectively tightly coupled with one of the various devices you own.

Meanwhile, you’re probably also partly living in the cloud, where your email, social network interactions, and various other data types are both web-stored and web-accessible. More and more, this access-from-anywhere capability is becoming an expectation, yet most of us still accept it as natural that much of our data is stored only on specific devices. That’s quite a schism in behaviors and expectations.

So there is a huge rift between how we work in the cloud-based, online world and our long-established storage media-centric behaviors. We accept it today, But that’s about to change.

The Cloud Gets Personal

Enter the concept of the Personal Cloud. The idea is essentially this: with the Internet now broadly accessible from various devices, cloud-hosted services have begun to shift our expectations about data availability. Specific activities, whether accessing email or participating in social networks, are available not only through a through the browser on a computer, but also offline and in that strange in-between place of intermittent connectivity. Soon, that expectation will apply to all of our personal data–including that stuff that is still stored only on specific devices. You will stop thinking in terms of “my stuff is on my machine”, and start thinking in the simpler terms of “my stuff” (from anywhere, online and off).

When enough people make that shift in thinking and behavior, nurtured by more and more services catering to your personal cloud, you won’t think at all in terms of “my Personal Cloud.” You’ll just think of it as “my stuff.” The very idea of your personal data being inaccessible to you will seem anachronistic, akin to writing a check at the supermarket or being required to submit a form by fax.

So how far away is this Personal Cloud future? I don’t know for sure, but an odd thing is that you may already have your data available in the cloud, just waiting to be unleashed. One of the more obvious pathways to this Personal Cloud future is through online backup services. Enter, Mozy, by Decho, my new employer…

Mozy, by Decho

Mozy offers online backup for your computer at $4.95/month–unlimited capacity (or up to 2 gigabytes for free). Currently, Mozy is the best known and most trusted online backup service available. Maybe you have seen one of their commercials:

If you’re at all like me, you probably don’t back up your data on a regular basis. (I said regular, as in more recently than June.) So the idea of set-and-forget backup service that allows me to recover any previously backed-up version of a file is pretty sweet.

But there’s more to it than that. Simple, online file recovery–by version–may represent one of the first things you would expect from the Personal Cloud concept.

Online backup gets your data into the cloud, and stores it securely as your own personal asset. Certainly, there are more ways to use your cloud-hosted data than file recovery. As Decho/Mozy’s first platform evangelist, that’s what I’m working on now–finding ways to evolve personal, online backup storage into a rich, secure Personal Cloud service. So, expect to hear more about this Personal Cloud thing.

Chasm Crossing Writ Large

In his latest blog post,  “Competing with the singleminded,” Seth Godin speaks about

…talking with a few executives from one of the biggest technology companies in Europe,  and they were explaining how their hands were tied in moving forward on the internet.

Sounds familiar. Eerily familiar. Contextually familiar, in fact.

Having worked in connection with the telecom space for only about 6 months, I am amazed at how much of a head-in-the-sand attitude there is regarding the Internet and the cultural trend toward increasing openness that the Internet has helped to invigorate.

I wonder which company it was whose executives he spoke with…

Jono Bacon: The Art of Community

If you were great at [online community management], I’d imagine you’d never ever have trouble finding good work.

–Seth Godin
Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer

Consider a few types of communities for which managers are needed:

• Online Commerce (like that of Amazon.com or eBay)
• Media  (like eMusic, or Audible.com)
• Free and Open Source Software (like that of Ubuntu or Fedora)
• Web Developers (my field)

In my past three roles as a “community guy” of some form or another, I have had a lot of inquiries. “How did you get started doing that?” I’ve always been stuck for an answer better than, “Well, you know, there’s not really any book about it…” (Godin again: “Since there’s no rule book…”)

Until now, you just had to start doing the community thing and learning as you go: from what seems to have worked elsewhere, from peers that you meet along the way, and from trial and many, many errors.

Enter the latest opus of Jono Bacon: The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice).

Jono is the illustrious community manager for Ubuntu, a founder of the late, great podcast LugRadio, and one of my favorite people. Although I may be a veteran community manager myself, Jono’s immense natural talent and passion is something I can only aspire to. I know of no person who puts as much deep thought, positive action, and general blood, sweat and tears into the practice of Community Management.

There is still no paint by numbers guide: every community and every community manager is different. But if you aspire to build a career in community management–are a community manager already–I encourage you to dive in and learn some of the fundamentals.

Open Source for America

If you have not yet looked into Open Source for America (OSA), the advocacy organization recently announced at OSCON, I recommend checking it out.

The recent increased focus on governmental transparency is long overdue. In the 1990’s, we saw a trend in the US toward putting public records online. The trend reversed drastically over the last decade, as new justifications for government secrecy arose. Coinciding with the new US administration, the public is expressing a renewed interest in transparency, with increased attention to Lobby Reform. (In a representative democracy, should it be permissible that elected officials should be able to make secretive backroom policy deals with lobbyists from the tobacco, health insurance or energy industries?)

In the context of open government, the transparency of government technology must also be considered. Free and Open Source Software gets used by government. But when software can be acquired and deployed at no charge, is it going through the same security and other reviews as proprietary software? Conversely, are there times when proprietary software is unacceptable? Consider electronic voting machines. If “We The People” fund the creation of the software ran on these machines, is there any way a vendor can justify not disclosing the source code? I state these observations as questions not to open a discourse about them, but to point out that there are many issues to consider about the role of Free and Open Source Software in government. The establishment of OSA may help shine light on such issues and provide help and guidance to Federal, state and local governments.

To find out what the organization plans to do, I recommend listening to the series of interviews with various OSA board members recently hosted by my good friend Erin Quill (also my former co-presenter on–and now host of–Novell Open Audio).

My Response to the “Audible.com Customer Survey July 2009″

I have been loving Audible.com for many years. This month, they sent out a customer survey, and I decided to respond to it.

The first two (of five) questions are:

1. How likely is it that you would recommend Audible.com to a friend or colleague? Please use a scale of 0-10 where 0 is “not likely at all” and 10 is “extremely likely”.
   (I gave them a 5.)
2. What is the primary reason for the score you just gave us?

That second question was open-ended, so I opened up and gave them what I hope they will see as a really good suggestion:

I have been with Audible for a very long time. Consequently, I get a really good deal on books compared to what Audible offers to new subscribers. Audible.com for me is part of my lifestyle.

I used to promote Audible.com a lot, but too many people told me that they think that the current pricing is not really that good of a deal.

Want people like me to promote Audible more? Do something Seth-Godin-outrageous: Instead of giving me a book credit for recruiting a new subscriber, allow customers like me to invite my friends to enjoy the same great subscription level I do. Recognize my loyalty by making me very popular with my friends. Deepen my fidelity to you by giving me a very special status among Audible.com members. Activate your network of long-time subscribers to start recruiting again by putting them in a special club! And, make it an exclusive–no one who becomes a subscriber this way gets the same invitation privileges…this special status is only for Original Members. Unless you are losing money on me every month, how could this go wrong?

Incidentally, I notice that there is no tit-for-tat for this survey. Why aren’t you giving away a single-month magazine subscription to each member who responds to this survey? If customer feedback–mine, and that of others–is valuable enough to spend your employees’ time to gether, doesn’t it make sense to incent customers to spend some time providing it to you? (The account is “thaeger,” thanks.)

I’ve made suggestions to Audible.com before, and never heard a peep back from them. Now that they are apparently owned by Amazon, I hope that they have gotten better at listening.

Ikoko Singing Downstairs

As I work,  I hear sweet Heidi singing.

Downstairs, she unpacks her adjectives.

It makes me feel so content.

…

Schoolhouse Rock!