No, Really: Patent Issued for Rounded Corners on Electronic Devices

Apple Just Got Granted a Patent for Rounded Corners on Electronic Devices - The Atlantic

So perhaps reform of trademark and patent statutes might be a second-term item for the Obama administration to glance toward?

Building is underway in Denver, where the new USPTO location will be fully staffed and operating by the end of 2014, and that should help with the dramatic backlog (round corners are now part of so many Apple devices that who knew that patent was still pending?). However, trolling will be a feature/bug of our IP law at any speed.

James Fallows talks to David Allen

David Allen on How to Fix Your Life - The Atlantic

And as we seem to do here at SJN Sales, they review some of the causes and costs of "busyness" we all wokr through, if we are lucky enough to have fulfilling jobs we can do sitting down.

Insights from two very smart guys. As they say, read the whole thing.

Scanning copy makes it more than words

Court Hands Huge Victory to Universities' Digitization Efforts - The Atlantic

That first victory -- that search capability is "transformative" -- is what has scholars in the burgeoning field of digital humanities cheering today... The search capabilities of the HDL have already given rise to new methods of academic inquiry such as text mining." Just because the digitization process does not add anything "new" does not mean the work has not been transformed. Purchasing more copies of the books -- even infinity copies -- would not make search possible.

 The significance of this reading of copyright law can't be overstated. It ties into a debate about whether and by what precise mechanics today's most popular forms of culture are 'new'. For more on that notion, the always-insightful Nick Carr.

Social media mentions: All good?

Well, THAT was ugly.

At least my mom didn't read Kitchenaid's tweet about Obama's grandmother.

Because she'd be out in her yard shooting the mixer.

SJN Sales has a client whose product is an innovative social media tracking tool, TrackingSocial.com. When we describe it to social media and web managers, they typically respond, 'You can measure that?'

Well, yes, and it appears that you may need to have some charts, graphs and objective stats to justify the expenditure on your social media efforts.

Wonder what the mentions and re-tweets of that blunder were? How do you measure your social media investment's results?

Just how relevant is social media for work?

Well, that clearly depends on what your job is.

As seen in this Slate piece on California's attempt to legislate a solution to Klout-based discrimination, there are legit hiring qualifications connected to competence with social media.

However,  there are troubling questions about the use of a scoring system. What was left untouched by this article was how a rating on a social scoring system is distinct from a job-related skill--it's third-party and subjective. Code isn't objectively measuring anything by virtue of automating the measurement--someone has to decide what to measure and how to weigh those indicators.

Regardless of the interest Klout has in asserting that its ratings are a yardstick, it's important to note that in truth they're just a stick. And the prospect that they could be used as a proxy, to slide age or sex or racial discrimination in hiring past regulators, is a real problem.

The car that drives you there...not quite a jetpack, but close

Somehow in the press of meeting deadlines on the 25th, this story escaped me:

California Legalizes Self-Driving Cars

Presumably, the real complications are yet to come. As noted in the linked story, insurance companies will need to use models to price the risks of automation (pun unavoidable). Surprisingly, the data show that driving ourselves is more likely to cost the insurer a mint than letting the car make the judgment calls. Raising the specter of a future in which driving your own car is a luxury that many of us can't afford. Because humans are just too unpredictable to be trusted with the awesome responsibility of steering, changing lanes and using turn signals.

Even E.B. White Felt Overwhelmed by His Inbox

The beloved author of <i>Charlotte's Web</i> suffered from inbox overload too.

Even E.B. White Felt Overwhelmed by His Inbox - The Atlantic

The best argument for using email management techniques? That email itself is not the problem.

These techniques that are policy at SJN Sales:

• Check email at scheduled times of day
• Reply immediately only to urgent items
• Sort incoming items into urgent, important and neither
• Emphasize transparency about the above with ALL clients, setting the expectation accurately for what you're going to deliver

 Does time management, which is really all we're doing with these techniques, solve all problems related to email? Of course not--there's volume and tone to contend with, too. This excellent little book can be digested into a set of policies, and the reasoning behind them, in about 2 hours. You won't regret the time it takes to grab the reins and stop email from running away with your business.

Science speaks: Googling yourself is normal

In the current issue of Archaeology mag, a report on how people in the past spent their time with media. Using the density of grime on the pages of surviving books, we learn that medieval Dutch readers indulged a similar impulse:

In one manuscript that had been enhanced with custom illuminations, the owner primarily looked at pictures—in particular one that depicted the owner himself.

 They all spent quite a bit of their prayer-book time asking for protection from disease or the consequences of sin.

While technology has come a long way, it would be interesting to compare those findings with the most common themes of status updates...

Beer Geeks Want the White House Recipe

Beer Geeks Determined to Unlock Obama's Home-Brew Recipe

No, really, with all the issues and topics that might be interesting to know more about, an FOIA filing asking for POTUS' homebrew?

Really.

Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad?

The paragraph we're printing on the napkins for our next SJN Sales picnic:

The underlying problem here is that most software is not very good. Writing good software is hard. There are thousands of opportunities to make mistakes. More importantly, it's difficult if not impossible to anticipate all the situations that a software program will be faced with, especially when...it is interacting with other software programs that are not under your control. 

Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad? - The Atlantic

Whenever we meet to discuss a software development client, this is always the focus: Does the product work? What breaks the product? Under what conditions has it (not yet) been tested? And, critically, How does the client's sales or marketing side respond to the answers to these questions?

There's a lot of software out there. And this is exactly why we're selective about what we present to our contacts: Most software is not very good.

No-Vacation Nation

No-Vacation Nation: 'As Long as There's WiFi ... I Am on the Clock' - The Atlantic

There's a lot to dig through at the link, and as it's vacation season, feel free to dive down that rabbit hole instead of working on something productive. Because what you'll see pretty quickly is that our national commitment to working ourselves too hard is ubiquitous, compulsory and unproductive.

With my company, even if I am sick or on vacations, I have...my laptop and mobile phone. I've gotten out of bed with 104F fever to speak with clients. I've left my mother's hospital bedside to return a call about a shipment. I've been in a kayak on a mountain lake and had a text...!' 

Emphasis mine. So who thinks that this worker's best abilities were brought to bear on the phone call from the hospital? How about the call returning the text, from the kayak? One of the most frustrating and least effective meetings we held this year was around the table at main office with a partner conferenced in from her own health care.

I like what I do, and it's (mostly) a pleasure to deliver results to SJN's clients. But I've also been in an ER, on the table, after a mountain bike crash that left me with 2/3 of a working lung.

The highly trained team of people who made a purpose-built port in my chest wall, got me breathing again, and set me up for a long life with a floating rib within 30 minutes after I came through their doors dying? They need to be on call 24/7, unless someone with similar skills is available to take over the tiller.

For the rest of us, the urgency we feel about being available for work is just a feeling.

"Can Software Prod Us Into Being More Civil?"

A nudge toward civility, professionalism and the kind of manners Mom would be proud to see?

Might not be a bad idea. For the whole team, not to single out anyone particular.

Nudge, Nudge: Can Software Prod Us Into Being More Civil? - The Atlantic