Firstly, it reduces the amount of the cached location information to a week’s worth, rather than relying on a size limit, as it previously did. Secondly, it no longer backs up the cache to your Mac or PC via iTunes upon syncing, so the information isn’t available to anyone with access to your computer. And finally, the cache is now deleted from the device when Location Services are disabled in iOS’s Settings app.

I for one am quite sad to see this go. Privacy issues not withstanding, I found the fact that my phone tracked my location not to be creepy but actually rather interesting.

When this news was released I, along with thousands immediately downloaded the app to explore the data.

I travel a lot for work and knowing where I’ve been over the last year has been of real interest. Keeping track of where I was on a certain day, be it Manchester, Bristol or someone more exotic was fascinating. A automatic diary entry as it where. The app developed to explore the location data stored on the phone was a huge success.

I can see why there has been the outcry, after all if the data got into the wrong hands it’d be an issue. Not that I really care if people know where I am. The location was never exact, just a triangulation based on cell towers. I can see where I was to a few hundred meteres at best.

I’ll be sad to see location tracking go. I want to keep track of where I’ve been. Maybe someone will develop an app – and I don’t mean a check in style Foursquare style. Something that just keeps a record of where I am.

What are you thoughts on the loss of location tracking? Did you download and try the app?

Update Friday 6th May 2pm UK
Elliott Jay Stocks has also blogged about the sad loss of this data.
I can’t believe I didn’t mention Mapalong in my original post. They’ll be the purveyors off all things location very soon. The beta is looking awesome.

There are few articles that had such a dramatic effect on me as Fabio Sergio’s 2001 connectedland. At the time I was studying human interaction and how technology mediated (and disrupted) communication.

Fabio’s article discussed the way culture adapts and changes through technology use & how technology changes to meet cultural need. How we were all being bought together by connected technology. Changes in behaviour thanks to life in connectedland.

Peter Morville was quoted in the article:

“We use people to find content, we use content to find people”

Fabio expanded on Peter’s ideas:

“To me all of the above simply means that the medium is finally starting to reveal the message. Or, I am tempted to say, the message is emerging from the medium”

To digital natives this is old hat. We’ve all seen the ways this is happening. Instant Messaging, Facebook, email, internet dating, SMS; the information artefacts are all having a profound effect on our lives. A simple example is the way it’s more socially acceptable to be late to meet friends. Send a text message to say you’ll be 10 minutes late that’s more acceptable than being late used to be.

Not everything is easy in connectedland. Information anxiety is real, internet addiction has the same biological basis as other addictions, cyber-bullying, suicide-pacts online, phising scams, RSI, all part of living in connectedland.

Life in connectedland on the whole is a good one. I have refound long forgotten friends, made new friends, got a job, been on dates, discovered music, saved money, all thanks to life in connectedland. I’ve been lucky, I have the skills to live and work in connectedland. I’ve taught myself to use the tools, to speak the language, to learn the social skills for connectedland. That is the next challenge, how do we as information professionals ensure connectedland is open to all.

connectedland as a gated community

The original connectedland article quotes IDEO’s Naoto Fukasawa:

Design dissolves in beahviour

Or to put it another way, nobody notices a usable design – design that works is and should be invisible. That may explain why there are very few awards for good usability. Recently, I watched my Grandfather, a veteran of the air force WWII, trace the route he flew in his Lancaster Bomber across Europe before he was shot down. He traced it to me on my iPhone using Google maps. I didn’t have to show him how to use Google maps, he just got it. The design disappeared.

My Granddad has never used a computer before for many reasons but in using an iPhone he overcame what to him was the biggest barrier – technology wasn’t for him. Last year the UK Government appointed its first Digital Inclusion Czar; Martha Lane Fox to “encourage take-up of technology, to reduce barriers.” One of the largest and by far and away, I believe the most significant barrier to entry to connectedland is ease of use.

Opening the gates to connectedland

Part of my job is research, I spend on average about 3 hours a week watching real users use technology, some time with eyetracking kit, sometimes in their homes, sometime in their work place. I must have interviewed and researched with over 600 people in the course of my career all with one aim. To make stuff easier to use.

Fabio talks about how information professionals (that’s you and me don’t forget) shape the way humans relate to available information. The examples he uses have moved on significantly in the 10 years since he wrote the article – social networking sites were not around then. Social networks have been the reasons many people have started to live in connectedland. If your friends are having a party you want to be there – the simplest and most human way to encourage technology uptake is to do what your friends and family are doing.

A staggering 9.2 million adults do not use the Internet in the UK. It seems things are still broken at a fundamental level if 24% of people aren’t online. I’ll follow up this post later this month with what I believe is one of the biggest challenges facing us in connectedland – joining the dots.

Ideas of March

I’ve published this article as part of Ideas of March Chris Shiflett’s encouraging idea to expand beyond Twitter and share. Write more online and joint people like Alan Colville, Elliot Jay Stocks, Rick Hurst & the mighty Jon Tan and share your thoughts.

I fired up my note taking tool today to look for an article to publish as part of Ideas of March. I found 13 unfinished posts. Thirteen. Why hadn’t I published them? Had I got board of the ideas? Did I not enjoy writing? Was it a huge case of procrastination? No, no and no.

This got me thinking why then am I unable to actual publish anything?. I blog a fair amount over at cxpartners as do some of the other guys there. I enjoy blogging. I really do. As do a lot of those guys. In talking to those who don’t blog as much I realised they share the same worry I do.

It turns out what I’m worried about is the trolls. The urban dictionary defines a troll as:

One who posts a deliberately provocative message with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

I’m afraid of someone wading in and criticising what I’ve written. This is of course their right. If I publish and put it out there I should have the courage to deal with the internet critic.

I’ve had my fair share of critics online. Over the last couple of years I’ve been likened to Shane McGowen, bought down a peg or two by an old time usability guy and generally been told I really don’t know what I’m talking about. All this criticism really doesn’t make me want to blog, it makes me want to hide under a rock somewhere.

Blogging is hard, criticising is easy.

It’s easy to criticise online, it really is. It takes no time, less than 30 seconds to post a comment. It takes me hours to write a blog post. Hours where I’m trying to second guess every single criticism. My academic training doesn’t help. I can’t just make a statement without backing it up with any evidence. I’ve been beaten with the academic stick too many times online. In short, I get so worried about the structure of my argument; I freeze. I can’t publish.

Just be nice

As part of Ideas of March I’d like to suggest we be nice to everyone who has the courage to blog. I don’t mean we should do the YouTube style comments where there are 20 people just saying the word “awesome.” What I’m saying is let’s be encouraging and say what we like about the post. Which of the points made us think. And if that troll is lurking under a nearby bridge maybe he’ll think twice before taking us all on.

UK Digital Mission Stand at SXSW in 2009

For those of you who not come across SXSW it’s a huge festival in Austin, Texas for music, film and interaction. Eight months before the festival the voting process gets underway to pick who will speak. Here’s my recommendations of who to vote for and hopefully if they get chosen who to go see next March in Texas.

First up my boss, fellow cxpartner and very clever guy Giles Colborne:

• Delight (very excited about this one)
• Making the Mobile User Experience Simpler

Overall smart dude and mr web typography Jon Tan:

• Web Typography: Get Your Glyph On 2 (follow-up to the great panel from last year)

Local Bath & Bristol people:

Alan Colville (ex cx’er and nice guy)

• Is Your Website Heading for a Car-Wreck?

Dan Dixon (clever UWE dude)

• The Aesthetics of Pervasive Gaming

.net magazine editor and nice guy Oliver Lindberg

• Design Perfect Site Navigation

Wathershed and iShed’s Clare Reddington:

• Pervasive Games and Playful Experiences: Rendering the Real World
• Seeing Round Corners: Artists as Innovators in the Corporate World

Mike Bennett from E3:

• How Networks Will Make Your Business Fly
• From The Kitchen Table To $Million Business

And all round clever people:

Elliott Jay Stocks

• Is WordPress Killing Web Design (interesting one)
• Web Typography: Get Your Glyph On 2

Matthew ‘Squaredeye’ Smith and friends:

• Designing For Content : Art Direction On The Web

Update!  Mr Chris Shiflett, very smart PHP security guru:

• Social Web Security: From Psychology to Programming
• Travelog With Maps: When 1000 Photos Aren’t Enough

And last but not least the full UK contingent for this year (great work Sam at Chinwag for putting the list together)

• Over 60 UK panels at SXSW

So what are you waiting for? Register and vote at SXSW

Over the years I’ve developed a number of ways to help deal with the worries – ways to limit my worrying to 9 – 5.

They work for me and maybe they might just work for you. Now let me get this out of the way first, I’m not talking productivity here, I’m not talking ninja super skills to get more stuff done. What I am talking about is just not worrying about getting stuff done. The doing of it, well that’s up to you.

Reviewing all the loose ends

At work I probably have upwards of 10 projects on the go at any one time and probably twice that number of future projects I’m hoping to do. That’s an awful lot of things to worry about. What I try and do is limit my ‘oh my god I’ve go so many things to do’ time to just before I get into the office and just before I leave, oh, and one big worry session on a Friday morning.

To focus my thoughts on projects I have 5 lists, I know what you are saying now, bet the words ‘anal’ ‘loser’ and ‘obsessive’ are going through your head. Five lists to help me stop worrying, I’m no loser. Anyway, the five lists. I have a daily ‘Open’ list, a daily ‘Close’ list, a ‘Projects’ list, an ‘Everything else I need to do’ list and a ‘Weekly review’ list.

Ending the day right

I find if I can tie up all my loose ends at the end of the day my mind doesn’t feel like it needs to worry, I put the worry off until the next day when I’m paid to worry.
So before I leave for the day, I used to do this on the train home, but lucky me, I have no commute anymore, I review the following, my ‘Close’ list: .

1. Today’s actions (noting those annoying things I haven’t managed to get done)
2. Tomorrow’s actions (I keep a tally of things to do each day)
3. Today’s meeting notes and think about people I’ve met today to capture actions
4. Glance at ‘Projects list’
5. Glance at ‘Everything else to do list’
6. Tomorrow’s calendar
7. The day after tomorrow’s calendar

From that list I write down all the things I need to do tomorrow. Anything that doesn’t need doing tomorrow goes on my ‘Everything else to do’ list. Any new projects, they go on my ‘Projects list.’ Easy. Worrying differed until tomorrow, no loose ends.

All my actions for the next day, ready for when I come in the next morning

Starting the next day

The ‘Open’ list I normally look over at breakfast (when in Bristol I love Lashings to do this over tea and toast with Marmite). Here’s the contents of my list:

1. Today’s actions (all carefully listed last night)
2. Today’s calendar
3. Tomorrow’s calendar
4. Glance at ‘Projects list’
5. Glance at ‘Everything else to do list’

From this I update my list of todos for the day. This really only takes me a couple of minutes.

Weekly cleanse

Every week I spend a good hour or so going through the loose ends in my head. I have list to help jog my memory, my ‘Weekly review’ list. It includes all possible places where the stuff I need to do might be located. From texts in my phone to twitter DMs to who knows what. Using this list I put together stuff I need to do for next week against each day and all the other stuff on to my ‘Everything else to do list’

Here’s my Weekly review checklist to give you an idea where stuff lands in my world.

So there we have it, 5 lists to stop worrying. It works for me, hopefully it will for you too.

Do you have any tips to stop the worry and keep on top of stuff?

My internet World talk Social Networks: build your won or take advantage of an existing one was scarily full with standing room only.

One of main points was to listen to the chatter on twitter and facebook. I was doing the same through my talk and had some great feedback from people.

The audience did better than I did at summerising:

My slides are here:

I’ve written a whitepaper to accompany the talk:

• They’re talking about you online

Thanks to Ed Mitchell for hosting and Laura Francis, Eben Halford and Fraser Stephens for presenting.

A small cog in some really big wheels
How to keep your head across multiple projects

Some links:

• That Book Getting things done by David Allen
• The template I use: Hipster PDA

Googleitus
The syndrome where you find yourself in front of an empty Google search box thinking “What was it I was going to searching for again?”

Symptoms include:

• Only needing to type ‘g’ then enter into the URL bar to find Google
• Visiting Google more than 4 times an hour

Not to be confused with Fridgeitus where you find yourself in front of the fridge, door open thinking “What was it I wanted again?”

• Googleitus from Wikipedia

Sift has always prided itself on the quality of it’s thinking and I’ve learnt a huge amount from the great people at Sift. It’s been a pleasure to work there but the time has come for me to move on.

Thanks to the Uber Blogger Griff Wigley for taking this shot.

Having worked for a couple of ‘orange’ companies am I a bit behind the times?

The Logos of Web 2.0