Morten Marquard

If you haven't tried it out yet - get started - ajaxWrite!

What people have talked about for almost a decade is finally here. Powerfull applications delivered over the net with no local installation - and even free! Available from a standard web browser supporting standard technologies such as dynamic HTML and javascript. Without no local installation, downloadable in seconds, with all the functionality you're asking for.

• Using Microsoft Word --> try AjaxWrite
• Using Microsoft PowerPoint --> try ajaxSketch
• Using Microsoft Excel --> try ajaxXLS

Check it out yourself today - and be surprised. I was!

Posted by Morten Marquard at 12:12 am | 0 comments

Posted by Morten Marquard at 5:47 pm | 0 comments

• Payment - Ecademy membership is not free, so people have to commit to using the network to get value. As everyone commit you know people here as serious. Welcome.
• Rich profiles - Fifty words focusing on you as a person rather than on your commercial skills is a great concept. At the end of the day we want to work with people whom we share some common ground. Fifty words let you find people that share similar views and interest as yourself.
• Off-line events - Probably the most important element. I have always had the opinion that once I got a face to an email address, then cyberspace can really accelerate collaboration. Off-line events is an institution in order to ensure that you get a face to the email address. Did I mention that Ecademy host people's pictures - something that makes offline meetings far easier, as you can easily spot people in a cafe.

The main drawbacks of Ecademy and other social networks is the portal (Web 1.0) concept, where you access Ecademy from your browser. Integration with common business tools such as Outlook and Word is not existent. As most people use these tools in their daily work, it is difficult to use Ecademy in your daily business. This is not to say that Ecademy doesn't have value already (probably 50% of my business contacts, partners and customers as coming from that channel today), but you can get even more value if the integration was closer.

To solve some of these issues, I created a tool that download contacts from networks such as Ecademy, LinkedIn and OpenBC. I suggest you read more about the tool here. The tool helps you get your contact database in order, as well as to structure email correspondence, as all emails are marked with the company, and using Outlook journal technologies, it is easy to get an overview of the correspondence with various people. So far so good.

But what about documents that we share between a group of people? We are used to email these forward and backward - and everyone knows the difficulty managing content and keeping everything up-to-date. What you really need is a way to save documents into, say, your local harddrive, knowning that content at this location will be shared with specific people in specific workgroups. This is what imeem can do for you!

imeem use peer-to-peer technology, which also solves some of the security and intellectual property issues that you probably face with Ecademy and other networks. As documents are shared directly from your machine to your workgroup, no third party will hold the document at any time!

Combining Ecademy's brilliant concepts with the tools and techniques offered by imeem would make it an even better place to network as well as deal with your daily business.

Alternatively you might wish to take a look at Groove networks which is a peer-2-peer tool for collaboration.

Posted by Morten Marquard at 7:45 am | 0 comments

Posted by Morten Marquard at 12:59 am | 0 comments

On August 15th imeem launched yet another social network, adding to a list of many networks such as LinkedIn, Orbit, OpenBC, Ecademy, Skype, Friendster just to name a few.

But these guys seems to be taken a different approach - at least technically. Rather than a traditional Web 1.0 approach creating a new portal on www.imeem.com, they have taken a Web 2.0 approach looking into P2P technologies.

A key question is whether this model has any commercial relevance? To me the answer is yes! Probably not in the setup launched by imeem initially, as they mainly focus on supporting private end-users.

But a b2b network, based on the imeem model might prove very valuable. Collaborate with peers in another company is a pain - experienced by more and more people. Emailing documents forward and backwards is breaking any digital process, thereby slowing collaboration and hurting project productivity. Streamlining simple cross-corporate processes such as document sharing, discussion forums and task sharing will be very valuable - and can be offered today leveraging technologies already in the marketplace.

Who will be the first player to launch a commercial product is still to be seen.

I have worked on a concept and prototype showcasing this for quite a while now. Leveraging popular business tools such as Word, Excel and Outlook is a prerequisite for success - as these tools are the foundation is of most business user today. Sharing documents, tasks and discussions in an easy project oriented model from inside these tools is user friendly and therefore drives adoption - a key barrier to all new technologies.

Want to discuss and share knowledge - give me a buzz

Posted by Morten Marquard at 12:13 am | 0 comments

Posted by Morten Marquard at 12:52 am | 0 comments

How come people very often miss the obvious? In every generation, every field of research, people tend to assume that things develop evolutionary, which is to a large extend very true. From time to time new paradigm show up, which turn all assumptions away. Navigating in such fields is difficult.

• Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development (Julies Sextus Frontinus, Highly regarded engineer in Rome 1st C A.D)
• Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895)
• I think there is a world market for maybe five computers (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943)
• There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home (Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)
• The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us (Western Union internal memo, 1876)
• Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French commander of Allied forces during the closing months of World War I, 1918)
• Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? (Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)
• Everything that can be invented has been invented (Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)
• The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular? (David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920's)
• Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools (New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921)
• With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market (Business Week, August 2, 1968)
• There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will (Albert Einstein, 1932)

As a visionary person I very often see things much earlier than others. Despite what many people might think this is not easy.

My personal faviourite quote is:

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe (Albert Einstein)

Posted by Morten Marquard at 10:55 pm | 0 comments