Submitted by Tom Peters on August 28, 2008 - 11:41am
The last half of August is a transition period. For many people it is the end of summer as a human experience, regardless of how summer is defined in national holidays, meteorological averages or the wobbling of the earth on its axis. It's time to get back to school and buckle down--time to work.
I've found that a transition period can be a good time for reflection. During much of the year we are caught up in the "sturm und drang" of programs, policies, procedures, personnel, and pecunia, but occasionally a few days crop up when you can think about larger issues, trends and opportunities.
During these last days of summer, as I have been strolling down the straight and narrow lane (it truly is straight and narrow) that leads to my house, I keep coming back to the same thought: Ultimately, inevitably, digits are mightier than the sword and the buck.
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Submitted by Tom Peters on January 11, 2007 - 3:35pm
In the days of yore it was not uncommon for universities in Britain and the U.S. to have a policy called "rustication." If a student acted up academically, he would be sent away from the university for a few months to think about his transgressions and, ideally, rededicate himself to the life of the university. As the term "rustication" implies, the concept in its pure form involves being sent down to the farm.  I doubt that many rusticated scholars, such as the young Milton, Dryden, and Swinburne, actually slopped any hogs, but the thought of them knee-deep in muck provides some measure of solace and encouragement for us all.
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Submitted by Tom Peters on July 26, 2006 - 10:39am
Two news items that scurried across my attention in July have led me to conclude that, in this era of overlapping eras, we have entered yet another age.
The first item was an industry report that Apple shipped more than eight million iPod devices in the second quarter of 2006. That's almost three million per month or 100,000 per day, and the second quarter is not a big gift-giving quarter, unless Apple packaged all those iPods in large plastic Easter eggs. (Remember, you read it here first.)
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Submitted by Tom Peters on May 2, 2006 - 12:40pm
 Earlier this week, after years of a court-induced coma, the Napster.com Web site became live and free again. This time, the Napster executives claim they are too legit to quit.
Here's the new deal. Napster claims to have two-million songs in its master collection. If an individual fills out a no-cost Web registration form, he or she is then allowed to listen to any and all of the tunes up to five times. You do the math.
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Submitted by Tom Peters on April 17, 2006 - 10:52am
Avatars need libraries, too, you know. An avatar—in this context—is "an icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality." Last Thursday, the Alliance Library System officially announced that this summer it plans to begin offering library services to avatars who live and work in the 3D virtual space Second Life. Second Life has significantly more than 100,000 registered avatars, but at any given time a few thousand are actually online and active, so this global virtual village currently is about the size of Vegetable City, Iowa. You can set up one avatar for free, but the real folks at Second Life do ask for a credit card number or Paypal info. for verification purposes.
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Submitted by Tom Peters on March 23, 2006 - 11:56am
Wednesday—The first day of the Computers in Libraries Conference in Washington, DC. It's the 21st annual, but my first. I was up at 3:00 a.m. to catch my six-a.m.-red-eye flight from Kansas City. After I stumbled out of bed and dressed, I called Max to go for a walk, and he indeed got up off the sofa, but he had a quizzical look on his face as we headed out into the frosty night.
After the walk, off to the airport.
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Submitted by Tom Peters on March 9, 2006 - 1:15pm
 In today's online New York Times (no-cost subscription required), David Pogue has an interesting article ('Almost iPod, but in the End a Samsung') about the Samsung Z5 MP3 player as a pretender to the throne currently occupied by the iPod Nano.
If you're having a hard time imagining how a newspaper article about such a tight, techie topic could be interesting, let me tell you that I think this article really is about the gestalt experience of using any personal, portable infotainment / communication appliance, be it an MP3 player, cell phone, PDA, tablet PC, or anything else you can imagine. Read More »
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