Bering Express

From Android to iPhone (and back?)

When I started my new job I got a new phone. To my great surprise it was an iPhone 4. This was fairly awkward for me, because I have been using an Android phone (HTC Desire) for the past year and I have been very satisfied. (Perhaps this would be a good time to state, that I am not particularly religious in the whole Android vs. Apple discussion, although some parts of the Apple way of doing business bothers me a bit).

So now I have been using the iPhone for two weeks and feel like it would be a good time to note down a few observations. Bear in mind that I am a very inexperienced iPhone user, and some of my issues may simply be due to the fact that I am not yet used to the phone.

Quite unexpectedly there are a number of features that the Android phone has, that I find myself really missing on the iPhone:

• Notifications – let’s get the major one out the way first: I really miss the pull-down notification window in Android, where I can see all Twitter mentions, Exchange and Gmail, calendar appointments, SMS messages etc. in one glance. On the iPhone I find myself scrolling around a lot, navigating back to apps that have displayed a pop-up notification.

• Multitasking – there does not seem to be proper multitasking on the iPhone, or at least it does not feel that way. When I access apps like Twitter, Google Latitude or FourSquare, the data in the apps is not updated and won’t update until I do some kind of reload. Compare this to Android, where updating takes place in the background most of the time.

• User interface – surprisingly I really miss the hardware buttons on the Desire, for navigating back, searching and bringing up a context menu. On the iPhone each program has its own interface for searching, for going back and for accessing things like settings. It’s confusing and inconsistent. (On a related note I actually also miss the little notification light that the Desire has for showing me that I have a notification, when the screen is off)

• Google integration – this is a no-brainer of course. I am a heavy user of all major Google services and on the iPhone the Google Apps are really lacking. No Google chat (which had almost replaced SMS for certain contacts), less advanced version of Latitude and Maps, only access to ones own Google Calendar etc. I find myself using the mobile web interface to Gmail instead of the built-in e-mail functionality on the iPhone, but it is not quite the same…

• Keyboard – earlier I thought that DamnYouAutoCorrect.com was funny. Now I know that it is tragically true. Shortly before switching to iPhone, I installed Swiftkey on my HTC Desire. It predicts words as I type them and it works great. It feels like a huge step back to be stuck with tapping out each character on iPhone and correcting the auto-correct all the time.

• App selection and stability – an common critique of Android used to be the selection and stability of the apps. Coming from Android to iPhone, the selection seems to be about the same, maybe even slightly in Android’s favour, since I can replace things like the keyboard with other apps on Android (as mentioned above). The apps on Android seem to be more powerful, for example letting me sync my call log with Google Calendar or scrobbling tracks from the built-in player to last.fm, things that I don’t think iPhone will let me. With regards to stability, I think I have had just as many app crashes on iPhone as I have had on Android.

• No widgets – another thing I did not expect to miss. But it turns out that having access to quickly turning off wifi or adjusting screen brightness is really practical. On the iPhone I have to dig (deep) in to the settings menu every time

But it is not all bad, there are a few important places where the iPhone 4 currently kicks the ass of the HTC Desire:

• Battery life – probably related to the multitasking mentioned above, the iPhone conserves its battery a lot better than the HTC Desire and lasts a whole day of normal use for me without problems. With the Desire I was always looking for an outlet to charge my phone.

• Camera – the camera on the HTC Desire is close to being unusable in anything but broad daylight. The iPhone camera takes pictures that feel as good as a compact camera. There is also a front-facing camera, and it works great for a Skype video conversation. Very nice!

• Internal storage – the HTC Desire has too little internal storage, which means that it is often necessary to move applications to the SD card. This is not specifically an Android problem, more hardware-related, but really annoying nevertheless. iPhone obviously doesn’t have these kind of problems.

So the question is: do I switch back or do I keep using the iPhone? For the moment I have no choice, since the MicroSIM of the iPhone is not compatible with the HTC Desire, but I have ordered an adapter, so I can switch between the two. Going forward I think I may just alternate a little between the two phones, but for various reasons related to my work I will probably stick with the iPhone. The choice will become more difficult as newer Android models come out with better cameras and better battery life.

New job

For the first time ever since I finished university I have changed my job. Last Monday I had my first day at Accenture. Professionally my tasks will be quite similar to what I have been doing so far (enterprise architecture, IT-strategy and related subjects). The main difference is the size of the organization I am working in. I am going from a company of 4500 people in Europe and the Middle East, to a company of 217.000 people all over the world. This brings new challenges (for example more formal procedures in a larger company), but also a lot of new possibilities, especially internationally. I am currently swamped with learning new information and the names of my new colleagues, but my experience from my previous job definitely makes things easier than the first time around.

One of the things I am looking forward to is the internal networking and knowledge exchange with colleagues from all over the world. In my previous job I worked on a major collaboration project and I have seen what great benefits it can bring to use social networking and similar tools in a professional context. I am hoping to pursue this even further in my new job.

How openness makes me a more loyal customer

If you use a lot of digital tools like I do, it is very common to leave a lot of information behind. Services expire, get acquired or die in different ways. The time, effort and data that the user puts in is lost or loses its value. When this happens more than a few times, you start to wonder if it is all really worth it. Should I really start updating information again in a new service, if I am only going to stop using it in a few months? I have found that the best way to convince me to go all in, is to give me a way out. This means adopting open standards and making it possible for me to export my data.

Two recent examples illustrates this point quite well:

• Delicious: In December 2010 it was announced that Delicious would be spun-off from mother company Yahoo. This lead to a mass exodus from the service, to Pinboard, Diigo and other similar services. I did the same as everyone else: exported my bookmarks and imported them somewhere else, it was easy since I could get a full export from Delicious. But now, a few months later I find myself still using Delicious, just like before. Why? Because I know that I can export my data anytime, should the service be shut down or drastically altered..

• Amazon Kindle: I have the Kindle software installed on both my Android phone and on my Windows laptop. I love how easy it is to buy books, to add notes and to keep everything organized across platforms. I have bought a few books, but only after I found out that I can break the DRM if I have to. I am not spending a lot of money, but I feel comfortable buying a book from time to time. If Amazon started selling e-books in a format that could be widely used on other platforms, I would spend a lot more.

So to sum up: I don’t mind using the doomed service for bookmarks, with limited functionality and support, since I know my data is safe. On the other hand I feel uncomfortable committing to the advanced and up-to-date platform for e-books, since I don’t really own the data. Openness makes me a more loyal customer.

Digital spring cleaning

So the sun is finally starting to peek through the clouds here in Denmark and I can finally see how dirty my windows are. But cleaning them is an easy task, water and soap will do the trick and I can track my progress very easily.

But what about the digital equivalent? Do you know where to find the dirt in your digital setup? At this point you may be alright in terms of updates for your operating system and applications, you may have anti-virus installed and you may even have some online backup that will keep you safe in case of a breakdown or theft. But what about the online services that you use and the way they are connected? If you try out a lot different services like me, you will have given a lot of access over time, some of which you may no longer be using. Time to clean up!

Here is a list of places to take a look at:

Your list of Facebook applications and their permissions

Your list of Linkedin applications and their permissions

Your list of Twitter applications and their permissions

Your list of Foursquare applications and their permissions (bottom of page)

You may want to check your Google Dashboard as well, for a quick overview of how you are using the different Google services.

Where else should I be looking? Tell me your suggestions in the comments.

Goodbye Paris!

After more than 7 months in beautiful Paris, I am now fully moved back to Copenhagen. For the first time in more than 8 months I am in Denmark without plans for another trip to Paris.

Living in Paris has been a great experience and I have really enjoyed being able to get to know the city. Any future visits will be very different, since I now have the city “under my skin”.

Some of the things that will stay with me:

• The metro experience – even though it is often crowded, the Parisian metro is very effective. Moreover, compared to Copenhagen, the Parisians are a lot more used to the “metro ballet” and are much better at getting out of each other’s way and being polite to each other (or perhaps this was my experience because I primarily used line 3 to Levallois-Perret in the morning, with the business crowd)
• It may be a cliché at this point, but the French culture around food is great. I am no gourmet, but it is easy to tell that the food in the supermarket and in the restaurants is better quality than what we are used to in Denmark. As an added bonus, the French take more time to eat, making it a much more pleasant experience (if you have the time). The neighbourhood I worked in (Levallois-Perret) is full of little interesting restaurants, I would need at least another year to know my way around all of them.
• The size and life of Paris: it always seemed like there a million people right outside my front door, since I have been lucky enough to live very centrally in Paris. It has been fun to get a little lost in the crowds in central Paris. I must have started to look French, since the tourists eventually started asking me for directions…
• The French language: when people ask if I speak French now, I usually reply that I have improved. I can follow a normal business conversation in French and I can participate in a social one, but there is still a long way to go before I am fluent. I do plan to keep on practicing though; I’ve picked up a lot from newspapers, radio and casual conversations, now I need to work on my grammar.

It is great to be back with all my friends and my family in Copenhagen, in my own apartment. I am currently catching up on my deficit of black bread and liver paté (Blå Stryhns!), digging out caps, gloves and scarves from moving boxes to cope with the cold weather and getting my bicycle back in shape for the daily commute. The plan for this spring: to catch up with as many friends as possible and perhaps even make a few new ones along the way.

How to check-in and annoy people

The long tail of friendship

Quick, answer this question: how many people do you know in New York? How many in London? Would you be comfortable writing them an e-mail or calling them up, if you were in town? You may not have seen them for years, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want to see them now. Since you are probably connected to them in some way (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.), it wouldn’t be a problem finding them. You may even know their current situation (party every weekend or small children?). The choice to contact them or not is completely up to you.
It hasn’t always been like that of course. Before the internet and the current torrent of social networks online, there was a distinct risk that you could loose contact with someone, even though you didn’t necessarily want to. You may even have had some contact information, but no knowledge of their current situation and so no knowledge of whether it would be appropriate to contact them.

So how do the connectedness change friendships? Well, for one thing, there are parts of your social network that can be dormant for years, only to be brought back to life when external circumstances change. If you suddenly find yourself in London for the weekend, calling up that old acquaintance that you know may be interesting. If calling him up seems like too direct a solution, perhaps announcing on Facebook that you are in town may do the trick, or even the discrete Foursquare check-in may get some attention (if he is a geek).

If you don’t feel like seeing your old friends, borrow some for the occasion. Perhaps a friend of a friend would love a visit from home, or perhaps you have friends that used to live here? Either way it is easy to find out whether it is possible, using social networks. It happended to me recently: a friend of friend had asked for people in Paris, my friend had referred the person to me, even though we had never met. In the end scheduling kept us from meeting, not lack of information.

I read somewhere that the number of people you can maintain a meaningful relationship with is around 150. To me that seems extremely high for real friends, but could be spot on for this extended circle of acquaintances.

I’ve moved around a few times during my studies and during my inital years at work. Over the last 10 years I have found myself in a new city without any social circle on four different occasions. I have amassed a large collection of acquaintances. I think I will try to be more open towards contacting them when I am in town, going forward.

Moving to Paris

As you may already know if you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, I moved to Paris about two months ago, an internal transfer within my company, to work on a new collaboration platform for all +4000 employees. I thought I would write a description slightly longer here, just to sum up what is going on.

I have been interested in collaboration as a discipline for quite some time now. The idea of using some of the ideas of web 2.0, to make colleagues work better together is very fascinating to me. As a consultant in Denmark I was slowly building up some methodology, references and experiences within the area, but progress was and is slow. So when the opportunity arose for me to work on an actual collaboration project, with people I already knew and trusted, it was a pretty easy choice.

So now I am the Community Manager for our internal collaboration platform, for six months. What does it mean to be Community Manager? Dion Hinchcliffe provides an excellent explanation, but truth is the role is very much being defined at the moment. For now I have chosen to define it as “doing everything it takes to further collaboration on the platform”. At the moment that means handling technical issues in close collaboration with the vendor, providing user support, training users, writing policies and guidelines for the use of the platform and occasionally thinking more strategically about the long-term benefits of collaboration. I find the work very interesting and I am really looking forward to seeing what my colleagues will do with the tools we have set up for them.

I moved mainly because the job was interesting, but of course it didn’t hurt that the physical location was Paris. After we have been living here for about two months, I feel that we are starting to get a feel of the city. Compared to Copenhagen the service is better, the food is great, the smell is worse and the size much much bigger, with all that bigger size entails. The language is still a struggle, but we are making progress, thanks to French radio and TV, French podcasts, patient colleagues and quite a few people who just don’t speak English…

I am looking forward to another very eventful four months of working and playing hard and of living the sweet life in the city of lights.

State of the eUnion

I starten af sommeren kontaktede min ven og mentor John Gøtze mig, angående et spændende projekt han havde i støbeskeen. I forbindelse med ministerkonferencen om e-Government i Malmø 19.-20. november ville John samle en antologi med indlæg fra de innovative folk på området. Han spurgte mig om jeg ville give en hånd med og jeg sagde naturligvis ja.

Gennem de sidste måneder har John trukket på sit store netværk af eGov folk fra hele verden (bla. vigtige web-folk som Don Tapscott og Tim O’Reilly) og jeg har siddet og forsøgt at reviewe indlæg fra Harvard-professorer og andre store kanoner. Det har været meget sjovt og lærerigt.

Samarbejdet er foregået med alle forhåndenværende værktøjer: Dropbox, Google Sites, Google Docs, Skype, Etherpad. Fysiske møder har der også været et par stykker af, men kun mellem John og jeg.

I morgen lancerer vi så det færdige resultat, en PDF på +300 sider, med masser af guld og nye idéer på eGov området. Der er ikke nogen undskyldning for ikke at læse: bogen er gratis! Senere kommer den hos Amazon og andre steder som fysisk bog, til dem der foretrækker den slags.

Hent bogen og følg med i lanceringen på websitet og se omtalen på Twitter. Glæder mig til at høre jeres kommentarer.

4. maj 1945

På vej hjem fra arbejde blev jeg netop passeret af en lang kolonne af militærkøretøjer, udsmykket med danske og amerikanske flag, som en del af fejringen af befrielsen i 1945. Det fik mig til at komme i tanke om at jeg har noget aktuelt liggende fra familiearkiverne. Min morfar var i København d. 4. maj 1945, på bogholderkursus og havde kameraet med under armen. Derfor ligger vi inde med en lille samling farvebilleder af marcherende modstandsfolk i genkendelige omgivelser. Jeg har lagt billederne på Flickr, og forsøgt at geotagge så godt som muligt. Jeg kan genkende både Rådhuspladsen og Vesterbrogade, men der er flere af billederne jeg ikke ved hvor er taget. Skriv en kommentar på billedet hvis du kan genkende en placering.