MIT’s SixthSense: The ultimate cloud device at your fingertips?

If you follow my blog, you have likely noticed my earlier posts covering Oblong’s G-Speak, Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel, and even mention of Microsoft’s Surface Computer.  While each company has developed their unique versions of dynamic touch technology, MIT’s Media Lab has taken the concept to the next level.

At a recent Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, MIT’s Dr. Pattie Maes unveiled project SixthSense and the Wear Ur World device. Created by Pranav Mistry, ex-Microsoft UX Researcher, the SixthSense prototype is a wearable gestural interface that enables users to interact between the real world and the world of data.

Here are five interesting features of the SixthSense prototype:

1. NewsPaper showing live video news
2. Sixthsense: Taking pictures using framing gesture
3. Using the palm for dialing phone numbers.
4. Reviewing book covers showing Amazon ratings
5. View cloud tags of friends during face-to-face encounters

Unlike other similar touch-technology offered by Apple, Microsoft, G-Speak, Perceptive Pixel, etc., the SixthSense prototype is 100% portable and can be used on a variety of surfaces. So, could this MIT’s newest prototype be the ultimate “cloud” device? While only time will tell, if the buzz across the web offers any indication then there’s a definitely a bright future ahead. For now, consider this quote…

Step aside, Apple and Microsoft. If MIT’s little Sixth Sense gadget sees the commercial light of day, we can toss our multitouch devices out the window. Who needs a Surface or an iPhone when the very idea of being able to access information by turning any flat surface into a touch-screen display sounds far more appealing? No surface available? Simply project a screen onto your hand, and voila. Shades of Minority Report?

-Juniper Foo from CNET

If you missed the unveiling of the MIT’s SixthSense project at TED, you can catch it below or watch it in wide screen mode…

Nokia’s Supernova Launch: A Lesson in Innovation?

Nokia collaborated with Hush to design a “unique install media experience” for the global launch of their Supernova phone.

An Interactive Multi-Media & Mobile Recruiting idea?

Nokia’s worldwide launch of the Supernova phone really got me thinking.  Engaging users through interactive multi-media experiences appears to be the wave of the future. The forward-thinking companies are getting in on the action. In fact, Google recently employed Obscura Digital to help launch the Google Creative Sandbox, which was designed to showcase Google’s latest marketing opportunities and products.

Now, instead of a general product marketing event, what if employers began using this same concept to deploy a recruitment campaign on college campuses, experienced-hire career fairs, tech-conferences, open-house events, etc.?  It’s not difficult to imagine companies taking advantage of interactive Kiosks (or multi-touch screens / walls) in parallel with mobile recruiting campaigns.

Let’s “bake” the idea for a moment…

First, imagine an employer attending a career fair equipped with interactive kiosks or multi-touch screens using similar “proximity” or touch-screen technology as shown in the video above.  The screens would essentially allow participants to control their interactions through touch, gestures, body-movement, and even by mobile devices. The screens might display 30-second video clips of existing employees sharing their “day-in-the-life” work experiences, similar to Microsoft’s newest creation.

Second, in addition to offering the interactive videos, employers could further engage with the prospects by integrating a mobile SMS-campaign to help capture all participants. How? Ideally, participants would have the ability to “opt-in” via the touch-screen interface by simply entering their mobile number. Alternatively, participants as well as general observers could “opt-in” through a mobile device using a designated keyword and short code. Even better, leveraging technology such as image recognition simplifies the traditional need of having participants punch in keywords and short codes. Regardless of the method used, “opt-in” participants would instantly receive a follow up message from the employer with a quick link to a list of career opportunities (or other promotional campaigns). This is simply a start, and clearly other “call to action” messages could easily be implemented here.

As we consider the idea of exploring innovative recruitment practices, the inspiration that we seek may not always sit within our industry. While some initiatives are beyond our means to deploy because of budget constraints, there are many cost-effective and creative solutions. In most cases, we are only limited by our imagination. If other industries are implementing innovative marketing campaigns, my question is why can’t we?

It’s worth considering. I welcome your thoughts…

A Brave New Resume

For years people have been sounding the death knell of the resume. One of the more interesting arguments in favor of this comes from noted author Seth Godin, in his post “Why bother having a resume?” The post suggests that the resume is dead because we should all be “spectacular,” by which he means have a blog or letters of recommendation or something more to show about ourselves. Unfortunately not everyone is spectacular and I can unequivocally say that not everyone should have a blog, including many who do. But there is a core truth underlying Godin’s perspective: in a world where we are constantly creating digital footprints, the static and reductive nature of the resume is more evident than ever. Nevertheless, although it should be, the old-school resume is not dead.

Now let’s take a look at the future. Your resume is not about where you’ve worked, but rather what you’ve produced. So, for example, your Twitter tweets, blog comments, forum discussions, YouTube videos, Flickr images, Facebook status updates, LinkedIn recommendations, Amazon book reviews, and any other content you choose are all aggregated. But here’s the key: This brave new resume, the cloud resume, doesn’t include everything you generate, just the specific granular items you choose to be included. Each time you leave a digital impression you decide whether or not you want to tag it for inclusion in your cloud resume.

Of course, challenges exist with this concept. Two come immediately to mind. First off, even if the aggregation website assigns a unique identification tag to each user, how will this be implemented on individual, non-affiliated sites? Obviously you can’t just put some visible code at the end of each thing you want included. If you did, anyone could use your code and threaten the integrity of your cloud resume. Though still in its relative infancy, the answer probably lies in an implementation of a technology called OAuth. At the risk of oversimplifying, OAuth allows an aggregation site to access some, but not necessarily all, of a person’s online data.

Second, how can you package this sort of cloud resume for distribution and subsequent storage in applicant tracking systems? Let’s face it, while some might claim that social media is fast supplanting the resume as the primary currency of the employment trade, that’s just not true. So, do you just send the standard biographical data with the links? Do you convert to PDF? Neither of these options is a very satisfying solution. Our systems will need to evolve.

Challenges aside, the cloud resume solves a number of difficulties with presenting oneself in a Web 2.0 world. Imagine never having to actually sit down and ‘write’ a resume again. We’re already documenting the sort of information that goes into a resume when we create each social networking profile. More important, we’re demonstrating our career knowledge each time we generate work-related content for the web. What we need is a site that can aggregate only the content we want, as we create it. While standard work and educational history can be included if desired, the cloud resume is certainly a more holistic and dynamic way to represent ourselves.

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Guest post submitted by Scott Hajer.

Scott Hajer, lives in Chicago and is a Senior Recruiting Professional formerly employed by Aquent IT Solutions. He is the Chicago Coordinator for Rope with Hope, a site dedicated to “assisting job seekers in finding meaningful work…” Scott is exploring new career opportunities in the Chicago area. Click the following link to view Scott’s Linkedin profile.

Questions on the post? Please contact Scott.

Every cloud has a silver lining…and it’s yours

An interesting post and comments on ReadWriteWeb…

Dave Winer yesterday announced EC2 for Poets, a step-by-step guide to help you create a server on Amazon’s EC2. His how-to is so easy to understand that we had our own server up and running within the hour. Sure, it may not seem like much that this fairly uninteresting page is sitting out there somewhere, but for this writer, it was an amazing coup.

“It’s time to stop thinking about these servers as being things for geeks and start thinking about them as things for people with ideas,” Winer said in a podcast roadmap he created for this work. The technology available today is enabling anyone with even the slightest technical bent to get out there and create amazing new things; often taking the technology in directions than the company which created it could have ever imagined.

Here’s a link to the entire thread: Got an Hour? Create a Server in the Cloud.

Mobile Recruiting: Why run SMS campaigns?

SMS on the Rise…

If you are a fan of mobile marketing then you have likely noticed the on-going discussions around using SMS (”short message service”), as a communication channel. Why is that?  Well, there’s good reason for it.  In comparison to other messaging activities such as email and IM, SMS is still the most widely used application on the planet.

Let’s put SMS into perspective…

1.  According to 5-Time Best-selling Author, Tomi Ahonen, global users of SMS surpassed the number of global email users over seven years ago.  There are 2.5x as many people on the planet who send SMS messages from their mobile device versus those who still use the email system.  Today there are an estimated 1.3 billion email users around the world.

2. The total number of IM users is said to be approximately 700 million, worldwide. In contrast to the number of IM users, SMS is currently used by over 4x as many people.

3. SMS is far more cost effective than traditional print advertising.  SMS campaigns have been estimated to be 10x more effective than normal print ads and 5x more effective than standard snail mail.

4. Unlike the traditional print, radio, or tv ads, responses to SMS campaigns can be tracked with pinpoint accuracy.

With the available data supporting the value of mobile marketing (SMS campaigns), there are still many common myths.  One popular myth is that SMS is only good for connecting with the Gen-Y population; however, statistics tell a different story.  Worldwide, there are now 3 billion SMS users.  According to Nielsen Mobile, the typical U.S. mobile subscriber sends or receives 357 text messages per month, compared to placing or receiving 204 phone calls.

As the chart above indicates, SMS is no longer just a “Gen-Y” phenomenon but it has grown in usage across generations. With a little creativity, a bit of help and a willingness to try something new, deploying an SMS campaign might be the missing link to our “experienced-hire” recruitment strategy.

While you are still chewing the idea, check out mobile life as we know it today…

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