Communication according to Professor Osmo A. Wiio

I just yesterday got a nice reminder from a Twitter conversation about the Wiio’s laws. These laws describe the communication through seven laws that have been created through observations during the 1970s.

So here’s some food for thought for the weekend:

Wiio’s Laws of Communication

I Communication usually fails, except by accident.
- If communication can fail, it will
- If communication cannot fail, it still most usually fails
- If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there’s a misunderstanding
- If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails

II If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage

III There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message

IV The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds
- The more we communicate, the faster misunderstandings propagate

V In mass communication, the important thing is not how things are but how they seem to be

VI The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance

VII The more important the situation is, the more probably you forget an essential thing that you remembered a moment ago

Quite insightful…

My article on Agile Record

I got my article about retrospectives published on Agile Record magazine. You can find the PDF version of the magazine directly from here.

Feel free to give me feedback by commenting here, through e-mail or by Twitter.

Google Chrome OS: A new interesting announcement

So, now it's official. Google is taking on Microsoft in operating systems. Google announced that it is developing a Google Chrome OS, an open source lightweight operating system aimed for net books and other low end devices.

It is quite simple system. A Google chrome web browser running on top of Linux kernel and a custom windom manager. Applications are basically implemented in web based techniques and work for all standard browsers on any platform. The OS runs both on ARM and x86 based platforms and makes it possible to use it in multiple different embedded devices as well as on net books.

Google emphasizes that Chrome OS and Android are two different products, as it has been rumored that Android will be used on net books too.

As a happy user of Google Android Dev Phone I feel like the new Chrome OS is something that makes me love net books even more. I'm happy with my Eee PC, but not as happy as with Android and I feel like the OS is making the difference. If Google reaches the same level with Chrome OS as it has reached with Android... I hope so as we need better user experiences at low cost to innovate more effectively in future.

This is also good news for companies like IT Mill, that develops a toolkit for web application development. Go guys!

Agile tour 2009

I just bumped into Agile Tour series of mini conferences. I love the idea of making a series of small free conferences to promote Agile development and the values of agile. Too bad I'm a bit late to propose Turku and Helsinki as possible venues as well as Tampere and Oulu. In Finland I guess these four cities all would benefit from the conference and there would be enough participants in each.

Anyways, next time Agile Tour is going to be organized, I try to notice it soon enough to propose my city/cities and to contribute to Finnish agile and software development community.

In case your interested in participating in this effort, please contact me by leaving e.g. comment to this post.

Rocks Into Gold by Clarke Ching

Check out this great book by Clarke Ching. It can be read without a cost as a slideshare presentation, but I would recommmend buying this book in order to support Clarke. All in all, lots of great thoughts in simple, little and powerful presentation.

Rocks Into Gold - Helping Programmers THRIVE through the Credit Crunch - by Clarke Ching

View more presentations from cching. (tags: crunch cashflow)

Now anyone can publish a book

I just found my way to a service that I had nearly forgotten. I've thought of writing a book that gives an easy and simple explanation on what agile development is about and why it is something everyone in software development industry should be familiar with. The easiest way to publish this kind of quite short and simple book is to use Lulu.

Lulu is an online publishing service, that lets you publish your own books and get some income from it too. Idea is simple and powerful: Upload your text, add some information and let Lulu do the publishing and manufacturing. Afterward you can let Lulu also sell your book or acquire a ISBN number for it and sell it e.g. in Amazon. Brilliant idea!

The best thing in this idea is that it really answers some need. People really want to publish their writings. Usually it is hard, and for most people finding a publisher would be a waste of time. Lulu makes it easy, gives a way to bring yourself out in hardcover format. As Time magazine stated: The person of the year is You. And Lulu brings you available to everyone.

New! Link exchange and software dev blog

Well, the topic tells it all. I've got two new things here...

1. Link exchange
I've added a link exchange item that can be found as the topmost item on the right. If you wish to start link exchange with me, please contact me by adding a comment to this blog post.

2. New software development blog
I've also created a new blog Software Development Dynamics for more technical blog posts and articles. Now I should be able to concentrate only on business, management, projects, processes etc. in this blog.

Anything else new? Well, still don't have enough time to write as much as I would like to. However I've cleared some time for writing during next half a year. I feel optimistic about getting some new blog posts out at least monthly to both blogs. We'll see how it goes in reality... :)

Mobile hype continued

It's been a busy week in mobile handset world. Latest news is that LiPS forum joins forces with LiMo Foundation. This is a good step in preventing the foreseen problem of Linux in mobile devices: Fragmentation.

These two key players have already before made some work together to unify the platforms, but this certainly is much better. Now from fragmentation point of view, the only problem is Google and Open Handset Alliance.

I personally don't yet view the fragmentation as a major problem as I see that each platforms have their own purposes and they fit those very well. Maybe later on there will be need to align different platforms, but until then. Keep on developing and contributing. I'm waiting for the result eagerly...

iPhone 3G

Well, it came out and it looks good. iPhone 3G is going to be available in stores at the 11th of July also here in Finland. There will propably be "few" people lining up to get it.

I'm just waiting to see the actual price of that device. The $199 price will of course be connected with some package from operator. The real price for the whole package will be closer to $2000 (or something).

Anyways. Apple did it again. Great phone.

Open source mobile hype

The hype about open source based mobile phones is increasing all the time.

- Google Android is coming, although might be a bit late
- OpenMoko based Neo Freerunner is ready to be shipped
- Symbian is about to be open sourced
- Nokia bought Trolltech that has implemented a open source mobile platfrom Qtopia as well as the highly popular cross- platform GUI application framework Qt
- LIPS forum, Open Handset Alliance and LiMo foundation are gaining popularity
- Nokia has announced to bring a Linux based device to market that has telephony sutpport

And so on. Don't even get me started on MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices) and UMPCs (Ultra Mobile PC)... (Well, I have to: Atom, maemo, UME, mobilin etc. :) )

There seems to be a huge hype about these and for a reason. Open source enables smaller companies to step up and enter the markets. It enables users to customize and freely develop applications and the platform to better suit their needs. It makes open innovation possible.

Problem still seems to be that the rules and regulations (both juridical and the community rules) seem to be a bit hard for companies to gasp. Almost everyone know nowadays that open source is good thing and now we are thinking how to gain benefit from it? Someone introduced already that we are moving towards FOSS 2.0 where we really get business benefit from open source.

I'm currently working on "Benefit from open source" course and I'm full of ideas. The problem is that the course is just one day long and there won't be enough time to go through all the exciting stuff. What do you think are the most important things a company should understand when starting to do business with open source?