We engage in a great deal of market research at Softduit and at Maven Mapper’s Information.  We are constantly looking for new partners, new sources, and new tools to help us better research industries, trends companies and more.

It’s the heart of a maven’s goal or mission to find things to help them learn and gather intelligence information.  It’s intrinsic to the definition of a maven.  I’ve received a number of e-mails this week from companies offering tools and solutions to help in this area, both in the research gathering and in the research management.

We tend at maven mapper’s information to focus on the management, however the two areas are beginning to combine.  And some of the tools and some of the sources and some of the partners are beginning to emerge the gathering with the management.

Maybe in knowledge he would be something that we can describe and software.  You might have a software program that runs on your local computer and from your hard drive, or you could have a server based solution that runs software for you.  In one you gather the software and you manage it.  In another a different company gathers the software, and they manage most if not all of it and you go there for the results.

Mind mapping and other tools of its ilk are starting to move online.  They’ve been trending that way for several years it’s not a new thing.  They are primarily a management tool and the online areas have mostly been focused on managing that information in an online forum.  There’s been one slight exception or standout example in this arena focusing on the mindmanager accelerator that worked with salesforce.com.  It’s one of the better accelerators that I’ve seen from mindjet or for many company for that matter.

Even then however the two companies didn’t focus on gathering the information for the user, instead they require the user to upload a database or input data one thing at a time.  Then later the useful management tools could be applied to manage that information.  The useful maven tools of the future will both gather the information and manage it and provide a means for the user to navigate their way through the managed information without losing any important details or any details at all for that matter to a subjective process.

Page Popularity for Site: 11% [?]

I’d like to tell you about the birds and the bees and Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  This will not be a graphic tale, however I would like to share with you one small little pitfall that you may notice a Dragon NaturallySpeaking from time to time.

Today I have the good fortune to be working in my home office, which consists of my front deck sitting in the sun in a beautiful 75° day just north of Atlanta.  The flowers are blooming, the trees are shedding their butts and turning green and the birds and the bees are doing what the birds and the bees do; the Wood bees are eating the wood out from under my feet on my deck and the birds are seen like crazy for reasons I don’t want to get into! 

The thing is that the birds are singing so loudly, that the know is is registering slightly with Dragon NaturallySpeaking when I talk.  So Dragon is picking up my voice and attempting to transcribe the words, but it’s also picking up several chirps and squeals and whistles in the background that are blending with my tenor to baritone voice.

The result is that I am watching my screen transcribe my words and add the word “he” in what appears to be a random fashion every two to three minutes or as the birds ramp up in their cycle.

Yesterday under similar circumstances when the birds were a little more quiet I ran into some similar problems with lawn mowers and chainsaws.  In the past I’ve commented on how my dog barking can trigger the send command when I’m composing an e-mail message.

Now I’m using the noise canceling microphone that comes with Dragon NaturallySpeaking preferred, so I’m in pretty good shape.  I’m not complaining mind you it still works very very well.  However if you are transcribing far that is dictating in a less than quiet atmosphere (especially with a portable device) you should be prepared for the decrease in transcription accuracy that you might even be able to chalk up to the birds and the bees even though it no technical support rep in the world will understand that very well.

Page Popularity for Site: 13% [?]

I attend several trade shows and I have a house full of promo pens from these shows. As a small business owner I am familiar with the cost of these promo pens, and I’m also familiar with the fact that the promotions do actually work. A free pen isn’t going to convince you to buy something, however it will remind you of several key ingredients that you may need to buy something. The name of the product, a phone number or web URL and maybe the name of the company.

This of course can backfire if you go out and purchase. She promo pens that only work for half a day and get thrown away your become extremely annoying. It is important to get good-quality promo’s.

Now at CES, a place where I receive zillions of promo pens each year, I saw an interesting gadget. It was a Bluetooth mouse that docs inside your laptop into the slot where you would normally put a wireless card, I apologize I suddenly have forgotten the name of that slot at my PMCIA, but I’m in a remote place without Internet connection today and I don’t have the ability to confirm that.

Regardless this was a cool little mouse it literally fits inside any laptop, and its Bluetooth. It is sexy design and all that good stuff, but as I was thinking about these promo pens I pick up from CES, and as I was thinking about all of the free flash drives I also receive (another great way to run a promotion at a trade show) it dawned on me that these Bluetooth mice might make excellent promotional gifts.

They are small and compact, the kind of cool looking, and there’s something that any traveler with a laptop could definitely benefit from having. Their only missing one key ingredient. I missing an ink pen.

As I do most of my work on a computer I rarely need an ink pen but every now and then I get a phone call and I need to take a note and I’ve got too many screens open on my computer and I just can’t find a screen with a blank space. So I dig around for a pen and usually jot something down with the pen.

It sure would be cool if the pen were built into one of these Bluetooth mice that can be stored in my laptop. Then I would always have a wireless mouse and any pen with me at all times because I’m never even be without my computer!

Page Popularity for Site: 23% [?]

Years ago when I was working away to college, I had a job doing data entry for the Postal Service.  I would go school all-day, and head to the to the Postal Service to type all night.  I do my homework in between breaks, and I listen to audio books all night long.  I learned how to perform mundane repetitive physical tasks while letting my mind engage in higher-level activities.

After he got out of school and went to work in the corporate world I rapidly put on about 20 pounds as I sat behind a desk and drove a keyboard full time (8 hours of meetings per day didn’t help either).  All that physical inactivity got me after a while and decreased by ability to enjoy the higher-level work was doing in the office.

Now I’m wondering if there might be some way to allow people to get the physical gratification of a little repetitive physical labor while they multitask at higher-level items.  Our brains are capable of quite a bit and so our bodies and the tech revolution in some ways has not allowed our bodies to keep up with what our brains are performing every day.  The evolution of the Wii gaming device takes a baby step in the direction of giving our bodies a little more action.

  But maybe our bodies don’t have to be engaged in the actual higher-level work.  I was watching a crazy video on YouTube the other day that gave me a peculiar thought. 

The video was of a news reporter performing an interview with a lady that stomps grapes for a living.  You can picture Lucille Ball in a famous episode where she’s stomping on grapes to make wine or something like that.  This YouTube videos is actuallyl famous because the news reporter gives it a try herself.  She tries to give the interview while she’s in a bucket of grapes stomping on them barefooted.

Unfortunately she has a little trouble multitasking and ends up stumbling out of the bucket of grapes and crashes several feet to the ground where from the noise of the YouTube video it appears that she is seriously injured possibly mortally wounded.

She wasn’t able to multitask an interview while grape stomping,  however, I suspect that a person working on the computer raised up to a counter top level could possibly drum out a few e-mails while they were stomping grapes. 

Now I suspect that there’s not a great deal of need for grape stompers throughout the world, but that’s not really the point.  The point is that people need a little bit more physical engagement while they’re working.  A simple solution might be to just dump everybody onto an elliptical machine or a treadmill or some sort of stationary bicycle device, however that’s not exactly improving productivity. 

So maybe those devices can be hooked up to some sort of electricity generating machine that helps the environment, or maybe they could even be tied to some form of production whether it’s creating wine or shucking corn or something.

Physically it needs to be something that doesn’t require a lot of brain power(like writing this blog doesn’t), and it can not be too dangerous either.  You wouldn’t want to break an ankle or cut off a finger or something like that while you’re typing an e-mail.  However if we can find someway to allow our bodies to catch up to our brains and at the same time increase productivity, our economy would be better, our worker satisfaction might increase along with possibly of our salaries.  Plus our physical well-being and overall sense of balance would likely benefit as well. 

Who knows, maybe I could move to Italy and rent me one of those spectacular Villas in Italy and set up shop as a web designing, blog writing, grape stomper!

Page Popularity for Site: 17% [?]

I have been riding a motorcycle since I was about 10 years old. Wearing good protective gear was not always on the top of my list until I learned how to fly (off the motorcycle at high speed when an object, called a car, lodged itself in the path of my motorcycle).

I’m a lot more careful these days and wear high quality protective gear to keep my hide in one piece. I highly encourage you to check out these motorcycle sunglasses and other products if you ride.

Page Popularity for Site: 8% [?]