When we think of computer games we think of consoles (Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation) and PC games, but it turns out that smartphone game apps are catching up fast.

With Dan Ernst from Hudson Square Research, let’s discuss:

• What are the top game trends these days? who’s winning the games game?
• How is the games market changing? is this a big shift?
• Where are the most interesting advances coming from?

Yi-Tan Call 260 – Game Apps or Consoles? – (Summary Version)

After decades of government aid programs, philanthropy, massive development projects and more, poverty and hunger are still rampant worldwide; water, sanitation and health are all scarce.

The Acumen Fund is one of the bright stars of a new model that blends venture capital with a longer-term approach to returns: so-called “patient capital.” Here’s a recent video of theirs.

With Sasha Dichter, Acumen’s director of business development, let’s discuss:

• What returns do philanthropic investors expect? others?
• How does patient capital foster innovative approaches?
• What’s the “best available charitable option” anyhow?
• What will it take to end poverty in our lifetimes?

Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 259 – Acumen Fund – (Summary Version)

What happens when people come together to help each other get well? We’ve heard remarkable stories from PatientsLikeMe, CureTogether and SugarStats, where people share medical data so personal that HIPAA would flippa.

People are coming together to run, lose weight, kick smoking and more. This seems like the tip of the iceberg. Ths nascent field already has a journal, the Journal of Participatory Medicine. Some of its founders and advisors will be our guests for this call.

With Esther Dyson, Alexandra Carmichael, Jen McCabe, Susannah Fox and Adam Bosworth, let’s discuss:

• What is participatory medicine? What’s new about it?
• How are medical institutions interacting with the crowdsourced sites?
• What building blocks are still missing to help this system thrive?

Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 258 – Participatory Medicine – (Summary Version)

Just over year ago, Grant McCracken led us into a discussion about the implications of change.

Since then, he’s written a book proposing a new CXO position — Chief Culture Officer — to help organizations thrive through these changes. You can join the online community he’s started for the book here.

With Grant, let’s discuss:

• What does culture mean in this context?
• What are the CCO’s duties?
• How does one anticipate cultural trends?
• What is a “living, breathing organization”?
• How can a CCO change an organization? With what tools?

Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 257 – Chief Culture Officer – Summary Version

There is no summary for this call.

Institutions are getting smaller. The “television” industry no longer represents video entertainment. “Hospitals and doctors” no longer represent health and wellness. “Schools” are by far not all of what happens in education, never mind learning. We certainly heard that on our recent unschooling call.

The implications of these shifts are pretty profound. Pip and his crew have been studying them.

Together, let’s discuss:

• Are these changes good or bad? In what ways?
• What are their effects on institutions? on communities? on our perception of ourselves?
• What are the waypoints we can look for in this shift? which ones have passed?

Stream:

Yi-Tan Call 255 – Hyper Personalization – (Summary Version)

Download: Yi-Tan Call 255 – Hyper Personalization – (Summary Version)

Between social media, crowdsourcing, amateur participation, prize challenges, open content initiatives and other novel ways of coming together and taking action, the rules of getting things done on a large scale seem to be changing.

What does it mean to be a high-performance organization today? Is Wikipedia high-performance? Is it an organization?

Looking beyond the poster children of innovation (Apple, Google, Whole Foods), let’s dip into business (REI, Trader Joe’s, Zappos), the Commons (PLoS, Arxiv.org) and the social sector (Acumen, Ashoka) for inspiration. Please think of your favorite examples.

Together, let’s discuss:

• What organizations seem to be thriving these difficult days?
• How are they different from others? What do they do that is special?
• Can we derive any trends or lessons from observing the high performers?

Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 254 – High-Performance Organizations – (Summary Version)

John Geraci has been fascinated with how technology can be used to improve city life for a long time. His most recent project,  DIYcity, is a platform atop which volunteers can create their own projects to improve cities.

DIYcity chapters have started in several cities and DIYtraffic, a crowdsourced traffic-monitoring system, is under way. So is a big rev of DIYcity’s site and capabilities. Here’s a short article.

With John, let’s discuss:

• What aspects of DIYcity have been the most fruitful so far?
• How are teams and projects coming together? What limitations are evident so far?
• What are the lessons from and for other open civic and government efforts?

Yi-Tan Tech Community Call 253 – DIYcity – (Sumarry Version)

The official launch date for Microsoft’s redeemer operating system, Windows 7, is October 22. Are you throwing a launch party? (Have you seen the bleeped versions?)

In the MS-DOS days, I remember marveling at how an operating system that wasn’t useful unless you bought several other products (QEMM, NetWare, Norton) could win in the marketplace. But it did.

Somehow, Microsoft kept its momentum through Windows 3.1, NT, Win95, 98, 2000 and WinXP, until Vista caused general grumbling.

After struggling with Vista Ultimate for too long, I installed the Win7 beta and have been much happier. Sleep and wake-up happen quickly. Devices install transparently and actually work. Networking is much simpler. But what happens next?

Together, let’s discuss:

• What really matters about Windows 7?
• As things move to the cloud, are operating systems still needed? How long?
• How do netbooks factor in?
• When might we see the next step forward in OSes? From whom?

Yi-Tan Tech Call 252 – Windows 7 – (Summary Version)

Now and then we take a look into the not-too-distant future together, making predictions about what tech topics will be hot in six months.

These days, many topics are simmering — the real-time web, tablet computers, Twitter, Android phones, Google Wave, Windows 7, Twitter, netbooks, an uptick in tech acquisitions, the semantic web, Twitter, the death of news — but few are really hot.

Together, let’s look ahead six months to April 2010 (doesn’t 2010 sound far away?) and discuss:

• Will any of the topics I just named have a burst of energy and sizzle?
• How will the tech world change over the next six months?
• What’s the change we can’t see? the one that will blindside us?

Yi-Tan Call 251 – April 2010 -  (Summary Version)