It's a state of being, an attitude, and mindset for life based on the freedoms and curiosities some of us are fortunate to experience as children (even more fortunate to keep as adults). Once freedoms to learn, discover, make mistakes without consequences, and grow are no longer part of life, then play & fun are also stripped away from it.

Learning, discovery, experimentation, and growth are what drives humanity forward and we are born to do these things - we do them as children innately, without instruction.

Work feels like play when we learn, discover, experiment, and grow. When we are not learning or growing or curious, work feels like work one step closer to the big exit. When we play, we grow, we are happy, we are healthy, and we make things (happen).

Play on, player!

First, I have second guessed the virtue of the walled garden bash-fest many innovators used to partake in (and that some still do) during the pre-iPhone carrier-controlled-deck years. I did so because I saw several carriers demonstrate launching a highly profitable hit quickly and gaining a significant subscriber following is possible with marketing muscle & solid sales support. VZ Navigator, one such historical example, now generates north of $400M in annual revenue. Here is some color commentary I wrote five years ago about its success: 

...if you're a Developer struggling for preferential Carrier-treatment, vying for deck visibility with Carrier power-marketing behind your app, and you scrap for mindshare over existing competitive strongholds, well then you naturally jump on the wallop-the-walled-garden bandwagon and whine about a lack of openness and open APIs for the long tail ecosystem of which you belong. The truth is though… you aspire to become a blockbuster bread-winner instead of a niche-product traveling salesman with an underground clientele base—it’s why you grumble about ‘openness’. If you’re one of the elite few on Verizon’s deck like Networks In Motion, you don’t complain. Whimpering for more openness supports an ecosystem group who watches and waits for you to stumble and loose the loot you’ve labored to earn.

In today’s world of single-purpose dedicated-use mobile downloads, distributed within limited-choice Carrier walled garden shelf-spaces, there are few that win, many that loose, and nothing in between. Winners play the political brownnose game and do whatever it takes to win mindshare and earn the top-dog promotional spot on the walled-garden deck. The niche application-provider-losers retaliate and champion alternative direct-to-consumer distribution models deliberately designed to bypass and devalue the deck directory. So what’s wrong with this picture? Where’s the happy medium? Can niche application aggregates win along with top-dog deck placements?

The happy medium is now non-carrier discovery, distribution, and billing alternatives ala iTunes and Addroid Market. There's no reason to complain these days. Everyone competes freely in a survival-of-the-fitest mobility merit jungle devoid of bias or sociopolitical advantage.

Second, it's inaccurate to suggest carriers haven't innovated to allow Developers to openly program against telecom enablers. It's also possible to introduce ecosyetem profit from them. Telenor is an early double-sided exemplary success posterchild. JAIN, OSA/Parlay, Parlay X, OMA, and GSMA OneAPI programmable API options have existed for over a decade, and many other Carriers have also exposed services such as Messaging, Presence, Location, Call Control, and more via service delivery platforms installed to abstract away SS7 and telecom coding complexity. The problem is that most Web Developers and publishers don't know these abstractions exist, and US carrier business model issues following SDP deployments still stifled progress outside of B2B engagements. I suggested in 2009 these platforms would fade into irrelevance because no one beyond telecom folk knew they existed. This is clearly still an issue, though nonetheless solvable with the right kind of outreach programs such as weekend hackathons, meetups, and social media execution. If Web Developers know these services exist, I'm convinced they would use them. Most simply don't know carrier networks are programmable.

Last, despite early attempts to open individual networks one-by-one, there's the newer API economy Carriers such as AT&T are investing in - a blended economy of Web and telecom APIs - plus broadband-built-in utility computing infrastructure. The AT&T API Platform and Cloud Architect are examples. Together, these offer developers Amazon-like pay-as-you-go utility computing infrastructure plus mobility APIs for Device Info, Location, Multimodal Messaging, Payments, Authentication, and more. Today, these APIs are for AT&T Mobility devices only. Longer term I think Carriers should collaborate to introduce a global set of non-aggregate multi-network telecom APIs, and this should be the main area where Carriers focus innovation efforts - for programmable-telecom-network business anyway...

APB: Nokia Shuts Down NAVTEQ Network for Developers bit.ly/xImzC2

— All Points Blog (@directionsapb) January 24, 2012

In the early part of the last decade, NAVTEQ was one of the best in the ecosystem at bringing together value chain providers to help aspiring developers win market visibility and ultimately bring location-based apps or enablers to market via the NAVTEQ LBS Challenge - an annual event the NT Network for Developers managed. A couple (now big) names with humble beginnings through the Challenges include Networks in Motion (acquired by TCS for $170MM, 12/15/09) and Skyhook. Dozens more used the events to catalyze their businesses. It's sad to learn about this news. I can't help but think the Microsoft-Nokia alliance with emphasis on Bing Maps influenced the decision to shut down NN4D, but who knows.

Learn about the Microsoft 311 Service Center with Bing Maps binged.it/yiaMD5

— Bing Maps (@bingmaps) January 13, 2012

Much better to stand up a site for everyone to use vs. going city to city with a GIS forklift deployment.

Shortly after I joined big blue in January, I met John Ruckart at The Innovation Pipeline (TIP) inside AT&T. At that time, John had just started work on AT&T Drivemode. I wanted to help John and AT&T with distracted driving issues, so I volunteered my time and energy. It was a fun and familiar project, so I was thrilled to get involved and welcomed the opportunity to work with TIP. That experience was my fist exposure to TIP, and following the successful launch of the offer, I received an IP Achievement Award for my contribution. I had a good start to the year, was hooked ,and wanted to do more, faster... I started looking at TIP more closely for other ways to contribute.

I soon learned that like it's cousin The Foundry, TIP is an internal AT&T organization focused on finding ideas from within and bringing them to market. More specifically, TIP is a kind of 'wisdom of the crowds' crowdsourcing ideation environment. Here's how it works... Anyone inside AT&T (280,000 employees!) can submit an idea to TIP. There's an intranet page. Once submitted, any individual (in 280,000) is entitled to vote on the merits of each submission. Cream rises to the top, and voted-for candidates get short-listed. Short list candidate idea founders then present 10/20/30 formatted presentations to internal AT&T Angel Investors, which include VP, EVP, Group President, and CxO level decision makers inside the company. Sounded good. I wanted in but didn't know where to begin...

Then, one day I reached out to John just to touch base. Every time we talked we shared knowledge, we collaborated, we trusted each other, and we inspired each other. We talked for an hour (as we normally did) and then went about our business. A few days later, John called and said "hey, I got something I want you to take a look at". I of course accepted and offered up my time. John asked about a recently submitted TIP idea that had won priority status through the democratic voting system. He indicated he had a hunch that we already offered a solution for the idea, but asked for confirmation. I confirmed, but noted the solution didn't quite meet the needs of AT&Ts SMB customers. We discussed and others also got involved. After a few exchanges I put together an idea of my own and took it back to TIP. Before I knew what was happening, I was on the docket to present my own idea to the TIP Angel committee. I then presented my offer & plan through a series of meetings with a variety of folks, including John Donovan (CTO) and Bill Archer (President of Advanced Solutions). They both asked good questions and were genuinely curious about what I was proposing we do.

Today I received official notice that my idea received $500K in funding, which was the ask. In addition to the cash, the project will receive resources to help realize it on a fast-track. Fast-track means just that, and for those thinking that big blue doesn't innovate or move quickly, think again. I have tried raising money before for other start-up ideas, but failed. Timing was certainly an issue when I did (I know that now in retrospect), but perhaps the idea also wasn't the right one. I can now acknowledge those ideas weren't that good. I've since learned though that ideas (good or bad) don't really matter - chance, people, and execution matter most. I never thought I would have the opportunity to become a funded entrepreneur inside a corporate environment - but I did, and that's very cool - the cool people I work with helped. 

We've announced our 4.2M Series A today! Big thanks to the team and our investors. tcrn.ch/vijeJI #bigdata #mobileadvertising

— dunkmac (@dunkmac) December 12, 2011

Good luck PlaceIQ! I will miss you Duncan, and our fishing outings.

After completed, just print the pdf of the Code and affix it to the address supplied. Each scan of the code maps back to the physical address/XY entered, which essentially eliminates the need to support geotagging Mobile Apps, yet still capture local & mobile scan statistics, which could be used for subsequent targeting campaings based on traffic and techographics. 

And (of course), there's a map view of scans available to augment other stats. Very nice. Hey Mom, you could use this!

I've never owned a pair of Adidas sneakers, so that affiliation wasn't important to me, nor was it relevant to Snowboarding. I also needed alternative social scope beyond the Adidas running/jogging community. Net/net, miCoach was not a fit for me. I stopped using it half way through the 2010/2011 winter season.

I've been without a free (as in freedom) mobile fitness companion since then. I toyed with Runkeeper, but it didn't stick. I liked Google's My Tracks (born and developed in Boulder, +1), but I'm not a fan of "Addroid" devices at the moment. Companionless, my loneliness plus Glenn's endorsements and write-ups influenced me to try Sports Tracker, which I used for the first time yesterday at A-Basin. I really like it on the phone (and on the Web especially), but I wish the Sports Tracker product designers & engineers would add "Snowboarding" as an activity type (or allow me to create it under "other"), and I also wish they would add support for social publishing customizations. I don't like "Skiing" because I don't Ski, and dislike being forced into a non-customizable #hashtag tweeting template. ...Better if a vanity tiny URL was supported for socializing the service on mainstream social channels - it deserves that. Snow snob social grumbles aside, I am decidedly in favor of friending Sports Tracker for the 2011/2012 season.   

Here's my first run:     

• Simplicity - the twilio API is brain-dead simple to use
• Ubiquity  - Voice & SMS are lowest common denominator technologies that work everywhere and on every device

Complexity kills. Simplicity always wins.

I was also asked about my thoughts on over-the-top voice and SMS by way of twilio client.  My answer was I think it's wonderful for next generation data networks! The more data pushed through the network, the better!

We are very interested in embracing new ideas that keep the map updated.

While they made it clear they plan to do this with new software - the question is - software for who? Software for consumer OSM map producers or software for OSM GIS curators connecting the dangles, disconnects, and overshoots? Both I should think are of interest, and if that's the case, here's a suggestion for Microsoft - why not start an incubation program & fund to bring-in new ideas to update the map?

Here's one business-plan-ready idea I have that does three things:

1. Gathers and creates raw street data with speed observations for OSM.
2. Keeps teen drivers safe behind the wheel while making it fun.
3. Offers knowledge to concerned/loving parents.

This could be a different kind of OSM party if embraced the right way... 

Location is no longer a service like maps or navigation, but increasingly an enabler of new product experiences. In a nutshell, the very notion of location-based services doesn’t mean much anymore" -Mobile Location Becomes Invisible

If you're a Location professional (liked I am) and have helped it trough through from a niche set of apps to what it is today (like I have) - an omnipresent feature of every mobile app and service, now may be a good time to start diversifying into other horizontal technology disciplines or vertical areas of application. I am.  

Gartner