Frank Catalano

For two decades, I’ve traveled overseas on vacation with lots of paper: guidebooks, journals, maps and more. But this year, I wanted to travel lighter and less obtrusively — and that meant going smartphone.

It was easier than I thought, at least in France. Over at GeekWire, I detail the five steps I took that pretty much any motivated European or other international traveler can replicate, if the country that’s being visited has the right supporting infrastructure for WiFi and recharging. And if a traveler’s comfort level isn’t too compromised by going smartphone.

Two big takeaways I discovered from ten days in France:

• Public WiFi is easier to find than I expected. From the smallest hotels (including those in the Loire Valley and on Mont-St-Michel) to the largest public spaces (such as the park behind Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral), WiFi was plentiful.
• Voice call necessity is overrated. I was initially concerned that, by putting my smartphone in Airplane Mode and only using WiFi connectivity and not cellular phone or data service, I’d have problems. Not true: I was able to do everything by email from my phone. I never used the full version of the Skype app I had downloaded (and never mind considering the crippled pre-installed “Skype mobile” version). Even the telecarte I purchased for backup use at public phones stills holds its full value.

Want more details? Read, “The Geek’s Guide to International Travel,” over at GeekWire.

A not-so-quiet giant, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a force in education reform and education technology. So Bill Gates’ closing keynote was closely watched at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, an event focused on education and technology.

Though it had some new observations, as I write in my GeekWire column, the keynote broke no new ground. What was most interesting is that it provided a lens through which to view both Gates’ efforts and a core SXSWedu trend: the growing importance of education data.

Gates spoke as the better-known SXSW (“south-by-southwest,” for the uninitiated) conferences on the interactive, film and music industries were about to begin, with shrink wrap freshly applied to lamp posts and bus shelters to prevent damage from the coming posters, paint and — as locals matter-of-factly informed me — urine.

A couple of interesting tidbits about Gates’ talk that I didn’t capture in my GeekWire piece:

• Gates received an unusual standing ovation from sections of the packed ballroom — but it came after he was introduced by SXSWedu’s Ron Reed as “an Edison of our age” and took the stage. Three was no equivalent ovation as he left.
• Gates took no questions after the keynote. This, too, was unusual for a SXSWedu speaker. Even former Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino, who keynoted last year, took a number of questions. And Pearson arguably is as controversial in education as the Gates Foundation.

For a more general overview of SXSWedu and the role of data in education, listen to the GeekWire Radio podcast as I co-host with GeekWire’s Todd Bishop and feature guest Chancellor Jean Floten of WGU-Washington. WGU is the fully online, accredited Western Governors University and a pioneer in web higher education. Floten provides a good perspective.

Finally, a caveat. That Reuters story about SXSWedu and data? While I’m quoted in it, my quote actually had nothing to do with the main thrust of the piece, the Gates-funded student data initiative inBloom. The reporter and I didn’t discuss inBloom but we did talk about the overheated space of technology startups in education, and my comment wound up where it did when the story was edited. Still, in a general startup context, that quote is worth repeating here:

“The hype in the tech press is that education is an engineering problem that can be fixed by technology,” said Frank Catalano of Intrinsic Strategy, a consulting firm focused on education and technology. “To my mind, that’s a very naive and destructive view.”

With that as a caution in light of the very real positive potential of education data and technology, read my column, “Bill Gates at SXSWedu: the future of education is data,” at GeekWire.

I love digital tech. I love physical books. It may be possible to explain this apparent cognitive dissonance by knowing that my first job was as a page at the Santa Barbara Public Library — shelving science fiction.

So it was with some excitement that I attended the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. I went in search of transformative tech, more of the kind of tech that area libraries like Seattle Public Library and the King County Library System apply so well.

What I found was not so science fictional, as I detail over at GeekWire. (Except for the lone R2 unit on the show floor, wearing an actual attendee badge.)

Let’s just say the Seattle area is very fortunate to have two forward-looking library systems. And everyone else looks like they’ll be playing catch up for some time, despite some cool tech that’s available, but largely hidden or not promoted by ALA’s most prominent exhibitors.

 Read “Paper trumps tech at national library conference.”

One hundred-forty character tweets. PowerPoint presentations masquerading as “reports.” An explosion of brief, numbered list blog posts. What are these doing to our appreciation of text complexity and nuance?

Over at GeekWire, I tackle one potential (and, I admit, largely fun and imagined) result in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but using absolutely true factoids.

It’s probably the oddest column I’ve written for GeekWire using false causation as a narrative device (similar, I later realized, to what the brilliant Tim Powers does in fiction). There are few other places you can find SMS, the space shuttle Columbia, Peter Rabbit and the average word length in the English language mentioned together to build a faux case.

But it does make one take pause at the long-term impact that the push to greater brevity and speed in all communications, driven by digital media, is having on all forms and formats. And on our brains, too.

Read, “3 ways digital media is turning us into 2nd graders,” over at GeekWire.

As a radio ad once intoned, “People judge you by the words you use.” So it helps if the words actually mean something — which, frequently in tech, they really don’t.

Over at GeekWire, I’ve compiled a list of five terms that should be banished from the tech vocabulary for 2013. Disrupted, if you will.

These are words that are so often abused, misused or overused they’re on the bubble (another one) of losing all meaning. It’s not that they aren’t perfectly good words — most are — but they are being diluted by enthusiastic or clueless marketers and industry pundits to the point of techno-babble. Techno-babble sort of like how they used to explain advanced hyperdrive mechanics on Star Trek: The Next Generation, but without the entertainment value.

There are many more (and my colleagues in education technology quickly piled on with flip and gamify). But consider this a starter list. I’ve also had Twitter suggestions of innovative, pivot, siloed. vetted and cloud. Plus, for the un-Pinterested, pinnable.

Read, “Hey, ‘disrupt’ this! 5 tech terms to banish in 2013” at GeekWire.

We have the technology. We have a great need. So now it’s time to finally do something about our country’s most pressing tech challenge: the public radio pledge drive.

It’s not that I intellectually deny the fiscal need for pledge drives. What I really would like to see a technological fix for listeners who have given so they aren’t endlessly reminded to do something they have already done, destroying their giddy enjoyment of what they’re supporting.

Over at GeekWire, I tackle this incredibly important  issue with two humble suggestions. At least one is even based on reality.

And while I’m at it, I encourage readers of this blog to donate to the public radio station of their choice, be it news and jazz, news and information, or purely classical music.

Go to GeekWire and read “America’s unmet tech challenge: the public radio pledge drive.”

I appear to have struck either a chord or a nerve in my latest GeekWire column expressing concern about a potential entrepreneur-attention-investment “bubble” in education technology (Here comes another tech bubble — in education, GeekWire, Oct 23, 2012).

A week later, it’s been either directly referenced or redirected (but not, actually, refuted) by four other education technology or tech sites. A quick rundown, if you want to follow the evolving commentary:

Education investor and venture capitalist Fred Wilson was the first to face the “bubble” hypothesis during the massively open online course, Ed Startup 101. While he wouldn’t take a position on the bubble question, he did offer, ““Investors think there’s a lot of money to be made at the intersection of education and technology. … This will turn out to be a hyper-competitive market.” (Fred Wilson on ed tech: four takeaways for educators and entrepreneurs, GigaOM, Oct 24, 2012)

A more direct response came from Lauren Landry at BostInno which, after describing me as a “hipster” (an appellation that caused great amusement to those who know me), went on (more…)

Having lived — and worked — through the turn-of-the-century’s tech bubble, I’ve developed a keen eye for some of the core indicators.

Overheated attention and expectations. Increasing investment, with smart money followed by not-so-much. Frantic startup activity with loss of focus on the problems that need solving. And the opportunistic co-mingling with agendas that use the tech as a lever to push issues that appear superficially related.

That may — just may — be starting to happen with technology in education.

Over at GeekWire, I take at look at some of the factors that could add up to an edtech bubble. It’s not one I want to see, as there’s a lot of good that can come out of an increased understanding of, and emphasis on, how technology can support and perhaps even transform learning. But few students and teachers will benefit if it all bursts, sweeping away the cool with the crap.

Read, “Here comes another tech bubble — in education” at GeekWire. And remember that not only did I do regular broadcast commentaries during the rise and fall of the last tech bubble (including a television segment called “Dot-Bomb”), I still have my original Pets.com talking sock puppet.

Those promoting eBooks as the inevitable evolution for all books are wrong, for two simple reasons: some books are valued beyond the content, or others never were in the best format for their content in the first place.

Over at GeekWire, I take a look at three likely paths for paper books: “traditional” eBooks, digital apps or persisting in paper. At the same time, the piece cites newer statistics on the incredible growth eBooks are seeing in both dollars and units, going beyond last year’s massacre of the mass market paperback to having eBooks outsell hardcovers for the first time. And, in all likelihood, continue the march of eBooks to dominate genre fiction. That was a tipping point I explored in the earlier essay, “When eBooks attack, mass paperbacks die.“

Part of this analysis gelled as the result of a panel I spoke on this summer at Westercon 65 in Seattle, “Post-Paper Publishing.” The panelists, authors and book fans, were thoughtful about what this means both their vocation and passion.

Me, I’m just pleased that, like vinyl for music, paper for books has a good chance of being around for a while (even as my Kindle is fully loaded). Read, “Why eBooks won’t rule the Earth” over at GeekWire.

Normally, when I write about customer service and marketing, it’s about how tech companies handle one or both. But a strong case can be made that digital savvy is required from all companies providing customer service these days. And sometimes, they fail. Spectacularly.

David Brin has lived at the intersection of science and science fiction for a long time as a best-selling writer, inventor and scientist. So when I found out he was coming to Seattle to both launch his latest novel, Existence, and speak at Westercon (the West Coast Science Fantasy Conference which, in 2012, is being held in Seattle), it seemed natural to interview him.

The result is over at GeekWire. And befitting the news site’s name, I draw parallels between geek and science fiction culture. And then pepper David with ten questions about the current status of science fiction in society, as a form of literature and about what it and its practitioners do that no one else can.

David is, as always, thoughtful and provocative. And very interesting.

Read, “10 questions: ‘Existence’ author David Brin on science fiction, science and geeks” over at GeekWire.

I’ll never forget an interview I heard with some of the original designers of the Supersonic Transport (SST) jet on the occasion of its final flight in late 2003. “We thought the future of air travel would be like a jet,” one said. “It turned out to be more like a bus.”

It was toward surviving that increasingly Greyhound-like experience that I contribute, at GeekWire, my geek guide to air travel. These ten tips (not numbered, thankfully) include websites, services and gadgets that can make anyone travel a bit smarter with the help of technology.

And every single tip has been honed by my many hundreds-of-thousands (and probably at least a couple of million, if you include award tickets) of actual air miles traveled.

Enjoy. (Unless you’re one of those who wear Bose headphones to the airplane lavatory.) Read “The Geek’s Guide to Air Travel” at GeekWire.

Over at GeekWire, I tackle an atypical subject: GeekWire itself.

For two weeks over a one month period, I had an inside view of GeekWire in particular, and digital journalism in general. I filled in for each of the co-founders as they went on vacation. I didn’t do the longer enterprise pieces or edit guest posts, but I did write a lot of brief stores (plus two of my longer columns) and covered in the newsroom while the others were in the field.

It was something of a George Plimpton-esque experience (for those who recall Paper Lion and many of Plimpton’s other adventures, years ago).

Plus, it taught me a lot. Not just about digital journalism. About startups and entrepreneurship in general. And about how what one has done in the past can be reconfigured to be applicable in just about any situation, if one can clearly understand and separate the skill strands of one’s career.

I mean, who knew Tetris would be an appropriate metaphor for work at a tech news site?

Read, “Two GeekWire weeks, three entrepreneurial lessons,” over at GeekWire.

A few years back, I had the honor of being asked to serve a two-year term on Alaska Airlines’ MVP Gold Advisory Board. It’s a group of twelve very frequent fliers who sign NDAs and get to see how the, uh, fuselage is made, and come to realize the airline industry is anything but glamorous. But it is cool, and there is much tech in play.

So when I was asked if I would mind giving up a whole day to see a really cool advance in airline cabin interiors, I said yes. And I focused on the technology — and psychology — being applied.

The result is chronicled in my latest column for GeekWire.

There’s a lot I didn’t elaborate upon (the champagne toast, the remarkable view on a clear day at somewhere around 10,000 feet from Everett to Seattle Tacoma International Airport via the Olympic mountains). But for what I didn’t write about, I posted a public photo album with captions.

Read “Inside Alaska Airlines’ new Boeing Sky Interior” at GeekWire.

Remember how the web was going to increase transparency in pricing for everything? Well, now those who have been made transparent are learning how to fight back.

Over at GeekWire, I compare two car buying experiences: one from 2000, one from last month. In the intervening dozen years, it’s clear some dealerships have found the weak points in the process for car purchases that originate on the web and are exploiting them.

Read “How car dealers embrace, and erode, the web” at GeekWire.

If Microsoft has a leadership strategy for K-12, now would be a a great time for it to educate us.

Over at GeekWire, I wonder what Microsoft’s role in K-12 education (and likely higher education) is: to lead, or simply to support what others are doing? This thinking came to a head when I was asked to speak at a general session of  SIIA’s Ed Tech Business Forum in New York City late last month with Microsoft’s U.S. Education CTO, Cameron Evans.

Evans is a good, thoughtful presenter of parts of a vision for technology in education. But that vision isn’t obviously Microsoft’s strategy, or necessarily reflects what it considers its role. And at a time when there’s a lot of digital reform apparently converging on schools, having Microsoft’s strategic leadership perspective might help everyone. After all, the Gates Foundation clearly has one.

For more musings (and a few suggestions I have for Redmond), read “Microsoft and education: lead or cheerlead?” at GeekWire.

The Kindle Fire is this holiday season’s bright shiny object. But while the gadget blogs egg on a Fire-iPad death match, less noticed is what recent price cuts for the most basic, E Ink-reliant Kindle — and Barnes and Noble’s Nook — have done to mass market paperbacks.

They are about to deliver the finishing move.

Over at GeekWire, I look at the impending death of the mass market paperback book occuring in the shadows of the brightly lit tablet wars in my column, “When eBooks attack, mass paperbacks die.”

It has a bit of a personal impact, too, as my book collection is full of autographed mass market paperbacks from writers I admire, from a time when paperback was frequently the only first edition to which a genre fiction author could aspire.

And astute GeekWire readers will note my column has retired the “Practical Nerd” title. Though it’s safe to say the practical, nerdy approach remains.

Does an acknowledged U.S. tech leader like Seattle have any real advantage in use of tech for public spaces and purposes compared to European cities like Amsterdam?

I didn’t find much evidence of that for my latest GeekWire column. Public transit (bicycles and buses), grocery stores, WiFi hotspots, even parking meters — Amsterdam was either ahead when it came to using tech to enhance the everyday experience, or at least scored no worse than a draw.

About the only area in which Seattle had an advantage was in tech’s ability to cocoon an individual for social isolation in public spaces.

Admittedly, this informal evaluation was done on vacation. But it’s interesting how different the approach to general tech for public use can be across two cities that appear to have much else in common.

Read the Practical Nerd column, “Seattle vs. Amsterdam, a tale of two cities and their technology,” at GeekWire.

A week ago, Microsoft launched its “playful learning” initiative with great fanfare, promising to tie Kinect and the Xbox 360 to, among other things, Sesame Street. It was, Microsoft claimed, a first in making kids’ educational television interactive.

Well, sort of. It had been done before. Nearly fifteen years ago. By Microsoft.

Over at GeekWire, my latest Practical Nerd column recalls the steps and stumbles of the Microsoft ActiMates interactive “early learning system,” a combo plush toy-wireless transmitter tied to broadcasts of the PBS shows Barney & Friends, Arthur and Teletubbies. Toys were discontinued. Lessons were learned.

Read the Practical Nerd column on GeekWire, “Microsoft toys with itself, again.”