Social Networks and Friendship

Back from a great vacation. We spent 10 days on my friend Albert's (and my best-man) boat cruising in the southern coast of Turkey.

After checking with my colleagues, it seems that there has not been any earth shuttering development in our industry. Thomson WOS has a new face and Scopus has a new re-branding. So no major changes there either, still neck to neck.......On the boat I was with my best friends Albert and Efraim both succesfull entrepreneurs, and we were discussing new business opportunities in Turkey and the key criteria of being successful in this very competitive and global market place. Among one of the things that we all agreed was that companies need to be at least two steps ahead from their competition if they want to be successful. The same will be valid for WOS and Scopus too, the one which is going to be few steps ahead will be the winner at the end.

I haven't read all my feeds yet but it looks like that there has been some discussion about how the web is changing the definition of friendship. In my personal experience, friendship is more about quality and not quantity. There are acquaintances, social friends, business friends and real friends. There is a great value of having a good social network but I don't think that I'll find a real friend like Albert ( in picture) in all these social networks.

I have known Albert since I was 12; we went to the same middle school, high school and university. We did some of the crazy stuff that you can imagine together. We volunteered in the same non-profit organizations. We experienced together driving in a car that the breaks failed. We were attacked by the monkeys in Gibraltar........We always kept in touch in good days and bad days even when we were thousands miles away. I can go on and on about our relationship......Suffice to say that he is a real mensch and a great host. My family and I can't thank him enough for what he and his family have done for us this summer.

Buyuk Ada

When people ask me what I miss about Turkey , I always answer the place that I used to spend my summers in Istanbul: Princess Islands (Buyuk Ada)

I am flying there now and probably no posting while in holiday.

Tired of answering emails? Do you want to become more productive?

Finally I started implementing what I mentioned earlier.

Lately when my colleagues are asking me "did you see my email" or "did you read my email" and my answers were typically "No, I turned my email off" to experiment what Nathan Zeldes who is a principal engineer at Intel calls "Quiet Time" methodology. (At least one can concentrate and do some thinking when it is quite)
It's great! Try turning your email off for few hours every day.
You'll like it and you'll get more things done.
If anything earth shuttering, they should call you, or if logistically possible they should stop by at your office. They all know how to find you.

Google, Nature and O'Reilly host 2nd Scifoo Camp

The second annual Sci Foo conference will be held in Googleplex on August 3-5. Again this is an invitation only conference and last year's was very well received by the attendants.
If you ask what's the agenda?
"There is no predefined agenda, instead attendees collaboratively create one during the first evening of the event, having shared ideas in advance through a wiki". via Nature

That's definetely a very valuable event and if you want to follow Scifoo check technorati; connotea, or lexical or bbgm

The question that I had last year is still valid: Are there any other publishers who were invited for the conference ( camp)?

Forget iTunes check iCompendex: Over 10,000, 000 records

Ok you all heard that "iTunes store tops three billion songs" How many of you heard that Compendex (Engineering Index) tops ten million records. Now that's exciting! Indeed we are close to 10,030,000. The 10th million record was

Hydrothermal synthesis of hydroxyapatite powders using alkyl ammonium bromides as surfactants

This engineering database goes back to 1884, and it keeps going and going even though Google and Google Scholar has become the first place where students, faculty and engineering professionals are turning first for information. How we keep going? With our content we don't just provide information, that's passe in our business (abstract and indexing), but we provide insights and intelligence on scientific content that one can't get from any other source. And let's not forget that some of these engineers who work on itunes probably consulted our content at one point in their careers to learn something or to find a solution to their problems.

btw nothing wrong with iTunes, but so far I like listening last.fm and discovering (similar to Compendex) artists like Las Ketchup