Fresh Consulting - full service business consultants focusing on emerging web technologies for business results

Glimpses into the future of Search, Computing, and Technology

Posted on 25. Jul, 2010 by Jeff Dance.

As we prepare for the future, we look to emergent innovation, not just continuous innovation. To help understand what’s coming, we hypothesize on the near term, mid term, and long term timing of a few concepts worth watching a video about (below). While emergent vs. continuous could be argued for the concepts below, all are capable of changing the way we do things.

Near term – Mainstream visual SEARCH technology for anything

Visual Search Technology. This concept is already here and having Google behind it will propel its growth into the future. As the engineers suggest in the video, “visual search technology is in its infancy.” Its on its way to greatness as Google indexes user pictures, then connects all of its aggregated information with the picture. We’ve already seen the power of scanning bar codes and images with our phone’s mobile apps to get additional pricing information, reviews, and more, but what if you could take a picture of anything and get additional information and insights. As our devices continue to get more sophisticated cameras along with standard GPS technology AND as Google crowdsources location-based pictures from us (another example of The Machine is us/ing us), we envision visual search becoming mainstream for anything anywhere… especially as we travel.

Midterm – Smart visual COMPUTING applications and devices

The concepts shared by Pranav Mistry at TED illustrate demos of several new tools that will help bring the physical world and the digital world together, helping us get out of sitting at the desk to get work done and to get information. Creating screens out of anything and enhancing our physical objects with creative digital overlays appears to be breakthrough technology and we envision practical consumer products being on the market in a few years.

Long term – Morphing Nano TECHNOLOGY that adapts to its visual surroundings

This video produced by Nokia illustrates the breakthrough innovation nano technology could have on the way our future technology morphs into its visual surroundings and provides fresh value through morphing.

What binds all of these concepts together is how they ALL interact with your VISUAL surroundings. Is that random or is their deeper meaning to that?

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Our “Fresh” Meeting

Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by Elisha Terada.

In the spirit of trying to keep our minds “fresh”, we had an important “company meeting” at the closest freshest place possible: Crossroads Par 3 Bellevue 9-hole Golf Course. It was close enough to make this mostly a lunch hour event to not interrupt our timely client work. We had some fresh first time golfers [...]

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Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good

Posted on 17. Jul, 2010 by kate@freshconsulting.com.

I just have to say—I love that title! Wish I could take credit for it myself, but it comes from a fascinating book by Sarah Lacy along with the subtext ”The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.”
I read it when I first got to Fresh Consulting and the guys were throwing [...]

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The Future Battle For Digital Readers Is Not iPad vs Kindle… It’s Vook vs. Book

Posted on 02. Apr, 2010 by kate@freshconsulting.com.

A few months ago, with the launch of the iPad, the question on everybody’s mind was whether Apple was going to decimate the Kindle with a device that had nerds everywhere salivating with gadget lust.
On that day, Fresh Consulting office was abuzz as everybody gathered in the main space (described as the War Room from [...]

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Social Media 201 Conference at Microsoft’s Conference Center: taking your social media efforts to the next level of engagement, profitability, and ROI

Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by Brent Dance.

REDMOND, Wash. March 18th, 2010 – On April 15, 2010 the Social Media 201 Conference will be hosted at Microsoft’s Conference Center in Redmond, Washington. Social Media 201 is designed to help organizations take their social media strategy, tactics, and implementation to the next level of customer engagement, profitability, and ROI. This one day event [...]

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10 questions to evaluate your Enterprise 2.0 adoption strategy

Posted on 27. Feb, 2010 by Jeff Dance.

Just because Enterprise 2.0 tools are often easier to use and social in nature doesn’t mean everyone is going to adopt them. After all, there is always inertia to change no matter what it is, especially with how busy we all are.
Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, a little planning [...]

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Giving Fresh Blood and Learning How Social Media Saves Lives!

Posted on 26. Jan, 2010 by kate@freshconsulting.com.

So this past Christmas season I thought… what’s a creative way that our team could give back to people for the holidays? Sign up to give gifts to needy children? …Not that it’s not a worthy cause, but it just didn’t feel like the right event for our team. And besides, asking a bunch of [...]

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Twitter Tools: a conversation about Twitter in 140 characters or less

Posted on 16. Dec, 2009 by Brent Dance.

“Twitter Tools” is the fifth and final part of our 5-part educational series that rolls through a dialogue between Twitter Tina (Twitter fan) and Twitter Tom (Twitter skeptic) in blurbs of 140 characters or less. The fifth part focuses on the available applications to make the most of Twitter.
To learn more, check out the [...]

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Seven strategies and tactics: a conversation about Twitter in 140 characters or less

Posted on 15. Dec, 2009 by Brent Dance.

“Seven Strategies and Tactics” is the fourth part of our 5-part educational series that rolls through a dialogue between Twitter Tina (Twitter fan) and Twitter Tom (Twitter skeptic) in blurbs of 140 characters or less. The fourth part focuses on various strategies and tactics to make the most of Twitter.
To learn more, check out the [...]

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Ten Ways You Know You’re A Web 2.0 Nerd

Posted on 12. Dec, 2009 by kate@freshconsulting.com.

I recently returned from the Enterprise 2.0 conference in San Fran. As I was coming down the escalator to go to one of the keynote talks, one of my colleagues turned around and gave me an… um… strong stare of confusion? embarrassment? horror? as I pulled out my pen and notebook…apparently pen and paper are [...]