[via Shrikant] Barbara Wood offers some suggestions:

1. Do it now. Procrastination leads to getting snowed under a pile of work.

2. Use your trash can liberally. Born organized people don’t think twice about throwing things away. They aren’t tempted to keep old worn out appliances around “just in case.” They don’t worry about whether they can recycle that mayonnaise jar or not. They just toss things.

3. Get into a routine. B.O.’s don’t wait for time to clean the whole bathroom. They wipe off the sink every time they notice it’s splashed. They shine the mirror every day while brushing their teeth. They run sudsy water to use while cooking, so stirring spoons and saute pans are washed before the meal even goes on the table.

Steve Rubel writes:

Google and Nike have quietly teamed-up to launch Joga, an invitation only social network for soccer enthusiasts...This is a fascinating marketing program. It leverages Nike's brand, Google's savvy in building buzz through seeding programs (remember how Gmail and Orkut rolled out?) and its registration, community and video technologies. Tying it all together is soccer/football, which needless to say has millions of passionate fans worldwide.

It's a departure from Google's focus on driving more customers toward search marketing. They're not just moving into brand marketing programs, but branded communal marketing programs.

Fred Wilson culls together some thoughts from others and adds: "Personalizing words and spaces and communities. We are at the dawn of the age of personalized media. The web has given the world a place where the audience is the publisher and what we are witnessing (and hopefully participating in) is the personalization of media. It will manifest itself in many strange and wonderful ways."

Ajit Jaokar writes:

s it time to revisit browser only PCs? Would web 2.0 cause a fundamental change in hardware architecture(both PC and mobile) by facilitating a move towards the network computer architecture?

In the PC/Internet world, the browser is fast becoming the universal client. However, there is a crucial difference between the PC world and the browser world.

In the PC world, we need one type of program to run a specific type of application (‘word’ to view word documents, ‘excel’ to view spreadsheets and so on). In contrast, we can use the browser to view any type of application(i.e. one client for many applications).

or as Gandalf would say - One ring to rule them all!
...
Already, my email, calendar and other applications are on the web. Using Web 2.0 applications like the writely , I can store all my documents on the web.

All I need is a browser. One client to rule them all!

Thus, today I would use a ‘brower only PC’ – would you?

The Economist writes:

The “open-source” process of creating things is quickly becoming a threat—and an opportunity—to businesses of all kinds. Though the term at first described a model of software development (where the underlying programming code is open to inspection, modification and redistribution), the approach has moved far beyond its origins. From legal research to biotechnology, open-business practices have emerged as a mainstream way for collaboration to happen online. New business models are being built around commercialising open-source wares, by bundling them in other products or services. Though these might not contain any software “source code”, the “open-source” label can now apply more broadly to all sorts of endeavour that amalgamate the contributions of private individuals to create something that, in effect, becomes freely available to all.
...
The biggest worry is that the great benefit of the open-source approach is also its great undoing. Its advantage is that anyone can contribute; the drawback is that sometimes just about anyone does. This leaves projects open to abuse, either by well-meaning dilettantes or intentional disrupters. Constant self-policing is required to ensure its quality.

The January meeting with Esther discussed SEraja and Novatium, both companies I have been involved in co-founding. While SEraja is bringing the EventWeb to life, Novatium is building the $100 network computer to make computing affordable and simple for the rest of the world. Esther was fascinated by the Nova NetPC and suggested that she might get us to present at PC Forum in March because what we were doing fitted in nicely with the theme, “Erosion of Power: Users in Charge.” Our work would empower users in emerging markets like India with the benefits of computing and the Internet.

I waited anxiously through January to hear back from Esther and her team. Christina Koukkos, the Managing Editor of Release 1.0, set up a call with me to probe deeper into what our vision was for Novatium and what we had accomplished so far. A few days later, I got an email from her confirming our participation. I was delighted. I would now go to PC Forum, not just as one of a few hundred attendees, but as one of a chosen few who would get a chance to present to everyone attending.

PC Forum is the annual event that Esther organises in March, getting together an amazing mix of start-ups entrepreneurs, industry veterans and venture capitalists for a deep dive into a single theme. For the past few years, I had to satisfy myself reading the transcripts well after the event was over. This year, I finally had an opportunity to be there. And so it was that I made my way to PC Forum in Carlsbad, California, on a sunny California March afternoon.

The March issue of Release 1.0 (an 96-page treasure) has in-depth write-ups of the individuals and companies who had been invited to participate as speakers, panelists or company presenters, all built around the theme of “users in charge.” This is how Esther described the trend:

The biggest shift caused by the Internet is not the technology that people use. It’s how people interact with one another and with the institutions in their lives (also composed of people). The power institutionsonce held over them is eroding for three technology-based reasons:

First, people have better information about everything – about the behavior of institutions, about the provenance and cost of goods, about one another. They also have the opportunity to interact with far morepeople and institutions than ever before.

Second, because of the freer flow of information and the abundance of processing power, it is now possible for anyone (but especially for institutions) to “mass-process” individuals and track them and even treat them as individuals if the institutions so desire.

And third, much the same processing power and information are potentially available on a retail basis to individuals; they can benefit from economies of scale, while institutions generally still lack the flexibility and the ability to innovate that individuals and smaller team have, even though they have the tools.
…
We need to build new technology, new applications, new habits. Just knowing that individuals should be in charge doesn’t make it so.What are the mechanisms? What do people need to know and learn about new rules and conventions? How can we provide the right defaults with visible but not confusing alternatives? How much disruption can people stand?

Tomorrow: Novatium