Hello from Nevada, on day two of a cross-country road trip from San Francisco to New York. This is the first entry on Future Changes written entirely on an iPad. When the iPad was announced in January, I didn’t think seriously about buying one. So what convinced me?

1. TSA Friendly – According to the Transportation Security Administration blog, the iPad doesn’t have to be removed from luggage at airport security checkpoints. This saves time, streamlines one of the most hectic parts of air travel, and offers peace of mind that valuable electronics are safe in your bag. It’s also cleaner – putting your laptop into a bin that just held someone’s shoes is unsanitary.
2. Ten Hour Battery – The iPad’s ten hour battery is one of it’s most impressive features, especially when you realize you don’t have to hunt around an airport terminal or coffee shop to find the one seat near a power outlet.
3. Design and Feel – The iPad feels sturdy and substantial in terms of materials and build quality. When you pick it up, the aluminum back is slightly cold to the touch, just like a nice watch.
4. 1.5 Pounds – It’s light enough to go anywhere a book or pad of paper can go, and for all it can do, the fact that it’s only 1.5 pounds is amazing.

James Kendrick recently wrote about his own experience Blogging on the iPad:

Where I do see advantage to using the iPad for blogging is on short trips, or during outings when a computer is normally not carried for the day. The iPad is easy to travel with, and the tool that is with the blogger is better than any tool that is not. The muse can strike at the most unexpected times, and if the iPad is at hand it’s the right tool for the job.

4-id creative network, a Barcelona-based transportation design firm, has developed a subway station information display that helps passengers find a seat on the next train:

The system, 4-id says, uses either imaging sensors placed inside train cars or “artificial vision software applied to existing security cameras” to render graphical representations of the crowds. The screens — a close-up is shown below — can be reconfigured to include a variety of transit system-specific functions including service alerts, advertisements and news.

“With this new information,” the company explains, “people can better choose what carriage to board depending on their needs. A simple but attractive graphic shows users the amount of people that are on each carriage and which of them are accessible for Trolleys, Bicycles and Wheelchairs users. To complement this information a light strip is located along the platform that will also give the occupational density of the carriages in ‘real’ scale.”

Tammy Erickson writes in Harvard Business Review about the far-reaching implications of significant changes in the way we communicate:

Each time our communication capability expands, several predictable things occur: An increase in the scope (distance and speed of reach) and richness of our interactions affects the way we organize, shifts the balance of power, and influences how we get things done.

Andrew Tsu of touchscreen-maker Synaptics on the interaction and usability considerations inherent in designing for touchscreens:

Unlike mechanical controls, which designers have to take into consideration during the hardware design phase, a touchscreen shifts the planning of device controls into the software design phase. This shift can certainly improve the user experience, since designers can implement the layout with fewer hardware constraints. However, the shift could also lead to real disasters in usability.

The obvious example is inconsistent behavior of controls across applications — imagine how confusing it would be if a touchscreen phone required users to single-tap the virtual keypad buttons to dial phone numbers but to double-tap on the virtual buttons in their music player application.

Paul Downs, owner of a small business that makes custom conference tables, explains what he finds useful about an online forum for the woodworking industry:

You may find this surprising, but woodworkers are like doctors — there are many sub-specialties, each with its specific tool set and procedures. Woodweb hosts forums on each of these, along with a business and management forum, and one for everything that doesn’t easily fit a category.

It’s free. The site is supported by advertising. If I were selling equipment or offering a job, there would be a nominal charge, but it’s cheaper than classified ads in the local paper.

Free access makes sense for casual activity, like posting a question or discussing ideas. Charging for services like equipment sales or job listings, that a member would expect to pay for elsewhere, makes sense especially when the costs are lower than elsewhere, and the return is likely better because of the community’s highly relevant audience.

Downs also comments on the active role site administrators play in maintaining the quality of discourse, policing spam, and paying attention to regulars:

The site is their livelihood, and they are very attentive to regular posters. They recognize that good participants make the site interesting and improve their business.

He addresses – and dispels – the idea that business owners wouldn’t want to talk to competitors for fear of losing ideas:

Those are the people I want to hear from most. I know that a lot of small-business owners are paranoid about someone stealing their great ideas, but that’s ridiculous. Really, there is enough business in this enormous country to go around. Once you get beyond your fear, competitors are the best people to talk to.

He writes that this perspective is positively influenced by the competitor whose business is located in the same building:

When I moved in, we made an agreement not to poach each other’s employees, as that could be very harmful to both of us. With that settled, it’s been a terrific resource to have a competitor to check with regarding pay rates, the landlord, materials suppliers, etc., etc. The Internet forum puts me in touch with shops all over the country, so this benefit is multiplied many times over. I can get candid opinions on tools, suppliers, ways to deal with customers, and how to handle employees, all from people who live the same life I do.

Mark Morrell of BT outlines five questions you should answer to help formulate a good intranet strategy. One of those questions has to do with identifying the people who have the greatest influence over your intranet’s success:

Who can stop, hinder, accelerate or start your intranet plans to deliver your strategy? Once you have a list of their names they’re probably going to be most of your stakeholders. I don’t favour the ‘x reps per business unit’ approach but rather feel stakeholders should be mainly from the key functions that people are involved with or work in.

(Via IntraTeam)

Elisabeth Rosenthal writes about the growing popularity of AVE (Alta Velocidad Española, or Spanish High Speed) trains that have cut the 6 hour drive between Madrid and Barcelona to a relaxed, upscale 2 hours and 38 minutes from city-center to city-center.

Two years ago, nearly 90 percent of the six million people traveling between Madrid and Barcelona went by air. But early this year the number of train travelers on the route surpassed fliers, and the trajectory is ever upward.

Heeding the economic and political advantages – carbon dioxide emissions per passenger on a high-speed train are one-fourth of those generated by car or airplane – the Spanish government is moving decisively toward rail as a key transport strategy:

In the United States, President Obama has set aside $8 billion in federal stimulus money for investments in high-speed rail, but the money will go to a limited number of states, including Florida, California and Illinois. By 2020 half of Spain’s $160 billion transport budget will go to rail travel.

President Obama’s support for high-speed rail is the most significant in decades. Let’s hope it’s the start of a major strategy shift in American travel.

Photo Credit: Renfe AVE crossing the Ebro river near Zaragoza, Spain.

New research from Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse M. Shapiro of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business indicates that the Internet is more ideologically integrated than previously thought, and acts as a unifying presence for people with differing political views:

Gentzkow and Shapiro found that the Internet is actually more ideologically integrated than old-fashioned forms of face-to-face association — like meeting people at work, at church or through community groups. You’re more likely to overlap with political opponents online than in your own neighborhood.

If this study is correct, the Internet will not produce a cocooned public square, but a free-wheeling multilayered Mad Max public square. The study also suggests that if there is increased polarization (and there is), it’s probably not the Internet that’s causing it.

Simon Sinek explains how great leaders inspire action:

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?”

Sinek cites Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a leader who appealed to people because he started with why he fought for civil rights:

“I have a dream.” Not “I have a plan.”

Procter & Gamble has begun a pilot program in which several hundred employees are allowed to use their own laptops at work:

This pilot program is based on a simple idea: many of P&G’s younger employees would rather use their own laptops than corporate-issued systems.

The pilot is focused on junior employees, who are more likely to prefer their own laptops, and less likely to handle a significant amount of sensitive information:

To head off potential problems, the pilot involves junior employees and new hires unlikely to be handling sensitive company information. “They are in a low-risk category,” [Vice President of IT Development and Operations Jim] Fortner said.

Cora Carmody, CIO of Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., says the shift to cloud computing further reduces legal and security concerns that would be present with a traditional corporate network. That’s because cloud computing is designed for a more mobile workforce, in which employees access corporate data over the Internet, and greater security emphasis is placed on the data itself, instead of the network.