Macworld Bloopers

I never watched Steve Jobs present until very recently. His presentation style kicks ass and I thought it was just inborn talent he was lucky to have. Well, I guess I was wrong yet again.

Check out this blog post featuring a youtube video of interesting bloopers from the old days.

A good problem for companies to have

I always hear executives say if you build great products you do not need brand advertising, sales, marketing, etc. I was a strong believer of that early in my career, but as I got to understand the sales process in the enterprise space especially I thought you needed to spend a good amount of money on brand management/evangelism. However, I think I may be wrong. Check out this article about the kick ass Nintendo Wii system.

If someone does not have the Wii and is looking for one this holiday season, check out itrackr.com. You pay a couple of bucks for the service, but it will make your Wii shopping experience a lot easier.

What's the Blog Council About?

There have been a lot of posts in the blogging world about this new "Blog Council." I did a cursory review of some of the posts and find a few things quite funny. I do not quite understand the charter of the council; is it supposed to educate people how to blog (i.e. control the voice of the people) or make blogging a chore that should be on a project plan. Again, I only did a cursory review of their website so if I am completely offbase my apologies.

A couple of things just give this organization make it seem like great material for Dilbert:
a) The name "Blog Council": the name council makes it sound like this is going to be an over-reaching governing body. The beauty of blogging is it frees everyone within a corporation from any type of controls. Is ths group trying to reign that back in?
b) The mission of the council sounds way too corporate. One of the goals is "ROI". This is really concerning. It seems like the council is going to determine how to use blogs as an advertising platform. The beauty about blogging is the passion and honesty. People do not blog about things they do not feel passionate about, and once you make it an advertising platform all of that changes. "Community" will be fostered by this council. Is this yet another social network for executives. I think people are feeling social network overload.
c) One concern I think most companies have about blogging is how do I protect my internal secrets, and prevent the release of stories about employees being unhappy. For (a), I think most employees should understand what stuff they are working on which is extremely important to the organization and not shared. If not, it seems like a simple education process. For (b), I think this is a valid fear but the best fix is to make sure employees are happy. Do what you can to make sure your employees are satisfied with the workplace. If you have done all you can as an executive to ensure satisfaction, and your employees are still unhappy maybe they should look elsewhere.

Google Data Ideathon

I am pretty sure the few people that read this blog probably read some of the other major blogs which already have this announcement, but I wanted to share this just in case:

http://code.google.com/events/ideathon/

Let me know if you are coming and we can meet up on campus.

Wireless Carriers Opening their Networks

I think it is great when wireless carriers are opening up their networks. Verizon kicked things off a couple of weeks ago, and AT&T followed suit yesterday.

However, what does it really mean to the consumer. For Verizon, they use a CDMA network and it is hard for anyone to find phones in other parts of the world that are sexy enough to bring back to the US. For AT&T, anyone that purchased a GSM phone that was unlocked and operated on the right frequencies could use their phone on the AT&T network (just change the SIM cards). So I am a bit confused on what AT&T's openness policy really means. I then saw this paragraph in the
USA Today:
AT&T for years kept quiet the fact that wireless customers had the option of using devices and applications other than those offered by AT&T. But now salespeople in AT&T phone stores will make sure that consumers "know all their options" before making a final purchase.

So customers were kept in the dark, which is pretty uncool. However, even if customers were shown the light would it have changed their purchasing decision. An unlocked non-contractual phone costs 300 - 500 dollars and you could get the same phone with a 1 or 2 year contract possibly for free. Which one are people going to choose?

I think openness is great, but I'd be really surprised if it changes the immediate purchasing decisions made by consumers. It may in the future when the cost of unlocked and non-contractual devices comes down, but probably not now. I'll just be tied to the network that supports the iPhone from now on.

Apple Finally Building a Portable Laptop

First off, sorry for not being regular on the postings. Some people e-mailed me over the past week asking what is going on, and things just got a bit hectic. In my prior life, I had to blog since the people I worked with depended on the information to a certain extent. In my new life, not many people really read my blog.

Anyhow, I found this post on digg about Apple releasing a portable laptop. All I have to say is finally. I have been waiting for a portable laptop from them for a while. I wonder what else it is going to have. There have been rumors about Apple pushing out an iTablet as well. Let the anticipation begin, and maybe I will attend Macworld for once.

One other bit of news regarding the iPhone although Apple did not build it. Someone built an app that uses Google's APIs to provide a My Location App on their iphone. It is a great alternative to Navizon. It is only a matter of time before someone builds a social network of iPhone owners which tells you when you are within a couple of hundred feet of a buddy free of charge. With that type of capability all the Helio owners would jump to the iPhone.

Dilbert's Perspective on Working from Home