Disruptive Report

Help me, Obi Wan. You and Cisco are my only hope...

2010-05-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

We all knew it was coming -- just not from whom. So here it is, holographic video conferencing. Another technology that makes a flat world flatter.

(Special thanks to Alison Paige Ruge for bringing this one to my attention)

Ghost in the machine

2010-05-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's hard to keep tabs on our information sharing in the digital age. We make all sorts of safeguards to keep our computers safe from hackers. We shred our sensitive documents. We zero out our hard drives before selling our old computers on Ebay.

A disturbing new report finds that the most innocuous of trusted technologies emerges as the most vulnerable to compromising your personal data. The copy machine. Watch this report and cringe.

The Bike Tree

2010-04-01T15:59:00.001-07:00

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with the most ingenious solution to bicycle parking in the world. This Rube Goldberg type gadget is an engineering feat. Just check this out.

WiTricity

2010-04-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

It's April 1st, but this is no joke. Wireless electricity seems like an impossibility if you think about it. How could you possibly send electricity through the air like a radio wave? But MIT scientists have thought outside of the box. An ingenious method involves transferring energy via resonating magnetic fields and then converting the energy into electricity on the receiving end by matching the resonance on the device. The end result is even environmentally friendly -- no more dangerous than the Earth's very own magnetic fields.

Imagine for a moment. No more batteries, no more electrical wires. This is a revolution in disruptive technology. I don't know how such a scenario would work for wide distances, but for an office environment, this video shows that the technology is indeed possible. I'm sure some MIT genius will think up a solution for long distances -- maybe in the form of generator towers and relay stations.

This nightmare may be a thing of the past...

Disruptive Report: Apple shakes things up with the iTablet

2010-01-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

Disruptive Report: Apple shakes things up with the iTablet

Apple shakes things up with the iTablet

2010-01-08T16:50:00.000-08:00

The Apple iTablet is big news. Some say it's a game changer. According to my business associate Michael Klosner, it's basically a hybrid iPod Macbook; an ultra-portable laptop with Apple's killer user interface design. The iTablet comes with a 10" screen, and according to the rumor mill, may be released in even smaller sizes as well. It's powered by Intel's new Atom chip.

It sounds cool, but as a consumer, the iTablet probably won't do it for me. I'm a power user with high performance demands. My iPhone fulfills everything I could want in a PDA. So the question becomes... who is going to use the iTablet?

Fortunately for Apple. the iPhone will serve as a customer conversion tool in the PC wars. The iPhone just plain rocks, and will give a lot of PC users faith in Apple. The market that would find the iTablet most useful would be business travelers. I also see this as direct competition to Amazon's new Kindle, which is rapidly acquiring cool new features such as wireless content downloads. The iTablet may edge the Kindle out of the market since it offers greater functionality and potential value. I suspect that the older generation who find computer operating systems too complex will feel much more at home with an iTablet on their laps. The iPhone operating system is just so intuitive. So there are some niche markets for the device, but nothing in the mainstream.

While I may be wrong, I think that the PDA-phones and the mini-laptops will continue to be the big profit makers. PDAs are just so easy to carry around. Laptops are easy to type on and ergonomically comfortable, not requiring you to stare directly down at your lap. Would you really own an iPhone and an iTablet?

PC World's Michael Scalisi makes some bold, pessimistic predictions about the iTablet. You can read that article here. He makes some convincing points, but personally, I'll reserve all judgments until the product hits the shelves. Never underestimate Apple.

Pigskin

2010-01-04T11:51:00.000-08:00

Scientists around the world are cultivating skin in labs. The skin is used to assist in the healing of wounds.

One team harvests skin from horses, pigs and reptiles. Another team cultivates human stem cells and claims it can grow enough skin to cover 4 football fields.

This is a revolutionary step in burn management, because burned skin loses its ability to regenerate cells. To date, solutions have been limited to skin grafts where skin is excised from other parts of the body, transplants from cadaver skin and in worst case scenarios where infection becomes too risky, amputation of the burned area.

According to an article in the NY Times, the outer layer of skin has been the most difficult to address.

A lab called Organogenesis cultivated a skin farm from a single infant's foreskin. They managed to nurture the growth of the top layer of skin, which is a major breakthrough.

Meanwhile, French scientists have regenerated skin using embryonic stem cells.

The most common uses of skin cultures have been with diabetics, who develop severe ulcers that often require amputation.

Sources:
NY Times
Reuters
CNN Health

GM releases Hy-Wire concept car

2009-12-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

Tape that really is see-through

2009-12-20T22:59:00.000-08:00

Cellophane tape has been found to have X-ray qualities, according to UCLA researchers. However, to the disappointment of office pranksters, you can't just break out the Scotch tape and X-ray your friends. It only works in a vacuum.
Read more about this interesting phenomenon in this New York Times article.

So what else can cellophane tape be used for? I decided to find out...

Well that's about it, I'm afraid -- but isn't that remarkable enough?

Sound roll.

2009-10-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

New speakers may be paper thin, but the deliver an audio experience. How's that possible? Some type of prepolarised diaphragm embedded in the paper makes it all happen. FleXpeaker is the center of much attention as their disruptive new product wows consumers and woos product development managers and investors. ITRI, a tech research institute from Taiwan has been showered with accolades and great attention since the release of their very unique technology.

Think of it as a speaker in the form of a sheet. The sheet can be rolled up, applied to various shapes and configurations, and even cut to shape. Applications extend from TVs to computers, radios, clothing and innumerable other things we can only dream of.

With a little more development, the paper will go from concept to plug-n-play by facilitating a direct interface with consumer devices.

Is it possbile, then, that in the future, speakers will be sold off the roll? "Cut me 3 meters of subwoofer, please."

The food chain revisited

2009-08-25T21:20:00.001-07:00

Monkey see, monkey outdo.
Are we collectively unconscious? Just when you think you're at the top of the food chain, along comes a chimp to humble us all. Old news, yet timeless.

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Bird brains
Birds can solve problems. Some species understand principles of leverage and optimizing environmental conditions to create tools. Once again, we have to accept another paradigm shifter.

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Last but not least, the insect world demonstrates a remarkable concept of value in the collective, where the individual ant is a mere mechanism with a purpose made meaningful only in relation to its contribution to antdom. Maybe there are some parallels between the ants and the timeless quandary of the human condition. Perhaps its our contribution to the collective consciousness that makes our existence meaningful.

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Sometimes, size doesn't matter
I guess one of the things we can take away from all of this is that you just can't ever assume that our present knowledge adequately summarizes existence.

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From dawn to dusk.
Next, the Homer Sapien Sapien....

Actually, I'm amazed at Man's accomplishments and I've always admired the fathers and mothers of invention; but you might agree that Torque makes us look bad.

Ice cream and cake and cake

2009-08-23T13:09:00.001-07:00

In almost no time at all, Baskin Robbins earned cult status with its super cute commercial featuring crudely animated characters that dance to a simple message:

"Ice cream and cake, and cake
Ice cream and cake, do the ice cream and cake"

When I first saw the ad, I was taken by how catchy it was, and found myself repeating the silly lyrics every time the commercial aired. In fact, I told my wife about the commercial, and after watching it, both of us would sing and do the robot dance. Thinking it was just us, it soon became clear that this simple little commercial was a hit, in the realm of Head-On, and other effective, low budget commercials.

Kudos to the ad team for Baskin Robbins. Had I been on the roundtable in the ad department, I'd probably be a little skeptical about letting this air, but sometimes you can't express Zeitgeist on paper, and this commercial has soul.

Glasses with a view

2009-08-21T11:36:00.000-07:00

Lumus Optical won't stop with movie glasses. They are already producing heads up displays for GPS navigation. This Israeli company is an innovator in optical solutions. Keep your eyes on them.

Back in the Tech Watch feature I ran on December 28, 2008, I mentioned the new personal video viewer glasses From Lumus Optical. Well now, more than half a year later, another product line created by MyVu offers consumer viewer glasses that claim to create the illusion of watching a screen at a normal distance from the eyes, despite the eyes' close proximity to the spectacles. While reviews on Amazon are mixed, I may pick up a pair to do a personal review with my new iPhone 3Gs. Irrespective of where the technology now stands, it is inevitable that personal viewers are a new disruptive technology.

Tip of the iceberg
This technology is the beachhead for something special--a new paradigm in personal digital assistance and entertainment. Think about it. The iPhone will someday become the iShades. Glasses that give you a heads up screen while allowing you to continue to view your outside environment. Everything on the iphone screen will be embedded in the glasses, and two ear buds will hang down to cover you for all typical iPhone multimedia duties. In your hand you will have a tiny touch mouse--a small touch screen that navigates the graphical objects in your glasses using the same movements as the present iPhone touch technology. Maybe it will be fashioned as a dual use product by all the third party vendors... a business card case, or even a wallet.

Skype video will take on a whole new dimension of virtual reality if you're walking and talking while watching your caller throughout the conversation. You could even have your personal coach giving you some motivational juice in the waiting room before your big interview. An aerobics instructor or personal trainer will work out with you in real time, but could be on the other side of the planet while teaching you.

How I justify buying one of these things
I study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and enjoy watching video instructionals before I go to sleep. My wife, on the other hand, is not a fan of either Jiu-Jitsu or a bright flickering screen while she's trying to fall asleep; so that pretty much put the kaibosh on my daily dose of Jiu-Jitsu. Video glasses may promote insomnia for the late night users, but also may promote a healthy marriage despite some of the racy things one could potentially watch with a partner laying only inches away.

The "i"s have it. The new iPhone 3Gs is a killer.

2009-08-19T10:21:00.001-07:00

If you are one of my three readers or single follower, then you may recall that I predicted total domination by the Palm Pre. Not so fast. For various reasons, I made the jump from Verizon Wireless to AT&T and picked up a new 32GB iPhone 3Gs.

I've been a Palm loyalist since the Palm III, and this new device is nothing short of revolutionary.

Why did I abandon ship and pick up an iPhone?
- Timing is everything
- Huge app store
- Track tested and improved
- Killer with Google Apps
- Digital keyboard means less real estate wasted
- Revolutionary
- Intuitive and ingenious

The iPhone is truly worthy of the name "disruptive." Palm may be fighting an uphill battle depending on the tenacity of Verizon Wireless customers. The 3Gs cannot run on a CDMA network as far as I know, so Verizon will most likely push the Pre as the ultimate sticky toy.

The new iPhone isn't so much a convenience device as a lifestyle solution. It's shockingly good. No wonder Apple Culture is so pervasive.

Full review coming soon, per request by Carl Ford Jr.

Social anxiety

2009-08-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

This entertaining viral email pass-around illustrates how very careful we all have to be in this ever shrinking world.

Objectionable relations

2009-08-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

According to the UK's Telegraph, a US woman claims to have a peculiar type of condition known as "objectum sexuality." Apparently, these means that a person is sexually attracted to inanimate objects. The story begins to get strange, however, when we learn that the 33-year old Pennsylvania woman wishes to marry a carnival ride. The dashing groom is an 80 foot gondola chariot. The large structure may have given her the ride of her life.

This marriage could make a lot of inanimate objects hopeful for the future. The full story can be read here.

Special thanks to Michael K. for bringing our attention to this story.

Is decapitation dead?

2009-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

Not necessarily. A boy survives internal decapitation after a horrific car wreck. In this remarkable story, Jordan Taylor, 10, even escaped paralysis. The miracle here is that the spinal cord remained intact despite separation of the skull from the neck. Special thanks to Michael K. for the heads up on this article.

iHack - new product alert

2009-08-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

The eyes are just sensors that deliver a message to the brain. It's the brain itself that visualizes data in the Visual Cortex. Thus scientists have been able to hack a workaround for the blind. This promising technology uses the sensory nerves of the tongue to deliver visual data to the brain. Brilliant.

The lunatics are running the asylum

2009-04-28T17:45:00.000-07:00

When we don't question authority, sometimes our best intentions are harmful to others. Just a friendly reminder to think twice before drinking "committee Kool-Aid."

View more news videos at: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/video.

Can Palm make a comeback?

2009-04-05T10:51:00.001-07:00

They already have.

Palm used to rock. The OS was the Firefox of its day, with developers producing a huge amount of third party apps. It lost ground to the Blackberry and eventually the iPhone, and its lackluster product offerings have seen the company fading into the distance. Palm was always business focused, and I think they should have stayed that way. By coming out with the Centro, they seem to be impeding on Apple's turf. No contest. I think that Blackberry edged out the Treo because it offered built-in push email, a rich Web browsing experience and real innovation in each new model. Those are points of focus where Palm has fallen down in my view. As a user, I remember my disappointment when Palm could no longer offer Java to enhance the browsing experience. That was the coup de gras that made me focus on RIM.

I was a Palm loyalist for years, but after Blackberry introduced its touchscreen model, I knew it would be time to jump ship. It was the single advantage that Palm had over them. As Google spreads its influence and begins its cloud IT services catering to the enterprise, it is interesting to note that Blackberry and iPhone are supported by Google Apps... and Palm OS is not. Google has obviously gambled against the future of Palm.

The Palm Treo 650 was a terrific device. Unfortunately, the 700p and 755p were disappointments in many ways, with a buggy OS and few innovative features. In fact, the 755p was phased out by Verizon in a matter of months after its release. For me, Palm's biggest lacking was not in the area of hardware and performance, but integration with newer technologies that focused on other platforms like Windows Mobile, Blackberry and others. It was like the Mac OS 9x of handhelds; terrific device, but it couldn't make friends with others.

Don't count Palm out
Enter the Palm Pre, Palm's last chance to make a comeback. At first I was skeptical until I saw the pictures. My guess is that it will succeed. Treo loyalists have always loved the QWERTY keyboard, and this phone offers that plus full size screen real estate a la iPhone and Storm. While it is a less integrative approach than its touchscreen competitors, it does seem quite versatile. This may be the product that will keep suffering Treo users happy before they are forced to migrate to other companies.

HVGA touchscreen, physical QWERTY keyboard, a new OS called "Palm webOS", integrated wifi (finally), built-in GPS, a much better camera with flash and greater multimedia abilities and a cool form factor make this Palm a totally different animal.

What's cool here is how Palm makes a point of stating up front that it plays nice with Outlook, Google and Facebook. Palm is underscoring integration, one of the things that was most lacking in recent years.

I'm not a fan of things that move, but the sliding keyboard is a thing of utility for those who don't like virtual keyboards. I had an awful experience with my sliding Palm Tungsten T, which became a nuisance after a day or two. As a side note, that seemed to be the most poorly thought out Palm to date. There, I got that off my chest.

I was skeptical about Blackberry's virtual keyboard. That is, until I tried it. Not only was the feedback vibration a thing of true brilliance, but horizontal keyboard display meant roomier typing and most importantly, a stable grip in your hands. It stands to reason that the Pre has been in development for some time, but it is too bad that they didn't adopt a horizontal virtual keyboard. It's time to start reverse engineering for the Post Pre. Like the iPhone and Storm, the Pre is able to switch views to the horizontal, based on the physical angle of the phone. But this may strike you as a bit odd when you see the qwerty Keyboard at a 90 degree angle.

But that notwithstanding, finally Palm has deployed a product worthy of capturing the imagination of its dwindling loyalists, and may even make a comeback into the mainstream. One of the considerations we all have to make when we buy a new handheld is the cost and integration of legacy applications. Do I really want to take my Chapura Turbo Passwords and go through the hassle of importing all of the data into a new application? Same goes for my Checklist app and many others. This "cost of migration" is one more reason why Palm People may remain Palmers, and why we may not have seen the last of Palm. This, incidentally, is why I'm moving much of my own operations into the Cloud. Dependence on local apps in such a fast paced environment has me wasting a lot of time trying to find syncs and ways to consolidate stuff.

One notable mention about the new Palm OS's interface. Windows can be reduced so that you can easily move from one window to the next using the touchscreen. Brilliant. If you don't understand my quick attempt at explaining this, check out the demos on the Palm Pre website. What becomes clear is that unlike the pre PRE OS, this new device can multitask applications so you can swiftly jump back and forth to make plans, coordinate, cross check data, etc. This is another lacking feature of the Palm OS 5 that slowed down my workflow and forced me into a box. Palm is getting with the times. If the demos of the Pre are any indication, a lot of thought went into this new system, and we can expect that it will come with bundled SyncML capabilities, for a myriad of communication applications. Form factor has never meant much to me, but the new Pre looks as slick as any Apply product. Clearly, Palm is going after the business user iPhoners. This battle of the handhelds is going to be hand-to-hand combat.

Will the new OS be backwards compatible? This remains to be seen. Palm must have been thinking about its loyalty user base so I have to conclude that they kept this important issue in mind when developing webOS.

I was just about ready to buy my Storm, but now I'm patiently waiting to test the new Pre before I make any sudden moves. Will it work with my TurboPasswords, Checklist and universe of OS 5 apps? Whatever the case, it's a strong contender for me because it's not just an upgrade for a legacy Palm user. This looks like a stunning phone in its own right.

Stay tuned...

Twiggle?

2009-04-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

Word on the street has it that Google may still buy Twitter. I hope they do. Google is gaining my loyalty because for the first time in recent memory, I don't have to fiddle with APIs, compatibility and tweaking. Google may become the first one stop social solution.

Radio silence

2009-03-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

The disruption of seamlessly streaming babble is unwittingly sponsored by Microsoft.

Our main workstation is toast; it seems to be a result of XP updates. As our IT guy tells me, an OS should really be freshly installed each year anyway, and I've been pushing my luck by doubling that time frame. I'm not of the IT Tribe, but from what I overhear, Windows gets dirty over time and has a pretty short lifespan for the active file transferer. Every uninstall leaves artifacts that mess things up, deletes shared files, etc. I really do miss my old Macs on days like today, but I've heavily invested in Microsoft, so until the life cycle of this machine is kaput, I'm in it for the haul. In the OS 9x days of Apple, there was no installation process. I'd just copy a file here, a preference file there and a control panel there. Something like that. Anyway, it was awesome.

Silence is golden.
Annoying problems with my XP Pro made ghosting the system impossible, so the last few days has been rife with creating a new data architecture for the future. I may regret this after the new OS goes in, but this Spring Cleaning thing is kind of nice. For years I've been too busy to really sort my archive data thoroughly, and due to software problems with automatic backup apps, I've had to duplicate data in numerous files. The anxiety of knowing that someday I'll have to face the music and deal with this has been affecting me subconsciously for a long time. So while it's a major pain, it's also a Zen moment. Once I finish my Quickbooks entries for '08 I'll be levitating like a Buddha.

Right now I'm watching my WinRar chew on my archives files, giving me a brief window to catch up on Disruptive Report and reflect on loftier stuff.

I do have a nifty app called Delete Duplicate Files, which I will review someday in the future if I have a few moments. Time is short and user guides are long, so I haven't gotten the grasp of how to use DDF without deleting important files. Now is not the time to play around with it, since there's too much at stake.

Zen of disorganization
I'm looking forward to implementing GTD on our workstation. After relying heavily on management software for years, and my curious proclivity towards endless organizational taxonomy, I'm making a clean break and going native. The less technology, the fewer categories, the better. KISS. It's the "unfettered mind" approach to productivity. I have all sorts of ideas since I've been planning for this coup. First I need to beta the implementation and optimize it before going public to my single registered follower.

Butterfly effect
One little problem with my operating system caused me years of anguish. It starts as a small annoyance and over time compounds to become a monster.

Something got corrupted with my DotNet somewhere in update history, which prevented me from successfully installing the auto-backup app for our external backup drive. This meant that I had been backing up data by hand, which is incredibly inefficient. Version tracking was torched by the affect on Version Cue, and I was having problems with Adobe Bridge as well. If only I had spent the day or two it would take to have an IT guy come in and address the problem immediately, I wouldn't have built a skyscraper on landfill. Well, now it's time to rebuild.

Here are some lessons learned:

1) The bug on your operating system dwells in a parallel universe of your brain. As you worry more about your data, your Brain OS starts to get cluttered to the point where it too needs a clean install. I was getting so overwhelmed and bogged down that fewer things were getting done. Deal with it now. Life is one big long day with no tomorrow.

2) Find a capable IT vendor. The last IT guy I hired torched my workstation and network. The good news was that I caved in and upgraded to avoid a money pit.

3) You can learn anything online, but at a cost. Time is finite, and it's just not reasonable to think you can be an expert of everything and still be successful in your career. If you toil long enough you're going to solve the problems, but I've found that it's just not a smart use of time unless you plan on going into IT. Let the surgeons do the operating.

Anway, my files are compressed, so back to radio silence. Until next time...

Collosumectomy

2009-02-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

Are two brains better than one? So it seems. Wait until you check out this video. One of the more remarkable studies of the brain.

Two thumbs up for Hulu's Superbowl ad

2009-02-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

Creative genius.

Hulu is a Disruptive concept as we march our ways away from the TV and onto our computer LCDs. Now that LG is coming out with Internet-ready TVs, what will become of the cable & satellite companies when Hulu "gobbles up" the content distribution value of their services? Hulu is at the vanguard of cultivating the shift to pure Internet.

PS: Could Hulu have come up with the most winning tagline in the last decade? "Hulu - an evil plot to destroy the world. Enjoy." Brilliant.

Just a quick word from our sponsors.

2009-02-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

It's about time

2009-02-01T02:55:00.001-08:00

Is time travel just around the bend of light? University of Connecticut professor of theoretical physics, Dr. Ronald Mallet says yes. According to Mallet, the key is in Eintein's Special Theory of Relativity. The curvature of space can be bent with light; since space and time are linked, Mallet's theory of space travel is a hypothetical possibility.

It's not such a rosy picture for time travelers, however. Travel either backwards or forwards into time is probably a one-way ticket. The moment the intrepid traveler exists in another time, it is possible that he ceases to exist in his time of origin. However, he can coexist with the older or younger version of himself, because he is, in fact, different.

In an interview with radio talkshow host, Art Bell, Mallet stated that the "Many Universes" theory of modern physics is an unknown variable.

The future that you're affecting by going into the past is not necessarily the one associated with your point of origin. Rather, it could be in a parallel universe. Mallet published a book on the subject called Time Traveler.

Could this be the most disruptive technology of the future... or the past?

The cure for paralysis?

2009-01-24T11:51:00.001-08:00

Today the major news agencies announced that Geron received a green light from the FDA to pursue ground-breaking embryonic stem cell research on humans suffering from spinal cord injuries. The clinical trials will be conducted in a number of institutions.

According to a television report by CNN on Jan 24, paralyzed rats with spinal cord injuries had their spinal cords restored with the same procedures. There is no evidence as of yet that this same method will work on humans, so these trials will be one major leap for mankind.

According to Geron's press release on Jan 23, "GRNOPC1... contains hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells that have demonstrated remyelinating and nerve growth stimulating properties leading to restoration of function in animal models of acute spinal cord injury (Journal of Neuroscience, Vol. 25, 2005)."

This could be the most significant medical breakthrough of our time.

Investor presentation
Geron's webcast announcement for investors uses Windows Media. You will be asked to fill in you name and email to gain access to the presentation.

Speed up your Firefox

2009-01-20T11:57:00.001-08:00

Firefox is presently king of browsers for those who like functionality, but those add-ons start to take a toll on performance. Following are two helpful articles that make suggestions for speeding up your Firefox:

3 Simple Tricks to Speed Up Firefox 3

How to Speed Up Firefox

The New Meat Culture

2009-01-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

Anybody who's seen the fetus in fetu phenomenon may find it bizarre and quite disturbing. However, it demonstrates that a human-like tumor can grow without a brain. Known as a "parasitic twin," these tumors began their lives as twins, and then use the resources of the body for nourishment and growth. Literally, a human inside a human, minus the brain.

With advents in stem cell research, all of this begs the question about the future of meat. While growing meat in a lab may sound pretty creepy, it is an ethically superior solution to slaughtering animals for food. Meatus in fetu, if you will. I was going to write an article about my vision of the brainless meat farm future, but alas, many others have beaten me to the punch. So here are some links on the subject of lab-cultured meats:

"Is in vitro meat the future?" - TimesOnline

"In Vitro-Cultured Meat Production" - Tissue Engineering (Liebert Online)

"The Conscience of a Carnivore"- Slate

"Excuse my intrusion, but would the Sir like some wine with his cell culture?"

Best science videos of 2008

2009-01-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless?

2009-01-12T21:45:00.001-08:00

Given the name and uber wealthy playground about which Madness Under the Royal Palms
was written, I was expecting an oblique assault on an elitist and secretive sliver of society suspected of profligate spending, narcissism and caste systems.

Instead, I found that the book is more of an amusing anthropological study that offered layers of depth and insight into individuals, relationships and social groups. The result is a humorous parable with some heavy moral lessons.

Best selling author Laurence Leamer used multiple sources to build a penetrating character analysis of some of the more notable Palm Beach residents who, as an aggregate, are symbols of the various cliques that define the essence of Palm Beach.

NON-FICTION THAT READS LIKE FICTION
While it's a non fiction work, it has the literary ardor, flow, and the readability of a sticky novel you can't put down. The structure and clever collation of the vignettes is a thing of genius; like a movie that presents a montage of time periods in a character's life, Leamer seamlessly builds the story, jumping from one vignette to the next, and then taking us backwards and forwards in time. As you move through the book, the building of the individual events sculpts the big picture, and lives are viewed through different lenses. The result is a story that comes together so artfully, that it's hard to believe it's non fiction. For this reason, among others, Leamer has become my favorite contemporary writer.

STORIES THAT WILL MAKE YOU CRINGE
As Leamer draws us into his world and follows the lives of the characters, like with Aesop's Fables, we cannot help but predict the tragic outcomes of the paths they have chosen. The irony here is that these are real people, illustrating that the tragic flaw of humanity is our inability to step outside our selves and get past the artificial world of our own construct. This is the real-life version of Faust, and a lesson in perception, misperception and mortality. Some of the characters were blessed with not surviving to read about their own catastrophic social failures.

KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES' IS NOT ENOUGH
Money seems to be the fulcrum in the lives of the residents, an ends and not a means. Greed is the corrupting factor that invariably crushes relationships, family, trust and trust funds. In a twist of the plot, however, money is the engine that fuels their existence, and yet it is still a limiting factor on the island. For the very privileged, social status is determined by caste, not wealth alone. You can keep up with the Jones', but they'll never have you over for dinner. The elite must maintain their exclusivity at all cost. The "caste" of characters is so colorful and the world so utterly bizarre, that it is hard to fathom such a place exists.

It's the American Dream stretched to extremes, at which point it becomes distorted and absurd. We get the special insight and understanding from an author who has lived among these people for fourteen years.

After putting down Leamer's new book, I was reminded of the profound statement that some ascribe to Samuel Johnson: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

Leamer's Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach
is a must read for anyone aspiring to "achieve" the American Dream. This book might put things in perspective and make you a little more satisfied with your lot in life.

Flying in the face of reason?

2009-01-11T21:57:00.000-08:00

If you think their driving is bad, wait until you see their flying. In an article today in the Sunday Times, the first official flying car makes its debut. The Terrafugia Transition is taking its maiden flight/drive. According to the Times, it will be available in as little as a year and a half. Way cool.

Flyers beware
It's a nice notion, but on further analysis, is this what we really want to see? It seems like ridiculous car accidents are a regular occurrence. Think of how many times you've seen the local news reporting on a vehicle that plowed through the side of a a store or home. On our way to work each week we invariably rubberneck Kafka-esque accident scenes that defy our imagination. How did that guy in the pickup manage to flip upside down on a straight-away? How did that women overshoot that wide corner and drive all the way to the top of the embankment, only to roll all the way back down?

In the brave new world of flying cars, we have three dimensions to worry about. As if Road Rage wasn't bothersome enough, now we might have to contend with Air Rage, where two bull-headed rush hour lunatics engage in mid-air combat. Professional air traffic control has enough problems dealing with professionally trained pilots and cluttered airspace. It's a logistical nightmare when things are organized.

Flight risks
Are we going to see the days where we get stuck behind a Florida flyer? From behind, all you'll likely see is a big hat and pair of hands at the wheel. 90% of the drivers here in California don't use their blinkers. What's to prevent one of these lunatics from vectoring into your airspace in a commuter fireball.

Don't get me wrong; the Terrafugia is super cool; but unless dedicated chouffeurs are doing the flyving, I think that for the meantime I'll personally stick to regular old cars. Maybe they'll be fitted with a Lexus-like parallel flying feature.

Nice idea, though. Certainly a disruptive concept to keep an eye on...

Flying in the face of reason?

2009-01-11T15:05:00.001-08:00

If you think their driving is bad, wait until you see their flying. In an article today in the Sunday Times, the first official flying car makes its debut. The Terrafugia Transition is taking its maiden flight/drive (flyve?). According to the Times, it will be available in as little as a year and a half. Way cool.

Flyers beware
It's a nice notion, but on further analysis, is this what we really want to see? It seems like ridiculous car accidents are a regular occurrence. Think of how many times you've seen the local news reporting on a car that crashed through the side of a a store or home. On our way to work each week we see Kafka-esque accident scenes that defy our imagination. How did that guy in the pickup manage to flip upside down on a straight-away? How did that women overshoot that wide corner and drive all the way to the top of the embankment, only to roll all the way back down?

In the brave new world of flying cars, we have three dimensions to worry about. As if Road Rage wasn't bothersome enough, now we might have to contend with Air Rage, where two bull-headed rush hour lunatics engage in mid-air combat. Professional air traffic control has enough problems dealing with professionally trained pilots and cluttered airspace. It's a logistical nightmare when things are organized.

Flight risks
Are we going to see the days where we get stuck behind a Florida flyer? From behind, all you'll likely see is a big hat and pair of hands at the wheel. 90% of the drivers here in California don't use their blinkers. What's to prevent one of these lunatics from vectoring into your airspace in a commuter fireball.

Don't get me wrong; the Terrafugia is super cool; but unless dedicated chouffeurs are doing the flyving, I think that for the meantime I'll personally stick to regular old cars. Nice idea, though. Certainly a disruptive concept to keep an eye on...

Lifestyles of the Rich and Aimless?

2009-01-06T20:19:00.001-08:00

Given the name and uber wealthy playground about which Madness Under the Royal Palms was written, I was expecting an oblique assault on an elitist and secretive sliver of society suspected of profligate spending, narcissism and caste systems.

Instead, I found that Laurence Leamer's new book is more of an amusing anthropological study that offers layers of depth and insight into individuals, relationships and social groups. The result is a humorous parable with some heavy moral lessons.

Leamer used multiple sources to build a penetrating character analysis of some of the more notable Palm Beach residents who, as an aggregate, are symbols of the various cliques that define the essence of Palm Beach.

Non-fiction that reads like fiction
While it's a non fiction work, it has the literary ardor, flow, and the readability of a sticky novel you can't put down. The structure and clever collation of the vignettes is a thing of genius; like a movie that presents a montage of time periods in a character's life, Laurence Leamer seamlessly builds the story, jumping from one vignette to the next, and then taking us backwards and forwards in time. As you move through the book, the building of the individual events sculpts the big picture, and lives are viewed through different lenses. The result is a story that comes together so artfully, that it's hard to believe it's non fiction. For this reason, among others, Leamer has become my favorite contemporary writer.

Stories that will make your cringe
As Leamer draws us into his world and follows the lives of the characters, like with Aesop's Fables, we cannot help but predict the tragic outcomes of the paths they have chosen. The irony here is that these are real people, illustrating that the tragic flaw of humanity is our inability to step outside our selves and get past the artificial world of our own construct. This is the real-life version of Faust, and a lesson in perception, misperception and mortality. Some of the characters were blessed with not surviving to read about their own catastrophic social failures.

Keeping up with the Jones' is not enough
Money seems to be the fulcrum in the lives of the residents, an ends and not a means. Greed is the corrupting factor that invariably crushes relationships, family, trust and trust funds. In a twist of the plot, however, money is the engine that fuels their existence, and yet it is still a limiting factor on the island. For the very privileged, social status is determined by caste, not wealth alone. You can keep up with the Jones', but they'll never have you over for dinner. The elite must maintain their exclusivity at all cost. The "caste" of characters is so colorful and the world so utterly bizarre, that it is hard to fathom such a place exists.

It's the American Dream stretched to extremes, at which point it becomes distorted and absurd. We get the special insight and understanding from an author who has lived among these people for fourteen years.

After putting down Leamer's new book, I was reminded of the profound statement that some ascribe to Samuel Johnson: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

Leamer's Madness Under the Royal Palms is a must read for anyone aspiring to "achieve" the American Dream. This book might put things in perspective and make you a little more satisfied with your lot in life.

Trouble With Widgets.

2009-01-06T20:04:00.001-08:00

How many widgets does it take make you unproductive? How many aggregators of data, and aggregators of aggregators do we need to stay productive?

The race is on to deliver the next homepage solution for aggregating all of your data. It's what I call "the rule of the three Cs": Consolidation, Convergence, and Conversation.

Access to plentiful data is a blessing and a curse. It's hard to know where to begin and where to end. If you dig a little deeper you'll inevitably find something cooler, more feature-rich, easier, or more detailed. I don't know about you, but information overload is slowing down my own productivity. It's easier to make choices when you're presented with fewer of them.

Win-win or lose-lose?
The ultimate homepage product will converse with as many of the high traffic social sites and aggregators as possible. In-so-doing, each new social aggregator cannibalizes traffic equity from the social sites, some of which are themselves aggregators. They also help distribute data, so from another perspective, they are publicity tools for the content producers or distributors.

One of the trailblazers in the 2.0 aggregation niche was Netvibes, with their pioneering drag & drop interface. It's already a standard service on most bookmark applications. Netvibes is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) that offers customizable pages using partner APIs and widgets to port in all of your news, feeds, and social data; things like Twitters, email, blogs, Craigslist, Facebook and much more. A robust developer widget ecosystem has grown around the service, with more Web apps becoming widgetized daily.

Netvibes had the killer idea of allowing users to create public portals -- "universes," that represented vertical interests or consolidated content. When content is aggregated, the aggregator has created something from nothing. Taking other people's content equals value.

Once Netvibes set the course, other companies vying for mind share implemented their own RIA homepage gateways. It could be that they were in development before Netvibes launched, but that's besides the point. My Yahoo! is Yahoo!'s attempt at capturing the homepage gateway, while new players like MySurfPad.com and Social Network and messenger aggregator Power.com are also competing for mind share. Meanwhile, the widgets are overpopulating our digital universe. Companies like SpringWidgets give users the ability to aggregate content and private-label the widget delivery channel. There seem to be countless companies making their own widgets. There are even more companies making their own WYSIWYG widget-makers so that everyone else can make their very own widgets. How many widgets is enough? Are they really useful or are they just distractionware?

Predictions
It's hard to imagine what's going to become of all these companies. The cool factor of watching the techvolution in real time is counter balanced by its distraction and disruption of productivity. Isn't technology supposed to make things less confusing?

In a world without standards, there is a huge opportunity, and we all know who is going to cash in. Here is how I predict it's going to go down:

All of these services are Web-based, with some hybrid desktop widgets that are using the new Adobe AIR technology. The common denominator (not including AIR and Silverlight) is the browser gateway. Right now, I think Firefox is on its way to becoming the king of the castle, but have no doubt that Google is going to be the next standard. "He who controls information controls the world." Not only do they control the data, but they also control the content to a great extent. Alexa traffic report ranks Youtube in the top 5. So, like Netscape before it, I think that Firefox will be overshadowed by Chrome during Google's conquest of the world. Hard to fathom right now since Firefox has so many cool plugins, but look what happened to Palm OS with its ecosystem empire when Blackberry and other new OSs came to town. Maybe Google will just acquire Mozilla.

Google has it all covered. They have Gears to speed up your browsing performance and to enable useful AIR-like widgets. You probably noted that you can no longer upload multiple videos to Youtube with any browser except Google's Chrome. To me, that's a sign of things to come for Mozilla's Firefox. Google has the up and coming alternative to Microsoft Office in an opensource package; and because it's Web-based it will eventually offer a free alternative to Outlook's Exchange. They have the email covered with what is arguably the best Web-based email solution available. Quickly but surely, Google is implementing the master plan to consolidate, converge and converse.

Google is going to be the information exchange hub of the next generation. They already manage the world of information. Their open source solutions promote developer ecosystems and coopetition. Smart. Oh, one more prediction: Google will buy Facebook before it creates its own operating system. Sorry--that was two predictions.

If only Google would just hurry up and run the world so I can finally get some work done.

The end of the world as we know it

2009-01-06T19:28:00.001-08:00

LG is disrupting our lives with a massively cool product. Check this out for size...

(A big thanks goes out to Carl Ford Jr. for bringing this market killer to our attention...)

Where have all the coders gone?

2009-01-06T19:05:00.001-08:00

CSS coding is one of the more abstruse skillsets that enable the SEO and creative wizards to optimize their sites and to visually differentiate products with cutting edge designs. Apparently, the CSS rabbit hole runs deep, and there's no manual or limitations apart from the brain power of the designer.

If you're still building with tables or using HTML to manage site structure and design; or even doing total site development in Flash, then according to some you're not with the program. The clever people are apparently building structure and design into a separate style sheet that orders the HTML how to behave. It's not a visual process, which makes it an obscure art form. Every few years we all have to go back to school and learn how to do things over again. Misery loves company.

For every frustrating new situation that requires tech savvy, there's always a market opportunity; and thus it's inevitable that full WYSIWYG CSS editors will be hitting the market within a year or two -- just as we have seen from HTML, Visual Basic and even business application development from companies including Coghead, Spring Widgets, Tersus, and others.

The closest I've seen to that paradigm is Skybound's new product. It's currently in beta and from the looks of it, it's a pretty cool product. These guys seem polished and well-funded if one can judge a book from its cover. They definitely stand at the vanguard of the latest CSS trend that should roll out any day now. You can bet your bottom dollar that the people at Adobe are working long hours to get their market killer into public domain. I think it's reasonable to expect that CS5 will offer a new version of Dreamweaver capable of building CSS directly into the WYSIWYG GUI. Now that would be thoroughly disruptive. As of this moment, Skybound is the closest I've seen to WYSIWYG, and I'm sure their developers already have much more in store for us.

Conclusions and predictions

WYSIWYG CSS will make high end site design accessible for the right-brained artists who are missing a left hemisphere. It also means more competition for the programmers and SEO specialists, which will dilute value in that market segment and drive people into new technologies and trends.

The days of the webmaster are numbered. Packaged solutions off the shelf are taking over. Look how many free templates are available from offshore companies that churn them out for pennies.

I think the natural market evolution will see a two class society in human Web development.

1) The high end designers--the creative geniuses--will always have a check in their POB each monthly. In this group, too, are the interactive people; motion graphics will always be more art than science.

2) Everybody else - will be forced to migrate into more technical areas of IT, commerce and SEM.

"One word -- Plastics"

2009-01-06T18:36:00.001-08:00

The new Plastics Manufacturers:

Google
Adobe
Apple

The new Plastics:

SaaS
WYSIWYG Web 2.0 developers
Hyundai

The Hyundai "Excel" - minus the 10 circus clowns inside...

Do you remember when Hyundai made those toy cars back in '86? It's a brave new world. Their new SUV has more curves and pizazz than anything we Americans can muster these days. Their new lines offer great mileage, a great warantee; overall, just an incredible value for price... but how extensible is the Hyundai name? Will it ever really appeal to Middle Class professionals? If history teaches us anything, we should expect to see a new marque in the luxury car fray. It's a business model that works for Toyota (Lexus), Nissan (Infinity) and Honda (Acura). I think we'll see them on our shores within two years.

can only go so far with its name. A Datsun will always be just a Datsun. While they have definitely changed their image 180 degrees, I think that Hyundai will eventually try to reach the entry-level luxury market.

That's a what?

To be continued...

(update on 1-6-09)

I just learned that Hyundai released its first luxury model a few days ago; you have to admit that my timing was impeccable... but my prediction was a bit off. I did not anticipate that they would do so using the same brand that has been associated with entry-level models. The sales figures should be interesting. I think that a rebrand will be needed to compete with the likes of Mercedes.

Memorable TV Ads

2009-01-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

The funny thing about ads...

Verizon's new Dead Zone campaign.

Designing a TV ad to be sticky and informative is no easy task. Following is a list of

15 effective elements in TV advertising

Clearly, this list doesn't suggest that you should use every one of these strategies, but in our opinion, these are points to lead off your brainstorming.

Stickiness (humor, shock or compelling content)
Education - what can we teach them that will raise eyebrows?
Features - why is this brand right for you?
Instruction - How does it work?
Consumer perspective - how does this brand look/feel/taste in the mind of the consumer? Carl's Junior always make me hungry.
Testimonials
Remarkable facts
Bold statements
Medium is the message - create an impression on the brain by hitting three dimensions - sight, sound, and emotion.
Clear message
Linear story of interest - an example of this would be some of Levi's campaigns where a person would go through many hardships in order to regain control over his Levi jeans.
Show the numbers - comparisons are very powerful. Kodak just launched a direct assault on HP, stating that their color printer offers lower cost of ownership by consuming less ink. They show specifically how many cartridges you will go through if you own the competitor's model.
Shock - emotive ads like Volkswagon's "safe happens" campaign.
Memorable slogans associated with memorable audio/visuals. Once again, Volkswagon's "safe happens" campaign is the paragon of perfection.
Metaphor - Few things are better at driving home a message than a strong visual metaphor. Always remember the famous "Immigration Gumball" speech.

Honda's brilliant disruptive ad

Sometimes the innovation of the ad itself becomes a message of innovation for the company. Honda and XBox are the best examples.

12 Successful branded associations

Volkswagen - safe
Dos Equis - the beer of the world's most interesting man
Tanqueray - the choice of sophisticates
Head On - apply directly to the forhead
Fedex - easy, fast and reliable.
Gamefly - easy to use
T-Mobile, the cheapest in the business
Verizon - it's all about the Network, no "dead zones".
Apple - Cool young people use Mac. Clueless nerds use PCs.
Microsoft - Our customer made a campaign for us (absolutely brilliant)
Levis - they fit great, and are an essential part of a lifestyle.
iPhone - Totally disruptive technology that stands at the vanguard of innovation and style.

Favorites

Here is a collection of the best TV ads. All have one or more elements from my list above. Not only are they all memorable, but the essence of the humor, shock or curiosity is integral to the brand itself.

Disruptive Tech Watch

2008-12-28T23:06:00.001-08:00

Clearly, we are in the dawn of a new era. Not only can the iPhone identify the name of the song you're listening to on the radio, but now you can shoot cinematic quality video on your Canon SLR digital camera. Enter the Canon 5D Mark II - a 1080p paradigm shift.

Ramifications of the 5D
It's not perfect yet, but in an iteration or two it will be. The 5D will bring cinematic production quality to the masses.

The Internet is already information overload, with an incomprehensible flow of new content every minute, each competing for eyeballs and 15 seconds of fame. Unless you're Youtube or Facebook, your message is getting diluted by the sheer mass of digital data. I think the 5D is the harbinger for Hollywood brand dilution.

We are living in interesting times. Techvolution and economic Darwinism will bring feature innovation into the home editing software market, and in so doing, will force a restructuring of the entertainment industry. Movie life-cycles are becoming so short that the big studios are probably bringing in 90% of their revenue in the first week of showing. Just a guess.

Flooding an already saturated market with new, professional-level content will likely eat away at Hollywood's profits. The competition will also force Hollywood to stay on the vanguard of innovation, because the graphic parlor tricks once limited to specialized production houses like Dreamworks and Pixar are emerging in the prosumer software market.

How will the Butterfly Effect play out? A radical thought experiment:

1) The talent pool at film schools will inevitably become more competitive and exclusive, so we can expect more original and innovative production.

2) Hollywood will have to restructure its business model. There are advantages in the shift, however. The lower cost of production will also be carried over to Hollywood, so while revenues will dwindle, profit margins may not be impacted by the same ratio.

3) Desktop workstations are becoming more powerful by the minute, and will be able to handle the most demanding post production tasks you can throw at them.

4) Does the 5D herald the end of Hollywood cinema as we know it? To some extent, I think that's possible. However, production still requires tremendous logistics efforts, personnel and services. But the increasing sophistication of the digital development landscape will slowly narrow the gap between prosumer and pro.

5) Hollywood needs to foot the high cost of human resources; in particular, actors. I think it's reasonable to assume that iconic actors like Tom Cruise will have their likenesses generated digitally, and Big Studios will adopt a licensing structure for leasing a celebrity likeness.

6) The illegal content producers will remove that last differentiator from the equation by hacking Hollywood's single asset. Consumer-level production will catch up with pro digital technologies to render small films and shorts using recognized virtual actors.

7) More home-based businesses will emerge in digital content generation, and the economic sustenance will shift from big business, to small business; and eventually, to home (micro) business.

8) The emergence of the new economic structure will force Hollywood to change its business model. Maybe the natural evolution would involve the in-house creation of Hollywood's very own new iconic, immortal characters. Even if the illegal market impedes on their intellectual property, they still won't have to foot the high cost of licensing a likeness.

9) Last, but not least, Hollywood will eventually abandon production altogether, and movies will be 100% digitally rendered. No more rain days to push the shoot over budget; no more high cost of maintenance, logistics, equipment and production crews. There will be just a room full of post production nerds generating everything from landscape to characters, without having to abandon the darkness of their production hives; a return to the cave from whence we began.

In summary, if you think about it, something like the Canon 5D could not only end Hollywood cinema as we know it, but production-side fimmaking. In other words, the 5D is inadvertently promoting its own obsolescence when film/video production are no longer necessary to produce movies. Ironic, huh?

Well, you probably think this whole scenario of mine is pretty absurd; but it is only a thought experiment after all. The complexity of digital rendering is such that I just cannot imagine consumers rendering an entire virtual world on a cinematic level. But then, it's not my imagination that steers tech development and evolution.

As far as I'm concerned, I just want Nikon to catch up so I can put my Nikon lenses to good use.

The War on Thugs
Car thieves may have to find another revenue stream.
Looky here.

Not all is crude in the Middle East
The Israeli government is backing a national infrastructure shift to promote the replacement of the combustion engine with electric energy. Read about it here.

A new perspective on television
The future has finally caught up with us, and "They" finally did it--LCD Video glasses. Israeli tech company Lumus Optical launched the rather chic line of video shades. I've been waiting years for this product; it was inevitable, right?

The good
Now I can watch History Channel while my wife takes full possession of the TV remote.

The bad
Expect to see them being worn by rush hour commuters.

Ministry of Foreign Despairs

2008-12-28T20:36:00.001-08:00

Sometimes humor is the best tool to get a point across. Hopefully, you're not so full of yourself that you'll take on a dumb mission like attempting to communicate your message in another language.

What kind of organization publishes content in English when English is not the writer's mother tongue? What goes through these people's minds is a mystery; but it makes for some good entertainment.

Here are some classics. Feel free to add your own:

"Jew Accomplishments in Israel" - www.israelnewsagency.com

I appreciate what this gentleman was trying to accomplish, but the execution is rather sub-par. It comes across as a bit, shall we say, anti-Semitic. Probably not the intention of the author.

This news agency's slogan should be, "All the news not fit for print." Oy vey.

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Israel has been the focus of lopsided international criticism, and I always maintained that this was in no small part due to utter ignorance of public relations management. Government officials take the "moral high ground" by refusing to respond to what they considered patent libels and propaganda. Any student of media studies knows that the more you seed a lie, the more it becomes accepted as fact. It's the theory of "memes."

The cultural myopia was one example of how very out of touch the Israeli leaders were with world opinion. Many false accusations are simply de facto truths because no defense or alternative perspective was ever voiced or presented. The distinct exception to this rule was Binyamin Netanyahu, an intellect who understood the importance of good PR. As a side note, rumor has it that Mr. Netanyahu has a 180 IQ. Not too shabby.

Along with some peers, we leveraged some channels and proposed a new and progressive PR approach undertaken by Anglo-Saxons. These are the people who look outside the fishbowl and see the way the world interprets the country's actions; moreover, they would be capable of putting things into digestible terms for Westerners. Instead, the government in power at the time decided to wrangle an all Israeli team -- each member of which had English skills inversely proportional to his/her position as spokesperson. It could not have been more horrible--a total disasterpiece. In a fateful diplay of sheer stupidity, they decided to engage in public debate with masters of spin including the likes of Saeb Erakat and Hanan Ashrawi. These two propagandists have a high command of English, and disperse their lopsided rhetoric using every meme in the book. The Israeli response was so horrible, that it will go down in the annals of PR disasters.

In particular I recall one allegation by the Ashrawi camp which accused the Israelis of genocide, ethnic cleansing or some other absurdity that would have been shot out of the sky by anybody with the poise, language skills and knowledge of the facts. Amazingly (or not), the uncomfortable Israeli acted like a deer in the headlights, gracefully acknowledging the canard as truth by retorting something in the order of , "Ehhhh.... yes.... but...eh... you also make terror." Nice one, Hotshot.

Of course, it goes both ways.

~50 rules of thumb for startups

2008-12-25T02:25:00.001-08:00

I’ve worked with many startups over the last decade.

When you are in a position where you can view multiple organizations with an outsider's perspective, you get pretty good at identifying both good and bad patterns of management and business practices. This blog focuses more on the tragic patterns that are often signs of impending doom. If you've ever read Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly, you will see that this is the business version addressing suicidal business processes.

The following represents my observations and opinion.

Compartmentalized inter-company communication
When teams are separated by walls, the writing is on the wall.
A clear chain of command must be created
A body cannot survive without a head.
You can't have everything
Opportunities are endless, development is fast-paced, life cycles are short. Adopting a modern, agile approach is imperative, but some startups jump from one business model to another in the struggle to stay relevant. There are generally no revenues earned from perpetual planning unless you are shooting for the Bubble method. Focus and tenacity can be the saving grace of corporate entropy.
Simplicity over complexity
...even if it's at the expense of having fewer features. If you try to roll out a product that does "everything" you will be in development purgatory. Roll out your feature-simple product and build it in user-tested iterations. Feature creep is a huge burden on your resources. I'll provide some real life examples of these concepts at my next blogging cycle... to be continued...

Double Bubble

2008-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

It's time to thin the herd once more. We're at the tail end of Bubble #2. Dozens of companies competing for the same market space with very few differentiators and little value that I can discern. I supposed they got this far on investor "revenues," but as the economy slows down and funding dries up, it's a race to the finish on fumes.

Not necessarily bad news... more like a Hegelian dialectic that will reorganize the markets and create better products; that is, unless you're heavily invested in those solutions.

Would the real solutions provider please stand up?
Who will make the cut? Who will crash and burn? What seems to determine the success of SaaS products? Which sectors are most vulnerable? That, my friends, is what I'm going to try and uncover. Not just for you... but for my own businesses. We all want stabile and scalable solutions powering the back-end of our organizations. Nobody wants to lose sleep over having to build Rome again.

Stay tuned...

Best Teched Secrets

2008-12-22T20:00:00.000-08:00

A look into my secret hideout for cool applications. I'm still looking for the all-in-one productivity solution. The way I see it, I could start developing it myself, but by the time I launch, someone will beat me to the punch. Then it would become a tech development race, price war and eventually, just another Bubble company. But I digress.

Productivity
It's scary how many options there are for project management. Scary, because it's impossible that they'll all survive the test of time, and nobody wants to rebuild an infrastructure and repopulate data when Bubble Number Two bursts. So sometimes we have to compromise and go with the solution we think will be around for a while, even if it doesn't do all the stuff we want it to do; or for that matter, what it should do. Sometimes I wonder if companies are developing software for end-users...

Coming soon...

Misadventures in marketing

2008-12-22T13:37:00.001-08:00

A cynical look at poor business practices and myopic thinking. This section is a work in progress. All names and references have been changed to protect the guilty. These experiences have allowed me to see the writing on the wall, and avoid pitfalls that many young startups make.

The Emperor's New Technology
A vignette about a company without a technology or plan for deploying that non-existent technology.

NobodyKnowsWhatWeDo.com
The true story about a company that faked it until it didn't make it.

Reinventing the wheel
A story about the re-invention of a technology that has been around since the dawn of man.

A billion trillion dollar market
What not to say to an investor.

Confuse them into submission
The tale of a technology demo devised by engineers, and ultimately, designed for engineers.

The Color Purple
The story of how an IT manager controlled the marketing department and chose the color "purple" because she "liked it."

Chaos Theory
A glimpse of a company in the grip of corporate entropy.

Fake it 'till you break it
Another woeful tale of robust expectations and effete ideas.

I don't care what my customers think
A paradigm of corporate myopia, and engineer-centric thinking.

I'm so smart I don't have to do anything.
How one man brought down an entire company.

Shock and awe.
Miscellaneous adventures.

Profit By Investment
A business model based on revenue from investment.

Banalysts
Why I don't trust analysts.

The Graphic Narcissist
How one woman held an entire company by the balls.

There's no idea like one whose time will never come.
A list of bad ideas.

Death of a salesman.
A "first class" adventure that entails the worst business expense policy of all time.

Dumbain Name
How a startup threw away all its money.

Don't drink your own poison
How a man believed his own spin and risked his life to prove it.

Spotted leopards
How to ruin a business dinner.

Virtual contract
A story about a client who launched a strategic alliance without the consent of the other party.

$50,000 for your thoughts?
How lawyers raped a company for work they didn't even do.

You don't get what you pay for.
The story of abysmal QC that came at a premium.

Your product, my money.
A shameful tale about a business that showcased other people's intellectual property and sold it as if it was their own.

Consultant consortium
Sushi, money and vapid ideas.

20:1
Flying 20 hours for a 1 hour meeting.

Bubble Trouble
What happens if our product is complete rubbish? Time to raise more money.

Keep them all in the dark
A new approach to employee management.

The cup is half bull
Don't flaunt it if you don't got it.

Promote it and they will come
Why promoting an idea before you develop a product is a very bad thing to do.

His Majesty, the Creative Director
How a company let a senior manager act with impugnity, and scoff at all of his lowly subjects.

When all else bails
Out of ideas? Why not create yet another multilevel marketing enterprise.

Death by meeting
Why back-to-back 5-hour meetings is probably not productive.

Guilty by reason of sanity
How the smartest guy in the company was fired for lacking uncommon nonsense.

Waiting for Godot
How execs of a now defunct startup passed up a $50M cash offer because they thought they could get more.

Star Wars
Superstar executive hotshots who were too talented to work for a living.

On a mission
We'll figure out what the destination is once we get there.

A lesson in "unproductivity"
Why you shouldn't fly your consultants across the country for a 1-hour meeting, and change the business model the very next day.

Oh don't mind me. I'm just the marketing guy
An essay on making global marketing decisions without discussing them with the marketing department. Details, details.

If it's too stupid to be true, it probably isn't
You should probably understand the economy before you try to create a new one.

All that glitters
Powerpoint ouwits performance. Fine examples of presentation over content.

-Coming soon to a startup near you....

A spoonful of sugar...

2008-12-15T18:04:00.000-08:00

53 things I wish someone had taught me

Break every problem down into components. Each component is a milestone. Before you know it, you're on your way to solving the problem.
People manage projects, not software.
If you spend more time organizing than producing, you are a victim of the techonomy. Technology is supposed to be a tool for better productivity; it's a means to an end. Hopefully, the "end" doesn't refer to the end of your business. Technology is a leading cause of "paralysis by analysis."
The word for too much organizing is "disorganizing."
Raising capital should not be considered a revenue stream in the business model.
Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself.
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression."
Never sit on your haunches. Only progressive companies succeed.
Nobody has all the answers.
Never judge a book by its cover. Surprises come in all shapes and sizes.
Don't believe the hype.
Back up your data.
Don't just adapt. Lead.
Be assertive. Monkeys can do tasks. Go the extra mile.
Learn from everyone.
Delegate.
"It takes years to become an overnight success."
Wealth is not measured by how much you make, or how much you spend. It's how much you save.
Don't be greedy.
Don't let non-native speaking English copywriters write ads in English.
Don't let your engineers do your marketing, unless your product is for engineers.
You are only as good as your last review.
Intelligence is overrated.
Action speaks louder than words.
Know what motivates people.
Sometimes, communication is more important than actual performance.
If it's a great idea, someone else is already probably working on it.
Don't think "competition." Think, "opportunity." Coopetition.
Don't create buzz unless you can back it up.
A lackluster product with good marketing will beat a superior product with poor marketing. This rule applies more to the old economy. Now that we have social networks and referral-driven programs, it's becoming less and less true. Now that review sites abound, product quality is constantly being benchmarked.
A consultant for startups is usually a person who gets paid to give advice that nobody takes.
Don't be myopic. It's not about you - it's about your customer.
If you don't start something, it will never be.
A measure of how badly someone wants something is how hard they work to get it.
Smart people surround themselves with smarter people.
Be good to your employees. Too much employee turnover is bad for business, and a tremendous waste of resources.
Don't believe your own internal buzz. If the emperor isn't wearing clothes, tell her so.
Compartmentalization doesn't work.
Always take the initiative. Don't be square and perform the minimum needed to meet requirements.
Don't assume that your contribution will get you a promotion. I wasted many years from this naivete. Most business people are short sighted and greedy. Smart people will compensate you for your commensurate value - if not now, then in the future.
Don't put the cart before the horse.
Write stuff down. Sleep with a pad of paper next to your bed.
Sometimes a pad of paper is better than all of your productivity software combined.
Give credit where credit is due.
You can learn a lot about a person by the way they drive.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
"Don't throw good money after bad."
Don't be a lemming. By the time you react, it's too late to reap any benefit
Be an early adopter, but wait for version 2.0.
Take advantage of available resources. If you have a pool, go swimming. If you have a library, take out books.
Blog
If you make someone else look good, you are a valuable asset.
"Divide and conquer"
"One man's ceiling is another man's floor"
Your $1,500 digital SLR will be worth $250 next year.