Cook 'em Dan-O

Liberté! Fraternité! Egalité! Globalité!

I had an odd dream the other night.  Nothing unusual there, especially if I've had pizza for dinner.  I dreamt that I was at some sort of reunion (hmm, that Stanford Reunion is coming up) and we re-enacted the French Revolution.  At some point I was herded into a cafe, where I watched as the revolutionaries began to arm themselves.  I realized that I was going to be killed (another part of me searched the archives of Fr. Heinken's World History class, and the portions of Les Misérables that I stayed awake for, to verify the historical accuracy of this premonition).  There didn't seem to be much I could do about it, as history was seemingly about to wash over me.

A few days later, I came across this opinion piece by Thomas Friedman (one of my favorite authors), in which Friedman argues that our schools need to teach the skills that lead to development of creativity if the US is to remain relevant in the future.  As Friedman notes, globalization and the rising educational levels in other countries mean that more, and more kinds of, jobs are becoming subject to global labor competition and resultant offshoring.  It's not just manufacturing jobs that are moving out of the US.  It's also software development jobs, and even some types of service jobs.  The point is that some jobs that went away during the current "Great Recession" are not coming back.  Friedman, had he had the dream that I did, would say that those who are waiting for the economy "to get better" and expecting to then find easy employment are a lot like those people I dreamt about in the cafe... be prepared to face the worst, unless you do something about it!

I've often felt that the way to avoid being "washed over" by the wave of changing macroeconomic forces is to make sure you know what "line" on the income statement you're tied to, and how you can positively influence that line.  Are you part of the "revenue line"?  Do you generate revenues through sales, business development, financing activities, etc? Can you point to instances when you've made a material difference? Maybe (as with most of us) you're part of the "cost line".  Can you show how you've saved costs? Made the company more productive?

Look at it this way:  you don't have a right to work; you have a chance to compete.  So be prepared to compete on grounds that are relevant to those awarding the prizes.

and I did not approve this message

Remember those political campaign ads? How they had to end with "I'm Joe Cheeseball, and I approved this message"?  Well I've seen two commercials so far, that use the same (or nearly the same) clip of President Obama giving some kind of "stimulus" speech.  They then segue into a pitch for their service... in one case, credit card debt counseling (which you can get for free), and extended auto warranties (which are worthless) in the other.

I suppose video of a President's speech is considered in the public domain, so this is likely a legal use.  But it sure seems cheesy.  I guess this is the inevitable result of Billy Mays' passing.

Twitter Gets a Reason to Exist

I was hearing/reading about Iranians using Twitter to spread the word about protests they were organizing, in reaction to the recent election and allegations of vote-counting fraud.  Here's one example news story.  The Iranian government had had some success closing down sites such as Facebook, but the distributed nature of Twitter (lots of people posting "tweets") apparently made it much more difficult to control.

This reminded of me of the Tiananmen Square protests in China 20 years ago.  The government sought to control access to the media then (as it does today) in order to maintain control over information about the protest.  But apparently one of the technologies used to get information out of the country was something relatively new at the time--the fax machine.  People would fax updates to friends outside of China, who would spread the word among expatriate Chinese, and in some cases forward information back into the country.

It's great to see technology serve the interests of democracy movements!  Now if Twitter can just turn this into a plan for "monetizing its asset"...

Screen Wars

You've no doubt heard about the term "market share"--what portion of the total market for something is controlled by one brand or one company.  And I recall that in the 90's one of the management fads was "customer share"--what share of the customer's IT budget your product accounted for.  And I'm sure there are a dozen more "___ share" terms floating about.

You've also heard about web ventures that want to "attract eyeballs" as a way of "monetizing their asset".  Which in English means, "we can get paid a small amount of money per person who views and/or clicks on an ad... and that's how we're going to get some revenue to offset all the costs in programmers and servers that we're racking up with our web 2.0 service".

Of course, the monetizing isn't that easy.  More on that later.  But now that I've been interacting with email, photo sharing, social networking, and other web-based services, I've come to see that the battle is all about "screen share"--whose screen you see when you go about your internet business.  In other words, whose application will you use, and therefore whose ads will you be exposed to.

Take the example of sharing a photo.  Thanks to advances in cell phone and digiital image technology, and the avaiability of reasonably cost-effective bandwidth, taking a photo on the spur of the moment and sharing it is quite simple.  Had Brian been willing to stand still long enough, I could have taken his picture at the top of the run at Heavenly Valley, with Lake Tahoe in the background, and posted it or emailed it before I got to the bottom of the mountain.  (Of course, with my skiing skills, Pony Express could deliver it before I got to the bottom of the mountain, but that's another story).

So consider my options for sharing that photo:

• I can send it as a "multimedia" message... basically a text message with a photo attached (except that I have an iPhone, which doesn't support this basic service)
  
• I can email it to my friends using a service like gmail or Yahoo mail
  
• I can post the photo to a photo sharing site like Kodak Gallery or Phanfare
  
• I can post it to my Facebook page
  
• I can post it in a "discussion" on my LinkedIn page
  
• I can send a "tweet" with a link to the picture 
• I can post it to my weblog
  

There are pro's and con's of each approach.  But what's interesting is that wherever I choose to post it will determine what ads you see when you view it.  Unless you view the photo on my weblog (which has turned out to be a not-for-profit venture), someone's going to be showing you ads.  They may be targeted ads, like something at the top of the gmail browser that says "ski vacations, click here".  They may be unrelated, like the "IQ" ads I keep seeing on Facebook.  Or they may be anywhere in between.

And the odds are that wherever you view that photo, you will likely respond using that same web site or application.  If I send a text message or email, you'll likely reply with a text message or email.  If I post it on Facebook, you're less likely to send me an email saying "cool picture, who's the stand-in for an actual skier?!", and more likely to comment via posting a comment on my "wall".  And if you write on my "wall", guess whose ads you'll see?? And when everyone else sees that you commented on my picture...

So it's clear that the first battle may have been about creating a fan base (and keeping it interested).  The next battle is about steering that fan base to your application for all their social networking needs.  And since social networks are non-exclusive clubs, and since we all have text messaging and email accounts, it's all about creating the most useful, easiest to use application.  After all, we're all lazy in a way, and will use your application to carry on our conversations if the application is reasonably easy to use, reasonably unintrusive, and so on.

So the battle is on, and corporate America is beginning to pay attention.  Hell, even Oprah and Shaq use Twitter.  Who will win? Whose cuisine will reign supreme? Oh, sorry, wrong show.  It will be interesting to watch...

The Social Ramble Ain't Restful

Thanks to Satchel Paige for that reference...

In the Beginning, there was LinkedIn.  OK, really, it was MySpace, or Facebook, or some other social networking site.  But I ignored the world of social networking until last year when I started a job search in earnest, and felt the need to establish my online "presence".  So I started with LinkedIn.  And that was fine.  It took a bit of work to get a completed profile, tune it, and link it to the weblog you're now reading for insights into me that don't start with "seasoned executive" or some such phrase.

And all was well with the world.  But (to torture the metaphor), God said that it Was Good, and thus Silicon Valley said that More of a Good Thing is Always Better.  

And so it was that I started receiving random "pings" from people that wanted to connect with me on other social networking sites, especially Facebook and more recently Plaxo.  And I had ignored those requests, since I felt occupied enough with one site let alone two or three. (And that's not counting the photo-sharing sites like Kodak Gallery and Phanfare).

But when our HR group set up a Facebook page for SOMA Networks, I took the bait and signed up.  And that's been a mixed blessing.  All of a sudden I'm tuned in to what people from my high school are up to (looks like Dino Di Muro just sold his house), not to mention more details on the goings-on of my nieces and nephews than I usually get at family gatherings.

So that's the good part.  The challenge is that Facebook wants me to contact all my acquaintances and sign them up as friends.  And having received Facebook friend requests addressed to "exNortel" and other mailing list alias's, it's clear that the Facebook friend-finder engine is pretty unsophisticated.  And of course I have to set up a profile, and let people know what I'm doing.  It's all OK so far, and has given me greater insight into where the battle is being fought for social networking "eyeballs".  

Then suddenly I ended up on Plaxo.  I think there was one person somewhere that wanted me to update my address book.  So I said OK, and then learned that Plaxo may have started as an address book, but is now a full-fledged social network.  And I'm getting connection requests from all sorts of people.

The bigger challenge is strategic, not tactical.  (As you might expect, someone has an app that will cross-post all my stuff on all my sites at once).  Do I replicate content across these three sites? or do I tailor it?  Reading the same thing on three different sites sounds pretty boring.  But since there's not a clear division between friends on one site or another (nor a clear division between items of interest to work friends vs. social friends), it's hard to judge where some material should (and shouldn't) go.

Then there's the quality control (more correctly, brand management) issue.  Do I post photos of me with the lampshade on my head from that Cinco de Mayo celebration that got carried away?  And what happens when someone sees that after reading "seasoned executive" stuff on LinkedIn?

All I can say is that if I live my life as if I have no secrets, there's a lot less to worry about.

All A-Twitter

So now I'm on Twitter. How I got there... More later. When Twitter was about "now I'm picking my nose" I wasn't so interested. But now it's being seen as part of the marketing mix. So I'm "following" a couple of randomly chosen people and organizations.

And to think only this morning I was explaining the difference between Twitter and text messaging!

Much, much more to come.

Geek Thrills

As a Stanford University graduate forced to share holiday celebrations with siblings from UC Berkeley, I've had to endure lots of ribbing.  So I'm not one to reflexively heap praise on the Blue and Gold.  But even I have to give it up for the Weenies--er, Bears--on this one.

UC Berkeley "Nano Nano" Song

Check it out, it's very well done!

A New Day for America

OK, so I work in this kind of odd building.  It was originally designed to house fashion businesses, so it has a stage in the atrium which now features a couple of TV's.  Usually there's CNN on one, and ESPN on the other.  And there are never more than a few people in front of them, except maybe at lunch time.

So here was the scene this morning, as I arrived at the tail end of Barack Obama's inauguration address.

Unalloyed euphoria? The start of something new, different, better? We'll soon see.  There's certainly excitement in the air... and a sense that it's time to buckle down and address the challenges we face.  In a way, it's like the aftermath of 9/11, without the shock.  There was a determination in people's faces to meet the challenge, as there is now.

One other indication of the significance of this day:  every newspaper rack that I passed on my way from the train station to work was empty...

Interesting times!

It Takes a Big Man...

Stuff I Was Wrong About

• WMD's
• Iraq's political stability after the fall of Sadam Hussein
• The integrity of a couple of executives
• Enron's role in the California energy crisis
• The staying power of South Park
• The safety of the Space Shuttle
• Bush=Gore
• What was "juiced" in baseball
• Where the fish would be hiding

Stuff I Was Right About

• Multimedia and the timing of "voice-data convergence"
• Al Davis' motivations
• The .com bubble
• The safety of the Space Shuttle
• The RIAA's inability to prevent illegal music downloads
• Joe Montana's touchdown pass to John Taylor in Super Bowl XXVII

Just Wondering

Some random musings, probably about stuff that bugs me.

• When did we start calling it "The Tomb of the Unknown"? What was wrong with the added "Soldier"?  Now when I hear it I wonder, "Unknown What?"
• Why do they still call themselves "The New York Football Giants"?  Does anyone still confuse them with the baseball Giants? You know, the ones that moved to San Francisco 50 years ago?
• And what about the Tampa Bay Rays? What was wrong with Devil Rays? were all the fundamentalist Christians staying away from baseball games?
• When the NFL holds its  "throwback uniform" games, what do the Baltimore Ravens wear? Cleveland Browns jerseys? Baltimore Colts uniforms?
• Is the era of bottled water over?  They're drinking from Brita bottles on The Biggest Loser so does this signal the end?
• Does it seem like cars with "Baby on Board" stickers are inevitably the most dangerous ones on the road?