Advertisers Trade Digital Dimes for Mobile Pennies

Tomorrow is the big Windows 8 / Surface Launch, so I will continue on with the Microsoft vs. Google vs. Apple thinking from yesterday.  

Henry Ford is credited with the famous line:  "I know that fifty percent of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half."  I wrote a post about this a few years back and also dug into the idea that Google is trading analog dollars for digital dimes.  Which turns out to be easier for Google, the company that gets the dimes, than for other advertising providers that are losing the dollars.  The advertising dime migration is fueling a whole bunch of creative destruction in the advertising business.

It is going to get much worse.  Every day advertising gets more measurable and it might just turn out that the non productive half of the advertising business is in fact bigger than half.  In an anemic growth environment, or worse yet another recession, companies might just find a better use for a big part of the $600B presently spent on advertising.

If so, what happens to all of the technology companies that have placed their bets on making advertisers their customers?  What if the digital dimes get traded for mobile advert pennies?  Google was perfectly happy getting new revenue away from the newspapers -- so they did not care that their prices were a tenth of the market.  But if Google has to trade its own dimes of revenue for pennies -- it is going to hurt.

All the while Microsoft soldiers on making businesses productive.

Business Runs on Microsoft Software. Period.

It is insteresting and instructive to take a step back from the big ecosystem builders and think about who their customers are and what they are selling.  Just so we all start from the same point on the map, I am going to clarify that customers are the people that pay and they pay for whatever a vendor is selling.

Microsoft

This is a big week for Microsoft with the long anticipated Windows 8 launch.  Even though I am very much looking forward to getting my MS Surface (hardware) this week, Microsoft is still the maker of software and its customers paid $16 B in the most recent quarter and generated $5.3B in profits including for operating system software ($3.2B revenue /$1.6B profit), servers and dev tools ($4.5B/$1.7B), and productivity and business software ($5.5B/$3.6B).  This is highly profitable business with one half of all revenue returned in profits.  You will notice that a bit over $2B is missing from this revenue analysis - because that is the amount MS generates from XBox -- without generating any profit.  Ouch!

Simply, customers pay Microsoft for the software they need to be productive.  Anyone who has tried to be productive on an iPad knows what I am talking about.  Producers need Microsoft's products to produce.

Apple

Apple quite famously makes more revenue and profit on the iPhone than all of Microsoft combined.  In its most recent quarter it generated $16.2 B of a total of $35B from the iPhone at 43% margins.  Any company that can grow from zero in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced to over $60B in annual revenue from a single new product line - deserves to be the worlds most valuable company.  Even more impressive is the $9.2B in iPad revenue last quarter from a product just 30 months in the market.  However, as Apple is demonstrating with the change of the standard cable plug on the latest version of the iPhone - it is selling devices that are driven by their popularity, not by business acceptance.

So, customers pay Apple for fashionable gadgets and Apple cranks out fashionable gadgets like no one else.

Google

Google has revenues about the same size as Microsoft's.  The most recent quarter concluded with $14.1B in revenue and $7.45B in profits. 75% of Google's revenue comes from advertising.  Advertising was 97% before the acquisition of Motorola -- and Motorola now makes up 19% of Google's revenue.  Google makes all kinds of software (gmail, Google docs...) but most users get those services for free -- and the customers are the companies that pay to place their advertisements where those users can see them.

So customers pay Google for advertising.  Google dominates the search market with 65% of all internet search traffic.

When analyzed from the perspective of the paying customer it is almost hard to believe that these three companies are fierce competitors.  No one buys Microsoft products to be seen with them in the first class lounge at the airport.  Almost no one pays Microsoft for advertising.  Just about everyone pays Microsoft to make their businesses run.

Optimism is good for your health

A friend read me the Optimists Creed this morning and it was a good reminder of how being positive undeniably lowers my stress level.  Lower stress equals better health.  Here it is:

The Optimist Creed

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

It turns out that there is an organization called Optimist International that works to instil the values of optimism in kids through optimists clubs.  Pretty cool.

Washington State Unemployment Insurance Hits 7%

In the period of 2009 to 2013 the Washington State Employment Security Department will have increased our unemployment insurance rate from 3.7% to over 7%.  'Here is our tax rate history displayed on the top of our last statement.

Those of you that have fought this battle know that these insurance rates should reflect our experience rating.  This essentially means that companies that have more people on unemployment pay higher rates.  There are many problems with this system, but here are the two that I think are the biggest.

1. Insurance should spread risk over the pool.  The idea that the State of Washington should make money on each unemployment insurance premium -- is counter to the idea of insurance.  The government regulates the insurance industry to protect consumers from insurance companies that want to make a profit on every policy holder.  The government should apply that measure to itself.
2. The structure of the system raises costs to businesses during an economic recovery.  We do not have access to the data that drives our experience rating.  In fact, we believe that our experience rating has improved at the same time that our rates have doubled.  The more corrosive thing is that if the current system was properly implemented, it would dampen every recovery by increasing tax rates that apply directly to hiring -- right when the economy needs employers to hire the most badly -- during a recovery.  We now have to pay over $2,000 per employee per year to have employees in Washington State.  And that money does not go to employees -- it goes to the Employment Security Department.

Some communities in our state depend very heavily on state assistance to exist and a good deal of that assistance is delivered by the Employment Security Department.  Those communities need jobs.  Unfortunately, the more a community depends on government assistance, the less that community will be able to attract new employers.  The simple reason is that no employer can compete with unemployment benefits that exceed its ability to pay wages.  We have closed facilities in small Washington communities for this very reason.  No rational person would choose to work for a living if the state will pay them more to not work. I am sure I don't have to carry this scenario out to the extreme to make the sustainability point.

Every time we hire for new positions, we advertise in all of our locations and hire the best people we can find.  This dramatic increase in the cost of operating in the State of Washington is going to push us to hire more in other locations.  The net result will be that the cost of unemployment insurance will have to be borne by fewer and fewer employees.  One must wonder where the tipping point is - 10%?  

I hope someone starts working to turn this around.

What is CRN Smoking?

CRN ran a story this morning about how Microsoft is like Philip Morris.  I know that expecting web sites to avoid link bait is like expecting candidates running for the oval office to tell the truth.  Even so, this one is over the top.  There are many companies with comparable growth rates to Microsoft.  Picking the one that sells an addictive product that causes cancer and that spent decades undermining efforts to understand the effects of cigarette smoke -- is poor form.

The article did make one good point though:  when channel partners pick the vendors they partner with, they are making investments.  In fact, they are making very big investments.  

CRN says that channel partners should partner with Apple, Cognizant, Google, Rackspace, and Salesforce.com instead of Microsoft because those companies are growing faster. Really?!?

Let's take this apart company by company:

Apple:  Apple is in fact starting a partner program.  Apple however does not have a single enterprise software app.  It can offer a desktop operating system, and a productivity suite, but Microsoft has hundreds of products -- and most of them solve very real enterprise computing problems.  

Cognizant:  Most people have never heard of this company.  It is in fact a $6 billion dollar company, but it is a consulting and outsourcing firm -- a competitor to most channel partners.  I bet it is a very big Microsoft partner.  So there really is no reason a solution partner would partner with this organization instead of Microsoft.

Google:  Google is kicking everyone's behind in search.  True.  But I can't think of how it would make sense as a channel partner to give up Microsoft's partner program in exchange for Google.  Google offers no side by side go to market capabilities to support partners.  Even if we were to humor CRN and think for 10 more seconds about this one - how can a partner make any money deploying Google Docs?  This is one of those cases where Google takes a dollar someone else is making and turns it into a dime of advertising for itself.  So Google can take revenue away from Microsoft, but it does not have that dollar to share with its channel partners.

Rackspace:  Rackspace is not even a software company.  

Salesforce.com:  Salesforce.com, like Oracle (where Benioff came from) has a nasty habit of eating its own young.  A few companies have made a living working with Salesforce.com, but most get run over by their scorched earth sales team.  And all of that to partner with a company that has one product.  Oh sorry, two products if you count Chatter as a seperate product.

Microsoft has made its way in the world by working side by side with its hundreds of thousands of partners worldwide.  There are some companies that are growing faster, but none that comes anywhere close to supporting a partner ecosystem like Microsoft does.

It is hard to imagine what CRN was smoking when they proposed that Microsoft was like Philip Morris!

Ideas Happen When Execution Works and it is Safe to Fail

Reason #3 (Why our clients choose CSG).  

Ideas are just about everything. I say “just about” because like Maslow’s hierarchy, the basic things need to exist first. So humans need food and security before the other stuff, but life really would suck without the top items (love, esteem, and self actualization). The same goes in marketing. Without the ability to act on marketing ideas -- the ideas are worthless.

Marketing firms are often evaluated on their ability to execute, but that should just be the cost of getting into the dance. Once in, it is all in the ideas.

At CSG we build technology to make the execution so good that we can invest most of our energy in the highest value activities -- generating and testing ideas.

Indeed testing is essential because ideas come in both the good flavor and the bad flavor and all ideas have to be tested. The bad ideas have to be killed off to make room for testing yet more new ideas. Again this relies heavily on ease of execution. The kind of flexibility needed to implement a new idea and then kill it off -- requires amazingly effective execution.

One more thing. Having the strength of execution that enables the rapid change associated with testing ideas also requires a culture that accepts failure. Without it, people naturally hold on too tight to ideas that do not work. Worse yet, when the stakes are high enough (i.e. people with failed ideas get fired) we sometimes see people waste all kinds of resources dressing up bad ideas to make them look good.

So, ideas are everything and they require great execution and a culture that accepts failure.

Romney Says: No Taxes for Me!

I know it is not fair to hold a presidential candidate to what he says in the debates, but it is nice to dream.  Last night Mitt Romney said:

...there’ll be no taxes for anybody making $200,000 per year and less, on your interest, dividends and capital gains.

Awesome! All I have to do is switch my pay to a dividend and presto - no taxes! Anyone like me with a small business will be able to do the same.

Hey, anyone with a spouse could file seperately and get another $200,000 tax free.  Sweet!  $400,000 in income without any taxes at all.

I  am pretty sure our government needs taxes to run.  We can borrow a trillion here  and a trillion there, but somebody has to be paying some taxes eventually.  Also, if we iinvade Iran, someone is going to have to pay the bill for that.  I know they have oil, but using the spoils of war to pay for the war is an idea that hasn't worked for over a hundred years.  

So even though no taxes would be great for me, I am going to vote for Obama.  He has just as much of a challenge with the truth as Romney does, but I think we are less likely to invade Iran with him in office.  Along the way he may even get past these silly antics about most of the nation getting away without paying taxes.

Later:  I did not see any mention in the WSJ or the NYT about this zero tax on dividends issue, but I did find this article on AcccountingToday.com.  Good thing too because I was starting to think I had imagined it.

Atlas Shrugged Part 2

Atlas Shrugged was one of my favorite books in high school and it was fun to think about those days this week as I watched both Part 1 (on Netflix) and Part 2 in the theater.  

No matter your politics, these are good movies worth watching.  The writing and the acting and the production value are all good enough -- and the content is interesting to think about given the choice we have approaching on November 6th.  

I find these movies even more interesting because I am just now in the middle of Ken Follett's newest book Winter of the World -- about the rise of Nazi Germany and WWII.  Patriotism and its extreme cousin nationalism have been used to implement policies that have not just destroyed wealth and prosperity, but millions of souls.  

Even though I do not subscribe to Ayn Rand's philosophy entirely, I do believe that a capable person cannot be compelled to carry the people that are not capable of carrying themselves.  I do believe that at times people with means will choose to help others.  But there is a very wide gulf between choosing to help and being forced to help.  I think this even applies to taxes.  It is much easier to pay taxes when the money is being put to good use.  When it is not, everyone puts the maximum effort into avoiding the payment of taxes.  

Another of my favorite themes is that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  This is plain in the movie as the role of the socialist government expands and the aptly named Wesley Mouch rises to take over everything.  Quite similar to stories of unbridled power of the secret police in many other stories.  I also thought it was interesting to compare to the way conservatives often make the same mistake.  There was a good story in today's NY Times about the potential self destruction of the 1%.

Even though these seem like opposites - the arc of each story is really the same. 

My Voting Checklist

With the election under four weeks away I am still undecided.  Readers of this blog know that I voted for Obama last time, and that I think peace is the most important pursuit.  So here are my three top items and how I think the candidates stack up.

Peace

I think Obama has the lead here.  It seems that most first term presidents are itching to go to war because it help their re-election chances.  Even though it is deplorable to put our citizens in harms way just to improve the president's chances at the polls -- I do think it happens.  The fact that Obama has gotten us out of Iraq and has not invaded anyone else (like Iran) is a check mark in his favor.  Also, following this line of reasoning, he is going to be less likely to start a war in his second term than any first term president.

Special Interests and Deficit Reduction

This is a tie.  And when I say special interests I mostly think of industries getting bail out money, and not so much who is getting payback for campaign contributions.  I have it as a tie because I think Obama has proven incapable of stopping the flow of money from the US Treasury to Goldman Sachs (I think  oldman Sachs is a good label for all things evil on Wall Street even though I do recognize that there are plenty of bad actors in other firms too).  I don't think Romney has any intention of stopping the flow of our money to these bad guys.  So incapable vs. uninterested equals a tie.  This same thinking also applies to deficit reduction.  Obama can't get it done and Romney does not want to.

Managing the Unions

On this one I am undecided.  Of course the Democrats have been in the pocket of the unions for all of my lifetime.  But Obama has done some good stuff to manage their influence.  I am quite involved in education reform and I think the Race to the Top effort was a well crafted plan to reduce the union's efforts to block progress in education reform.  The Republicans have always been in an all out war with the unions.  Sometimes I think that much antagonism is not going to get us to where we want to go.  It could even strenghten the unions. The public union problem is going to be front and center in the next four years as minicipalities try to figure out how to stay solvent in the face of liabilities that have been passed forward for decades.  

It will be very intersting to see how the remaining debates illumnate the candidate's approaches to these three issues.

Licking the Cookie

Fortune Magazine and an unfortunate number of other publications have reported on phenomenon called "Licking the Cookie" at Microsoft.  You know, practice of claiming ownership of a project and therefore preventing anyone else from actually working on it.  Just like when you were a kid and your younger sister licked the last cookie on the plate to keep you from eating it.

The image is hard to get out of my head and now I see the same phenomenon everywhere.  What is it that compels people to get in the way of a problem, just so that one day, if they ever get around to it, they could take a swing at solving it?  Owning unsolved perpetual problems does not seem like the most logical way to advance or otherwise gain job security.

This dynamic does enter the logical universe when the cookie licker also owns whatever would be replaced when the problem is solved.  The guy in charge of a multi-year CRM implementation would most certainly throw sand in the gears of any conversation with Salesforce.com.  Better yet, he could lick the Salesforce.com cookie and make sure its evaluation never ever sees the light of day.

Entrenched interests are doing this everywhere.  Most visible to me is the movie industry trying to prevent a free and open internet and drafting behind them are the television and cable people.  Every once in a while a bright light shines out from one of the big auto makers, but for the most part they are sitting heavily on alternative fuel vehicles.

We are very lucky here in the US because we have a vibrant start up ecosystem that will gladly run around the ends of the big fat cookie lickers.  Not so much in other economies.  So thank you Google for turning the newspaper industry up side down and go Tesla!

Won't Back Down is a Heartbreaker

Yesterday I had the pleasure of watching Won't Back Down, the heartbreaking story of one mother's seemingly impossible quest to get a good education for her daughter.  It is a good movie no matter where you stand on education reform.  The story and the characters are great and even though you kinda know through the whole thing that they are going to win in the end -- it is still riveting.

I say it is a heartbreaker because it exposes how messed up educaiton is in our country.  Here in Seattle, 25% of the students in the Seattle School District attend private schools.  I am guessing everyone knows which end of the economic scale that is.

In our country, 40.2% of students from top quartile income families achieved a Bachelor's Degree by age 24 in 1970.  By 2009 it had improved to 82.4%.  At the same time the bottom income quartile students went from 6.2% to 8.3%.  See www.postsecondary.org for details.

With these numbers staring us in the face, we should get going and do something.  There is no question that there is plenty of blame to go around.  It is a shame that all of the press about the movie tries to expand the Teacher's Union vitriol.  Anyone who has seen the film realizes that the school administration and the principals and many parents are also standing in the path of progress.

I think the main message in the movie is:  our kids are going to jail instead of college while we fight about who is at fault.  Everyone has an opinion about who is at fault, I bet that we could agree however, that it is not the kids fault.

So let's do something.

I happen to think voting for I 1240 in WA State is one of those things.

Technology That Works

Reason #2 (Why our clients choose CSG)

Sometimes the simplest things are very difficult to implement. At CSG, we have been developing technology for 15 years and we use that technology to deliver better results for our clients. From our proprietary phone system, power dialer, voicemail automation, voicemail stitching, email integration, email stitching, cross platform reporting, lead distribution, deal registration and our latest innovation OneVoice, our technology works.

We accomplish all of this while maintaining redundancy and security at the level required by the biggest and most demanding technology clients.

We do mobile and social media too, but often we see the industry using those “hot” technologies as a means to deflect attention from the fundamental plumbing required to make the trains run on time.

We think our success in technology puts us well ahead in the industry. The biggest advantage however is how it enables us to think freely about new ideas. Have you ever been in a meeting where creative ideas die because the tech people say it cannot be done?

Here is Reason #1:  We Get Results

Knowledge IS Power, Vote Yes on I 1240

Here in Washington State we have the unique opportunity to vote for charter schools (I-1240) on November 6th.  Those of us that think education reform is needed, see this as a once in a decade opportunity to improve the education options available to the students that need it the most -- the ones on the less advantaged side of the education divide.

Here are the main data points:

1. Charter schools are public schools open to everyone -- if more people apply than can be accommodated, students are picked by lottery.  In the 41 states that already have charter schools there are 600,000 students on waiting lists and 2 million students enrolled.
2. Charter schools are funded just like public schools (by the student enrolled) -- so this initiative will not increase the cost of education in Washington State.
3. Charter schools have the same academic requirements as public schools -- but have the ability to have longer school days, different curriculum, and make other decisions associated with the operations of their schools.  The teachers also must be certified -- just like in public schools.
4. Charter schools in other states deliver very good results -- opponents often state that charter schools fail too.  Any time there are thousands of organizations -- some will perform poorly.  But since charter schools have to attract students (customers) and cannot compel them to attend (like regular public schools) --so failing charter schools do close down -- and that is a good thing.  Also, it is important to note that most charter schools serve low income students.  If even if charter schools only deliver results equal to all public schools, but are serving the disadvantaged students, it is a dramatic improvement.  If you divide all students by economic background into four groups, the lowest group graduates 6% from high school, and the top group graduates 89%. (see correction below)
5. Charter schools are not run for profit or by religeous organizations -- only qualified not for profit, non religeous organizations can run charter schools.  In some cases, existing public schools can become charter schools

So, please join me in voting for Initiative 1240 on November 6.

If you want to read more, here is a great site:  YesOn1240

Also, here is a site that covers the charter school movement nationally: Charter School Resource Center

And here is the site of KIPP schools, an amazing example of what we could have.

Here is my review of Work Hard, Be Nice, the book about the founding of KIPP.  If you are tired of being depressed about the quality of education in Washington State -- you should really read this book.

LATER:  Correction.  I did a bit more research on these numbers.  Turns out they are about Bachelor's Degree attainment by age 24.  Either way, the education divide is getting worse -- much worse.  Here is a link to the study.

Have a Good Time

In 1975 Paul Simon released the song "Have A Good Time" on the Still Crazy After All These Years album.  For the last six months or so I find myself singing this tune in my head surprisingly often -- definitely more than any other song.  Not sure what that means, but upon closer examination I particularly like the theme presented in the song that my happiness is my own responsibly, and not to believe everything you read in the paper ("they are just out to capture my dime").

I don't always think about that last verse, but is is quite good too.  I wonder what Paul Simon thinks about those words now, as we are all having a good time and thinking that we are entitled to our standard of living here in the USA.  

Have A Good Time

Yesterday, it was my birthday
I hung one more year on the line
I should be depressed
My life’s a mess
But I’m having a good time

I’ve been loving and loving
And loving
I’m exhausted from loving so well
I should go to bed
But a voice in my head
Says “Ah, What the hell”

Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland
But I think it’s all overdone
Exaggerating this, exaggerating that
They don’t have no fun

I don’t believe what I read in the papers
They’re just out to capture my dime
I ain’t worrying
And I ain’t scurrying
I’m having a good time

Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

Maybe I’m laughing my way to disaster
Maybe my race has been run
Maybe I’m blind
To the fate of mankind
But what can be done?

So God bless the goods we was given
And God bless the U. S. of A.
And God bless the standard of livin’
Let’s keep it that way
And we’ll all have a good time

Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time
Have a good time

© 1975 Words and Music by Paul Simon

Here is a link to Paul Simon's web site.

Get Results by Adjusting and Learning and Never Giving Up

This is the first in a series of posts resulting from work we have been doing at CSG to better understand why our clients value our services.  Sure it sounds like self promotion -- it is!  Either way, we have found this bit of introspection quite interesting and we hope you do too.

---

Reason #1:  We Get Results

We work side by side with our clients to design marketing campaigns that work and then put our money on the line when we carry them out.  Sure, everyone says that – but we are different in three distinct ways:

We Adjust, Adjust, and Adjust Some More

Sales and marketing are inexact sciences and particularly in the technology industry exist in an ever changing environment.   Only rarely do things go according to the plan.  We measure everything and adjust – sometimes every day.  We have 15 years of campaigns to benchmark against – so we know before anyone else if things are in need of adjustments. 

Even the campaign that worked beautifully last quarter may not work this quarter.  We go in with our eyes open and stay flexible.

The next time you hear: “We executed perfectly, but the plan was never going to work.”  I suggest you look at what adjustments were made.

We Listen and Learn

Customers and partners often give the feedback we need to deliver results.  It is critical to listen to them and learn faster than anyone else. 

We Never Give Up

Marketing budgets are not bottomless and we are always thinking of the burn rate as it compares to measurable results.  In this environment it is easier to think of the campaigns to cut than the new campaigns to try.  No one ever increased sales by reducing sales and marketing investment however.  We keep trying and of course – never give up!

So if you are looking for an experienced partner to help you achieve increased revenues through your channel partner programs – switch to CSG.

Amazon Could Crush Apple in Maps, and Maybe Google Too

The biz is all cranked up over the Apple vs Google Maps thing that came from the latest release of Apple's mobile operating system, IOS 6.  See this article in the NY Times.

In the background however, Amazon has been building its own maps capability.  In July of this year Amazon bought mapping company UpNext and I think Amazon could come from behind to leapfrog Apple and maybe even catch up to Google.

Impossible?  After all, the reason that Apple has rushed its mapping solution to market before it is ready is because Apple needs user data to improve the service.  

Amazon just happens to have a close relationship, a codependent relationship some would say, with delivery companyies like UPS and FedEx.  UPS has 250,000 drivers!  It would not surprise me if there are 500,000 drivers worldwide driving all day, every day, delivering stuff -- much of which is from Amazon.  This year Google announced it has driven 5 million miles collecting mapping data.    If Amazon got its 500,000 drivers to collect map data -- that would be only 10 miles for each driver.  It would take more time to install the collection equipment than it would to surpass all of Google's collections efforts so far.  Call it a week to install the stuff and by the end of the first day, Amazon would have 10x the data that Google has collected.  

Not only that, but professional drivers in every market in the whole world could return much higher quality data than users could.

Could be cool.

Apple is Just Another Tech Company

This year for my birthday I bought myself a MacBook Air (11 in).  It is a cool machine, but the best thing I got out of it was an increased appreciation for the quality of Microsoft's Windows operating system.  Two months later and I find myself reaching for my old Win 7 machine most of the time.  

I suppose I like the Mac best when I am not using it.  It is beautiful, light, and technically, its best feature is the speed at which it stops and starts.  When I am done, I just close it.  When I want to use it -- I just open it.  My Windows machines have never been able to do that.  If I close my Windows machine without completely shutting down, it fights with itself while in my briefcase until it runs out of battery.  Then when I go to open it -- no juice left.  Not only that, but then I boot to the black screen that asks if I want to repair my machine.  Anyone who has ever gotten sucked into that option knows it is like heading out on a trip from Seattle to New York and deciding to stop by Moscow on the way.  Definately not the fastest route to productivily using the machine.

One of the new features on the Mac that I was looking forward to was the thunderbolt to HDMI connection for an external monitor.  It works, but in typical Apple style, they have decided a few too many things for me.  For instance, if I expand an app to full screen on the external monitor, it banks out the laptop monitor.  What on earth are they thinking?  In fact, I have yet to find an app that expands to full screen in the way that I would want.  Pages just blacks out the left and right of the screen and the doc is small in the middle.  Crazy!

The final blow is the speed of Chrome.  Google's Chrome browser screams on my windows machine but crawls on the Mac.  It is so slow that I have to think that Apple is somehow throwing sand in its gears -- just to get back at the competition.  I do find myself using Safari more often as a result, but it is the biggest reason I don't reach for the machine at all.

Most people are not crazy enough to use two or three machines at a time - so I suspect that my side by side comparison is not typical.  Even novices will notice how slow Chrome runs though.

So I have concluded that Apple, like all of the other tech companies, is using its moment in the sun to cast the biggest possible shadow on its competitors.  Could it be that they realize that they do not have the vison that Steve brought to the company and they have decided to hang on as tight as possible to the lead they have?  Boy would that be sad.

After all of this, Time Magazine will probably name Apple the "person" of the year -- which will further seal its fate.

My Biggest Summer Vacation Cost Was Bandwidth

We have an old tug boat and every year we take it to Canada for vacation.  We go to a somewhat remote area where there are not many opportunities to spend money.  So we bring fuel, food, and most of the other items we need with us.

Despite this, we do find ways to spend money at a small local grocery store.  We buy fresh produce, fishing licenses, bait, and hamburgers at the hamburger stand.  In the three weeks of our trip this year, we spent up to a few hundred dollars on each of these categories.

None of them compare to our spending on bandwidth however.  While in Canada we roam onto the Rogers network and our international data plan from Verizon delivers data bandwidth at a price of $25 for each 100 MB.  A movie download from iTunes is usually about 1.7 GB -- so at Verizon's price it would cost $425 -- so movies are not on the approved list!  Audiobooks are about 300 MB or $75 -- so no audiobooks either.  A song on iTunes is 10 MB -- so if you buy a song you pay iTunes $.99 and Rogers/Verizon $2.50.

I am sure many of you think this is a one off thing, but I bet many people found themselves in my position this summer.  The MiFi is awesome, but it you take it to a foreign country - watch out!  Now that we just expect to have data access all of the time we have forgotten that bandwidth costs money.  All it takes is one of these experiences and you start to think about how much bandwidth metering by the mobile carriers could dampen eCommerce.  

In the end we paid $1,150 for bandwidth over 3 weeks, or about $55 per day.  Some of this came from one computer that had automatic updates turned on and downloaded 500 MB of windows updates before I turned it off.  Yow!  Windows update cost me $125!  

Make It Foundational

This is the final post in a series that started with Big Pain Equals Big Gain that outlined how HP (and surely other companies) is in the position to capitalize on the changes it is going through, and that the technology industry is facing.  Since then we have outlined how to Make it Unbelievably Easy, setting a New Transparency Standard, and putting HP at the Center of the Ecosystem, will contribute to a new competitive advantage for HP.  In this post we address how all of this effort can Be Foundational.  Change is hard work and we want this change to stick.  Here are four cornerstone elements of a plan to do just that:

Remember

In this the age of big data, we have the ability to capture and keep every interaction and every transaction with every partner.  This information can be used in the aggregate to inform decisions about policy -- but that is just the start.  Pattern matching and other analysis techniques can help identify the power partners of the future.  From the partner’s perspective, a large company that speaks in one voice is not only a pleasant surprise, but the obvious choice for the next transaction.  So the cornerstone of the foundation is to capture and retain all information about a partner.

Share

Jeff Bezos challenged everyone in Amazon.com to expose their internal services as APIs to the rest of the company, and be prepared to do so to the outside world too.  This mandate changed the culture at Amazon.com and the same can be said for any other company.  Building on the first cornerstone of capturing and retaining all information, a functional API will ensure that the data gets used.  Data that gets used - lives.  So the second cornerstone is to share with defined APIs.

Relate

The value of information is dramatically enhanced when related to other information.  Viewing sales volume in the context of a promotion deadline is much more valuable than the sum of the sales transactions.  The relationship between captured data is almost as valuable as the underlying data.

Federate

No one can own all of the data.  The desire to build a system that displaces other systems is incredible and has driven the launch of many all encompassing systems.  The fourth cornerstone goes the other direction and federates data management -- therefore contributing to the health and success of many systems. 

The beauty of this approach is that it can just be started one day.  It does not require an outsized investment before any of the benefits can be realized.  By adopting these cornerstones, a partner program can be completely re-imagined -- while underway -- and the benefits expand each day moving forward.

Speaker Summary: John Henry Brown

Defense attorney John Henry Brown spoke at Emerald City Rotary today.  He did a great job of compressing an incredible career into 25 minutes.  Ranging from his decision (while in jail) to become an attorney, to defending Ted Bundy at the age of 29, to his current project representing Sgt. Bales, he certainly has a great many stories to tell.

It is no wonder that he finds himself in the media as often as he does because he talks in easy to remember quotes that have a lasting resonance.  Anyone interesting in cultivating a public image should take note of that tactic. Accordingly, I think the best way to relate the content of his presentation is in those quotes:

• What I do is service work. (Rotary International reference)
• The only reason to be a lawyer is to help people.
• People come together when they need to come together. (9/11 reference)
• Ted Bundy had no concept that we are all connected. (Like all sociopaths)
• My father says we need people that stand between people and power.
• I think everyone should get locked up for no reason. (As a lesson in the value of our constitution)
• A liberal is a police officer that has been charged with a crime.
• I was infused by my father with the concept that you should always give more than you take.

Speaking of quotes, John Henry Brown then relayed his favorite quote that he attributed to Thomas Jefferson:  “Once you give up some freedom for more security...soon you will have neither.”  I tried to fact check that one and the closest I could get was this quote:

"Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security." which I believe is attributed to Benjamin Franklin.  Good point either way.

Here is more on John Henry Brown in a recent article by Seattle Met magazine.