brent phillips

A great demo showing an OpenXML file on Apple’s iPhone. If you are not familiar, Open XML is the new default file format for Microsoft Office and also an international standard (see the ECMA website here). There are translators available for the open document format and additional support through a number of projects on Sourceforge.

If you’re on facebook, check out the OpenXML community here (complete with graphic novell). And of course there is more on youtube here.
Also see: http://www.openxmlcommunity.org and http://openxmldeveloper.org for more info.

In addition to seeing  the Pats go ‘all the way’ this year, I had another dream about enjoying some really innovative and creative commercials. Sadly, neither happened.  To summarize, I was genuinely bothered by a lack of context, cliché concepts (talking babies? talking animals? “Thriller” - really?), and the general lack of taste with the hope of being briefly memorable. Humor is great and I certainly think some ‘edge’ is good because it does get attention. But edge and humor at the expense of dialing up brand or product value is careless to me. Especially at $3MM a pop.  Why? As I think through the amount of noise we have in our daily lives - radio, print, television, the web, mobile devices, work - advertisements should be a lot more clear and direct with the customer. What do you want me to know about your product? Why should I care? And don’t make me think too hard to connect any dots you throw at me. As a ‘for instance’ I still have the image of a pasty, white guy with jumper cables on his nipples burned into my brain. The problem? I don’t have a clue about the brand he so gracefully represented. Don’t distract me to gain my favor.

I brought this up yesterday to some very capable creative folks who reminded me that there is a lot more at stake for these advertisers than simply connecting with their audience during the game. Certainly, the ‘best’ commercials will generate a ton of buzz - furthering awareness. They also reminded me that ads need to be seen several times before consumers retain the message. All fair, I suppose. But at the end of the day, nothing engaged me - and I don’t expect that they will if I see them again. And aside from Will Farrell’s ‘bud lite, suck one’ comment, I’m in the dark about who had ads and which ads went with which brands. Maybe I’m the anomaly?

However, coincidentally, I caught Peter Kim’s blog tonight - he’s in marketing/advertising research - and he nailed this issue quite well. Its worth a read if you have a few minutes - he’s more of an authority on these things than I am.  

So…anyone care to share their favorite ad?  Can you remember one? Where are my jumper cables…

Prior to the holidays, Guy gave a presentation on innovation at the one year anniversary event for Microsoft and Novell. Shortly after, he was gracious enough to answer a few questions for me about innovation, technology, and his personal life. If you’re not familiar with Guy, I would start here http://www.guykawasaki.com.

Guy, thanks again for your time today. To start, can you walk me through how you came up with the principles in the Art of Innovation?

Guy: The truth is that most principles in business books are not new. It’s just that some authors package them better. I learned about half of what’s in The Art of Innovation in the Macintosh Division back in the 80s, and I stole the rest from other books about innovation. Packaging isn’t the only important skill—knowing what to steal is too.

It is a fantastic framework.   Are you getting any feedback from companies or entrepreneurs who have applied your principles with success?

Guy: I get emails everyday from people who have utilized the principles. Like I said, you need to know what to steal. What I find most gratifying is when not-for-profits are able to apply these principles.

And how about at Garage, are you seeing a general improvement in pitches - given your 10/20/30 principle? Someone who came in and wowed your team with a perfect pitch?

Guy: Sadly, I don’t think pitches are getting much better. The most disappointing ones start off with, “I’ve read your book, Guy, so I have a great pitch,” and then the entrepreneur has sixty slides, takes one hour, and uses the ten-point font. Honestly, there’s no such thing as a perfect pitch—there’s only pitches that get funded and that don’t. What’s more important than even the pitch is the demo. It’s easy to fix a pitch. It’s hard to fix a product that sucks.

What are some areas of innovation that have gotten your attention recently – anything curb-jumping, paradigm-shifting, or patent–pending?

Guy: I focus on stuff that I would use immediately: tools for bloggers, writers, speakers, marketers, and consumer-ish uses of the web. My partners are the more long-term, out there visionary types.  I like what Spokeo is doing for tracking friends; Visible Measures for monitoring video watching; and Mspoke for RSS feeds. It would be nice if someone took care of my Christmas wishlist too.

Following that theme, are patents (or pending) playing a large role in start-up activity these days?  If not, what is? What else?

Guy: I don’t care about patents—maybe I should care more. But I’ve never seen a case where a startup has the time or money to litigate a patent. Either the dogs eat the food or they don’t—and dogs don’t care if the food is patented. I grant you that patents can make a company more valuable to a large acquirer, but not as much as a ton of customers. So in my mind, one of the major benefits of getting a patent is impressing your parents.

In addition to funding start-ups, you are a founder of NoNoNina, Inc.  who, in turn, launched truemors.com.  How did your principles of innovation apply to truemors?  How is the site doing these days?

Guy: Truemors is a labor of love for me: I get to work with two very close friends, Will Mayall and Kathryn Henkens. I get to play editor-in-chief of a news site. I get to recruit reporters aka “truemorists.” The site gets about 8,000-10,000 visitors a day, so it’s not exactly a business yet. I hope I get to cash big checks from advertisers someday.

On the website, you mention democratization and demonstration as two of its goals. These, plus advertising, seem to be a common strategy for social networking sites.  What else makes for a successful social site? How is truemors.com  standing out /differentiating itself from sites like Digg or Fark?

Guy: Truemors is not a social networking site. People don’t go there to find hot (or not) dates or to express their inner child. It’s closer to a news site. Our goal is to be “NPR for your eyes”–as opposed to your ears. How are we different from Digg or Fark? For one thing, we get a whole lot less traffic. Fark is primarly links to humorous stories. Digg is primarily summaries of technical stories submitted by anyone and then popularized by an elite few. Truemors is interesting stories submitted by an elite few and read by anyone intellectually curious.
 
Web 2.0 describes the Internet as a participatory environment. What’s next – what will Web 3.0 look like?

Guy: These terms are bull shiitake. Their primary use is for names of conferences. Either people use your site and software or they don’t. Nobody goes out looking for a “Web 2.0” or “Web 3.0” site.
 

(Guy offered this one up) When you die, what do you want to be remembered for?

Guy: Three things: first, being a good husband and father; second, empowering people to change the world through my books, blogs, and speeches; and third, for my wrist shot.

Last, I hear that you play hockey.  Ever land a hat trick? How often do you get to play?

Guy: I have had a few hat tricks, but they were long ago. This is because I’m playing against better people, and I’m getting slower. I play about five times a week. If I’m in town, I’m playing hockey. This is why I never have lunch meetings or conference calls.

Always a pleasure Guy - Thanks again for your time!

I found a great pair of articles over at Ars Technica today that looked at fitness benefits of video games. It never crossed my mind before - I enjoy going to a gym - but there is a healthy industry around fitness programs for gaming consoles - moving beyond video tapes to a more interactive and engaging scenario? I don’t think its ‘for me’ but it certainly offers an alternative, like the videos,  for folks who don’t care for formal training or who prefer to exercise in private. Ars’ gaming editor, Ben Kuchera, in fact, took a few programs to task last January to shed around 20 lbs. Not a bad improvement for someone who professes to loath exercise.

The recent article, posted today, takes a bit of a different spin. Apparently UK researchers took a look at the Wii console to see if its interactive games offered any physical benefit to its players. The results were pretty much what I expected - no significant benefit.

The study concludes that the physical activity “was not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children… In a typical week, active gaming rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2 percent.”

Bad news for the Wii maybe, but other game makers may have better success. During a recent Christmas excursion with the family, my boys tried out the Fisher Price Smart Cycle Physical Learning Arcade System - ok the name is terrible - but they seemed to really enjoy it.  Granted, It is for younger children (3-6, versus teens) and connects to a television. As the kids ride, they can interact with a number of different games (loaded by cartridge) to keep them engaged / entertained. We didn’t end up getting one - the kids are very active already - but it was definitely difficult to pull them away from it at the store. I guess its another way that parents can encourage their children to be a bit more active.

As a weight loss mechanism, I have my doubts.  Will be interested to see if any studies turn up about it (or similar products).

If you’re like me, you already have some sort of MP3 and manage a significant number of songs, videos, pictures, etc through a utility on a PC. In my case, its about 10 videos, 50 or so podcasts, and about 2300 songs. I must admit, coming up with interesting playlists is getting more and more difficult because I find that I forget what I have and gravitate to the songs I know and like. Now - alas - I’m getting sick of my favorites. What next?

Walter Mossberg reviewed the Slacker yesterday which may be my answer. Building on the success of slacker.com, an online radio site, the Slacker is a device that plays sets of songs based on criteria you set and streams them to the device via wireless hot-spots.  According to Mossberg’s report:

The player is tied to Slacker’s free Internet radio service, slacker.com, which is already up and running, and allows you to listen to music via any standard Windows or Mac Web browser. Using the service, you can personalize your player by selecting from over 100 canned stations or by creating stations based around any of 10,000 artists.

In addition to some buggy behavior noted by Mossberg of a couple of prototype units he tested, he also offered the following…

Because Slacker is based on Internet radio, it has some limitations imposed by the rules governing that format. For example, you can’t specify a particular song to play, or skip back to repeat a song. And you can skip ahead only six times per station per hour. Even if you create a station around a particular artist, the station will mainly be filled with artists the service considers similar. Songs by the artist you selected will be played only four times every three hours. The player has a “heart button” for designating a song for frequent play and a “ban” button to eliminate the songs you hate.

The devices will run between $200-$300 dollars but the music streams will be free. This is in contrast to the XM and Rhapsody strategy of subscription services for their music.

Wonder if the Zune or iPod folks are thinking about this…Combining a best of breed device / service combo with a capability of picking up this service as well. Perhaps their own song lists or stations? It would certainly save me a lot of time and frustration…

I’m at Hartsfield this morning waiting to head to NY for the week. I was feeling a bit parched so I stopped next door at the Burger King to grab a beverage.  My expectation of these fast food places is not very high - so I was pleasantly surprised by the new order process - computer based and largely automated. To get my drink, I simply walked through the ‘cattle’ ropes and used an ATM like machine that not only took my order, but also suggested I grab a dessert!?!?! (cannot forget the upsell). I payed with one swipe of a card and my reciept printed in almost real-time. And by the time I walked about four feet, my cup was waiting for me. Completely automated and completely self-serve.  I also noticed that the labor had been realigned. There was one attendant to help people order, only one traditional cashier / food runner, and more people on the supply side in the back. I’m guessing this is probably about the same number (or slightly fewer) that the typical storefront but optimized for significantly better service. Granted, there was less traffic this morning, but I imagine that they have a lot more room and flexibility to deal with volume now that the the production line has been stream-lined.

As technology evolves, I see greater efficiency on the horizon. I’ve often imagined being able to ‘quick key’ my favorite coffee beverage into my phone and dial it in while I’m driving to the café.  My phone could be tied to a digital account that I could manage online - whether I order through my device or at the store, I could debit the account via PIN or via an RF mechanism in the device. 

It is certainly interesting what we are beginning to automate and how that automation impacts our lives. Best experience I’ve had at a fast food establishment in a long time.

FastCompany.com posted fascinating article yesterday on the emerging science of neuromarketing.  The gist? Brain scanning gives us much greater insight into the decision making process around why we choose the products we choose. Bottom line? A subconscious,  self-serving motivation based on a weighing of risk-reward and self-importance (there are also drivers for why we think products are not cool).  In short – nothing shocking - we make product decisions in an intuitive and emotional way.  But much more so that we originally thought. 

 Granted,  marketing has made this assumption (think retail-tainment and experience design), but now , or over the next few years, the idea is to have a much more precise way to measure its effectiveness. Makes me wonder what the focus groups will look like J.

I recently signed up at stumbleupon.com and one of my first ’stumbles’ was physorg.com - a collection of science articles ranging from nanotechnology to health and medicine. In the mix was a great story on human computer interaction (HCI), based on a recent announcement by Massey University in New Zealand. The university has developed a computer-based instructor, Virtual Eve, who not only teaches course material (in math specifically, to eight year olds) but can also change its tone and manner based on the reaction of the viewer. Massey researchers suggest that, “With rising demand for long-distance learning and online tutoring, a computer programe capable of detecting human emotions may become a critical teaching tool.”

On how it works and how they do it:

“Linked to a child via computer, the animated character or virtual tutor can tell if the child is frustrated, angry or confused by the on-screen teaching session and can adapt the tutoring session appropriately.

The animated Eve (with a human-sounding voice) can ask questions, give feedback, discuss questions and solutions and show emotion. To develop the software for this system the Massey team observed children and their interactions with teachers and captured them on thousands of images.

From these images of facial expression, gestures and body movements they developed programs that would capture and recognise facial expression, body movement, and (via a mouse) heart rate and skin resistance. “

To see Eve in action, Massey offers a quicktime video here. To read Massey’s article, click here.

This reminds me a bit of the old netzero play. Free internet as long as you were willing to take on a few pop-up ads from sponsors. Hopefully they’ve worked out the kinks. Blyk in their own words  “is the new mobile network for 16 – 24s that’s funded by advertising. Blyk links young people with brands they like and gives them free texts and minutes every month.” Not a bad value proposition for young people who have limited resources (but otherwise what seems like an endless supply of disposable income, right parents?). Free minutes and free texting for opting-in to a social network with sponsors. The Blyk team goes on to explain that they “have developed [their] offer by finding out what [their] members consider most valuable – this will evolve over time as their needs do. ” In other words, Blyk controls the channel and the sponsorship will evolve based on market trends and consumer demand.  The constant becomes the social forum in which consumers and sponsors meet. Not unlike a shopping mall perhaps?

This should be very interesting to watch. Blyk expects to launch a pan-european program in 2008 targeting an estimated 40MM subscribers (they launched UK today). So, there are certainly a number of mobile operators in Europe who will be keeping an eye on this (and I need to find out whose network they’re riding on). I  actually posted this morning on challenges that mobile operators face today with ‘walled garden’ services. Perhaps this model is a game changer for communication service providers across the board?  Time will tell.

Consumers in this age range are very particular. The novelty might grab their attention, but the service will need to be exceptional and the sponsors will need to be cautious. If users think they are talking through an ‘ad phone’ of sorts, I think it will crash and burn - even if it is free.  Avoiding hassle is one reason why we pay a premium for things sometimes, right?  Blyk is headed by Pekka Ala-Pietilä, former president of Nokia and 28 other industry veterans.  I’m guessing that they’ve thought through these issues but I’ve been surprised before. UK launched today, so we’ll start seeing take rates, and more importantly retention rates, in the next few weeks and months.  

I came across a post today on Sam Larbi’s blog entitled Save your job: understand the basics of business. Its a short post that gets to the heart of something that I have been thinking about for quite some time: how should engineers think about their role relative to the strategic direction of their organization? In Sam’s post he shares some insight from a fellow who had been replaced by an outsource firm. In part he writes “Looking back on it, I realize how foolish we were. We worked for a business and our job was to contribute to either making or saving money for that business. Yet we didn’t understand the basics of how the business came to profitability…” This is an interesting point that I took, not long ago, to a couple of acquaintances who teach computer science. My questions to them were along the following lines:

Do students think about the business side of the work they are training to do? Do they think about the strategic value they bring to an organization? Do they think about entrepreneurship? Do they think about intellectual property and how they might innovate to build a business? I also asked if students had an opportunity to take classes on such subjects.

The answer to the latter was yes. Students could certainly take business courses as electives in their curriculum. Most did not however.  In terms of the other questions, the answers were basically ‘no’ across the board. According to my conversation,  students learn a trade (coding) and most expect to land an hourly position somewhere, then expect to apprentice with a more senior developer to learn the complexities of a particular sofware product. This is certainly not a bad approach and many do quite well following this model. I cannot help but think, however, that a few minor changes to the core curriculum of a computer science program would add significant value to the skillset of a newly minted engineer. Specifically, I think a course on business strategy would be a great start and possibly a course on innovation and intellectual property. Perhaps a survey course could be created to address the gamut. The material doesn’t have to go too deep, but just deep enough to give students insight into the environment they will most likely be working.  The easiest way to address this in fact, might be some cross-pollination programs among various schools at a university. GSU offers an intellectual property survey course to its business students for example, so it would be easy enough to make something similar available for the CS students. 

Taking it one step further - consider an entrepreneurial capstone program for MBA’s, JD’s, and MSCS students that included the identification of a market oppportunity, building prototype software, and developing a business plan to take it to market. Maybe along the way you secure a trademark or file a patent or two. Not a bad way to round out a college degree. Maybe they even launch a business.

I’m sure there are schools doing this today, but my guess is that they are a minority. If you read this and know of an interesting program, let me know.