01.29.10
Posted in Home at 12:18 pm by JohnB
I was hooked. All day Wednesday I was looking forward to Steve Jobs speech and the announcement of the Apple Tablet device – that which we now know as the iPad.
The secret was poorly kept, key figures had dropped hints and clangers and at least one NDA seemed to have expired 12 hours too soon, but nonetheless the anticipation for the formal unveiling was significant. I’m a reader, I like to read and my library will testify to this. Not only do I consume new books at a significant rate, I’m also happy to re-read books often a number of times. I’ve also out in quite a few air and hotel hours over the years and I do enjoy killing time with a good book. For this reason I’ve been hanging my nose over e-Book readers for the last few months looking for ‘the one’ which would satisfy my need for ease of use, portability, battery life and library access. The number of books being ‘e’-d is on a significant upward curve and this was pushing me more and more towards an electronic rather than paper buying habit – much the same way that I now purchase pretty much all of my music on-line (good by DRM and good riddance!).
The problem I had was that all of the e-readers I picked up and tried left me feeling decidedly bleh. They were, it felt, a bit… backward, a bit simple and just a bit one-dimensional. Certainly not something I could justify £200 and upwards upon.
I love my Macbook. It’s just a simple Black one, nothing ‘Pro’ here, but it’s in almost constant use, even at home where I’ve got the big machines, and I have used it to read stuff on too, but the problem is that it’s the wrong shape. Wide-screen is great for movies and I love having desktop acreage to spread out upon but it’s 90 degrees out from what I want when I’m reading – web-sites are bad enough but at least these are, mostly, formatted for the standard screen. And then there’s that big bit sticking out the front… the keyboard. Great when I’m typing (some would say essential) but decidedly in-the-way when all I want to do is read. Plus I need to put in on something, it’s not a hold-in-your-hand device. The MacBook is not an e-book reader.
The iPad though, certainly looks like it could be. iBookstore fills me with a warmth of anticipation which (I know inside) is going to be tempered, at least initially, because my favourite SciFi authors won’t be available. The reader application looks like it’s going to deliver the ease of access and flexibility that I’ve been looking for too. So far – tick!
Now then, let’s look further ahead. The Times application they showed was lovely. Seriously, newspapers online should be multi-dimensional and this one is a massive step in that direction. I don’t read a daily paper in print, but I consume a huge amount of information from “Teh Internetz” – SIDEWAYS STEP! do you remember Ananova? This little darling was touted as the rebirth of news consumption, aggregation of the stories YOU wanted and delivery to you personally. It fell far short of this, but I’d probably put a few pennies a day into a service which delivered this to me in a digestible and multi-dimensional format ir not just text.
Anyway, the morning news is something which people ‘do’. My partner Sarah drags over the MacBook in the morning and scans three or four websites every day. Scrolling up and down, up and down because the laptop is the wrong shape for this kind of information. The iPad would certainly make this exercise easier. Once again, for making life easier – Tick!
But here’s where I start drifting off. Remember the iPhone initial release? Remember the depression that set in after the hype blew over? Remember how everyone said it was a mistake for Apple to get into a market which Nokia, RIM and Microsoft were tearing up? Remember how utterly, utterly wrong everyone was!
My problem is that I can only ‘feel’ the use I’d get out of the iPad, I can’t describe it in any way which would justify the £4-500 it’ll cost me.
My email I can happily do on the lapdog, as can my notes, scribbles and musings which get turned into various documents and psts along the way. My music lives on my iPod and will continue to do so. Movies are a significant variable, I still love DVDs and will more that likely switch, formally, over to BluRay in the near future. Or will I? Am I destined to ‘go digital’ in this area too? Anyway, the point is that this is not currently a consideration for me.
I want an iPad, believe me! I want the beautiful technology, the ergonomic lines and the overall sleekness and beauty of the idea. I’m a geek and happy to be one (although in more formal circles I use the term Technologist!). And PLEASE, this is not a “Well PC tablets have been around for ages – the new <ASUS, HP, Acer, blah> one will do all of that too” argument. Yes they may, I’m sure.
This is about my gut feeling, and that says “you’d like using this”. I’m having trouble finding a reason to disagree.
It does look good though...
Permalink
01.20.10
Posted in Work at 10:30 am by JohnB
I got this through on am email today and, although I don’t usually share stuff that comes through that medium, this kinda worked for me…
No one can make you serve customers well…. that’s because great service is a choice.
Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.
He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine.. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey .
He handed my friend a laminated card and said: ‘I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’
Taken aback, Harvey read the card.. It said: Wally’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment….
This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.’ My friend said jokingly, ‘No, I’d prefer a soft drink.’ Wally smiled and said, ‘No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice..’ Almost stuttering, Harvey said, ‘I’ll take a Diet Coke.’
Handing him his drink, Wally said, ‘If you’d like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today..’
As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card, ‘These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.’
And as if that weren’t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts…
‘Tell me, Wally,’ my amazed friend asked the driver, ‘have you always served customers like this?’
Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. ‘No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.
He had just written a book called You’ll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself.. He said, ‘Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.’
‘That hit me right between the eyes,’ said Wally. ‘Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers.. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.’
‘I take it that has paid off for you,’ Harvey said.
‘It sure has,’ Wally replied. ‘My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.’
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.
Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
How about us? Smile, and the whole world smiles with you…. The ball is in our hands!
A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up… let us do good to all people.
Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar.
Permalink
01.13.10
Posted in Work at 12:52 pm by JohnB
Most, if not all, organisations have in some form an “Internet Policy” which would typically describe what is acceptable to do with your browser during office hours. I’ve seen these range from ‘anything as long as it’s legal and you don’t waste time’ to ‘these 3 sites for these 5 people ONLY’.
And this is fine if you expect people to leave their brains at the door on the way out of the building and their mobile devices at the door on their way in. The problem is that neither of these are practical in the world today (OK certain security-sensitive organisations do actually require that you NOT bring mobile devices into the building but they kind of fall outside of my scope of general business here). So even if the strict policies of the organisation are enforced at the desktop, folks are still able to access Facebook, twitter, blog-spaces and the like from their “mobile phones”. I’m quoting here because as time passes these devices have become so much more than phones and the name increasing doesn’t fit. These are the the small screens which make up the screen triumvirate of most of our lives; small screens = mobile devices, mid-screens = desktop systems (PCs, Macs etc) and large screens being our TVs which are also becoming a source of rich media and not just TV broadcast.
But I digress, the point here is that very few organisations have put in place policies and guidelines to help the individual employees understand what they should and should not share outside of the company, how they communicate what they are doing and who that communication is available too. An example of this would be the Facebook invitation to ‘Friends’ to attend a party. The intent was honest but the method and audience hadn’t been properly considered, the result was several hundred people turning up and a seriously wrecked house. Translate that into Business terms and you get my point.
I’m not any sort of advocate of nannying at all, and I believe that in the majority of cases common sense prevails and individuals are reasonable sensible. HOWEVER, we live in a statistical universe and given enough people, someone will do something stupid and potentially damaging unless strongly advised otherwise, simply out of ignorance or lack of thought.
So policies ARE necessary to help to mitigate these statistical certainties and to enable businesses to protect themselves. As an employer, ask yourself these simple questions:
- If someone blogged about their working day, could they unintentionally reveal sensitive information?
- Could someone updating their Facebook status as “This place sucks, no-one EVER listens!” reflect poorly on you as an employer?
- Could a Twitter update of “Another meeting, I wonder what bad news is coming now?!” impact your business confidence?
While it’s true that the comments of one person may not even register, it’s also true that it only takes one person to start a rumor.
Being able to identify and address ANY sort of communications channel and how it could be used or mis-used is vital. Those forward thinking businesses have adopted social media as a marketing medium and done so with great success, so it MUST hold true that bad news has the same, if not greater, impact.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
