Being Glomoloso

"Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication."

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:16:54 -0400

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.”

- Leonardo da Vinci

"Chance favors the connected mind"

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 12:57:18 -0400

“Chance favors the connected mind”

- Steve Johnson http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_johnson_where_good_ideas_come_from.html

"Best way to build trust: Say what you do and do what you say"

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:31:02 -0400

“Best way to build trust: Say what you do and do what you say”

Hint to newspaper and magazine business - Moving content to IPad doesn't address the commoditization of news.

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:00:00 -0400

In a commodity market, you can only be as good as your dumbest competitor.

- Peter Drucker

Let me start off by saying I’m a news junkie and I really appreciate what journalism brings to the world. I firmly believe storytelling is part of our makeup as human beings, and that our appetite for stories both fiction and non fiction is going to continue to increase. Having said that, its important to distinguish between news and the news business, and between the news business and the print news business. With respect to the latter, I believe folks now clearly see the inevitable transition from print to online. They are building apps for the Ipad, and are talking about replacing physical delivery with PDFs. Thats a start, but unfortunately, its doesn’t address a more fundamental issue which is the commoditization of the news business itself.

News distribution has been commoditized by the browser.
News packaging has been commoditized by the intermediation of search engines, aggregators, bookmarks and link sharing.
Breaking news is being commoditized by real time text, photo and video uploads from people already on the scene.
Opinion is being commoditized by blogs.
News gathering is being commoditized by folks like demand media and associated content.
Ability to bring a specific audience to an advertiser has been commoditized by ad networks.
And Classifieds, which was once the most profitable part of a paper was lost a long time ago.

This is no doubt a very difficult thing for the Fourth estate to accept as they have been trained, empowered and trusted to be society’s non-fiction storytellers. But accepting the notion of commoditization refocuses energy from defending the status quo, to attacking within the new context.

Instead of bemoaning the entry of swarms of unqualified writers into the space, and denigrating the use of algorithmically driven content farms - use these weapons yourself. Learn how to win within a commoditized environment - others have been doing it for years. (See HBS working Knowledge article by John Quelch: When your product becomes a commodity)

Going toe to toe on the commodity front, allows publishers to win by exploiting the formidable advantages they still have.

Investigative reporting is a differentiator which some people, such as myself, are willing to pay for.
Brands still matter - at least for now, New York Times and Wall St Journal carry infinitely more weight than anything the web has spawned.
Access to capital to build and operate new platforms, products and sites.
A passionate audience around strong brands is also a potential differentiator, but one which most publishers have failed to capitalize on.

Going from defense to offense is never easy and most organizations won’t be able to do it. That is especially true for those that think moving their words from a printed page to the Ipad will save the day.

Google won't kill Facebook - Distributed P2P powered Social Networks will

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:24:23 -0400

The Day the Napster Died

Brad King 05.15.02
Napster, the software application that ignited the music file-trading frenzy, came to an apparent end on Tuesday after its board of directors nixed a sale that would have kept the company afloat.
When founder Shawn Fanning and CEO Konrad Hilbers abruptly resigned on Tuesday, the company that launched the most innovative Internet program was gone, just like that.

Read More http://www.wired.com/gadgets/portablemusic/news/2002/05/52540?currentPage=all#ixzz0sCfnVZQ0

Facebook is to Napster, as some yet to be named entity is to Gnutella. Back in the day, Napster built the world’s most popular and infamous file sharing service reaching over 80 million users atop a centralized index. Its central server index and its users were an easy target for the music industry to take down. In its place, a couple of guys from AOL’s Nullsoft unleashed Gnutella, a file sharing service with a distributed peer to peer architecture which lives on today. While external forces conspired to bring down Napster, internal forces concerned about privacy and data ownership may lead to Facebook’s implosion. Instead of trading in one centralized social network for another, users will seek to control usage and access to their data by deploying distributed peer to peer social networks.

Facebook won't kill Google - Semantic web enabled bots will

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:53:30 -0400

I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialize.
Tim Berners-Lee 1999

Lots of chatter around Facebook likes replacing links and that being the path to search dominance. I dont disagree that personalized recommendations from my friends trump links proposed by Google. However, I believe that intelligent agents that know my preferences, can maintain my anonymity, can scan recommendations from friends and can work on my behalf trump likes. This may be the dreams of a trekkie, or the long held beliefs of a early 80s era computer science major when AI was a big deal - but it will happen sooner or later.

"There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the..."

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:57:40 -0400

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. The innovator has the enmity of all who profit by the preservation of the old system and only lukewarm defenders by those who would gain by the new system.”

- Niccolo Machiavelli

"The best strategy is the one you can execute."

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:42:00 -0400

“The best strategy is the one you can execute.”

- Ralph Rivera

Crawl, Walk, Run

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400

I recently got my 2 yr old daughter a scooter. As I was putting on her helmet, it struck me how quickly she has progressed from crawling to walking, and from walking to running. Now she is looking to go faster via the scooter, which will eventually become a bicycle and then a car and then who knows what – maybe personal jetpack. The progression she is experiencing parallels the progression all organizations must go through from start up to scale. As such, my mantra at work over the past several months has been crawl, walk, run as we build the people, process and technology needed to create great experiences. In the same way you cant run until you know how to walk, you cant deliver great online experiences unless you have the technical platform to power it, and the product development process and talent to build it.

We are starting to walk now, and will be running soon. Before long, we will be racing, competing and winning. The progression is never ending.

Leaving the little red school house behind

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:11:00 -0500

Over the past month, much has been made of the potential impact of the kindle and ipad on education. Good summary of the excitement found here -http://blog.xplana.com/2010/01/the-kindle-the-ipad-and-higher-education/ While i agree that carrying a kindle is better than lugging around a half dozen text books, I believe that merely digitizing textbook content is a misguided and short sighted use of the Internet to improve the educational experience. Why do we continue to perpetuate the little red school house method of learning in an age where our ability to process and communicate information goes way beyond the digital equivalent of pen and paper.

Unfortunately, the existing ecosystem of educational professionals, book publishers and school boards is trapped in a document based paradigm established centuries ago when words on paper were the only means to share information. Ten years ago many people recognized the web’s potential to transform the classroom. And as a result millions of dollars were spent on pcs and connected classrooms. However, this money was wasted as the teaching method and the teachers themselves did not change to exploit the new tools and technologies. So here we go again. Instead of the connected laptop we have a digital book, and once the dust settles we will find that little has changed because the teaching paradigm and practioners are still the same. Instead of doing the same thing with new tools why not come up with new methods. A new pedagogy that achieves learning goals and objectives within a reenvisioned learning environment that is interactive, social, global and nonlinear.

Geography, History and Language – students learn about other parts of the world from each other. Using video conferencing, shared documents and buddy browsing students can take turns preparing, delivering and participating in lessons. The teacher becomes a coach that enables the dialog within a pedagogically sound framework.

Physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology can all be better communicated and absorbed through virtual and physical simulations than chalk on a blackboard. Again teacher manages context and coaches students who absorb and apply the content.

Sociology, psychology and economic concepts can be more effectively delivered within the context of a role playing based video game. Why not use sim city or world of warcraft to have students understand the implications of their decisions.

Fortunately, some folks like at NYU’s Games For Learning Institute http://g4li.org/ recognize the opportunity and are starting to address it. I hope that efforts like this lead to a dramatic shift in how we approach education in an Internet powered classroom so we can leave the little red school house behind.

Internet Medium: Interactive, Social, Nonlinear

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

As we enter the second decade of the millenium I hope that we start to go beyond Internet as platform or channel and strive for Internet as medium. Most media companies still treat the Internet as a distribution channel for digital versions of the content they already produce for print or tv – their holy grail is being multiplatform. Whether it be Hulu, iTunes or Kindle or supposedly next generation content producers like Politico, Huffington Post or Aol’s network of sites like Engadget, Fanhouse, and Joystiq – the fact remains that media is still focused on repurposing itself – in the same way that first generation TV repurposed radio content in front of a camera.

Don’t get me wrong, there is tremendous value in using the Internet as distribution. We can lower supply chain costs, reduce time to market, empower consumers, provide 24×7 self service and deliver content anytime, anywhere. All good. Great even. I love being able to watch my TiVo via Slingbox on my iPhone while waiting for a connection in Madrid. Time shifting, place shifting and mobile all because we can now distribute bits digitally. So what’s the problem?

The problem is we aren’t realizing the internet’s potential to fundamentally transform how we inform, educate and entertain. Instead of repurposing themselves, media companies should reinvent themselves to exploit the Internet’s unique and inherent capabilties. As with print, radio and tv, the Internet can capture, store and transmit text, photos, audio and video. However, the Internet is also interactive, social and nonlinear. As such, the internet enables fundamentally different ways to create and experience content. If I were writing a book or preparing a strategy paper instead of a blog post I would define, describe and elaborate in great detail on how these features drive a paradigm shift in media. Maybe someone will pick up this post and do just that or I might get more ambitious and do it myself. In the interim, I offer games as the best example of offline media that is thriving online by leveraging the Internet as a medium.

Games are interactive by nature – the user is not a reader, viewer or listener. They are a participant. As such they take an active role in authoring the experience. A user can’t simply press the start button on their console to experience Guitar Hero – they have to interact with it.

Games are also social. Whether it’s one to one, one to many or many to many, players communicate, collobrate and compete to create and consume the game experience. Whether it’s online poker or World of Warcraft, the game experience is elevated because people are playing with others rather than with the computer.

And finally, unlike books, movies or songs – games are not subject to tightly scripted narrative with a beginning, middle and end. Games are nonlinear because they can provide a context and a set of varibles that enable players to create an almost infinite set of experiences. Case in point, Grand Theft Auto where a player can experience a loosely scripted narrative via missions or roam an open world for countless hours.

Media is the intersection of storytelling and technology. As technology advances so does our ability to tell stories both real and imagined in new and immersive ways. With the advent of the Internet, media can now create stories that are interactive, social and nonlinear. Unfortunately, our ability to do so is lagging as companies cling to what they know and have mastered. Let’s hope that as the next decade unfolds, more companies will cross the chasm and embrace the Internet as medium

Decade’s Top 10 Gadgets

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Every blog I see is posting their top 10 tech list so here is mine.

Titanium Powerbook – as a former IBMer and lifelong PC user, switching to Apple was a big deal. It took the Titanium Powerbook to make it happen. It went beyond function and performance with a beautiful design which sparked lust at first sight.
Canon Elph Camera – My first digital camera. Once you go digital you don’t go back. I was not a camera person – too lazy to take film in for developing and too cheap to pay for lots of unwanted photos. This camera changed all that.
Vonage Voip – Before you laugh, understand that my wife’s parents live overseas and she talks to them everyday. They have zero computer skills and can’t use skype. Vonage service with normal phone is simple and doesn’t require them to learn anything new.
TiVo Series 2 – I owned and loved the original Tivo and upgraded to series 2 as soon as it came out despite the fact I couldn’t transfer my lifetime subscription. Loved using remote scheduling to make sure I didn’t miss events when I was traveling. I would be a millionaire if I got a commission on all the Tivos I helped sell through my constant singing of it praises.
Slingbox – Allows me to watch my TV when I’m traveling for work or visiting inlaws in morocco. Use it around the house where laptop acts as kitchen tv.
Playstation 2 – Took gaming to another level. Madden, Tekken, etc became a social activity rather than a solitary pursuit.
MacBook Pro – had to retire the Titanium PowerBook at some point and the intel mbp with backlit keyboard is a worthy successor.
Flip video – Right before my daughter was born I ran over to J&R and brought a Sony Hard drive HD video camera. I have used it no more than 3 or 4 times. I brought a flip video camera and used it constantly. As the saying goes – the best camera is the one you have with you. Flip made video simple and accessible.
Blackberry Bold – I got hooked on blackberry late in the decade. Once on it, I didn’t know how I went so long without it. Now I take being continously synched to office email and calender for granted.
Apple iPhone – Similar to my switch from PC to mac, I would not have traded in my BB for any other device than the iPhone. The iPhone sparked the same kind of gadget lust I felt for my PowerBook. Initially I was double wielding BB for work and iPhone for personal use but once I became proficient with the soft keyboard it was iPhone all the way. It has also displaced my flip and canon as my regular video and photo device.

Overall it has been a great decade for gadgets. But I have been around tech long enough to know that it only gets better. Let’s see what the next year and decade bring.

Being Glomoloso - gotta start somewhere

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 13:33:00 -0500

I can trace my Internet roots back to 1995 when I joined Simon & Schuster as the head of architecture and advanced technology. Amongst other things like SAP and Y2K, this included laying the foundation for our Internet activities. Being at an old school media company meant we had to evangelize the new media message. Not an easy task – aside from cave walls and papyrus you don’t get much more old school media than book publishing. But we had to convert the nonbelievers to fund the high tech plumbing budget needed to make it real. As with any missionary work you need a good book to preach from, and for me that was “Being Digital” by Nicholas Negroponte. The distinction between atoms and bits and the internets impact on bit based businesses was insightful – and as it turns out prophetic.
That was 15 years ago and while we have made a lot of progress toward being digital, we still have a long way to go. We have converted atoms to bits and exploited the Internet as a digital distribution platform but we have only scratched the surface of the Internet as a medium.
So what’s next on the journey to being digital? Being global, being mobile, being local and being social – Being GloMoLoSo. Yeah, I know – a brand marketer I am NOT, but it stands for something and the domain was available so it works for me. And who knows – maybe it will catch on.

Shout outs to the Simon & Schuster crew – Rob Berkley, Bob Blau, Joe Quinlan, Mark Richards, Michael Packer, Rick Hopfer – Internet pioneers with arrow scars on our backs to prove it.