Currently Reading
Posted: June 1, 2015 Filed under: Business, Misc. | Tags: Becoming Steve Jobs, Search Inside Yourself, The Digital Doctor 2 CommentsIn an earlier post, I touched on my significant reading habit. Here are a couple of books that I am currently reading.
Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader reveals the complex man behind the mythical figure. The movie version, starring Michael Fassbender, comes out this fall.
The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine’s Computer Age takes a hard look at the impact of technology on healthcare delivery and patient care.
Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) is a self-help guide to implementing techniques from the practices of mindfulness and emotional intelligence. The goal is to improve quality of life, both inside and outside of the workplace.
The Long Tail
Posted: May 21, 2015 Filed under: Business, Change | Tags: AOL, BMG Music Club, Chris Anderson, Muppets, The Long Tail, Verizon, vinyl records Leave a comment“The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson was originally an article published in Wired in 2004 that later became a book. Read a synopsis of “The Long Tail” theory here.
Listening to NPR in the car on the way to work last week, I heard three stories that reminded me of the subject line above.
Story 1: The Muppets Return to ABC’s fall prime time schedule
The Muppets were created in 1955 and became popular after they joined the Sesame Street cast in its 1969 debut season. Later, they had The Muppet Show (which aired from 1976-1981), a dozen or so movies, and a second TV show. This latest iteration is toured as an adult version. Hmm…I’m not so sure this will work. Who will watch it and why? If they are targeting boomers who fall asleep early like me, perhaps it’s a good thing that it is scheduled to air at 7 p.m. Central.
Story 2: Vinyl records are cool again
Vinyl sales were virtually extinct in 2005, with less than a million copies sold. In 2014, the category had rebounded to achieve over nine million copies. This still pales in comparison to historical vinyl sales. Heavyweights such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the Eagles Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975,) Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2, Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, and AC/DC’s Back in Black have each surpassed more than 20 million copies sold. If vinyl continues its resurgence, can the return of the BMG Music Club be far behind?
Story 3: Verizon buys AOL
AOL today is not your parent’s AOL of the past. Hip and trendy resources such as TechCrunch, engagedet, and The Huffington Post are all owned by AOL. With Verizon’s takeover of AOL, we’ll see an unprecedented marriage of media and technology. Shingy approves.
Clearly, our current internet/web/mobile connected world provides a low-cost distribution network that can generate and push out a lot of content. This creates boundless opportunities at the long tail. Playing on nostalgia with the baby boomer generation is one strategy that seems to be paying off. What is old is new again…but perhaps on a smaller scale.
Un-Unified Communication
Posted: April 22, 2015 Filed under: Business, Innovation, Technology | Tags: Asana, Bill Lumbergh, Cicso Spark, HipChat, Office Space, Quip, Slack, Verse 2 CommentsMy recent post demonstrated a difficult method to share notes. I want to contrast that experience with a very different one.
Several weeks ago, I connected with a regional sales leader for a national technology company that I’ve worked with. We spoke about how we are working differently and collaborating across companies in new and different ways. He was going to be attending an enterprise communications and collaboration conference the following week, and offered to share what he learned and subsequently get together to discuss.
To facilitate sharing, he launched a Cisco Spark collaboration room. My first reaction was a sarcastic groan, “Perfect, just what I need, another application.” But, in the spirit of embracing new approaches, I gave it a try.
Photo by Mark Baker
Surprisingly, this proved to be an easy way to share content, links, and even coordinate our meeting over coffee. The reason why became clear when we spoke. While I, like many others, have always have a quest for “one”—one thing, one place, one neatly organized inbox or to-do list—I realized that the definition of “one” has shifted. Instead of using one application, the new standard is one mobile/tablet device filled with notifications. A speaker at the aforementioned conference labeled it “Un-Unified Communications.” Instead of one phone number, one voice mail system, and one email address, we now have multiple tools for communication and collaboration. Our inbox is a set of tiles with various notifications. Aha! This made total sense. While “fewer” may be easier to manage, the quest for “one” does not have to be the Holy Grail.
Beyond Spark, there are many other providers in this category, including Slack, Asana, Verse (coming soon from IBM), Quip, and HipChat. You may have seen the HipChat commercials during the NCAA basketball tournament, starring boss Bill Lumbergh from the classic business comedy, Office Space. These ads are so humorous because, unfortunately, they reflect the daily reality in a lot of companies. My fervent goal, as I test and try new ways to work and collaborate, is to avoid becoming a Lumbergh.
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