Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Social CRM: A work in progress?

CRM’s infatuation with all things social may be taking a bite out of its backside. Too often CRM vendors focus on outbound messaging through products like Twitter and Facebook while forgetting about Stephen Covey.

Stephen Covey?

CRM’s infatuation with all things social may be taking a bite out of its backside. Too often CRM vendors focus on outbound messaging through products like Twitter and Facebook while forgetting about Stephen Covey.

Stephen Covey?

You might remember him as the guru who told us about “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” Remember Habit 5? “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Brilliant stuff—something we all should have been taught at home though I confess I don’t recall that memo. My bad. I caught up eventually.

A recent article in The Economist brought a lot home to me. The article quotes work by Mikolaj Jan Piskorski, a Harvard Business School professor and one of his MBA students Bill Heil. According to The Economist, the researchers surveyed more than 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009 and reported results that include:

  • More than half said they tweeted less than once every 74 days
  • The most active 10% of Twitter users published 90% of all tweets

That last bullet should give anyone who believes in the wisdom of crowds reason to pause. What kind of crowd? Ought to be the first question we ask, followed by, who is in it? This goes right back to Covey—understand the audience before beginning your sermon. The first bullet proves another kind of wisdom; the kind that understands that membership is not participation.

Of course there are times when the proverbial (or Monty Pythonesque) blind horse could tell you all you need to know, as in when you start getting complaints that a product or process is broken. But that’s called feedback and often we confuse it with discovery.

When you really want to discover what your customers think—their attitudes, behaviors, biases, and unmet needs—it really helps to know that the data you are collecting is coming from a reasonable cross section, not the noisy ten percent. Just as there are names for processes like “feedback” and “discovery” there’s a term that describes that noisy ten percent. They’re often called outliers.

CRM’s work with social media so far seems focused in various ways on the outliers, and predictably vendors are still trying to figure out social media’s true potential. If you understand the value of communities, it should be obvious.

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Moving from Social Media to Social Business

Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

At the same time, many of us seem to have realized that pursuing work/life balance ends up as corporate Samsara. Instead, we’ve intertwined work and life to the extent that we do what we love and love what we do. (Or perhaps have gotten much better at fooling ourselves about it.) Along the way, we started bringing our toys to work and realized that our personal technology was better than the company’s.

Good businesses follow the action and most brands finally realize that these trends can be harnessed for commercial benefit. But using social media for business is easier said than done—so far, many brands have been tacking on social real estate to campaigns the same way they’ve been doing with digital microsites and banner ads. To make social media work, businesses must participate in this space differently than consumers; in other words, they’ve got to take a social business approach.

I think Communispace provides a great example in helping companies participate in social business. Using a framework developed by Dachis Group, here’s how I see the company creating social business value:

  • The Ecosystem. Providing connections with prospects and customers to help extend organizational functions beyond those on the payroll, e.g. marketing research.
  • The Hivemind. Allowing brands to become more culturally calibrated with their customers. Understanding motivations paves the way for social calibration.
  • The Dynamic Signal. Bringing out insight from previously unheard voices. The silos in existing listening processes prevent weak signals from being heard.
  • The Metafilter. Moderating discussion and drawing out signals from noise. Listening requires a balance of automated filtering and manual curation.

It’s time to shift from social media and get down to social business. Finding the right partners to help you get there matters.

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At the Genius Bar, Enjoying an APPLE-tini (aka “Can’t we all just get along?”)

A long time PC user, I recently crossed party lines and bought my first Mac. I was interested in creating a harmonious co-existence in my home network.

Although the purchase of this new MacBook may seem impulsive, my decision to go Mac has apparently been a gradual one. I know this because it was explained to me by the robotic, well programmed Mac Expert at the Apple Store (a place deliberately designed to lull you into a false sense of having a lot of extra money to spend). He described the PC to Mac conversion as a three part process, probably engineered by Steve Jobs himself:

A long time PC user, I recently crossed party lines and bought my first Mac. I was interested in creating a harmonious co-existence in my home network.

Although the purchase of this new MacBook may seem impulsive, my decision to go Mac has apparently been a gradual one. I know this because it was explained to me by the robotic, well programmed Mac Expert at the Apple Store (a place deliberately designed to lull you into a false sense of having a lot of extra money to spend). He described the PC to Mac conversion as a three part process, probably engineered by Steve Jobs himself:

  • First, you embrace the iPod (check).
  • Then, you switch to iPhone (check).
  • Finally, you purchase your first Mac (and check).

He went on to explain that the rest “happens naturally”—as you work more on your Mac, you start ignoring your PC and eventually stop using it altogether. 

That “natural” part has not happened to me yet. I am impressed with the MacBook and enjoy learning more about it. It is sleek, and well designed. But my PC still is my primary computer (and probably always will be).

Despite how that sounds (and what some of my friends would say), I am not a PC user who previously disliked the Mac. I have worked with the Mac before both at work and school (and I LOVE my iPhone). But most of my professional experience has been on the PC, and Windows Networking is an old hobby of mine that I turned into a career. I just always figured that the Mac did not have any real place in my life (and I did not want to shell out the big $$ for one). 

However, as an IT professional I understand that I need to be familiar with both Windows and the Mac platforms. With the release of the iPad (a rather large new iPod model), and the new more affordable MacBook, I decided now was the time to go down the rabbit hole.

As I try to figure out what role each will play in my life moving forward, there is one thing I have learned through this experience—I am a “PC” who now understands why so many people love their Macs.

Let the hate mail begin.

11 Responses to “At the Genius Bar, Enjoying an APPLE-tini (aka “Can’t we all just get along?”)”

  1. Halley Suitt says:

    Nice post … isn’t it best to know as many systems as possible anyway?!

  2. Great post, Jack. I guess I’m at Stage 2 of the conversion process you describe. I embraced the iPod, then the iPhone, and now I’m looking into buying a Mac. I guess my thinking is – PC for work; Mac for fun (i.e. media).

  3. Mike, I completely agree. There are a lot of things that I feel like I can only do on a PC (mainly work related) but I turn to my Mac for the fun things!

    I am actually a new mac user– a friend of mine gave me his iBook G4 when he upgraded to a MacBook, something I plan on doing soon as well! I quickly found that using a Mac to surf the web, use iTunes, and manage digital photos was easier and more fun than on a PC.

    I think someday I will become a Mac, but for now I am a “PC” who loves using a Mac.

  4. Jack Cahill says:

    Halley, I agree – being familiar with multiple systems makes a user more versatile. Mike, that is how I see it right now too – PC for work and Mac for play.

  5. Karen Barone says:

    Jack,
    In the spirit of computer-related confessions, I’m a Mac gal who’s currently thinking of buying a PC. My Mac just doesn’t offer me a good gaming environment and it bums me out. (Yes, I game too. Am I revealing too much?) I think it’s interesting that most folks think of Macs as their “fun” machine (see Mike’s post above). The truth is…sometimes I think of my Mac as a really expensive place to keep my music and pictures. Sigh….

    That being said, I love, love, love my iPhone.

  6. Jack Cahill says:

    Karen, I will send you a link directly to a nice HP notebook, very powerful, very affordable – you should get what you need from it. Not much of a gamer myself, need to find something to try though.

  7. Jack,

    I love this post and so appreciate it!

    It has been enjoyable to see you slowly but surely join the bright, sunny side that is the world of ‘being’ a MAC. It is a nice pastime for those of us who are die hard groupies of MAC computers and avid people watchers.

    You bring up some very valid points of discussion re being a MAC or a PC. I agree that depending on what you use the device for, you could be tipped one way or the other.

    Some observations from someone who has been a MAC girl since high school:

    •In my experience, using a PC 100% of the time is akin to being an active member of a dangerous cult, especially if you happen to be an IT professional. Until you spend some time away from the PC environment (or until you are ‘deprogrammed’ by a Mac) you don’t realize anything was amiss with the way you have been operating.

    •As a MAC user, I can totally see why it would be challenging for a PC person to come over to this side, especially if you live and die by the evil empire’s useful apps. Take for example, MS Outlook. I have completely abandoned Entourage, the MS answer to Outlook, as it is extremely frustrating and does not have the functionality I require for being effective professionally. I am sure there are many others like me.

    •I tend to view it as being a ‘native’ speaker of a language. Be it you are a PC or a MAC native, you are always going to be more comfortable in whatever language you grew up with. That said, bi-lingual folks tend to appreciate the positive side effects of being able to express themselves in more than one language. It just makes you better rounded.

    Pls keep blogging about your experience. So fun to read!

  8. Mike Butler says:

    Great Post, Jack.

    I purchased my first Mac after a bad PC experience, hard disk failure after owning the pc for a week. That was 8 years ago. I wanted it for iTunes, and iDvd for home videos. I didn’t go through the 3 stages, I just thought, for what I need at home, this is going to be much easier than anything I’ve seen on the PC. Now I own 3 macs, and I’ve never looked back.

    I’m happy to hear that you’re enjoying your Mac.

  9. Gina Davison says:

    Great job bridging the un-bridgeable gap, Jack.

    I think it’s just a matter of needs and taste just as with any product; I am a loyal Mac user, but hate the iPhone (I still like to have buttons on my phone, thanks).

    TBWA’s Mac vs. PC ads are definitely better than any PC ad I’ve seen in a while though.

  10. Jack Cahill says:

    Thanks Mike and Gina! I appreciate the comments.

    Gina, you are actually the very first Mac lover I have heard from who hates the iPhone! Although I do hear you about the buttons (I am a recovering Blackberry user), I still feel the functionality of the iPhone is remarkable. But I must admit that the auto-correct and word-suggest features can drive me crazy when trying to type something on it.

  11. Leslie L says:

    I actually started on a MAC and then moved to a PC because it was the business standard. Full circle? Yup.

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TV in the ’10s

It sounds like 3D TV was the big hit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but I’m still wondering about content…

One day in ‘09, after paying a hefty cable bill, I flipped through my channels and came up with nothing. I went through my DVR queue, nothing. I wondered, “What did I just pay for besides the Internet?”

It sounds like 3D TV was the big hit at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, but I’m still wondering about content…

One day in ‘09, after paying a hefty cable bill, I flipped through my channels and came up with nothing. I went through my DVR queue, nothing. I wondered, “What did I just pay for besides the Internet?”

Soon after that I began researching my pay TV alternatives. It’s not that I didn’t want to pay. I just didn’t want to pay so much for so little. While facilitating one of our communities I discovered a thread between two members who had the same frustration. One member recommended Roku—the streaming Internet device that connects to your TV. I mail-ordered one and when it arrived, a whirlwind romance began.

It started with a marathon of the first three seasons of Miami Vice (click here for my analysis). Then I found out why so many of my friends are obsessed with Lost. After that I worked my way through the Ken Burns documentaries, but the passion eventually fizzled as I ran out of instant Netflix titles.

I didn’t want to do it, but I went back to my old standby—network TV. At first it was comfortable and familiar, but after awhile became too predictable and the commercials started to annoy me again. Then I went back to Roku and had a fling with Amazon Video On Demand. After paying $1.99 per episode of the first season of Fringe, I ended it. Now it’s 2010 and I’m back with the old ball and chain—cable TV.

I have to say that all of this has left me bitter about the future of TV. Will we ever be able to truly customize our TV experiences?

2 Responses to “TV in the ’10s”

  1. Nicole Adriance says:

    I love this post Mike! I have the same frustrations with TV and long to truly customize my TV experience. Why does the guide show me all the channels – even the ones I don’t get, leading me to click on channels just to be greeted with a ‘no access’ message? Why is it that when I do a search to record shows on DVR it does not give me the option to select the HD channel resulting in the future dissapointment of discovering I accidentally recorded the non-HD version? Why can’t I do a search to find my favorite channels? I can never find HGTV or FitTV without slowly scrolling through each channel looking for the correct acronym.

  2. Thanks, Nicole. I suspect a lot of people share our frustration. We’re so used to customizing our music experiences through iTunes that we now expect it from TV. I guess time will tell when it comes to the future of TV…

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Was Ben Franklin an Early American Blogger?

BenFranklinOn my way to a recent conference, a stranger standing next to me in the elevator posed that question to me. Sometimes it’s the off-occurrences in life that stick with you and I’ve been contemplating the question ever since.

I was representing Communispace on a panel at the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative/Marketing Science Institute’s conference on the Emergence and Impact of User-Generated Content. Some of the best academics from across the world were gathering to discuss the collective impact that empowered internet users are having on companies and organizations.

BenFranklinOn my way to a recent conference, a stranger standing next to me in the elevator posed that question to me. Sometimes it’s the off-occurrences in life that stick with you and I’ve been contemplating the question ever since.

I was representing Communispace on a panel at the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative/Marketing Science Institute’s conference on the Emergence and Impact of User-Generated Content. Some of the best academics from across the world were gathering to discuss the collective impact that empowered internet users are having on companies and organizations.

I heard over the course of two days some of the most current thinking on topics like the role online communities play in innovation; the potential for text mining across the web in understanding stock performance; along with the benefits and pitfalls of crowd-sourcing new ideas, just to name a few.

You and I have already heard that we are living in a brave new world of fast, intense, hyper-sharing of information and opinion because of the advent of the internet and social media. But I have to say the excitement at the conference about the potential for better understanding and responding to the needs of consumers, investors, patients…people worldwide was absolutely palpable.

As I think more about it, technology has seemingly always been playing catch up to human expression, whether it was the printing press allowing for an autobiography like Ben Franklin’s to be broadly distributed or YouTube making homemade videos consumable. We now need to not only read text contributions but also evaluate digital images, audio and video that people post to really ‘listen’ to them effectively. We can never stop thinking about the next methods they’ll come up with. 

My initial knee-jerk reaction to the question in the elevator was to laugh but if you think about it in the context of the technology of the time and the innovation in personal expression and message it represented, Ben Franklin may indeed have been our first American blogger.

2 Responses to “Was Ben Franklin an Early American Blogger?”

  1. Tom Summit says:

    I agree with you. Not only is Ben Franklin one of my personal idols, but most certainly Ben Franklin was the original hacker and blogger http://blog.bos.genotrope.com/2007/08/14/ben-franklin-was-a-hacker/

  2. Chuck Katz says:

    Very good point! And some have described his aphorisms in “Poor Richard’s Almanack” as the first tweets. Truly an amazing man.

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Paperless Luxury

A few months ago a colleague of mine asked if I had ever heard of Paperless Post. I hadn’t, but was intrigued, so I did a little research and discovered something truly fabulous! Among all the praise, Vogue says that it’s the luxury version of Evite. I even found out that Zac Posen, the showman of fashion, recently used it for a benefit, how cool is that?

A few months ago a colleague of mine asked if I had ever heard of Paperless Post. I hadn’t, but was intrigued, so I did a little research and discovered something truly fabulous! Among all the praise, Vogue says that it’s the luxury version of Evite. I even found out that Zac Posen, the showman of fashion, recently used it for a benefit, how cool is that?

Paperless InviteI knew I had to give it a whirl, so just a few weeks ago, I sent out a few invites for my mother’s annual Christmas Eve party. First, I selected the style, a beautiful square red trimmed card with a green satin bow that shined just like the real thing. Then, I used their “wording assistant” to help me write the card and chose the envelope and I was ready to go! Within a few minutes I already had an email back from my sister telling me that this year’s evite was better than year’s past. Of course, there is nothing like getting a card in the mail, but I am pretty sure this comes close.

So why do I like Paperless Post? It’s the fact that I can send out beautiful invites virtually and they actually look and feel real, an element that has been lacking in many e-services. There’s also something to be said about the luxury aspect. Who wouldn’t want to receive a fancy looking invitation in their inbox? Sending out a Paperless Post is also a greener way to invite people to an event, which is something I desperately try to include in my life. I know the first two reasons are a bit superficial, but as Madonna once said, “we are living in a material world.”

Ultimately, Paperless Post provided me with an easy yet unique way to send out my invites this year. I didn’t have to sacrifice the look or the feel of a paper invite just because I created them online. This makes me wonder what other sites and companies will succeed when it comes to creating services that are simple, while still maintaining the visual appeal of something more personal. In the end, are we inevitably giving up something, or is it possible to have our little luxuries sent to us via email?

2 Responses to “Paperless Luxury”

  1. James Bailey says:

    Love this post. For some of us, it is indeed a tough leap from the warmth and personality that a ‘classic’ paper card can provide to what has been a somewhat cold and impersonal experience of the e-card. For me the benefit has been solely the convenience factor. Clearly that is changing as services provide new tools to really upgrade the experience.

    I think the same thing is happening in photo development, where you can store your photographs online, share them in a customizable virtual environment, and even order beautifully appointed photo albums to share off-line.

    Again, great post. Thanks for sharing!

  2. Katie (Dennis) Adams says:

    Love Paperless Post. We opted to use it to send the “Save the Date”s for my wedding in October. Even some of our more formal/traditional guests thought they were beautiful, and my now-husband (who is a typically-opinionated graphic designer) thought the design motifs were well-conceived. Oh, and you can manage your guest list online and even track who has (and who has not) viewed the invite – very helpful.

    As James mentions in his post, brands are giving us important tools and services which enable us to become more resourceful. Our DIY projects may range from a bathroom remodel to designing an online “Save the Date” – brands that make it possible for us to pull off these small feats offer us a new kind of value: self-reliance. It will be exciting to see what else we’ll be able to accomplish in 2010.

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Yahoo! What The Top Searches of 2009 Might Tell Us

Jon Keller, of WBZ-TV, recently asked for my perspective on Yahoo!’s “Most Popular Web Searches for 2009”. If you haven’t read the list yet, guess what made the Top Ten. What might we have wondered about in 2009? Obama? The war in Iraq? Sarah Palin? Twitter? Mad Men? AIG?

Jon Keller, of WBZ-TV, recently asked for my perspective on Yahoo!’s “Most Popular Web Searches for 2009”. If you haven’t read the list yet, guess what made the Top Ten. What might we have wondered about in 2009? Obama? The war in Iraq? Sarah Palin? Twitter? Mad Men? AIG? 

Most people I interviewed were surprised at the results:  a roundup of pop culture icons—and escapist activities ranging from video games to WWF to American Idol. There are many implications of the results, not the least of which is that as marketers we shouldn’t assume we understand what occupies people’s minds these days, because we’d probably get it wrong. Here’s the link to the Jon Keller piece, where he and I agree that our collective fascination with relatively “shallow” topics is probably more related to needed therapy in stressful times than it is to a Cultural Armageddon. I’d be interested in your thoughts.

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  1. [...] This post was Twitted by CommunispaceCEO [...]

  2. [...] This post was Twitted by paulinechu [...]

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Health and Health Care: What I am thankful for this year

If you have been watching the new TV show V, then you know there has been some discussion lately about Universal Health Care. I would not pretend to know as much about the subject as V leader Anna or ambitious newsman Chad (played by Scott Wolf), but I do have some thoughts about health care reform that stem from personal experience.

If you have been watching the new TV show V, then you know there has been some discussion lately about Universal Health Care. I would not pretend to know as much about the subject as V leader Anna or ambitious newsman Chad (played by Scott Wolf), but I do have some thoughts about health care reform that stem from personal experience.

Over the past few years I have watched someone close to me battle a difficult form of cancer. Despite an initially grim prognosis, he has been the beneficiary of a number of cutting edge developments in cancer treatment (including the CyberKnife™ radiation treatment, now being hyped in Boston TV ads). As a result, he has been able to exceed survival expectations and has maintained a high quality of life. It seems that as one treatment starts to become ineffective, another comes along. This is a testament to the strength of medical technology development. I watched someone else wage the same fight 22 years ago. But these options were not available then, and the results were very different. 

But as great as the advances in the technology element are, what strikes me more is the improvement in the human element of how patients are treated. In 1997, I was hospitalized and had never before endured such a frustrating and horrible experience (with the possible exception of that time in Newark). But today, in the very same hospital, it has totally changed.

A large part of this may be due to the passage of the Patients’ Bill of Rights in 2001. But, I also believe part of it is due to medical professionals actually listening to their patients and taking them seriously, more like customers. Patients and their loved ones are treated with more dignity and respect, and are provided with better resources for coping. This is as important as the treatments themselves, because the stress levels are so high for patients and their families, and every little thing has a significant impact.

So this Thanksgiving, I give thanks for what is good in our health care system. I know that there is a lot that needs to be changed, but I hope these trends in the system are not affected. They represent the best parts of it.

One Response to “Health and Health Care: What I am thankful for this year”

  1. heather c says:

    i took care of my father-in-law the last year of his life, which included a 2&1/2 month hospital stay in the VA hospital. i know exactly what you are talking about about. thank god for the patients’ bill of rights, which i had to bring up several times.
    i think a government option that competes with privately owned insurance companies would be a good thing. after all, if it isn’t competetive, no-one will want it.
    private insurance companies and drug companies already charge people a fortune, and in some cases, won’t pay for life-saving treatments. it should be regulated. power companies are regulated. construction companies are regulated. doctors are regulated. banking will be more regulated, so that the powerful and greedy can no longer steal from the nation, and loot their workers’ retirement funds.
    i think competency and compassion are what is lacking overall in the insurance industry as a whole, and a little regulation may be the solution.

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The World in Your Palm (or BlackBerry, or iPhone…): Looking forward to the next 10 years of hand held internet access

TwitterBerryIn July, I tweeted about the Pomegranate:

jackcahill Funny maybe (actually, yes) – but ten years from now we will all have one … – http://bit.ly/uG6aZ.”

The Pomegranate is an innovative, although fictional PDA with some great features, including a coffee maker and electric razor. I joked that although it was a fictional device, we would probably all have one in ten years anyway.

TwitterBerryIn July, I tweeted about the Pomegranate:

jackcahill Funny maybe (actually, yes) – but ten years from now we will all have one … – http://bit.ly/uG6aZ.”

The Pomegranate is an innovative, although fictional PDA with some great features, including a coffee maker and electric razor. I joked that although it was a fictional device, we would probably all have one in ten years anyway.

When you think about PDA and cell phone functionality ten years ago and compare it to what we have today, that may not be so off base. Many of us today, old enough to remember the 1990s, will recall the primitive ancestors of today’s devices. They were hard to use, unreliable, and expensive—and we loved them.

But today we do not just love them, we cannot live without them. Today’s PDAs provide a full range of communications—phone, email, and video. In fact, the distinction between cell phone and PDA is disappearing. Do you remember when this convergence was considered a “new frontier”? Neither do I. Today it is routine to carry the Internet in the palm of your hand. And developers are beginning to answer the need for mobile websites and mobile apps geared towards the mobile browser.

I used to rebuff the mobile web browser—but not anymore. Recently, my BlackBerry was the only access I had to the Internet on vacation. I used Google Apps to easily get restaurant information and to check the online sales of a visiting friend who is an antiques dealer. Google Maps helped me locate a specific store. Facebook Mobile and TwitterBerry allowed me to babble to the universe. But some websites would not load well and it was difficult to find basic information—that still needs attention.

So what can we expect in innovation for the handheld Internet during the next ten years? Everything is possible. I’m hoping for the universal translator, but a rotating Death Star Hologram projector would also be awesome.

Real innovation in mobile websites and devices will focus more on meeting the users’ needs than in flash or style. What is cool is not necessarily what is good. A website visitor has different needs when using a mobile device. They are not looking for the same type of information in the same ways as they would on a computer. Mobile users today are also savvier than their counterparts were ten years ago. They are less impressed with glitter (OK, not all of them) and are looking for functionality. When mobile device and web developers are designing for the handheld Internet, they need to identify what the users need to make their mobile online experience a richer one.

Developers who can do that will leave their mark on the next decade of the PDA.

2 Responses to “The World in Your Palm (or BlackBerry, or iPhone…): Looking forward to the next 10 years of hand held internet access”

  1. Steve says:

    Cool. Pomegranate may be here sooner than we think. Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUdDhWfpqxg

    If you don’t have the time, start at about 4:20.

  2. Diane Hessan says:

    Jack, it is so much fun to think about what we’ll have in the future. I’m ready for that pomegranate. And hopefully, by 2010, RIM will realize that they need to stop calling a Blackberry a PHONE!

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The Automotive Industry: Innovating the Sleeping Giant

Either you are “in” or you are “out.” That’s what it’s all about in today’s society. And in order to be “in,” you have to keep up with the two major trends of being both (1) connected and (2) engaged with growing consumer electronics innovations.

It’s hard to imagine where we would be today if it weren’t for the connectivity social media provides friends, family, and colleagues alike. Even just as momentous is the continuation of significant innovations in the consumer electronics industry, as evidenced by the popularity of the iPod and iPhone.

Either you are “in” or you are “out.” That’s what it’s all about in today’s society. And in order to be “in,” you have to keep up with the two major trends of being both (1) connected and (2) engaged with growing consumer electronics innovations. 

It’s hard to imagine where we would be today if it weren’t for the connectivity social media provides friends, family, and colleagues alike. Even just as momentous is the continuation of significant innovations in the consumer electronics industry, as evidenced by the popularity of the iPod and iPhone. 

Married together, these two trends of staying connected through portable devices have presented the automotive industry with a huge opportunity to provide consumers with high-tech innovation they haven’t seen from the industry in years.

Envision your automobile providing seamless, hands-free connections to your favorite social media sites, while tapping into applications relevant to your car and your commute. This is the type of technology that will keep people “in” and ahead of the trends, instead of “out” and behind the times. This is the type of technological integration that can be the next wave of innovation, waking the sleeping giant that is the automotive industry.

Hughes Telematics, Inc. has an active online Communispace community to learn first-hand about consumer preferences and experiences. The community helps us create exciting in-vehicle services tailored to meet the growing technology needs of drivers. As we move towards the November launch of our new product, Communispace proves to be invaluable in helping us bring innovation to a sleeping auto industry.

3 Responses to “The Automotive Industry: Innovating the Sleeping Giant”

  1. Diane Hessan says:

    Kevin, thanks for being a guest blogger for us! We enjoy working with Hughes immensely — what a cool (and important) company — and we can’t wait until the November launch. I truly believe that your company is going to revolutionize the automotive industry and the driving experience. Let’s try some really adventurous things as we move into the fall!
    Best,
    Diane

  2. Finautos says:

    Kevin,

    Hoy en dia la industria automotriz ha crecido en cuanto a tecnologia.
    La tecnologia hoy en dia tiende a ser de bajo costo. Sin embargo, hoy en dia hay marcas automotrices que no la consideran para algunos modelos.

    Saludos
    Finautos

    http://www.finautos.com.mx

    TRANSLATION:

    Kevin,

    Nowadays the automotive industry has grown in terms of technology.
    Technology now tends to be low-cost. However, these days many automobile brands are not considering these technologies for their models.

    Cheers
    Finautos

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