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If you are looking to watch the Rugby World Cup in the US you have a range of options. First, subscribe to Setanta Sports via your TV provider. Second, plenty of pubs will be showing the games, punch in your Zip code and get off to the game. Third, take a look at Mediazone to watch on your computer. No excuses now!
Terrific post on a whole range of amazing blogs.
I love reading Stowe's blog - if nothing the brutal honesty makes me smile. Today he's on to Scoble's video on search. I don't watch too much meaningful video online (but I do watch lots of trash...). Meaningful video is too binary for me. For, Stowe, watching Scoble is "like the Marx Brothers channeling Gartner". Brilliant!
I watch the ongoing diatribe about the stupidity of PR people pitching bloggers with some frustration. Most PR people I know are very smart and get that this is all about relationships and participation - it's not about pitching. None of them are in the blog spam game. All are overly sensitive to the bloggers wants and needs. Thus, I swing to the defense of PR pros.
Then idiots send me emails like this and I loose all faith:
...reading your blog had always being a great experience in getting the information on the technology and security specifically.
I am working with XXXX a company providing the XXXX based security solutions.We would like to know if you could use the information from our site to write the blog entry for your readers. You can visit us at XXXX to read about our company.
Your time and early response in this regards is appreciated.
name, PR Manager...
First, mirroring the email strategies of scammers and con-artists is never a good approach. Second, before entering the blogosphere, at least spend a minute figuring out how it operates. Third, treat bloggers with the same commonsense approach you would a journalist - unless you have something specific, that they are going to be specifically interested in, don't bother them. Finally, we are not communications outlets for your messages.
What is interesting here is the same goes for 'business blogs'. It's equally offensive to receive pitches suggesting that I pop onto XXXX site and post on the genius of your ways.
I'm not going to paint all PR folks - or even the profession - with the same brush - it's time we we separated the Pros from those who can't seem to grasp the fundamentals of modern communications.
"To what?" most Americans ask. Ahhhhh. The Rugby World Cup mate!
So imagine my surprise when no less than three locals asked me today who I thought would win. I don't think they quite expected the answer to take soooooo long.
Here's how I see it.
As a spectator and rugby fanatic you couldn't ask for a better scenario. Three wickedly talented sides fighting for a slot in the final and the dark horse France looking to raise their game at home. Will be a great tournament. If you want to watch in the US try Setanta sports.
Sounds simple right. Yet so many businesses seem intent on doing just that.
Take Salesforce.com. I've been an avid user and fanatic for years. I love the notion of the AppExchange - the idea of integrating more applications with Salesforce as a central window into the soul and activity of customers is very, very powerful. Eloqua is a terrific example of this - you can take every web and marketing interaction and associate it with a contact in Salesforce. Cool.
Now Salesforce has always had a young and aggressive sales team so I shouldn't have been surprised by this but we start getting messages that we're about to run out of storage. Run out of storage? Isn't the concept of software as a service predicated on lots of cheap storage... Really?
No, Salesforce has decided to #$%!#! it's customers with some of the most punitive pricing I've ever seen. guess how much Salesforce wants for 1gig of data? Go on... bet it wasn't $3,000. The only other solution is to upgrade to the "Unlimited Option" - which for 70 users prices Salesforce at over $200k per year. Suddenly SAS isn't cheap, AppExchange doesn't matter, and Oracle looks really, really interesting. Salesforce quickly becomes the last place you want to store ANY data.
One of the universal laws that makes "Don't #$%!#! The Customer" such a terrific operating principle is - customers will #$%!#! you back with an equal if not greater force.
As I look across my spectrum of vendor and supplier relationships this rings true. I fly less with American Airlines because I can't use my miles to fly to NZ or Australia - there is about one seat available on every Qantas flight and pretty much no upgrades.
All companies make mistakes but this is very different from #$%!#! the customer. I wandered into the anarchic Apple store at Valley Fair the other day with my dead iPod. The Genius pointed out it probably needed a "shock charge" - which pretty much seemed to me to involve plugging it in. I pointed out I'd done this and would appreciate it if he would take a closer look. The Genius forgot all about me in this process and it wasn't till 30 minutes later when I asked what the heck was going on that he realized the error of his ways, apologized profusely, agreed that the iPod was dead, and upgraded me to a new iPod on the spot. Love the customer and you'll get loyalty + love in return. For the same reason I fly Virgin now whenever I can - they are quick to correct mistakes and never forget you have a choice.
Don't #$%!#! The Customer as an idea gets at a deeper "evil" or blindness that companies commit with intent. Experiencing what is happening at Salesforce got me thinking that two of the most powerful forces driving a company's inclination to #$%!#! the customer are growth and success. They seem to spawn creed and arrogance in equal portions. Mike at Atlassian is on the right path in incorporating "Don't #$%!#! The Customer" into their core values. Every day companies need to remind themselves of this truth - or, run the risk of being reminded by your customers.
Ashlee says it all on the VMWare IPO. What a stunner... Citrix, not to be outdone, then turns-up its acquisition machine buying XenSource for what must be the highest multiple paid in the Valley in years... Nuts. It just makes me want to go on a crazy spending spree and buy something.... hmmm... maybe one of those new Apple keyboards?
Patterns as a lens through which to look at your Wiki and its users is a very cool idea.
Over the years I've consulted to all shapes and kinds of organizations on social media - on ethe of the things that participating forces is the need for organizations to actually learn how to have a conversation. Within this notion is the need to understand the role you might be playing at any given point - and the role others are playing. This is where the "patterns" come in - things like:
From over at Read/Write Web:
Expense is relative. You chat to people in Auckland, NZ - it's the most expensive place in the world. Same for Tokyo or London. The NY Times highlights the real expense of living in the Valley - which frankly is just absurd (not the article, the expense). It's a place where millionaires don't feel rich - because they aren't.
Rumor has it that The New York Times is disbanding it's punitive and anti-conversation subrestriction to some content. For content to be valuable, it has to be available. And moreover, it's value increases the more it is part of a conversation stream.
As Scott Karp writes at Publishing 2.0: "The new economics of media make charging for content nearly impossible because there is always someone else producing similar content for free -- even if the free content isn't 'as good as' the paid content by some meaningful metric, it doesn't matter because there's so much content of at least proximate quality that the paid content provider has virtually no pricing power. As smart, talented, and insightful as the New York Times columnists behind the paid wall are, the are too many other smart, talented, insightful commentators publishing their thoughts on the Web for free."
Thanks to GMSV for the story...
Crossing the Chasm is something that happens to any product or start-up. Problem is, figuring out where you are in the crossing. I've constantly sought to challenge the notion of 'Chasm Crossing' - more out of intellectual curiosity and rigor than anything else.
What I've found is 'Chasm Crossing' is a very real event that happens to you and your product as part of the natural maturation of business and markets. No matter where you are at, you need to be concerned with 'Chasm Crossing'. Tara's suggestion that we are looking it early adopters too soon isn't something I've found to be true in the start-up's I've worked with. In fact, building momentum at every stay of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle is critical.
Alex takes a look at the notion of Chasm Crossing over at Read/Write Web and has a nice complementary diagram.
His conclusion that Crossing the Chasm is "all about getting a technology widely adopted" is true but not sufficient in the sense that adoption or growth are basic drivers for any business.
It's much more multi-dimensional as concepts go. It is also about understanding at which point services and support must evolve against new customer expectations, for instance. Or, it which point you double-down on stabilizing product features over hot, new bells and whistles. And, what funding is required to build the infrastructure to support the Early Majority.
Where Alex is right though is businesses either shift focus to the early majority and take the innovators with them (Apple), or leave them behind in favor of a bigger market - and hopefully, riches.
Attention is a different dynamic though and shouldn't be confused with the market overall. For instance, there is still a market for blogs amongst early adopters and innovators - even with the arrival of Twitter. One could go as far to argue that blogs are a market and Twitter is a product.
It is however tough for any new product to command the attention of innovators and early adopters - and as it does, other products that are less interesting or sticky are dumped. And so, Crossing the Chasm becomes so important for any company concerned with long-term growth and success. Innovators are fickle beasts with short-term attention spans.
Been playing with BookTour - a site that enables you to connect with your favorite authors and keep track of them. Smart idea for us book obsessed.
From El Reg...
A US bill that would shield journalists, including bloggers, from revealing their sources has cleared the House Judiciary Committee, an important stage in becoming law. There is already legislation in the UK which protects journalists and bloggers.
The US Free Flow of Information Act protects journalistic sources generally, but does include several exceptions regarding terrorism, national security, imminent death and trade secret leaks.
Angus Tait - the founder of Tait Electronics, has passed. While some might not have agreed with his moving Tait into a trust structure similar to Bosch - a move that required considerable personal financial sacrifice - you can't deny the incredible impact he had by creating a lasting NZ export powerhouse.
Angus epitomized all that is great about NZ entrepreneurs - unrelenting persistence, deep technical smarts, a belief in the team over the individual, and a commitment to building great NZ-based technology companies with a global footprint.
No matter how great the legacy he leaves - and it is great - he will be missed.
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Rupert Thomson: Divided Kingdom (*****)
Daniel Pink: A Whole New Mind (*****)
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