Recent Blogs

Technology Topples Governments

In my two previous posts (Vietnam… and RIAA…) I wrote about how the nature of protest was changing and increasingly we are seeing evidence of this.

Voice telephone calls are no longer the dominate way protests are organized. In the last two weeks we’ve seen democracy blossom in Tunisia principally fueled by Twitter feeds and in Egypt one of the principal causes of the tipping point that brought opposition into the streets were Facebook posts.

Think about how old these tools are. Facebook was founded in June, 2004 and Twitter in July, 2006.

That’s like saying that less than six years after the printing press was invented in 1493 democracy blossomed throughout the world.  But that’s not what happened. Democracies didn’t start to appear until 1776 in the modern era or 283 years after the invention of the printing press.

We’re living in a world where ideas, protests and organized movements are coming together literally at the speed of light – the maximum speed at which a VOIP message travels along an optical wire.

What will the future bring? An untold number of Black Swan events and a world we won’t recognize ten years from now. Better? Yes. But, not for dictators.

However, this brings up the sad question: Does Haiti have enough cell phones to fight Baby Doc?

http://boilingice.com/2010/09/riaa-and-mppa-go-down/

Wikileaks and The War In Vietnam

Mark Rudd at the Columbia University student protests in 1968

In my last post (see RIAA and MPPA Go Down) I predicted that the future of protest was changing and that we would increasingly see more activists banding together in unconventional ways (e.g. hacker attacks) to protest.

Well we didn’t have to wait for long. This now seems like the normal state of affairs. This past week several hacker groups attacked Amazon and Paypal for canceling their business relationships with Wikileaks which recently released vast quantities of US diplomatic cables.

This isn’t about which laws were broken but a moment for us to start asking questions on the very nature of political protest.

In 1773 it seemed right to us to throw some tea in Boston harbor. These past months in France large demonstrations were held in the street to protest changes in the retirement age. And, in Myanmar supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi recently celebrated in the streets after her release after 15 years of house arrest.

What do you do when you can’t throw some tea or take to the streets? How do you get your voice heard? Is the only way left hacking? Can we learn to protest in a non-violent fashion? Is violence only the sort of actions resorted to when no other options are available to you? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.

Newspapers who always served the purpose of reporting on the wrong actions of government are losing their readership – think of Common Sense by Thomas Paine published in 1776 or the Pentagon Papers published by The New York Times in 1971. New forms of communication are taking over (e.g. The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast). But, are these new voices enough to wake the citizenry? Or, are these voices so soft that only small communities actually hear them?

So, if today you were protesting the Vietnam War what would you do? Would a post be enough? Would telling your neighbors be enough? Would a whisper be enough to spark change? What would you do?

[On the business opportunity front I’ll predict that we are going to see more Wikileaks like sites and all manner of sites devoted to public protest. ]

RIAA and MPPA Go Down: Pirates 1 – Suits 0

Last weekend a bunch of folks at the 4chan internet forum organized and launched a series of Denial of Service (DDoS)  attacks against the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA websites. CNET reports that the attacks resulted in 37 service interruptions and 1 hour and 37 minutes of downtime for the MPAA, and 24 separate down-times for the RIAA.

Now I know what your thinking: “yeah, my server at the office goes down that much every time we have a quarterly sales call”. But, hey, is that a coordinated attack? Were all your salespeople deliberately trying to bring down headquarters? Well maybe, but that’s not likely. Not at least until now.

And yes, this ain’t exactly a French-style national strike that shuts the whole country down but it’s a taste of things to come.

Here you have a bunch of folks 1) coming together,2) for a single purpose, 3) to protest in an organized fashion 4) against something and someone that they feel is forcing them to do things their way and doesn’t want to listen to an alternative point of view or realize that history is passing them by. Do I hear King George anyone?

I just want to posit that we’ll see more of these types of protests.

In the future – that’s a time far, far away like five years from now – we’ll see people band together and protest from the comfort of their homes or while at a stoplight. They’ll coast over to their favorite protest site, enter in their favorite online ID, obscure their IP, anonymize their presence and hit send to protest against their government, their school, their employer or whatever it is they want to protest about.

Hey, could this be the start of the anti-Facebook, anti-MySpace, generation. The one that re-discovers plausible deniability… Hey, that’s not me protesting on the steps of Columbia University, that’s someone else. Maybe people need their anonymity to take back their collective voices? Maybe they need to get their voices back without the fear that some Facebook or MySpace picture is going to cost them their job. Maybe, just maybe, Democracy as we know it is evolving right before out eyes.

A Blog In Two Pictures – Apps vs. Songs

Aysmco is reporting that iOS application downloads on Apple’s iTunes store should overtake the number of song downloads sometime this year. The report is based on figures from the recent September 1 update to the iTunes Music Store.

Picture #1 – Total Apps Vs. Songs Downloaded In Months Since Launch:

Picture #2 – Growth Rates In Downloads for Apps Vs Songs (aka velocity):

Conclusion: Apps are hot, really hot, so hot that Lady Gaga is burning up the Telephone telling all her friends.

Total apps downloaded will soon be greater than the total number of songs downloaded on iTunes. I don’t believe anyone anticipated how big apps would be. So what does this mean to the idea of SaaS and the very meaning of Cloud Computing? I’ll let you know in a future post. Right now I’m busy re-watching the Lady Gaga video… wow, I love those product placements…

This Whole Android Vs. Apple Thing Is So USA

We Are The WorldRecently, I’ve been speaking with a few folks in the telecom business in Africa and a $299 or $199 or even $99 phone is not even a starting point. Try $10 or $20 or $30, heck splurge on an old blackberry retrofitted (i.e. someone cleaned the screen) and now you’re beginning to see how THE WORLD really works.

And that’s the same in China, India and other developing countries. (Yes, yes, I know they have smartphones and nice Apple stores but it’s a small part of those markets)

Sure a smartphone is cool, way cool; but being able to actually send a text message to your village telling them about your new job in the big city – now that’s way cooler.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Jerry Seinfeld was fond of saying,  and by that I mean not that there’s anything wrong with smartphones but where are the entrepreneurs that are trying to come up with $99 supercomputers or $10 laptops or $5 solar powered phones that the “rest” of the world could use.

We’re so busy trying to conjure up the next Facebook that we’re missing Facebookx10 opportunities. So start innovating outside the box (e.g. the Fifty States, the EU).  Take a summer off and travel. Heck, take a year off and go study a foreign language. Just expand your horizon.

Maybe you won’t actually invent something you can sell directly to these markets but when you do invent something – you’ll be thinking globally and then instead of inventing the next Google, you’ll invent the next Google AND Baidu all-in-one and not have to deal with the “do no evil” quandary ‘cause you’ll start off from day one doing good for the whole world.

Now, that’s an app I’d like to see on my iPhone.

The CIO Is Not The Customer

The CIO Is Not The Customer

I remember, and I may be dating myself here, when software developers or engineers would actually speak with customers and get their input and feedback on a product. You know, plain ordinary folks, the workers on the shop floor or the accountants in operations – the actual people who would use the stuff that engineers designed and made.

And, then something strange happened. I don’t know when it happened. Slowly, we stopped doing that. It was too difficult, you actually had to listen. Or, it took too long as you had to actually go and talk to someone face to face. (Remember face to face, f2f, live?)

And, that’s when the machines took over… no, wait, that was a movie…. Well, here’s what really happened:

Engineer # 1: “Hey, I’m tired of speaking to real people. All they want is things made easy”.

Engineer #2: “Yeah, I had a guy the other day actually say he wanted less features. What’s wrong with people?”

Engineer #1: “Hey, wait a minute. I’ve got it. Oh, you’ll love this. Let’s just make it harder to use. That way everyone wins. We’ll get paid more because it takes longer to make really complex code and stuff. We’ll use up lots more materials so everyone in the supply chain makes more money. It’s so complex that users will have to get more education, so all the schools will make more money. Then all the users get paid more ‘cause they have fancy degrees and have to do more complex tasks. And, this is the best part: the CIO absolutely loves it ‘cause the more complex it is the more job security and higher pay they get. Everyone wins!

Engineer #2: “Oh, you’ve outdone yourself. That is frigging brilliant!” [Jumps up and down with pure joy]

Engineer #1: [Locks arms with Engineer #2 and dances around and around. Music swells…]

Isn’t it about time we started speaking to users again?

How To Design Like Apple

Steve Jobs WWDC

I’m sick of seeing half baked products trying to be me toos to the slick products coming out of Apple (e.g. Mac, iPod, iPhone). So, here’s a list of 12 things all you wanna be’s will need (are you listening Bill, Sergey, Larry?) if you want products that look as good as and that consumers will love as much as Apple’s products:

  1. Start wearing black mock turtlenecks – all the time!
  2. Be born either Italian or French so you have natural design skills in your genes (I can hear the comments starting on this one).
  3. Actually think that you should spend at least 55% of your time on making something look good and less than 45% of your time making it (Guess that one didn’t make it to Detroit).
  4. Go to Xerox Parc and copy everything you see in sight and then tell everyone you knew that all along. Xerox, copy, get it?
  5. If you can’t go to Xerox Parc wait for Apple to release the product (Hey that Window thing sure looks familiar).
  6. Stop selling stuff by the size of your megabytes. Get some confidence in you. Just tell people what it does: Puts 1,000 songs in your pocket, not has 32Gb hard drive.
  7. Start believing that what you do does matter and that how customers feel (yes, that touchy feely stuff) about your product is more important than how they actually use it (they go hand in hand actually but you knew that). If you’re unsure about this one and are married, ask your wife.
  8. Study Buddhism, practice yoga, learn Chinese, drive a formula 1 car, play soccer – all things that over 2 billion people on the planet do. Yes, get out of YOUR box and see the world.
  9. Disband your consumer focus group department; all you’re getting is yes answers any way.
  10. Put people with a sense of design in charge of products. Make engineers and designers work together. If you don’t know how see Step #1.
  11. Listen, listen some more and then do what you think is right.
  12. Repeat daily until you get it right (see #11).

HTC Android Gets an “F” in Branding

HTC Launches on HSNYes, “F” as in fail, freak-up, complete failure, go to the back of the class, do not pass Go.

The new Android HTC EVO 4G was launched this weekend on Home Shopping Network – before the official launch on June 7th at Sprint stores. Oh wow, HSN, Sprint Stores, I’m jumping up and down. Plus it’s also the same day Apple is supposed to announce their new iPhone.

Yes, you read it right, the Home Shopping Network. The place to be for great deals on ginzu knives and other such must have items. Wow, so now the really cool, cutting edge stuff is going to be sold on HSN. I would never have guessed. Isn’t that cool. Maybe I’ll even be able to buy a blender at the same time and then do one of those “will it blend” tests.

I’ve taught marketing and strategy classes at the MBA level and let me tell you that you don’t need an MBA to know that is just plain stupid – unless of course, a) you just made too many of the damn things and you need to dump them as fast as possible before the new iPhone is officially out or b) you work for Doctor Evil and you want to do as much harm to Google/Android as you can without having to buy a Death Star at 3AM with 2,500,000 easy payments of $79,999 per month.

Stupid is as stupid does“. Thanks Forest, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Do I love Android or do I hate AT&T?

Nobody loves me :(Do I love Android or do I hate AT&T? I find myself asking this question over and over this week. AT&T just announced that they are doing away with an all you can eat data plan and the new iPhone is expected out any day. How you phrase the question gives you insights into the behavior of buyers of iPhone versus Google powered phones. Hey it gives you an insight into my own behavior…

[Disclosure: I think the iPhone is a phenomenal piece of technology and a seminal event in the birth of Cloud Computing (see my earlier post). I’m also planning on going out next week and finally buying one – my Sprint plan finally expires.]

I’ve been wondering why anyone would purchase an Android phone since it came out and I believe that it’s not that folks just love the Android but that they hate AT&T. Price gouging will have that effect on you.

Here’s another question: Do people love the Android or do they just simply hate, beyond all measure, Apple and Steve Jobs? I think you’ll likely to get a strong response on this one and that lots of Android buyers simply just can not stand Apple, and that they don’t really love the Android.

So what does that make the Android? People are buying it because they hate Apple and because they hate AT&T. But do they really love it? I think not.

It’s practical, it responsible, it does the job. It makes you anti-frilly, anti-flip-flop, anti-mock turtleneck, and anti-design. Hey, you wouldn’t want to actually admit you live in California, right? Hey, it makes you a PC person. More gray than sleek aluminum.

OK. Have I pissed off enough people? I hope so! I would love to see a real competitor to the iPhone and AT&T. So, why can’t someone do it? Common’ Sergey and Larry, you can do better, much better. And you will. If only you started asking the right question: Why doesn’t anybody love me?

Loic Le Meur states “Make Love Not War”

Loic Le Meur - founder of seesmicWell, he didn’t quite say that. Common’ did you really think he would? You all know how shy he is.

But he did say something quite interesting, not long ago, in Miami where I had the pleasure of listening to him make a presentation on social media. You see, Loic Le Meur is the founder of seesmic – a social networking tool and site. During his talk he said that “social media is not a campaign”. And, it got me thinking (and should get you thinking too). It’s also the perfect bookend to my last post on the death of advertise.

He’s right, social media is not a [marketing] campaign. It’s the soul of a marketing campaign, the very heart and essence of what marketers are aiming for when they do campaigns. It’s a connection with their customers that a campaign can only dream about.

A campaign is an act of war. It goes after the customer. Open a magazine – BANG! Turn the channel – BANG! Drive down the street – BANG!

BANG, BANG, BANG! A campaign wants to reach into your eyeballs and your wallet to make you purchase something.

Social media is like an act of love. It’s there, inviting, pulling you in. If you’re interested you will come in. You’ll have a taste. A sample. Even try experiencing what owning the product (or service) might actually be like. You’ll take a virtual ride, read comments by those who’ve tried it, perhaps even talk to them. It’s softer, it’s kinder, it’s less in your face. And, it’s hugely more effective in reaching beyond our rational ability to judge a product and to experience it on a visceral level. Just like love.

So, what do you think? What do you prefer? Love or war?