01/31/08: Getting on the homepage of an iPhone
Greetings from Japan! I can finally reveal why I have been traveling back and forth to Tokyo so much over the past year. The great electronics giant Mashusta is changing its name to its more visible brand, Panasonic. Changing a company name is a difficult task for any company, let alone one that reported earning one billion dollars last quarter alone.
While they have great variety in Tokyo, I wanted to take the team some place special to celebrate our accomplishments. We loaded up and flew to Singapore, to eat at Hai Tien Lo, on the 37th floor of the opulent Pan Asian Hotel. We had most of the top execs from the new Panasonic, so we took over the entire restaurant for the evening.
Those of you who have dined with Japanese business executives will understand what I mean by the ‘seating wait.’ Japanese customs specify when/where and how people sit based upon their position in the organization. Being a consultant, I was a spectator during this whole affair, but just seating took over an hour.
During my wait, I sat at the bar and enjoyed some Saki with another consultant and toyed with my iPhone. Despite being a cell phone (something Steve Jobs always yells at me for if I call it ‘just a cell phone’) the iPhone always draws a crowd. We were surfing the web and going to some interesting sites to see how they would appear on the iPhone.
I’m a firm believer that checking in on finances is something that power phone users will do, (I was able to fish a lost receipt for a purchase via my phone while in line with a cranky returns clerk) The consultant I was with surfed on the phone over to his bank’s site and started searching around. Then something neat happened, the iPhone asked to put the icon on front screen. A click later and I now had the bank’s icon front and center on my home page. Very nifty! A quick note to my creative director back i nthe states revealed that it is a fairly simple step to add this functionality to a website. As the iPhone gets in more hands, ways to make your content available to that audience will become a great way to reach the tech savvy.
Well, I was starving by the time we got seated. Having spent an hour watching the event, I memorized the menu and had appetizers right behind me. I drank so much Saki and ate so much food that I ended up sleeping on the jet before we even left the runway.
While they have great variety in Tokyo, I wanted to take the team some place special to celebrate our accomplishments. We loaded up and flew to Singapore, to eat at Hai Tien Lo, on the 37th floor of the opulent Pan Asian Hotel. We had most of the top execs from the new Panasonic, so we took over the entire restaurant for the evening.
Those of you who have dined with Japanese business executives will understand what I mean by the ‘seating wait.’ Japanese customs specify when/where and how people sit based upon their position in the organization. Being a consultant, I was a spectator during this whole affair, but just seating took over an hour.
During my wait, I sat at the bar and enjoyed some Saki with another consultant and toyed with my iPhone. Despite being a cell phone (something Steve Jobs always yells at me for if I call it ‘just a cell phone’) the iPhone always draws a crowd. We were surfing the web and going to some interesting sites to see how they would appear on the iPhone.
Well, I was starving by the time we got seated. Having spent an hour watching the event, I memorized the menu and had appetizers right behind me. I drank so much Saki and ate so much food that I ended up sleeping on the jet before we even left the runway.
01/18/08: Social Plumbing
Greeting from Sundance!
I’ve been called a certifiable movie nut by my friends. They always know that I can be found at Sundance watching the films. The last few years I have been fortunate enough to be on the judging panels, which is quite a responsibility.
Last year, my dear friend Brad Pitt and I almost got into trouble out here in Park City when we would only speak using the ‘Piker’ Dialect that he used in the great movie ‘Snatch’. I helped him prepare for that movie by spending days on end only speaking in that hard-to-understand accent and bringing him interviews I had done with true ‘Pikers’ from England.
Part of Sundance is merchandisers trying to determine what the fashion trends are this year. Merchandisers are frequently trying to get trendsetter stars to wear a specific brand of sunglasses or winter boots in the hopes that others see this and thus start the trend.
This year, I had dinner with a couple of merchandiser friends of mine from New York. They were all a buzz about this new site, www.ThisNext.com. The site allows people to show off neat products and discuss them. I pulled up the site on my iphone and was impressed.
ThisNext.com is a great example of how social networking is moving from buzz phrase to foundation. Social Networking has been popularized by sites such as Facebook and MySpace, where people can build profiles and communicate with each other through the sites. Incredibly popular, and perfect for the Internet. I receive at least ten requests a week from people wanting us to create ‘the next facebook’ for them on a shoestring budget and some stock options.
This site isn’t a typical ‘social networking’ site, but instead it utilizes what I like to call ‘social plumbing’ to make the site. Instead of a bunch of editors determining what gets promoted, people post items of interest, why they like them and where to buy them. Other site visitors can see similar items or other items recommended by the poster. Another key aspect of social plumbing is what is called a ‘tag cloud’ for navigation. Since sites such as these have little idea how the site will grow, a tag cloud simply collects all of the keywords used for the items, and then visually weights the popular keywords by making them bigger. Clicking on the keyword will show all items tagged with that category.
I was so interested in the site that I almost missed a screening. I suddenly noticed the time, jumped up from the table and went running through town without the coat that my merchandiser friends asked me to sport around town. When I got back to my room, the coat was sitting on my bed with a note saying: ‘please don’t wear this the next time you speak Piker.’
I’ve been called a certifiable movie nut by my friends. They always know that I can be found at Sundance watching the films. The last few years I have been fortunate enough to be on the judging panels, which is quite a responsibility.
Last year, my dear friend Brad Pitt and I almost got into trouble out here in Park City when we would only speak using the ‘Piker’ Dialect that he used in the great movie ‘Snatch’. I helped him prepare for that movie by spending days on end only speaking in that hard-to-understand accent and bringing him interviews I had done with true ‘Pikers’ from England.
Part of Sundance is merchandisers trying to determine what the fashion trends are this year. Merchandisers are frequently trying to get trendsetter stars to wear a specific brand of sunglasses or winter boots in the hopes that others see this and thus start the trend.
ThisNext.com is a great example of how social networking is moving from buzz phrase to foundation. Social Networking has been popularized by sites such as Facebook and MySpace, where people can build profiles and communicate with each other through the sites. Incredibly popular, and perfect for the Internet. I receive at least ten requests a week from people wanting us to create ‘the next facebook’ for them on a shoestring budget and some stock options.
I was so interested in the site that I almost missed a screening. I suddenly noticed the time, jumped up from the table and went running through town without the coat that my merchandiser friends asked me to sport around town. When I got back to my room, the coat was sitting on my bed with a note saying: ‘please don’t wear this the next time you speak Piker.’
01/07/08: Hola from Mexico!
Those of you who have spent any time in my Texas ranch know my love of Aztec civilization. The pool house has a very Aztec influenced architecture, with future plans to make a water slide similar to Atlantis. I went down that once on a bet from Bruce Willis, but never again.
My love of Aztec architecture and a phone call from a friend got me on the next plane to Mexico City. My friend, Salvador Guilliem of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History, is leading the archeological dig in Mexico City. He thinks he found an 800 year old pyramid, which would totally revise recorded history of the Aztec people.
On the plane, I was seated next to an employee from the FBI who was also heading to Mexico, but for pleasure. We talked about the never solved case of Dan Cooper who jumped out of a commercial plane on its way to Mexico with a bag filled with stolen cash some 35 years ago.
The FBI had turned to a relatively new technique known as ‘Crowdsourcing’ to solve the case. They posted details of the case on their website and invited the public to review the case and suggest steps to solve it. The FBI person said that there was a lot of interest in the case, with a number of new approaches being sent in.
Crowdsourcing is the technique of opening up a task or challenge for anyone to solve. Putting the details on the web for peopel to pour over can result in new ways to solve a problem. Allowing the public to build off of each other’s thinking furthers this process and truly taps into ‘the wisdom of crowds’. Texas is doing this by installing cameras along the Mexico border and letting anyone view the cameras on the web to report crossings.
As we landed, we both exchanged contact information and promised to let the other know if we see the infamous Dan Cooper in our travels. I’m off to see Salvador and the designs for my new water slide.
The FBI had turned to a relatively new technique known as ‘Crowdsourcing’ to solve the case. They posted details of the case on their website and invited the public to review the case and suggest steps to solve it. The FBI person said that there was a lot of interest in the case, with a number of new approaches being sent in.
Crowdsourcing is the technique of opening up a task or challenge for anyone to solve. Putting the details on the web for peopel to pour over can result in new ways to solve a problem. Allowing the public to build off of each other’s thinking furthers this process and truly taps into ‘the wisdom of crowds’. Texas is doing this by installing cameras along the Mexico border and letting anyone view the cameras on the web to report crossings.
As we landed, we both exchanged contact information and promised to let the other know if we see the infamous Dan Cooper in our travels. I’m off to see Salvador and the designs for my new water slide.
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