“We’ll see” September 8, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Life Balance, Travel.1 comment so far
The other day I was so excited that I was going to be able to actually USE one of the upgrade certificates that Air Canada sends to frequent flyers (they call it Elite Status, but I’m not sure what’s so elite about it). Anyway, I was booked on a flight from Toronto to Vancouver, and knowing that I had booked on one of the new Air Canada planes, I was thrilled at the idea of sitting in one of those futuristic looking bed seats. I was feeling so happy about my good fortune and SOOO looking forward to the flight. Boy was I disappointed when I got on the plane only to find they had switched the plane to one of their antique broken down planes that sound like they’re going to fall apart every time they take-off or land.
I was so mad that I wasted the upgrade certificate on a broken seat that also had next to no legroom (first seat by the broken movie screen). While I was busy being mad at Air Canada, suddenly I recalled a scene from the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” where Gus Avacados tells the story of a Zen master… and I had to laugh at myself. (this looks to be the origin of the version of the story told in that movie):
There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.
“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.
“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“We’ll see,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“We’ll see” said the farmer.
This is good therapy for me, I think…. to be help me become less attached to a particular outcome. As it turns out it was a pleasant flight, and I had a great conversation with the flight crew.
Where’s FileMaker? September 4, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Gadgets n Gizmos, Simplifying your life, eBusiness.add a comment
As a long-time fan of both FileMaker & Apple, I’m amazed at the absence of some form of FileMaker for the iPhone. Some time ago FM discontinued their lame FM Mobile product, but have yet to come out with a replacement. Considering the relationship with Apple and FileMaker, I would have thought it would be a natural fit…. an elegant database “of the people” on the ultimate “smartphone of the people”. But no such luck. I’d love to hear from anyone in the know of FileMaker’s plans in this area (maybe a super-secret project underway)?
For years I’ve created my own database solutions to make my work or life easier, and now that I have an iPhone I really want to create a version of my solutions that would work on iPhone. Tough luck for me. There is some good news… I’ve been folowing the development of an iPhone application called FMTouch. It lets you sync your FM DB onto the iPhone and interact with records. Although this is being rapidly developed with superb support from the developer, it’s still a really early stage product, and (for me anyway) has some deal-breaker limitations.
I’m not a cocoa or Objective C developer, so no matter how user-friendly the iPhone SDK may be (read “developer-friendly”) it’s not for the average (or even advanced) FM developer or hobbyist. So the choices I’m left with are make due with an FMTouch solution, or enlist the help of an iPhone developer. Stay tuned.
Floodstock 08 August 15, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Music.2 comments
This has been a busy summer, and now Ali & I have been to two music festivals… one one each coast. The Pemberton Festival in BC was a huge event: 40,000 people (including the other 19, 998 that were camping) Last weekend we attended Floodstock in Saint John New Brunswick. Floodstock is a charity event put on by my boss’ family to raise money for a children’s charity. (it was just a tad smaller than the Pemberton Festival 
Oh.. and the other difference was that I performed at Floodstock… as did with the T4G house band, Her Majesty’s Royal Morris. Here’s some video (tip: click “watch in high quality” underneath the video)
“I’ve Just Seen a Face”
“Folsom Prison Blues”
“Fixin To Die Rag”
“The Drugs Don’t Work”
iHappy August 1, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Gadgets n Gizmos.add a comment
Ali & I just bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner. There is a little book that comes with it called “Our Story”. Here’s the first paragraph:
James Dyson
You know the feeling when an everyday product lets you down? “I could have designed this better myself”, you think. But how many of us do something about it? James Dyson does. He’s a man who likes to make things that work better.
In this regard I consider Dyson to be like Steve Jobs (and his design chief Jonathan Ive). Jobs is my hero for creating not just elegant products, but joyful user experiences. ”User Experience” is a very overused term these days, and some only pay lip service to the concept. ”You know the feeling when an everyday product delights you?” That’s the magic that Steve Jobs performs. I just got my first iPhone this week after a very long wait (I live in Canada and it was just released here this month). After 3 days with it I can say that I’ve experienced delight, joy and gratitude… no matter what task I’m attempting. The stunning graphical UI could best be described as luscious. I’ve suffered with a Windows Mobile phone for the past 2 years, and at least 5 times a day I wanted to throw it off a building or drive over it with a steamroller.
I’m constantly hearing from all kinds of pundits that Apple is just a small fractional player compared to Nokia and RIM and Microsoft, and that these guys are going to strike back with their own “iPhone killer” (a new one seems to be announced every week). I may not be an expert in the mobile telco space, but I’m a human being who loves using products that work and exceed my expectations… AND I can recognize a Tsunami when I see one. Nobody is going to catch Apple. They tried and failed to combat the iPod, and I believe the same thing will happen here. You want to know why? Lots of reasons: the App Store… The SDK… and the fact that the iPhone platform ecosystem is a closed loop. But the fundamental reason is that Steve Jobs understands people better than any of his competitors.
Internet Retailer Conference July 21, 2008
Posted by fredillies in eBusiness.1 comment so far
Funny how in Canada we wait so long for Summer, and once it’s here it zips by at some kind of time-warp speed. (I mention this as a convenient excuse for not posting in a while … well, that and the fact that it’s been a very busy year work-wise!)
In June I attended the Internet Retailer Conference in Chicago. Like the other major ECommerce conferences (like shop.org & eTail), it was a great opportunity to take the pulse of the industry. For me the common thread was that online retailers are striving to increase their relevance to their customers. Of course there were lots of updates on what online retailers were doing with social media, including:
- Many Facebook apps (Sears Holdings social shopping for prom dresses as an example);
- New shopping technologies (notably ShopTogether ™ which lets friends share a common area onto which they drag products);
- Desktop widgets that provide value to the customer and a great opportunity to push RELEVANT additional information to the customer (notably Due Maternity’s Pregnancy Countdown Clock).
ATG’s discussion about the power of personalization has undoubtedly contributed to their huge traction with major online retailers (and even with large non-retailers who have implemented ATG for the personalization technology). The list of major customers they’ve signed up in the last 2 quarters was incredible.
There was an outstanding presentation by Lulu.com’s founder, Canadian entrepreneur Bob Young (who also the founded Linux software company Red Hat). Bob’s presentation was incredibly refreshing in that he had NO powerpoint, and he was witty, warm and engaging. He spoke about the vision of Lulu, the worlds fastest growing producer of on-demand books. Lulu is a fantastic example of a Long-Tail business.
I attended a Mobile Commerce stream, and here’s what I found MOST interesting: how many questions there were from the audience about the iPhone as a platform that they were considering developing for. AND that all of the pundits were kind of blowing that off as insignificant (their presentations were full of graphs about mobile usage, bandwith, etc. from the pre-iPhone era). What the audience knew is that the iPhone is a tidal wave not just because it’s a cool gadget, but because of the SUPERIOR USER EXPERIENCE relative to other mobile phones/ smartphones. The reason the iPhone platform will be so huge is that PEOPLE will flock to a great customer experience (think about the success of iPod in the face of a multitude of other MP3 players). Online retailers know that customers are PEOPLE and will eventually connect the dots. It’ll be interesting to see how online retailers take advantage of this wave (my opinion is that the iPhone platform is going to [finally] going to enable mobile commerce in a way that has been envisioned since the late 90s, but which has never been realized through the mobile devices released in the last decade).
Telling your story – The Elevator Pich April 4, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Communication, Gadgets n Gizmos, Work.add a comment
I’ve been facinated for some time now with the concept of “telling your story”. My two favourite recent business books are “Presentation Zen” by Garr Reynolds, and Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. One area of particular interest is the applications of their philosophies to the “elevator pitch”. For those not familiar with this term, imagine you had 30 seconds to tell a prospect what your product or service is and why they should use it. From my experience, it is extremely hard to do this. Most people I know (myself included) have difficulty being able to consistently pull this off under time pressure, but I believe it can be mastered. It requires 3 things:
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The ability to distill your company/product/service message down to its essence;
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So much practice delivering this message in 30 seconds that you could do it instinctively at any time of the day when confronted by a co-worker with a stopwatch;
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The charisma or presence to be able to connect with your listener(s).
Although I don’t have any video example of Steve Jobs doing an elevator pitch, I’m sure he would be outstanding, given that he is the the zen master of Presentations. See this post by Garr Reynolds or this video of Jobs announcing the iPhone. It’s not a stretch to imagine him giving the greatest elevator pitch of all time. Yet so few people seem to get it right. The following are some examples of ”elevator” pitches featured on the NY Times website this morning. The clips are from the CTIA Wireless 2008 (the largest mobile phone industry trade show).
The first example, an exec talking about the new Samsung Instinct, lacks any passion, and seems to speak more to features than benefits. A better example is this clip of the LG Vu, which is more passionate, more benefit-driven (and BTW is given by someone who is much more believable as a spokesperson… which one of these two people can you see tuning in and watching TV on their phone?) Note that she actually showed what the experience of watching TV on the phone was like.
What would the video of YOUR elevator pitch look like? Would you want it on YouTube?
If they’re not afraid of Apple, why try so hard to copy iPhone? April 1, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Gadgets n Gizmos.add a comment
Back when the iPhone was announced at MacWorld 2007, I pictured all the panicked meetings in the boardrooms of the smartphone manufacturers… executives sweating buckets wondering what they could do to catch up. Well, even if they couldn’t copy the user experience and multi-touch interface, at least they could make it LOOK like an iphone. I can hear the design brief now: ”Make sure it has a rounded silver edge!” As the saying goes… imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! David Pogue had a great article about the impact of the iPhone as a platform, and about SDK.
The joy of the unexpected February 28, 2008
Posted by fredillies in Communication.1 comment so far
Check out this video played at the TED Conference. It reminded me of one of the six concepts that Chip & Dan Heath write about in their book Made to Stick: “UNEXPECTED”. By doing something unexpected (in a presentation or in advertising, for example) you can immediately cut through the ‘noise’ and snap people out of their haze long enough to make a lasting impression. And I just love thinking about everyone who witnessed this in person… the child-like wonder that could be seen on their faces… how it changed the rest of their day…. and the STORY they would have told. What a cool performance piece!
