My BlackBerry

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A lot has been made in recent weeks about Barack Obama being forced to go without his BlackBerry when he takes office later this month. I love the fact that we've elected a president that uses a BlackBerry -- clearly he's a hands on guy.

Anyway, I can feel Mr. Obama's pain as I wouldn't know what to do without my Curve, which I've had for about a year now.

Here are the things that I'm currently using the device for, in no particular order:

  • Phone (home and cell)
  • Texting
  • Email (work and personal)
  • Blogging (because the keyboard is so easy to use, I rarely feel the need to write on my laptop anymore)
  • News. I've setup the WSJ.com Reader on the device so I get real time news feeds from all of my favorite news outlets and blogs. I get more news through my BlackBerry than other format.
  • Personal calendar, address book, tasks and notes
  • Alarm clock
  • General web surfing
  • Facebook (I have the application though I rarely use it)
  • Camera 

And many people are doing much more than that...

There are still a few things that I still can't do on my BlackBerry that I wish I could, such as:

  • Easily view and edit MS Office docs
  • Watch video on Youtube
  • Easily use HTML email
  • iTunes (download and sync)
  • Stream live TV
  • Online radio (there's a way to do this I believe, I'm working on it)
  • Synchronize with my web browser (passwords, favorites, etc.)
  • Better web surfing (faster, more windows, flash, etc.)

Some of these things are coming soon, some require support from the service providers and some are simply limited by form factor. But for the most part I'm now at a point where I've become extremely reliant on my BlackBerry. There's a lot more progress coming to be sure but I'm convinced that the major handheld device makers (Blackberry/Apple/Palm) have built products/platforms that address the fundamental challenges of handheld computing. The development to come is simply icing on the cake.

Newspapers

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Paul Mulshine had a good column in the Wall Street Journal recently defending traditional journalism (newspapers) and criticizing the amateur bloggers that are putting them out of business.

He makes the point that because most bloggers aren't paid for their work they'll be less willing to, say, sit through a three hour school committee meeting and summarize the key points in an easy to read article. So in the future, the casual follower of events at the school will be left unaware of what transpired at the school committee meeting.

I agree with the Mr. Mulshine that, generally speaking, this is scary and would no doubt be a bad thing.

Here's where we differ: it's not going to happen.

Blogs and newspapers have fundamentally identical business models; they generate attention or "eyeballs" that can be monetized in the form of advertising fees. Some also charge nominal access fees though typically this doesn't generate significant revenue relative to ads. On a macro level it is this business model that dictates what does and doesn't get reported or blogged on. To make money, editors and bloggers have to answer a simple question: what will generate attention? If an article on the school committee meeting will generate eyeballs, then it will be reported on, or monetized.

Newspapers are disappearing not because people don't care about the school committee meeting, they're disappearing because people's attention is shifting online. Quickly. And the scalability of online advertising doesn't change the underlying business model.

Because many bloggers are unpaid, amateur, dishonest and uninteresting, Mr. Mulshine assumes that the industry will remain this way. But assuming there's always demand for information from honest, reliable sources, the blogging industry will slowly morph into more of what we know as traditional journalism, only better.

As is true with most industry changes, I think we'll find that the maturation of blogs and web content and the absence of newspapers is good for everyone -- including newspaper reporters.

2009

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I'm not one for New Year's resolutions but I do set goals and think the beginning of a new year is a great time to reset. 

This year I've laid out several detailed and ambitious goals. I won't list them on this blog but, at a very high level, I want to lead my team and career to the next stage of growth, get in better shape than I've ever been in my life, be a much better friend and travel to some wonderful places and do some wonderful things. 

For those of us with big goals and high expectations there's no shortage of big challenges this year. A crappy economy; a lack of time, energy and money; rapidly changing priorities and shifting markets. Many of us are hunkering down, waiting for the next shoe to drop. 
I can only imagine how Obama is feeling as he gets ready to take over. 
But it's in times like these when the greatest things happen. When the greatest people stand out. When the greatest progress is made. There's really no better time to step up, stand out from the crowd and lead the way. If Obama and I can do that in 2009, it'll be good year.

Hard Work...

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...isn't enough anymore. I've worked really hard this year.  Probably harder than I have ever worked in one year.  But as I look back on 2008, I realize that very little that I did this year will matter all that much for my career next year. I've made a ton of progress for myself, my team and my company in 2008 but I've gotta do it all over again in 2009.

The fact is that it's always only a matter of time before what we're doing today is outsourced, automated or assigned to someone who'll do it for less money than we're being paid now. That's progress.  And the global economy only speeds up the process of progress. In the 50's, we could think about this reality once a decade. Now we have to think about it once a quarter. To stay ahead and grow, a knowledge worker has to continuously innovate and add irreplaceable value.

This reminds me of an African proverb I read somewhere; just found it online:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a lion wakes up.

It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.

It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better start running.

The Big Three

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It seems to me there are really two distinct issues around bailing out the automakers.

1. Should we save the employees?
2. Should we save the companies?

My answer to #1 is Yes and my answer to #2 is No.

It's important to recognize the distinction. Saving failing companies is bad for everybody (in the long run) and only delays the inevitable. If we're going to give away billions (in the short term), let's give it away in the form of unemployment and secondary education for displaced workers. 

We simply cannot continue to invest in or lend money to companies that lack vision, innovation and results. 

What's a Marketer?

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The other day I told someone that I'm not a big fan of copywriting. He replied with, "I thought you were a marketer."

It's funny how many people have a very limited view of marketing. People often think of branding, advertising and copywriting. But the fact is a car salesman is a marketer, just as a politician is a marketer, just as a teacher is a marketer.

Marketing is the art and act of telling stories that generate an intended result.  We're all marketers.

The Financial Crisis

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One reason for the lightning fast demise of the remaining investment banks was due to a relatively simple concept -- the "snowball effect." The value of an investment bank's stock is tied very tightly to the value of its "products" -- basically, its debt. That is, when the stock price declines, paying off debt becomes more difficult for the bank. Thus, credit ratings decline, and the stock goes down further. Soon, credit ratings decline again and the stock goes down even further, and on and on. This isn't true for, say, an ice cream shop. The price a customer is willing to pay for an ice cream cone is completely unrelated to the ice cream shop's market valuation. I suppose the above is true for any bank. But the extreme leverage these companies were operating with - 30 to 1, in some cases - made these stocks very risky investments.

Bloglines and Bloggers

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One other thought on Bloglines. (the blog aggregator that I plugged in an earlier post). The interesting thing about these services is that they allow a reader to completely avoid the ads served up on blogs. That is, you never actually leave Bloglines' site -- they simply feed you the text from the blogger's most recent post(s). Most of the blogs I read don't actually serve ads. They're simply using the forum as a way to generating interest and eventually selling more of their product or service. But for those bloggers that are generating substantial revenue by serving ads, these services present a big challenge.