Category Archives: technology

A Week Without Social Networks

As stated last week, I plan to start going a week wIthout some things in order to best evaluate my needs. It should come as no surprise to any of my patrons that I have been struggling with how I approach social networks.

Don’t get me wrong, they are a great tool for communication and engagement. In fact, there are many people that I have met and converse with primarily through social networks that I would call my friends. I would not have been able to build these relationships without these tools.

I have no problem with advertising at all. When it is done well advertising can connect people with really useful products and ideas they may not have heard of otherwise. If a social network wants to go down the advertising path to pay the bills, I can support that.

I guess what I’m increasingly uncomfortable with, and the reason for this break, is two fold:

  • I find I spend and share far too much of my time and words there with no clear intention of why I’m doing so. Are the things I’m saying really things others need to know? Is it helping them in any way? Is it helping me by sharing them? Could the words I’m sharing there be better shared some other way? On a website or a book? With a tool that allows me better control and retains personal ownership.

  • As a writer, I make my living off of my words. Is a social network, as a tool, worth the trade of letting someone else profit from my words as well? Is it OK for them to listen into my conversation about the double-shot of espresso I pulled and then deliver a burr grinder ad into my stream? Does the fact that I happen to be in the market for a burr grinder make that transaction OK? Because, those words are ultimately what they sell to advertisers and use to deliver “relevant” advertising to us.

Once again, I’m not saying it is good or bad one way or the other. I honestly do not have an answer. These are all questions, along with many others, I will be pondering during my mini-sabbatical. I will also be pondering how to come back with a better intention and approach. Which, ultimately, is what we should be seeking with any tool we wish to use well.

Disruptive

You should know by now that I normally do not get into much “news” around here. Especially when it’s not specifically Mac news. There are a ton of great Mac news sites out there and I leave that job up to them. That said, Chairman Gruber linked to a highly fascinating Wall Street Journal Liveblog of today’s Hewlett Packard conference call today. Specifically, he called out this particular statement:

“The tablet effect is real, and sales of the TouchPad are not meeting our expectations,” Apotheker says, explaining the movement of consumers from PCs to tablets as one of the problems with the PC division. So H-P is exploring options for its unit that “may include separation through spinoff or other transactions.”

So, as it turns out, HP is getting out of the PC business because of “the tablet effect”. Whereby “tablet” he means “iPad” because, as we all know, there really is no tablet market, there is only an iPad market. So, the only tablet that could have created such an effect is the iPad.

Wait, did you catch that?

The iPad is causing such disruption in the PC business that HP, a company fundamental to the creation of the personal computer itself, is getting out of the PC business.

Wow. Just wow.

And, if you think other PC makers are not also feeling the pain of the tablet eff… oh heck, let’s just call it what it is, the iPad replacing the very idea of the affordable personal computer in the mind of the average consumer, then you are fooling yourself. I mean, Michael Dell may be laughing it up in public but I can promise you he is crapping his pants in the office and crying in the boardroom. I mean, at this point they are not even in the race that HP is giving up.

So, here is where I would like anyone who disagrees with me to feel free to mark this post and then throw it in my face if it turns out I am wrong. Got it bookmarked? Good. Consider this an open letter…

Dear Anyone Else Who Thinks They Have A Chance In The iPad Market,

You don’t. The iPad is the fire that sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Apple zigged and you guys are still trying to figure out what a zag is. It’s sad really, to see companies that were once at the top of the NASDAQ stumble around digging for pocket change in your high-end sofa cushions.

It is time to stop looking and, like HP, face a simple truth – you can’t win playing the iPad game. Because it is not the tablet game. It is the iPad game. And you can’t make those. You can’t even manage to make something as good as those, at least not at that price. Apple has the channel locked up price wise. Tim Cook saw to that. You will never be able to build at the same cost they do and produce anything even close. And let’s just skip the whole integrated end-to-end platform discussion because you guys are just not built that way.

Oh, Google, sit down and shut the eff up because I’m talking to you too. You are the company that names your beta builds after candy, ice cream, and sugared cereals. Apple names their betas after things that will eat your things along with the tasty human wrapper that eats that crap. Do you honestly think anyone can take you seriously?

Where was I?

OK, are we agreed? You are going to stop trying to make iPads right? Good. So, come a little closer, I’m going to give you a secret. You might want to sit down for this one. I’ll try to explain it simply…

Change. The. Game.

Apple did not beat you with the iPad. They beat you with the iPad market. A market they created out of the ashes of burning netbooks, low cost laptops, and PCs that no one really liked or wanted in the first place. There simply was no other option at the time available for them to buy otherwise. Apple created that option.

Just like the iPad created a whole option, and thus, new market (the one you keep calling the “tablet market”), the only way to compete is not to get into that market but to create a whole new one. One that will suck the life out of the iPad market. Something so disruptive, so mind blowing, so magical that, like the iPad, people will form lines around the block for months to get it.

Create. A. New. Option.

Make the iPad as irrelevant as the iPad seems to be doing to the consumer PC.

Huh? What? You want ME to tell you what that is? What do I look like? Fake Steve Jobs?

That’s YOUR job. That’s what you should have been doing… Oh, i don’t know… 10 years ago. Around the same time Steve was dreaming up the iPad.

Microsoft, you still have some great talent left around. Your R+D department is still one of the most respected in the industry. Do something with that. Grab a few Kinects and see what else you can do with that stuff.

Google, you just bought a bunch of patents. Why not dig around in them. Maybe there is something groundbreaking there. Also, use big people beta names for this stuff. Folks might take it more seriously.

To the rest of you, well, do something different. But, for jeepers sakes, do not keep fooling yourself that there is a tablet business or even much of a consumer PC business you have any chance of making real money in. If HP can’t, if Dell can’t, you are toast there.

To recap:

  • Stop trying to make iPads. Make markets.

Sincerely,

Patrick

Important/Unimportant

I recently made a massive simplifying change to my RSS System following my experience while on, and after returning, from vacation. I’ve covered my system many other places before, but to summarize, I had things organized into a series of folders that helped me know what the read and what to ignore when things got busy.

Coming back after a long while away I found I had so much to “catch up” on. Even the little number indicating unread items in my a-list, must read, folder seemed daunting. I knew there had to be a better and simpler way. So I put some thought into it.

Things I read regularly fall into two categories, really…

Important – These are things I read and consistently derive a lot of value from. Whether that be personal value because I love the writer or am endlessly curious about the subject or actual value because it helps in my endeavors that produce income (writing for instance).

Unimportant – Anything that does not fit into the above.

Therefore, I have ditched my multiple folder based system for only two. On the busy days, or if I ignore my RSS for an extended period of time like a vacation or digital sabbatical, I know I can mark as read on the Unimportant folder and walk away knowing I likely have not missed, well, anything important.

Astute readers may already see the obvious conceit in this. If it’s not important, why read it at all? Well, that’s a great question. Let me try to explain…

For a while, I’m actually going to track how often and frequently I do mark as read on the unimportant things. I’m also going to see if I actually do derive value from some of the things in there. Everything, in either folder, will be under constant scrutiny as to which folder it belongs. I have already moved a couple of things from one to the other since making this change a couple of nights ago.

Then, after a while, I will know that what is in the Important folder really is and will unsubscribe from everything in the Unimportant folder. Yep. Gone.

Any new subscriptions will be added only under the criteria set for what is important. Which I welcome, of course. The goal here is to increase signal and reduce noise. If there is something I should be reading regularly that I’m not, I really do want to know about it. That said, I’m going to be very picky.

So, there you have it. Yet another crazy experiment by a guy with more questions than answers.