mip's scan

Testing Done for the Torch and the Focus

I've been testing both the Blackberry Torch and the Samsung Focus over the past number of weeks.  I've nearly completed blog posts for each of them, but thought I'd put a short post out to set the context for these two devices; a high level introduction to what I've done. 

Being a long time iPhone user, I wanted to see how each of these devices worked for me.  On some days I carried just the Blackberry.  Other days I carried just the Windows Phone 7 Focus.  At other times, I carried all three on my belt (yes, I looked like Batman with his utility belt).  I really enjoyed going through the process of stress testing each of these phones through my normal working day and in my personal time.  I think that this is really the only way to get a sense of what works and what doesn't.  I tried hard to structure my thoughts in two categories:  1) how did the device fair on its own (no comparison to the iPhone or the other device) and 2) how did the device fair in comparison to other smartphone choices. 

The experience was an interesting one and I look forward to sharing them with you.  I will post my thoughts on the Focus early next week, then I will post my thoughts on the Torch in the latter half of next week.  Finally, I'll have a short video blog come out to talk about them both and show a little of the pros and cons to you.  If there are specifics you'd like to see, don't hesitate to drop me an email or post a comment.

Build an Ecosystem

When you look at nature and the environment, why is it so important to save an area of wetland?  Why is it important to save a type of wildlife?  The reason is balance.  An ecosystem is a delicately balanced environment.  If you are missing an animal, then other elements of the ecosystem suffer as well.  When there are gaps in the ecosystem, in short, it stops working.

This concept applies to business as well.  Why has Apple been successful?  Is it because the build top-notch quality products?  In part yes, but not entirely.  Is it because they deliver products that met the users’ needs better than any other product?  In part yes, but not entirely.  No, the real reason that Apple has been so successful is that their products and services are part of an ecosystem that they’ve developed.  Tied together beautifully, that ecosystem just works.  It is that element, that it just works, that really has been the reason Apple has been so successful.  It’s also the reason why other competing companies have failed to develop any type of Apple-product-killer.  As a competing company you can’t build a product that will kill anything!  You might build a product that is better than any single competing product from Apple, but without the ecosystem to tie it all together, to balance everything, to make sure that it all just works – without the balance, competitive products are fighting an uphill battle.

Does Size Matter?

Ah, I thought my title might provoke some raised eyebrows.  It’s an important question don’t you think?  Does size matter?  Or perhaps more aptly put Is Bigger Better?  Now before I go too much further and this blog leads you astray in thinking that I’m talking about something more risqué than tech, let me put my question into context.  I’m talking about tablets (and shame on you for thinking otherwise).

The iPad, with it’s 9.7” screen is currently the market leader in a space that truly is in its infancy.  I think that 2011 will see many new entrants coming into the space, including RIM with their Playbook.  In attempt to not go head-to-head with the iPad, these vendors are trumpeting differentiating features, one of them being size.   The Playbook will come in with a 7” screen and everyone is wondering whether the smaller screen will hamper the device.  Is the larger screen really better suited for a tablet.

Well, as always on mip’s scan, I like to experience things first hand.  I decided to take the Galaxy Tab for a spin and assess it from a size perspective only.  I didn’t want to do a comparison of apps and the overall ecosystem, mainly because Apple has such a lead in this area that it wouldn’t be a fair comparison.  I wanted to see how the device's smaller form factor faired against the larger form factor of the iPad.

With that in mind I carried the device around with the intent of seeing how usable several things would be on a smaller screen: web browsing, ebook reading, newspaper reading and email.   Keep reading to see what I found.

Social Media - What Is It Good For?

I'd Tweeted enthusiastically last week about a meeting we'd had with our PR agency that focused on social media.  After that a few people said to me in person "so it's for marketing, right?"  The it's was referring to social media.  I began to explain each time that it can be broader than that and I realized each time that people are in many cases equating social media as being Twitter and Facebook.  

I thought I'd write a brief post to expand on some of my thoughts and the conversations I had last week.  Firstly, social media is much more than just Twitter or Facebook.  If you are developing a social media strategy you should be considering, in addition to Twitter and Facebook,  other channels such as YouTube, wikis, Yammer, LinkedIN, blogs, podcasts and collaborative spaces such as Sharepoint or Basecamp.  Your social media strategy should include social interaction both internal and external to your organization.  

The other important aspect is not to get caught up in the "how?" - yes the channel is important but in my opinion, the channel is technology.  You should never let technology define the business objectives.  That is backwards.  It should always be the business objectives that drive the technology.  So too with social media - don't let the channel define the business objective.  It will be ineffective.  Instead, define your business objectives and then choose the channel that best fits.  For example, I've listed below, several categories of what your business objectives might be (in a broad sense) and how that aligns to the various social media channels/technologies.  

1. Creation of Intellectual Capital: If you are trying to develop new ideas you can draw on internal and external groups through the use of things like wikis.  Let the power of mass-ideas help to shape your own corporate process for the development of intellectual capital.
2. Nurture Intellectual Capital: Once you got some initial ideas from the above step, you can use social media to nurture those ideas and help them develop.  This happens in a collaborative space (for example with Sharepoint)
3. Resource Intellectual Capital: Internally you can leverage Sharepoint as a knowledge base to connect you to internal resources.  Externally, LinkedIn can facilitate access to industry resources that you can actively partner with or recruit. 
4. Deploy Intellectual Capital:  You may then be ready to launch something, or introduce it to a group (full scale or in pilot mode).  Now you can use social media to help promote it.  Things like YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging are ideal for this.  They can market the deployment but also help support it.  You can also gain valuable feedback / input from user groups through these channels. Internal feedback can come through tools like Yammer.
5. Metrics:  If you don't measure something, it either never gets done, or you never get any value from it.  Here social media can factor into your metric strategy for your programme or initiative.  Here a tool like Twitter can be leveraged to measure responses by analyzing the social stream and people's input on your product/service/initiative/deployment.  

So what is social media good for?  Plenty!  Much much more than just marketing and developing your brand.  Used correctly, social media can provide you with an important plank in your overall business strategy.

Capturing Business Requirements - Forget Documentation

Throughout my career I've been involved in numerous requirements gathering exercises.  Whether its for the formulation of strategy or the requirements for the development of software, understanding and capturing users' requirements is key to the process.  Over the past while however, I've come to repeatedly see that the process used by many organizations is flawed.  It focuses too much on the need for documentation. The process focuses far too much on the creation of documents.  All too often the process morphs from capturing requirements (which is valuable) to the creation of documents (which is of low value).  In many cases, unfortunately, the documentation becomes the deliverable.  This fundamentally misses the point of why we're doing the requirements caption: so we can align IT to the business.  Instead, the creation of documentation becomes too rigid, a mere exercise in checking boxes and finishing some templated approach.  

Now don't take me the wrong way, I'm not saying that documentation isn't important.  What I am saying is that the documentation shouldn't become the end-game focus.  It's not the deliverable!  Nothing hampers a project more than creating the "perfect documentation" and then missing the true value - that you've captured the true business needs and they are adequately provided to the next phase of the project.  Perfect documents don't add value.  In my opinion they take up far more time to create than the value they deliver.  

Mobile Is Transforming Everything

I had the pleasure of presenting at an event last week here in Toronto.  My topic was Mobile Computing and Leveraging Cloud Services.  I thought I'd share some of my thoughts as it pertains to the acceleration of certain trends and the reasons behind the changes at hand. 

In my presentation, I talked about a variety of important/hot/emerging technology trends.  Those trends were:

• Mobile devices,
• Collaboration/Web 2.0/social media,
• Business intelligence,
• Virtualized servers, storage, and/or networks,
• Security related to wireless and mobile devices, and
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

As I introduced these items to the audience, despite mobile being the top one, I left that to the last.  The reason is that I feel that mobile devices are really bringing those other things together and heightening their relevance.  It is this new generation of mobile device, like the iPhone, like the Android platform, the iPad and other tablets that will soon follow, that is truly moving us to a new paradigm of leveraging computing technology.

A Lesson in "Starting From Scratch"

Why is it that great products that hold commanding market share can't hold onto that advantage over time?  We've seen it time and time again.  Take RIM and their Blackberry.  It was revolutionary.  It was a fantastic device that I carried for years and years.  It owned the market, but now has been under seige from the likes of Apple and Google.  With such a strong foundation, why is that RIM couldn't leapfrog Apple? 

The issue is being too wedded to the foundation you've created. 

There have been other cases of this as well.  Take Microsoft.  Windows dominated for years.  So what happened?  They tried too hard to continue re-using the same foundation in future versions and in other products.  They are still doing that as well!  Look at the response to the iPad.....its a tablet running Windows 7.  I know that letting go of something you've built can be hard, but the risk of not exploring that option is huge.  I've spoke about this before when Microsoft was struggling to evolve Windows.  It's not new. 

We can see examples of where starting with something entirely new can yield breakthrough products.  Take again Microsoft, this time with their xBox platform.  Sony was commanding the market with the PS2 at the time.  Microsoft could have built a platform based on Windows, but they didn't.  It took courage to pull together a team that could start from scratch.  What did it yield?  The xBox user interface was (and is) fantastic - it was different, it was effective, it was user centric.  It more than challenged Sony...it displaced them.

I believe that Microsoft is doing this again with their soon to be release smartphone.  They  could have evolved Windows Mobile...which has steadily been declining into irrelevance.  They opted not to do that.  They could have played the copycat game like Google and RIM and tried to create an iPhone-like interface.  Again, they opted not to do that.  Instead they've created an OS that is user/social/info-centric.   It is fresh and in my opinion it is a step in the right direction as smartphone users become more sophisticated and comfortable with the mobilization of their world. 

By ignoring the legacy foundations that an organization has, they can indeed create innovative breakthrough products and services.  Apple does this exceedingly well.  It's no secret that I am a big proponent of what Apple has built.  I do, however, offer a cautionary opinion along the thread of this post:  don't become obsessed with the foundation!  The iPhone was revolutionary.  It has reshaped an entire industry and introduced a whole new way of leveraging our phones.  The iPad has furthered that, virtually jump-starting the tablet market after years of that technology never really grabbing hold of the public mindshare.   The risk to Apple is that they too could fall into this trap where everything evolves the iOS foundation.  If they do this, they too will be leapfrogged.  It is inevitable. 

Blackberry, finding itself now behind with regard to the innovations of Apple, has taken a bold step with the Playbook.  This device is a gamble because it will leverage a whole new operating system.  RIM is starting from scratch with this device and in my opinion that is a good thing.  They won't be hindered by old paradigms and sacred cows - instead they can create a product that fits with the evolving users that they are targeting.  It will be interesting to see how the final product is.  Regardless of it's success or failure, however, it will be a success from the perspective that it is a departure from the legacy foundation.

It's hard to move toward the future, if your organization is always holding onto what it created in the past.  Take a risk, and start something from scratch.  I'm sure that you'll be surprised with where that approach can take you.

 

GoToMeeting on my iPad

This is the stuff dreams are made of, for real! 

I've been carrying my iPad around all week, in some instances, not bringing a laptop with me at all.  I've been trying to see how far I can push the envelope.  I'll have a detailed post in a day or so with regard to how the iPad is fitting into my set of work tools.  

Moments ago, however, I got an invite to participate in a GoToMeeting call.  My day was "officially over" and I've stepped out to take my daughter to an evening class, when I got the call 'Can you jump on a quick review call?'.  Gulp.  I hadn't planned on this when I headed out and obviously I'd left my laptop behind, but I did have my iPad.  I quickly searched, feeling it was a long shot....would there be a GoToMeeting app?

Yes!

I've been a long time GoToMeeting user (I'll save that for another post on another day) and so I was so pleased to see that one of my favorite online collaborating/meeting tools is indeed available for the iPad.  I used the app to effortless join the meeting.  I was able to listen via a headset and participate via the built-in mic.  It worked so well that I caught myself grinning like a fool from ear to ear.  

It is apps like this that really start to drive home the potential value for the larger sized device, the iPad, over its smaller cousin, the iPhone.  You can really only start to discover these uses by carrying the tech around and seeing how it performs.  

Very pleased indeed!

PS - I've written this post using the iPad here at the offsite location I find myself at!  Another bonus in an already great day!

Initial Thoughts After Using My iPad

Well I got my iPad early yesterday morning and I've been using it now for the past 24 hours.  I've had several client meetings yesterday and had the opportunity to start putting the iPad through it's paces.  I will of course provide a more detailed review in a week's time - I don't think you can accurately comment on this device without really using it over a period of time.  The unit I got was the 64 GB WiFi unit; still not available in Canada but I had it brought up from the US.

I've capture a little video of myself below where I talk about a few initial observations.  Already I can tell you that this device will indeed change the consumption of content.  While I was conducting a GoToMeeting working session where the participants in the meeting where viewing my screen, I was referencing other documents off of my iPad.  I've got DropBox already installed and that basically gives me access to all my documents.  I was able to open a number of PDFs and Excel documents right on my iPad without the need to interrupt what I was viewing/sharing on my laptop.  It was an absolute joy to use.  What struck me the most about the iPad, besides the sheer elegance of the device itself, is how it seems to fade away while you are using it.  When looking at web pages, it really feels like you are holding that page and not some device showing you that page.  I felt the same way while viewing PDF documents.  The display and the feel of the device all make the consumption of content the front-and-centre aspect of what you are doing.  

In short, after a full day of use, I can say that the iPad doesn't replace the laptop or the iPhone, but it does indeed augment them.  People who rail against the iPad as not being up to the task of replacing a laptop have missed the point.  It is a unique device that fills a need that has been unanswered for some time.  I look forward to continuing to use my iPad and sharing my further thoughts on it as a business tool and a personal tool.

iMockUps for iPad

Here is another brilliant looking app I'm looking forward to putting to good use once I get my iPad (boy it is going to be a long April waiting for it).  

I've used numerous tools for developing wireframe mockups in the past. I was waiting to see if these types of tools would eventually become available for the iPad.  Check out the video demonstration below of iMockUp.  It looks tremendously promising.  

Kobo For the iPad

The stream of iPad apps that will be available has been trickling in all weekend long.  This morning I saw a video of one app that I'm looking forward to.  Kobo!  I'm already a huge Kobo fan on my iPhone.  It is an elegant little app that is a near-perfect eBook reader.  The video below demonstrates what this app will be like on the iPad and it looks fantastic!  I'm skeptical that the iBookstore will be available upon launch for us here in Canada - so I was eagerly awaiting to see if the Kobo reader would be updated with an iPad version.  Glad that it will be!

Give it a look for yourself.

The Evolution of Social Networking: A Look at Sprouter

Social media / social networking has obviously taken the Internet by storm - individuals continue to flock to it, mainstream companies have developed marketing strategies to leverage it, budgets once assigned for traditional marketing campaigns are now starting to be used in social media experiments and sites/services like Facebook and Twitter continue to enjoy growth (and are challenging other traditional players like Google).  In one of my most recent client engagements, students in high schools were viewing email as no longer relevant, as all their communications were occurring via Facebook.  The social networking paradigm is transforming things in a major way.  

It won't last though.

Yes, in one way, I threw that statement out to get a reaction, but I'm serious, in a certain way.  The utilization of these social networking tools will continue, but the sites/services themselves as destinations aren't going to last.  The reason for this is that sites like Facebook and Twitter are really becoming platforms that others will build atop.   

Let's take Twitter as an example to illustrate what I mean.  

At the highest level of transformation that is going to occur, we are seeing that every service, site and tool is building a hook into Twitter.  I'm hardly surprised any more when I see a tool I've been using that suddenly let's me "Tweet" from it.  Even the video games that my children play allow them to link their Twitter accounts so that high score, awards and level completion can all be automatically Tweeted.  Applications over the next twelve months will continue this trend and we should be surprised to find mainstream apps like Microsoft Office will start to include this functionality into.  

This integration will of course continue to push Twitter towards becoming underlying infrastructure that allows for social networking to be enabled across other tools that people use.  Sites like Twitter will become like "the internet" because when the famous "www" was introduced and the web itself was born.  The internet enabled the web.  Twitter will enable social networking.  Just as the web sits atop the internet, so too will other innovative tools and services end up sitting atop Twitter.

People are going to want the social networking functionality, but it is going to have to come with content & context.  They are going to want value.  An excellent example of this is Sprouter.  By registering for Sprouter, you are tapping into a community.  In this case, it is a community of entrepreneurs. If you are a start-up, you get access to a valuable pool of resources that would be otherwise hard to tap.  Through Sprouter you get connected to people, ideas and events that are of interest and of value.  

When you are logged into Sprouter, you are presented with a question "What are you working on?"  In this regard, it's paradigm is similar to Twitter.  You update your status and the people who are following you see that update.  It is a like-minded community though, and so the updates of status are targeted and hence, in my opinion, provides a greater degree of value.  Why?  The social networking that is going on is of benefit directly to start-ups and entrepreneurs.  That social networking is coupled with real world events/meet-ups, newsletters and other things that start-ups need.  

Sprouter's founder, Sarah Prevette, is giving us a look at what the future of social networking will be.  In my opinion, over the next couple of years, sites like Twitter and Facebook, while still existing, will have faded into the background.  Everything will hook into them, but they won't be destination sites.  Instead, sites / services of interest will be where we will congregate and socially/professionally network, leveraging the foundation that Facebook and Twitter have laid down.  

The Anti-Creativity Checklist

I like this tongue and cheek checklist that the Harvard Business Review came up with so I thought I'd share it.  Of course, this is really telling you what NOT TO DO if you want to have innovation become a part of your organization.  Enjoy!

My Anti-Creativity Checklist from Youngme Moon on Vimeo.

Freshbooks

I'm always on the look out for valuable applications and tools that can be leveraged by businesses.  Cloud-based services really interest me and I think they are increasingly going to become the way of the future.  I believe that to be true for a number of reasons (that I've spoken of before), but today, I want to highlight one in particular:  mobility.  

The mobile trend is going to drive cloud-based services in a way we've never seen before.  The value of cloud-based tools is there without the mobile aspect, but it's obvious that as we become more and more untethered from our computers and laptops, light weight browser-based or internet-centric services are going to continue to make in-roads.

That brings me to the featured application for today's post: Freshbooks.  What is Freshbooks?  Well, from their website we read:

"Our mission is to deliver fast and simple invoicing and time tracking services that help you manage your business. We call these Unaccounting™ services and they will:

• Save you time
• Be easy to use
• Make you look professional (think Fortune 500)
• Let you manage your books without an accountant
• Secure, encrypt, and back up your data
• Be available 24/7 from anywhere with any computer"

I was intrigued when I came across this simple, elegant and effective offering. Of course, I thought of Quickbooks and that is what drew me to thinking about the cloud and mobility.  The traditional desktop app, like Quickbooks (or any other time tracking and invoicing tool), is stuck....stuck on the desktop computer or the laptop.  Freshbooks is free - it can come with me wherever I go.  In a short while, for example, the iPad will arrive, and guess what, users of Freshbooks can track time, manage invoices, send invoices from wherever they might be.  Don't believe me?  There is already a great companion app to Freshbooks for the iPhone called Minibooks.  It's that type of mobility that makes an already great service like Freshbooks even better.  

Of course, just existing in the cloud and having an iPhone app aren't enough.  The tool itself needs to be good; it has to allow you to work effectively.  Freshbooks is a winner here.  As I said before, the tool is simple to use but not lacking in features.  I've used other "time tracking" tools before that were web-based and they were awful.  Cumbersome, not intuitive and not something you'd let a client see.  Freshbooks is wonderful to use and elegant in the way it allows you to generate invoices for a client that get delivered by snail-mail or via email.  I did some testing by setting up sample projects and clients and tracked time and then generated invoices.  Invoices delivered via email allow the client to view them on a customized portal-like web page.  It was perfect.

If you are looking for a good time tracking and invoicing system, I'd strongly recommend looking at Freshbooks.  Check out their tour for more info.  Or sign-up for a trial account.  As for me, I look forward to continue some more usage testing on it, especially once I obtain my iPad so I can get a better sense of what it would be like to carry around such a cloud-based service with me on that type of device.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Today's post isn't so much about tech itself, but rather, business and books.  I love to read.  I read a lot.  In fact, I read as much as I can get my hands on, both fiction and non-fiction.  Both from a professional and personal perspective, reading provides me with different perspectives, different ideas to think about and often can be a source of inspiration for exploring new areas of interest.

As many people are, I find I'm often in a time crunch and there is never enough time to read everything.  As well, with so many good (and some times not so good) book titles, it is hard to know what to read next.  This is where Soundview Executive Book Summaries comes in for me.  What does Soundview do?  From their website:

"Receive 8-page text and 20-minute audio summaries of the top business books of the year in 8 digital formats, accessible anytime, anywhere in your Online Library on our website."

If you want further info, here is a link to a video that gives a good overview as well.

This is a great service that provides me with book summaries that I can download in a number of formats:  PDF, MP3, Kindle, eBook, Blackberry (to name a few).  As well, each month, they mail me a CD with audio summaries of three books.  These are a good added feature as well as I am easily able to listen to them in the car.  Beyond the summaries, they also do a good job of providing interesting extras, like author interviews.  I find these particularly good as they provide added insight to a book.

So how do I use this service and the summaries?  Are they replacing reading books for me?  Not a chance!  I use this service to augment my reading.  Often, the "next" book that I'm going to read is a book in which the summary was rather engaging and I want to read/own the full text.  

So if you are looking to tap into expanding what you read, but are time challenged, this is a good service to explore.  The wide variety of formats they offer are fantastic as they can be consumed how you like on whatever device is your preference.  The summaries themselves are well done, thoughtful and not simple "reviews" or overviews - the provide enough detail to give you the major aspects of the books they are summarizing.  

You can find them at www.summary.com or follow them on Twitter via www.twitter.com/businessbooks

Happy reading!