Requests from the firing line

I couldn't resist...

Where are you?

Hi!

So...how is everyone doing? Are you enjoying the trips to France, and Asia, and everywhere else? I really hope that we'll all keep in touch- So, what are the updates!?

MS and Robotics

Seems we’re getting one of our first looks at what Steve Balmer and Bill Gates meant when they said Microsoft's future isn't in OS but in Robotics.

• Mediasurface Computing - from the Fallon Planning Blog


• The Microsoft Surface Website.

The video is particularly fun. All this multi-device human interaction in a tabletop; I have to assume this is the beginning of MS new direction.



No, it's not exactly Short Circuit 3 (excuse the 80s reference, I'm just proving my age here) but its a start in a new direction that doesn't include a box on your desk or kitchen counter. If the most important aspect of robotics is human interface & interaction design, this seems to go in the right direction.

Yes, we all see the iPhone's influence in the interface but MS and Apple have always been rival siblings of the same era. Neither one would be great if the other ceased to exist. Maybe that's why MS bailed out Apple with a 150mm deal back in 1997.

Talent! Searching for Talent

The Talent Business
225 Green Street, Suite 110
San Francisco, CA 94111
USA
Telephone: +1 415 839 4003
Fax: +1 415 839 4039

http://www.thetalentbusiness.com/

Check this site

Yet another trendwatching site...yet WAY awesome!

http://www.trendcentral.com/trends/default.asp

F**king Funny

One of the best beer ads I've seen in a while...

Charge iPods, light bulbs: wirelessly

Call it WiTricity, that's what MIT researcher Marin Soljacic calls it. Inspired by the annoying bleeps his cellphone made in the middle of the night when he forgot to charge it, Soljacic set out to find a way for a cellphone to charge itself, provided it was in range of a compatible signal.

And figure it out he did.

Here's your next generation of products, advertisers. A light bulb requires 30-40 watts of power and the minds at MIT made it happen with specially tuned magnetic fields. An iPod, by contrast, might take 2 or 3 watts to recharge.

Read that again. Yes, they lit a light bulb without wires and no one got tingly goose-flesh by sitting near it. It was done entirely with magnetic fields.

Apparently, it's time for consumers to start cutting the cords. The proof of concept is detailed in this month's Science Express. Take a moment and imagine the potential for clean energy in our city streets.

Holy cool, Batman.

Sushi-view cam in a Japanese restaurant

There was something massively fascinating about this video... must be the planner in me. It's bounced around the planner blogsphere a few times over the weekend.

Is it just me, or is there something just brilliant about all those reactions to a camera on a sushi tray? Loved it.

F#$%%^%^E#Q#Q the Palm Treo

As many of you may know, I am now on my fourth Palm Treo in a year and a half. While I was waiting to receive my fourth one (after my third one was broken right out of the box), I wrote the CEO of Palm a letter and fired him (as well as the company) as my cell provider. It was a very personal letter about why it was so important to me to have it work (lifeline to my daughter). About two weeks later, I received a form letter from the customer service department saying that they wanted to help make this right by getting me a new phone if I needed too. Wrong! It wasn't a phone and a form letter I wanted, it was a real apology from the President (after all I took the time to write him) and an acknowledgment that I had been heard. Death to Palm.

Last night as I went to dinner with a friend of mine who was visiting from Virginia, my phone broke again (after one motnh of flawless operation). AGAIN! This will be the fifth one I have had. Now the iPhone comes out in a few weeks and I am wondering if maybe I should send the President of Palm a new photo... that of me holding up my new iPhone... It is such a feeling of helplessness to be locked in to a contract and a phone that I now hate. NEVER buy a TREO.

The Hype Cycle

Anyone else out there getting tired of clarion calls for the death of the agency in favor of consumer-generated-media? Here's an excerpt from Gartner's hype-cycle. We're just about at phase two right now. So this isn't to say that CGM is without merits, just that we are a long ways from understanding how to use it properly.

1. Technology Trigger
   The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.
2. Peak of Inflated Expectations
   In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
3. Trough of Disillusionment
   Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
4. Slope of Enlightenment
   Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
5. Plateau of Productivity
   A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

The media has been claiming advertising and marketing are dead for decades. As I commented on one blog - if necessity is the mother of invention then our greatest innovations are often born at the point of failure. We can either toss our hands in the air and quit or work through this disruptive new medium and understand how to use it in a professional and productive way.

It won't be a short process or an easy ride but I think it'll be worth it.