Paul Wallbank, talking about media and comms

Criticism

One of the odd things about people criticising you on the Internet is how often they read the wrong things into words.

A case in point are the replies to this Smart Company column.

The funny thing is I agree with every point he makes and if he left it at that all would be sweet and the reader better informed.

But he doesn’t and he drops this little bomb;

The notion that it “cost them nothing” is also misleading as unless you think though the consequences of beginning such engagement, say through Twitter, then it can cost you a lot more than you are prepared to give.

Misleading?

Accusing a writer of misleading readers is pretty serious. It’s even more galling when the quote is taken out of context.

This is the strange thing about the Internet, people do silly things and it hurts their credibility.

Cannes Lions: Day Two

Day two of Cannes Lions continued the theme of dealing with new channels with a big focus on digital and Internet possiblilites.

One old channel using new technologies is the movies.

The future of Cinema with SAWA was an entertaining session that showed how movie theatres are going to bring together various technologies to enhance the audience’s experience.

These new experiences offer great opportunities for producers, studios and marketers and while naturally the audience were more interested in the marketing angles, it’s clear that everyone involved in movies will be focussed on how they can make these features work for them.

Jimmy Mayman from Go Viral showed some of the successes in viral marketing, including T-Mobile’s Dance and Sing clips.

I have to admit I was left cold by these examples. I’m not contrived flash mobbing events are even truly viral marketing as such.

Monday’s highlight was one of Twitter’s founders, Biz Stone, discussing the future of Twitter to a full auditorium.

The big news from the session was how Biz hopes to have a revenue based on advanced API functions for commercial users.

This is an innovative twist on the “freemium” business model. Where individual users are subsidised by the sale of aggregated data to businesses.

It will be interesting to see how Biz and his team deal with the inevitable privacy concerns that will be raised.

While the session was promoted as a tweet-up, it was limited by the lousy Wi-Fi access in the venue. In fact it’s surprising how little a role Twitter’s playing in the event given how it’s being used at Australian events like the Future Summit and CeBIT.

Wi-Fi problems illustrate just how event organisers are struggling with the demands of a modern market. It’s a theme we’re going to see continue.

The business of business

With the coming of the airlines and the US interstate highway system, American railway owners misunderstood they were in the transportation business, not the railway business.

Shortly after World War II, with the coming of the airlines and the US interstate highway system, American railway owners misunderstood they were in the transportation business, not the railway business.

As a consequence, they missed the opportunities to get into the new markets and most of them died.

This is true today as new technology and changed economic circumstances batter old, established industries.

Newspapers for example are not in the newspaper business, they are in the news business and fixating on paper as the medium to deliver that news leaves them struggling to adapt in a world where the main source of news is increasingly the Internet.

We see a similar thing with telephone companies wedded to their old copper networks or car manufacturers building fuel guzzling road yachts.

Recent comments by Rupert Murdoch about charging for content along with Associated Press’ attacks on Google show how the traditional channels are struggling.

This trend is bigger than news or media organisations, the developing communication channels using mediums like Facebook and Twitter are going to challenge many organisations and change the way business is done.

Business is far more open and transparent, good and bad reviews of your organisation travels further and faster than before.

Your employees, contractors and customers are communicating in channels outside your control.

That’s just in the communication field. The changed economic environment means even more challenges to established businesses.

So the question is what exactly is your business? Which of your customers’ needs does your business fulfil?

Cannes Lions: Day One

The first day of the Cannes Lions illustrated how the advertising and marketing industries are not alone in being challenged by the rise of always on consumers and employees.

Day one of what’s going to be an extremely busy week at Cannes showed how digital technologies and the Internet are changing not just the advertising industry but all sectors of industry.

Schematic’s Dale Herigstad showed, among other things, where Microsoft’s Project Natal is pointing the direction of where computer controls are going.

Being able to remotely control equipment with body movements and facial expressions is going to be a massive change for entertainment, communications and many other sectors.

This theme was expanded upon by Andy Pimental of Razorfish who demonstrated his vision of where television is going.

In Andy’s future, the game controller and console are doomed. Movement recognition like Project Natal coupled with games being on the cloud means the game industry is going to be very different in a few years time.

An interesting aspect with Andy’s presentation is that most of the technology is already available to achieve his vision, as he put it “it’s the business constraints, not technology, that limits us”.

From a presenter’s point of view, the use of mock Tweets to illustrate points was a nice touch, too.

Kevin Eyres of LinkedIn probably had the most impact. While much of the presentation focused on how LinkedIn can be used as a marketing tool, Kevin’s comments at the beginning about every individual is now entreprenuer thanks to reduced job tenure and security really illustrated the challenges businesses and governments are going to face in the connected world.

There’s some interesting challenges for all businesses ahead, not just the advertising industry. There’s a lot more to come.

ABC Nightlife June 2009

The July Nightlife will be on Thursday July 9 with Tony Delroy and we’ll be looking at whether you should worry about the upcoming Windows 7

abcbanner_local The July Nightlife will look at whether you should worry about the upcoming Windows 7 on Wednesday July 15.

We’ll be live across Australia on ABC Local Radio. Show starts at 10pm and we’ll be taking questions from around 10.30. Call in early.

Tune in through your local ABC station or stream online through the Nightlife website

ABC Weekend computers

The next weekend computers will be on July 19, 2009 when Simon and myself look at the differences between netbooks and notebooks to see which one is right for you.

Tune in at 702 on your AM radio or stream us online from the ABC Website.

Your comments and questions are welcome so call in on 1300 222 702 or SMS on 19922702.

Would you like Wi-Fi with that?

Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, I had to rely on wi-fi hotspots for internet access last weekend.

One of the things I quickly discovered was McDonald’s restaurants are a good bet for a reliable connection. As somebody who rarely goes into fast food chains, it was interesting to notice how offering free wi-fi has changed McDonald’s customer base.

When I was a uni student, it wasn’t the done thing to be seen in a Maccas. Sydney Uni students used to hide upstairs in the Broadway outlet so passers by wouldn’t see them enjoying a guilty burger.

Things have changed.

Sitting in the Melbourne McDonald’s last Sunday night I was surrounded by young people using their laptops; in turn this had attracted their friends, and the place has become a gathering spot.

While they probably aren’t spending that much in the way of fries and burgers, they were giving the store a buzz at the time when it probably wouldn’t have been that busy.

The thing that intrigues me is how McDonald’s is now viewed by a group who – having grown out of Happy Meals and the kids play area – were probably not that likely to think of a fast food chain as a destination.

So rather than losing this age group and demographic, Maccas is re-engaging with them on another level. It’s also making it almost respectable for middle aged businessmen to be found sitting in them with a guilty container of French fries.

I see two lessons for other businesses from what McDonald’s is doing – the first is not to fixate on the short term bottom line. The people coming into their restaurants may not be buying much right now, but this move is positioning the chain for the long run.

The second is McDonald’s executives are thinking about how technology can help them.

Many executives seem to be proud of their almost wilful ignorance of all things technology and what it can do for their businesses. Maccas has shown how to take tech and use it to its own advantage.

It’s thinking outside the box that separates the business that will thrive from those who will struggle in this period of great economic and technological change.

How are you thinking outside the box? Have you given any thought to how you can adapt new technologies to meet your customers’ needs, and position your business with tomorrow’s markets?

Buying a new computer

While computers are a tool, they are unique in their flexibility, and every user has different needs. So these suggestions are based on pretty generic use – if you have a specific application, or you’re a high-end user, then you really need to make sure your system meets your requirements.

This article originally appeared in Smart Company.

After discussing tech purchases my Smart Company column two weeks ago, a few readers have asked what they should be looking for in a new computer.

The answer, like everything in IT, is “it depends”.

CPU

Some people obsess about chip speeds and processor specs. The ugly truth is it barely matters for most users. Don’t sweat all the CPU mumbo-jumbo and leave the “front side bus” penis envy to others who don’t have work to do.

Hard drive

If you are connecting to a network, hard drive space isn’t critical. For a desktop computer, 320Gb drives are the standard entry point, and 160Gb for laptops. If you are running a home office or you handle lots of media files, then 750Gb or a terabyte (1000Gb) may be the way to go.
If you are considering netbooks then you will find hard drive space is far smaller, with as little as 9Gb; this is OK if you intend to store files on network servers or out on the internet cloud.

Memory

This is the easy bit – the more memory the better. All good value systems come with 2Gb and an upgrade to 4Gb is money well spent.

Graphics card

Video capacity is where cheap systems fall down. Many entry level systems use “shared memory” where the video system shares the work with the CPU. These systems perform dreadfully on Windows Vista and struggle to support higher resolutions.
Spend the extra and go for a video card with at least 256Mb of RAM. Many units have the option of going up to 512 and 764Mb, although I’d prefer to spend the money on system memory before video cards. Your view might be different to mine though.

Monitor

On desktops, the bigger the better. Go for a 20″, 22″ or 24″ monitor. Get two monitors and you’ll see office productivity soar.

Portables are a different kettle of fish. Personally I love the compact 7″ netbooks for their weight and size, but many people prefer 15″ screens. When choosing a laptop, you need to make a compromise between price, screen size and weight that meets your needs and budget.

Optical drives

DVD-R/W is still the way to go. You don’t save much by leaving the writing function out, and being able to burn disks from your system is handy. Ignore BluRay as it remains expensive with little take up in the market.

Networking

Some real cheap and nasty machines may still have 100Mbit ethernet. Avoid these like the plague. If it doesn’t have a gigabit ethernet don’t buy it.

Similarly, all laptops have wireless capabilities and the 801.11g standard (54Mbit) is the norm. Most laptops now have some version of the newer 801.11n standard, but keep in mind the final 801.11n standard won’t be released until the end of this year.

Warranties

Three years is the only way to go; don’t consider otherwise. If the computer is mission critical, a same day warranty makes sense, but most businesses go for next business day service to balance cost against reliability.

Mac or Windows

Whenever a SmartCompany blogger wades into the Mac versus Windows argument, Amanda Gome is delighted with the increased site traffic until the server melts down and the death threats start arriving.

Suffice to say, you should use whatever works best for you. It’s your equipment and your business, and no-one else has the right to tell you whether Microsoft, Linux or Apple are better.

Price

Overall, a good business computer to these specs will come in around $1500 for the desktop and $1800 for a portable. Add another 25% for Apple equipment, although the lifetime cost of ownership is around the same for Apple and Windows-based PCs.

That’s a rough idea what to look for when specifying computer systems for your office. Have a good look at your needs and budget and you should be able to find some good bargains to help your business work better.

ABC 702 Weekends: How to run a sustainable computer

This Sunday Simon and myself will be looking at how to run computers in an evironmentally friendly and sustainable way.

Tune in at 702 on your AM radio or stream us online from the ABC Website.

Your comments and questions are welcome so call in on 1300 222 702 or SMS on 19922702.

Has Microsoft learned anything from Vista?

Microsoft have announced a release date for Windows 7. Have they learned anything from Vista?

CNet’s Ina Fried reports Microsoft has set an October 22 release date for Windows 7, their new operating system to replace the flawed and unpopular Windows Vista.

In an article earlier this year, Ina quoted Microsoft Senior Vice President Bill Veghte that Microsoft has learned important lessons from Vista.

One lesson they appear not to have learned is how multiple versions of the product confuses the marketplace and tarnishes their brand.

That we still have FIVE versions of the new system, and that they’ve locked themselves into a release date before the final Release Candidate version, doesn’t bode well for Windows 7.

As usual, the advice for most computer users will be to sit and wait until the first Service Pack is released. I wonder if Microsoft will repeat the bluff of claiming there will be no service pack which failed so dismally with Vista?

Let’s see if they’ve actually learned anything from the humiliation that was Vista.

The Future Summit 2: Artificial divides

I took a lot from the Melbourne Future Summit, many good and some worrying.

One of the worrying aspects was the hostility from the “creative thinkers” towards Engineers and scientists.

I took a lot from the Melbourne Future Summit, much of it good and some of it worrying.

One of the worrying aspects was the hostility from the “creative thinkers” towards Engineers and scientists.

This was apparent in the Innovation Imperative seminar where many of the panel’s and audiences’ comments were notable for their hostility towards Engineers and scientists along with their view it was time for some “creative thinking”.

Most of questioners from the floor went as far to blame Engineers and scientists for the Global Financial Crisis.

This is odd as scientists and Engineers are no more responsible for the banking sector’s financial engineering any more than artists are responsible for the bankers’ creative accounting.

Creating artificial barriers between “creative” and “scientific” thinkers is dangerous and foolish. Our greatest Engineering and scientists are creative thinkers by definition. Many great artists have applied science to their work.

If we force people into these pigeon holes where an Engineer can’t be creative and an artist can’t use science then we are all the poorer for it and less equipped for the challenges ahead of us.

ABC Nightlife, 28 May 2009

abcbanner_local I’ll be doing the May Nightlife with Tony Delroy and Laurel Papworth to discuss the business uses of Social Media.

Some of the topics we’ll cover are;

how do we make sure that our photos, videos and jokes are seen only by our friends and not by the boss or our mum?
If you do lose your job, how can you use social media to get another one?
how can businesses use social networks to find staff?
explain how business and people can get loans through social networks
why workplaces don’t trust these tools and ban them
what downsides are there of social media? What are the legal traps and risks to your reputation?

We’ll be live across Australia on ABC Local Radio. The show starts at 10pm and we’ll be taking questions from around 10.30. Call in early on 1300800222 in Australia or +61 28333 1000 for international callers.

Tune in through your local ABC station or stream online through the Nightlife website.