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IdeaFlow

"And, going back to the CMO special report on innovation, one stand-out article I read was the one on the innovation paradox — you must be willing to fail in order to succeed. Author Ralph Keyes writes:

Genuine risk-takers know setbacks are part of the creative process. Any innovator worthy of that name accepts that success is the exception, failure the rule. That’s why those who are too focused on succeeding can’t innovate.

The pressure to be a risk-taker, or even to appear to be a risk-taker while not actually taking any real risks, is at the root of innovation burnout, in my opinion. Here’s Keyes again:

How can that [failure-tolerant] mind-set be encouraged? When I ask business leaders, most say that they urge workers to take more risks. This approach seldom has the desired effect, and for good reason. ‘They tell us to take more risks,’ one middle manager told me, ‘but you’re expected never to fail.’

Matt McAlister :: How changes in supply and demand for important content made RSS so relevant

"It’s no surprise then that people jumped to RSS to control information flow. We are telling the creators of information that we want filters, we want flow control, and we want those controls in our own hands. It’s the era of syndication and subscriptions. I’ll tell you what information I want, and then you come find me with the right data in the right place at the right time."

If you don’t read Matt and you obsess about publishing models, then you’re missing one of the smartest voices out there. 

ObjectGraph Dictionary

This is an excellent demonstration of the power of AJAX coding for web services. (AJAX – for you sub-rock dwellers, is  Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and the au courant technology du jour of 2005).

 Essentially, it’s an online dictionary that kicks the stuffing out of Dictionary.com. I stuck a quick launch link on my 11-year old son’s new laptop and within two days ObjectGraph passed the ultimate test when he said, "Dad, this dictionary thing rules."

So, next time you’re stuck trying to demo what Ajax is all about, and don’t want to quote the following explanation from the Wikipedia, show ‘em Objectgraph:

From WikiPedia:

"Ajax applications look almost as if they reside on the user’s machine, rather than across the Internet on a server. The reason: pages get updated, not entirely refreshed.

“Every user action that normally would generate an HTTP request takes the form of a JavaScript call to the Ajax engine instead”, wrote Jesse James Garrett, in the essay that first defined the term. “Any response to a user action that doesn’t require a trip back to the server — such as simple data validation, editing data in memory, and even some navigation — the engine handles on its own. If the engine needs something from the server in order to respond — if it’s submitting data for processing, loading additional interface code, or retrieving new data — the engine makes those requests asynchronously, usually using XML, without stalling a user’s interaction with the application.”

Traditional web applications essentially submit forms, completed by a user, to a web server. The web server responds back by sending a new web page. Because the server must submit a new page each time, applications run more slowly and awkwardly than their native counterparts.

Ajax applications, on the other hand, can send requests to the web server to retrieve only the data that is needed, usually using SOAP or some other XML-based web services dialect. On the client, JavaScript processes the web server response. The result is a more responsive interface, since the amount of data interchanged between the web browser and web server is vastly reduced. Web server processing time is also saved, since much of it is done on the client."

IAB Press Release 3/18/05 

• Search is 40%
• Display is 20%
• Classifieds 18%
• Rich Media 8%
• Lead Gen 6%
• Sponsorships 5%
• E-Mail 2%

 Tip of the hat to paidcontent.org for the news.

CMO – The Resource for Marketing Executives – Home Page – CMO Magazine

 
"Current Results Would you read a digital magazine–one that replicates each page of the print product and posts it online?

• 58% Yes
• 34% No
• 9% Don’t know"

So maybe I’m alone in my distaste for digital magazine facsimiles.

There are two drawers at home that are clogged with the technical detritus of my life. Misfit electronic toys that are dead, forgotten, and expensive reminders of the insanity that compels me to squander my cash on the latest, smallest, coolest gizmo. Aside from the usual morass of cell phone chargers, docks, spare batteries, and gordian knot of firewire, USB, ethernet, crossover, printer, and optical cables, those drawers contain such relics as the first Logitech digital camera, which had an appalling resolution on the order of an old newspaper photo, at least three Palm Pilots, an HP Portable PC, weird TV graphic convertors, WebTV wireless keyboards, old Sony video camera (analog), and power blocks that have lost their way.

What’s in my pocket these days?

Well, there’s the Treo 650 — which isn’t as good as the Treo 600, but I killed that by profusely sweating into the ear speaker after taking a phone call during a bike ride during a July Heat Wave. Trying to sync the thing with Lotus Notes …. well, let’s just say doing anything with Lotus Notes involved is like trying to put cosmetics on a bad skin disease.

In the audio department, I’ve been playing around with an iRiver 799 for podcast recording. That just went to the crew here at CXO so they can have a device for remote recording. My Sony headphones, my two digital sony microphones, and my Sony minidisc recorder have all been donated to the cause. Then there is the Sony voice recorder which I never use and which, like most Sony products, has its own insanely incompatible memory stick with its very own usb dock for importing into the proprietary Sony voice management software. File that one under: "What was I thinking."

I’ve been listening to podcasts on an iPod mini — nice thing, but earlier this week I once again felt the power of gadgets compel me to piss away $250 on a black Nano, spending $11 for Apple to rush the thing to me to assuage my jones, but alas, the store says the order is still being "processed" which is a leading indicator that it will be backordered until Halloween.

Other than that, my life is remarkably gadget free. 

Seeing Both Sides: The Soul of a New Company

Jeff Bussgang at IDG Ventures Boston blogs from CMO Perspectives about the importance of brand personification by entrepreneurs in startups. Nice post. 

"Keynote speaker Charlotte Beers (who had great stories about her experience in Washington when she was tapped by Colin Powell in October 2001 to run the US PR campaign in Arab countries after a long Madison Avenue career running Oglivy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson) talked about the importance of company executives, particularly CMOs, personifying the brands of their companies. Although the CMOs of Pepsi and WalMart, who were in the room, took her advice as very relevant to their global branding efforts, it struck me as even more critical to the little start-ups we VCs deal with every day in a very different way."

WSJ.com – Magazines Further Experiment With Print’s Digital Format

Sorry, but I’ve got to unload on this current revived infatuation with "digital" editions of magazines. For the past year and half I’ve been subscribing to the MIT Technology Review via Zinio — the technology that delivers a digital rendition of the print product into my PC via yet another content delivery system.

I get to "turn" pages, see the actual ads (my heart be still), search for text, and have fun playing with my very own "glass" copy of the dead-tree version.

It sucks. Let me repeat — it really sucks. It’s either a bone thrown to the Quark jockeys in the design department, a way to justify the big fee paid to the redesign firm, or some inter-generational stop-gap that makes the old farts who go around saying "I can’t read a magazine on the toilet" happy with their honest-to-god brave new world format. This is plain and simple a sop to advertisers and a stop-gap solution.

It’s wrong. It’s a kludge. If we must hang onto to our precious kerning and leading and big glossy ads, then let’s do it within the fricking browser.  PDF the damn things and be done with it. Digital editions are so yesterday. Up there with the wonderful CueCat: as yet another desperate life-ring for the 19th century world of print.

I won’t slag Zinio. They keep drumming along. Mike Edelhart — my old boss at PC Week in the 80s used to run it. Now Scott Kauffman,  ex-Time Warner and CompuServe is at the helm. I’m looking at Texterity for some custom publishing applications, and expect to get pestered yet again by some digital print stop-gap vendor.

Don’t bother. I’m looking over the hill at a post-pageview world and after a decade of butting my head against the print-online transition am too grumpy to care.

Andy Kessler: WSJ: Philadel-Fi

Andy Kessler on the fight between the city of Philadelphia and Verizon over free-wi-fi in the city of bro love.

"It is, and its not going to be pretty for Verizon. By rigging the city with wireless hotspots, under the guise of helping the disadvantaged, Philadelphia may completely bypass Verizon. A T-1 line from Verizon, which is 1.5 megabits of data per second, runs anywhere from $400 to $1300 dollars a month. With Municipal Wi-Fi (Mu-Fi), that could drop to $300, heck, maybe even $20 a month. Consumers (read voters) are happy and small businesses will save tons of money. No wonder phone companies are circling the wagons. Think of it as a Telco tax cut. Cheese steak sales are gonna boom."

Gillmore gang tackled it too.  

chicagocrime.org: Chicago crime database

This is very cool example of integrating RSS with the Google Maps API to create a truly useful tool. In a nutshell — take crime stats, integrate into a simple interface that permits the user to browse by type (murder, assault, arson, etc.), address, route, date, zip code, etc. And then display the results on a Google map.

 The applications are endless — find a safe neighborhood before buying. See if the neighbors are fond of domestic disturbances. Find a better way to walk to and from the subway stop.

 First day of the NYT putting the op-ed stuff behind the wall and when I went to vote my home subscriber card I see their back-end has falled down.

I’ll forgive them for a first day crushing and try again tomorrow. 

Fractals of Change: Self Publish or Perish

Tom Evslin blogs a book online. thanks to Fred Wilson for the pointer. 

Modern Drunkard Magazine Online

"I busted out of rehab …"

After this week, I think I want to run Modern Drunkard’s website. Any place with Absinthe advertisers and columns titled: "You’re a Drunk" and "How to Ace Your Next Intervention" has to be a party.

Matt McAlister :: Search: Big indexes versus microformats

Matt, while waiting for Battelle’s The Search to arrive, posits that microformats will trump massive indices of content in the long run. Example — I use the GMap Pedometer to build bicycle rides and share them on this blog with other riders looking for routes in my region. Jon Udell blogs about using the same tool to build ride routes in New Hampshire. He tags his routes with del.ici.ous. I do the same, following his tag conventions. Now we’re laying the foundation for a sub-niche of search that enables someone seeking "Cape Cod Bike Rides" or "White Mountain Bike Rides" to find our GMap Pedometer constructs.