These are the options if you want an Education Week subscription:
As you’ll quickly see, you actually pay more to get the online version than the print+online versions. Probably has a lot to do with advertising revenue and subscription counts.
Major rip-off … and it isn’t doing trees any favors either.
Apple’s scheduled a Steptember 5th special event: “the beat goes on.”It’s obviously about iPods. My guess is that Apple’s now ready to take the next step. More to the point, the marketplace is finally ready for Apple to release the next evolution in iPod: mobile computing.You already see it in iPhone. And we know that OS X is underpinning future iPods.iPods have been carrying our calendars and notes for years. But it’s always been the sideshow, the off-off-Broadway down-the-lane-to-the-left non-attraction.I think the new iPods are going to take a huge leap in functionality. iPhone’s seamless reading of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, and more will be part of the iPod experience.It’ll still be the entertainment hub – music, movies, podcasts – that it is. But it’s going to take the next step to a mobile computing platform that includes some of what we currently think of as “business” functionality and some of what we think of as “consumer” functionality – especially games.It would not shock me if concurrent with this unveiling of the new iPod we have an “iSDK,” a software development kit for iPhone and iPod.You read it hear first.
Dan Knight of Low End Mac fame has a well-researched article on the abandoned Apple office suite AppleWorks, which used to be ClarisWorks.Most of it I’m taking with a bit of a grain of salt, since I know Dan is a keep-my-old-computers-til-they-rot kinda guy, but he makes a number of good points, and one very important one:
However, iWork isn’t AppleWorks. It’s not an integrated word processor, database, spreadsheet, paint, and drawing program. It’s much more like Microsoft Office, where Word and Excel are separate programs that can work together.And while iWork can open PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files, for some reason Apple has ignored compatibility with its own AppleWorks program, which is used by millions upon millions of Mac users on both the Classic Mac OS and OS X.I know Steve Jobs has a general disdain for things not created on his watch, and he’s allowed AppleWorks to languish, but if he wants Mac users to migrate to new hardware and iWork, he needs to make it easy to convert .cwk files into iWork documents and spreadsheets
An import function … that would be useful for people who have documents in AppleWorks. I know I have a few on my home computer.
If anyone’s still following the SCO/Linux trials these days, SCO just lost bigtime.Having briefly met and known SCO CEO Darl McBride, I was interested enough to check out SCO’s website. Clicking on the News link was amusing …
Apparently there hasn’t been any good news in 10 months.
MediaTemple (my host) just released an interface to control your entire hosting account via iPhone.Pretty cool.A little trendy, but I can imagine this being extremely useful when on the road. To be honest, I bet it’s easier to use than their current control panel, which I’ve never been able to fully understand.Now we just need WordPress for iPhone.
A colleague of mine just bought a Honda.
He needed to pick it up tout de suite but the Honda sales rep wanted to slow him down. Apparently the car needed to be detailed yet.
When my buddy declined the detail in favor of getting the car sooner, the rep said he couldn’t do that. Asked why, he replied “the law of Honda.” Apparently it’s Honda law that every car gets detailed before leaving the lot.
Sounds like good customer service … and good customer service matters … BUT …
The customer gets to decide what service means!. . .. . .
(That, and the fact that he was told the car was en route from a different location while it was actually sitting on the dealership’s lot all day somewhat soured my friend’s new car buzz.)
Mike Wagner has a great post (and follow-up) on how poor service, breaking promises, and essentially not living up to their brand cost a hotel $30,000 … all for a missing toothbrush.
Here’s the story:
He was in town to deliver a seminar, had forgotten his toothbrush, tried to take the hotel up on their stated in-room offer of providing replacement items for things that guests have forgotten, and was invited to purchase an over-priced toothbrush at the gift shop.
Here’s the result:
A seminar participant shared with the group, “I’m negotiating a contract for more than $30,000 with that hotel later this week. We bring our most important customers from around the country here throughout the year. That’s the hotel where we were planning to have them stay. Now maybe we won’t. Their sales staff has been great to work with, but if that’s the way they deliver on their brand…”
I was skeptical when I saw the Wired blog post praising Buzzword, the latest entrant into the online office world.
Buzzword beats current Ajax-based offerings like Google Docs and Zoho Writer in both usability and aesthetic impact. And in a few months, when a desktop version is released, Buzzword will pose a serious challenge to Microsoft Word, the current king of document editing on the desktop.
But Wired is right: this is an amazing product. I managed to snag an early invite to check out the beta, and it already feels polished and more than usable. It uses Adobe’s Flex to achieve near-desktop feel on the web, and eventually is intended to use AIR to run on the desktop as well.Uploading and placing an image, working with tables, saving and undoing with key commands instead of having to use the menus all the time, plus all the word processing basics … it all seems to be there.
Very cool.I’ll play with it a little more and post something a bit more detailed …
The Seattle Times has a story about the University of Chicago requiring students to submit powerpoint presentations as part of their entrance applications.My eyes bulged a little at the photo’s subtitle:
Chicago business-school administrator Rose Martinelli says PowerPoint presentations permit potential students to demonstrate creativity that might not come through in traditional applications.
PowerPoint IS a traditional application!
Sadly, so many educators are so ten years ago.
I’m checking out some online resources for education and came across this:
For nearly 70 years, ProQuest has offered superior information services in electronic, microform, and print-on-demand formats to university libraries.
Interesting.
Obviously, this is a programmer’s use of the inclusive AND – as long as one part of the conjunction is true, it all evaluates to true. POD and electronic have certainly not been around for “nearly 70 years.”
Bah, humbug.
Getting 6 people together at the same time on the same date at the same place (even if it’s virtual) is like herding cats.
So when a meeting fits in this nicely, it’s like the parting of the Red Sea … especially when our corporate meeting software shows busy times in red:
I’ve been slowly taking my MET graduate degree over the past few years. The course I’ll be taking next semester sounds like it’ll be the most interesting one to date: ETEC 522.
ETEC 522 is an online immersion in the global eLearning marketplace with particular emphasis on the environmental dynamics, evolving business models and success characteristics of eLearning enterprises in public and commercial domains. The course will be delivered in a case-study modality from a venture analysis perspective. The primary learning materials will be a “pitch pool” of authentic 12-minute venture finance presentations by the leading executives and leaders of current, real-world eLearning enterprises spanning the diversity of approaches to eLearning business opportunities. Examples representing entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial ventures will provide a balance between corporate and institutional enterprise. As the foundation for practical learning, students will undertake the critical due diligence analysis of these ventures individually, in groups, and with professional venture finance guidance.
Learning? This is fun!
When the business you’re involved in is evil, you know it’s time to get out and start doing something else. Otherwise you will inevitably become evil as well. There are plenty of examples of that in the US health care system, which Sicko is highlighting right now.
Here’s just one of them …
Palmer still owes more than $7,000 for an eight-hour hospital visit that involved, by his estimate, only about 15 minutes of actual care.
That’s after getting more than $4K reduced for the “trauma activation charge,” which is a page to doctors and nurses that are presumably either already at the hospital or on call.
15 minutes of care? $7000?
His room was $2000. His CT scans were $3500. Sucks to be him, obviously … according to the administrator.
“It’s unfortunate that he’s in the situation he’s in,” Nazeeri-Simmons said. “But what is an individual hospital to do? Are we supposed to eat the costs?”
She know’s it’s wrong … but does she take any personal responsibility?
“It’s not us,” she said. “It’s the whole system, and the system is broken. We need to look closely at making changes and at how we can deliver care in a rational way.”
Rational health care? Here’s a couple of clues:
The United States spent an average of $6,102 per person on health care in 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canada spent $3,165 per person, France $3,159, Australia $3,120 and Britain a mere $2,508. At the same time, life expectancy in the United States was lower than in each of these other countries and infant mortality was higher.
I live in Canada, and the health care system is not always perfect. You usually have to wait … I guess sort of like Palmer.
But though I’ve had multiple broken bones, several car accidents, and various other incidents requiring stitches etc., I’ve never had to fear that an accident or an illness would wipe me out financially.
Spending an average of $6K/person and only actually covering about half of the people? That’s evil. I’m a pretty conservative guy, but there can be no better argument against the free enterprise system than American health care.
Theft, larceny, and even murder: that’s what it is.
If only public companies understood this:
In fact, sometimes, as the Grammy-award winning Orpheus Chamber orchestra shows, the best leadership is less leadership. No seed can grow if it is dug up and examined every week, and for people to innovate and get things done, sometimes they need some time and space and resources.
Seen today in Guy Kawasaki’s interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer.
In my experience, publicly-traded companies are the worst at ignoring this, as they continually dig up the seeds and check them, while managing for the quarter.
Note: this is a paid review – ReviewMe is paying me $50 for posting this. However, all thoughts are my own, and I’m saying only what I decide to say. The payment part is so that I say *something* about Iceberg on Demand.
Iceberg on Demand is one of a new class of development tools designed for the web. They kinda make me think of GUI RAD environments, but they’re for the web, and they’re typically much, much easier to use. Similar tools include Sidewalk (which I’ve mentioned before), The Form Assembly, and WyaCracker.
The difference
The difference appears to be that Iceberg on Demand is orders of magnitude more powerful than these other solutions, that pretty much focus on simple web forms to gather data. It’s billed as allowing non-technical users to create “enterprise applications,” which is a major, major claim.
I wanted to personally try it before reviewing the application, so I signed up at their home page for a beta account. However, they appear to be in limited beta, as I haven’t received any access privileges in the 48 hours since I signed up.
The promise
The basic premise – giving non-programmers the tools to create full-functionality business applications – is incredibly compelling: use the business process mapping tool to map a process, create your business forms via drag-and-drop, integrate simply into already-built apps such as HR, CRM, project management, and bug tracking … and voila … you have a working enterprise system to run your business on. It reminds me somewhat of Sigurd Rinde‘s thingamy.
I’m sure the reality is a little different: I don’t yet see accounting apps that you need to run a business and I’m sure there’s a number of other missing pieces, but wow … if this takes off and they increase the number of built-in apps over time, this could be very, very exciting.
The reality is, most of what businesses need to function is to get, store, retrieve, and modify data. It’s not rocket science. It’s data that follows business process rules.
If Iceberg on Demand can essentially automate creation of enterprise systems, look out IBM, Oracle, Infosys, and all the other “business services” tech shops out there: the billions you’re hoovering out of clients’ pockets is in danger.
OK, back to reality for a moment.
Right now, this looks like a great tool for start-ups, young companies, anyone with not much budget but need for real business systems.
In the future? Who knows.
You never have office politics at your work right? Riiighhht …
There’s a really good article about office politics at BNet. Here’s an excerpt from the intro:
Like it or not, every workplace is a political environment. But operating effectively within it doesn’t have to mean sucking up, lying, or slinging dirt. In its purest form, office politics is simply about getting from here to there: securing a promotion, seeing an idea come to fruition, or gaining support to make an organizational change. Playing the game well is about defending your position, earning respect, exchanging favors, and keeping your sanity amid the chaos. To get started, you need to know what you really want from work, then orient your political moves toward those goals. It all starts with strong relationships and helping others; those people in return make up the support system that helps you realize your goals.
Whoa. I wonder what this would do to government corruption around the world:
The former head of China’s State Food and Drug Administration, Zheng Xiaoyu, has been executed for corruption, the state-run Xinhua news agency reports.
He was convicted of taking 6.5m yuan ($850,000; £425,400) in bribes and of dereliction of duty at a trial in May.
The bribes were linked to sub-standard medicines, blamed for several deaths.
I’m not condoning it or advocating for it in any way, but on a purely amoral the-ends-justify-the-means level, I bet it would get very good results.
Just wanted to call attention to the fact that my buddies at Agile Media have started up a blog: Personally Speaking.
Agile is a really interesting confluence of traditional printing and modern media, nicely combined in a unified marketing package that is personal, personal, personal.
I’m looking for more great things from you, Peter & Rick!
Is 3 negative articles in one day a coincidence?
Holy mother, what on earth is going on here?
Could it be an extremely Windows-centric empire of analysts and business media is absolutely terrified that their comfortable bread-and-butter Windows hegemony is dissolving in front of their eyes?
I guess Linux was bad enough – it wasn’t in the MSCE textbook but at least it was technical, and needed user handholding, and ensuring lots of expensive tech support and high-end analysis was required.
But Macintosh! Is iPhone at last the trojan horse that will take Apple into the enterprise, just like iPod has in the home? The very prospect has Windows weenies running scared:
After all, the horde carrying the forthcoming Apple phone won’t be barbarians; rather, the very folks doing the work, and worse, some may well be the boss.
IT departments like devices like Blackberry’s with centralized command and control. They hate things they don’t bring in, that they haven’t first subdued with strong corporate chains. And they fear Apples’ recent success.
Their fear is both justified and unjustified. On the one hand, corporations don’t change their systems and applications overnight. On the other hand, a real alternative is slowly taking shape.
However things go, this outpour of vitriol and epidemic of trembling knees is pathetic.
Seth Godin fingered this post at The Messaging Times about buzz.
Key point: it starts with the people who want the buzz to spread. It starts with the people who are building/creating/growing/nurturing the product/process/market/widget.
Buzz starts in the hive. No buzz in the hive – no buzz on the street. You gotta drink your own koolaid, eat your own dogfood, be passionate about what you want others to be passionate about. If you can’t, tear it down and start over.
Makes me think …
[tags] buzz, marketing, hive, seth godin, marketing times, john koetsier [/tags]Not a single person has passed through my office and seen the cover of this book without touching it to see if, in fact, the cover has duct tape stuck to it:
(It does not.) But it is bumpy and tactile, just as if it was.
And the book is very, very good.
Yesterday, the news broke that Bebo is partnering with iTunes and offering songs via Apple’s store to its 30 million members. Today, Yahoo! Japan is partnering with iTunes and offering songs via Apple’s store to its members.
Interesting.
This is a new phase in iTunes, that builds on the iTunes University concept to help make iTunes ubiquitous.
Free business idea of the week, coming right up …
Please note that I didn’t say it was a particularly good idea. Just one that happened to come to me a while back.
[tags] business, idea, innovation, entrepreneur, john koetsier [/tags]Well, add one more piece of data to the debate about whether Amazon hikes the prices of items that you put in your shopping cart but don’t buy.
(I’d link to the original story, but the LA Times is an SEO idiot.)
Every single one of the 5 books in my shopping cart is up … usually just under $1.00. Interesting … that could do nice things to gross margin, I guess.
Quite the coincidence, isn’t it, that all of the 5 are up? I mean, if it was just random cost fluctuations, wouldn’t it be a lot more likely that at least one of the 5 would have gone down in price? I suspect that Amazon keeps track of how many units of a particular title are in clients’ shopping carts and nudges the price north when it crosses a certain threshold.
Perhaps the moral of the story is: put nothing in your shopping cart until you’re ready to buy.
[tags] amazon, pricing, differential pricing, shopping cart, LA times, john koetsier [/tags]Remember that …
totally innovative never-been-done-before six-figure customer support, training, and marketing initiative for a multi-ten-figure product line with extremely high gross margin
… project that I was pitching a week or so ago? It’s a go. Just completed it via conference call a few minutes ago. I am pumped!
Now, of course, the real work starts.
[tags] project, management, woohoo, john koetsier [/tags]Text Link Ads just informed me that (yay!) they’ve sold another ad for me. (You can see ’em down near the bottom of the right column under, appropriately, text link ads.)
This is cool, because it pays the hosting bills and because I make more from TLA than I ever did from Google AdWords. It’s even more cool because text link ads are incredibly aesthetically better than AdWords. But it’s uber-cool because the latest one is for VentureThree.
Naturally, when someone wants to market themselves on my blog, I check them out. And VentureThree has the coolest interim site I’ve ever seen.
The title at the top says Branding | Brand Consultants | Strategic Identity Consulting Design, and the page looks like this:
Simple. Direct. Powerful. Intriguing. Bold. Clean. Smart. Beautiful.
I love it. I want to work for a company with that kind of strategic aesthetic vision.
. . .
. . .
In case you’re wondering, I haven’t posted anything about any of the other advertisers on this site … so it’s not like you buy an ad, you get a puff piece. Just so you know!
🙂
[tags] venturethree, branding, consulting, brands, john koetsier, adwords, text link ads [/tags]
I think I just saw one of the worst company names in history. OK, after ACME.
A truck passed me today on my usual lunch hour walk. On the side, in hand-lettered type, was the name of the company: Alternative Cartage, Inc.
I can just imagine how this plays in marketing.
“Um, yes, we’re Alternative Cartage Inc., and we do want your business, sir. The one thing I can tell you about us is that we’re definitely different than the other guys. See, they’re them and we’re us. We’re an alternative.”
Not the best alternative, not the only alternative, not even a better alternative, but I guess, yes, they are an alternative, just like everyone else.
I do give this business owner a modicum of credit, however. At least he didn’t name it Agressive Trucking along with the other 20 bozos who had that bright idea.
Or maybe he saw them in the Yellow Pages and figured that being #21 was worse than having an even lousier business name.
[tags] business, name, naming, branding, john koetsier [/tags]Last November when the Utube (piping company) and Youtube kaffufle hit, I said Utube should take the traffic and run:
- Change company URL. Inform all clients about 10 times.
- Put Utube.com on Google’s AdSense for Domains
- Watch the money roll in
Side benefit: Google will even host it for you.
Others chimed in with similar thoughts, and now it sounds like they figured it out, as Mashable is reporting. They’re bringing in about $1000/day.
Not quite the bigtime, but not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.
[tags] utube, youtube, revenue, john koetsier, mashable [/tags]Now this is how to respond to your competition:
(Doesn’t change the fact that I think iPhone is going to rock, but it’s funny, well-done, and … it’s got me listening.)
[tags] iphone, ophone, microsoft, apple, marketing, youtube, john koetsier, pr [/tags]