Manage To Change

iPhone: Not Quite There Yet

About 4 days after I switched to a MacBook I got an iPhone. While I love this phone, some of its features still need a little work.

Picture and video messaging. People send me pictures all the time. When a picture comes to me on the iPhone, I get a text message with a website address, a user id, and a password (new user id and password every time).

The site is VERY slow and the user id and password rarely work. At minimum, I should get a link that opens the Safari browser on the phone and fills in the user id and password (still clunky, but better).

Flexible Synchronization. Everything you put on an iPhone must originate from one computer.

I use my laptop for all contacts, calendar, and email. However, I share a central music and video library with my immediate family (we all synch to one desktop).

I had to authorize my laptop on iTunes and move thousands of songs over to my laptop to get music on my iPhone!

From now on, every time we get something new, I’ll have to physically put the music/video on both machines.

Voice recognition. I can no longer just say “Call Liz” and get connected. All I can do with my bluetooth is answer an incoming call, hang up, or redial the last number I called.

Camera. It doesn’t zoom and can’t take videos.

Expanded email functions. I prefer not to download email to my mobile device if it's already downloaded to my laptop. I also delete multiple emails at once. My Blackberry Pearl could do both with the exact same POP mail accounts. My iPhone can do neither.

Access to the internet (the “real” internet), easier to read email and text messages, and streamlining down to one device (I gave my iPod Touch to my son) more than make up for the limitations on the list above.

Except for one...

The limited multimedia messaging functionality is very frustrating. My Blackberry Pearl was on the same network and I was able to see multimedia messages immediately.

Why can’t my iPhone do this?

Isn’t the iPhone supposed to be all about multimedia?

I’m confused!

(All comments, advice and/or instruction welcome!!!)

Working with Publishers 101

Lately I’ve found myself talking to companies that want to work with publishers, but they’re having a difficult time getting any business.

In almost every conversation the same issue surfaces.

The vendor wants to make the publisher understand their unique value proposition.

However, the vendor’s general knowledge of publishing is often lacking and their specific understanding of the publisher they’re “targeting” is virtually non-existent.

The vendor wants to be treated like a partner, but they don’t act like one!

All publishers may create and manage content, deliver it via multiple channels, and engage in marketing activities, but they are all different.

A publisher’s ability to innovate around content is critical, yet many publishers are having a hard time evolving. They know it too!

Many would like to explore vendor partnerships, but few vendors take the steps needed to gain the publisher’s trust and respect.

If you want to work with a publisher, start by remembering these points:

You don’t know everything.

You need to listen.

It’s good that you know your product’s strengths, but you must respect the publisher’s strengths too.

Be confident and offer your expertise, but understand that there is no plug and play.

Your expertise needs to be combined with their experience and reconfigured to arrive at the right solution.

Times are changing. Some publishers will make it and some won’t.

None of them will engage you along the way unless you take the time to understand their business and culture.

(Reposted from June 2007)

Powerlessness

I was in line to get bagels last weekend.

Half of the people on line wanted individual bagels – just a bag with bagels in it.

I suggested to the person behind the counter that perhaps they should have a line for people that just want bagels.

She looked at me funny, smiled, and then helped the next customer.

The woman on line in front of me said “She doesn’t have the power to do that.”

WHAT?

Of course she does! She has a mouth doesn’t she?

She can make a suggestion, can’t she?

She can also start asking people on line if they just want bagels all by herself too!

Sure there are instances when we lack real power or authority.

But, I believe that we think we lack power far more often than we actually do.

What do you think?

Exercise

The more I write, the more I read, the more questions I have, and the easier it is to write.

The more I exercise, the better I feel, and the more productive I am.

I wonder if there are other extensions of this principle - counterintuitive places where if we spend time we ultimately save time and are more healthy.

The more I talk to my customers the easier it is to develop better products?

Your turn.

What’s a “pet” activity that you know is good for you (or your company) and yet it’s so easy to put off?

Getting Used to a Mac

As of yesterday I’m a Mac user!

Why did I switch after 26 years on a PC?

Vista.

Even though Vista was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” this has been coming for years.

As soon as Apple started to care about the business user PC’s were in trouble.

The transition hasn’t been flawless but I’ve been very impressed with how Apple has handled issues.

One thing I find interesting is that they are less willing to put up with imperfections than I am.

It made me realize how often I’ve “lived with” something on a Windows machine that I shouldn’t have.

As long as my machine wasn’t blowing up and I could get my email, drivers that weren’t compatible and other glitches were tolerable.

Shame on me!

The Google Generation

Kate Worlock, Outsell Inc, published an interesting Insight yesterday: Millennials vs. Silver Surfers: Not So Different After All (subscription required).

Kate’s analysis, based in a new report from University College London's CIBER project (Information Behaviours of the Researcher of the Future, commissioned by the British Library and JISC), focuses on the searching behaviors of the Google Generation (those born after 1993).

While the report focuses on them as future researchers and the impact their habits will have on libraries, I found this interesting from another angle.

The Google Generation appears to be without context.

Just take a look at three of the themes Kate highlighted:

· “Speed of searching means that little time is spent in evaluating information;

· Young people demonstrate a poor understanding of their information needs and have unsophisticated mental maps of the internet; they therefore find it difficult to develop effective search strategies…;

· The Google generation finds it difficult to assess the relevance of sources.”

So, the million (billion) dollar questions:

· What can publishers do to help these searchers (consumers?) find a rudder?

· How will our content become relevant to an audience that considers Google and Yahoo! the brand?

· How can we build relationships with this generation directly?

Google: The Pot Calling the Kettle…

Does anyone else find this amusing?

Microsoft makes a bid for Yahoo! and Google screams monopoly.

I am a big Google fan. While some of their tactics are questionable (especially if you are a publisher), their overall mission is admirable.

But, who has more of a monopoly on all things Internet than Google?

According to the Outsell Inc report Information Industry Market Size and Share Rankings: Preliminary 2007 Results (purchase required): “Total information industry growth with Google included as 5.3% but without Google this figure falls to 3.8%.”

That represents a 1.5% impact on growth in a $381B industry (as estimated by Outsell in that same report).

That statistic only talks about their percentage as an information industry application, service, and content (?) provider.

What about Google’s position as the purveyor of online advertising? What percentage of that market is controlled by Google? I don’t know, but I bet it’s pretty near a monopoly standing.

So is it okay to be a monopoly if you’re Google but not okay if you aren’t?

See also: Google Works to Torpedo Microsoft Bid for Yahoo! in the New York Times.