Maybe It's Time Apple Got Just A Little Less Secretive

Exciting announcements yesterday coming out of Cupertino, California about Apple's latest iPhone iteration - 4S. But the big news is what it wasn't – an iPhone 5. The blogosphere expressed disappointment ... a letdown. Where was the iPhone 5? Well, when you release a new phone that looks exactly like the old phone, it's hard to justify a whole new name. Thus, the addition of an "S" to the existing iPhone 4 name.

Certain reports think this is new CEO Tim Cook playing the supply-chain, in order to deplete the current design inventory as much as he can, before introducing a complete redesign. Other reports suggested that there was a problem with iPhone 5 production, so perhaps there was a last-minute decision to hold off it's release.

What I'm noticing is that super-secretive Apple seems to be sailing into unchartered waters. Several years ago, product announcements came as a complete surprise. For example, few expected to see what was coming out of that envelope when Steve Jobs first introduced the Macbook Air. But at that time, Apple products were part of a completely closed system, and the blogging community wasn't as frenzied (or as good at snooping for clues) as they are today. Now that Apple deals with third parties including AT&T, Verizon, and now Sprint – as well as a host of worldwide suppliers – there are lots more opportunities for leaks as we saw leading up to this announcement.

And what did we get? A trend-setting company that's all about style releasing a decidedly untrendy phone design. After a 16-month wait. Perhaps Apple could have managed expectations a little better by just giving us a little peak at what to expect.

A Google Anti-Trust Case: Let Ayn Rand Be the Judge

Buzz, buzz, goes the internet, as Congress considers an anti-trust suit against Google.  It all makes me shrug…kind of the way Atlas Shrugged.

It seems that potential competitors of Google’s are disenchanted with the web giant’s knack for innovating and marketing internet search, content, VOIP service, email, a new social network, and other internet products and services.  Sergey and Larry promised not to be evil, but Google has gotten so big and powerful – primarily by producing innovative stuff that people love, and giving it away for free – that their competition, and possibly the Federal Trade Commission, believe that Google is evil indeed.

I’m not too sure about this, but I know what Ayn Rand would have said.  Rand, the creator of a philosophy she called objectivism, which holds that there is nothing more powerful or sacred on this earth than the ability of man to reason and to think and behave rationally, wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, two massive novels that portrayed captains of industry and other lofty-thinking, high-achieving individuals being dragged down by their government and its weaker, dumber constituents, all in the interest of “fairness” and “equality”.  

These books and the non-fiction treatises on objectivism that Rand wrote to accompany them were required reading among the Ivy League crowd into which I insinuated myself when I was a college student.  Some of Rand’s philosophy must have stuck with me, because I tend to lean toward the side of Google in this (potential) case.

Yes, Google may be guilty of offering biased search, and may be steering users of its products and services to higher positions in its search rankings.  This is a different issue, though, than the issue of a trust, which implies that Google possesses a monopoly.  Companies are springing up daily that want to grow big enough to take a run at Google, and existing companies have shot and missed.  As far as I know, Google can’t claim 100% market share of anything.  They just have grabbed most of numerous aspects of our internet business, because they’re…well, they’re Google.  They’re good.

And, anti-trust law exists to protect the consumer, not the competition.  Or it should.  I’m not hearing too many end-users of Google products whining that its just not fair, somebody else should have an equal chance to be as successful as Google.  Innovate it, market it, make it cool and whiz-bang and easy and fast – they will come.  Barriers to entry are low – you don’t need a thousand miles of railroad track or an untapped pocket of oil in your backyard.  You just need your computer, and an idea.

You’ll also want to avoid the scrutiny of government regulators.  I’m pretty sure that Larry and Sergey would just like to be left alone to dream up the next killer idea, and if you can beat them, they’d say, “bring it on”.  The market, not the FTC, needs to decide the fate of Google.  And that, Ayn Rand would say were she alive today, is good, old-fashioned objectivist thinking.

Has Social Media Seen its Day? Not Until Thursday

Get to work on your tan, and buy yourself some new duds – there’s a celebration coming up at the end of the month, and you’ll get to meet the people you’ve glimpsed only in little images on your computer screen.

June 30th is Social Media Day, as declared by Mashable, the online news site that reports on all things web-, media-, and technology-related.  It’s actually the second annual Day of its kind (I missed it last June; did you?).  Over 1300 Mashable Meetups in cities all over the world drew more than thirty thousand social media fans, who took the opportunity to make virtual acquaintances real, and to maybe get up-close-and-personal enough to smell the onion dip on a favorite Tweeter’s breath.

Last year, Vancouver declared Social Media Day an official holiday (did municipal workers get a paid day off?), and in Cleveland, an alpaca – reputedly a most social animal – was led on its leash to a bar to celebrate SMD in that city.  That particular beast was reluctant to enter the bar and mingle; it may have felt a little shy socializing face-to-face, rather than on its iPhone.


Attending a Mashable Meetup seems like a great way, in the words of an old Police song, to re-humanize yourself.  While the giants of social media are becoming ever more indispensable, it’s easy to get all Facebooked up, Twittered out, LinkedIn one ear and out the other.  I think we need to remember that every communication that we send and receive holds, at its core, at least the hint of an inter-personal relationship.

So why not go to a Meetup?  You’ll tell a bad joke and get to watch the stricken look on the other person’s face, or have somebody spill a drink on you and text their apology the next day.

Mashable can point you to an event near where you live, or even get you started organizing your own.  If you’re going to a Meetup or putting one together, let me know, and maybe I’ll join you.  I lost my phone, though, so fax me.

Learn more at the Mashable website ...

Knowing Your Niche – A Way of Life, and Smart Business, Too

You’ve seen the word in print, and you’ve heard it in conversation or on TV and radio.  “You’ve got to find your niche in life, kid”. “They built a nice little niche business over there”.   “Lady Gaga has carved out her niche in the music industry by singing songs and selling records to Tea Party Christians”.  (Probably false, this last, but it illustrates the term.)  Chances are you’ve even heard niche pronounced at least two different ways.

What is a niche, anyway?  And what should it mean to us, in life and in business?
 

Likely the first time and place we encountered a niche was in high school biology class.  It pops up in the study of ecosystems – the way that various forms of life relate to and depend upon one another for survival in a particular environment. A niche (rhymes with “rich”, or, for the elitist, “neesh”) is really a position within a system, whether the system is a farm pond, an economy, or a national population.  An early 20th-century scientist named Grinnell coined the word in his study of a bird called the California thrasher (the word niche is derived from the French nicher, which means “to nest”). 

In business – as well as in our lives in general – most of us function best in a niche.

To establish and hold a niche is to act according to the natural order of life within the system.  When an individual being (animal, plant, human) behaves and lives within its normal niche, it maximizes its chances for survival, and also perpetuates the system of which it’s an important part.

If I am a bullfrog at the farm pond, I live in an environment abundant with fresh (if stagnant) water, algae, aquatic plants, insects, maybe some snakes and turtles, and probably a fox or raccoon lurking not far away. My job is to swim the pond; to eat my fill of flies and mosquitoes and gnats; to find a lady frog and procreate some tadpoles; and, unless I really plan right for my retirement, to be chewed up and swallowed by a raccoon or other predator when I’m caught half asleep at the switch.  

Should I decide to hop a hundred yards away from the pond to an oak tree and try eating acorns, I won’t last long.  I, the bullfrog, have left my niche – behavior that is unnatural, and perilous to my survival.

We find our niches as people, too, within the confines of numerous kinds of systems – economic, social, spiritual, and many more.  Given the enormous freedom and the myriad choices we enjoy, this can be a daunting task.

My two daughters are coming of age, and it’s part of my job as Dad to help them find their niches.   Among the paths I won’t guide them toward are a career as a player in the NFL, say, or marriage to the chief of an aboriginal tribe in a malarial climate.  They are very unlikely to thrive in either of those settings – they would be far removed from their niches.

The same goes for our efforts in business.  The farm pond is vast, yet we’re able to navigate its geography and draw from its resources with astonishing speed and ease.  The pond is teeming with opportunities for success and wealth, but the predators thrive, and they’re multiplying quickly, too.

You’ve heard the expression “niche business”.  In truth, all business is niche business.  Multi-national or local, unionized or sole-proprietor, publicly traded or non-profit, a business must find and maintain its position in the system(s) it works in – often a local economy, but increasingly, economies that are national or global in scope, or even in combinations of the three.

The bullfrog doesn’t forage for acorns, or harass the geese, or swim clear across the pond to hunt insects when there are plenty right where he is.  And you don’t go to work at your business without some sense of where on this planet your customers might be; what kind of message you need to give those folks to entice them to consume your goods or services and become customers; and who will craft and communicate your message within the limits of your time and capital budgets.

It’s really the essence of a marketing plan: finding the niche for your business, doing the right things to survive there, and avoiding costly forays away from the niche, at the risk of being devoured.

So, take a look at the niche you’re in.  It’s only natural, after all.

When It Comes To Technology, Here's How Jaded We've Become

Apathy is running rampant. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting a bit old. Or maybe it's just a frame-of-mind thing, but I ran across this headline this morning on a blog I frequent and it really hit me how jaded we've become.

The Truth About Google's Nexus S: It's Nothing Special

Full disclosure here. I'm a Mac guy. And although I don't have a smarty-pants-phone yet, it's likely going to be an iPhone. Kind of waiting around to see if they go Verizon. But I digress.

My guess is this Google Nexus S phone is phenomenally special, in terms of where technology was at when I started my career. Let's see, I typed on an electric typewriter using typing paper, carbon paper, and white-out. And had a push-button office phone. That was pretty much my technological arsenal. Any sort of social sharing consisted of push-pinning ad copy to a wall for others to see and comment on using very low-tech ball-point pens. Or occasionally, I'd slip something into an inter-office mail envelope, or simply check off my name on a routing list of whatever magazine or periodical was being passing around.

Today, we've got the worldwide web in our hands. Can watch videos as we commute. Stay in constant contact with anyone in the world from virtually anywhere we are. Play video games at the slightest hint of boredom. Share articles with an unlimited list of people in an instant and get immediate feedback. Carry our entire music collections in our pocket. Oh, and make phone calls (even conference calls) on these things. The list goes on.

I guess in a way I feel lucky to have been born in a time where I can fully appreciate how technology has changed our lives - in both good and bad ways.

No, I won't be buying the Google Nexus S myself. But in my book, I imagine it's pretty darn special.