My blog for Northwestern University on Technology and Media
Check out my recent blogs as TechScout for Northwestern University's Media Management Center. Fun interviews from leaders at the edge of technology.
Wow. The changes ahead will be a fascinating ride!
05/26/2009
The Jesus Phone
I've never elevated Steve Jobs to God status as some in the tech community have. But I heartily acknowledge the divine status of the iPhone. I call it the Jesus Phone because of the undisputed fact that it performs miracles.
Miracle # 1: The iPhone has eliminated my insatiable (some may say sinful) need for more and better gadgets. Not only do I never have to buy a digital camera again, I can pass on the GPS system for my car. I can get rid of my watch, my alarm clock and my PDA. I don't need a fancy KitchenAid oven timer either. I can get dinner recipes from Big Oven and entertain myself while waiting in the grocery line with YouTube videos (careful to avoid unseemly content).
Miracle #2: Just like Jesus, the iPhone draws me closer to other people and their needs. I can keep up with my daughter's life on Facebook. I can help my colleagues get jobs on LinkedIn. I can remind myself to drop off the clothes for the Warm Winter Project. I can even keep track of my husband's location coordinates with Loopt.
Not that I need to. Lately, we have taken to what I call iPhone dating. It's very satisfying really. I get his lovely presence over a fine meal and when our conversation gets dull or boring, we just start scanning our favorite blogs. He'll say, "Did you see that Bush may get tried for war crimes?" I'll ask, "Did you hear about the new research on brain science and creativity?" We'll banter and then go back to our trusted iPhones. I think Jesus would approve of our abiding intimacy.
Miracle #3: And best off, the Jesus Phone has my spiritual needs at heart. I can build my mind with global news from the New York Times and meditate with my iTunes melodies. Soon, with the new Google talk app, I'll be able to speak, the phone will hear me and find my search on Safari. And just as Jesus promises to always guide us, with the Flashlight app, I can find my way in the dark.
01/16/2009
Marketing Well
Innovators know how to operate at the edge of new technologies and consumer insight. This program from Disney Theme Parks does just that. They beckon me personally to come to the Park via a customized video www.sun7news.com . Perhaps more importantly, the e-mail campaign positions the Park as a place for celebration. Celebration is a need that everyone has - even in a turbulent economy. When the video is finished, there is a convenient screen that directs you to send a customized video to a friend. This is marketing well.
12/17/2008
An Observer In Action
Many of you are familiar with my model for innovation, The Five Faces of Genius. I always love finding great examples of how these skills work in the minds’ of global innovators.
Anumpa Mittal is the Indian entrepreneur who created Shaadi.com. In India, the majority of marriages are arranged by parents. Mittal started Shaadi.com to link parents as well as singles for marriage over the Internet. In fact, Shaadi means ‘marriage’ in Hindi.
Mittal got this idea using the genius of his Observer skill. He paid attention to the details around him and collected them for an insight. Mittal met a pundit – a Hindi preist who acts as a matchmaker. The pundit was carrying a large bag full of personal resumes of potential matches. In India, they call these resumes biodata.
Mittal was curious and observed that the number of matches the pundit could create was dependent on the number of biodata he could carry in his bag. He believed that the matchmaking function could be better performed by software on the Internet. Shaadi.com is now the number one matchmaking site in Asia.
Paying attention to what makes our curiosity sing is part and parcel to innovation. When we take time to entertain our curiosity, we find ourselves creating ideas that can bring big value.
11/18/2008
Express!
I recently interviewed the CEO of wetpaint, Ben Elowitz and he talked about their new widget for Facebook. It's called Tag Team Graffiti. So I checked it out. It allows you to create 'art' with the community of your friends. Kind of like a community mural only electronic.
What I love about Tag Team Graffiti is that gives the power of people to create together in more ways than just words. Even though the images may turn out to be silly and maybe even banal, it's a co-creative process and helps us all learn to paint, play and express together.
03/26/2008
Answering Neo
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but 10 years later, I’m obsessed with The Matrix. At first I thought it was just longing for Keanu, but I’ve come to realize the movie taps my enduring fascination with notions of truth. Neo, one of the main characters is asked, "What is real?" and the Matrix trilogy is a search for answers to perennial questions - What’s real? What’s not. What’s software? What’s hardware? What’s numinal – literally from the clouds - at the outreaches of consciousness?
Changing notions of truth have come into high relief as the penetration of broadband increases and any voice can be heard. Traditionalists ask “Can you really trust what bloggers or citizen journalists claim as truth?” Web voices ask, “Is objectivity even possible? The old fashion science of hermeneutics – the study of interpretation – is now front and center in popular culture.
Perhaps that’s why Stephen Colbert has been so successful with the meme of ‘truthiness’. The immediacy and fluidity of the web means we care more than ever, about who is to be trusted and where authority lies. We care more about figuring out what is true because we can. Even the Wikipedia “band of rebels”, have become police or even ‘agents’, working to sanitizing opinion from it’s pages.
I interviewed Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media for our recent research on innovation and media for Northwestern’s Media Management Center. When asked about the future of news, Horan began riffing about the changing notions of truth the web spawns. “Truth is collaborative, it’s not an absolute fact. The truth is what we agree on - which is emerging.”
Practically speaking, truth will always be a difficult issue. What really happened at any one point in time is slippery. The harder you try to grasp it, the more it crumbles. If you’ve ever made pie dough before, you know what I mean. I often think of truth as a cloud that hovers over those who dialogue about issues they care about and ideally know something about. And the web provides a form of this cloud of collaboration – however imperfect – always changing and emerging.
The late philosopher Paul Ricouer in his study of the written word said “What the text means now means more than what the author meant when he wrote it”. This was prescient of how text operates on the web. The intentions of the author have slipped off the horizon of time. What matters is how we all think of it together. Somebody tell Neo - that’s what’s real.
02/1/2008
New Book
Over three years ago, I sat down with Howard Behar, a senior executive at Starbucks, in his office in Seattle. Framed quotes filled the office, like paintings squeezed on an art museum wall. These quotes were the wisdom he collected and shared with people around him as Starbucks grew from a tiny company to the worldwide force it is today.
I said something like, “Howard, these quotes on the wall are your leadership philosophy. That’s a book needs to be written.” He agreed to let me and my colleague Jane Melvin, begin exploring to see if ‘something was there’. As we interviewed those Howard touched across the ranks at Starbucks, indeed, a lot was there. The word that came to fore again and again was love. Howard led by trying to love. And though he didn’t love perfectly, he kept trying. And in the end, he created a style of leadership that inspired the genius of a company.
“It’s Not About the Coffee” is now a book for anyone interested in leading a fuller life – personally and professionally. It’s a book built, not just on management principles, but on principles of being human. It reflects what Starbucks strives to do everyday – nurture and inspire the human spirit. The book is filled with various “Beharisms” that speak wisdom and give you a glimpse of what it’s like to not just raise a company, but raise a culture:
1) People are not assets, they are human beings
2) Only the truth sounds like the truth
3) Think like a person of action. Act like a person of thought
4) Yes is the most powerful word in the world
I’m thankful the stories Jane and I collected and chronicled gave Howard what he needed to write the book that needed to be written. We even snuck in a bit of our own wisdom and stories along the way. For me, I feel like I’ve checked off one thing on my life-list. I’ve helped to spread a message that can inspire a new generation of leaders. Check it out at amazon
12/5/2007
What Tech Leaders Know for Sure
I taught a couple of weeks ago at Kellogg's MBA program and reviewed our research from the Media Management Center study on innovation. We talked about a new reign of leadership that is emerging and is most visible in technology markets where innovation is required. The role of this leader has nothing to do with managing and everything to do with allowing others to create and execute their own ideas.
Listen to Bob Bowman, President and CEO of MLB Advanced Media. He discussed with us the importance of helping his team make their ideas happen. "Nothing is better than being able to point to something and say, 'Well that's my idea. It's up there.'"
And nothing is better. Tech leaders know this. They work hard to make sure people can work at the nub of their genius. Not just because creativity is the purest form of motivation, but because the firm needs these ideas to compete in rapidly changing markets. Highly capable talent doesn't care about recognition. They want expression. Leaders know that more than money - as the UGC movement proves - people want the forum to create and share.
Sure, this is easier in tech firms whose organization design is relatively flatter than other firms. But as other sectors become more and more technology enabled, leaders are going to have to learn from technology markets and move out of the business of e-mail shuffling and gate-keeping. Tech leader know for sure their job is harnessing the corporation's genius.
I love how Peter Horan, CEO of IAC Media describes the challenge about retaining top talent in the marketplace. He wants their thinking process to be this: "If I go to IAC I can really do great stuff and when I do, it's going to be mine. I'm going to drive it and I'm going to get rewarded for it. Swing for the fences and if [I] strike out, that's life."
11/2/2007
MSNBC buys Newsvine
I sat down with Mike Davidson Co-Founder of Newsvine - a couple of months ago and interviewed him for Northwestern University's Media Management Center's study on innovation and media. Mike is an interesting guy - an entrepreneur who can 'do' as well as think conceptually about things that matter like truth and credibility in reporting.
Mike described the original impetus for the idea of the company. He and his buddies had a long history together working at Disney Interactive Group as well as ESPN. Over time they noticed the inefficiencies in the web functions. Mike describes the inspiration process like this: “Well, if 90% of the traffic is going to basically wire stories and automated data you don’t need 280 people to produce those two things.” The group decided to take the leap, get their own AP subscription and created a unique algorithm for filtering user generated news. The site became so compelling to so many that Charlie Tillinghast took noticed and purchased them. For more about the acquisition see the Seattle PI article.
I'll write more later about Newsvines brilliant 'simulated editor' function, but I'd like to concentrate on this original inspiration for the idea. In my model for creative thinking The Five Faces of Genius, The Observer is the face that notices detail. They are able to set aside the distractions and focus on what really matters. Observers latch on to the emerging details and create something new. Mike and his team were able to filter the 'noise' of traditional newsites, notice where the traffic was going and develop a fresh and new experience for readers. Congrats to Mike and his team. Innovation has it's just rewards.
10/9/2007
Server down. Brain up.
Last Friday our ISP's server was down. No access to e-mail and it was quite a mind-blowing day. Wow did I get a lot done. And because I wasn't interrupted constantly, I found myself luxuriously spending hours working on projects that needed creative attention. Flow is a great thing. Everyone should do it.
So over the weekend I learned that Nationwide Internet had "lost" all the e-mails that came in on Friday and Saturday. Technical Support said that I should contact all the people that I think might have e-mailed me on Friday. "What am I supposed to do? Intuit the exact people that tried to contact me?" Silence.
So while I had a productive Friday, I am paying the price now; reconstructing the fabric of my communications web. BTW, did you send me an e-mail recently?
10/8/2007
What do you pay to hold it in your hands?
When conducting research with news organizations for the MMC report, one obvious trend is the demographic consumer split of printed newpapers. Most folks over the age of 40 want to hold the printed word in their hands. They talk about it as a 'ritual'. Turning the pages is something they love to do. Going on-line for news seems like they are betraying a deeply held religion.
Contrast that notion with the younger demographic who largely view the newspaper as a waste of the world's resources. Why cut trees when I can get the same info on-line? And BTW - it's a boatload cheaper too. Why pay for something I can get for free?
I find this generational split an interesting one. In effect, subscribers are paying for a ritual. The behavioral 'switching costs' of holding the newspaper in your hands to viewing the same information on a screen are so high, individuals are willing to pay a premium for it. And the good news for newspapers is that the 40+ demographic will be around for a long time to come.
10/1/2007
Hovering above the chaos
09/25/2007
Get ready to ride
While I was working on this report:
I was also reading Ray Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near. While you may disagree with Kurzweil's conclusions about the future of artificial intelligence, one thing you can't disagree with is his primary point that the pace of change itself is changing.
I'll blog about this book more in the future, but what's on my mind today is how the media industry is operating at the edge of exponential change. Technology markets are changing so rapidly that new innovations seem like new litters of rabbits appearing in the blackberry bushes. Keeping pace with the boatload of new products, new features and new methods of communication seems almost impossible. As one of our interviews from the report, NBC News VP Lyne Pitts "There's nothing to be ashamed of feeling like you are on the edge in a strategy of chaos."
First you have to realize, accept and then celebrate that business is shifting all around and chaos is here to stay. Get ready to ride the ups and downs because we are all in for a lot of change and it's going to be those who love the choas that succeed.
09/25/2007
Iterating your way to success
Everyone should have a chance to sit across the table from Allen Blue. Allen is a co-founder of LinkedIn. And if you haven’t noticed it, LinkedIn is growing faster than the weeds in your garden. About 200,000 people per week.
Allen has an erudite style. Hard to believe he is an entrepreneur because he sounds more like a professor. He waxed philosophical about the value of iteration – trying something new and then tweaking it as you go along. In effect, new ideas get perfected by the community of the many instead of the management ‘few’.
I love his point, “We make it up as we go along. If you ask consumers about your ideas, they will say, ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’ It’s better to build something light-weight and see if we can innovate effectively and then iterate.”
It’s this brave innovation that contributes to LinkedIn’s success. The ability to be willing to endure continual feedback, even if it’s negative, is a sign of strength and one of the web values of intimacy with your consumers. Better to have your consumers co-create with you than launch something with your initials and ego all over it.
09/20/2007
Skunk works that work
While researching innovation and the media for Northwestern University's Media Management Center, I was impressed by a guy named Rob Curley. Rob is VP Development and runs a skunk works organization for the Washington Post. What's great is the ability of his small team of 5 people to jettison the whole company into new and creative markets on the web.
They work as a small company within a large one and have the speed and flexibility to do things virtually overnight. They were one of the first news media firms to design a successful widget for Facebook. Here's how they are organized vis-a-vis the 300 person washingtonpost.com team:
Our team has its own dedicated programmer; he’s been working with us for a long time so he knows how programming relates to journalism. This is a guy who practices his journalism with code instead of with sentences. We have a full-time dedicated senior designer who’s also a motion graphics animator and a Flash developer. Then we have two multimedia journalists — one in an editor’s role and one in a producer’s role, but both can do just about everything. They can write very well-written news stories, they can produce daily audio podcasts, they can shoot and edit video. You throw something at them and they can probably do it, or they’re going to figure out how to do it. They’re kind of jack-of-all-trades when it comes to storytelling.
“Then the fifth member of our team is this really smart guy who has the strangest role on our team. In fact, we had to make up a whole new title for him and that’s ‘Journalism Technology Specialist.’ He’s a weird guy because he’s a dang fine journalist; he can really write well and understands new media journalism really well, but he can also code a little bit, he can write CSS. Basically, this guy sits between the journalism and the technology. So once all the code has been written, all the sites have been designed, all the Flash animations have been built, all the stories have been written, all the virtual reality photos have been taken, he’s the guy who assembles all of that. And that makes him a pretty useful guy to have around.'
Rob was telling me about a hyper-local site they developed for Loudoun County, VA - one of the fastest growing counties in the DC area. It's called Loudounextra.com. Rob's group wanted to include a list of all the restaurants in the county. Someone suggested they buy the data from the Yellow Pages. Imagine all the time, money and debugging that would take for addresses and phone numbers. Instead, their staff called every restaurant in the county, found out opening and closing time, pricing, type of cuisine, details that brought value to using the site. With free Google database software, it was done - fast, cheap AND good.
Conventional thinking is that skunk works organizations are good for ideation but present problems when ideas scale and you have to assimilate the products and services back into the larger organization. That's the beauty of the technology of content companies however. The software itself creates the scaling. Watch for even better innovations coming from washingtonpost.com.
09/14/2007