The Apple tablet, officially named the iPad, was announced with mixed reactions. Unlike the iPhone announcement, this product was something that people didn’t really need. Steve Jobs asked the audience if there was room for a third category of mobile devices, in between the iPhone and Macbook laptops. Visionary Jobs believes so. He believes that there is room in the consumer and business marketplace for a tablet computer that handles functionality better than a mobile phone and a laptop. Specifically, the iPad is better a browsing the web, reading email, watching movies, viewing photos, and reading books.

photo credit: Richard-G

“Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it” -Wall Street Journal

Most of the naysayers attacked the iPad for lack of a camera, being on the AT&T network, and most commonly, “I don’t need this.” It’s difficult to imagine using a product that has yet to truly exist in the market place. The iPad is a mix between an iPhone and a full MacBook. Can it function as a complete desktop replacement? Maybe not immediately, but possible in the next few versions. Remember that Apple is a for profit company and uses features to differentiate its product line and force its consumers to upgrade almost every year. Sure, the iPad could have all these features and yes the technology exists, but from a business perspective, it makes more sense to roll out functionality with each new version to maximize sales.

So how will the iPad change the world. I’m going to take a big leap of faith and call it out right now. The iPad will revolutionize the way to manage and process information.

photo credit: splorp

Way before the iPhone made it out, a fellow by the name of Jef Raskin, came up with the idea of an information appliance that has just one function. The gadget would be so easy to use that it would require no user manual and so intuitive that a user can pick it up and perform the function. Of course, carrying around a device for every function wouldn’t be practical. Traditional devices like a BlackBerry has a fixed keyboard that doesn’t change. The iPhone’s touch interface changes depending on the application or function desired. It can be a keyboard, a number pad, or just a single button. By using a soft interface, the software changes to adapt to the user’s needs.

Computer users say that the iPad can’t accomplish the tasks that a desktop or laptop can perform, such as complex word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations. The traditional computer operating system relies on a menu system and task bar to access fixed functions. File -> Save As. Edit -> Copy -> Edit -> Paste. To learn the software requires memorizing where functions are and what order to process. It’s not intuitive. As the software deviates away from the traditional office applications and into applications such as Photoshop, video editing, sound editing, the menu system becomes more complex.

The iPad begins, but has not yet, addressed this issue. As Raskin envisioned, the software is so simple that you instantly know what to do. The future of software is not more functionality and features, but a smarter human interface, eliminating the tech geeks. Want to insert a picture into a document, just drag it and place it exactly where you want it. Want to make it bigger, just use your fingers to stretch it and position it.

photo credit: PaRaP

My first reactions of the iPad software says it’s just an enhanced version of iPhone software. Sure, there’s plenty of room to go. However, how many iPhone applications require a manual to operate? Very few. This is a first step into a future where application experts are obsolete and the democratization of computing. How do we achieve this? We find the best and brightest interface engineers and ask them to build software from scratch, throwing away how software has been done in the past.

What do you think? Should software really be simple and easy to use? Or do we need all the functionality and features that currently exist?

Every few years, a new product or idea comes out that revolutionizes the industry. The word processor came out and made the typewriter obsolete. The telephone changed communications. The airplane made the world much smaller. The Internet made newspapers a thing of the past. With the anticipation of the next iPhone coming out, and all the news of other competing devices like the Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One, and so one, let’s take a moment to remember when the iPhone first came out.

This device changed the playing field. Phones were no longer considered simply a tool for making voice calls. It brought the Internet into a small handheld device, hundreds of thousands of applications available with a flick of a finger, integrate email, calendar, contacts, and so on. It also played music, movies, and television shows.

Several generations later, this phone continues to evolve. Soon, it will not be known as a phone but a truly integrated device that handles everything.

I’ll simply end this with a simple question that I have not yet been able to answer: why do we still have fax machines?

photo credit: kevindooley

In my journey to become a better consultant, I’m reading “Now you see it: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis,” by Stephen Few. Below are a few traits he listed for a good analyst:

• Interested
• Curious
• Self-motivated
• Open-minded and flexible
• Imaginative
• Skeptical
• Aware of what’s worthwhile
• Methodical
• Capable of spotting patterns
• Analytical
• Synthetical
• Familiar with the data
• Skilled in the practices of data analysis

What do you think?

Source: Daniel Hoang: Life of a Management Consultant

>столовеn overly ambitious statement, I said that I was going to draft my 2010 goals out. Unfortunately, I was caught off guard on how much end of year work was left to do and that will carry over to the next year. Fortunately, the new year is just an arbitrary date set and has no real meaning.

To all that touched my life in 2009, thank you. I’m always thinking of you and may not always have the time to respond back appropriately, whether email, phone, or text.

2010 (which is the last year of this decade) will an important year for me. Many bigs things are to come and will be shared with all.

My friend Jun Loayza pushed his girlfriend to be an entrepreneur and came up against resistance. Not everyone is cut out to go solo, nor should they. In the tight knit blogging and Brazen Careerist community, you see quite a few that have gone out on their own. The appeal is very tempting at first: work your own hours, blur work/life, be your own boss, travel the world, create a 4 hour work week, ditch the cubical, etc. However, when reality kicks in, here are a few things that don’t sound so appealing:

• Setting up corporation paperwork, filing company officers, creating shares, board of directors, registration.
• Building an accounting system to track transactions, and hiring an accounting or CPA to validate the system for tax reporting or to seek funding from venture capitalists.
• Payroll, if you plan on hiring people, doing payroll (the boss gets paid last), COBRA, unemployment insurance, benefits.
• Personal liability if you’re not incorporated, and professional liability if the company gets sued.
• Professional insurance, the company may get sued.
• Personal insurance, no more health benefits, and ouch, it’s expensive to get your own.

If you take a base salary of say $50,000, add in all the benefits assuming 30% gives you a total of $65,000. Then add in 20% overhead giving you $78,000. Unless you can make well above that amount as an independent business owner, you’ve basically bought yourself a job, with all the risk.

photo credit: lumierefl

What do you think? Is going solo all that it’s cut out to be? In my next post, I’ll highlight some of the success factors to being an intrapreneur.

Early, I posted 10 essential business apps for a traveling consultant. Since then, I’ve gotten my hands on several new apps that have enhanced my productivity while mobile.

CardSnap Business Card Scanner ($14.99)
Most of the business card readers on the app store do the OCR (optical character recognition) using the phone’s relatively slow processor. For something as intense as reading and interpreting text from a business card to the iPhone’s contacts, the hardware just isn’t equipped to handle that. To use CardSnap, you take a picture of the business card (must have 3GS or phone with focusing case) and upload it to CardSnap’s servers. Their servers do the work and humans validate the data when the system doesn’t work. Think Amazon’s mechanical turk. I found the accuracy to be acceptable, however, requiring me to manually intervene on some cards.

DropBox (Free)
While many online data storage and syncing systems are available, DropBox continues to be my go to service for its ease of use. I have the software installed on my different laptops which syncs my files to the cloud. Using the iPhone app, I can pull up the files and review them just before a meeting. This is especially useful on a short haul flight where I don’t want to pull out the laptop and only want to do a practice run prior to the presentation. DropBox works with most file types and can open almost anything on the iPhone.

fi
photo credit: Chris Blakeley

Travel Tracker Pro ($8.99)
This is the all in one tool, better known for their Palm app, but been available for the iPhone. A bit “expensive” but my go to travel tool. It integrates with tripit.com to keep me updated on my flights, flight status, and tracking expenses. There’s a lot of other functionality that I haven’t had a chance to use yet, such as travel lists. I just created a pre-flight packing check list for things like toiletries, ticket, clothes, laptop, etc.

WordPress 2 (Free)
Most of my blogs are on the WordPress platform and this free app allows me to write/update posts, but more importantly, respond to comments. While it’s possible to update a blog (I do for my cat at mochicutie.com), it’s not very practical to write full posts while mobile. Instead, it’s very useful to read new comments and respond back.

GPS
There’s no recommendation here because I have yet to find anything that works better than the standard Google Maps. Hoping and waiting for Apple to approve the Google Navigation app.

This is the third part in a series of posts developing a social media toolkit for companies. When I last wrote my piece on Social Media Policies and Procedures (Part 1), it received a lot of interest and showed up fairly high in the Google Search results. Part two was developing a Social Media Strategic Plan.

As with any agency, organization, company, entity (herein company) mission, vision, and goals, social media is simply another tool in a portfolio of mechanisms to enhance the company’s internal operations and external perception with its customers and stakeholders. Below is an example of a company’s makeup from top to bottom, starting with its purpose down to the lowest level procedures:

1. Mission, Vision, Values
2. Goals
3. Company-wide Strategic Plan
4. Functional Strategic Plans (IT, Human Resources, Marketing)
5. Tactical Plans
6. Policies
7. Procedures

photo credit: thefuturistics

Where Does Social Media Fit in an Organization

Depending on whether you are speaking to a company’s CEO, or a so called social media expert, the answer can be different. In fact, some organizations believe that social media should be the driver while others see it as a nuisance, or just another fad to deal with.

At a minimum, social media should be a part of a functional strategic plan, whether IT or Marketing. Ideally, it’s part of the company-wide strategic plan and integrated into the portfolio of tools that the company can use to enhance internal and external operations. If treated as a grass roots approach, social media will grow from the enthusiasts, although with passion, but without a vision. When upper management treats it as a serious initiative to truly enhance the company, the roll out and usage can be strategic and planned.

When planned, it becomes a part of the company’s goals, and tied into the mission and vision. Rather than hiring an intern or pushing it to marketing, social media should be integrated into the business owners. For example, an architectural firm should have its top architects participating and writing the company blog, tweeting, and engaging with its customers using social media. When that function is shifted to an intern, or marketing, the customers are engaging not with the business, but with a gatekeeper. Eventually, the customers will realize that they aren’t engaged with the company.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Where do you think social media should be in a company, if at all? Who should be the owner? The business units, or the support units? Will there be a social media group, like marketing, or will it just be a part of marketing?

With that, I leave you with a wonderful database of over 100 social media policies.

I’m going to try to actively participate in Rebecca Thorman’s monthly goal meet-up. It’s a group of bloggers who publish their goals publicly to increase accountability and transparency. Each month, the bloggers post their progress in the prior month’s goals and publish their next month’s goals. Since this is my first post, I’ll start with my goals for December.

In the month of December, and wrapping up 2009 and onto the second decade of the millennium, my goals will center primarily around getting this blog back to life:

1. Complete design of the blog (header, sidebar elements)
2. Write two major posts and three minor posts
3. Integrate my other blogs and social media sites
4. Exercise at least twice a week (20 minutes minimum)
5. Develop 2010 annual goals and work plan

photo credit: adam.laiacano

If you want to participate in the meetup:

1. Post a list of your career/life related goals for November, along with your checked off October goals if you’d like, on your own blog.
2. Come back here and leave a link to your post in the comments at Rebecca’s blog (*If you don’t have your own blog, feel free to share your list here in the comments to join in!)
3. Then, check out everyone else’s lists as they leave comments – click their links, visit their blogs, say hello, meet, greet and support each other because that’s what it’s all about!

photo credit: alpha du centaure

It’s been way too long since my last post, almost three months to be exact. Since then, a lot has happened. Work has become a lot more intense, but fun. I adopted a baby kitten; she blogs at mochicutie.com.

In the next few days, I hope to participate in the monthly goal meetup and publicly post my goals for increased accountability. As you can tell, this blog is being slightly revised and reorganized to be the central hub for all my resources and knowledge. I hope to take a more Chris Brogan approach to writing new posts, hopefully consistently.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.

People often ask me how I know so much about computers and how I get all these things done so fast. Webcomic xkcd just figured out my trick and made a flow chart. I rarely know all the shortcuts or where the buttons are in an application, it’s a matter of poking around and just figuring it out. Usually, I succumb to the last box, “Google the name of the program plus  few words related to what you want to do.”

Here’s a few Google Searches I’ve done before:

• microsoft outlook mail merge
• excel vlookup
• excel macro pulldown list
• word page numbers by chapter

Tech Support Cheat Sheet <xkcd>