Where is this thing going?

Leadership Lessons from a Charity Event

2011-12-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

I recently organized a charity event, Help-Portrait, in its Fort Lauderdale chapter. Help-Portrait involves taking professional portraits of people in need and giving out the pictures. The idea is pretty simple, but sometimes very touching stories can be heard. I tried to regularly blog about to document the process and I included one about the process of coordinating it. This is an excerpt that reads more like a Leadership workshop, so I thought I would include it here! The principles are simple, and while the rest of the post is Help-Portrait related, it applies to any endeavor.

So, How do you bring together a 30+ motley crew of Photographers, Makeup Artists, Hairdressers, Volunteers with NO PAY, make them show up at countless meetings, pitch in money and resources, have them show up at your location at 8:00 AM on probably the busiest portrait Saturday of the year, have them work their a**es off ALL DAY for you, then WORK MORE editing and proofing the photographs and finally turn them in? Piece of cake. :-)

1.- Engage people. Nobody does nothing alone. You need allies. Start selling the dream to everybody you find in your way and focus on the end result, tell stories about how the outcome of your work can change lives. This will also flex your persuasion muscles and get you ready for when the time comes to sell the idea to sponsors, etc.

2.- Empower people. Remember when I told you you need allies? Well, this is it. Identify key, committed people in your recruits. Assign them specific goals and let them do their thing. The biggest asset that you are gaining when working with other people is that they can make decisions on their own and take initiative. Let it happen and encourage it. Here is another tip: Don't know who to assign which job? ASK. People will be more enthusiast about what they do if it is something that they want to do, let it be their idea.

3.- Delegate. Your function as a leader is to be at the helm. Don't worry, you will have plenty of stuff to do just with that, and you WILL be pitching in a lot. Pay attention to the next two points.

4.- Prioritize. This is absolutely critical to maintain focus. Make it clear that you are not dismissing ideas, you are just indicating what has to happen first and where are the resources going. In this sense (maybe we should have a whole post about this) and for a Help-Portrait event here are some key priorities in order of importance: Find a venue, Find an Audience, Recruit Professional Photographers with Equipment, Recruit Hairdressers/Makeup Artists, Find sponsors for Printing, food, office supplies, etc., plan the logistics of the event and the delivery of the product. As you can see, this is an attempt of putting everything in order starting with the biggest issue first. One way of doing this is to ask yourself at every step, What would absolutely ruin my event?

5.- Celebrate. Who doesn't like a party? Every time you have a breakthrough, announce it and celebrate. Same with people doing a good job. This helps to reinforce the type of work you need and also instills the notion that you are making progress.

6.- Communicate the hell out of everything. Tell everybody over and over again what's the goal, where are you going, what's the priority at hand and don't forget to drive the process home. If everybody knows what you are supposed to do, anybody can fill in a job temporarily if needed and decisions made at "the edge" become better decision, more in-tune with the goal and the process in mind.

7.- Repeat. No, seriously, Engage-Empower-Delegate-Prioritize-Celebrate- Communicate.

Planning stunning events

2011-02-25T06:05:00.000-08:00

Part of a marketer's job is to throw a heck of a party every once in a while. Being in Channel Management for many years where the line between Sales and Marketing blurs, usually because of lack of resources, I have been involved in a few of these, some of them as large as 600 people spanning a week in lenght.
Here are some tips to make for an exceptional event:

Mind the audience. Always think on who is the event for. Target EVERYTHING to this audience. Focus on your niche. This is what ultimately going to show the value of the event, a high concentration of interests in one place and at one time.

Cover the basics. Make sure that you are covering your audience expectations. Ask yourself what is what HAS to be there. Make it happen.

Do not underestimate the networking. This is one of the biggest reasons why people attend events, to hook up with clients, suppliers and to pick the brains of their colleagues and competitors. Allow plenty of time for networking and make every time slot conducive for connecting. Provide means of sharing contact info, like an opt-in list to be distributed among attendees. Create activities with smaller groups, this is more conducive for peer-to-peer interaction as well as for Q/A sessions and information gathering.

Plan for the 5-year old. Well, almost. Keep changing the activities every 30-min to 1 hour. This will keep the audience engaged.

Change wardrobe. Or the drapes. Rearrange furniture. Mix it up and change the format of the presentations. Too many powerpoints? Conduct an interview on stage. Bring in a panel of experts. Show a video. Move the audience from one room to the other.

Think Hollywood. With whatever your resources are, think about making an impact. It does not matter if it is somewhat unrelated and not purely business, three months after the event nobody is going to remember the content of slide 5 of your presentation, but they will remember the CEO riding on to the stage with a Harley or the cigar roller at the Cuban-themed party.

Left brain, Right brain, repeat. Plan, plan and then plan some more. Hold meetings with every stakeholder, do a dry run on everything to make sure that it flows correctly. But be prepared and accept chaos, things WILL fall apart and you will have to make changes on the fly.

Keep tabs on the team. Remember to record all the phone numbers. Have a radio system. Hold staff meetings first thing in the morning. This will help you have a backup individual for everything and you will be able to contact them when something goes astray.

Assign shifts. Admit it. You cannot work 24/7. Make it clear who is in charge and when, and give yourself some time to participate and network yourself.

Just came in: FB replaces all platforms

2011-02-25T05:35:00.000-08:00

It goes something like this:

Joe Posted Something on your Wall:

"Honey, we ran out of paper at the downstairs powder room"

Lucia commented on your post:

"Look in the cabinet, there should be more there"

Joe commented on his post:

"Nope"

Lucia commented on your post:

"I will be there in a minute, writing something on fb"

Edward commented on your post:

"We always keep plenty in the cabinet too, seems to work for us"

Joe commented on his post:

"Hurry up honey"

With the widespread adoption of a communication technology -or any technology for that matter- there is always a moment in time when somebody figures out a "original way of using it" or a way of misusing it.

The ping-pong email is a famous one, where people interact by exchanging one-liners through email and expecting immediate answers. The 15-minute voicemail, the two-party conference bridge dial-in are other examples of this.

Exchanges like the opening one, while exaggerated for illustration purposes are becoming more prevalent. The point here is that the parties could just talk to each other, and there is no benefit in having this conversation on fb, where usually the objective is to capitalize on your friends input, enriching the discussion, or simply because there is something worth sharing, either because it sublime or entertaining.

The parties do have a technological alternative that fits better their communication needs, but they are just resorting to fb (or whatever they choose) because of pure laziness.

Horror Gallery of Corporate

2011-01-31T06:59:00.001-08:00

Deep in the dungeons of the corporation, some of the most cruel and horrific tortures are inflicted on those that voluntarily accept them. These are nightmares that attack me during my deepest REM sleep. I hesitated to put them out in the open, but here they are. These will be a rolling list that will get more added, but hopefully not that many. Here are the first six:

Death by Ping-Pong email

This horrific procedure is based on the fact that each short, seldom self-contained email drains the energy of the responder. It slowly bleeds away the individual involved in the conversation and warps time. Each three second email consumes about 15-20 minutes of preparation. After five iterations the procedure starts to approach lethal consequences because it slowly erodes hope that anything can be accomplished at all.

Suffocation by back-to-back meetings

Many of us have experienced this. Back to back meetings drain the oxygen around any real work and thinking. It is only lethal in instances where it is also accompanied by starvation, but the risk of permanent brain damage is very high.

The DOS attack

This is a particularly cruel practice that is applied usually to those on solitary confinement. Consists in taking away your resources to do the things you are supposed to do by introducing a resource hog that eats up any trace of surplus resources. Manifestations of this type of attack can be the "Quick question" every 30 minutes, or variations of the Ping-Pong email and the Back-to-Back meeting.

Traction torture

This is a widely utilized technique when achieve resignation or ruining someone's career is an objective. Consists in having the condemned individual report to two different bosses with different agendas. The two bosses eventually end up pulling apart the individual until it is impossible to meet objectives or put his/her body parts together.

The Trojan Tool

This is a technique that is practiced by top executives that are masters in the art of deception. It consists of making mandatory the use of cumbersome tools of questionable value. It is particularly deceptive because it is usually disguised as something useful and as a time-saving tool.

The Suicide Bomber VP

These are a common threat, but they are very hard to spot. It consists in committing to unattainable goals, some times self-proposed as means of gaining visibility in the corporation, bonuses, or just showing off. Then it is just a matter of time. It takes between 2 or 3 Quarters to build enough pressure to detonate, however it becomes very hot around the SBVP; so hot that it is unbearable. At this point it can be more easily detected but usually very few people point it out. Once it detonates, it takes the whole department with it.

Working ourselves out of a job...

2011-01-21T08:12:00.001-08:00

This is probably going to give away my age, if I haven't already.

When I started working in the Telecom industry, everything was shiny and new and the future was so bright that we wore our RayBan Wayfarers at night.

With great power, great responsibility came with it, in many cases and particularly with my engagement in developing markets, our work was somewhat heroic, deploying life-changing technologies and greatly impacting the quality of lives of the population at large. From enabling businesses to the levels of first-world countries, putting internet under the fingertips of the kids attending schools accessible only by dirt roads, to the birth of the mobile information society and the freemium long distance services.

While we did this, my colleagues and I were in privileged positions, calling a developed country our residence and working for staple-name corporations. We were the only ones that could do this job.

As the transfer of these technologies further advanced, we saw the world shrink and flatten and our colleagues on the other side of the wire get more empowered. The result now is that in many of the more mature technologies, the ones doing the work we used to do are no longer our neighbors.

When we foresaw these changes, we recognized them as a shift in paradigm and to a certain point, we succeeded in achieving these but somehow in the process, we might have worked ourselves of a job....

Time to grow up, dude...

2011-01-10T14:24:00.000-08:00

Corporations many times are compared with real people. They are born, they die, can be sued, they pay taxes, etc. Free speech is a debate. Many of them evolve a quite identifiable persona.

Pretty much as people, we expect them to grow in all aspects and live a full life. That's what this entry is about. Social Responsibility. Very much like a guy who just steps into the picture to take care of some issue, we are OK with new and -specially- small corporations to be focused on task.

They have one thing to do, they do it well and they do nothing else.

Now, once they grow bigger and older, we start to look at them in a different light. We expect them to do all sorts of things. Give back to the community, create jobs, pay well and play nice. Just like we do with older guys. They have been around here, we expect them to pitch in somehow, be nice, don't just talk about the $%^& work, even party a bit and have a beer with us. If they don't, we call them a "Jerk" or in the best case, we declare that they "lack social skills".

So, aren't our Corporation's Social Responsibility expectations just another way of humanizing them?

The secret sauce of Social Media

2010-11-22T18:29:00.000-08:00

I recently read the inaugural blog of a good friend, Marco Cuttin. He makes a very nice walk on memory lane going through all the communications systems and how they evolved.

However, while Marco shows the similarity and how they evolved, fails to point out the one thing that makes Social Networks, Social Networks.

The one thing that is different is that the connections ARE PERSISTENT. What I mean with this, is that once you have connected with someone, and exchanged information, the network remembers that path and it can be traveled again by others. It is like a telephone system that grows branches according to your calls. This concept is also very well illustrated by a speech by Sebastian Seung on TED, "I am my connectome".

The App Reigns

2010-11-18T18:56:00.001-08:00

I should have known. I dared to mention the iPhone and I just got a gazillion hate mails.

The conversation went south quickly, falling into the this vs. that and the "I was here before" conversation.

What this made me realize that -personally- I care less and less about the device, about any device, and more about the apps. Functionality and content are king in my reign. TiVo and the DVR have done more for TV in my case than color, HD or any other improvement.

In the case of a computing or a Smartphone device, the reality is that very specific tasks are attributed to the Application and not the device. Nobody "Macs" or "PCs" something. But you do Photoshop an image, and you "throw it into an Exel" and on a bad day, it is your Outlook that is "acting up". In one concept: The App is the verb.

On the device, I have some killer apps that I just need to have. My preferred ones are:

Pandora. My music, randomized and with new stuff! Love it on the computer, even better on the handheld when it can go everywhere and has XG access.
Evernote. This is a powerhouse application. If you haven't tried it, you should. I just loved the first version because of the concept of ubiquity. The idea is a Notebook that can be accessed by a variety of ways, web, PC or Mac client, and Mobile client. In addition to this, the first version allowed for hand-written notes, email-to-notebook entry, and note emailing as well as a neat web-clipping functionality. On the mobile, it gets even better when you add the camera and the geo-tagging functionality.

GMail Sync. I mean Contacts and Calendar too.

Google Voice. If you read "The Mobility I Want", you know why. This is the closest thing to unified communications Nirvana.

It is not broken, it is a feature...

2010-11-16T16:32:00.001-08:00

If you are in the tech industry, you have probably heard this one, usually said as a joke.

If I have to explain any further, this refers to when the developer or Marketing finds an unexpected bug or defect and -BAM- (please draw starburst around it...) turns it into a new feature.

What is interesting is that the opposite is also true. New features that are misinterpreted can often be taken as a defect. I am an example of this with my newly-found learning curve on touchscreen phones, while I am still trying to make use of that muscle memory, now with almost no other tactile feedback besides haptics.

This also happens at any level of human life. One example is the controversial ADHD. Most people that I have known with this syndrome tend to be extremely creative and intelligent. So maybe it IS a feature!

I am trying to convince my wife on some of my "features"....

You are like Einstein

2010-11-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

Yep. Much like Albert Einstein. Not because you can come up with the Special Relativity theory and also play the violin, but because your ideas come in the oddest moments.

Einstein once said: "Why do I have my best ideas in the shower?"

This is true for most of us and it is ironic that most of the time your best ideas come to you in waves and in places where it is so hard to document them.

I am currently inmersed reading "The Artist's Way", which is what you can consider a "classic", written in by . The concepts exposed there are not easily proven, but they are still very valid. One of the key concepts, at the core of the author's thesis, is that repetitive tasks "feed" the creative mind and we can then tap it. This is the author's explanation on why these ideas come to us in places that we are sometimes even embarrassed to confess.

This is the reason why Evernote is probably my all-time favorite app on my phone and the new version on Android is capable of doing off-line creation and editing.

Now we just have to make it work under the shower.

What's its name? Facemail?

2010-11-13T06:02:00.000-08:00

It was in the news, but honestly, nobody is paying a lot of attention.

Facebook has announced that this Monday, they will make available their email services. At the time of this writing, it is not clear what enhancements are they incorporating into their Inbox feature, other than a dedicated email address.

I have been watching social media for a while (click here to see my 2008 rant) and I never saw Facebook as an email killer, but more like an Outlook killer. Think about it, What does Outlook do for you in a typical office environment? Integrates your contacts, communications, and takes care of your appointments and resource booking. There is not a lot that Facebook is missing out of these.

There are four things that I would point out with Facebook's announcement:

1.- Facebook does stand a chance. Email is becoming more and more just a transport layer and a notification mechanism. If I look at how my two daughters use their online resources, it is easy to come to this conclusion. They do have email addresses, to be able to "communicate with the dead", but they rarely check them. They communicate through Facebook and SMS, and email's function is reduced to make the vibrating device go off on their smartphones. If the notification piece is solved, Why send an email? You already have that message in FB's Inbox. It seems that something in these lines is coming with the announced Office Online integration.

2.- We need more. Some said this will be a GMail killer. Well, not until we get the gazillion storage capacity, the external email address, the capacity to SEND emails to people that are not on Facebook, Offline and mobile client access, resource management, iCal and VCard translation, multiple addresses to be able to manage your online personas, distribution lists, better threaded conversations, and -Oh Yeah!- better search. This is without even factoring in Google Buzz (or Wave?), which is a truly revolutionary way of communicating.

3.- What about voice? Nobody cares anymore? I do. Google has a nice foothold here, both with the Android operating system running on phones, Google Voice, and Google Talk's capacity to do VoIP. And it is not just a telephone, it looks more like your personal switchboard and unified communications platform. Facebook has a shy attempt at something like this with their partnership with Vonage, but again, no way to call anybody outside of Facebook, and what is even worse, no way to call anybody ON Facebook that does not have the Vonage app on their mobile.

4.- We still need more. There has been some comparisons with GMail's priority Inbox -which I think is the best thing after email search-. Facebook has insight into what is important for you, and what is not. So -in theory- they may be able to classify email according to this. The question here is, Can they do it better? Right now, honestly, they are not there yet. Facebook filters out stuff that I am interested in and stuff that is new to me and I would have never given a chance other way.

And let's face it, we do have "circles of friends", we have the "A" list, the "B" list, the acquaintances; people from work, and family. On top of this, our interests change. When I am looking to move to another city, or just go there for a short trip, I focus on friends that live there. If I am having parenting issues, I turn to friends that have same age kids as mine. These are all things that are not necessarily reflected in my status updates. Facebook makes it -in the best case- laborious to track these changes.

One thing is true. They got us to write about them, not on email but on a blog, and announce it on Facebook.

The inverted business model

2010-11-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

How many times have you checked out that latest piece of equipment at the store, just to go back home and research for the best price online and buy it?

It happens all the time, specially with high ticket items and stuff that you have to try on (shoes, clothes, etc.). The physical part of testing the unit and trying it on works better in a brick-and-mortar setting. At the same time, the we is made for price comparison. This is usually the biggest challenge for the online retailers. There is almost no difference between one and the other if they use the same software platforms and the same logistics solutions. So the only factor available to differentiate is price.

So is the Brick-and-Mortar and the neighborhood store extinct? Not really, and just the other day I had an epiphany. I had reversed the model myself. I have been contemplating to purchase a certain book that I have researched online. I even had the book in my Amazon wishlist. But I just happened to be in Milwaukee, and passing in front of Downtown Books. And I couldn't resist to go in.

I found it! Used and inexpensive. I bought it immediately out of impulse!

So what's next? MP3 sharing club at a local joint?

It happens to be that the dust hasn't yet settled under the Internet sun.

A reflection on product innovation or how to buy a present for your significant other

2010-11-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

When it comes to product development, innovation is a lot like planning a gift for your significant other.

You can always go on the safe side and conduct your "market survey" and start your quest for the perfect gift, responding to every single desire of your other half.

Yes, you will end up with a gift that is very much appreciated and that will fill a void long open. You -yes, YOU- will be in the ranks of the "reliable provider".

On the other hand, you can go the other way, the risky way. You can observe your partner for months, maybe for years, and try to translate into a model HOW do they think and feel. Once you are confident enough that you have a fairly good idea, then -and just then- set out to look for the perfect gift, without even asking a single question.

The difference here is that you will not only fulfill a desire, but you will surprise. And if you are successful, you will be LOVED. You will touch that fiber that will make her (or him) resonate.

In product development, something similar happens. Those companies that surprise us with a design that we never even thought about, earn our love, and we become advocates for them. There are many examples of this. The iPod wheel, the Segway (for the few that can afford one), the Dyson hand dryer, etc.

I am not suggesting that you blindly develop your products, after all, you need a market for them, and this means that they have to be priced correctly and that they address a real need so that there is a desire to purchase them from you. In contrast, in the gift metaphor there is no price involved from the receiving end.

What I am saying is that you cannot base your design ONLY on market research coming from surveys and direct questions.

Now, surprise me.

The Cartel of Doral

2010-11-06T07:09:00.001-07:00

Here is my friend Artie. He's on fire, ready to take on corporate America. The reason? His TiVo is down. No digital channels, apparently he needs a card or something to make it work. Which is kinda weird as we can now receive a good number of digital channels over the air.

We heard stories like this before, the public services company that has horrendous customer service and after voicing "Scotty, Shields On!" protects itself behind the "voicejail".

We all like competition, but public services is a tricky one. There is infrastructure to lay down, and nobody is willing to do the investment if they don't have guaranteed returns. This is why government issues "rights of way" and gives the cable company an area to develop. A Cartel, a monopoly of a function in a given geographical area.

The problem with this is what we all know, and this is how the telecommunications industry used to be, until the Telecommunications Act of the eighties (oh, the eighties!), separated the ownership of the copper from the service. Oddly enough this is a case where free competition is spurred as a product of more regulation!

The question here is: Has cable the same ranks as Telecom as far as a strategic public service now that a lot of people run their Internets and phones through them?

iAccept

2010-11-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am amazed at how many things can Apple get us to accept as normal, and -sometimes- even as better.

First, it was the brilliant move from Apple's side to force every customer to attach an unlimited data plan to the iPhone. This single clause in the contract had more influence on user experience than any of the technical aspects of the iPhone, so this one was -as bold as it was- an unusual one. But we accepted it.

This was accompanied by its huge size. Yes, the screen is great, and it is more or less thin, but let's be honest, it is almost the size of my 1999 Palm Pilot. Granted, it had a little apple on the back. Accepted.

Then the dubious reception and voice quality (at least on the first versions). There they went, the happy iPhone users predicating that it was just "a minor nuisance" on a super-innovative phone.

The last one, -and one that we live with every day- the on-screen keyboard.

I swear. The one app that iPhones should come with, and that no user should be able to uninstall, is a spell checker. Spelling errors and typos must have gone through the roof since the adoption of this device. Oddly enough, I just read that iPhones have surpassed Blackberries in the domestic market. This means that the trusted little keyboard that so many users swore by, has been traded for the unreliable, jittery touchscreen.

So we not only accept this, we embrace it.

I am wondering if the Apple effect could be translated to other concepts and make us accept those things that are "the right thing to do" even if they mean increased costs or moving away from our comfort zone. How about an iBus that would make us take public transport instead of our own car? or An iBulb that will finally convince us that turning off the light bulb when we have left the room IS a good idea? iMortgage, a product that gets banks to assume their share of the Real Estate bust? Anybody iBurger, made of organic stuff that costs $20?

For now, let me try to convince my teenage daughter that an Oldsmobile is a great car. I hope this little Apple sticker works...

The "unconvergence" age

2010-10-28T06:00:00.001-07:00

Everything is cyclic. In business and technology we see it all the time. We push, push, push and there is a point where the market stops us as saying "that's just way too much".

The convergent device has been great. Being able to integrate phone with PDA and then being able to GPS locate and email almost everything on the device is just fantastic.

However, I find myself more and more in a situation where I would rather prefer a second device, an example is when I am driving following a map and suddenly somebody calls.

The question here is how do we approach this? I can think of three basic solutions:

1.- Better and smarter peripherals. If the audio interface and a second display on goggles could be an option, maybe -and just maybe- we won't need a second device.

2.- The dedicated device collection. We tried this, and while we somewhat like it, it is not the Holy Grail. Carrying a collection of dedicated devices is not a good answer.

3.- The second, multipurpose, connected device. One is not enough? Try two! Not a brilliant idea but if we can limit the number of devices that we carry to two, and both can do everything we can dream of, we also get redundancy. To some extent this is happening with the arrival of the iPad. In fact many appleheads just think in "number of Apples I own". Good for Jobs, that is Steve Jobs.

4.- The interactive environment. Let's expand on concept 1. Turn your car into a peripheral. When you sit in your car, your device works like a security token and information is shared. Suddenly you have access to the map on your personal device and display it on the dashboard, or your phone can use the car stereo, and the car marks your calendar for the oil change. To some extent we are there. Now expand that thought to Home and the big screen TV, or the office's keyboard, mouse and monitor and desk phone.

Whichever way we go, the key here is to establish the real, secure Personal Area Network. Is Bluetooth ready for this?

Bump is Magic

2010-10-26T05:33:00.001-07:00

If something is true about my Myers-Briggs profile (ENTJ if you ask...) is that I get easily fascinated and entertained by ideas and concepts. This is one of those cases.

For those of you who don't know, "Bump" is an app that runs both on iPhone and Android and allows you to share your contact info by "bumping" your phones against each other.

By an elaborate and innovative flow of information the user is fooled into believing that the act of touching the two phones is doing the trick, while the devices in fact don't have anything that allows for this!

What is really happening is that the devices connect to a central server, notifying that they want to exchange a set of data, and when the accelerometer detects that the phone is "bumped", the server tries to match the GPS coordinates with another phone being bumped at the very same precise moment. Clever huh?

It is like a coordinate-authenticated PAN (Personal Area Network).

The part that I really get hung up on is that this is like faking a punch and having the other being put out by lightning!

I guess Arthur C. Clarke was right, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The retro-ignorant

2010-08-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

We had more technology evolution in the last century than in all of human history before that. Those that are near their 40s today are witneses of the proverbial shift, not as experienced by our generation but more by observing that of our parents and our children.

My father in law was a very intelligent and agile man, who travelled half of the world routinely. He was both exposed to the advances of the Old World, as well as the enormous cultural differences present in South America. He was also a fan of shooting home movies on "Super-8" as many in his generation.

In the 80s, when the then new generation of Camcorders was out he decided to buy one. My wife and her siblings would make fun of him as he kept adjusting the camcorder's position -now plugged into the TV- to "project" the image to the screen. Obviously, he was having a hard time assimilating the new technology and opted on relying on his past experience.

Another example was my own father, having worked as a mainframe programmer for almost 25 years, had a hard time digesting the relative "ease of use" of Windows 95.

This used to be the norm, older people would "get stuck" on the older technology and younger, smarter generations would take their place and would master BOTH the newer technology and the old one. In this same year, anybody my age would be equally proficient handling the camcorder/VCR/TV or the Super 8 projector.

What is interesting today, is that technology is evolving at such a pace that learning the newer technologies does not allow for any room to understand the old ones, and this comes to equally embarassing ignorance. Retro Ignorance. Just a few examples: A 15 year old (unless is a DJ) would not know how to play a Vinyl or a Cassette tape, the fact that you cannot skip immediately to another song would puzzle them. I have seen them trying multi-touch gestures on non-touch screens. They don't understand how a car works, connect to the Internet through a modem, operate a typewriter, drive a stick-shift, the list keeps going on and on.

"Three factor" authentication

2010-08-23T07:22:00.001-07:00

It is truly amazing how human nature prevails. As much as we try to change, rule and regulate human behavior, there are examples in every field.

It is a known fact that when tax rates increase about a certain threshold, revenues begin to drop as evasion becomes more common place. The fiercest regimes are usually the ones that fall quicker.

But this blog is not supposed to be about sociology or politics, but about technology and management and in reality the issue that prompts me to write this time is the obsession of some IT Security departments to implement every single possible "best practice" as security measures. Two-factor authentication is one and the most common version is the security token, so this guarantees the unbreakable duet: something you know (the password) and something you have in your possession (the token). So when you put these together you have successfully authenticated yourself. This is not a new concept and it has been used ancestrally, just remember the stories that verse about tattoos or moles, passwords and objects that would identify a king, a priest, or a knight.

Changing passwords and setting up rules to construct valid and secure passwords is also a good idea, the problem arises when these rules restrict dramatically the number of words the user can choose and effectively remember. When combined with a stringent requirement for changing them too frequently together with a strict no re-use policy, these policies can be counter productive as they make it almost impossible for the user to commit multiple and random letter/number combinations to memory.

I see this trend quite often, where most users have to identify themselves with a "THREE-FACTOR" authenticate method: The Token, the Password and the piece of paper where they wrote down the password and how to login.

The $1,000 FreeVo

2010-01-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

I get a lot of grief from my friends about this one. Unlike most of the people, I have a Mythbuntu box at home instead of a much less expensive DVR solution and what I struggle to explain is that this project started out as a different set of requirements. I wanted to have (purchase or build) a system that would have the following:

- Allow for 100's of GB of storage to be able to back-up all my photographic work and all the laptops at home (5 total!).
- Have a Linux O/S in order to be able to test some software solutions that would not run on any of the 5 Windows laptops.
- Full fledged development Web-Server with the LAMP stack installed, to be able to test sites on a local server.
- Central storage for all my music files.
- A networked, always-on system, accessible at any moment, from any place in the house.
- Being always-on, I wanted a SILENT, low-power consumption box, instead of a noisy, of-the-shelf server (I had a Cobalt before and it was like a hair dryer on all the time).

Then I figured:
- If this systems is going to be always on, and have all my music files on it, I want it to be hooked up to my Stereo.
- Now that it is hooked up to my stereo, Wouldn't it be nice to have my big-screen TV as its monitor?
- And, now that it is hooked up to my TV and Stereo, wouldn't it be nice to watch movies on it? Or even record TV shows?

So this is how I bumped into Mythbuntu. My decision of using a Linux O/S was pretty much a done-deal. This was a promise of having a full-fledged LAMP server with all the multi-media functionality I also wanted.

Hardware Spec:
- The application is not very CPU-demanding, so almost anything would do. I used a Motherboard and CPU I had around. A core-solo @ 2.66 MHz with 1 Gig of RAM and integrated Audio and VGA video.
- One 160 Gb PATA HDD that I had around for the system disk.
- Two 500 Gb SATA HDDs I purchased new for a RAID-1 array
- A Hauppauge PVR-150. I chose this one when I started this project BEFORE the digital TV transition. It comes with an MPEG dedicated compression chip, so this way the CPU would not be tied up doing this during recording. It also comes with a Phillips-MCE-Compatible remote and receiver. I will probably add a 1600 digital card soon, to be able to record off-the-air, straight digital signal.
- An Adesso 3000UB wireless USB keyboard. I wanted this to be able to browse the web, and use the actual Linux server without being tethered to the box. This model, despite some bad reviews, has withstood my abusive use pattern. It has a built-in trackball and a scroll wheel, so you can drive it kinda like a game console.
- A pair of Ethernet over powerline adaptors. I wanted to have this unit by my entertainment center (where there is no CAT-5 wiring), but still have decent connectivity, so I chose this over wireless.
- ANTEC box. I selected this one as I needed minimum wife friction. This box goes in the living room and the aluminum finish of this box is very discreet and looks like a Tuner. The box also has dual fans that can be throttled. I set them to the minimum speed and there is NO audible noise at all. The box has enough space for 3 HDDs and a DVD unit. This is a must if you are building a server. On the front of the box there is a VFD display. I had issues with this as the chipset has a IR receiver that is not functional but the O/S detects it in some cases. Because of this I disabled it by unplugging the USB interface that powers it.

Setting up the system:
When you install a UBUNTU system, things are just much more easier if you have everything in the box before you fire up the O/S. The plug-and-play functionality works well at initial install as long as your stuff is quite standard. Once the operating system is installed, dropping in an additional piece of HW can be more challenging (as it proved to be on my initial attempts).

1.- Under this configuration I would set everything in the box, except for the RAID-1 drives, then verify that it powers on without major errors.

2.- Download the Mythbuntu ISO. Mythbuntu is distribution that is a blend of Ubuntu and MythTV and comes with all the funky drivers, like the MCE Remote and the PVR150. I recommend you use a version based on one of the Server releases (8.04 was the latest LTS version at the time of this writing). Ubuntu has frequent updates for the desktop environment, but some of these updates can break your setup.

3.- Burn the ISO. You can use any software burner. In case you need one, CDBurnerXP is a good free alternative.

4.- Pop the CD in the optical drive of the newly built system. Follow the menues for installing UBUNTU on the system HDD and when prompted, select "Advanced Install". Here, add the VNC and MythTV services. On screen 12/15, enable the remote selecting "Windows Media Center (New)".

5.- Once UBUNTU has finished installing and rebooted, Launch the MythTV Setup. In my case I had to select General: US-Cable, Capture Cards: MPEG-2, setup the Database as "mythconverge" (is the default), and selected "Schedules Direct" (This is a Non-For-Profit Scheduling service that costs ~$20/year.) as my Video Sources. On "System Roles" select (add) "Ubuntu Desktop" so that all the stuff that comes with Ubuntu, such as Open Office, etc. gets installed.

6.- If you want to use Pandora on your box, you will have to install Flash. There is no Pandora applet for Mythbuntu at this moment. The Web browser on Mythbuntu is a Konqueror port. So you have to install Flash on the Konqueror browser. To do this, go to the menu (by pressing Ctrl-Esc) and select System>Add/Remove. Look for Konqueror. You might have to enable all software sources to do this. After you have installed Konqueror, open Firefox and close it. Now run Konqueror and install Flash (by navigating to Adobe's site).

7.- If you will be installing RAID devices, run in a console "sudo apt-get install mdam" and "sudo apt-get install raid". I followed the full How To published HERE.
- Partition your drives using fdisk. You can list your devices without risk using "sudo fdisk -l" If your first disk of the RAID array is your SECOND drive, you would use: "sudo fdisk /dev/sdb"
- Once you have created the raw partitions, these will be "ext3", the default Linux type, which is not available for RAID, so you will have to change their type to "Linux RAID Auto - fd" by using the "t" command in fdisk. Make sure you write your changes (command "w").
- Create the raid device using "sudo mknod /dev/md1 b 9 2"
- Create the RAID-1 array "sudo mdadm --create /dev/md1 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1"
- Verify that the array is created and synced: "sudo cat /proc/mdstat"
- Once it is synced, put a file system on the array: "sudo mke2fs -j /dev/md1
- Now mount the array on the /raid folder: "sudo mount /dev/md1 /raid
- Once everything is checked, create a line in /etc/fstab using: "sudo nano /etc/fstab"
- Add line "/dev/md1 /raid ext3 defaults 1 2" so that the array mounts with every boot.

8.- Once you have installed your RAID devices, now you can reconfigure your system to RIP your DVDs to the redundant array and also the music utility to save on this one. This way if your system drive fries, you will still have the files.

9.- Now you can configure other stuff like the MythWeather applet to display the maps and forecasts you want as well as the MythFlix applet to show your queues.

There is no easy way to configure your MythFlix queue now. You have to input some parameters into the MySQL database. To do this, it is best that you install PHPMYADMIN. You can find instructions on this HERE. Once you have this installed add the parameters following the instructions HERE.

10.- Create SAMBA accounts for everybody who needs to backup. This is something that I struggled with. In Linux, you need to have a local account and a Samba account in order to have a share. Download the SAMBA administrative application going to the system meny and selecting System>Add/Remove.

Other Add-ons:
1.- LAMP server:
One of the things that I wanted is to have a full LAMP stack to be able to run websites off this box for development purposes. One of the easiest how-tos is HERE.

2.- VMWare Server:
At this moment there was no other way to use NetFlix instant watch but on Windows machines. So I installed VMWare and XP on this box. I used the tutorial published HERE. I found out later that Sun's Virtual Box uses much less resources so I switched to that.

Issues:
On my way here I have found a number of good How-Tos.

1.- If you have problems with your IR Remote:
- Install LIRC on Hardy - Step by step diagnostics
- MCE on Hardy problems - an entry on the Ubuntu Forums, with many different issues

2.- If your PVR card is not recording:
- Hauppauge Wintv pvr 150 - A good case where many diagnostics procedures are described

3.- If you have Audio problems:
- Comprehensive Sound Problem Solutions Guide - Self explaining...

4.- Alright, you obsess about getting the VFD working:
- VFD on Antec fusion (look for the iMON section!)
- LCD Proc on MythTV.org
- HOW-TO Configure the VFD to work with MythTV on a Antec Fusion case - This even gets into using the Control Wheel on the box to drive the menues

Other improvements:
1.- RAID upgrade. I recently changed my 500 Gbs to 1.5 Tb drives. There is no way to "grow" a RAID array, so I had to create a new one and transfer the data using an external box.

2.- Backup system HDD. As you can imagine, after this server is up, it becomes critical to everything you do, backups, Websites, etc. So I decided to create a second drive that I could throw in, in case of a problem. I cloned my system HDD with G4L. The "receiving" drive was bigger, and G4L seemed to be confused by this, it was just taking to long to clone. By creating a partition on the second drive of exactly the same size as the source drive, the image was completed in 20 minutes. This larger drive now holds a partition exclusively for recordings, this way overrecording cannot ever cause problems with the O/S.

3.- Digital card. This is one that I want to do as I cannot get any content directly from the air right now.

4.- Version upgrade: Newer version now features MIRO and other plug-ins. I will try to figure out a safe way to perform this upgrade.

The $1,000 FreeVo, asides from humor, is an understatement as this is not a DVR. This is my home server with full LAMP capabilities, disk redundancy for backing-up my laptops and a central repository for my music files (several iTunes instances can sync onto these files through the network straight to an iPod, without taking up space on a laptop). On top of this, the box also acts like a DVR which justifies its place in the living-room. The fact that it is a regular computer, allows for running HULU and Pandora. Obviously, when you want to make a change, you usually have to open up that terminal window...

Morning Walk

2009-05-06T17:20:00.001-07:00

Every day looks pretty much the same. In fact, it can get sickening sometimes.

You leave the home, lock the door and the expected entourage of characters start to show-up.

The lady in the pink shirt walking the pomeranian, the asian guy that runs shirtless with a little dog that does not match his attitude, the woman in the hat.

After a while you just know them all, it gets boring and you just stop looking. So you come up with passtimes, you make up games.

This morning I spotted a gentleman on the other side of the street. I decided to get into an imaginary race. I was doing good under my opinion, my steps were long and cadence was actually faster than his. Still could not pass him. Stepped it up, lengthened my stride, still having a hard time.

He seemed to be leisurly strolling, and I still couldn't pass him!

Next time I decide to get into a race, I will pick the inner side of the curve...

The four biggest mistakes in Channel Management

2009-04-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

In my 10+ years of managing Channel Partners I have had the opportunity to confirm over and over again my common-sense approach towards Management and Leadership. I have put together this list trying to make it as short as I could, forcing me to prioritize. This is what I came up with:

1.- Failing to choose the right model from the start.

It seems simple, but it can really make a difference. The right decision will depend enormously on the client base you are trying to reach and second, your product. There are certain products that are just not made to be sold through a distributor, or maybe the Internet. Conversely, there are customers (and demographics) that you will never reach effectively unless you utilize the same reseller/retailer that they are used to make business with. Same applies for wholesalers, your product has to be carried by those who sell to your retailer of choice.

2.- Not declaring it to the world.

We like to go around making our own decisions and we don't really bother on letting people know what we do but letting the market know what type of Channel you are using and what is your policy is crucial to have the community properly aligned. Those who feel that your model resonates with them, will look after you.

3.- Not being honest

If you have decided to sell direct, say so. You can suddenly become someone's competitor but you will still be known to be a trustworthy individual (and Company!) in the industry. Allways stick to the rules that you put out, if you need to change them, do so but honor whatever happened under them when they were valid.

4.- Not having a "Channel Specific" plan

Let's face it. Channel Partners in general are in the business of sustaining their own companies and they will only behave in a way that supports these objectives. Vendors and Manufacturers COMPETE for their mindshare. You as one of the many that they carry have to make it easy and profitable to do business with you. Failing to have a Channel-Specific team and tools such as Channel support, Channel Marketing, Channel Portal, etc. will not get you very far or at least, will make things much slower.
More on this on an upcoming edition.

Dogs on a leash...

2009-02-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

Nice day to walk the dog. Kind of chilly for Florida.

It has been some time that I haven't taken my 9-year old boxer on a morning walk, so I thought it would be great that she would come with me this morning. Shorts, a fleece for the chill, leash and off we went.

There I was, pulling on her at every step when something caught her attention, and I got to say, this was pretty often. Every time I would get up to my burn-these-extra-10-pounds-that-I-packed-on-the-wrong-job pace, she would make sure to slow me down to do her thing.

So when I reached a stretch where there was no one nearby, I released her from her tether.

Now, we would walk harmoniously side-by-side. She would just wander out and investigate "places of interest". Would stay behind, but eventually speed up and come back to my side.
Now, my stride was steady, focused on the goal. I was walking in a straight line. We finished our walk at home on time an happier we could not be.

That's when it hit me, how real leadership has to behave.

The difference between a micro manager and a good leader who knows where he/she is going. A good leader sets the pace through example and recognizes diversity both in background, knowledge and style (BTW the similarities between my boxer and I end on how fast we both eat...), and allows his/her team to explore areas of interest that may seem important at their level of influence. Finally, lets them figure out the best way to keep up with the pace.

No leashes for me...

Why a Proxy makes sense (as a security device for exploring the web)

2009-02-22T16:17:00.000-08:00

The Proxy is the ultimate security device, and I am going to make my case by an analogy. Let's say I need to go to some dangerous place, for example, my Inlaw's or my younger daughter's room (translate this into any treacherous place).

The safest alternative is to not go.

The next best thing, is to send someone else, Right? This is exactly what a proxy is designed to do and there are things that are possible in the virtual world. A proxy
can:

Perfectly impersonate you
Transmit the whole experience to you, safely

For this to work, the proxy also does some other things -besides having to be a heckuva robust machine-, to know:

It has to know where NOT to go
It has to know what not to touch, eat (or open, execute) and how to get rid of some stuff

On the other side proxies are not perfect, they CANNOT do all you can do. They usually don't speak all protocols, they give you a watered-downed version of the experience in some cases and on top of that, they have to know all your stuff to properly impersonate you and they will know all the nasty places where you want to go...

Help! I am buried by emails!

2008-12-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

(and -by the way- I happen to be stepping on that important one of yours...)

Everybody seems to have this mixed rhetoric, everybody complains about how many emails they get, but they also use it in kinda fashion of "look how important I am, I get 150 emails".

I tend to measure workload more on how many I have to send, as this is a more accurate depiction on which ones are really relevant.

The truth is, it takes up a whole lot of our time everyday to sift through those messages and respond on those that are important. Anything we can do to make this task quicker and less frequent works in our benefit.

I have some suggestions to move in the right direction, some of these things are just common sense, some of them I borrowed from RFC1855 on "Netiquette".

Here I go:

Be conservative in what you send
Think twice on hitting "Reply all". Be toughtfull on who you copy, move away from a "Cover your ASSets" mindset. Encourage people to do the same.
Be a man (or woman) of word. If you keep your word, people will not feel it is necessary to leave an email trail.
Be thoughtful on who (and how) you copy. Who should receive this email and respond to it? (To) Who should just be aware? (CC) and Who should just be aware but is not part of the conversation? (BCC) Use this last one sparingly and with respect.
Email, even when we have the Blackberry, is not instant. Allow 2 days for a response before resending an email, if your recipient is already overwhelmed, you are just making things worse. Type "URGENT" in the subject line if it is so, or pickup the phone.
Use descriptive subject lines. If you are replying on an old message for a new topic, change the subject line.

Email is asynchronous and for medium sized messages (one page?). Use other forms of communication when you require:

Quick answers: IM or SMS
Decision from a group, coordination: Conference call
An explanation that requires feedback if you are being heard: Phone, Face to face meeting
A very long process or other that requires documentation: Make an attachment, point to a link.

Here are some good -already- old ones:

Remember that the recipient is a human being whose culture, language, and humor have different points of reference from your own. This is true also on the receiving end.
Use mixed case. UPPER CASE LOOKS AS IF YOU'RE SHOUTING.
Use smileys to indicate tone of voice, but use them sparingly. :-) is an example of a smiley (Look sideways).
Wait overnight to send emotional responses to messages. If you have really strong feelings about a subject, indicate it via FLAME ON/OFF enclosures. For example:

FLAME ON: This type of argument is not worth the bandwidth
it takes to send it. It's illogical and poorly
reasoned. The rest of the world agrees with me.
FLAME OFF

("The rest of the world agrees with me" ...Love it!)

Last but not least: Send less, receive less...

Social Networking comes of age

2008-01-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

I was one of the early adopters.

Maybe because I did not have to pay a premium to be one of them, as you usually have to, to be the first to get the newest gizmo. I somewhat did foresee the benefits to be able to "virtualize" our social environment. I should be able to keep in touch in my own terms and through my busy travel schedule and to sustain friendship on our new global reality, where I have more friends scattered around the world than in my hometown.

I joined LinkedIn in 2005, when it was little more than a contact manager. It has evolved to what it is now, the premium Social Networking site for professionals, with capabilities that allow to create business and employment opporutnities, as well as to maintain a peer-support system, instead of trying to make it on your own. Now I count almost 400 real connections on it.

Social Networking sites have undergone a transformation in two major aspects:

1.- SN sites are becoming more and more useful. With the incorporation of new functionalities, SN sites are now addressing real needs and reaching a wider audience.

2.- SN sites are now experiencing geometric growth. With adoption, viral expansion of the use of SN sites is something that is happening finally.

A year ago, my oldest daughter perfected her MySpace template and introduced me to this teenage-bound site. Today, Fortune 500 companies and Presidential Candidates have MySpace pages, it is no longer reserved to "indie" rock bands.
Another popular site, Facebook, opened up an API for third parties to develop Social Network-supported applications, creating a burst of creativity.

These tendencies manifest in a number of obvious ways, and at least two not-so-obvious:

- SN applications are becoming a very important content provider, creating steady, heavy traffic.

- SN applications are starting to be looked at as something that can be leveraged by the business world.

After all, people are at the heart of everything.

A quick overview of the existing Social Networking sites:
http://www.MySpace.com
This is one of the biggest SN sites, in terms of subscribers, and probably the best known. Tends to be a more "push"-like site that allows users to post info about themselves. Applications are controlled by MySpace.
http://www.LinkedIn.com
This site is directed towards the working professional. A must to be in for anyone working in a technology-related field. Application is closed-developed by LinkedIn. Has remarkably good privacy guards.
http://www.Facebook.com
Often seen as a "MySpace for grown-ups", Facebook offers the possibility of developing applications that "piggyback" on the social capabilities of the core application. For example, an external "birthday reminder" application when properly installed and authorized, willtake your birthday date and will remind all your friends linked (that have the application installed too), of your upcoming birthday! Pretty good privacy features.
http://www.hi5.com
Very similar to MySpace. So far I have experienced privacy issues.
http://www.Plaxo.com
Not really a Social Networking application, it allows to update your contact list automatically. At the end, useful to keep in touch.

Useless typing...

2007-11-20T08:15:00.000-08:00

I am pumping Gas at the station. And this time it is not the now expected high price per gallon that makes my mind wander.

I am paying by credit card, so I have been asked for a PIN.

I am always amazed about the random security measures I see. In late days, "two factor authentication" or even "three factor" has gained a tremendous momentum and is considered a must for certain applications such as remote network access. You can see the familiar "token card" dangling from peoples lanyards. But two (or three) factor authentication was also a very well known concept in the XVII century. In fact, much before than that, the Romans would already use some form of it. The "three factor" refers to features that can be produced to prove identity:

Something that only we know
Something that we possess
Some feature on ourselves that can be shown

We have heard stories where the messenger shows a tattoo or a particular mole on his skin, or maybe shows a medal, a seal or just utters a password.

So it is not a new concept. How do we fail miserably at implementing it sometimes?

I am just ranting about this useless routine of entering my ZIP code at the pump when I swipe my credit card. It says "to prevent credit card fraud you are now required to enter the ZIP code of your billing address". Granted, it is "two-factor" authentication, it is something that is in my possession (the card), and something that I know (the ZIP code). That should make it stronger, Right?

Well, where the intentions fall to the ground is for the "Something that ONLY WE know". Haven't the security gurus at the banks thought about the fact that you usually loose your credit card WITH YOUR WALLET? Yes, where your Driver's License is merrily giving away your ZIP code....

The mobility I want

2007-11-02T14:19:00.001-07:00

High Speed Connectivity....Got it
Mobile Data Availability....Got it
Network Security and Privacy....Got it
Data-Voice convergence....Got it
Fixed Mobile Convergence....Got it

So what's next on the list?

It is now common to see business people poking compulsively on their Blackberries or any other mobile device while they wait for a flight or to be called for a meeting. Some seem to try to accelerate time or seem to be hoping that looking at their Blackberries will solve the immediate issue they are facing at a moment. Kids are connected now also, their version comes in a different, hipper device, the SideKick. SideKick's big screen and friendly application software promises a better experience when surfing the web and connecting to an IM service. The übercool have their own device to resort to, long awaited, rumoured and recently released iPhone.

All these devices provide ubiquitous, pervasive connectivity and they are constantly menacing people's "real" lives, transporting them to some other place through the ether. I can foresee individuals suffering from anxiety and being disconnected from reality, all with the help of these devices.

A solution for eliminating or mitigating this should be next in our list.

Have you ever had a personal assistant? or a "Secretary", as they used to be called some time ago?

That is exactly what I would like to have in my mobile device (or hosted somewhere and have it associated to it). A "truly personal" Gatekeeper, a Majordomo that would be capable of separating our personal and business lives and that will enable us,broadband addicts, to devote our undivided attention to whatever requires it at the moment. A piece of software capable of learning from instructions issued over time and to derive a set of rules to be used generally.

It would go something like this:

I am in a meeting and my associate calls me. My device knows that I am in a meeting, so his call goes directly to my voicemail, and I don't receive a notification until I leave the meeting, which allows me to stay concentrated on the meeting.
My wife calls minutes later, she has an emergency, has lost one of her credit cards and requires a PIN from me. When she calls, because her number has been highlighted, she gets a message that I am in a meeting, without the need of me picking up the call and she is given the option to "barr in" if it is an emergency. My device starts to ring with a disctinctive tone, I excuse myself, pickup the call and give her the PIN. Back in the meeting.
The device also alerts me later that my anyversary is coming up in a week. But I did not put in this alarm specifically. The device noticed that next week is going to be an extremely busy week and is "concerned" that I will not be able to get her a gift. It is alerting me both that the anyversary is coming up and that I better get a gift now as I will not be able next week.
A salesperson calls. The number is not registered in my contacts so the call is diverted to my assistant. She screens the call and figures out what is it about, confers with me, and it happens to be a salesperson of a shop I called to get that gift!, I tell her to transfer the call and she does redirect the call back again to my device.
Later in the day I am at the gym. My boss calls me. He wants something to be done tomorrow, it is not extremely urgent, but he wants to make sure that he does not forget. So he is given the option to leave a voice mail, he is also given the option of having the voice maildelivered to my email, where I will check it the following day.
The device starts alerting me now, 5 hours before my flight back home. The device is aware of a traffic congestion that has been reported on the way to the airport and is taking measures to make sure that I get to the Airport in time. It also gives me the option of calling the airline to change my reservation, but is already connected via XML to their system and shows me my options. I decide to take the same flight, si the device reconfirms my seat.
I return home, we are at a dinner. My email system shuts down and stops notifying about new incoming mail, it also places a message on my IM, saying "In a dinner! - Chat with you later!".
We go for a vacation on a long weekend. The autoresponder is configured automatically. I am back to work on Wednesday. On my way to work, my device gives me a summary of what happened during the days I was out.

The interesting part would be to build all these rules from our behaviour and how we handle each situation in real-time.

Mobility Nirvana, connected when I can, and focused when I need to. No need for programming, simplicity of use.

iPhone came - Some friends are coming along

2007-11-01T12:44:00.001-07:00

So far Apple has experienced a spectacular product success with its iPod line of music players. Apple's statistics indicate that 100 million iPods have been sold. This 29th of June, Apple is releasing its latest creation, the iPhone converged device, the media is all hyped-up about the features, the functionality and the prohjected sales of 10 million of these devices.

The iPhone is a data-centric device, and as such it is being offered with a diversity of Mobile Internet plans, including an All-you-can-eat option.

This is what is really thrilling and disruptive of the iPhone. The instantaneous creation of 10 million mobile Internet users with ubiquitous Internet and with an almost as good experience as on a desktop, laptop or tablet PC.

10 million new users, accessing broadband content on the Internet, whenever, wherever they want. The first impact on this of course is the traffic, a maximum of almost 4000 additional Gigabytes on the network. This might not sound as much considering the enourmous capacities built into todays networks.

The real impact is of business and social nature. The introduction of the telephone, the Internet and -most lately- a high grade of adoption of broadband access have reshaped the business world and the lives of people here in the US and around the world. Business models unthinkable of before, become possible by the adoption of these technologies. Online document delivery, application hosting, such as Google Documents and Spreadsheets, photo printing through the web, Vonage, Skype, and software and video downloads as well as the 99c/song model would not be possible without broadband.

In the same way, the availability (and the assumption of a demographic with the availability) will eventually lead to new business models to be discovered. The exact successful ones are difficult to predict as they require that fortunate factor of being accepted by the public. Mobility is being replaced by pervasiveness.