Being Mark Cohen

One of the most irritating things about the media industry from a consumer perspective is this:

I was on Facebook, and was dutifully looking at a Flixster movie quizz when an ad for Warner Bros 85th Anniversary and all their promoted movies on itunes came up. I thought “wow, these are cool movies” and clicked the Ad that THEY showed to ME. At this point I get shown this:

So what have they done?  They’ve attracted my attention at their own expense, then told me “you can’t have what you want”.  These guys (and Apple) need to understand that locking a person’s account out of the USA store based on where they live - especially combined with the above - is probably the dumbest thing you could do.

I’ve been looking around at sites that offer fitness / mapping functionality, and stumbled upon EveryTrail. They have an iphone app which uses the built-in GPS to record your trip. My cycle in to work is recorded here. They have the neat ability to upload directly from the phone, in GPX - and they offer the ability to get your data back out in GPX or KML for Google Earth. Data portability - check.

This got me thinking about what I’d look for in a route-tracking / route-planning site like this. I think the key feature is ease of use. If you have to manually manipulate data or files, you’re already losing me. Beyond that I look for the social element. I want to be able to email links to people, embed the map in my own pages, and I want to be able to get comments from other people - like suggestions of alternatives to try. To do this, they’d need to be able to manually build a map (like in Bikely) and I also want the ability to use the maps to plan trips. Motorcycle trips, cycling trips, hiking trips, or even just road trips by car.

This is where both Bikely and EveryTrail lose me. They are a little cumbersome to draw trips manually. Bikely is in my opinion way better than Everytrail for manual drawing but neither is what I would call great. Bikely keeps trying to default to road trips - try draw a trip around Darling Harbour and it keeps trying to send you via the city.Everytrail keeps creating new pins every time I click on the delete pin button, and adding the pins / waypoints is a bit tedious.

The GPS device / iphone solution is clearly the best way to go, but I’m still looking around for a good site, where I can do the same track a few times a week and track my performance over time. And preferably keep using my phone to track my performance and upload straight to the site.

I stumbled across a site today, called Bikely. It’s got a fantastic implementation of Google Maps, allowing you to build and annotate routes you use. Obviously from the name it’s a bike site Here’s a sample of what you can do - this in my route home from work. It’s slightly different from the route in and I still need to figure out how to get around the CBD traffic if its possible

[removed the map as it was messing up my page layout, link here]

If you have a GPS device its possible to record your route and then upload the GPS file to the site. I don’t know enough about GPS to comment on this, but the site says it supports GPX files (GPS Exchange Format, GPS xml)

The idea of the site is great, if enough people participate form your area you could really refine your commuting routes and learn which roads are best to skip traffic etc. The site has a busy forum with what I would guess is a majority of activity focused on commenting on routes.

I see quite a lot of Australian routes on the site too. Nice

This article running on the homepage of the Sydney Morning Herald outlines the cost management measures that Fairfax Media is pursuing to continually manage their structure and related costs as the media industry heads into what has been described as uncertain times.  These cuts appear to primarily focus on the print media businesses, from what is stated in the article.

Key points quoted from the article:

<snip>Fairfax Media will axe 550 staff in Australia and New Zealand, or about 5% of the company’s total, as part of a plan to bolster profitability.</snip>

<snip>Fairfax’s announcement comes as the global media industry attempts to manage a shift in advertising revenue and readership from traditional media, including newspapers, to online and other emerging platforms.</snip>

<snip>"There will be criticism from some, inside and outside the company, that these changes, particularly in editorial, will compromise quality and critical mass in the metro mastheads and their mission.  We reject that," the emailed statement said. </snip>

 

I’ve yet to see optus zoo working. That must have been sold as a key benefit for optus in having the iPhone in Australia. Every time I’ve tried I have got an error. I wonder if there’s anything good or useful hiding in there. Like the ability to check your data usage during the month.

I’m trying out the worspress iPhone client app for this post and the screenshot is captured by pressing and holding the menu button and tapping the power / sleep button.

I nicked this awesome little cartoon from xkcd.com - one of my favourite “entertainment” blogs.  I think I love it because it’s just so true.  More often than not we regret the things we didn’t do.  This holds true for ski trips (even if they hospitalise my team members ) as much as work or social interactions or one-off opportunities.  Especially one-off opportunities.

Tony Robbins, on of those “Life Coaches” who used to be all over TV a few years ago used to say that it’s all about taking a step.   Then it’s al about taking the next step.  and so on.  If you have a goal, and commit to taking one step a day to get closer to it, you’d be surprised how far you can get in a month.

Here’s his video from TED in 2006.  Check it out.  the guy he engages with in the front row is Al Gore

On Gaping Void, Hugh Macleod has a post about a Microsoft employee getting the Blue Monster tattooed onto himself.  First reaction: Wow, big move for a branding icon.�

You’d have to ask yourself: What makes someone buy into a brand to this level?  It’s not just fanaticism - I haven’t seen any obese people wandering around town with the golden arches tattooed on their biceps.

Hugh quotes the tattooed employee:

While I can never forget how much I love this company and all of the great things we do, I wanted a daily reminder of the fact that I, as a Microsoftie, need to change the world every single day. That is why, as part of MGX this year, I decided to fully embrace the Blue Monster and all it stands for. That is my very own Blue Monster tattoo (and yes, he is real!). He’s there to make sure I don’t forget why I am here and what it is that I am doing — changing the world

<humour>An observation that is particularly interesting to me: the word “branding” applies to corporate identity logos as well as to the mark applied to cattle to show who owns them. ;)</humour>  

The Afrikaans / Dutch word for burn is “brand”; German for burnt is verbrannt; and Merriam Webster define “brand” as having the following etymology:

Etymology: Middle English, torch, sword, from Old English; akin to Old English bærnan to burn
Date:before 12th century

I ask myself why someone would “brand” themselves with a symbol.  I think it comes down to this: Dan Woodman might be a zealot or he might be a pragmatist - I have no idea which.  Either way, if someone will voluntarily tattoo your branding onto their flesh they must have a very enduring and permanent belief in what that symbol stands for.  More than who you as a company are, it must be about what the symbol says to them.  “Change the world or go home” is a very personal message with personal meaning and personal objectives.  It rings true for a lot of people who want to change the world.  Guy Kawasaki’s blog is called “How to Change the World“.  

It’s all about Passion.  Belief.  Purpose. And little Blue Monsters.

Google has launched Streetview in Australia, and it’s awesome.  Their coverage in Sydney and suburbs seems good (I haven’t seen specifics of coverage yet).  I’m looking forward to seeing how it gets used specifically on real-estate sites.  No more of agents not showing the front of a property because it looks old and dodgy.  The face-blurring technology seems reasonably good.  I think it may be a bit overzealous as I did spot some trees which had been blurred out, as well as blurring on the back window of my car parked outside my house

[EDIT: As of 05/08/08 only Domain.com.au is live with streetview, it appears that realestate.com.au and homehound.com.au (the other two major real estate portals) are not yet ready to embrace it.  I'd guess this is due to realestate.com.au having way bigger things to worry about right now.  Check it out by searching for any property in sydney on domain.com.au and looking at the map on the property details page, or in the image gallery.  Disclosure: I work for the owners of Domain]

Fantasy Writer guy, one of those bloggers who’s humour and intelligence make for great reading, has a post up titled the Avitable Scramble. The Avitable Scrambe (as he’s named it) is described:

Okay - here’s the deal. You start with a blank mind - so to speak, and then try to belch out 13 separate thoughts in 13 minutes. It’s blogging by the seat of your pants. You pretty much have to spit out anything that comes to mind no matter how stupid because you won’t have time to wait for 13 gems!

I’m calling it the Avitable Scramble because I discovered it on the Avitable site. I have no idea who deserves proper attribution. I presume Mister Avitable will give me proper heck if he so wishes and if he even finds out about it!

So here goes… Forgive me in advance, it’s late…

1. I just listened to Mike Cannon-Brookes from Atlassian in a “podcast” recording from a breakfast hosted by Innovation Bay.  I was astonished to hear how much money they’re making, but more astonished to hear how many people they have working tech support.  Wow.
2. I’m involved in a project at the moment that has more stake-holders than developers by a factor of at least four.  There’s a need to rediscuss Metcalfe’s law and the complexity of communications systems I mumbled about on my blog a while ago.
3. My puppy is sleeping happily next to me.  That’s probably more because i have the heater on than because she likes me.  Still, it’s some company.  She’s cool.  And she plays fetch
4. I put a pergola up outside.  I need to go check if it’s leaking because the rain has been bucketing down over the last few days
5. I really need to sit down and spend more time writing emails to my family in South Africa.  I used to send them regular updates on how things were going here in Australia, but I’ve slacked off and haven’t written in ages.  I think it’s part of a broader degradation in my writing because of things like Twitter
6. I just found a guy from work on Facebook, who used to be on my team.  I found him through another mutual friend from work.  Turns out he’s also into his photography and he takes some awesome shots.  He has a whole lot up on webshots.  Wish I took as many and as good photos as him
7. (This is getting difficult around now). I have an old PC sitting here, waiting for me to recondition it and turn it into a media server.  Anybody got any tips on how to stop a PC overheating (tried vacuuming the cooling bits) and also what to do to get a remote working on it?  It has Vista on it.
8. I read about the new MacBooks today on (I think) Mashable.  Apparently the new touchpads will be glass and will support multitouch and gestures.  Anyone want to buy a soon-to-be-outdated MacBook Pro?
9. Had a great workout at boxing tonight.  We do boxing twice a week in the gym at work.  It is so cool.  stress management in the extreme.  Only the Thursday one is at lunch and so by 5:00 pm I’ve joined the Walking Dead. “Mark can you help with this?”  “Gaaaaa.. dribble snore…”
10. Why is it that the iphone comes with only one cable?  Surely Apple could halve the complaints about the hype-marketing and the product not stacking up and battery life just by bundling an extra cable that probably costs them 30 cents?  And on that, you should read MostlyLisa’s post on the topic.  Bang on the money
11. I just realised that the only two bloggers I mentioned in this post are both Canadian - FWG and MostlyLisa. Maybe there’s something to that… Are all Canadians smart and cool?  My step-brother lives in Canada.  He’s pretty smart, and cool.  well, for a dentist.
12. I have a list of chores sitting next to my laptop.  things to fix, things to get done, bills to pay.  That’s another night they’ll have to wait because I was too busy doing the avitable scramble.  Does this one even count as a thought?  It’s more white-noise
13. I really need to make a proper study somewhere.  I’ve been using a squashy old antique folding desk since I moved into this house four years ago.  No wonder I prefer working late to bringing work home.

For real. 8am too.
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For those who’re interested, Garr Reynolds was on ABC Radio national yesterday, and the podcast is available here.  He is right at the end, about 80% of the way through.  Enjoy

I was lucky enough to be one of the 200 people who gathered at The Wesley centre today to hear Garr do a presentation on Presentation Zen.  I think the entire presentation can be summed up as follows:  Your slides must look professional and be simple, clean and elegant.  You must know your material well.  You are not there to talk to your powerpoint or show what the technology can do.  You’re there to tell a story.

As Garr said, most of his content is already available through the website, my notes follow:

Intro

• Currently living in Japan. Some humorous talk about “Garr”
• From the US originally, from Oregon
• Touches on Manga and Kawaii culture
• Talks about the clutter and how busy things look in Japan, and contrasts buying a fridge which is so covered in promo material with buying a desk, where oyu can see the whole thing
• On ABC Radio National at 09h00 tomorrow (Saturday 5 July - I recomend tuning in to listen) 
• Used to work for Sumitomo Electric - A global Japanese corporation
• Today, he is a tenured professor of management at Kansai Gaidai University
• Also Runs “design matters” design group  in Osaka, like a mini-TED
• Also a Musician, plays in a jazz band for fun.
• Quotes Sir Ken Robinson “I always think of public speaking as a little bit like playing Jazz”
• Worked at Apple.  Learned to prepare his presentations away the computer there.  

On presentation, quotes: “Presentation is the ‘Killer Skill’ we take into the real world. It’s almost an unfair advantage” - Quoted from The McKinsey Mind

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I saw a tweet come through (the image in this post) a few minutes ago that alarmed me. Not because it was saying do or do not deal with someone, quite the contrary. It was the implications of the tweet that caught my attention. Mark Pesce speaks about this effect when he talks about twitter. This user has a relatively small reach. About a hundred followers. BUT…a lot of their followers are active in the same industry being referred to. A business deal seems to have not gone smoothly, and ended up requiring intervention to get payment. As someone who worked as a consultant previously, this would serve as a caution to me. More the person referred to than the poster (although it’s entirely possible that payment was withheld for a reason). Most consultants are more weary of clients who dispute and withhold payment than of anything else.

A post to the opposite effect – like “Just finished a project with XXX and we’ve already been paid – what a great client” would be worth more to a client than they realize. Couple this with Duncan Riley’s furious warnings earlier today to avoid an accounting firm he had bad experience with and there’s a playing out today of real trend. The power testimonials has gone exponential with the freeing of your customers’ voices. The unhappy ones will reach for that keyboard and cast your mistakes in stone. Look out for it and make them happy. Everyone makes mistakes – the point is you need to repair them before they get to this.

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Imaging trying to work with this going on and on and on and on and on and on and on….