You tell ‘em, brother.

Last night my son streamed a movie to the iPad from wifi system that came with the beach house rental. The NetFlix app for video is super. So is the iBook reader; so is the speaker for the iPod; so is the picture viewer; so is, so is, so…..I’m one of the fans, for sure. Wouldn’t you agree that this yet-another-hit-from-Apple offsets the well intentioned bumbling and intentional deception which seems to dominate the news, even in a period of declining news coverage. Who can we trust?! Are we in this together or not?! As Casey Stengal once asked, ” does anyone here know how to play this game?!”

Coach K does. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve and he is a graduate of West Point, class of 1969. His recruiting of late suffered repercussions of the 2006 lacrosse racially scarred scandal. With a Gold Medal and his 4th NCAA trophy, not a problem any longer.

He showed this year that he knows how to win with the team that he’s got – good players but not the best players. Kentucky, Baylor and several others had faster and more athletic teams of players. Maybe even Carolina. But no team played with the confidence, cohesion and simple understanding of role and circumstance as did Duke. Leadership matters.

This is what Duke and Apple have in common: a commitment to exceptional performance – some may describe this as innovation – that borders on cult worship but is genuinely about the expectation of excellence. I observe that the heart of achievement is trust: trust in ourselves – the notion of letting it happen – after we’ve worked hard to learn how it is suppose to happen ( call this education). If we might assemble a team or unit or platoon or department or start-up of so educated, self-trusting individuals and provide the rigor of expectation in an atmosphere of sincere, mutual support, then the results or the potential will be as they are supposed to be. A good bet is that this formula will most often produce team success and invariably produce a product championship or two along the way.

America can do better; needs to do better; had better do better if only because never knowing how to win can become a way of life as well.

Here’s hoping that Butler is the next to join the ranks of hero programs.

Tags: Duke_basketball, NACC_final_4
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Unhappily, or not, I’ve not downloaded even one of the all-time most popular. I guess that J. Geils finished 21st. But seriously, folks, there was even an iTunes store 10 years ago. I hope that cable providers are next.

Our team at IBM helps to sponsor the annual Tech at Tuck series with its early winter annual roundtable. The theme this year is mobility. Blue Pane Studio, an IBM business partner (my wife is the Art Director), offered to develop this simple app for Tuck. As I’ve learned from the sidelines, and probably won’t surprise you, is that Apple is easy to work with and provides a wealth of support and tools for designing web apps. The approval process is quick and easy.

A few Web 2.0 notables from the summer:

- Mobility: I like my new 3G iPhone.  I am offered over 800 Internet-based applications from the related Web Apps store which range in price from free to $39.99.  Two of my favorite are Remote which allows me to control my home stereo from my iPhone as I stream iTunes music via our wireless network (if I can do it , you can too!) and Netter’s AnatomyFlashcards which offer 900 intricate views of the human body to help doctors advise patients.  I can imagine similar applications on mobile computing devices for nearly everyone of our businesses.

- Mobility II: if the trend of cell phone purchases begun in 2005 continues through 2009, on average, nearly every person on the planet will have bought a cell phone in this period.  Each of our businesses require a mobile strategy as these devices outnumber PCs 3:1.

- Which is why Microsoft purchased Greenfield and Google launched Chrome, it’s open source browser. Microsoft is not conceding the battle for advertising on the mobile device.  Internet Explorer may be the browser of choice on the PC and Chrome is a framework intended to convert the browser to a desktop by enabling us to populate our browsers with applications of our choice (see Web Apps above).  Then such a desktop could easily be shared on our mobile devices which outnumber PCs ……..

- Batman with The Joker and Wall-E with Eva were favorite films (insert your own presidential campaign comparison).  It’s worth noting that Wall-E was produced by Pixar and Pixar is owned by Disney and Disney’s largest shareholder is Steve Jobs. Now consider video on the mobile device.

- Closer to home, one son headed to college armed with converter boxes to watch Internet TV and to play his PS3 on his 23″ monitor.  Attending school in Colorado, he researched and transferred his banking, savings and investment accounts from North Carolina to Texas solely via the Web.  In our basement, or command center as we call it, I watched his brother so much enjoy on-line PS3 games (it is almost like being in your own movie) that have I’ve almost given up on the battle over screen-time.  We’ve come a long way from Pong.  

cp

Chapter 1 began for me in mid-2005 when our team spoke about the 10 Emerging Technologies You Should Care About: podcasting, google maps, video over IP etc.  Most considered this George Jetson-like speech to be an entertaining two hours out of the office.  Chapter 2 was written when News Corp., owner of MySpace and Fox News (and now bidding on 2 satellite networks in Europe), made its ultimately successful bid for Dow Jones in the Spring of 07 encouraging managers to conclude that ‘maybe Facebook is not just for kids?!’.  Chapter 3 describes the variety of Web 2.0 projects that are being tested in a wide range of companies, e.g.video on YouTube or wikis for project collaboration or rudimentary social networking - all in an effort to improve the customer experience.  These enterprises acknowledge that something potentially game-changing occurs and ask how their initial projects compare to what others are doing.  They’re moving beyond the starting line in the pursuit of associated variety and depth.

One my favorite Community Building examples is IKEA.  I learned last week that IKEA now sponsors a series of customer workshops in both Europe and the USA where customers meet to discuss business matters: leadership, sales and financial management.  A professional, social network stemming from furniture purchases. Soon we’ll have version 2 of the iPhone.  For fun on any mobile device, have a look (did I tell you that I just returned from England?!) at 1-800-Goog411 or Chacha.com.  Ask either one a specific question and receive a specific answer, Goog by voice and Chacha via text.  These are carefully crafted efforts to control search on the mobile device so that related advertising may be controlled.  These services are easy, entertaining and fun to use so be mindful of how they can influence your own customer relationships.  The brilliance of Roger Federer is his variety, his graceful movement and his courage to succeed.  He trusts the breadth of his talents and is not content to continue only with what is working for the moment.  This is how he stays ahead: purposeful movement in search of an opportune moment to challenge himself.  You could almostconsider this a formula for constant innovation.

Best for the July 4th holiday.  Subject line described.

As we round the corner into spring weather, it might be useful to recall a few of the primary changes brought about by this current generation of web technologies, aka Web 2.0:

1. no longer dozens of markets comprised of millions of customers, but millions of markets comprised of perhaps only dozens of customers – think Long Tail or the permanent changes in media distribution (film, music, tv, advertising).

2. the Apple Store is more like the branch bank of the future than is the current drive-up window.  Customers want to affiliate with like-minded people where their particular needs can  be addressed.  The better news is that given the tools, customers will form these communities themselves.

3. Knowledge is no longer power because everybody knows – or at least has access to knowing.  This is the highest peak for management to climb.  Instead of singularly figuring-out how to deploy Web 2.0 tools e.g. the proper level of privacy, we should ask our employees, customers, partners what they think (and know) will work best.  Management has to bound the chaos, not provide the answers.

4. Mobility and Video are exploding right before our eyes similar to the marriage of computers and spreadsheets in the mid 1980s which launched the PC revolution.  Consider Google’s (owner of You Tube) Android program and yesterday’s Apple – Kleiner Perkins announcement to fund enterprise applications for the iPhone.  BTW, Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder of Disney Corp.  Wait ‘n see may be ok; and it’s not too soon for incubating a promotion strategy on mobile devices.

One thing is for certain, tomorrow’s Duke vs UNC game will be a good one and that game tips-off the welcomed respite of March Madness.  Go Carolina!

Regards, Christopher Perrien