FlipBoard is like Alltop for me

Discovering Alltop year back or so did something amazing for me. As they say it on their about page“What’s happening?” in “all the topics” that interest me were aggregated by them for me. I use the site regularly and is very useful for me so far. Today after watching following video I realized “FlipBoard” has some similarity with “Alltop” concept. Yes it’s a cool tool for heavy twitter and Facebook users but around 9 minutes in the video Mike McCue, Cofounder and CEO of FlipBook explains how to add sections even if you don’t have twitter or Facebook account. This ability is similar to topics alltop creates on their site. To me FlipBoard sounds like an improvement over alltop in this area due to presentation of sections/topics.  As Mike explains, FlipBoard is trying to implement design principles of print media. On alltop web site once you enter a particular section/topic all feeds appears same visually while on FlipBook they are using some algorithm to highlight some feeds/photos. Yes in current version there are various limitations (biggest is it works only on iPad) but at the same time shows what new digital media aggregation could/should be. Check out Mike’s interview with Robert Scoble to know more about FlipBook.

2010
07/21
CATEGORY
Ideas
Presentation
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I know I can’t, But What if I Could?

We hear, to tap our unrealized potential we need commitment first. What if there is another way? Mike Rayburn at TEDxNASA shares his thoughts about ways to tap this unrealized potential. First time I heard Mike playing his guitar was this morning in this talk. Well I should have seen this earlier anyway better late than never.

Mike makes a case that in order to access unrealized potential we need to start with a simple question,what if? Listen to this 18-minute talk to see possibilities we can create by asking this question.

2010
07/15
CATEGORY
Ideas
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Green fad or you really mean it?

Preserve founder Eric Hudson in an interview with Living Principles team explains what it means to create environment friendly product from start to finish. Green idea such as “Mail Back Pack” for the Preserve toothbrush added impact on environment which was not considered in Preserve’s design.  Being green in one aspect (decreasing the amount of material in the primary package) sometimes impact environment in some other aspect (need for sturdy secondary package). Eric calls this as ” Law of Unintended Consequences”. I appreciate when founder clearly knows, acknowledges, and willing to fix  flaws in being green from start to finish.

The interview reminds me “Dust to Dust” automotive energy report by CNW. In 2006 when CNW claimed that Jeep Wrangler is the greenest car well ahead of hybrid cars, their report created lot of controversy. Wrangler is still in top 5 green cars in CNW’s subsequent reports. One can argue some assumptions in these reports however CNW’s approach to consider energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive, and dispose of a vehicle to scrap not just looking at environment impact during “drive” phase is important.  Bottom line we need to question ourselves all the time when we see word green, are we subscribing to fad or we really understand it.

2010
07/13
CATEGORY
Design
Ideas
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Why I prefer this friendly neighbourhood store

For my simple hardware needs somehow I always liked going to my neighborhood ACE store. Yes staff is very friendly prompting me to keep coming back. Just see last week’s incidence. Two weeks back I bought house numbers from this store. Last weekend when I was ready to use them and actually fixed some of them, I realized I bought one number of a different style. So I went back to the store to get style I need. Norma, front desk staff  greeted me and asked if I need help. I explained what happened and asked her to point me to the right number for me. She helped finding the right number and when I was ready to pay she offered that number as replacement for wrong one I got. Please note I was not carrying the receipt and she took my word as proof of purchase.

Does dollar value in transaction like this matters? For me at least no, dollar value is irrelevant.  As long as this store has staff like Norma and culture to promote behavior like her I am sure there will be many more repeat customers. I know I am going back to this store for my needs.

2010
06/22
CATEGORY
Marketing
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Why not to take money from investors?

Have you noticed Tony Hsieh explanation Why I sold Zappos this morning? If not check out the article.

No wonder investors wants to get money back as soon as possible even at the cost of compromising core values for why they funded in the first place. Like Tony noticed urgency to get money back was overpowering Tony’s zeal for Zappos culture. Tony was forced to find solution under this pressure. Tony’s solution was to preserve culture while selling the company. As I understand selling is the word Tony is trying to avoid but, anyway its a compromise one way or other and will be interesting to see how long this arrangement will work. Meanwhile not taking investors money sounds like the way to go if you care about your vision more than anything else.

BTW start-up or corporate lesson is same. I have been involved in several projects/products in my career to say this. Bigger the project/product (resources, stakeholders etc) messier it gets to stay true to why you are doing this project/product in first place.

Jason Fried and David Heinemeier philosophy of avoiding investors money for software and service businesses where businesses do not have excessive capital needs seems like thing to remember even in businesses which have decent capital needs. Jason and David made this point several times on their blog,talk, and in their latest book REWORK. If I understand it right its all about who has control and what you care most as you are building your business. So even if business needs that kind of capital, ask money only if you are ready to either give up control or try solution like Tony is trying to see if it works.

2010
06/07
CATEGORY
Marketing
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