Month: August 2007

Taking the Mac plunge

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Apple_mac
Although I took a vacation day today, we stuck pretty close to home except for a journey over to the University Village Apple store where we bought a MacBook. 

The earth is not spinning backwards and dogs and cats are not living together so all seems right with the world even though this is our first foray into Apple land.  Early feedback is really positive.  We needed something for home to do pictures, movies, music, internet on and, quite frankly, after spending a few too many confusing cycles on the Dell configuration site (as well as feedback from trusted techie friends) we took the Mac plunge.

Also got to hand it to the marketing folks in Cupertino for the experience..not just a retail presence but a "place" to spend time.

Where there is smoke there is fire not true for Mr. Quattrone

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In a case that highlights both the excess of the dot-com era and the perils of both sending email as well as basing a criminal investigation solely on it, all the remaining charges against former CSFB investment banker Frank Quattrone were dismissed by a federal judge.  Here’s the NY Times story on it and MarketWatch’s commentary on this ‘quiet’ ending.

In an era defined by "smoking gun" emails, federal prosecutors thought they had nailed him with six little words – "time to clean up those files"

Not so much…

Or according to Frank himself – "The legal system has rendered its final verdict. … The opera is over."

Four years, who knows how much in legal bills, and untold levels of legal maneuvering bring this much hyped case to a quiet conclusion.  Mr. Quattrone is free to return to the securities industry and do his thing – namely print money for himself and whatever firm he calls home ($200MM personally from 8/98 to end of 2001…good for him).  I think it is fair to assume that he would rather of not sent these six words in an email.

I remember reading the original complaint filed against him and the snippets of emails that were used to build the case around obstruction.  Although highly suspect, the email contents alone did not make a clear and convincing case.  Email records provide lots of information however intent is not one of them.

Getting to product/market fit

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I read this post by Marc Andreessen some time ago and it nicely articulates what happens as you start a company and take it to market both in terms of the ups and downs.  I think his point on product/market fit is especially insightful and knowing you are on to something when the market begins to pull your product.  Read the whole thing.

I am (slowly) reading "The Four Steps to the Epiphany" and Blank’s market-centric process around Customer Discovery & Customer Validation ties nicely into Marc’s thinking (guess that’s why he recommended it).

I also think Brad Feld did a nice job of summarizing a key part of starting and growing a business in this piece on horizontal solutions finding their vertical applications based on market factors not marketing ones (he also does a nice job of covering what I see as "natural points of friction" between engineering, product marketing, and sales).

I have two friends on Facebook and I’m ok with it

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Thank you TA McCann and Brad Feld for being on that very short list and helping me experiment with Facebook.  There has been a bit of on-line debate about Facebook vs. LinkedIn so thought I would add my two cents. 

I think this comes down to personal utility. 

LinkedIn provides me utility because it is a dynamic but passive way to stay connected AND because my professional/personal contacts utilize the service.  I’m not sure I would pay for LinkedIn although the ability to keep track of the folks outside my 15 or so most active contacts is appealing and updates are driven by the contacts themselves not by me (versus me managing Outlook Contacts).  In order to be included in my network, I need to know you, have met you, or at least have something in common (Arthur Andersen alum, etc.). To me it is a "I know where to find you if I need you" solution and a way to keep tabs on folks as they move from project to project.

Facebook is also dynamic but requires active participation AND my professional/personal contacts DO NOT utilize the service.  Admittedly, I have not really attempted to develop more connections on Facebook and signed up more out of curiosity than anything else.  The same can be said for participation in MySpace, Orkut, etc. where I may be a registered user but I do not actively use the service.  Besides, a system that asks your relationship status before anything else is not really where I am in my life.  Could Facebook do what LinkedIn does for me? Yes.  Is there a compelling reason to change?  No, but I am open-minded and curious if its personal utility will increase as adoption continues.

Here’s a couple good posts from Mike Feinstein including this one on being a social networking stowaway which outlines several services and his use of them.  Also check this one on business social networking. 

On a side note, I am still tinkering with Twitter and am finding it a reasonable way to update my whereabouts for the day rather than sending out a blast email.  Surely there are other use cases for it but broadcasting my location/availability is one that fits my current needs.

Updated:  I was remiss for not linking to this NY Times piece on the question of LinkedIn (via Barry Briggs)

Gotta watch that ‘Reply to All’ button

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Another story about the perils of a misdirected email sent off by the CEO of a company.  This time Spirit Airlines and CEO Ben Baldanza are in the cross hairs.  Here’s the story from the Orlando Sentinel (via WallStreetFighter).


After getting the e-mail on his BlackBerry, Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza
accidentally hit "reply all" when responding to fellow executives and sent his
response back to the couple.


"Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned,"
Baldanza wrote. "Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us
before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny."

Ooops…

I’m not taking sides in this dispute as I think the couple’s demand for reimbursement of hotel, parking, and concert tickets in addition to airfare is a bit absurd.  Nonetheless, this episode illustrates the risk posed by quick email responses from a handheld without any type of safeguard in place. 

A simple confirm with sender rule designed to detect and confirm reply to all responses (especially those headed outside the company) could have avoided this.

10 adults, 6 children, & 4 dogs on a camping trip

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This is how I spent a great couple days near Winthrop, WA this past weekend.  Our group of brave adults decided a real camping trip would be just the thing we all needed and so we hauled most of our belongings along with our dogs and children (all under 3) to the "wilds" of the North Cascades.  Thanks to Marel for putting those consulting skills to work and creating a project plan for the outing – we would have been lost without it.  Not a lot of sleep and a lot of chasing (dogs and kids) but we had a really good time.  Stopped off in Leavenworth on the way up for a brat and beer at the Munchen Haus with our entire entourage (if you were there on Friday, my apologies).  We rounded out the trip with a return via the Methow Valley and North Cascades highway – amazing scenery. 

Accenture CIO Survey on Information Management

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Picked this up randomly and spent some time digging through it today.  This is a survey of over 150 senior IT execs on the topic of Information Management and where they are putting their dollars and time going forward.  Some interesting tidbits:

  • Include both structured (database) and unstructured (email, web, etc.) data in an overall strategy and be aware of reconciling the differences in control history between the two.
  • Data quality identified as top obstacle to deriving value from information management along with lack of funding, absence of business case, and competing initiatives.
  • No single solution to support analytic, enterprise, and business needs across the five user communities of IT, power users, business users, casual users, and extended enteprise users.
  • Plan on focusing on data quality, security, and governance with a significant emphasis on analytics.
  • Want to provide greater end-user access to data and spreading "information democracy" so that the right people have access to the right data.
  • Portals provide an enterprise access point and "mash up" applications can provide better end-user access and experience.
  • A focus on revenue and adding value to customer/markets versus cost and compliance as the latter is deemed to prepared for and addressed with workable solutions at this point.
  • Outsourcing is on the mind but mostly in the areas of indexing, data cleansing, taxonomy, and portal activities.

The obstacle discussion highlights the realized pain as data quality with lack of funding, business value, and competing initiatives ranked ahead of governance and security.  I’m also a bit skeptical of the lower ranking of cost reduction as I’ve not spoken with a CIO that’s not interested in direct cost takeout opportunities.

An interesting read.  Here’s the link.