Superbowl Ads

These are works of art unto themselves at times, and they all have a couple things in common - they're over the top.  They're not regular marketing, the costs involved and expectations are too high.  Where else are the ads judged for creativity, humour and originality and viewed as stand-alones worthy of the main program.

RIM is doing one this year for the new Blackberry10, and I kind of hope they just have images of someone gasping for a last breath, as that would be realistic, ironic and worthy of note.  But I bet they try to convince us instead that they're contenders for wallet-share.  I'd be open to that story if they hadn't bought a superbowl ad actually.  But that purchase, that stage and surrounding hype really do make this seem like a desperate last gasp.

Work & Excercise

This isn't how to stay fit on the road.

Rather I'm seeing the parallels lately between physically working out, building up muscle tone, and being able to do more physically, and the work equivalent.

When you're working harder, you seem to be able to do more work.  That's somewhere between counterintuitive and obvious perhaps, but it has struck me lately.  The more you work, the more efficient you become, and your diligence and awareness of deadlines increases.  Your capacity to handle work increases.  In a way, your work "muscle" gets stronger.

Perhaps I'm wrong on this. How does it work for you ?

Hey Apple - TV is Different

There have been rumours, rustling and swirlings about Apple's move into TV for some time.  It's the 'next big frontier for them' has been some of the hype, and they'll do to TV what they did to mobile telephony.  I'd like to go out onto a limb and predict the pending arrival of the next "Newton".  Apple will uncharacteristically fail in their TV effort and here's why.

TV is different.

Than what you say ?  Than just about every other vertical they've entered before, and some of the barriers to success are not competitive but rather behavioral on the consumer's part.   These tend to be the toughest to change.

For a start, the long, slow approach to TV that they've done has left Apple without some of the more obvious quick wins it could have 'pioneered', such as web connectivity to your set - been done already.  What they've got left that's easily available to them is messing with the user interface - think TV remote morphing into an app on your various iDevices and Jetsons-era talk of the connected household.  Cool, yeah, but worth an Apple-style premium over a Sony or LG TV set ... don't think so.

TV like the original iPod, or now the latest mobile device universe is a consumption device.  And TV isn't about music, or books (hello Amazon), it's about video content that has to be fresh.  As is today's shows - that fresh.  Apple's got music, Apple's got video rentals.  Apple doesn't have TV content, and the Complete Season 2 of Friends doesn't count by the way.  They have excelled in other markets as they offered content to match the device. iPod+iTunes, iPad+Apps etc.  But without TV content that is in some way interesting, where are they ...  well, they're in the same spot as a few other TV makers...fighting a price and screen-size war.

Even if we put that aside for a moment, and assume they find TV content, the second big chalenge I see is that the business model behind TV is different than music and movies, both areas they've seen some success in.  Those are paid content models, and so buying content through another media (device) wasn't really that tough to understand.  TV however is a free subscription model, whereby we've access to the fresh content, and in return we watch certain commercial messages that are associated with it.  Apple's captive market is zero, so they aren't in a position to get a share of that revenue.  Frankly, they made such an impact on the music and movie business that was negative for most content creators, that I can't imagine any TV content creator  will want to play with them.  If the content was free on the Sony TV why would you pay Apple for it ? The answer is you won't and that's the behaviour they won't be able to change.

The last big challenge for them sprung up in December of last year, and they've perhaps not yet put two and two together about it yet.  Apple's recent hardware push has been in screen clarity, more pixels, better visuals etc.  Nice if I'm looking at photos or something.  They call it retina display, and you really can see a difference.  Imagine a TV with that...  no seriously, imagine a TV throwing incredibly high definition visuals in 30 frames per second (or more) at you.  It's overwhelming as your brain struggles to deal with it all.  Peter Jackson found this out the hard way, as he released his Hobbit movie in a variety of formats, including one in what I'll call "Super-definition".  People got lost in the story due to the visual impact. They were overwhelmed, they got headaches.  Mr. Jackson gave us a movie version of retina display, and showed us the upper end of tolerance for more visual detail.  What works fine in a photograph doesn't always translate to live action.  Again, I'm not sure Apple understands that yet, as they've not hit this barrier themselves with iDevices.

So, will they proceed anyway and release an iTV ?  I think they will, as Tim Cook, Apple's CEO needs to be seen to have a rabbit or two up his sleeve. Let's wait to see what happens..

New Year's Resolutions

Many make them, few follow through.  We know this and yet year in, year out we feel compelled at this turn of the calendar to place a line in the sand.  It's interesting, as I think we almost look at these now as things that don't have to be followed through on, a free pass given our desire for that extra junk food, or to do less when doing more is the right thing.  They've become hollow and pointless.

So - I've got a resolution for you.  Well, perhaps more of a suggestion.  Don't do new year's resolutions  this year, and if you have already - then throw it away in the same public or private manner as you've declared it.  Officially abandon them.

Take the month of January off.

Then, on February 1st, make a single (only one) resolution to do something to improve your lot in life.  It has be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound).  Do it for the month of February.  Make it really happen, knowing it's only 4 weeks.

Then, on March 1st do another one.  This one will be different, and while possibly complimentary it should stand on it's own, and also be SMART.  Focus on this one alone for the month of March.  Really do what it takes to make it happen.  It's only 31 days, of course you can do that.

And so on, and so on all year long.

At the end of 2013, you will have had 11 resolutions, each manageable, each done for a short period only.  I'll bet you succeeded with a number of them. I'll bet you even carried some of these 'enhanced' behaviors forward.

There's great reward in a sense of achievement.  By following this approach, that can be your 2013 - the year you followed through and did it.

2013 - What Won't Come to Pass

I made some 2013 predictions and left out some things.  That was intentional and I wanted to explain these and my reasons why.  In short, the nature of predictions for the next year is that to make the list, I have to think that we'll see these things rise to prominence in some way, or become significant - more so or less so than the current year.  Here's what didn't make the list, and why.

Anti-predictions as it where..

• 3D Printing.  Cool idea, too expensive and requires a household trigger mechanism that isn't there yet.  It's a little like looking for the next killer app - there's no reasons we all need 3D printing yet.  We may in the mid-term future.  But just not yet.
• The Internet of Things.  Another great concept, another idea that doesn't take into account the replacement cycle of our existing things.  I've no objection that my toaster, or hot water heater, or  stapler is connected online and can offer status updates (please remember to buy more staples, I'm almost out), but if my existing stapler isn't broken then I'm not about to upgrade it with a connected version.  This trend will evolve over the next 10 years until it attains critical mass.  But the value of having an ability to interact with my coffee-maker remains pretty fuzzy for most, and  so it won't speed up until that point - critical mass.  
• Apple TV.  A huge failure looming on the horizon.  TV isn't a normal industry and Apple is about to learn that the hard way. 
• Big Data-Maintsream.  In short, the promise of big data is that we can mine it, and gather all kinds of useful nuggets that we can then use to predict and entice future behaviours.  Great innovation but premature, in the sense that those that have invested significantly already want to start monetizing it, and the systems and approaches are as yet immature.  And the use of these immature methods will make us all question what big data can really offer.  It needs patience - but we won't see that in 2013.

We won't see these things rise to prominence in 2013.

2013 Predictions - My Crystal Ball

My 2013 Predictions, or guesses, or hunches.  You get the idea.

1.  We will see the emergence of a clearer form of Chinese nationalism in the next year driven from new younger leadership that will replace focus on party and the historic manner loyalty has (quietly) played out with external patriotism - a strong China model that will show itself in their foreign policy.

2. The western world will continue to shuffle and hobble towards economic  recovery from recession, I sadly anticipate.  In 10 years we will all recognize 2013 as another year spent in recession.  But while it's going on, we'll talk about the slow recovery instead of admitting it's actually still a recession.

3.  There will be yet another large natural disaster that seems to clearly indicate a shift in weather patterns to anyone with their eyes open - another mega hurricane, or severe drought or perhaps significant flooding in places it shouldn't happen.  There will be yet more widespread debate about connections to root cause, and still more be widespread denial that our human activities are having an impact on these macro-planetary systems.  

4. RIM will be bought at a value many raise an eyebrow at, due to their patent library.  My money is still on another industry player - Microsoft, Samsung or Nokia.  It's possible an outside investor could try to take advantage of a low valuation after the market failure of the Blackberry 10 platform.  Cue the sad music.

5. We will see a royal baby girl born the UK. A true little princess. This will result in increased succession debates that will bore the rest of us to tears.  

6. There will be consolidation in the airline industry in North America as old names disappear, and in the auto industry too as emerging brands are snapped up for their developing country (BRIC) market shares.  The auto industry will start to understand that demand can't continue to grow from the poorer nations of the world, and they are actually in a marketshare race in an industry where scale does matter.

7. Cultural phenomenon such as PSY's Gangham Style will soar to global awareness heights like rockets, amazing us all with the attention they garner.  It will be a while still before this is accepted as a natural outcome of living in an uber-connected world.  We're surprised as we don't yet comprehend the extent of the change the information age is having on our experiences, and that awareness won't happen in 2013.

8. Greece's economy will finally stumble and fail and it will force Germany to declare whether they will actually parentally support the EU or not.  They will.  But they won't be happy about it.  The European debate will shift from "if" to "how long".

9. The sad evolution in outcomes of the Arab Spring will be more clear - power corrupts people.  The new governments in countries like Egypt and Libya will topple as the will of the people will find no worthy champions. Today's freedom fighter is tomorrow's despot. Ongoing civil unrest will be the new order of the day as these citizens will experience continued frustration that will drive them to the streets.

10. The Occupy movement will reappear. People will seem surprised by this.  But they shouldn't be.  It's a bi-product of economic inequality, a symptom of unease and a request that we all acknowledge some basic unfairness that exists in our society.  The challenge they face (which even they may not see) will be to garner enough support to build momentum towards change.   I don't think they'll overcome that in 2013.

Guns - Some truths

I live in Canada, and today's sickening events in Newton CT give us all pause to consider how we act towards one another.  There is understandably much discussion about gun control today, and no doubt it will grow hotter in the coming weeks.

The murder of children is perhaps the most heinous of human acts imaginable and while the 'tool' used was a gun, it's important to keep in mind that an individual did this.  Nonetheless the gun debate will rage on.  It's peppered with half-truths and exaggerations and I wanted to offer some data and suggest you form your own opinions.

I offer civilian gun data here for Canada and the US.  The countries compare nicely in many cultural ways, so the propensity to act have the same basic drivers you might imagine.

Canada - approx 32M population

•  9,950,000 guns owned in Canada, of which 1.1M are handguns according to 2007 data
•  That's 23.8 guns per 100 people, which ranks Canada at #12 worldwide
•  There were 594 homicides in 2007, of which 188 were gun related - 31.6%

The United States - Approx 302M population

•   270,000,000 guns owned in the US in 2007
•  That's 88.8 guns per 100 people, which places the US at #1 in the world.
•  There were 16,129 homicides in the US in 2007, of which 10,129 were gun related - 59.8%

What can we deduce ?

1. Gun ownership is approximately 3x as popular in the US, accounting for population
2. Homicides are also 3x more likely in the US - from all sources
3. Gun related homicides are 2x more likely in the US
4. With the higher percentage of homicides, and greater probability of it being gun related, you are 6x more likely to experience a gun related homicide in the US v Canada

The above aren't opinion.  They are statistics, and the conclusions drawn from these are fact.

What causes this 6X difference ?  In culturally comparable countries, is it the right to own guns (bear arms) or perhaps the greater access to tool when murderous impulse strikes..?  I don't know, but it does seems that a premeditated act as we saw today wasn't an act of passion, rather it had clear intent.  The role guns play in these two societies isn't a black and white issue, and won't survive attempts at a black and white solution.  

We cannot get lost in a gun control debate when looking to tackle the core issues here.  What happened is unforgivable and while the gun played a role we shouldn't overlook that there are more factors to be considered. At some point before 9:30am this morning, this sick person made what they thought was an acceptable plan for their day, empowered with their firearm.  And that is something we should really examine.