Be Insanely Great

I've lived my professional life in the entertainment, technology and mobile industries, and I am a conspicuous consumer, so, like so many of the humans on this planet, for the past 30 years my daily life has been touched in some way by the innovations and spirit of Steve Jobs.  When Steve Jobs resigned from his position as CEO of Apple, like most of you reading this, I took a moment to reflect upon how Jobs has impacted everyone who has a job in the industry I work in. How, for many years and in many ways, we have been touched by the Apple master.  Now, sadly, it is time to reflect again.

In Good Company

If you have ever started a company or worked for a startup, you know that going from good to great is not enough.  Today's best entrepreneurs want to go beyond, good, beyond great, to become an insanely great company.  The aspirations of a tech company to be "insanely great" are in part inspired by Apple's success and the term "insanely great" is most often attributed to Steve Jobs's description of his company and its products (some say he first used the term when introducing the Macintosh in 1984).

There's no question that Apple's iTunes has influenced the music industry and MP3 distribution in ways that have trickled down into every aspect of the music business.  Working in the mobile industry for over ten years, my world has certainly benefited from the positive impact the iPhone has had on pushing forward mobile web usage and handset innovation across the board (as I wrote about in Forbes). The entire mobile ecosystem has been directly and beneficially changed by the mobile app marketplace that the iPhone and iTunes App Store jump started.  The iPad, and all it has inspired, is leading the way to the "post PC" era, that Steve Jobs envisioned, and that our children will inherit and thrive within.

Be Insanely Great

We can certainly appreciate all that Steve Jobs accomplished, and tip our proverbial hats in honor and remembrance as we continue to enjoy the products and inspiration that are his legacy.  However, perhaps the best way to remember and honor Mr. Jobs is to recognize, once again, that our time here is limited, and that every single day we have the choice, in everything we do, to be good, to be great, or to be like Steve Jobs and be insanely great.

I am going to aspire for the latter.  How about you?

Above image: Hugh MacLeod

The Geek Traveler: Staying Connected To Get Disconnected

(Pictured above: Shell Island, Panama City Beach, FL)

I haven't been on a "road trip" in a long time, and things have clearly changed A LOT since the days of my CB RADIO (if you can remember "Breaker 1-9" please raise your hand!) When we decided to drive the 600 miles from Miami to Panama City Beach for the long holiday weekend I made sure that our rental car had a good FM radio. Now, before you accuse me of being a ludicrous Luddite you need to understand why I was rabid for radio. I rely on FM radio to broadcast the signal from my awesome Motorola T505 Bluetooth Hands-free Speakerphone (Amazon affiliate link below). Clipped to the rental car's visor, the T505 pairs with my Palm Pre via Bluetooth, and then with the car's sound system via the best quality digital FM transmitter I have ever used. Instantly, I have all the whiz-bang wonders of my smartphone seamlessly integrated with my loaner Saturn Vue.

"Always On"... the road again...

Our journey was guided by turn by turn navigation from Sprint, clearly spoken through the car stereo. Our audio entertainment was provided by music and podcasts on my Pre, and even better, during long stretches of our drive, we were listening to my customized (and eclectic) favorite music courtesy of Pandora. Yes, I took geek pleasure in the knowledge that as I drove through the beautiful wooded barrens of North Central Florida I was using Sprint's network to stream music from the Internet to my phone, and then have that music go from my phone to the Motorola T505 via Bluetooth, and then from the T505 to the car's nice sounding stereo system via a short range FM transmission. Wireless wonders at their best! Of course if at any time someone called me on my mobile phone the music was automatically paused and the call came in loud and clear through the car stereo and the T505's built-in microphone. Ahhh, technology!

Good for the Geek, good for the Gander...

Lest you think I was the only connected traveler in the car, my "geekette in training" girlfriend was glued to her iPhone for most of the trip, researching things to do in Panama City, reading local restaurant reviews, finding us a hotel for a mid-trip layover, and using an iPhone app to track our location and alert us of nearby speed traps.

How connected are you when you hit the road?

Posted via email from Kiss My SASS!

A Brief History of Smartphones (And the battle that ensued)

I was dumbfounded by the great turnout for "The Battle of the Smartphones" panel at the August meeting of MoMo Miami (Mobile Monday Miami). More than 60 Mobile minded Miami-ans (and folks from other South Florida locales) gathered at the DoubleTree Coconut Grove hotel for a healthy discussion of the merits (and demerits) of mobile app development for the dominant Smartphone platforms (Symbian/S60, Blackberry, Windows Mobile (now Windows Phone), iPhone, Android and WebOS). Moderated by Miami Herald Tech Reporter Bridget Carey our panel consisted of some impressive and experienced mobile developers representing most of the primary platforms. Michael Tangeman has a good overview of the panel at the MoMo Miami blog.

I introduced the panel with a short presentation on "A Brief History of Smartphones (As Told From The Recollections of a Self-Proclaimed Gadget Geek)" Irina Patterson caught most of it in the video below. As I mentioned at the beginning (not on the video) my "Brief History" presentation is not necessarily historically or chronologically accurate, but rather it is how I remember things, based on my own experiences with the MANY devices I have owned and used over the years. In addition to the video below, you can see the actual flash presentation here.




See the "slides" here.

How 30 Apps Could Have Been A Pre-Cursor To Success, Rather Than A Curse

There has been a lot of speculation as to whether or not the Palm Pre is a hit and selling up to expectations. If you read this blog and follow me on Twitter you have probably gleaned that I love my Pre and think it is a spectacular device. That said, I am enormously frustrated by the lack of any new applications since its launch more than a month ago. It seems that I am compelled to check the "beta" App Catalog multiple times a day on the odd chance that finally something new will miraculously appear. (In truth, I am wishing hard that the next new app to emerge will be the Amazon Kindle app - without Orwell's 1984, of course...)

TIMING IS EVERYTHING...

At the beginning it seemed like things were on track. There were 18 apps in the catalog at launch, and within a matter of days it grew to 30 apps. Then, NOTHING. For weeks and weeks and weeks the app reservoir has been dry. Barren. APPallingly inactive. All things considered, if the Palm team were aware that the population was going to be limited only 30 apps for the foreseeable future, I think they would have been much better served by doling them out two or three a week until they were ready to open the app floodgates. Even if the total number of apps remained small I think the Pre would have maintained much more continuous momentum, and the related "buzz" and sales demand, if there had been a constant flow of new apps emerging in the catalog.

LIKE CARLY SIMON SAYS... ANTICIPATION!

Yes, buzz and demand can be created by anticipation... to a point. However, after too long a wait I believe the risk is that anticipation unfulfilled leads to frustration, or even worse, boredom, and then ultimately a lack of interest. With constant competition from the iPhone, new Blackberries, and a new Android Hero, Palm should be doing everything in its power to maintain the excitement and momentum that a steady stocking of apps would bring.

IS THE STRATEGY APPARENT?

What do you think? Is a slow steady rise more effective than a big quick launch followed by a flat line? How would you have handled the thin initial supply of apps if the Pre were your product? Have you had similar experiences or challenges with other product launches?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Palm Pre Mojo SDK Freely Available: Apps Needed (jkontherun.com)
• What In the Hell Is Palm Doing with These Pre Ads? [Advertising] (gizmodo.com)
• Apple to Palm Pre: Sorry, No More iTunes Syncing (mashable.com)

The Sass Sons (and dining with an iPhone)

The boys at dinner tonight at California Pizza Kitchen. Clearly, the doofy expressions are proof positive that genetics works and more importantly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. More specifically, the apple was quite large and hit us all in the head when it fell from the tree!

Speaking of apples, last night Sue and I dined at a quite fancy restaurant, Il Mulino on Collins Avenue. At the cozy table next to us an attractive, expensively dressed young woman sat alone and carefully lay out a Blackberry Pearl and an iPhone before her. She spent her Saturday evening dining alone, alternating between sending text messages on the Pearl and talking on the iPhone. A sign of the times? Remember when dining alone meant a corner table and a good novel? I was dying to lean over and ask her why she needed both the Blackberry and the iPhone... Was it the keyboard? Battery life? Just showing off she could afford to have both? Inquiring minds want to know!