New Florence. New Renaissance.

Learning from two pros

As I continue my next book research I find myself reading recent books written by two veterans albeit from extremes in the technology industry.

Blind Spot is about “a framework developed and enriched by Charlie Feld over the last 30 years in a variety of organizations, including Frito-Lay, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Delta Air Lines, Home Depot, and Southwest Airlines.”

Enchantment is Guy Kawasaki’s (ex Apple) perspective on the “art of changing hearts, minds, and actions.”

First, why are they important for my research? My next book is about how industry after industry is designing next-gen, "smart" products and services for their sectors. It is exciting time as these traditional tech buyers learn to become "vendors". But many are finding their IT and their IT vendors were raised in the world of ERP implementations, risk avoidance and offshore optimization – tactical, cost, compliance focus not as much product or revenue impact.

Charlie’s book is a throwback – to when companies dreamed big of strategic advantage through technology. Guy’s book is about what today’s companies should be thinking about if they want to engage with/enchant their users with their new tech-rich products.

In a sense both books left me wanting more. Charlie has a nice framework but is light on implementation details at the companies he profiles (other than at Frito-Lay which he goes into decent detail) , the technologies they ended on deploying etc. Guy, I had hoped would have gone more into his alma mater’s industrial design excellence and the driving philosophy behind its amazingly successful retail stores and the ecosystem in App Store – all part of Apple’s user enchantment story.

But in other ways both books are inspiring. Charlie shows the art of the possible in IT by showcasing examples from a wide range of industries. Guy is full of personal philosophies and inspiring stories from a variety of contributors. 

And they are easy reads – Charlie’s book is just 169 pages and Guy’s book comes in at 11.2 ounces. In contrast my last book was 384 pages and weighs over 21 ounces.

That’s another learning for my next book. Slim it down – for strategic advantage and for reader enchantment!

More cloud maturity

I wrote about the maturing cloud last month. So, along comes the amazon web services fiasco. But actually I am impressed with the realistic, mature assessment from many.

Lydia Leong of Gartner:

Will some Amazon customers pack up and leave? Will some of them swear off the cloud? Probably. But realistically, we’re talking about data centers, and infrastructure, here. They can and do fail. You have to architect your app to have continuous availability across multiple data centers, if it can never ever go down. Whether you’re running your own data center, running in managed hosting, or running in the cloud, you’re going to face this issue. (Your problems might be different — i.e., your own little data center isn’t going to have the kind of complex problem that Amazon experienced today — but you’re still going to have downtime-causing issues.)

Kevin Smith of BigDoor is cited in the New York Times about whey they did not spread backup and recovery services across multiple amazon regional data centers unlike Netflix has which has been far less affected . “There’s always a trade-off,” Mr. Smith said, noting the expenses and developer time that would have been required to do more.

Ah yes, the tradeoff.

While traditional hosters and outsourcers and on=premise software vendors gloat about the amazon issue, ask them how many hours their average customer is down in a regular week – for “planned” maintenance, and for unplanned. And how much more downtime when there is a major ERP and other major transaction processing application upgrade. When was the last time each of their customers ran a full-scale disaster recovery drill.  And by the way how many times more expensive their services are - 5, 10, 20? times – compared to cloud options for that privilege.

PS – on the amazon web services website, the section on “media coverage” was last updated March 4. I sure hope they have the maturity to also showcase some of the less flattering press from this episode.

Technology in Paradise

With our son’s Easter break next week, my wife has been looking for local, interesting things. It’s been on our agenda for a while – shame on us because it is only 15 miles from our house. It’s been called the best beach in the country – Caladesi Island.

So off we went this evening to scope it out.   The Garmin GPS took us to the ferry pier on Honeymoon Island, the launching place for Caladesi. The radio in the car still caught the baseball game. Wife’s Blackberry took photos. My EVO allowed me to browse for details on the island. We had missed the last ferry for the evening but found a place where you can rent kayaks and sail across.

It should be a nice week for Tommy. Even nicer that most of our technology worked just fine. Match that, Bora Bora :)

Picture Credit

Useful gizmos for under $ 25

We love our gadgets, and they can be outrageously expensive. But this week on Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley shows off some surprisingly useful tech gear ... for under $25. Yahoo News

Bottle Cap Tripod $9.75

iWatchz Q Collection Wrist Strap for iPod Nano $24.95

Aerobie Aero Press $21.72

Oster Electric Wine Bottle Opener $17

Car Power Inverter $19.99

The PowerCup $26.91

Grill Daddy BBQ Brush Cleaner $14.98

WAGAN Tech Easy Quick Jumper $19.99

More at-home health tests

“While consumer diagnostic tests are already in use for pregnancy, ovulation, fertility, HIV, and other conditions, treatment or follow-up care requires a visit to the doctor. At-home tests for other conditions, such as urinary tract infections, are available, but most doctors are reluctant to prescribe antibiotics or other medication without validating the results.

QuickCheck Health plans to change that by requiring patients to log on to a website or call to learn the results of the test. If the test is positive, the user will be directed to an online health-care provider, who can prescribe treatment.”

MIT Technology Review

Kentucky – Thoroughbreds and Technology

As we drove through the rolling countryside between Louisville and Lexington dotted with horse farms, whiskey distilleries and barbecue eateries, I wondered if this corridor could develop into a technology mecca as this Harvard Business Review article discussed earlier in the year.

The Keeneland Race Course in Lexington was the setting for the Lexmark/IN2Lex Startup Advantage event I presented at this week. Between the stage we presented at where highly prized horses are paraded for auction (in photo) and the club house where participants sampled another state export – bourbon – there was plenty of technology on the agenda.

Recently elected Lexington Mayor Jim Gray hosted us at a welcome reception at the headquarters of Gray Construction where he is Chairman. Gray is a “design-build” firm which constructs large plants for industrial customers – many in the auto industry but also a growing number for cleantech including a recent Siemens wind turbine plant.  The 4 storey building has a nice sun roof which requires a set of tasteful umbrellas around the desks on the top floor but also provides natural lighting all the way down through the hollowed center. It was formerly a department store. It now has a open floor format where architects and engineers and project managers freely mingle with each other and their AutoCad tools and LCD displays. Gray calls the building “The Project Shop – where people connect with processes to create projects”.

Lexmark, an event sponsor and local technology showcase, has been innovating in the printing and imaging markets since it was spun out from IBM 20 years ago. At the event, Lexmark showcased its innovative new Genesis all-in-one printer I blogged about recently. Even more interesting was to hear their design and marketing executives describe the process they used to prioritize features in the printer. I hope to profile their “Outcome Driven Innovation” in my next book I am currently researching. (On a personal note, it was nice to have my keynote introduced by Ron Binkauskas, GM of the Printing Solutions and Services Division – we had worked together in the 90s at Gartner)

Dana Bowers who presented at the event described her inspirational local story behind iPay and its eventual sale for $ 300 million.

The Keeneland campus itself provided a nice synopsis of how the state blends old with the new. 75 years old, the institution has been rolling out race simulcasting, social apps, course technologies (sensors on horses, safer turf) and auction tools

The event thoughtfully brought a slate of imported speakers besides me from outside the state, many from other communities with similar tech aspirations. Micah Baldwin of Graphic.ly flew in from Boulder, Robert Pease of Gist (now part of RIM) from Seattle. Silicon Valley was well represented by Tim Schigel of ShareThis (though he also lives more locally in Cincinnati), Rolf Skyberg of eBay and Brian Wong of Kiip. The old and new contrasts were on vivid display as Brian, barely 20 walked around the Keeneland stage, and Rolf described the many curves (hockey stick, Gartner hype cycle) and executive types he had seen in his life time of 7 years at eBay! 

As I flew out of Louisville airport I walked by outlets of two powerful international brands headquartered here - Yum Brands, the largest restaurant company in the world (with brands like KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) and the Louisville Slugger. They are innovating plenty on their own in kitchen, POS, digital media, Exogrid and personalization technology. Louisville has its own new mayor as ambitious as Mayor Gray.

As we headed south, we flew over Franklin, the first place I had visited in Kentucky almost 2 decades ago as a Price Waterhouse consultant. The client was the sub of the UK based PIC which provides “genetically superior pig breeding stock and technical support for maximizing genetic potential to the global pork chain.” That science continues to evolve nicely.  More of the old and the new in the State.

Lots of running going on in Kentucky – and not just for the Roses.

Photo Credit

Google’s Top 10 Cleantech initiatives

From CleanTechies

“In 2010, Google received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to become an electric utility. Google currently offers a smart meter application enabling smart grid customers to manage utilization of electricity at home, but with this approval, Google could become a smart charge or smart grid service provider.”

“Google Ventures, in 2011, invested in CoolPlanetBioFuels, which makes “negative carbon fuels.”

“In 2007, Google made plans to invest millions of dollars into renewable energy, as well as setting up a research and development renewable energy initiative called Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal, or RE< C.”

and more

Video below about Google’s Green philosophy

Apps for Easter and Passover

“Turn to your smartphone to study the steps of the Seder dinner or examine the last days of Christ’s life.

Cell phone applications provide easy access to knowledge about Palm Sunday, Passover, Good Friday and Easter Sunday whether you have an iPhone or a Droid.”

Gaston Gazette

Photo Credit

Eco-Upgrades for Skyscrapers

Time

“One of the biggest success stories to date is the Empire State Building, which announced last fall that its new $13 million retrofit would pay for itself within three years, thanks to a 38% reduction in annual energy consumption. The total costs were partially offset by a $2 million grant from New York State. But Tony Malkin, owner of the Art Deco building completed in 1931, also managed to save money with novel ideas like refurbishing the glass in the building's windows instead of replacing it. Instead of paying $2,500 each to replace the 6,514 windows, Malkin spent $700 each to clean and insulate them. The contractors actually set up a window-refurbishing factory on the building's fifth floor in order to get the job done in less than six months last year. "The industry said it couldn't be done," says Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials. Adds Malkin: "We did everything based on cost-effectiveness."

Most of the upgrades were downright ordinary. Workers recaulked the gaps between the limestone slabs on the building's facade to prevent heat loss, sprayed foam insulation in holes between the radiator pipes and walls and installed variable-frequency drives in the heating and cooling systems for precise temperature control. "I can't tell you how many people say, 'Why not install solar cells or put a little windmill on the roof?' Because it doesn't make business sense. It makes much more sense to lower energy use," says Paul Rode, the project manager at Johnson Controls who oversaw the Empire State Building retrofit.”

 

Dali Museum ver 2.0

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.”

quipped Salvador Dali

St. Petersburg, FL has long been fortunate to have many of the artist’s masterpieces; a few weeks ago it opened a museum to match the artist’s ambitions.

I had a chance to visit it last week, and frankly I spent more time admiring the architecture designed to withstand local hurricanes, its DNA inspired helical stairway to nowhere and its 900 triangular-shaped glass panels -no two panels are the same.Then there is plenty to admire outside - it's close to the pier and the local private airport. Well worth a visit.

Check out video below of the opening.