Monday, November 28, 2005

Not Quite There, But...

Did you know Continental Airlines sucks? You probably do. Don't forget it.

On the Road: Mystery Destination

Sitting in an LAX airport lounge, waiting for my flight to...you get to guess.

Hint: It is in Asia, but very few people classified as "Asians" live there.

Family members and personal friends disqualified from participating. Void where prohibited. Must be 18 to play. Taxes and fees sole responsibility of participant. Game not legal in Utah, Alaska and Guam.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Send an Email to the Future You

Here's something sort of interesting. Yahoo and Forbes have set up an email time capsule where you can send an email to yourself in one, three, five, ten or twenty years.

This sounds fairly interesting, assuming you don't change your "permanent" email by that time. And assuming spam filters of the future won't block it out. And you're still alive. And email hasn't changed significantly. And...

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Bluetooth: Not Ready for Prime Time

In addition to the new Mot V3 that I received from my new company, I also got a new IBM T43 laptop. I was pretty excited about this since they both have Bluetooth, so I could - theoretically - get the two synched, making my V3 more than just a cool fashion statement by giving it some PDA functions.

I did get the two talking to one another and have now synched my contacts and calendar, but it took - and I am not making this up - over four hours of screwing around with both the phone and the PC before I got the link-up to work. I put most of the blame on the PC side, especially the software people that Mot uses, BVRP, who, as a French company, should simply surrender the market to someone who knows what they are doing.

I won't go into the details, but I had to abandon the set-up software provided by the French and go into manually setting up the Bluetooth connection and then loading the proper phone drivers directly myself. The "ah-hah" point came when I turned off the firewall that Windows XP so thoughtfully provided to all the modems in my system - including the Bluetooth one - and I switched the BVRP software from the LAN setting to modem setting. Each of these were deep in the operating system and BVRP software, so would not be something a casual user would have figured out. And it took me many hours and some pointers from some internet chat boards to figure it out.

But I think this is not really so much an issue with Mot, IBM, or BVRP (although they are partly to blame), but I think more an issue with Bluetooth itself. The technology really isn't ready for the mass market, and just a casual look at the message boards and help sites I was reading while I went through my ordeal shows that there are many, many compatibility and software issues that still have to be worked out on this technology.

My nifty Bluetooth headset is due in on Monday, and I am hoping I have nothing near the problems I had with this.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

For Self-Destructive Electronics?

Looks like Intel thinks there is a future in electronics that self-destruct: Intel Creates $50M Middle East Venture Fund


Intel Corp. said today it has established a $50 million venture capital fund to invest in technology companies developing innovative hardware, software and services in the region covering the Middle East.



In all seriousness, this is nice gesture by Intel. As I have said before about other technology investments in the Middle East, one way to help integrate that region into the world community is to provide investments and incentives to create businesses that take part in the world economy.

Deal Phrase of the Day

Fire and Forget - A type of transaction where the deal-makers involved close the deal and move on to the next one without following through on the transaction, integration issues, or other consequences of the deal. Also may refer to a type of deal-maker.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Waiting on Convergence

One of the nice things about starting a new full-time job is all the new gizmos that I get on the Company nickel. The latest is a new cellphone, which is a RAZR GSM (catalog photo):

I give it thumbs-up on design and sleekness, but the functionality is no different from other phones out there, which means it's okay, but not great. This device is more about fashion than function. The Bluetooth headset - which will make it a real fashion accessory - is due in next week, allowing me to join all those geeks in San Jose airport wearing what looks like an oversized, glowing earring.

So with this I am now carrying around three slim, cool electronics accessories with me whenever I travel:
  1. RAZR Cellphone - Necessary for business
  2. iPod nano - Necessary for the flight over
  3. Casio Exilim DSC 3 Megapixel - Necessary for any touring I get while on my trip
Each of these are quite slim and does its individual job very, very well, and while there are a few gizmos out there that will do all three functions, they all suck as multifunction products.

For example, the new iPod cellphone, the ROKR, is larger than simply duct-taping a RAZR to a nano, which would give you the same functionality. And, of course, the ROKR has a 100 song limit, greatly restricting its usefulness. Likewise, the RAZR actually has a built-in camera, but the image quality sucks, and VGA is not the resolution I want if I manage to get away for some touring.

So while I would like to combine all three devices into one to save size and weight in my computer bag, it looks like I will be carrying multiple devices for at least the next several years.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

You're Interested in Our Product? Tough!

Triage - A system used by medical or emergency personnel to ration limited medical resources when the number of injured needing care exceeds the resources available to perform care.

Triage isn't only used in the medical community. It is also used in business.

To give a little more background on my new job, the corporation that hired me just acquired a small, private company. So that was what I was working on during my six months of consulting: an acquisition. The deal I was offered was this: if the acquisition closed I would be brought on full time to run the "top line revenue" of the new division. This is a fancy way to say I am now responsible for sales of this new group that was just acquired.

Now this small, private company did a lot of what I would call "science projects". These were little R&D projects where they collected service fees, but barely enough to keep the lights on. They also spent a lot of time chasing illusive, pie-in-the sky deals from other start-ups who promised volume in the BILLIONS.

Now they are part of a bigger company and have a real revenue number to hit with limited resources to do it with. So I am going in with a big scythe and am cutting out customers that don't match the profile I need to hit my 2006 revenue number. I am kicking out three existing customers, cutting off one who was pretty far down the road on a new project, and ignored half a dozen companies that sent their information in at a recent trade show. The fact that there was a recent acquisition makes the "excuse" for dropping these guys pretty easy, and I get to play the heavy, but it is never fun to tell someone who is interested in your product or service to get lost. It goes against instinct.

The good news is that this leaves some large, resource-rich customers that I can now focus our resources on. And if all goes well, just a percentage of these closing will make the revenue number for the year.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Rooftops in Asia

1998 - Century Hyatt Skybar, Tokyo - My boss and I make a toast to a long and prosperous business and the many customers we will have in Asia. I leave the company less than 18 months later.

2000 - Kaio Plaza Skybar, Tokyo - Rorschach and I make a toast on our new start-up, and the long and prosperous business we will have, mostly from customers in Asia. The company was shut down less then two years later.

2003 - Grand Hyatt Skybar, Taipei - My boss and I make a toast to a long and prosperous business and the many customers we will have in Asia. I was laid off from the company about a year later.

2005 - My boss and I are scheduled to travel together to Asia in December. Along the way we will go to a hotel skybar and make a toast. How will it turn out?

Monday, November 07, 2005

The Joys of Work

Wow, after doing consulting for half a year, I forgot about the joys of a full-time job:
  • Emails - I got maybe 10 emails a day as a consultant. Today, my third day on the job, I probably had 50, and I am not even fully integrated into the company yet. I wrote no fewer than two dozen outgoing ones today, versus the handful of business ones I used to do a day. And it will probably go up from there.

  • Turf Battles - Some people just have a hard time letting go. The guy who sort of was involved with my customer base before I came on board doesn't want to let go and will be hard to shake lose. It doesn't help that the organizational structure is still "in flux".

  • Everyone Wants to be in Sales - I have nearly half a dozen requests from people to "go to the next customer meeting". These include engineers, program managers, and people who I think have no real job function.

But...I enjoy the job anyway.