Jonathan Brown » business

Apple’s War on Tech Specs

Jonathan Brown — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:58:03 +0000

I’ve been meaning to jot down my thoughts on Apple’s continued assault on technical specifications. There was a time where people really cared about *HZ (Hz, MHz, GHz, whatever) and RAM and cache size and blah blah. Because computers used to suck. Now they don’t. Apple knows that we’re reaching a point of computing where we are seeing nominal differences as technical specifications go up (or down, depending on what’s better). Until the next major commercial breakthrough in processing (maybe quantum computing?) there doesn’t appear to be a reason to continue publishing these statistics when trying to sell a computer, phone, etc. Apple doesn’t bother. They sell you the experience. What you can expect to get in return for using an Apple computer or cell phone.

I could go on, but I think Gina Trapani eloquently summed up my thoughts in just a few sentences.

That’s the thing about Apple marketing. They don’t talk about how many gigabytes of memory or how many CPU cycles or how many apps (much). They aim for your heart, and show you how technology can make your life better during its most important moments.

There you have it. Apple versus the rest of the computer, mobile handset, software world in a couple of sentences. Selling the why not the how or what.

Two New Projects Launched

Jonathan Brown — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:07:55 +0000

This week was a busy one for me. I launched two new websites: hallornohall.com and smartcarvs.com. Both of these sites are purely just for the heck of it. If they get some traction, great. If not, great.

Hall Or No Hall is a co-creation with my long-time pal and business partner, Matt Thompson. Our graphic designer bud, Bert Mahoney supplied the website design. On this site, Matt and I (and hopefully more writers will join) discuss the merits of MLB, NFL and NBA players and whether they belong in their respective sport’s Hall of Fame. If you’re interested in the site or the technical side of it, see my HallOrNoHall.com project page.

Smart Car Vs. is a site I built and launched in a single evening. The idea came from my father, who recently purchased a Smart Car. When he first brought it home, he parked it next to his massive motor coach. Immediately, the contrasting sizes of the two vehicles became very humorous. My father then started taking photos of the Smart Car next to other funny subjects, such as a riding lawnmower. So I built a simple site that allows visitors to upload photos of Smart Cars next to funny objects. Read more about the project on my SmartCarVs.com project page.

I hope you’ll check out these two sites and visit them regularly. Enjoy!

Lessons Learned in 2008: Use Your Leverage

Jonathan Brown — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:06:07 +0000

Getting things to go your way in the workplace is not always easy. You have to use all of the tools in your arsenal to convince others that what you want is best for a project, your team, the company or yourself. Sometimes that tool is charm. Sometimes it’s humor. Sometimes you have to drop brain on people and wow them with your expert knowledge. Sometimes you have to be political and give so you can take later. It’s all a game of Survivor, unfortunately. At times, you just have to know when to use leverage.

Lesson 2: Use Your Leverage

Leverage is kind of like a 401k plan; after years of steady contributions, you end up with a sizable pile of cash ready for your retirement. If you unwisely manage your 401k or make early withdrawals, you are penalized in the form of losses or taxes. When you first start a new job, your value to the company is minimal. Over time you earn the respect and trust of your peers and superiors. You become an expert in your domain and your value to the business increases. You, my friend, have leverage.

Playing your leverage is like the Kenny Rogers’ song… “you got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you have leverage when you don’t. Determining if you have real leverage takes a good amount of introspection and honesty. You must fully understand your place in the world and what the world would be like without you to assess your value to an organization. Be objective, put yourself in your boss’ position and properly appraise the value of your leverage. Ego can cloud your judgement and artificially inflate the actual trade-in value. Evaluate your skills against your teammates. Do you fill gaps that no one else can? Do you have knowledge that others do not? If you disappeared tomorrow, how difficult would it be for your team to function? Think about these things to help quantify the amount of leverage on your side. Do you have enough to negotiate a 10% pay increase? Or is it just barely enough to wrangle an extra PTO day.

Once you’ve determined how much leverage you have, figure out what you want to achieve by using it. In my case, I wanted to move back to Orlando and telecommute. After five hard years in Sarasota, I was tired of driving back-and-forth every other weekend. I wanted to pick my daughter up from school on weekdays, attend her school functions and be at her side at the drop of a hat. I wanted to spend nights with my girlfriend and visit my parents whenever I wished.

So I patiently waited for the perfect opportunity to reveal itself. Back in September, I was offered a promotion to become a Vice President of the company. I don’t care much for titles, so I knew this was the moment to seize. I decided to forego the offer and broker a deal to move back to Orlando. Identifying a time to use leverage is another important consideration. The amount of leverage necessary is sometimes converse to the situation at hand. More recently the company was put in a dire position by the economy and the departure of key personnel. This was another perfect opportunity to use leverage to get what I personally wanted as well as some things on behalf of my team.

When you’re ready to cash in, you have to be confident about what you’re wanting. You have to be so confident that you’re willing to walk away from the table and leave it all behind. In the first case, I was going to move back to Orlando whether I was still employed or not. I knew I had enough leverage in this situation and the company would comply or watch someone with domain expertise and intimate business knowledge walk away. Did I think I was irreplaceable? Absolutely not. But I understood the hardships the company would experience in my immediate absence. The company agreed and I got what I wanted.

Could I have asked for this sooner? Did I spend a year of my life unnecessarily in Sarasota because I was afraid of rejection? Looking back, I think so and that’s why I consider this a lesson learned. Don’t be afraid to use leverage to get what you want in life. Be realistic, honest and reasonable and throw it out on the table. Sometimes you have to be patient and let the opportunity come to you, but when you identify your moment don’t be afraid to pounce.

Lessons Learned in 2008: Work With the Best

Jonathan Brown — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:35:25 +0000

I’m so glad 2008 is over. It was a difficult and stressful year—perhaps the most difficult of my short 10-year professional career. “Never again,” I’ve been telling myself in hopes of avoiding a repeat year. So I’m going to be dedicating a few posts over the next few days (or weeks) discussing some of the important things that really hit home during my difficult year. Obviously, I’m no management guru or anything and a lot of what I’m going to talk about aren’t new concepts or breakthroughs. These are topics that became startling clear to me based on real incidents and situations. These are lessons I’m going to stick in my backpocket and carry with me for the rest of my career. Here we go.

Lesson 1: Work With the Best

I know that’s a tired cliché, but it is your absolute best chance to succeed and it stuck with me as a meme for 2008. Surround yourself with the best possible people for the job. Sure, there are really great managers who can turn mediocre or below average talent into a phenomenally productive and efficient team. But truth be told, I’m not a great manager. In fact, I’m a really crappy manager.

In order to be effective at almost anything, you must know your limitations. Sometimes your weakest skill can become your strongest asset if you use it to your advantage. For instance, I know I can’t manage more than four people. I’ve learned that over the years, so when I have the opportunity to control the size of my team, I take advantage of my weakness and use it to trim my team to a small, smart and manageable group of people.

What criteria do I use when selecting my team?

First and most importantly, I immediately disqualify people who have a history of causing unnecessary drama, regardless of talent. I can mentor and improve talent, but I cannot fix personalities. Drama and office politics are poisonous and are best avoided up front.

Secondly, I look at work ethic. I want hard-working, dedicated and loyal people working with me. Much of my time is spent in theory, so I don’t need a team full of hands-off-sit-and-theorize-all-day kind of people. I need fearless roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-dirty kind of people. Those are the people who get things done. I want to surround myself with people who will go to battle with me when necessary. And by battle I mean dedication to solving problems, no matter how long it takes. Last year I spent quite a few late nights and 24+ hour days (which, ironically, is also a lesson learned) with my teammates to get things done.

Thirdly, I want problem solvers. Troubleshooting is a skill and those who do it best typically also have the expertise I need to get new things done. I’ve seen teams waste months coming up with workarounds for problems—or worse, just living with the problem—that I was able to solve once I took the simple steps to understand the problem.

Finally, get rid of employees you cannot trust. They will rip apart your team or organization from the inside out and tarnish your reputation as a manager or leader. You cannot have people undermining your authority by running around to other business units and corroborating behind your back to push their personal agendas. Sometimes these people think they have the best of intentions, but they don’t. They think they are martyrs or revolutionaries trying to save the company by trying to eliminate people or prove points. They are nothing but trouble. Get rid of them and spare your team, yourself and the organization. Fortunately, this was not a problem with a member of my team, but one of my peers in my department. Ugh.

When RSS Ads Attack Part 2

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:48:00 +0000

Catching up on my RSS subscriptions, Digg’s feed had this gem for me…

Oddly enough, I know what Habbo is from research I did for a project a few years ago. Yep, black hole.

RSS Ads Are Funny

YouTube Take Down Notice

Jonathan Brown — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:18:00 +0000

I just received this email from YouTube about one of my videos from my trip to Hawaii…

Dear JonathanDavidBrown,

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video Hawaii 2008 – Day 6: Waimea Bay. The audio content identified in your video is Holiday by Weezer. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Replace Your Audio with AudioSwap

Don’t worry, we have plenty of music available for your use. Please visit our AudioSwap library to learn how you can easily replace the audio in your video with any track from our growing library of fully licensed songs.

Other Options

If you think there’s been a mistake, or you have other questions, please visit the Copyright Notice page in your account.

Sincerely,
The YouTube Content Identification Team

This is the second time I’ve had a notice, but what sucks about this one is that they are just blocking my video. The other video that received a notice had Queen’s Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon, but Universal Music Group just put a Google ad next to that video, which I believe is fair.

Now I’m a proponent of protecting other’s art, but this is silly. This video with the Weezer song has 130 views, most of which are my family and probably 100 of those views are from my daughter. No one is watching us in this video for the Weezer song. If anything my daughter is probably now a Weezer fan because she’s watched this video so many times the song is burned in her brain.

This is why the music industry is failing and it’s not the artist’s fault. Well, maybe it’s partially the artist’s fault. They don’t need to sign with these major labels once they reach critical mass.

RSS Ads Are Funny

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:49:00 +0000

Now that Digg injects advertisements into its RSS feed, I’ve been noticing some funny headlines accompanied by even funnier ads served by Google. Like this one…

Big 3 U.S. Automakers Must Contract

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:36:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a pure business-related post. Maybe because I’ve been bogged down in petty office politics lately, or maybe it’s just that I don’t have an active start-up I’m working on, but whatever the reason I’m compelled to write about what’s going on with Detroit.

I watched the Senate hearings with the Big 3 CEOs this evening. I don’t fully understand the auto industry; however, I think I have an opinion on what the U.S. automakers could do to regain their strength and begin to grow again.

Back in the day when Matt Thompson and I used to do The Cubicle Escape Pod, we talked a bit about the book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. My favorite was the Law of Contraction. The law states, “a brand becomes stronger if you narrow its focus.”

I’ve been preaching this theory at work amid the credit crisis that directly affects our business. Our product line is too big, too confusing to customers and too difficult to sell. The cost of acquisition is way more than it needs to be. Everything involved in the pitch is twice as long or big as it should be–collateral, sales pitch, etc. I think the same holds true for the American auto manufacturers.

In the book, Chevrolet and Ford are case studies for the Law of Expansion–creating new brands to cross market segments. But what Ford, GM and Chrysler need to do is contract their brand. In short, stop making a million different models of cars with a billion options for each model. Not only is the brand diluted, but the quality of the cars has to be diluted as well.

I have a radical idea (and it most likely will never work)… Ford needs to reinvent itself by devolving. Go back to basics. Produce a single hybrid vehicle. I’d call it the Model H. Any color you want, as long as it’s black. Pour billions of dollars into creating a single, extremely energy efficient car with roof-mounted solar panels for small electronics and all the advanced technologies we’re seeing in luxury cars. My theory is, if all your R&D spending, production costs, marketing costs, etc. focus on a single brand and model, you can produce them inexpensively, and sell them way cheaper than Japanese and European cars and make it up on volume.

What do you do with fleet sales, trucks, etc.? Law of Expansion, my friends. Create new brands and deal with those market segments as entirely different subsidiaries.

Steve Jobs installed a similar strategy when he returned to Apple and look where Apple is now. Jobs looked at every product in the lineup, made the tough decisions, cutting confusing model lines (Performa, Quadra, Centra, blah, blah) slash popular cult-like products such as the Newton and boil it all down into the famous product quadrant–four products to rule them all. Apple turned itself around and then branched into consumer devices like the iPod.

Yes, this is a crazy idea that probably wouldn’t work with the complexities of the auto industry, but the bottom line is that the U.S. auto makers have to do something drastic and must act soon. These companies aren’t making products people want to buy anyway.

The taxpayers should not bail out these terribly ran companies in the auto and airline industries. We need to force these companies to become smarter by letting them stare down the barrel of failure. Every once in a while a business is faced with making big bold moves that changes the landscape of an industry. All three U.S. automakers are in a position to flip the model upside-down. Who will do it?

Not What It Seems

Jonathan Brown — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:02:00 +0000

For a while I’ve had ongoing conversations within my group of business friends about core businesses. The conversation goes like this: companies say they do Y but act like a company that does Z. It’s a discrepancy in perception (or public relations) and actuality (which usually isn’t so public). I was reminded of this topic this morning when I read a message from Hugh MacLeod, who said that Wal-Mart is a tech company. Very true.

I replied to him with my two favorite examples: Amazon.com is a tech company and Fandango.com is a research company (try it… http://fandangoresearch.com). I have more… AAA is a research company, NASCAR is a marketing platform not a sport, etc.

I’ve had a few conversations about the core business of the company I work for and it’s always a very enlightening discussion. I wrote about one such encounter with the Chairman of the Board. His version of reality was very different from mine — wishful thinking on his behalf. He thought our core business was a call center of 30-some-odd people who take care of ‘customers’ who call in for assistance. The reality is that we are a company that creates products for banks. Our ‘customers’ are banks. People who call to consume our services are, for lack of a better word, 3rd party to us — they are our customers’ customers. We keep them happy so our real customers don’t leave us.

Only recently has this core business idea been challenged. It took a completely objective executive consultant to dispel the call center myth. Apparently a lowly Director in IT knows nothing about business . Needless to say, there have been a lot of frank decisions that are disruptive, but necessary if this company has any chance of getting out of the roundabout (Look kids… Big Ben. Parliament!) and on to bigger and… uh… other things. But the company is thirty-one years old! It’s taken thirty-one years to understand the core business!

The first time I hinted at this subject was in a meeting two years ago for marketing’s ‘web strategy’ initiative. Their goal was to align our business with the Interwebs, thinking it was a platform to save us money by allowing more self-service.

Wrong! Go straight to jail, do not pass GO.

Self-service and decreasing operational costs, yada, yada, yada are sometimes an affect of a decent web strategy, but should not be the cause. With all of the functionality they wanted to throw onto our website, I made the following flippant, but very serious comment…

“I’m all for turning us into a technology company, but has anyone asked our clients, customers and vendors if they actually want this functionality on our website?”

After a few seconds of silence, someone asked why I thought this would make us a technology company. The answer was simple. In order to deliver the amount of sophistication they wanted on a website, we would have no choice but to outsource it for millions of dollars, or become a technology company. Since no one was willing to spend millions of dollars for the functionality, it was inevitable if we headed down that path we would indeed become technology focused. Which again, I was completely cool with that idea.

While I’m sure it pissed them off that I was questioning their work, the result was effective. The ‘web strategy’ project was pulled off the table only to resurface about six months ago with a narrower, more focused scope. They realized technology was not our core business.

Prior Art

Jonathan Brown — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 02:36:00 +0000

Last Thursday I received an email from a friend, George Colombo, that pointed me to an article that Apple had filed a patent for “customized podcasts.” I was immediately surprised and dismayed, quite frankly, because my business partner, Matt Thompson, and I had actually developed the technology (we called it Modcast) and implemented it on our former podcast, The Cubicle Escape Pod, back in June 2005. I wasn’t miffed at Apple for filing the patent, though with very little research they could’ve figured out there was prior art, but I was upset because I started to have second thoughts and regrets about why we didn’t push our concept harder.

To be fair, we weren’t the only ones doing it back then but I believe we were the first to do it specifically with podcasting and custom personalized feeds. Also in fairness to us, we tried to push the idea by building a few websites around the concept including The Cubicle Escape Pod, BrainDumpTrivia.com, and our last attempt, InkOutLoud. Hell, we even got a little press on our concept thanks to MIT’s TechnologyReview.com. But I can’t help but think that perhaps we gave up too soon on the idea.

When we first hit upon the idea, we thought about patenting it, but on top of lawyer fees and the expense and tenacity it takes to go through the patent process, we decided to settle on a trademark (which we eventually let go as well). At the time, the advice we were hearing was to go through with the patent process. However, as a software guy, patents bug me.

What Modcast did, in my opinion, was nothing special. It was a concept, not a technology. The underlying technology was no different than merging two text files or copying & pasting two paragraphs together. What was fascinating about the technology was its infinite possibilities. And we struggled with it. It was almost overwhelming to Matt and me. While we could, and did, easily create a few different services based around Modcast, it was very difficult to explain. We found it difficult to wrap our heads around the concept beyond what we knew it could do, and because of that, we found it difficult to talk about it, nevermind package it in a friendly manner for others to use.

However, all that aside, we knew we were on to something that could’ve been huge, but well aware that we were ahead of the times. I guess we didn’t have the stomach or the energy to will our idea to a mass market. And, really, that’s what entrepreneurism is — the faith that what you’re doing is the most important thing in the world.

So while it’s tough to read stories like this (which I decided to comment on and to my surprise had a few people back me up, including Emile Bourquin, who happened to cover what we were doing back then on his podcast, The Podcast Brothers), we must swallow our pride and hope that level heads prevail and Apple is denied this patent. Ultimately, it’s just wrong and by no means an invention but the gradual evolution of media.