The shiny new gizmo effect: growth predictions and the reality of new products adoption rate

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Forecasts on new markets are like vacations in a foreign land you have little information or experience about: the only sure thing is that the experience will not be like you thought it would.

When a new market is created, especially in the tech world, it is always very tempting to assume the best. It is tempting to assume people will jump on this new product or service as quickly as early adopters (they will not, that is why we call the others “early adopters”). It is equality tempting to assume that mainstream users will be as excited about this product benefits as you are. It is also quite optimistic to assume consumers will prioritize the purchase of this new gizmo or service over the many other gizmos and services they already know and want to buy.

Years ago, in a previous professional life, I saw a cool new device: the Tivo set-top box. Everyone in my company (Philips Electronics) was super excited about the concept, and explosive growth was expected. The reality was very different and the early years growth was painfully slow. It’s only when Direct TV integrated TiVo in their satellite box, a device users were going to get anyway is they wanted to subscribe to Direct TV, that TiVo reached a growth inflection point.

Since then I’ve seen this over and over again, and the dynamic is often the same: If your new service or product requires users to buy something that has no connection with anything you already own or want, it will take a much longer time to gain market acceptance. Unfortunately, “expert” forecasters will almost always miss this and will generate nice charts with big growth that will never happen as planned.

Let’s take a recent example: smartwatches.

When the first smartwatches came out, then the Apple Watch, the industry was buzzing about it. It seemed like it was as great a new product category as the smartphone had been when it launched. When I analyzed this, I just could not see how a device that had “diet smartphone” capabilities, was expensive for what it could do, and needed to be recharged every day could be appealing.

Back then (2014) I saw this projection and could not believe it. So I kept the link and left a note to myself to check the real numbers a few years later to see if indeed I was misunderstanding a genuinely booming new category… or if once against pundits were over-optimistic.

When I went back to look at it in 2016, the smartwatch market is clearly not what was predicted. Look at these two forecasts. The first one is from October 2014 (check the URL name), the other from December 2016. Back then the estimated market for smartwatches by the end of 2016 was more than 70M units a year. It’s effectively less than half of this, which is the numbers the forecast initially predicted to be reached as early as early 2015. A two years delay for a three years forecast!

www.businessinsider.com/the-wearable-computing-market-report-2014-10
Estimate: >70M smartwatch sold in 2016

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December 2016 forecast:

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What does this tell us? It boils down to three aspects:

  1. New markets are extremely hard to forecast and, more often than not, pundits forecasts will be more on the optimistic than on the realistic side.
  2. New products require users to get used to the idea of needing and buying this product. Unless you have an incredible value proposition (and even then: see the TiVo example above and this was a pretty good value proposition when you have ads every seven minutes on TV!), it will take quite some time for the adoption curve to go beyond the early adopter’s segment
  3. To accelerate or even trigger the growth of a new product for a new use case (whether to address a real customer pain or just to offer a cool experience that will make life somewhat better) it’s much smarter and quicker to attach this new feature to a product you already want or, even better, need (like the STB for the Direct TV / TiVo example).

Another good example of the latest is the personal universal translator that Microsoft Translator enables with its new live feature. Of course, we initially thought about building a dedicated Star Trek looking (or Babelfish looking!) devices just for this scenario. However, bundling the feature in a smartphone and tablet app (the Microsoft Translator app) and a browser (http://translate.it) to leverage devices and apps users already had and were already using was a much faster way to speed up adoption. But what made the feature really take off was to offer it as an add-on to PowerPoint to be used for a clear use-case: real-time presentation translation (http://aka.ms/presentationtranslator)

Are they counterexamples? You bet! However, even seemingly overnight successes are often closer to matching points 2) and 3) above than you may think.

Take for example the Amazon Echo device powered by Alexa AI. It sold quickly and to many people and it was a totally new product category. Or was it really a stand-alone new product category? If you think about this product a bit more:

  • It was offered at a lower price to existing Amazon customer: the Amazon Prime members. These people were already Prime members, Amazon fans, and these members primed the pump on device sales (pun intended!)
  • It offers a speaker-like feature. A user that is looking to purchase a Bluetooth speaker could pay (back then) $100-$300 for one that only does this… or $180 for an Echo. Quite an easy choice
  • With Amazon Prime Music, Pandora and Spotify, the most popular music services are available on Echo. If I am already a customer of one or more of these, the Echo is a simple extension to better enjoy something I am already paying for.
  • Ditto if I use Hue lights, a smart thermostat, etc.

What is your perspective on these points? What has been your experience dealing with third-parties forecast on new markets you were entering?

How to run a small non-profit core processes on virtually no budget? Part 2

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Once the base storage and communication processes are in place (see part 1), the next step is, arguably, the most critical one: to optimize the communication with the organization’s supporters.

One key element that we quickly recognized is that people are different also in how they want their news. Some are more email centric (by articles, daily summaries or weekly newsletters), others are all about Facebook, other about Twitter or LinkedIn and some are still hard-core RSS fans. To ensure we would make it easy and effective for people to follow us we had to find a way to target all these in a way that would be effective.

4) Communication to major social sites (and newsletter)

To achieve this we are using a set of (still) free tools:

  • www.ifttt.com – which helps you build automated actions based on event
  • The RSS feature of wordpress.com
  • www.Mailchimp.com free tier of email campaigns

Here is how we set it up in a way that would allow us to post once and target all our digital presences:

  1. Post news on our wordpress.com blog
  2. In IFTTT, create 3 rules that will monitor new blog posts and post these to our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Profiles each time a new one is posted
  3. Use the capability of MailChimp to create an RSS-content based email blast. Once a week, MailChimp will automatically fetch all the new articles from the blog since last week and put them in a pre-formatted email (newsletter-looking) that will be then be sent to all the subscribers. Not only MailChimp will build and send the newsletter, it also manages subscriptions and unsubscriptions for us. A true zero-touch newsletter.

    We even used out ufeseattle.org domain to build a friendly URL (news.ufeseattle.org) for people to access the customized sign-up page we easily built on MailChimp.

The only manual process is that there is no (or at least we haven’t found one) automatic way to post in a LinkedIn Group so this has to be manually done.  Therefore, to publish news the steps are:

  1. Create you blogpost, I personally really like LiveWriter as it’s super straight forward and easy to use
  2. Publish it
  3. Use the “share on LinkedIn” button of the published post to share it on UFE Seattle’s LinkedIn Group
  4. All the rest is done automagically: Post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Profile (not group), RSS feed, email for subscribers by email to the blog itself, and once a week a newsletter with all the articles in it.

However, as Facebook filters page’s posts and both Twitter and LinkedIn create very large news flows, it’s easy for people to miss some news.

Therefore, we are encouraging people to subscribe to the newsletter, the only way to ensure they will get the info and won’t miss it (unless they never read their emails of course Smile).

<to be continued>

How to run a small non-profit core processes on virtually no budget?

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A few years ago, a small group of us took the leap of faith and launched a not-for-profit organization to welcome, support, and foster the Puget Sound (Seattle’s region) French and French speaking community.

One of first thing we realized was that we had virtually no budget and very limited time to spend on it so I had to look for ways to achieve a few key goals we had set for ourselves:

  • Communicate broadly on the various media our community was using, whatever they were, in a way that was as cost and time effective as possible
  • Ensure communication was simple within the board and that this communication was archived as board members churn was expected over time
  • And finally, find a way to share content of all sort with our community.

After some tests and trials and errors we converged, thanks to the help of a few free or low cost tools, to a solution that is scalable, fairly simple to maintain, and efficient from a cost and effectiveness standpoint.

I will now list these various tools within the context of the scenarios they relate to. The name of the non profit is UFE Seattle…

  1. Branded URL for UFE Seattle website and emails, including personalized UFE emails for the board or specialized services we may offer
  2. Email and content storage for the organization itself
  3. Website and blog
  4. Communication to major social media sites
  5. Then the rest, as it was coming up.

1) Branded site and email addresses.

This is the only actual spend ($25 a year) that we needed. For this amount we opened a GoDaddy.com account that provided us with the ufeseattle.org domain (with free URL forwarding), and as many as 100 free @ufeseattle.org forwarding email addresses.

That was easy.

2) Email and content storage

For this one, as a Microsoftie, the solution was quite obvious too: Outlook.com and OneDrive.com (at that time Live.com and Skydrive Smile).

The former provided us with an UFE email, the latter, with lots of free storage, to put events photos, documents we share with the community, but also private folders shared with the board or specific volunteers for any documents we had, such as our list of French speaking babysitters.

Using the GoDaddy feature of forwarding specific emails to multiple ones, we were able to create a board-level @ufeseattle.org alias, by just having this email forwarded to all the board member’s own @ufeseattle.org alias. This also allowed us to use a simple contact (at) UFEseattle (dot) org email address instead of having to use the Outlook.com address itself.

Then, with a simple rule in Outlook.com, each email sent to this board alias is automatically moved to an “archive” folder in the organization’s outlook.com email. This allows each new board member, at any time, to go back and check every single email the board exchanged from the association launch to his or her arrival. An easy and effective way to get more context on previous discussions.

3) Website and blog

For that we went with the free WordPress.com sites. Not only it allowed us to create a blog (with its automatic sign-in for email alerts when new posts are published) but also a set of webpages with different type of relevant information for our followers.

What was trickier to manage was the lists (Addresses, etc.) that we wanted to build. As we started these were small and we needed an easy way to update them. Always updating a WordPress page was not the most effective path.

The solution to this was a small “hack”.

Indeed, a OneNote online can be private, shared or made totally public (read-only). So, from a user standpoint, pointing to a OneNote page online is just an (oddly looking) webpage. Check this out for instance: http://adresses.UFEseattle.org

<to be continued>

Cooking hacks

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Hacks, or how to achieve good (not bad, not great, but good) results in an innovative, perpendicular or out-of-the-box-thinking way has moved from programming to other domains.

Life hacks are one of them. Cooking hacks too.

I love tasty and healthy food. I don’t mind cooking. I actually like it as it’s really relaxing to me. But, sometimes, if I could go 90% of the way quality-wise, but having only a portion of the work to do or time to spend I would definitely do it.

Here are three of these hacks that will bring you 90% or more of the way with a fraction of the effort (but not always total cooking time!) in term of your own time.

Hash browns waffles

Hash browns can take quite some time to cook, and you need to stick around to ensure they don’t burn. Here is a nifty trick: use your waffle maker for cooking hash browns!

  1. Shred your potatoes, season them.
  2. Fill you waffle-maker with the mix and cook them until there are nicely brown and still a bit moist inside (7-15 min, depending on your waffle-maker)

Because each dent and bump (the waffle shape) is heated, each shred of potato will cook, while none will be burned (well, unless you forget it in the maker).

Additional benefits:

  • Cool waffle shape, you can serve them as-is, fill them with things (scramble eggs, meat and veggies stew, sauce, etc), cut them in half diagonally to make them look even better, etc.
  • Replace a part of the potatoes with other veggies (I like zucchinis) for an even tastier and healthier version
  • No fat necessary with a non-stick waffle maker (but I personally like to “butter” the maker with duck fat, just for flavor sake)

Slow-cooker Beef Bourguignon

A beef bourguignon is usually done in 2 steps:

  1. Brown your beef cubes, onions and carrots
  2. Add wine and simmer at very low temperature for 3-4 hours.

Here is a simple hack:

  • do 1) in a pan, deglaze with wine,
  • then put the whole mix (beef, onions, carrots, herbs, wine) into your slow cooker. Come back 6 hours later to perfectly cooked (i.e. melting in your mouth) beef Bourguignon. No need to watch it at all.
  • The only little extra work you may need is to boil the sauce a few minutes in a pan to thicken it.

This is a great hack for a workday dinner parties. Just wake up 30 minutes earlier, do 1) and the dinner is ready when you’re back (and the house smells awesome! Winking smile).

note: it’s very important to brown the meat first as this action develops (caramelization and Maillard reaction) lots of flavors.

Rice-cooker Risotto

Similarly to the Beef Bourguignon, just brown your veggies* and a bit your Arborio (risotto) rice in a pan, then transfer it all in a rice-cooker filling it with a bit of white wine and chicken stock.

* My personal favorites are: Porcini or Chanterelle mushrooms, zucchinis (they will disappear in the process, melting with the rice this way children don’t even know they’re eating veggies), onions, garlic, red pepper slides.

No need to steer and add water every few minutes. It will come out creamy (thanks to the Arborio rice starch) and ready to eat 20-30 minutes after.

Note: you may need to add a bit of stock or water at the end before serving to release the creaminess of the meal as the rice cooker will have evaporated a lot of the moisture. Just pour a bit of the liquid in the rice cooker, stir and serve (with Parmesan of course).

If I find other hacks I’ll share them with you and if you have other ones feel free to add them in comments!

How SAAS in driving parallel changes in organizations business processes

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SAAS, or cloud business in general, is profoundly changing business dynamics. I won’t go into details as these changes are really well documented.

The one element, though, that I haven’t see mentioned so far is that it’s interesting to see how all the traditional business functions have all evolved from discrete time and objectives-bounded activities (with a clear start and finish) to more continuous ones.

Engineering, sales and marketing all have embraced models where their core business processes (product development, marketing campaigns, sales engagement) are now continuing much farther than what used to be their end point.

In product development, it’s well known that Amazon engineers are on pager duty to be able to jump on and fix the code they write if an issue is reported. On the other side of Lake Washington, under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has eliminated its 30 years old model of the Developer-Test-Program Manager trio for a dual Dev/PM one where engineers are responsible to code and fix their features (vs. throwing it to test/QA for them to see if it was working correctly).

Similarly, sales for cloud solutions now involve moving from mostly hunting, to hunting and nurturing deals. This is necessary to ensure that, once deployed, customers are fully satisfied and continue (and hopefully increase) usage of the service vs. cancelling their subscription after only 3, 6 or 12 months. My good friend Jacco van der Kooij just published a great book going through the best practices relative to how to design your sales teams for a SAAS world so I won’t elaborate further. If you are interested in sales-related aspects for SAAS businesses I advise you read it’s fascinating book “Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization”.

Finally, Marketing has slowly evolved in this direction of continuous campaigns as well. From a classic prepare-launch-move to the next product launch, marketing has evolved to a continuous process too. Now, campaigns never end but go up and down in intensity (you never want to let the wheel stop spinning), where people move from product launches, to regular content publication, to social engagement, to the next minor or major upgrade of the product, etc. Maybe the term “Go To Market” is not the more aft to describe what’s happening anymore. Maybe Go and Grow To Market? (GGTM).

Either way, this also has, similarly to what’s happening in the sales and engineering organizations, impacts on roles, organizations and metrics. How are you adapting your metrics to these changes? In particular when a particular one (say webpage impression, app downloads or service trials) is a combination of a business as usual result with several marketing activities running in parallel.

To conclude on these parallel changes, an amusing analogy is that all the core business processes, as we moved from installed software to cloud based one, have on their end evolved from discrete digital-like activities (1,2,3…) to more analog-like continuous ones. Or from distinct Qantas to everlasting Waves, for the physics geeks amongst us.

A first look at Amazon’s Echo

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After months of wait our Echo finally reached the Fontana household last week. As a Prime subscriber it was so inexpensive ($100) that I did not think twice about whether I needed it or not. It was just a fun thing to test. (note: it’s now back down to $150 for Prime Members, $200 else).

Here are my first impressions 10 days into it…

First, if you are not familiar with Echo, think of it of Jambox, meets Siri/Cortana, meets an embedded music player.

Now for more details…

The set-up is really simple and straight-forward, similar to the Chromecast one. You plug it in a power outlet, go to the Echo setup site, sign-up to your Amazon account, connect to the Wi-Fi network your echo broadcasts, enter your home Wi-Fi credentials and that’s it! Echo will then be online and you will control it from your browser (or Kindle Fire app) via the cloud and Amazon backend (see diagram below).

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Now what can you use it for?

First, it’s a fairly good wireless speaker (hence my Jambox analogy) with really good 360 degrees microphone (it also comes with a wireless remote with microphone on it for when you’re really far from it. But so far at up to 5 meters it works great).

It connects to and plays your music library on Amazon (whatever your bought plus uploaded on Amazon cloud storage music service), Prime playlists, Pandora channels, TuneIn radio stations and iHeartRADIO. Just wake it up by saying “Alexa”, and then say “Play” and what you want to hear. My first attempt, just to make our youngest happy, was “Alexa, play Taylor Swift”. From that moment on she was hooked on Echo! (our youngest, not Taylor)

After 10 days this is by far (80%+) how we use use Echo the most. Just as an easy to use media player+speaker. Which is already really nice and worth the $200 current list price. You can also control and search music from the app or a browser if needed.

Other scenarios that Echo enables (as of May 1st 2015…):

  • Ask a random question: “What is Barack Obama’s age? “, “ How many people live in Washington state”, etc. It’s similar to what you would do with Siri or Cortana but – at least for Cortana- with an even lower success rate unfortunately. It’s a V1 product so let’s be patient here… There are also a few Easter eggs (such as “who’s your daddy”, but not as funny an answer as with Cortana) if you want too look for them.
  • Ask about the weather forecast or traffic on your commute
  • Ask about sport results
  • Ask Echo to tell a joke (another favorite of our youngest!)
  • Set a timer (only one so far)
  • Set an alarm (only one so far, and not possible to chose anything specific –like music- as an alarm sound)
  • Add something to a to-do list. A plain list you can print. That’s it. Not super useful alone, but potentially a nice back-up
  • Add something to a shopping list. It’s one plain list too so I don’t plan to use it to replace the current per-store list I maintain on a family OneNote, but it’s a nice add-on for when you hands are taken while making food and your don’t want to forget to purchase a missing item.

On the last one I finally understood what was in it for Amazon with Echo: under my shopping list item a “search on Amazon” was displayed on the web interface. I was able to click to get on Amazon’s search results, select, purchase and got it delivered for free (remember, I’m on Prime). Very smart move from Amazon! image

Following this I tried to purchase some music directly from Echo. It worked..ish. I finally was able to purchase it but it took me maybe 15 tries before I found the right way of asking for it. Still some progress necessary here though the concept is interesting (especially for Amazon top line). Nice little security feature: you can setup a pin through the web interface. Pretty useful if you have little kids at home I think.

The full web interface:image

You can also set Echo up as a IFTTT.com channel. It’s brand new (and the channel is called Amazon Alexa, not Echo) and has some nice potential. However, for now, it only supports your Echo to-do and shopping list . For instance, each time a to-do is added in Echo, it can be added to your OneNote (or Evernote). Ditto for shopping lists. You can also trigger an email to be sent time you say “review my shopping list” on Echo. The full list of IFTTT triggers supported so far is:

  • Asking Echo what’s on your to-do or shopping list
  • Each time an item is added, edited, completed or deleted on your to-do or shopping list

Finally, Echo supports Bluetooth connections with phones, tablets or PC. Not only it’s a cool feature on its own but, if worse comes to worse, you can repurpose it as a Jambox-like device and stream music or anything from your device to Echo. One feature I’m missing though is the ability for Echo to support the headset Bluetooth profile to be able to use it’s amazing microphone array and good speaker as phone or Skype external speaker and mic. Something my Jambox can do.

A nicely done Echo demo video

Echo’s site: http://smile.amazon.com/oc/echo/ref_=ods_dp_ae

What PC should you buy?

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Having been in the technology industry for so long, and specifically Microsoft for the last 10+ years, I often have friends, family or even random encounters at social gatherings asking me about which device they should be buying. With the launch of the new Surface 3 this is even truer than ever.

So, if you are in the same situation, here is the types of questions (and my answers) I usually ask people to help them make their choice.

Disclaimer: I’m talking here about Windows devices. Even if Macs are actually really good Windows machines, my focus will be on the Windows ecosystem. You will also see that my guidance is more about form factors than actual devices (with the exception of the Surface 3 pro that I call out by name as it’s -so far (may 2015)- quite a device type on its own).

To help people chose I usually start with the following questions. Unfortunately, with 4 questions and not being on a simple 0-10 axis, a simple 2-D graph cannot be used to directly map the answers to a particular device. Still, answering these questions should help get someone to the best possible device for his or her needs and budget.

  1. What is your budget? A $300 or a $2000 target budget modifies the options quite a lot!
  2. What apps do you plan to run on it? How much storage would you need? (I bundle these because apps –like video editing- will influence storage needs)
  3. Do you think your needs will evolve quickly in time? (particularly useful to go either the cheap and change often or more expensive and keep routes, or to go for all-in-ones vs. desktop one)
  4. How do you plan to use your device? (in % time for each usage)
    • At a work desk (when you know you’ll have access to (a) large display(s), keyboard and mouse, maybe wired Ethernet connection)
    • On a table (be it in your kitchen, at Starbucks, on a touch-down space at work)
    • In a plane – working
    • In a meeting (presenting and/or taking notes)
    • On your coach at home, on a plane entertaining yourself, on a treadmill – all types of “content consumption” scenarios.
    • Other modes?

I will use this framework applied to a few particular scenarios to show how I come to my conclusions. No rocket science here, just a bit of structure.

But first, let me list what are the devices form factor options:

  • Traditional desktop machine, whether a low, mid or high-end one.
  • All-in-One integrated Display+PC
  • Traditional Laptop (touch or not)
  • 2-in-1 Laptop (that can convert from Laptop to Tablet either by folding or removing the keyboard
  • Surface-like device: a Tablet with an good Laptop-like keyboard and stand experience
  • Tablet (of various sizes, 8” to 12” mostly)

Usually, question 4) is the one to get started with: how will you use your device the most?

Here are a few scenarios:

  • A: A typical knowledge worker, I’m working most of the time on my office desk with my large 23″ display but I regularly go to meetings where I present and/or take notes. I also need to be able to works for several hours in a row on my laptop when I travel. Finally I seldom use it as a passive consumption device, except maybe in the plane. I don’t really run CPU-intensive apps (like CAD, Video Editing, development tools…) but I often have multiple apps open and running such as Outlook, OneNote, several Browser tabs, Skype or Skype for Business (or both!), PowerPoint, etc. I have a typical corporate budget for this machine.
  • B: I mostly work at touch-down spaces or at Starbucks. I do lots of my email and prep-documents reading while on my treadmill or watching TV in the evening. I don’t want to spend much on this device.
  • C: I’m a stay at home mom. I don’t really have a desk so I need to bring my machine from a storage place (shelf…) to the dinner table. I don’t really use it for any content consumption, mostly to take care of kids and house stuff so my typical apps are my browser, Word, Outlook, Skype and I love to have some music playing in the background (Pandora, Spotify, etc.) while doing this.
  • D: I travel a lot, use my “free” time (such as plane rides) to code some new cool tools for my product, and like to watch Netflix in bed on my device. I can spend around $1,500, give or take a few hundred dollars.

I could probably come up with another dozen examples but these should suffice to explain the thinking and decision process.

Scenario A:

Assuming I have a decent budget (~$1,500-2,000) in this case I would advise a mid to top of the line (i5 or i7, 6-8GB RAM) 14” touch laptop, with a SSD drive, with a USB 3.0 port replicator and large displays. Here is the rationale:

  • I’m working most of the time on my work desk with my big display => Need to use both my internal display and an external large display(s) therefore a PC with a graphic card powerful enough to drive this/these display(s).
  • Regularly go to meeting where I present and/or take note => Avoid laptops with display sizes >14” else it will be too cumbersome to walk around with.
  • Need to be able to works for several hours from the laptop when I travel => Need good battery life (so SSD definitely better than regular HD), and a display large enough that it is not too strenuous on the eyes. I personally find 13.5-14” to be a good size/legibility compromise.
  • Seldom use it as a passive consumption device, except maybe in the plane. => Don’t really need a Tablet mode. Therefore, 2-in-1, Surface-like and Tablet computers are therefore not necessary. However, if I do use it to consume content on a plane I definitely don’t want a display larger than 14” (unless I can convince my boss to always fly me business Smile)
  • I don’t really run CPU-intensive apps (like CAD, Video Editing, development tools…) but I often have multiple apps open and running such as Outlook, OneNote, several Browser tabs, Skype or Skype for Business (or both!), PowerPoint, etc. : Lots of editing, so I want a real full-fledge keyboard for my travels (for meetings a Surface-like keyboard could suffice but if I do a lot of data entry I’d rather go for a real keyboard), and enough memory and CPU power to have all the apps opened at the same time.

Scenarios B: Mostly work from my laptop

A 13-14” 2-in-1 would be probably the best option for this person. Alternatively, depending on the budget, (s)he could also go the 2-devices route with a cheap 8-inch tablet (such as the Dell Venues) for content consumption, and a regular low to mid-end laptop for the rest.

  • I mostly work at touch-down spaces or at Starbucks => A real laptop is needed to get a decent sized display and a real keyboard. However it should not be larger than 14” for portability reasons.
  • I do lots of my email and prep-documents reading while on my treadmill or watching TV in the evening => 2-in-1 to be in Tablet mode for your treadmill/TV, or buy a second, inexpensive, 8” tablet.

The beauty of this 2-devices solution is that even a cheap $200 Windows 8/10 tablet supports all your PC apps and can be used as a spare device (in case of problem with the first one), or for “just in case” times when you don’t want to carry your main machine (weight, size, risks of being broken or stolen) but where a 8” tablet, maybe with a small mobile keyboard, can work good enough for a little while. You can even plug this tablet at home or work to an external display, a keyboard and a mouse and use it as a full featured –though not very powerful- desktop PC!

Scenario C: Stay-at-home mom

A 14” to 15” low to mid-range laptop is probable the best bet.

  • I don’t really have a desk so I need to bring my machine from a place I put it away to the dinner table. => Need a laptop/Tablet/2-in-1, not a desktop or all-in-one, to be able to use it around the house then store it when done.
  • I don’t really use it for any content consumption => No real need for a Tablet or 2-in-1.
  • mostly to take care of kids and house stuff =>  No need for high-end device CPU, RAM and HD-wise
  • I don’t want to spend a lot => An inexpensive (<$500) laptop would be sufficient here. 14” or 15” will provide her with enough screen real estate to work comfortably and as weight and size is not an issue, would cover her needs from a mobility standpoint.

Scenario C’: What if she does want to do the same plus lots if content consumption (web, videos, etc.) while not on her kitchen table?

In this case, as content consumption becomes important, a device like the Surface 3 (not Pro 3) would be a good bet if the display size (10.5”) is sufficient. Affordably priced ($500), she could use the nice type-cover keyboard, or if she wants a cheaper/better one use any $20-$40 Bluetooth keyboard. This Atom-powered Surface 3 and its small display could be the best compromise in this case. However, this won’t work if the 10.5” display size is too small.

The alternative in this case, for probably a total budget of $100 more or so than a Surface 3 + keyboard, she could also find both an inexpensive Laptop and an 8” tablet and buy both. The obvious advantage of the 1-device (Surface 3) solution being that if she also plan to carry the device around this is a much more convenient (keyboard, weight…) solution than the 2-devices one.

Scenarios D: The road-warrior

For this scenario, depending on the user, either a 2-in-1 or Surface Pro 3 device would be the best bets.

  • I travel a lot => Has to be a light device with good battery life.
  • Use my free time (such as plane rides) to code some new cool tools for my product => Powerful (i5, i7) machine. Not an Atom processor. Also a real keyboard. I can’t use an onscreen one only.
  • Like to watch movies in bed on my device => should be able to easily go into tablet mode.

Depending on the person own preferences or priorities (including budget), the scale will tilt towards the 2-in-1 (potentially larger display, better keyboard, potentially lower cost) or a Surface Pro 3 like device (weight, width, ratio consumption/production of content). Either one of them could them have a docking station/USB 3.0 port replicator at home or work for desktop-like usage. A nice icing on the cake.

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits all device. That’s one of the reasons I prefer the Windows ecosystem to the Mac one. Scenarios, budgets, etc. all have influence on what the best device is. Hopefully the framework above and the examples I gave will help you find you “perfect” device(s).

If you have a specific scenario not covered here and you can’t figure out what to buy using the framework above, leave me a comment and I’ll try to help you figure this out. Just answer the questions 1 to 4 above first.

La valeur n’attend point le nombre des années

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I recently witnessed some great leadership behavior from our 10 years old and thinking about that the next day this 400 years old quote from Pierre Corneille, “la valeur n’attend point le nombre des années » came to mind.

In a nutshell, it means that you don’t need be all grown-up to display your ability to impact the world around you, i.e. to display your ability to lead.

Let me rewind a bit to explain myself here.

A few months back our family started an informal “family game night” where we would spend an hour or so playing different fun games (cards, board…) together. Our youngest loved it the most and, as other day-to-day priorities took over in the new year, she started to remind us that we were late for our monthly game night.

What came after this, while not earth-shattering, was to me a display of leadership skills that our daughter intuitively demonstrated on a topic close to her heart:

  • First, she gave herself a clear goal: get these family game night back on track => goal setting
  • Then, she decided to come to us with a choice of possible dates for the game night on little cards for us to fill. => strategy definition (made us chose the date but not whether we’ll do it), hard work (made those hand-crafted voting cards), communicate (went around giving them and explain what was expected from us)
  • When several of us did not reply she came back, and went out of her way (such as picking the card I had left on my desk upstairs) to ensure we were filling them out => determination, focusing on getting what she needed even if it meant going the extra mile
  • She then tallied the results => Did the grunt work
  • Called-up a “family meeting” to discuss the results and offer 2 options for the night (once again, not doing it was not an option) => results and action oriented, communicate directly
  • When we pushed back on length, hour and day, she took all our inputs in without missing a beat and then adapted to offer a new option => listening to feedback and focused on a pragmatic solution to reach the goal not on her particular way to reaching it.
  • And finally got us to agree on the day and hour => drove to decision and action.

Thinking about this as I wanted to praise her on this great work she did leading this to resolution I realized she had been intuitively going through steps many leaders take years to recognize:

  1. Decide on your goal
  2. Select and build your strategy to get to this goal
  3. Communicate and get feedback
  4. Work hard
  5. Come with a clear action plan
  6. Get feedback and drive to decision
  7. Execute.

Interestingly enough, two days later I stumbled on this article and found several similarities with what she displayed: www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130822180103-15454-a-short-story-about-leadership

I quote the beginning of this article: “The Less Simple Formula for Assessing Leadership = Identify the Problem, Find a Solution, Develop a Workable Plan, Inspire Others, Deliver the Results”

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The secret of success in 3 min 30 seconds?

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This great (and short!) 2005 TED talk from John St. John about what many successful people told him over 7 years of research and 500 interviews.

Nothing earth-shattering per-se but a great summary in less than 4 minutes.

In short here are his 8 points:

  1. Have passion for what you do: Do it for love of it not of money
  2. Work hard, but on something you like doing and have fun doing
  3. Good: become really good at things through practice, practice, practice.
  4. Focus on the one or few things that you can really move
  5. Push: push yourself. Physically and mentally.
  6. Serve something of value to others
  7. Ideas : be creative, listen, observe, be curious, ask questions, make connections…
  8. Persist: never give up, even through failure or naysayers.

Enjoy!

ps: Once you’re there, you might want to watch his 2009 follow-up TED talk on how to remain successful (tip: don’t fall asleep at the top!)

The promises of Brain science

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In the last 15 years (or so), brain science has significantly improved our understanding of how the brain really works and is capable of from an adaptability standpoint.

One of the most interesting discovery, I think, was that what used to be thought as a fixed-capabilities organ, always getting worse after 18-20 years old, is actually an extremely plastic one. Recently again (December 2013) an Ideacast episode (the Harvard Business Review podcast) on reducing stress with mindfulness – i.e. mediation-, and how it can also help in business settings, was highlighting how mediation can physically changes how the brain is wired.

It would have been thought as heresy to think the brain could have such plasticity even 20-30 years ago. At least for the non-specialists.

For those interested in learning more, here are a few books I read on the topic the last 5 years that are definitely worth reading.

For instance, Brain Rules, talks extensively about how the brain works and how this could be used to change the way classrooms and office are designed. The key elements I got from this book were that:

  • The brain is wired to work better when exercising (think about our ancestors walking in the savanna for hours to find a prey to hunt), hence exercise is good for the brain… and we should be working at our computers while being on a treadmill! You can even buy these workstation treadmills on Amazon now! 
  • It takes up to a decade for short-term memories to become genuine long-term memory
  • Emotions and feelings heighten our learning and memory capabilities (do you remember where you were and what you were doing on 9/11? I certainly have a vivid recollection of this meeting room in Eindhoven I was in when I learned the news).
  • and many more interesting facts

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
ISBN: 0979777747
ISBN-13: 9780979777745

Another one, Management Rewired, although a bit long winded and going through many detours, uses what has been learned about how the brain works to come with interesting points about why feedback and praise don’t actually really work and then contributes some thought-provoking ideas. For instance, it advises to let someone do something we know is a wrong approach or idea, then cut the reward associated with it thereby indirectly demotivating the person to do this again.

Or, on the flip side, that the best way punishment works is by not giving it. That the positive impact of not giving it when the person expects it was much more important that the one coming from a praise or reward (unless the reward keeps on increasing, which is a tough one to achieve!).

Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn’t Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science: Charles S. Jacobs: Books
ISBN: 159184262X
ISBN-13: 9781591842620

A third one, Buyology,  examine the human brain mechanics as it applies to the science of selling and advertising. Also based on the latest research on brain science and a little bit scary sometimes as advertising and manipulation can easily become close cousins in the wrong hands.

Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy: Martin Lindstrom, Paco Underhill: Books
ISBN: 0385523882
ISBN-13: 9780385523882

Finally, moving from books to marketing consultancy, a company like Studio B, also leverages these developments in brain science to help company develop better white papers, leaflets or even PowerPoint presentations.

Interestingly enough many of the points they advocate on their website, match with the philosophy of presentations that Jerry Weissman has been teaching for 20 years. The difference being that his teaching are based on experience as a TV producer not brain science. Still the conclusions are very similar in many aspects.

I find this change from a “computer” modeling of the human brain I grew up with, to the re-discovery of its very special way of functioning fascinating. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 years we teach us in that front. What I’m sure of is that Ray Kurzweil and his assumption (in his book “The singularity in near”) that within 20 to 30 years computers will be able to simulate a human brain, and even the whole humanity, in a computer the size of today’s laptops is totally unrealistic.