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Articles I’ve read this week, 10.19.06

Here are a few articles I’ve just re-read during the commute to the office this week. (Not by car but via mass transit, a great alternative especially in wet weather.) Thankfully, most are available for download, making it easy to save for later reading on mobile devices.


Steve Clayton’s blog (MS), on Wired’s article Microsoft: where are we going tomorrow?


Speed Demons – BusinessWeek’s look at how smart companies are creating new products — and whole new businesses — almost overnight. Also of interest is the subsection on 37signals: Programming At Warp Speed: “The lesson: Create a simple product as fast as you can, then get feedback from customers and make it better.” By Steve Hamm, with Ian Rowley in Tokyo – March 27, 2006


Don’t Hand Me That Gu Ge – Forbes, August 14, 2006 – Google is searching for a winning strategy in China. Also see Schmidt Defends Google’s Cooperation With China from April 2006. 


Staying Cool At Nokia, By Jack Ewing, with Moon Ihlwan in Seoul – July 17, 2006 – BusinessWeek looks at “how new design chief Alastair Curtis keeps the hot handsets coming.”


Fast Company on Integrity Matters – “So say the folks who took our latest survey, by a huge margin. Too bad they find it in such short supply among today’s leaders.” From: Issue 98 | September 2005 | Page 52


The Elements Get Some Style – Wired, Issue 13.10 – October 2005. Philip Stewart, an Oxford ecology professor, has his improvement on the table of the elements, modeled after the Andromeda galaxy.


Meet Marvell – Forbes, August 14, 2006 – “It has quietly and ruthlessly become the superhero of the chip industry, thriving in every market it has entered and making its founders billionaires.”


Just Don’t Call It Retirement – By Sarah Lacy – March 06, 2006. A look at Carol Bartz’ retirement from Autodesk. I worked in the mid 90’s at Autodesk, in Carl Bass’ division, with Carol Bartz in the CEO slot.


BusinessWeek on The Plot To Hijack Your Computer – By Ben Elgin, with Brian Grow – July 17, 2006 – “They watch you surf the Web. They plague you with pop-up ads. Then they cripple your hard drive.” See Also Spyware Underground


PC Magazine’s The Worst Products of Q3 2006 – “Here’s a list of the worst products we saw in the third quarter of this year.”


Play By Play In Podcast – BusinessWeek, by Mark Hyman – March 13, 2006 – “First it was blogs. Now podcast mania is catching on quickly in the sports world. The PGA Tour has a podcast … sports talk fix. They can be found at the Web sites listed or at podcast clearinghouses podcastalley.com, podcast.net, and itunes.com.”


BW’ s Stephen H. Wildstrom on discussion on Net Neutrality in The War For The Net’s Future – July 17, 2006. Also Wildstrom’s podcast on Net Neutrality: “… phone and cable companies on one hand and big Internet players like Google and Microsoft on the other, want you to believe this is about freedom and innovation.”


How To Win at Everything – Secrets and advice from Americas biggest winners from Men’s Journal (August 2005). Of interest: the general positives that Lance Armstrong cites. In the same issue is an informative article on the “The Great American Checkup” by Chip Brown, which covers the exec checkup at the WellMax Centre for Preventative Medicine in California.


Here’s an excitinig job: Fortune on the Corporate bank robber (05.17.2006) – “It’s a fantasy job to rob a bank. It’s the greatest. I get hired by banks around the country to help tighten security policies.”


BW on Going Global For An MBA – Info on studying abroad, at international B-schools. By Jack Ewing, with Kerry Capell in London and Andrea Zammert in Frankfurt – March 13, 2006


Cleaning Up Boeing – Can outsider Jim McNerney rid the scandal-plagued aerospace giant of its rot? He’s off to a strong start. By Stanley Holmes – BW, March 13, 2006


Space: The Digital Frontier – Stephen H. Wildstrom looks at PC storage solutions. BW, MARCH 2, 2006


Fortune’s Real Estate Survival Guide – “Hear that sound? There’s an ill wind blowing through the housing market. Here’s what the end of the boom means for home values, the economy, and you.” By Shawn Tully, FORTUNE Magazine Senior Writer, May 11, 2006


BW’s Annual Tech Buying Guide Slide Show (November 7, 2005). It’s from a year ago, but an interesting list. Also see Dive Into HDTV, Music, Lights, Action With One Click, The House That iPod Built, The Call Of The Web Phone and High Tech For The Road.


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In the same issue of BW is “Mosh Pits” Of Creativity – Innovation labs are sparking teamwork — and breakthrough products. By Joseph Weber in Chicago, with Stanley Holmes in Seattle and Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles – November 07, 2005. See right for their “best practice ideas.”


PC Magazine on Windows Vista and your games – 07.12.06 – They “dedicated hours of playtime to the latest prerelease version. Here’s the scoop.”


In “Attention Technology Shoppers!” Jeremy Kaplan asks if you can buy good gear at big box stores, and takes a look at the deals and the chaff.


And from Business 2.0 Magazine…


The Business Traveler’s MacGyver Kit – “It’s cheap, compact, and filled with everything you need when things go wrong on the road. Pack it up, put it in your suitcase, and forget about it–until disaster strikes.”


How to build a bulletproof startup – Michael V. Copeland and Om Malik present their 16-step guide to help you turn a great idea into a great company. May 24, 2006


The Art of Shaving’s strategy: A cut above  – (06.22.2006) An article on the Art of Shaving’s flagship store in NYC.


Freedom of the Press – “Lulu.com founder Bob Young wants to liberate authors from the tyranny of the book-publishing industry.” By John Heilemann – May 18, 2006


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Wired’s “Rebuilding Microsoft” article now available

As noted in a previous post on Ray Ozzie on connecting with customers and partners, the article I mentioned is new up on Wired.com: 



Rebuilding Microsoft: Bill Gates is on his way out. Now it’s up to Ray Ozzie to revive the flagging giant — and get it ready for the post-desktop era. By Fred Vogelstein from Wired

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What I’m reading: Misc articles

Here’s a collection of recent articles I’ve read (or re-read) recently. I’ll post additional lists as I go through my reading folder (a plastic envelope that I keep around for articles I tear out for future reference). Some are old and from the archives, articles I’ve kept for future reference.


PCMag’s review of the Optoma MovieTime DV10 


Larry Magid’s DIY: Create Your Own Podcasts, Build It: Be Your Own Broadcaster  


Jim Louderback’s DVD Flambé 

BusinessWeek’s A Search Engine For Every Subject – Google and Yahoo rule, but a flock of upstarts is offering new ways to find info


Rob Preston’s article on Down To Business: The Age Of The Control Freak


InformationWeek’s 5 Ways To Get Vista’s Security Now  Windows Vista is months away, and so is the additional security it’s promising. Or is it? Why wait when you can give Windows XP a taste of Vista’s User Account Control protection now?


BusinessWeek’s Putting A Collar On Investment Risk, By Adrienne Carter – February 20, 2006 – Options-based strategies can keep stock losses from getting out of line


TV, TV Everywhere – InformationWeek , August 25, 2006 – While editing this week’s personal tech story about all the ways you can get video on your mobile device, I was surprised. I knew mobile TV was moving forward by leaps and bounds, but I had no idea there were so many different options available right now.


The Experts’ Guide to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL – 2005-09-14 – some of the gems each has to offer, by Sarah Pike


Webcam Home Surveillance  – By Warren Ernst 
Video conferencing, video chat, and video mail could take off for real one day, but the most practical application for inexpensive webcams may be to turn them into surveillance systems that let you monitor your home or office when you can’t be there yourself. Also see Home Surveillance from Your Office Chair 


Upsample Your Images – By Galen Fott (2005-09-14) Here’s how to get better prints from low-resolution images.


PivotTable Magic – By Ben Z. Gottesman – Exploring complex Excel data is easier with a PivotTable. PCMag’s tips show you how.


Tempted by the Apple By Bill Howard. “The dark side lured me in. At Apple.com, I clicked Buy Now, and a week after the product was announced, an iPod nano in Darth Vader black arrived. The decision wasn’t so much a previously unmanifested love for all things Apple as it was my recognition that the Windows side of the digital music player business continues to mess up so badly.”


Where I.T. Matters – In Baseline‘s fifth-anniversary issue, we look back over the last five or so years and examine 10 major industries to see how leading companies in each sector used information technology to boost not only themselves, but the entire market in which they do business. Also see 5 Most Important Technologies: Yesterday and Tomorrow, a look at the five technologies that had the biggest impact over the last five years, and the five that might have the biggest impact over the next five.


Can MTV Stay Cool? BusinessWeek’s By Tom Lowry looks at How CEO Judy McGrath must remake her TV empire for a digital world (February 20, 2006)


How we work  (09.07.2006) FORTUNE’s Corey Hajim visited entertainer Tony Bennett and his son, Danny, to find out how father and son work in harmony. Also see how BillG works in Bill Gates reboots  (07.13.2006).


The Real Reasons You’re Working So Hard… from BusinessWeek (subscription may be required) October 3, 2005. Also see Who’s Afraid Of Steve Jobs Now?, Less Could Be More At Microsoft, Managing Google’s Idea Factory (with Google’s Search for Simplicity as an online extra), Just How Innovative Is Google?


MySpace cowboys  (08.29.2006) Fortune looks at MySpace.com.


Texas Instruments’ lunatic fringe (09.01.2006) Fortune’s look at how TI searches for and encourages all manner of lunatics and visionaries.


Baseline Mag’s The Smartest 100 Companies of 2006 (2006-04-07). Also see Baseline’s 50 Fastest-Growing Software Companies, ranking the business software companies with the biggest year-to-year growth finds that eight of the top 10 offer software as a service.


BusinessWeek on Counting Every Last Eyeball – (JULY 31, 2006) Jon Fine on how Nielsen’s new ad ratings will change the feel of television as we know it


Businessweek on Tech Toys for Today’s Kids – Christopher Palmeri reports on how toy companies can’t rely on old standbys anymore. Most children want playtime gadgets that light up, play music, and connect to the Web 


Forbes on Attack of the Blogs (subscription required, November 14, 2005) – FORTUNE Magazine reports on how blogs “destroy brands and wreck lives. Is there any way to fight back?


Fast Company on Six Sigma Stigma By Martin Kihn (2005-09-01). Ask Japanese carmaker about Six Sigma, and you’ll be speaking Greek to them.


Forbes on The Centenarian Diet (November 14, 2005). Also see Want To Live Forever on how researchers are unlocking the mysteries of aging, and 15 Ways To Live Longer


Twenty Years of Windows (2005-10-12) – Michael Miller from PCMag visited Microsoft’s headquarters “to talk with the team behind Windows—to get reflections on the key moments in its evolution, its position in the market today, and what lies in store for its future.” Also see the q&a with Bill Gates on Windows Past, Present, and Future 


Toyota’s Driving Force – Baseline reports on how Toyota has used business process management—powered by information technology—to eliminate waste, limit inventory buildup and continually improve production. The bottom line: Toyota is on track to become the world’s No. 1 automaker.


Keeping a Safe Distance from Microsoft by Lee Pender. ISVs need to stay close to Microsoft — but not too close. Here’s RCP’s article on how to be an effective partner without giving away too much.


Redmond Channel Partner Online | Feature: Strike It Rich: How Partners Can Tap Microsoft’s Upcoming Releases Now (2006/08/01)

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Of interest for fliers: New FAQ from the TSA

Courtesy of Slate.com, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has updated their FAQs for airline passengers, with the updated new rules on what you may and may not bring in your carry-on luggage in the States:



“The rules are so new, and were apparently assembled in such haste, that not even TSA seems very clear about what they are. The FAQ reprinted below, copied on Aug. 10 from the TSA Web site, raises nearly as many questions as it answers. The FAQ has since been redesigned (click here to see it), with one feature that allows readers to request updates and another that invites readers to vote on how responsive a particular answer is.”


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Back on the Customer Satisfaction blog

Back on the blog, after being AWOL the last week or so unexpectedly.

Last week I was out of the office and off the broadband loop due to a death in the family. Why is this important for the blog you ask? One of the reasons I do what I do was in part related to the relative who left this mortal coil, and the impact he had on me as a customer and consumer of our products.

It sounds silly, but it’s true.

My wife’s uncle was a warm-hearted and friendly person. He was open and thoughtful, and more than anything loved to keep in touch with his family. One of the ways he accomplished this was via email and the Web, and he was a consumer and user of our products. I was amazed that this man in his 70’s was so proficient on mail, and used it regularly. For me, he was also a great source of feedback when it came to our products, what people were using to share pictures and the trouble that many people of retirement age run into when using new technology products. From him, I took away valuable insight on the difficulty of navigating site logins, Windows error messages, network configurations and choosing the right peripheral for the job.

Oh yes, and I also found him a great voice of reality when it came to many of the things we take for granted, like sharing photos on the web. Something that should be a fairly straight-forward process of sharing family photos turned out to be one of those things that required the intervention of a younger person (his son) to set up and view the photos we posted to a popular, free sharing site, as well as on our MSN Spaces. I think that we were able to get him on to our photo site after two or three attempts and a couple of tutorials.

This wasn’t due to the fact that there was a configuration or systems problem: it was because the user experience wasn’t straight forward enough.

Everyday it seems that people forget that when you’re knee deep in high-tech, software and services, we live in Oz: the streets are gold in the Emerald city (that’s Seattle), that we all know how to use all of our various products, we remember all the sites to get more information and how to configure our systems remotely. Sometimes, people forget that there are so many customers living in Kansas (or a small town in Florida, as was our late uncle’s case for the winter months) who have a hard enough time figuring out how to manage their computer back-ups, network security and protect themselves from ever-present phishers and pirates.

What I have been impressed with is that at MS, we have many people who know what it’s like to be a customer and a partner – we’ve certainly hired enough of them in the last few years (I’ve been both in the corp world, for 17+ years prior to coming to MS five + years ago). Many new and old employees know and remember what it’s like to run into a software glitch, a poorly designed dialogue or get yet another confusing message, and they work hard to make sure we fix the problem when we run into it or many times fix the issue before it leaves Redmond.

I’ll spend more of my entries over the next few weeks highlighting some cases where we have been doing well, some of the areas where we’ve fixed issues, and some areas where we have room for improvement. If there are products or areas that you’d like to see highlighted, please let me know, either by email or comments: I monitor the feedback on my blog (and so much of it is spam, I don’t allow it to be posted without review).

For now, I need to go and talk to my 8-yr old over dinner about how he’s using the Office Live beta for his summer art project.

 

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