Twitter BESTS Facebook

Here are six reasons why Twitter bests Facebook and we ain't seen nothing yet:

- Unadulterated News & Messaging 
Twitter is where you can hear it from the President's mouth or the Kardashians or anyone else for that matter with no media bias and filtering (their very mission is information sharing), while Facebook is often about reposting stories, pictures, and videos that we find of interest already on the web. What's even more amazing is that anyone of us can tweet back to @realDonaldTrump or @SpeakerRyan...that is some unbelievable access we now have. 

- Speed of Information To Market
Twitter is now considered the fastest way to get the latest (and greatest) on what's happening.  From the US Airways jet crash into the Hudson River to up-to-the-minute updates on the Mumbai terrorist attack. You could even watch the election debates or the Walking Dead and get a real-time running commentary. 

- Our Very Social Identity
Twitter is now part of our very social identity, so that everything from our blog writings to our resume has our Twitter handle. Mine is @AndyBlumenthal.  

- It's Populism As A Movement
Twitter, while not technically as popular in terms of number of users as Facebook, is more popular in terms of the cultural impact. Politicians are putting out policy debates online and fighting it out there too, while celebrities and athletes are sharing personal updates, and the world is truly communicating directly and succinctly in 140 characters or less what's really important to them. 

- Operating On A Global Open Platform 
Twitter feeds are open to anyone who follows them and tweets are searchable on the web as opposed to Facebook which is predominantly a closed system to the web and you've got to be "friends" to get the real scoop with someone. Whether the Iranian Green Revolution or the Syrians Being Bombarded in Aleppo it's open and on Twitter. 

- Get Your BIG Data and Feed Your Artificial Intelligence
Twitter has about 500 million tweets a day or about 200 billion a year.  Even pulling out the ridiculous "What I had for lunch today" tweets, there is still an unbelievable amount of data to mine for analysis and artificial intelligence. Talking about a potential treasure trove of information and sentiment from over 317 million users, and computer algorithms are already churning through it to make the big data intelligible and usable for decision making. 

Certainly Twitter (and Facebook) need to get their virtual arms around fake news and profiles, but the good thing about it is that others can call b.s. as soon as they see it in 140 characters or less. ;-)

(Note: I am so impressed with Twitter's prospects, I am putting my own money where my mouth is.)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Twitter BESTS Facebook

A New Type Of Chocolate Chips

Ok, dieting is hard enough with all highly processed junk food out there these days. 

And everything is carbs, carbs, and more carbs...it's literally poison for the body. 

But when you go into the store and see Lays chocolate covered potato chips...this just brings you to the verge of sin. 

The top are milk chocolate covered potato chips, and the bottom ones are dark chocolate covered ones. 

Choose your poison?

This is definitely a new type of chocolate chips...Hershey's eat you heart out. 

I told my wife pleadingly, "Can't I just taste one?" ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A New Type Of Chocolate Chips

We All Have It In Us

So this is a very cool sweat jacket with the Superman and all look. 

We all like to think of ourselves as possible superheroes. 

Whether we dress the role or not, the most important thing is acting it. 

Every day, we face circumstances and decisions and we have to decide whether we rise up to the occasion as the superhero or we acquiesce to what's easy or lucrative and do the villain thing. 

From the time we are kids, we glorify the superheros not just for the awesome cool powers they have, but for doing something amazing to help people and the world with it. 

Somewhere from being a kid to a grown-up, many people end up letting go of that superhero dream as they face the harsh realities of life everyday. 

But deep down inside all of us is that superhero!

Good over evil is not just a story for children's bedtime or imagination, but it is our battle to be fought and won--that's what a good life is for those that never lose their fundamental beliefs. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

We All Have It In Us

Best Bag 2016

Just wanted to share this photo of this great bag that I saw on the street in Downtown, DC.

While it wasn't the largest or most functional...

I really liked the design, colors, and all the pockets. 

A little military looking, contrasted by the rips, peace sign, and swirl made it even cooler. 

For some reason, I don't think you can get away with wearing it to the office though. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Best Bag 2016

A Matter Of Hair

I saw these ladies crossing the street in downtown DC.

The standout here was obviously the hair!

The girl on the left had Barbie pink hair. 

The one on the right had blond dyed hair with the roots showing. 

And the lady in the middle had two-tone hair, with brown on one side and blond on the other (now that was really different). 

This reminded me of the hippies' hairstyle in terms of the perhaps rebellious nature of the style. 

In Judaism, I remember learning that hair is like the crown on a person's head, and for modesty, the custom is for married women to cover their beautiful hair--it is only something that gets shown/shared with her husband as part of their intimacy. 

Hair can say a lot, especially if you are fortunate enough to still have some (lol). 

It can be uncombed and messy like a mad professor's, finely brushed and cared for like Trump's, or even transplanted to cover the onset of unwanted bald spots.

Like a horse's or lion's mane, hair frame's a person and can make the plain or even unsightly, more attractive and desirable; at the same time, if not properly cared for and groomed, it can make a person look disheveled and even crazy.

Of course, hair is just what tops off the person and is only skin deep, so looks (including hair) can be defining or oh, so deceiving.

Hair or hairless, groomed or gross--it's a reflection and a statement of how we're looking to each other. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Matter Of Hair

Superman Leadership

This guy's socks were very cool.

If you can say that socks make the man then perhaps this is it.

Superman that is!

No special shirt, underwear, or cape required--the socks communicate it all. 

For the man of steel or one in the making (if worn at workout time).  

Then again, I was trying to imagine someone actually having the guts or nuttiness to wear these to the office.  

If they would, it probably be with the following in mind: 

I can do anything helpful to get the job done--

1) Rolling out cutting-edge systems and business process improvements faster than a speeding bullet

2) Creating positive change more powerful than a locomotive

3) Able to leap with integrity over organizational obstacles, red tape, and naysayers in a single bound

It's a change consultant. It's a corner office bureaucrat.  It's a "superleader!"

Up up and away...it can be done (even without the socks). ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Superman Leadership

Jet Bluing Around

(Source Video: Andy Blumenthal)

Jet Bluing Around

Liking My New Computer Tie

Funny..."Load Your Preferences." ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Liking My New Computer Tie

Why Do People Take The Cheese Off?

So my question of the day is why do people feel it's okay to take the cheese off the delicious macaronic AND cheese?

While I understand that it is the best part, isn't just a little bit of antisocial behavior that would drive people do something like this and leave everyone else with just the noodles underneath...

Anyway on the way back, one of my colleagues stopped me in the street to tell me some philosophy of life about how love makes the world go around, but revenge is the axis it turns on. Ouch@!

Perhaps this is April fools day making people a little snappy today. 

One last thought is from episode last week on The Vikings (great show on the History Channel)--excellent battle scene, but also memorable when the one of the characters says "Bad news travels a great deal slower than good news."

Maybe that's why no one told me before about the missing cheese on the macaroni today? ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Why Do People Take The Cheese Off?

Looking Forward, Backwards

Farhad Manjoo argues in today's Wall Street Journal that "there's plenty" of innovation going on, despite the grumblings that their isn't.

His main argument is that "the smartphone and the tablet 'are' the next big things."

Manjoo tells us to "grow up" and calls us "spoiled children," because we are not satisfied with these and simple future enhancements of this. 

He would have us accept that there won't be "anything as groundbreaking in a generation." 

Well, looking back at past innovation and calling that as our current and future innovation is like looking back at our past successes and simply resting on our laurels as good enough.

Unfortunately, no business can rest on their past successes--they must constantly innovate to stay relevant in the marketplace and meet their growth targets for revenue, profit, market share, and customer satisfaction.

As they say in financial prospectuses, "past success is no guarantee of future success."

Similarly, as individuals we do not just settle for past success, but we strive everyday to make a contribution, to learn, and to grow as long as we have the strength to try.

When we stop striving, we may as well be heading downhill in the cycle of life, because as we all know, "if you are not moving forward, then you are moving backwards."

Life is not stagnant, and yesterdays innovations are not todays creative breakthroughs or tomorrows leaps forward.

The rate of innovation is no longer measured in generations in the 21st century--and for those who think it is, they would have us accept defeat in this highly global, competitive marketplace. 

While we should not be greedy, why are we so ready to say good enough, instead of really critiquing ourselves (e.g. calling a dry spell, a dry spell) and continuing the tough journey into the future. 

At least Manjoo cites incremental work in privacy, enterprise technologies such as cloud computing, and robotics as tech trends - so maybe there is still hope. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Looking Forward, Backwards

Get Yourself An IT Management Agent

Management agents are not just for Hollywood stars anymore...

Bloomberg BusinessWeek (10 April 2013) says really good freelance application developers are now being represented by IT Management Agents.

One such agent company is called 10X and they represent more than 30 IT stars.

The management agent helps the developers find jobs, negotiate salary and terms, and handle the paperwork letting the IT guys do what they do best--which is code!

10X takes a 15% cut of their client's earnings, but some developers claim 2-3 times the salary they were earning before by using an agent--and rates are climbing to $300 an hour.

Some companies are using these premium talent coders until they can bring on a full hire or when they need some big guns for some special IT project. 

Perhaps with agent in tow (and even without), IT folks will start to shed their outdated nerdy image and instead take on some real Hollywood glamour--for the talent they really do bring to the organizational table. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Get Yourself An IT Management Agent

Cafe Barbie Debuts 2013

What an awesome idea for a cafe that can appeal to girls and women worldwide--a Barbie Cafe.

It opened in Taiwan last week and it is licensed by Mattel the founder of Barbie dolls (1959).

At 7,100 square feet and with $1.7 million dollars of investment, you get a lot of Barbie ambience--especially plenty of pink and frills (and calorie counting).

While some women may be turned off to the girlie stigma of a Barbie Cafe, there are probably many others who are enchanted with the dreamy image it bring from childhood and the ability to express a certain femininity, the Barbie way.

My prediction--in the near future, there is going to be a Ken Cafe opening up right across the street. ;-)

Cafe Barbie Debuts 2013

When Incremental Improvement Isn't Enough

One of the things that I love about the Intelligence Community (IC) is that they think future and they think big. 

Noah Schactman in Wired Magazine (12 December 12--great date!), gave a snapshot view of 2030 as provided by the National Intelligence Council (NIC). 

Some of the predictions (or aspirations) include:

- Bioprinting such as creating 3-D printed organs (how's that for your orchestrating your own organ transplant?) 

- Retinal implants for night vision thermal imaging, seeing the distance without binoculars, or even one-upping Google Glass by providing augmented reality in your eye instead of over it

- Brain chips for superhuman thought and recall (those without remain doomed to brain farts, in comparison)

- Bioweapons where DNA is used to target and take out people by genetically engineering viruses to attack them, specifically, without leaving any markers

- People embedded in machines--reminiscent of when Ripley in the movie Alien enters in an exoskelton robotic suit to kick some Alien butt!

Other predictions include: megacities, climate change, big data clouds, aging populations, and more drones. 

While some of these advances are incremental in nature--for example genetic engineering and bioweapons are incremental steps from DNA sequencing of humans.

However, other leaps are more dramatic.

An article by Stephen Levy in Wired (17 January 2013) discusses how Larry Page (one of the Google founders) strives for inventions that are magnitudes of  "10x" (often actually 100x) better than the status quo, rather than just 10% improvements. 

Google has many examples of leaping ahead of the competition: from its transformative search engine which has become synonymous with search itself to Gmail which came out with 100x the storage of its competitors, Translations for the entire web from/to any language, Google Fiber with broadband at 100x faster than industry speeds prototyped in Kansas City, Google Books providing a scanned and searchable archive of our global collection of books and magazines, Google+ for social media (this one, I see as just a Facebook copycat--to get on Facebook's nerves!), Google Maps for getting around, Android their open platform operating system for mobile devices, and even self-driving cars--many of these are developed by Google X--their secret skunk work lab. 

I really like Google's concept of going for the "moon shot" rather than just tweaking technology to try and stay ahead of the competition, temporarily. 

And as in space, there is so much territory to explore, Google believes it is attacking just .1% of the opportunities out there, and that the tech industry as a whole is attacking maybe 1% in aggregate--that leaves 99% or plenty of opportunity for all innovators and inventors out there.

To get to 2030 and beyond--we're just at the tip of the innovation iceberg! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

When Incremental Improvement Isn't Enough

Out-Tech The Competition

Talking with my daugter today, I learned that times have changed for our children and I realized for us as well.

It used to be that kids would work hard to out-dress each other--who has the coolest outfit, the shiniest shoes, even the best piercing, but now tech is outgunning fashion. 

In my daughter's school, she says it's no longer about clothes, but about tech devices--who has the latest iPhone 5, the iPad Mini, the thinnest laptop, the coolest apps, and so on. 

How you dress today is less important than what technology you use!

For us adults, this message was brought home by an article in Federal Times (5 Nov. 2012) entitled "Jeans and flip-flops at work." 

As the President of the American Federation of Government Employees Union Local 22 stated: "It's not about dressing up , it's about dressing down and allowing the creativity to flow." Similarly, the Director of Public Relations for Young Government Leaders was quoted as saying: "Today's young leader feel their work makes a bigger statement than what clothes they wear."
So the pressure is off with the dress code, but what about the technology your using?

Government Executive (1 Nov. 2012) in an article called "Technology Hand-off," points out the trend of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and as Darren Ash, the CIO of NRC points out "Apple just released the iPhone 5. In the Android market it seems like a new model comes along every month. We can't keep up."

And it's not just the CIOs that are screaming for relief from the incessant change and speed of technology change, everyone is constantly competing for the new technology...from waiting days in line for the next generation Apple device to doing a device refresh every 2-3 years on average, we are addicted to the "latest and greatest."

One CIO, who was the first in an agency to get an iPad, took it proudly to every meeting, especially in front of the executives--first it made him look very progressive and "with it," but then as the iPad envy set in, the whole executive leadership soon were carrying the devices as well. 

So out dressing the guy next to you is so blasé, now what's important is whether you can out-tech them!

Whether it's clothes or technology, the competition out there is fierce--and the cultural statement is clear--get with it or get run over by it. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Out-Tech The Competition

Technology Forecast 2013

I am an avid follower of everything technology and trends, but am tired of hearing about cloud, mobile, and social computing. 

It's time to get over it with the agenda of the past and get on with it with the future of technology. 

Here is my "Technology Forecast 2013" and the top 8 trends I see going forward:

1) Service Provision--Cost-cutting and consolidation into the cloud is a wonderful idea and it has had it's time, but the future will follow consumer products, where one flavor does not fit all, and we need to have globalization with a local flavor to provide for distinct customer requirements and service differentiators, as well as classified, proprietary and private systems and information. 

2) Service Delivery--Mobile is here and the iPhone is supreme, but the future belongs to those that deliver services not only to remote devices, but in wearable, implantable, and even human augmentation. 

3) Human Interaction--Social computing epitomized by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more is a cool way in interact with others virtually, but wall posts, email, and chats are getting cliche--next up conjoining with others with capabilities such as telepathic communication, mind melding collaboration, and even virtual sex for the outlandish. 

4) Robotics and Artificial Intelligence--With something like 10,000 drones flying the friendly and not-so friendly skies and even drones that autonomously land on aircraft carriers, the next robot is coming to the ground near you--drones will become (an)droids and will eventually have the AI to become part of our everyday society. 

5) Service Assurance--Enough playing defense with a sprinkling of offense against our worst enemies--it's past time to move from trying to stop-gap infiltrators and do damage control once we've been robbed blind, and instead move to a hunter-killer mentality and capability--the price of being a bad boy on the Internet goes way up and happens in realtime. 

6) Data Analytics--Big data isn't a solution, it's the problem. The solution is not snapshot pretty graphics, but realtime augmented reality--where data is ingrained in everything and transparent realtime--and this becomes part of our moment-by-moment decision processes.

7) Biotechnology--Biometrics sounds real cool--and you get a free palm reading at the same time, but the real game changer here is not reading people's bio signatures, but in creating new ones--with not only medical cures, but also new bio-technological capabilities. 

8) Nanotechnology--Still emerging, quantum mechanics is helping us delve into the mysteries of the universe, with applications for new and advanced materials, but the new buzzword will be nano-dust, where atomic and molecular building blocks can be used on-the-fly to build anything, be anywhere, and then recycled into the next use.   

Overall, I see us moving from mass produced, point-to-point solutions to more integrated end-to-end solutions that fit individual needs--whether through continued combinations of hardware, software, and services, man-machine interfaces/integration, and building blocks that can be shaped and reused again and again. 

From my perspective, there a seeming lull in innovation, but the next big leap is around the corner. 

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

Technology Forecast 2013

RIM Is Doomed

Judge David Young of Court TV has a frequent saying that "Denial is not a river in Egypt."

When it comes to Research In Motion (RIM) the maker of the traditional organization mobile Blackberry device, denial now seems on par for their course.

On Tuesday (3 July 2012), the new CEO of RIM, Thorstein Heins was quoted as saying "There's nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now."


Yet since Mr. Heins took over RIM in January, the company's stock is down 50% and is down more than 90% from it's mid-2008 highs.


BlackBerry continues to lose out to stronger competitors like the iPhone and Android. On May 25, Digital trends reported in an article called "Poor BlackBerry" on IDC's 2nd quarter 2012 marketshare numbers for Smartphones with Android at around 60%, iPhone at 23%, and Blackberry at a mere 6%.


Further the new Blackberry 10 has been twice delayed, and RIM announced it's first operating loss in eight years, as it plans to downsize 5,000 employees (or a third of its workforce).


In the self-help industry, it is frequently said that the first step to getting better is to recognize that you have a problem.


In the case of RIM--we are looking at a company that unfortunately is either playing it too cool to be real with their customers and the marketplace, or they are in a deep and dangerous case of utter denial.

Either way, unless RIM takes decisive action soon--and that means first and foremost, coming to terms with their predictment and second, coming out with some major new disruptive technology for the mobile marketplace--they are doomed to the annals of tech history.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Steve Jurvetson)

RIM Is Doomed

In The Year 2032 And Beyond

Trends help us to see where things are coming from and potentially where they are going.

There is a Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast for 2010-2015 that projects global IP traffic (voice, video, and data) and the numbers are ginormous!

Here are some highlights from their highlights for where we will be in only 3 years--by 2015: 

- Annual global IP traffic will reach one zettabyte (which is about 100 million x all printed material in the U.S. Library of Congress (which is 10 terabytes)).

- Devices connected to the network will be 2 for 1 for every person on this planet (and many people who live in 3rd world conditions do not have any devices, so what does that say for how many devices the rest of us have?).

- Non-PC traffic (from TVs, tablets, smartphones, more) will reach 15% and is more than doubling every year (makes you think about when you fridge and toaster are going to be connected to the Internet).

- Mobile Data traffic is practically doubling (or 92%) annually meaning a growth of 2,600% over 5 years (and according to the New York Times (5 Jan 2012) "The Top 1% of Mobile Users Consume Half of The World's Bandwidth" and the top 10% of users consume 90%!).

- Video traffic (TV, Video on Demand, Peer to Peer, etc.) will be almost 2/3 (or 62%) of all consumer internet traffic (and services like YouTube, Skype, FaceTime, Hulu are WebEx all play a role as we want to see as much or more than hear what is going on).

The takeaway for me from all this is that truly information transmission is exploding over the Internet, and we will continue to need more advanced technologies to "pipe" it all to where its going and do it faster than ever. 

However to build on these forecasts, over the longer term (further out in time, so more risky, of course)--say 20 years or so--some of my colleagues and I studying at National Defense University project the following:

- Rather than transmitting voice, video, and data over the Internet, we will be focused on transmitting thoughts (mental activity rather than spoken) and transmitting matter (like the Transporter on Star Trek).  

- Transmission of thoughts will occur in real-time, through persistent connections, probably implants in teeth, glasses, subcutaneous, etc.

- Safety and health will be monitored through these same "connections" and medicine or other physiological treatments for routine things will be administered remotely through the same.

- Education will be through instantaneous zaps of information to your brain (like in The Matrix) from a universal database, rather than through traditional in-class or online courses.

- Like now, the contextual policy and legal issues will be around privacy and security--and you will need to pay dutifully for each in a world where not only what you say and do, but rather what you think, can get you in lots of trouble. 

Okay, for these things to happen by 2032 is probably a little aggressive, but don't rule any of them out over time.  ;-)

In The Year 2032 And Beyond

Dashboarding The Information Waves

I had an opportunity to view a demo of a dashboarding product from Edge called AppBoard, and while this is not a vendor or product endorsement, I think it is a good example to briefly talk about these types of capabilities. 

Dashboard products enable us to pull from multiple data sources, make associations, see trends, identify exceptions, and get alerts when there are problems.

Some of the things that I look for in dashboard tools are the following:

- Ease of use of connecting to data 

- Ability to integrate multiple stovepiped databases

- A variety of graphs, charts, tables, and diagrams to visualize the information

- Use of widgets to automatically manipulate the data and create standardized displays

- Drag and drop ability to organize the dashboard in any way you like to see it

- Drill down to get more information on the fly 

While there are many tools to consider that provide dashboards, information visualization, and business intelligence, I think one of the most important aspects of these is that they be user-centric and easy to implement and customize for the organization and its mission.

When making critical decisions (especially those involving life and death) and when time is of the essence--we need tools that can be can be easily navigated and manipulated to get the right information and make a good decision, quickly. 
 

As a fan of information visualization tools, I appreciate tools like this that can help us get our arms around the "information overload" out there, and I hope you do too.

(All Opinions my own)

Dashboarding The Information Waves

The Soul of A Shoe

I took these photos today of a cross section of a shoe. 

I was surprised that this was all there was to it. 

So what costs $140???

A little cowhide on the outside, a little cushion on the inside, and a some rubber sole on the bottom. 

Add some eyelets and laces, and some stitching to hold it all together. 

While there are certainly lots of styles, colors, and sizes out there, most are sort of commoditized, boring, and non high-tech.

Where are those jet-powered rocket shoes they promised when I was a kid.

Come on Nike--"just do it."

The Soul of A Shoe

Moving Forward in Reverse

There is "more than one way to skin a cat" and there are those who take the high road, and others who take the low road to get to where they are going.

The Wall Street Journal (28 November 2011) has two articles this morning on how how reverse is the new forward.

"Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace" is about how "Top managers get advice on social media, workplace issues from young workers." It's a reverse on the traditional mentoring model where older, experienced workers mentor younger workers; now younger technology savants are teaching their older colleagues some new tricks.

According to the article, Jack Welch championed reverse mentoring as head of GE when "he ordered 500 top executives to reach out to people below them to learn how to use the Internet...fast forward a decade and mentors are teaching theirmentees about Facebook and Twitter.

Really this phenomen of learning from the young is not all that odd, when you think that many, if not most, of technology's greatest advancements of the last 35 years came from college kids or dropouts working out their garages and growing whole new technologies, industries, and ways of doing business.

Another article called "Great Scott! Dunder Mifflin Morphs Into Real-Life Brand of Copy Paper" describes how Staples and Quill have teamed up to market a new brand of copy paper called none other than Dunder Mifflin (from the TV show "The Office" now in its 8th season).

Here again, we are in going forward in reverse. "For decades, marketers worked to embed their [real] brands in the plots of TV shows and movies. Nowadays, they are seeing value in bringing to life fictional brands that are already part of pop culture."

This reminds me of when I started seeing Wonka chocolate bars--originally from the movie, Willie Wonker and The Chocolate Factory--showing up on store shelves.

Whether the young mentoring the old or fictional brands showing up in real life, changes that are the reverse of what we are used too, are not something to "bristle at", but rather are the new normal.

There are many ways to success and we will find them through creativity, innovation, and entreprenuership--any and every way forward.

Moving Forward in Reverse