Today I sat in a meeting and listened to a fellow named Craig Mathias delve into what the wireless and mobile enterprise landscape looks like today. Craig is a wireless analyst that writes for NetworkWorld and is a principal at Farpoint Group, a wireless advisory firm. 

He had some very interesting things to say, but one fact really stuck out and caused me to remember a story I had once read. 

About a year ago my book club read Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. It’s a non-fictional tale of two unrelated men brought together by the unlikely pairing of innovation and murder. Typically I avoid non-fiction books when reading for pleasure, but I was surprised at how good this story was.

Guglielmo Marconi was the grandfather and inventor of wireless communication. Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen was a cold hearted murderer who killed his wife and neatly disposed of her bones. The hunt across the sea for Crippen and justice ran from Europe to Canada, and received incredible media attention, due mostly in part to the Marconi wireless transmissions sent back and forth between the law enforcing vessels and the mainland. As the chase for the criminal ensued, the entire world was kept abreast of the story’s development. It was one of the first exercises in truly ‘breaking news’ and the globe was collectively gripped with enthusiasm and suspense. 

Capturing lightening and sending electrical currents across the Atlantic through expanses of cable was a tangible reality; scientists could both physically and psychologically grasp a wire and its conductive properties. Wirelessly transmitting messages, on the other hand, was another matter entirely. The idea of harnessing a lightening bolt must have sounded utterly ridiculous. But after years of constructing ludicrously tall towers, spending tons of money, failed patent applications, experimenting with boats on the water, sheer luck and trial and error, Marconi the perseverant Italian finally achieved the impossible in September 1895. 

Throughout Craig’s brief tutorial, he mentioned that we are all use the same big wireless in the sky. It dawned on me that this was the very same wireless that Marconi toyed with over 100 years ago and caused the world to unite and watch a murder chase develop in real time.

We’ve come a long way since then. To think that Marconi’s faint morse code messages traveled across a very narrow-band signal, which today has been broadened and can transmit speech and even music at an incredibly quick pace.

So much has changed in 100 years - yet despite technological advances -it is still the same big wireless up there. Which I find oddly comforting.

I went to Dreamforce ‘08 yesterday - it was the 6th annual Salesforce.com user conference in San Francisco. It was a monster.

The keynote room easily accommodated over 2,000 people. And my colleague confirmed the stage, lighting and sound system was top of the line and probably cost Salesforce.com dearly. Somewhere in the $500k range.

Listening to Marc Benioff on the keynote stage and sitting amongst the Salesforce.com hanger-oners, the excitement in the room was palpable. Actually, the attendees were more than excited to hear what the CEO had to say. I’d go as far as saying it felt like a rock concert - one where your favorite performer is a prima donna that takes their sweet time to come out and sing/perform/keynote. (Ironically, Marc had the Foo Fighters perform on the evening of Dreamforce’s first day)!

And the attendees’ enthusiasm is not without reason. Salesforce.com has done a lot of good for many. Throughout the event, the loud and clear message was that Salesforce.com is more than a CRM company. They are more than a SaaS company. They have morphed into an impressive, attractive and intuitive platform, upon which many companies have built a business.

Now if they can just do something about the company name…

I have been thinking lately about what I’d like my dream browser to do for me. On a personal computer, I’d want one for work and one for play, and be able to choose between the two depending on what I was trolling the web for. That doesn’t mean I want to use two different types of browsers - but rather the ability to create multiple profiles on my browser that I can log in and out of.

This profile would retain all of my passwords, bookmarks, plug-ins and favorites. I’d want to be able to access all of these settings unique to my browser profile from any computer. And when I was finished using it, I could simply close out of that profile, and the next person using the computer would log into their own.  If a guest using my computer to have a fresh, customizable browser for their own use, devoid of my preferences.

So if someone could cook that up, that would be greeeeaaaaaat.

I posted a little while back about the ‘tech tutorials’ I was conducting for a couple of friends interested in learning more about the industry. One of my pupils attended the Cloud Summit Executive last Tuesday and wrote an article about her experience for Thalas.

I’ve re-posted in here for your enjoyment. Yay Char!

The Cloud & Thalas

This week, Techweb launched The Cloud Summit in Mountain View at the Computer History Museum. This seminal event brought together those in the industry ready to take businesses of all sizes to the next level of performance. Thalas was there to see if tech is keeping up with our vision of a viable future. We were not disappointed.

What is THE CLOUD? Long gone are the days when a definition must precede a movement. The Cloud is a perfect example of how innovation cannot wait. The tools, the definitions, the users and the clients served come together like a bolt of lightening, illuminating possibilities. The cloud is currently without a simple definition, though its power is obvious. It is a concept so powerful Dell wanted to trademark it and Microsoft and Google are racing for dominance within it.

The Cloud is going to change the way you do business. It is going to make sense all of those group projects you did in school. All that talk of collaboration will apply in the real world in a way that it never has before. The community is coming back together. No more isolation. All for one and one for all, we can create together! The in-house server is gone. The software updates simply appear. You and you colleagues are left alone to do what you do best as a cohesive group. The stuff you don’t do well is now handled by someone else, in a space from which you can retrieve it when you need it.

What is your business like today? Your product is great. You and your team believe in it and you want to get out to the consumer. Your company allocates a significant part of the budget to a tech department to set up your software and keep it current. Then you have your sales force and you have to maintain your records. Your little company with a great product becomes a company spending half of it’s energy running an HR department, keeping files organized and your central hub is feeling smaller everyday. What about your product? After a while, you can’t remember why you wanted to have a business in the first place.

What does life in the Cloud look like? It is a magical place where all of your documents are stored for later use. You are in San Francisco and your VP is in Hong Kong. You are editing the same document in Google Docs at the same time while you talk on Skye. You’re on Google Chrome, and tab over to check out your sales data on Saleforce.com. You are at a café while this is happening. You don’t have a central hub. You have thousands of users but your company doesn’t have a server. You don’t need it. Your whole company lives in the Cloud. All of this is happening over your phone. Which is fortunate for your newest hire, which is in Latin America and has never owned a PC. She doesn’t need to and isn’t missing a thing.

What does the Cloud mean to Thalas? It means we can do what we have been doing, only faster and easier. We have been working as independent thinkers with specific skills and talents that make a solid, balanced team. But it took time and energy to get those files transferred. It took all of us extending beyond what we love to do into areas we are not as strong. Sure, it is good to test one’s abilities and do what has to be done for the sake of the company. We are all willing to do that. But how wonderful will be it be when specialization and collaboration finally gels? When it reaches that level where we are doing what we love and are good at all the time? This is the foundation of Thalas. To be able to do what you love to do with other people who are doing what they love to do. A place where you might work long hours but those hours are fun and exciting. A space where you are living out your purpose and appreciated for your unique abilities.

Thalas wasn’t waiting for the Cloud to revolutionize business. Thalas is on the cutting edge of changing the business model through helping people tap into the sweet spot.  It is that spot where what you love to do meets the things you are good at, combined with what people are willing to pay you to do. Thalas has been helping people find that spot and live in it. The Cloud will help all of those people work together in ways they never have before.

Whatever you call it - a Call for Participation, a Call for Speakers, a Call for Abstracts or a Call for Papers - it’s important for a company looking to gain mind-share to do it right.

One of the biggest questions I hear from tech companies trying to propose a speaker candidate is ‘What topic should we submit on?’

My answer is always the same. What are you up to? Why is it exciting? What can you contribute to the bigger conversation? A good way to approach this is to pretend that you are the industry talking to the industry. Instead of gloating that my company achieved ABC by doing XYZ, remove the company ‘we’ pronoun and propose an idea from 1,000 foot view.

Man or woman behind podium armed with PowerPoint is zzzz.  Attendees are more interested in different formats. Fireside chats, interviews and customer / case studies are all more engaging than the podium man. If you empower the audience with a back channel of some sort, all the better. Conferences these days are a two way conversation and the folks in the audience are just as entitled to voicing their opinions as the featured speaker.

When in a session, one always checks to see who is speaking and which company they come from. Just having a representative of your company speak at an event provides instant thought leadership credentials.

I went to KMWorld in San Jose last week. Amongst the vendors I found an intriguing gem on the Expo floor. Cognitive Edge have forged their way into a niche field where I’m sure few others have.

Tying together cognitive science and social behavior observation, they are a consultancy service that embraces an open source approach. I realize I’m creeping steadily into New Ageiness, but bear with me.

One of their staff members gave me this analogy. Specifically within the context of mergers and acquisitions, folks at the top of the food chain are far removed from the reality of the success or (usual) failure of the business decision. By framing a simple question to those more closely involved in the day-to-day of the merger or acquisition, Cognitive Edge relies on research to gather information and get to the heart of the issues. The simple, unassuming question of ‘What decisions did you make today?’ allows patterns and meaning to emerge.

Cognitive Edge employs a software suite that provides tools to create a metric for the data and create meaning for their clients. For example, if the employees kept using the same words to answer the question, those words would be tagged and weighted, depending on their significance. Through this process, Cognitive Edge can produce an analysis that standard surveys cannot.

Why is that? For starters, pointed questions in a survey format always infer something, and at times they cause the participant to answer in a way that favors a positive result. However - this won’t improve the bottom line of a company - only the truth will. Writing an answer to a question also removes a social barrier. Once can sit comfortably behind the anonymity of written word, as opposed to speaking one’s thoughts out loud in front of an audience.

I’ve greatly over simplifed what Cognitivie Edge does, but if you’re still with me and I’ve piqued your interest, read more about their work in these articles by Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge’s Founder and CSO.

I was recently asked by my employer to conduct an interview about myself. It’s a subject I know well. I consider myself an expert. I said yes.

Some of the questions were thought provoking, and I wanted to post my answer to one question in particular.

Many of my friends and co-workers have told me that they’re repelled by sales. Too much pressure. The goal. The deadlines. The cold calling. Yuck.

Yes - those are all part of the job. But for those that think a salesperson’s career is best left for another to battle, I urge you to marinate on the below….

Name three things about working in sales that makes your job exciting.

1. I love that technology is always on the brink of innovation. You can never know all there is to know about tech, as it’s constantly evolving.  I have the opportunity to speak with different organizations every day about their business, their goals and what new product they’re developing. It’s never a static conversation.

2. Being in sales means that you are your own small enterprise. Although I have one definititve goal to hit, the way in which I reach that goal is up to me.

3. My job is about more than closing a sale. It’s an exercise in relationship building. Establishing rapport and trust with a client allows me to evolve from just another sales rep to a valuable parter.

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Apologies in advance for this little rant. I need to get this out. I’m starting a movement.

Regardless of your vertical, function or company, chances are you get a lot of email. Some of it (dare I say the majority of it) is not essential information. Why has this become acceptable? Sending frivolous email has become de rigueur. Has anyone else noticed?

Emails arrive in a variety of ways. Small groups threads, individual messages and team aliases all pepper my in-box. Replying to a question sent to a large email thread with another question isn’t helpful. Answering a question with another question simply breeds more confusion.

When I write to several people in one message I try to use their name to direct my comments directly to them. When possible I provide a suggestion to steer them in the direction I think is best. I try to be helpful. Provide insight. Direction.

Here are my 3 steps to make life better:

1. Writing out a message that describes a problem and asking for help should be step 1 of a written email.

2. The often omitted but equally important suggestion and/or resolution to the problem should be step 2 in the process.

3. Then, before sending, double check to whom you’re sending. Step 3 is to ensure that all recipients need / care about what you’re writing.

Help me start this movement. Tell your friend, co-workers and loved ones. Viva la Revolución!

I am excited. Two very good girlfriends of mine have asked me to help them out.

One of them is a coach - her offer is diverse, and her clients are varied. She provides guidance on intercultural leadership and communication, corporate management and team building, family coaching, one-on-one career coaching and successful generational wealth transfer.

The other is a lawyer. She is a partner at a small employment firm and manages not only other attorneys but a large case load.

They’re both super clever and I have a lot of professional respect for each of them. Both are interested in learning about technology in a broad-based way because they want to diversify their careers and have asked me to provide instruction. Not only am I flattered, but I feel that these ‘tutorials’ as I’ve been calling them, will be a great mental exercise and excuse to do some research into a space that I’ve become active in.

Having little to no experience in tech (Facebook, instant message and a few different email clients sums up their familiarity), I put together a list of 7 tutorials I want to explore. My goal is to provide a framework for them to understand the trends occurring today and the major shifts in innovation, media and culture. To do that one requires perspective and history. So we’re starting at the beginning. Here are my topics:

1. History of the WWW
2. Buzzwords & Definitions
3. Business Models
4. Major Players in the Space
5. Media Evolution
6. Social Media & Cultural Impact
7. Green Tech

My coach friend is interested specifically in learning more about the dynamic between young entrepreneurs, their start-ups and the VCs that back them. My lawyer friend is looking to leverage her legal experience and apply it to a different vertical - potentially technology.

Our second geek session is tomorrow over brunch. Might be a few guest posts in their homework assignment. Check back in over the next couple of weeks.

My blog is a cozy place. I use it as a platform for reflection. Sometimes I give my opinion on others’ ideas. Occasionally I myself possess that diamond in the rough thought that just needs a bit of polish to shine. I like that I can make a post as long or as short as I want. I can ask WordPress to crunch some pretty images to break up my text. I can embed video. Or just link to someone else’s post in lieu of my own.

It’s a fluid medium. But sometimes it’s tough to get the creative juices to flow. As my to do list sky rockets, blogging falls down my priority list. Actually - it tumbles. I feel guilty about not having posted in so long. To whom am I responsible?

Namely, myself. Torn Paige is a commitment to take the time to reflect on the industry I’ve found myself caught up in. Once I sit down to start writing, I actually enjoy it. It’s sort of like going to the gym in that respect. It’s the getting there that’s the hard part.

Why does my blogging become relegated to the bottom? Is the bar for entry set too high? Of course, there are other options. Twitter, for one. Micro-blogging on Twitter would enable me to capture those fleeting thoughts that tickle my attention as I’m walking to work, iPod on and coffee in hand. It’s so easy to publish on the go, and it seems that I’m more mobile than ever these days. What’s stopping me?

Well for one, you can’t stop Twittering once you begin. I have a fear of commitment. Whereas a formulated and articulated idea can have a longer shelf life in blog land, an old Tweet seems a bit stale and sad. Past its expiration date.

I also like the anonymity of blogging into the void. Not that I hide my identity, but rather I don’t know who’s reading these words. I write as if someone is listening, but I can’t see anyone’s face. Comments theoretically make blogs a two-way conversation, but most readers recoil from that type of commitment. Trying to sound witty, knowledgeable and provoke thought in a short comment is a tall order. I’m scared of them too.

I suppose the purpose of this blog is to defend why I’m not on Twitter. One size does not fit all, and for now Twitter just doesn’t look good on me.