Category: Uncategorized

I really try to stay away from political issues, as I am considered an enemy alien living in the US at the will of the DHS.
But if ANYTHING stated in this article is even remotely true, Microsoft has shown that it is morally bankrupt.
I would love to hear some comments from Scoble, Mini-Microsoft, Charlie Kindel, or Dare Obasanjo.
If this is a true reflection of Microsoft’s approach to openess and acceptance, I take back any positive things I said yesterday.
I want this to not be true. Please tell me this is not true.

Scoble says he is definitely not going to be happy if this is true.
Mini-Microsoft agrees with Scoble and me. This in and of itself is worthy of a comment: that the three of us agree on anything means that a plague of locusts is likely to descend on my garden.
Although I want to hear what BGates and SBallmer have to say on this.

Cliff Atkinson points out how the PowerPoint Nazis rule corporate life. [here]
Cliff’s message in Beyond Bullets is simple: escape the drudgery of a point-by-point breakdown your ideas. Tell a story. May it evocative, descriptive, invigorating, or even scary. If the audience hears a story, it is far more likely that they will remember what you said, rather than the quality of your PowerPoint Template.
I personally hate PowerPoint. I use it; but I hate it. I get most passionate when I can take a real-world example and explain it to my audience, and link it back to the core concept I am talking about. When I do that, I never look at the slide, I look at the audience.
If you spend more time looking at your own slides, or even the printed handouts you have in front of you, you might as well not be there. Your audience needs to feel that you are the one speaking to them, not Faceless Corporation, Inc.
Beyond Bullets ties directly into the concepts you can read at Scott Jones’ blog. As a member of the SalesBuilders team, they have helped moved solution and consultative selling to a new level. But the trick to this is that you have to develop a relationship with the person you are selling to (Parts 1, 2, and 3).
For introverted geek types, like myself, the hardest part of relationships is the relating part. But if you have a compelling story, and a means to show how compelling the story is, then the difficulties simply melt away.
Find the one topic you can talk to hours on, and live that message.

There has been a lot of commentary on the departure of Lenn Pryor from Microsoft.
This is sort of an unusual topic for me, as for years, people have heard me preach that I would never work for Microsoft. But I am now saddened to see some of the signs of decay and inertia that have affected other large technology giants.
It was an innovative company. Parts of it still are. Microsoft dominates large portions of the server market, as well as having a complete control of the desktop ecosystem. All other desktops are “me toos”, although the Apple crowd will dispute this. But Apple develops many things because they know that Microsoft will, not because they are being innovative.
So, what now? A new OS? New Apps? What is Microsoft going to do to define the next 20 years of computing?
Or will they? Or have they run their course? Are they a foundation, not a spire?
Microsoft will be re-born. As what, I don’t know. But in 10 years, it will not be the same company we have known for the last 20 years.
Or it will be gone.

Adrants links to a DoubleClick Report on the Decade in Online Advertising. [here]
A wealth of statistics on the advertising we love to hate. As well, the report has the coolest graph tracing the history of the Internet Boom I have seen.
Follow this story on Technorati.

Bendict XVI, in his first act as Pope, has promoted Cardinal Law…
…Cardinal Law is the first Cardinal to represent the new Arch-Church of Antarctica. A well-deserved move.

Ummm…Ratzinger? [here]
Roman Catholic Church: Now serving 1 Billion 900 Million 500 million 115 Souls
Very bad strategic move for the church.
BL Ochman ties the new pope to Nostrodamus. [here]

All:
The browser doesn’t matter anymore. So get on with it, and develop something interesting.
M. David’s rant.
I use browsers in this order:

• Firefox: 60%
• FeedDemon: 25%
• MSIE: 10%
• Opera: 5%

I am likely not alone. FeedDemon is my RSS reader and it is built on MSIE. Firefox is used for browsing, and I don’t do much of that anymore. Opera is for random Web development and other weirdness.
But in five years, browsers will be used infrequently, as desktop information integration over HTTP becomes the norm.

Jeff Nolan sums it up nicely:

gee, ya think?

He is referring to the C|Net Article here.
Siebel is a company that just epitomizes the arrogance and greed that ran the valley for those fleeting years, and that has been punished so mightily since 2000.
I do not hold a warm place in my heart for Siebel.

Kottke has a great summary of the links for the Adobomedia/Macrodobe story here.

In my opinion, this quote sums up what is wrong with this merger.

The combination of Adobe and Macromedia strengthens our mission of helping people and organizations communicate better. Through the combination of our powerful development, authoring and collaboration tools – and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash – we have the opportunity to drive an industry-defining technology platform that delivers compelling, rich content and applications across a wide range of devices and operating systems. [here]

The Adobe and Macromedia Marketing/Press Relations teams need the help of the Bullfighter software.
Flash makes web products that are great for online games…and useless for anything else. Adobe makes a PDF reader, which I can replace with any number of free readers.
I can feel gravity dragging this merger into the pit of despair.
I agree with Om Malik and Russell Beattie — I vote “-1” on this merger.
More here and here and here and here
Richard Koman says this is a good deal…Flash on Mobile devices merged with a lighter version of Acrobat.
Sramana Mitra says that Apple should buy Adobe now. [here]
Strategize says Adobe everywhere, all the time. [here]
Roland Tanglao quotes Marc Canter, who is happy to see Macromedia disappear.
More from Roland here.

Spent Saturday prepping for a yard sale, and today we executed on the plan. Lot’s of geek books went cheap to deserving homes: a former full-time Linux admin who has been downgraded to working in a liquor store by the economy, and a grad student who nearly cried when he saw what I was selling cheap.
Also sold the 1970 iPod (Pioneer S-3500 Receiver/Turntable), and a bunch of records.
It’s amazing what people will buy.
Off to bed…