Foxwood Online Marketing

Ron Paul is the Pied Piper of Millennials

An article in the liberal Salon.com was titled, "The screwed generation:  Libertarian not liberal".  As a political and Millennial junkie, I couldn't pass it up.  The basis of the article is that the Millennials are voting for Ron Paul in droves because the Libertarian philosophy holds more hope for this "screwed generation" than even the liberals.  In 2008 Millennials made up 18% of the vote for president with 66% voting for president Obama.  In 2012 they are expected to be 25% of the vote and based on their strong following for Ron Paul, they could be the demographic which propels the Republicans to victory if Paul can deliver them.  But will he?  If he continues to gain delegates through the primary and leverages those delegates to influence the platform and/or rhetoric from the eventual nominee, the Republican will probably win.  But if he chooses to go the 3rd party route, he would most probably hand the election to Obama.

The news commentators have often spoken about how Paul has the "youth vote" in the primaries.  In New Hampshire he captured 46% of the 18-29 year old vote, 31% in South Carolina, and 48% in Iowa.  What about Paul's rhetoric/Libertarianism appeals to Millennials?  Paul's message of drastically smaller government, balancing the budget, and eliminating the Federal Reserve appeals to young workers who will pay an increasing amount of their salaries to cover the out of control spending fostered by both parties in the past and accelerated by the Obama administration.  They also understand that they will be forced to pay for Social Security and other retirement benefits that they will likely not have.  The Libertarian philosophy also appeals to the more diverse Millennials.  In a recent Pew Research Poll 72% think homosexuality should be accepted by society.  But the item in the news recently that you may not have paid much attention to but is critical to Millennials was the SOAP/PIPA legislation.  These were the anti-piracy bills (SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate) that were pushed by Hollywood and big music but were opposed by the big internet companies.  In this battle, Millennials were the foot soldiers who signed petitions and "liked" numerous online campaigns opposed to the legislation.  Millennials are digital natives who grew up with the internet, therefore any effort to thwart its access hit a nerve. Finally let's not forget who fought in the 10 years of wars with Iraq and Afghanistan including multiple tours and significant loss of limbs.  Paul's libertarian isolation opinion could mean literally the difference between life and death to members of this group.

While older voters may be concerned about Paul's open borders, allowing Iran to get nukes, and decriminalizing drugs, Millennials are focused on the domestic issues Paul supports and appear to be willing to following his lead to the voting booth.  The question that remains is will Paul leverage this group in a third party effort or deliver them to the Republicans.  We'll know in November.

 

 

 

 

 

The Politics of Piracy: Hollywood VS Internet Companies

 

Politics has hit the internet!  You've probably heard about SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) from the House of Representatives and its counterpart in the Senate PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act).  But have you heard of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) or OPEN (Online Protection & ENforcement of Digital Trade Act)?  Makes you think:  SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, OPEN, OH MY!...

So here's what happened.  The Hollywood and big media lobby got SOPA and PIPA created based on the logical need to prevent websites from sharing their content without getting paid.  However neighter Hollywood nor the politicians really understood what the bill as written would mean to the internet.  So that community banded together and notified their users and blacked out many of their sites as a protest.

The internet community leveraged their users to contact their representatives and senators by the thousands and the bills, which were cruising through congress, were stopped in their tracks.  Then at a roundtable discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, we were told that ACTA could be even more harmful than SOPA/PIPA.  And worse yet, the US has already signed off on this agreement.  To complicate matters more, the US politician who understands these issues the most, Darrell Issa, has another proposition called OPEN which he and others, including Google are supporting.  If you are a nerd like me (I know I am a nerd rather than geek because of an infographic that defines the difference), you might be interested in the roundtable discussion at Davos hosted by Mashable:

What I picked up from the 43 minute video is that there is a political battle building between Hollywood, the music industry, and big media companies (content generators), and the internet companies (communicators).  The content generators are losing millions in dollars to internet pirates but the communicators are concerned that drastic remedies will inhibit user generated content and the entrepreneurial spirit that has made the internet what it is.  The best example here is Wikipedia.  As the bills were written if it was determined that some piece of owned content was placed on Wikipedia, then a DNS (Denial of Service) would be enforced basically putting it out of business.  The internet folks argue that while there is still some music piracy, the public has gradually gotten on board with subscription pricing like iTunes which has delivered millions to the content generators that wasn't the case in years past.  For years the content generators, particularly Hollywood, have learned how to lobby congress.  They also have tight-knit associations that pool money and speak with one voice on issues.  The internet folks who do not have this yet are beginning to realize they must if they are to compete in the realm of politics.  Another factor about the politics in this situation was raised by Representative Issa.  That is most of the elected people in Congress nor do their staffs have any depth on issues concerning the internet industry.  Following SOPA and PIPA where many were embarrassed to the point of withdrawing their co-sponsorships of these bills, including my favorite Senator Marco Rubio, have recognized they need to move up the learning curve fast. 

Part of the political process is for a lobbyist to give a political contribution to a member of Congress in lieu of being able to present their side of an argument.  The content generators and their associations have developed sophisticated processes to do just this over the years.  As the Google attorney in the video explained, their company just hasn't been around long enough to have developed this capability in spite of how much money they have.  The content generators have been good at putting their movie and music stars out as spokespersons to support their political issues.  The internet companies have the power of rallying their followers but must be careful to not overuse this tool.  It seems clear that this battle will continue.

I suggest you keep an eye on Congressman Darrell Issa.  He was the past president of the Consumer Electronics' Association and attended CES 30 years including back when he was an exhibitor.  He is very knowledgeable about current technology.  I chopped a session of PBS' Communicators shot at CES to give you some perspective on him:   

    

 

If you still want more, check out this chart from Congressman Issa's website that compares SOPA, PIPA, and his favorite OPEN by clicking here.  Given how much there has been in the media, I'm sure this story will go on for some time.

 

 

 

 

 

R.I.P. Kodak

Last Thursday the 131 year old icon in photography, Kodak, filed for Chapter 11.  Thus ends a long and storied history of a company that helped create memories.  Due to the onslaught of digital photography, competition from Fuji, and high-quality cellphone cameras, they were unable to adapt and fell by the wayside like buggy whip manufacturers of old.  To help see the recent financial picture, here is a graph from Tech Crunch:

The curious thing in this story is that Kodak invented digital photography and still owns $1B+ in patents.  While the company continues to lay off the remainder of its 18,800 employees, down from 150,000, they will continue to seek patent relief from RIM (Blackberry), Apple, HTC (smartphones), Fujifilm, and Samsung.

Thanks to Mashable here are some photos of memorable Kodak products:

In 1900 the Kodak "BROWNIE" was introduced. This cardboard camera sold for $1, with film at 15 cents a roll.  The BROWNIE is credited with bringing the medium into the financial reach of everyone.  Kodak continued to produce BROWNIES until the late 1960s, selling millions of models across the globe.

 

In 1957 cameras got even easier to use with the release of the first BROWNIE STARMATIC -- the first automatic snapper in a range of seven models.

Kodak sold 10 million STARMATICS in five years, an impressive figure later surpassed by the phenomenally successful INSTAMATIC range.

 

 

Kodac sold 50 million INSTAMATICs from 1963 to 1970.

 

 

 

 

Kodachrome was the best slide and movie film in history.

 

 

I feel sad at Kodak's closing for 2 reasons.  First, they were a customer of my firm back in the 80's and 90's and I had many fond interfaces with their personnel.  They loved to come to Nashville, especially in the winter, and were always making jokes about how bad the weather was in Rochester.  They were respectful of us and fun to go to dinner with.  The second reason is their company was like mine, Nortel.  Nortel was over 100 years old, grew to a $20B firm with 120,000 employees, and failed to make the successful transition to digital technology.  In our days we were the leading edge in technology and we ruled the market.  Such is life however.  New guys came in and we were gone.  In spite of the loss of Kodak and Nortel, progress must be made.  So there will be others who grow big only to vanish.  My prediction is that Facebook will not be around in 10 years.  Time will tell.  So rest in peace Kodac, and thanks for the memories.

 

 

The Wrong & Right Way to Mentor at Work

I saw an interesting article.  I have a Google Alert set up to let me know when something new is issued on the term, 'Millennial'.  It notified me that there was an article in Forbes online.  The article is titled, "Millennial Women Battle with Older Unwanted Mentors".  Since this subject comes close to the book I am writing, I thought I would comment.  Rather than establish a formalized bi-directional mentoring program between Baby Boomers and Millennials, it seems that informal mentoring is occurring in businesses which is infuriating the Millennials.  The article states that in almost every office there are older women who think it is their duty to inform all the other women about how to wash the coffee cups, monitor lunchtime microwave use, and here's where it really gets dicey, proper office attire.  The problem with this is the Millennial women don't want or appreciate this kind of mentoring.  "They say these older co-workers are old-fashioned, too judgmental and don’t understand their values. In fact, communication style (72%), technology use (65%), work style (53%), and priorities (52%) are the four most reported clashes between Millennial women and their older colleagues, according to the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation (BPWF)."

Millennials, women or men, do not take on the same value set as their parents, the Boomers have.  In fact this is the basis for my title, Baby Boomer-Rang.  I had as a sub-title "How to Leverage Your Skills + Digital Natives for Success in Business" but have since modified it to be, "How Bi-Directional Mentoring Can Help You and Your Millennial Employees Win".  I may change the sub-title again but the thesis is that what the Millennials are is in great part due to the influences of their parents, the Baby Boomers.  I contend that this pattern is consistent with the G.I. Generation who parented the Boomers.  However what's significant now is the size of the Boomer generation who are about to retire and the Millennial generation that is even larger who are digital natives.  The combination of the size plus the technology revolution creates a unique problem in business that requires a unique solution. 

I believe a systematic approach to bi-directional mentoring is the answer.  The Boomers need help with technology.  Note that the Millennials are tech-dependent not tech-savvy but there are and will be advantages that they can bring to the Boomers as technology continues to explode.  And the Boomers who mentor the Millennials must be trained to focus on soft skills like leadership and networking and not on information as Millennials clearly understand how to find facts through growing up with Google.  And each group needs to be taught about the other.  As in the case with the example cited in the article, if businesses allow informal mentoring to occur they may do even more damage than no mentoring.

I'll keep you posted as I progress through the book.  I have much of the structure of the book completed and have about 11% of the first draft content done.  More to come....

 

 

The Best of 2011

As the new year approaches there are lots of lists of the best of this year.  I looked through several lists and decided to use the Time Specials, "Top 10 Everything of 2011" though I did have some of my own picks or liked some other choices better than those Time picked.  Here goes:

Top Number of the Year - Time picked 7 billion which is the number of humans on the planet currently.  My pick for the top number is 15 trillion dollars which is the US national debt.

Top Picture of the Year - Time picked the picture of President Obama and the operations team during the Osama Bin laden assassination operation.  My pick was the photo-shopped version of the same picture.  I just think it is funny.

 

Worst Tweet - Congressman Anthony Weiner on Anthony's Weiner (Time's wording).

Best Gadget - Apple's iPad2 (Time)

Top Sports Story - Penn State's sex scandal and the downfall of coach Joe Paterno (Time).  My opinion is that they should have cancelled the remainder of their games this season.

Best YouTube Video - My choice:  Ultimate Dog Tease.  This has over 82 million hits and money made from it is going to the ASPCA.  Time's choice was that annoying Friday song by Rebecca Black.

 

Best Animal Story - The dog that was part of the Bin Laden assassination.  Good choice Time.  In the article, General David Petraeus said, "The capability they bring to the fight cannot be replicated by man or machine."

Best Movie - "Puss in Boots 3D".  My choice because it's the only movie I saw this year and only because my daughter was in from Asheville.  Movies are expensive, they make you sit through tons of previews and commercials, and then there's the talking in the theater.  However we both laughed through the entire movie and you can't get 3D at home (at least not good quality).  Time picked The Artist, a silent movie.....

Top Marriage Story - Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding (Time). 

Worst Fashion Moment - Time's choice with which I agree.  I just included the marriage story above so this would have meaning:

New Findings in Parenting - Trying to be Supermom is a recipe for depression (Time).  Look out Tiger Moms.

Non Fiction Book - 1493 (Time).  Interesting theory of how Columbus and team reconnected the separated worlds through ships and trade that had once been connected as one giant continent, Pangaea.  If you are interested you can see the author discuss the book on C-SPAN's Book TV.

Top Green Trend - Nuclear fears following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami at the Fukushima Nuclear Complex (Time).  By the way the death toll in this tragedy was 3.  In fact the total number of fatalities from all nuclear accidents is 70 including 56 from Chernobyl in 1986.  And by the way there were no deaths from the Three Mile Island incident in 1979 that spawned the movie, "The China Syndrome" which scared Americans away from this relatively safe and clean energy source continuing with our dependence on burning fossil fuels which causes many more deaths and pollution.  Sorry for the tangent but there are still things in this world I just don't get....Oh and the death toll estimate from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is over 10,000.

So happy new year.  Look for big time politics in this election year, more unrest in the middle east, more new gadgets, and more crazy times. 

 

 

Why Is There Not an Occupy College Movement & Antitrust Case Aganst Colleges?

In February I wrote a post titled, "Higher Education:  How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our kids".  This is an update.  Below is an infographic from The Best Colleges:

My questions are:

1. Why is there not an "Occupy College" movement?  We know many of the Occupy Wall Street protesters are college graduates who have excessive debt.  Why are they blaming Wall Street?  As indicated in the infographic above, college debt is now $1 Trillion with a 511% increase since 1999.  Why are they not pitching their tents on college campuses?
2. Why is the Justice Department not bringing a price fixing suit against colleges?  In the C-SPAN Book TV video I used as the basis for my February post, the 2 professors said there is a group of about 10 universities that set the prices.  They are made up of the Ivy League Schools (Harvard, Yale, etc.) plus a few of the major independents like Duke and Stanford.  Then the other independent schools, state schools, and down to community colleges base their pricing on this standard.  How is possible?  I worked for a hose clamp manufacturer.  There was a rumor about our CEO and the CEO of our major competitor meeting in a restroom in an airport accidentally where they agreed to raise their prices.  Since these 2 competitors controlled a major segment of the market share, prices across the board were raised.  Colleges do it in the open and nobody says a word.  And the last time I looked inflation remains not existent.  On what are they basing their huge price increases?  Here is a chart on prices, note the curve:

 

I guess since there is so much broken in America now, no one is focused on college price gouging.  It's a shame we don't have a common sense super hero to address this, overspending in Washington, crazy judicial rulings, etc.

 

 

New Study - Public School Teachers Are Overpaid by $120 Billion

I happened upon a very interesting live call-in show on C-SPAN's Washington Journal today.  It was an interview of Andrew Biggs, Resident Scholar of American Enterprise Institute.  He and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation undertook a massive study titled, Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers.  It can be found on both the Heritage and AEI websites.  You can also read the detailed report here.  The summary conclusions of the report from the AEI site are:  "We conclude that public-school teacher salaries are comparable to those paid to similarly skilled private sector workers, but that more generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers, including greater job security, make total compensation 52 percent greater than fair market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year. Teacher compensation could therefore be reduced with only minor effects on recruitment and retention. Alternatively, teachers who are more effective at raising student achievement might be hired at comparable cost."

Here are the more detailed summary findings:

"First, formal educational attainment, such as a degree acquired or years of education completed, is not a good proxy for the earnings potential of school teachers. Public-school teachers earn less in wages on average than non-teachers with the same level of education, but teacher skills generally lag behind those of other workers with similar "paper" qualifications. We show that:

• The wage gap between teachers and non-teachers disappears when both groups are matched on an objective measure of cognitive ability rather than on years of education.

• Public-school teachers earn higher wages than private- school teachers, even when the comparison is limited to secular schools with standard curriculums.

• Workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent. Teachers who change to non-teaching jobs, on the other hand, see their wages decrease by roughly 3 percent. This is the opposite of what one would expect if teachers were underpaid.

Second, several of the most generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers often go unrecognized:

• Pension programs for public-school teachers are significantly more generous than the typical private sector retirement plan, but this generosity is hidden by public-sector accounting practices that allow lower employer contributions than a private-sector plan promising the same retirement benefits.

• Most teachers accrue generous retiree health benefits as they work, but retiree health care is excluded from Bureau of Labor Statistics benefits data and thus frequently overlooked. While rarely offered in the private sector, retiree health coverage for teachers is worth roughly an additional 10 percent of wages.

• Job security for teachers is considerably greater than in comparable professions. Using a model to calculate the welfare value of job security, we find that job security for typical teachers is worth about an extra 1 percent of wages, rising to 8.6 percent when considering that extra job security protects a premium paid in terms of salaries and benefits.

What I found so interesting in the C-SPAN show was the format.  The co-author of the report took calls from several teachers angerly questioning the results.  His answers defended their survey process while calmly addressing all the concerns.  He took each caller's questions seriously and was able to defend the study's results which did account for differences in teacher tenure, areas of the country, and union vs non-union.  He even politely responded to a published complaint from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with detailed specifics and a strong conclusion that he did not read the study.  The bottom line conclusion is that public school teachers are overpaid.  However one can understand the teacher's complaints because a large portion of the valuation is because they do not work 12 months and their benefits package is significantly better than in the private sector; value which does not show up on the pay stub. 

When I came out of college it was well known that if you chose a career in government or teaching you would have to accept lower pay but you would not have to work as hard, you get much more time off, and you would have more benefits.  It seems that this is still the condition today.  The problem I have is that the education students are getting is not as good as it was when I went to school.  The global comparative results are unquestioned.  And yet the political call is to spend more on education, in other words, pay the teachers more.  But the arguments against this are also clear.  The union efforts have focused not on improving the quality of education but the benefits, protection, and happiness of the teachers.  You can also see multiple examples of better student performance at private and church schools where teacher pay is much less than in public schools.  So my conclusion is we as a society need to focus on student performance instead of teacher pay and the teacher pay system needs to be overhauled so the best get higher pay and the worst get lower pay or fired.  We need to have students attend year-round since they are not needed in the fields (as was the case 100 years ago) and most have part-time jobs who need to work.  I think both the student performance and teacher pay problems are a result of not having a market based economy.  History has shown consistently that higher results come from competition.  However, I am frankly not optimistic that these simple but effective solutions will be implemented because of politics.  So at least over the short term expect student performance to continue to lag behind global competitors and teachers to continue to demand (and receive) higher pay.

 

 

Online Security: Baby Boomers VS Millennials

By the way, this report is not about the workplace but I liked the image.

I discovered an interesting survey about the difference in online security perceptions between Generation Y, A.K.A. Millennials, and Baby Boomers from Mashable.  After a little digging I found the entire report on the ThreatMetrix website.  This study was of people in these 2 groups who are active users of the Internet.  On average they spend 24 hours per week with 57% making purchases online daily or weekly.  In spite of this 79% have either some (53%) or serious (26%) concern about fraud when shopping online and 72% are concerned about becoming a victim of online fraud.

The key differences between Boomers and Millennials are:

• Boomers are more concerned about becoming a victim of online fraud. 
• Millennials are more likely to see the security of online commerce as a factor in choosing or using an online merchant.
• Millennials are more likely to own and use a smartphone for mobile payments and other commercial transactions.  Boomers who do own a smartphone are more concerned about smartphone payment security.
• Millennials are more likely to believe fraud risk on mobile devices is lower than laptops or desktops when shopping online.

The results are not totally logical.  Boomers are more concerned about becoming a victim of online fraud but are less likely to consider security as a factor in choosing an online merchant.  It's as if Boomers who shop online realize the risk is higher and are willing to take that chance but not factor in risk when choosing a vendor.  Not that most Boomers or Millennials would be able to identify a site's security strength.  While you can look for security-related patches, who really knows how to judge this?  It's not surprising that Boomers own fewer smartphones than Millennials.  The surprising fact is that Millennials believe fraud risk is lower on a mobile device.  Being more tech savvy you would think they would be aware that many people do not implement security features on mobile devices and there have been many articles concerning security risks from downloaded apps.  There are also devices which can breech security or clone a smartphone if the perpetrator is in close proximity to the user.

My professional experience with security was in 2 areas.  As the implementer of an eCommerce application for a $6B division in 1997, I learned that security added at least a year to the project development time.  The security "nazis" as we called them were a strange breed.  They were into power and seemed to love flaunting it.  Junior level security employees could back down senior level management and seemed to look for these conflicts.  However the offset to their power was their risk.  Should any security breech occur, every one of the security team that signed off on the application would be fired. 

My other experience was when I consulted for a Wireless LAN company recently.  There we had to not only worry about WID (Wireless Intrusion Detection) but WIP (Wireless Intrusion Prevention) which disables any Access Point not recognized as part of the platform.  Here's an example of WLAN fraud.  When businesses charged for wireless access, a thief would sit outside the business in a van.  He would intercept your log-in and claim that the link was broken and asked for your credit card number again.  Other cases involved hacking in through unauthorized Access Points in a business to break into the corporate data bases to capture all the credit card numbers.  What happens in these cases is an employee who did not have good access to the company WLAN would bring in a cheap Access Point thereby opening the network.  This is where WID comes in now.  The interesting fact about wireless fraud in businesses is that there is less serious instances in wireless than in bad guys who figure some way to get in the building and go through an employee's computer.  That's because businesses perceived higher risk from hacking communications going through the air than through a wire which required the WLAN makers to develop better security to break into the market.

Frankly I was surprised that there were not more differences in security concerns between Millennials and Boomers but I guess that's because both groups rate the risk similarly.  That is, the risk is low to the individual, there are security processes built in from credit card companies and banks, and the actual amount you would be liable for is small.  That factored against the convenience and cost savings of shopping online means we are all willing to take on more risk.  I also think that we are rapidly moving down a path where we have fewer and fewer privacy rights which adds to security risk.  With convenience comes risk.  It is a trade-off most of us are willing to accept regardless of age.

 

 

 

2 More Inputs on the Internet as an Educational Tool

I saw 2 articles on digital activities relative to education this week.  There are ongoing, and to this point really unresolved questions, regarding internet activities as they relate to education.  Is the internet (and all the associated digital applications) good or bad for learning?  While these 2 data points add information, they certainly do not resolve the question. 

First, there was a study, Computers in Human Behavior, subtitled "Too much face and not enough books:  The relationship between multiple indices of Facebook use and academic performance".  This was a complex scientific study that sought to examine the relationship between Facebook use and Grade Point Average (GPA) in universities.  Here are the questions they sought to answer:

1. Is there a relationship among time spent on Facebook, frequency of Facebook activities and grades?
2. Is there a relationship among frequency of checking Facebook, frequency of Facebook activities and grades?
3. Is there a relationship among time spent on Facebook, frequency of Facebook activities and time spent preparing for class?
4. Is there a relationship among frequency of checking Facebook, frequency of Facebook activities and time spent preparing for class?

Results indicate that time spent on Facebook and checking Facebook had negative effects on grades.  However this impact does not appear to be significant.  Using Facebook for sharing information is more beneficial than using Facebook for socializing.  It should also be noted that high school grades and parent's education level were significantly correlated with grades even more than Facebook use.  For more details and conclusions, click here for an article in Mashable about this study.

The other article is from a games proponent who focuses on education.  In this article, the author argues that, "We are wasting the huge opportunity offered by technology to engage and immerse kids in curiosity-based learning and discovery."  He says kids interact with the internet, digital devices, and apps on mobile devices then come to school where the environment is lecture and writing on a blackboard.  He claims that the 'freedom to fail in a safe environment' as delivered by games is a critical life lesson.  He also argues that the 'power of game mechanics' which means to be successful you must learn and progress through the game levels, are critical learning attributes not present in today's school environment. 

So what are we to think of these new data elements added to the ongoing discussions of whether and how should digital tools should be used in education?  My thoughts go back to a friend who did her PhD dissertation where she made the case that television must evolve to become a viable source of learning just as books did when the printing press was invented.  I think the same analogy applies to the internet and education.  If you use Facebook to notify friends of a good article you just found as compared to playing Angry Birds, it is useful.  Likewise, you can watch BookTV on CSPAN or Snookie on Jersey Shores.  The answer is to use the tool wisely in education and not act like it doesn't exist or it is all bad.  The educational organizations that are using the tool wisely will deliver more productive students and those who deny all access will deliver less productive citizens.  I'm sure there will be more studies but because there are so many variables on both sides, digital and education, that no clear consensus will exist anytime soon.

 

My Tribute to Steve Jobs

With the passing of Steve Jobs, I like so many paused to think in retrospect what he and Apple have meant to me.  My first exposure to an Apple product was the Macintosh II in the late 80s.  I was working in Research Triangle Park, NC, for a high tech telecommunications company.  We were growing like crazy (this division had 100 people in HR just to handle relocations) and making money by the train load.  So when the Mac IIs came out we bought 7 or 8 for our group of about 20 product managers.  We had to share them but everyone had their separate files and it was much easier to do email.  We had supporting documents (from the designers) which we could pull from to create our own documents (for sales).  What made an impact on me was the ease of use.  All the applications:  word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations were integrated with the operating system.  Prior to that we used IBM Jr.s and our own product called Displayphone which you may recall seeing used by J.R. Ewing on the Dallas TV show if you are as old as I am.  These machines were great productivity tools but when we got our hands on the Mac, it was a breakthrough.  That's because rather than fighting the poor usability of the IBM or Microsoft platforms, the Mac was easy to use and allowed us to focus on the work.

Over the years Apple introduced new products like the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, and iPad which were credited as breakthroughs but over the years their singular market advantage was ease of use.  Microsoft developed their products from the perspective of functionality.  They created the operating system software and core applications that permitted much more sophistication in the finished products.  So over the years, Macs became the product for right-brained creators like artists and writers whereas Microsoft products were bought by business for us left-brainers.  The overall market was much larger for the functional side which enabled Bill Gates (Microsoft) to become the world's richest person.  The functional side became much more competitive.  IBM moved to the large computing platforms and are now noted for machines like Big Blue and Watson while they make their money on servers (Google has an estimated 1 million servers that can cost roughly $1,500 each).  There were periods when Apple did not do very well.  Partly because they priced their products higher than their more productive alternatives.  Microsoft made lots of money from selling the operating system and applications, but they didn't make the PCs or other hardware.  Apple made everything which enables their integration but results in higher costs and prices.  And while you would think from all the publicity that iPhone dominates the smart phone market, actually there are more Android (Google) smart phones (180K) Vs iPhones (91K) in 2011 with the forecast for Android to have 49% of the market in 2015 as compared to iPhone's 17% in 2015 according to Gartner.  The pattern for smart phones is similar to that of PCs.  Apple breaks through with usability and their competitors eat into their market share with price and functionality until the next breakthrough.  Even in the lean years they maintained their high price which means they have lived with huge business cycles from one extreme to another several times.  This is incredibly painful for both employees and stockholders.

For most of my career I have not been an Apple customer.  I use by Blackberry in lieu of an iPod and iPhone and my computers have all been Microsoft based.  But still I appreciate what Apple has done and is.   Apple is more than Steve Jobs.  But because, as evidenced by the disappointing recent release of iPhone 4S rather than version 5, there may be a more timid regime now in charge.  For Apple to remain as the breakthrough technology we have come to know, the new guys will have to continue to push the envelope, take chances, and get it right.  While I am not one of the Apple enthusiasts, I appreciate and value their contribution to technology, Silicon Valley, and to the United States.  And I believe Steve Jobs had a great deal to do with that success.  So rest in peace Steve, and thanks.