Professor Richard E. Foglesong: Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando This is the first book that I am reading via the Kindle reader on my iPod touch. Great book that shows how Disney maneuvered its way into establishing Disney World as it's own pseudo government, free from the oversight and controls of traditional city, county and state control. Hardly, a slam piece, it shows how centralized planning can lead to a better, more fully conceived product (think: Apple), but also shows the pitfalls for eager cities and states willing to agree to any and all pre-conditions to secure major corporate patronage.
Robert B. Cialdini: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) One of my recurring interests is better understanding how to influence the actions of others. This book looks at the psychology and underlying trigger mechanisms, such as reciprocity, that drive people to act in the way that you want them to. Relevant to people in sales, marketers and pretty much anyone who wants to turn the gravity of persuasion to their advantage.
George Friedman: The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century Provocative, enjoyable, compelling read that makes the somewhat counter-intuitive argument that the next 100 years is destined to be the American Age (US), replacing the European Age, which has been the locus of gravity for the past 500+ years, and that our emerging counter-challengers will be Turkey, Mexico, Japan and Poland - not China or India.
Jessica Livingston: Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days Not since I read Accidental Empires many years ago have I had so much joy and insight reading about the AHA moments, the blood, sweat and tears, the mistakes, the victories and the lessons learned in the birthing of tech startups like Apple, Lotus, Hotmail and a couple dozen other seminal companies. If you are an entrepreneur or want to know what being one feels like, this is a must read.
Pip Coburn: The Change Function: Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn I have been ruminating a lot about the relationship between user experience and user adoption. Coburn is one of my favorite writers/analysts from back in the days of Red Herring, and this book focuses on the user experience/user-centered approach to solutions thinking. Personally, Inmates are Running the Asylum is a better book.
Alan Moore: Watchmen Just finished this graphic novel, written by same author of V for Vendetta, one of my favorite all time movies. Watchmen is being released as a major motion picture early 2009, and this novel is a classic to many, but to me it fell a bit short of the promised target. Why? Characters interesting but not compelling, story arcs came together in a bit uninspired fashion, and left with a bit of a EH sensation.
Chogyam Trungpa: Crazy Wisdom (Dharma ocean series) For serious Buddhist devotees, Trungpa is the late great master; a real gift. This series of books is derived from seminars he led, so beauty is that you get Trungpa's synopsis, then Q&A from audience and then of course your own interpretation; a great way to triangulate on complex topics. This is my second time reading, as this is a time for Crazy Wisdom (search for my post on the topic).
Barton Gellman: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency This is a classic, IMHO. Really gives a good sense of how government works and how Cheney drove executive branch to reclaim lost power (of that branch). Cheney's depth of detailed knowledge on everything - policy, law, protocol, people and process is pretty impressive. Raises all sorts of questions on the delineation between him and Bush, and how that defines culpability.
Total behind the scenes on key events, not partisan or editorializing but very strong analysis and excellent narrative from many of the key players.
I have written here, here and here about Apple’s inevitable assault on the Tablet market. What I hadn’t factored until recently is how symbiotic such a device would be for Baby Boomers.
Why Baby Boomers? Well, for the same two reasons that this demographic is unlikely to embrace the palm-sized iPhone en masse.
One, such a bookish-sized tablet device – I’ll call it the Boomer Tablet – would be tailor-made for home Wi-Fi setups, thereby obviating the mobile access costs associated with iPhone, a significant barrier for a generation that is programmed to keep mobile bills within a tight spending range.
Two, because a larger-form factor device would offer Boomers a bigger viewing screen and “lifestyle” settings, like fatter keys and a more forgiving keyboard to ease input, and wizard-like shortcuts to simplify recurring tasks.
This is key, because with the onset of age, Boomers’ motor skills have become less precise; their vision has become poorer; and their eyes get tired easier.
As such, the premise of them plugging away on tiny keys and peering into the tiny screen of a mobile device like iPhone/iPod touch is a non-starter.
By contrast, the Boomer Tablet offers a superior input, viewing and playback environment for accessing your iTunes library, personal media, syndicated content services, iPhone Apps and presumably, Mac Apps; something that the 70M+ Baby Boomers in the US who are aged 53-73 would likely find compelling.
Moreover, if Apple put a video camera in the device – not a stretch since they are doing it in the iPhone GS – it could make video conferencing and VOIP ubiquitous in a relatively short time (Skype already has a client for the iPhone/iPod touch). What better way to stay connected to distant loved ones?
Read the rest of the post HERE (at O'Reilly Radar).
UPDATE 1: Good Article in Fast Company looking at how Amazon is attempting to play its cards right with respect to Kindle. Check out 'Amazon Taps its Inner Apple.'
UPDATE 2: My post on the (baby) Boomer Tablet computing device was referenced in today's New York Times. Very cool. P.s., yes, I noted that the author misspelled my name.
Related Posts:
Start in the Middle: The "Jobs," "Outcomes" and "Constraints" Innovation Model
I am blessed in that I get
a lot of entrepreneurs reaching out to me for advice on their startup; namely, to sound board the efficacy of their idea, a
key strategic decision that they are facing, or a milestone that they are working towards.
Having been around the
block a few times, I put together this primer of nine key lessons learned from doing
eight startups (four as co-founder, four liquidity events – exits to IBM, Apple, Wind River, Zoom):
1.It’s About Who, Then What: We love to fall in love with great ideas, but you know what, the mostbasic truth is that the key strategic decisions are usually less about the
industry, the products, the pricing, the message, the sales channel or even the
technology, and MOSTLY about the people.It’s the proverbial ‘Who, Then What’ dynamic at play. As such, it
is never too early to define your ideals, establish your culture, and commit to
actually living it. This will lead you to hire builders who think like
owners, who operate with strong values that are aligned with your own, who are
long-term thinkers, data-driven, and who want to build stuff that matters (not
just make money).
2.Say Goodbye to the Tyranny of the ‘All or None’: Details matter, but often
the bigger challenge is reconciling all of the paradoxes and tradeoffs that
come with starting and growing a business.Human nature is to attempt to reduce these paradoxes down to
either/or, black and white decisions.My experience, however, is that success is a by-product of reconciling
the nuance, and embracing the ‘AND.’ As such, always be asking yourself, “How
might I approach the solution differently it I were embracing paradoxes, as
opposed to avoiding them?”
3.Be Use-Case Driven: It
amazes how many solutions are built with a completely generic sense of the user, the use-case and the workflow required to satisfy their
needs.It’s okay to be wrong, but
it’s not okay to be confused, so make sure that your product planning process
is defined in a way that codifies specific use cases supported by clear workflows (in
terms of click steps), backed by wireframes that express same.This is the ultimate ‘rubber meets the
road’ moment when you realize that you are either talking the same language
with your constituency of co-workers, customers, partners and investors, or
not.
4.Spell out the Jobs, Outcomes and Constraints That Your Product or Service Addresses: When thinking about specific use cases and user workflows, I subscribe to the jobs, outcomes and
constraints“outcome-driven”
innovation model. It assumes that your target user "hires" your product or
service to enable them to achieve a specific set of outcome goals, relative to
the constraints that they face (e.g., budgetary, ease-of-use, integration,
etc.).Hence, in thinking about
your product or service, always know what jobs you are focusing on, how they
enable the outcome you are pledging to deliver and how they stick within the
constraints your customer faces.This drives a level of specificity that enables crisp decisions of what
the product is and isn’t, and equally important, enables you to test that value
proposition with customers and partners.
5.Know What has to go Right for You to Succeed: Too often, a plan fails to
address binary assumptions, like required adoption by a “king maker,” such as
a standards body or a major enterprise; the essentialness of a major
distribution deal; changes in consumer behavior; or the competition opting not
to pursue certain markets.Not
only is it integral to know what has to go right for you to succeed, but at the
moment you identify the greatest risks to being successful, those risks should
be front-loaded into the market research phase of your efforts. Front-loading risk assessment will save you from finding yourself heavily invested in a given path, only to discover (too late) that it’s
a dead-end road.
6.Sanity Check the 1.0/3.0 Paradox: The 1.0/3.0 Paradox spotlights the indelible truths that must be navigated to achieve an initial beachhead in the market.Specifically, most startups are born of a 3.0 sense of what the company’s business will look like when the product or service is mature; a time when they have achieved market penetration; and thus, can set the terms with customers and partners, so to speak. The paradox is that at the 1.0 stage of business life, you can only deliver 1.0 functionality, and consumers buy based upon their "selfish" 1.0 needs. Moreover, history suggests that 1.0 is usually “good enough” to get to 2.0, and by 2.0, you are legacy, which is hard to dislodge.Hence, the wedge into new markets comes from solving a compelling 1.0 problem.
7.Always Have an Official Plan of Record: This one seems obvious, but entrepreneurs can so
fall in love with the big picture that they avoid sweating the details on
things like audience size, metrics of success, major milestones, market
segmentation, and go-to-market thinking.Bottom line: you need amodel
of the moving parts in the business, and the inputs and outputs generated by
same to know if you are on the right path. In the early stage of a business, the model
doesn’t have to be super specific; it just needs to be intellectually honest and supported by a clear narrative.
8.Is Your Solution a Vitamin, Aspirin or Penicillin?: A Vitamin Solution is one where the target customer knows they SHOULD use it, like vitamins, but it's not like they are going to get sick or die tomorrow if they don't.An Aspirin Solution addresses a major, major headache for the target user. They may not die if they don't embrace a solution like yours, but the pain and suffering will be ever-present until they do ‘something’ about the headache.The target customer NEEDS this type of solution very SOON, if not NOW.A Penicillin Solution literally keeps you from an untimely demise.When you need penicillin, you NEED it TODAY.Stating the obvious, it’s better to be a Penicillin or Aspirin Solution than a Vitamin one, at least on the scale of essential-ness.
9.Be a Detective, an Anthropologist, Sociologist, Psychologist and Zen Master: My favorite quote here is
from technology pioneer, Carver Mead, who once implored would-be innovators to
“Listen to what the technology is telling you.”Thus, it helps to have scenarios that drive the
way you think about enabling technologies, new products and emerging markets;
it’s critical to understand that it is as lethal to be too early as it is to be
wrong; and as a friend of mine puts it, sometimes the big idea is looking at a
solution which today is applicable to only a small fringe (10%) of the market (e.g.,
blogging) but with some re-thinking and/or re-factoring, could capture much closer to 100% of the addressable audience (e.g., Twitter).
If you are an entrepreneur looking for some pro bono guidance relative to your venture, reach out to me at
LinkedIn by clicking HERE.
My only request is that I need to really
understand the specifics of what you are trying to do and what type of
assistance you are hoping for to give you actionable feedback.
“There's something happening here; What it is ain't exactly clear.” - For What It's Worth, Buffalo Springfield
Creative destruction is upon us. Print media has gone from toll bridges to soup lines seemingly overnight.
It seems inevitable that the ripple effect of this transition will be nothing less than a full re-boot of the print advertising business.
Meanwhile, the big box retailer (think: Circuit City, Sears, Comp USA) and the record store (wither, Tower Records) are relics of a bygone age.
Add to that an auto industry that is clearly at a crossroads, not to mention the carnage from a financial market crash that has wiped out 20-50% of most people’s portfolios (via home equity depression, stock portfolio depression, unemployment), and our sense of the known and predictable is under assault.
But with entropy and systemic destruction, a fertile, creative ground promulgates, and we see tangible signs that "something" renaissance-like is bubbling up.
How else to reconcile that at the same time we see a consolidation within the agriculture, meat and dairy producing industries, we are also seeing a rise in organics, small lot artisan producers and farmer’s markets?
Exhibit A: Maker Faire Envision a Public Market meets County Fair with a touch of Burning Man.
That’s Maker Faire, the offspring of Make Magazine (dedicated to the DIY - Do It Yourself – lifestyle).
Like its parent, Maker Faire celebrates the organic, the homemade, the customizable, the non-conforming, the technical and the eclectic.
The Maker constituency is a jambalaya-like melange of purveyors, artisans, kit builders and DIY’ers in areas devoted to: robotics and electronic gizmos; arts and crafts; fashion and music; food and drink products; and vehicles and installations that defy description. (Okay, I’ll try – “Look, that’s a treehouse on wheels, and the mechanical giraffe just passed me on the left.”)
Maker by the Numbers If I were to ask you how many people you thought attended this year’s two-day Maker Faire in San Mateo (on May 30-31), what would you guess? 5,000 people? 10,000? How about 78,000 people (a 20% increase of the prior year’s event)?
For some relativity, that’s slightly more attendees than a San Francisco Giants baseball game in terms of average daily attendance. In other words, if numbers don’t lie, the Maker constituency has mainstream type of audience numbers.
In attendance at Maker were: a family from my son’s kindergarten class; two members from my book club; and another two friends from my professional circle.
Needless to say, it punched a hole in my reductionist “this is the Burning Man crowd” theories.
Another AHA was how many women were Makers, a welcome sight, inasmuch as we often default to associating events like these with single, pimply young males, although there were plenty of them, too. A label-defying social broth in attendance, to be sure.
Mass Customization: On-Demand, Open & Shared The advent of the laser printer presaged the rise of desktop publishing. Blogging turned the web into a printing press for the masses.
The iPhone is mobilizing media, communications and information sharing, while facilitating all sorts of rich application spaces to emerge (50K apps, plus 1B downloads and counting).
Everything is getting Digitized and Cloud-ifed. There is an implicit Library of the Commons between YouTube videos, Flickr pics, Twitter tweets, social bookmarks, Wikipedia entries, Amazon product pages and the Google-sphere.
The trend towards open APIs for customizing and composite-ing the data flow in and out of Facebook, Twitter and Google, among others, suggests a river of third-party apps, web sites and web services washing away the legacy ways of communicating, connecting and buying, leaving in their place a social fabric that is organic, networked and fundamentally, shared.
Dovetailing this trend, all sorts of new-fangled design, fabrication, assembly and output solutions are getting cheap, precise and easy to use.
At its most basic, folks like CaféPress and Zazzle are making DIY custom t-shirt/poster/mug creation easy.
Similarly, at Maker I heard story after story of how the value chain
had moved to a place where robotics makers could build a high degree of
sophistication without having to re-invent the wheel (as there was/is a
robust ecosystem of third-party robotics sub-system makers they could
leverage), which is emblematic of what has already played out in the
technology industry, suggesting that there is something metastasizing
that crosses social, societal, professional and logistical lines.
Consider Amazon, which has overrun many a brick and mortar industry
segment by building and executing a better mousetrap; namely, an end to
end logistics footprint that includes vast product listing data stores;
a phenomenal customer relationship management (CRM) system; intuitive,
rich product discovery tools (powered by the wisdom of the crowds, no
less); and the ability to interstitial-ize "Ships from" and "Sold by"
between Amazon.com operating buckets and third-party operators that
plug into the Amazon ecosystem.
Not one to rest on its laurels, Kindle, Mechanical Turk and Elastic Compute are all reflective of Amazon’s ambition to lever logistics, digital generation systems and a loosely-coupled marketplace model to foment a new kind of entrepreneurial engine for the Mobile Broadband Era.
The moral of the story is clear; once-exclusive domains and fortress-like silos are becoming open, and the barriers between disciplines are falling.
Bringing this trend to my backyard, at my local Farmer's Market,
food entrepreneurs of every stripe can formulate and launch new health
drink concoctions and fine-tine them with taste trials from one weekend
to the next; they can go direct-to-consumer on a tikka masala "heat and
eat" line with a nominal capital outlay; and/or cultivate brand
advocacy by doing "meet in the street" activities to promote a popular
gourmet sausage line.
When Gravity Becomes Your Friend
There is an S-curve in nascent markets, a time when gravity shifts from being your enemy to being your friend.
We are on the cusp, a fortnight from it being easy to source and
assemble new and custom products on-demand, leveraging open know-how
and a free market of services that combine inter-disciplinary
substrates across once-impenetrable mechanical, electrical, chemical,
math, communications, computer, media and manufacturing boundaries.
The tyranny of the "All or None" is ending, and the dawn of the Meta-Maker is upon us. The Golden Age awaits.
Boston crushed the Lakers last year. It was over the moment the Lakers blew a 20+ point lead that would have tied the series 2-2, with the Lakers having the next game at home.
In that game, whether it was ignorant mercy or lack of a killer instinct, the Lakers took their foot of the Celts throat, and the Celtics made them pay dearly.
The collapse was complete when James Posey of the Celtics nailed a couple of dagger threes. The Lakers never regained their footing, and the 39-point wipeout in Game 6 of the series was the cherry on top of the “Lakers Are Soft” sundae.
Those are the sad and painful facts from last year; so you can really appreciate just how frickin terrific it was to turn the tables on the Orlando Magic in a decisive Game 4 on Thursday.
When Derek Fisher, whom EVERYONE except Phil Jackson (and the rest of his teammates) had performed last rites on, hit first the dagger three in the fourth quarter to send it to overtime, and then the second dagger three in overtime to rip the Magic’s hearts out for good, it was probably the greatest sports moment that I have experienced.
Great moment of triumph in the “pivot game” of the series – it’s either 2-2 or 3-1, depending on outcome – and in close series like this one, we all know that it comes down to these types of victory-seizing moments (sidebar: that was a classic Derek smile after the OT three).
In the end, that game and the series came down to making plays, pure and simple. When the game was on the line, the Lakers made them and the Magic didn’t. End of story.
Having been on the other side of the table at the end of last season, the Lakers were ready when the moment came, proving what we all know; experience matters.
The climb back to their personal Everest is now complete for the Lakers (and their fans), something not lost on this unit.
“Kobe and I talked about how unreal the journey has been, going from being on top, to being on the bottom, and now rising back to the top,” said Derek Fisher of his long time Laker compadre, and of the journey now complete.
When I predicted that the Lakers would win the series in six games (mea culpa, they were even better than I gave them credit for) it was driven by what I had seen from the team all year.
Simply put, the team showed a unity of purpose from the start, which they then codified across a breakout season.
When they executed on both sides of the ball, something they did often this year, they were practically unbeatable, and simply beautiful to watch.
And unlike last year’s free pass through the Western Division playoffs, this year they were baptized by the fire of really good series with the Houston Rockets (defense, smarts, hunger) and the Denver Nuggets (muscle, heart, attack) that prepared them to slay the Magic dragon.
I hearken back to a comment by Denver Nuggets coach George Karl in the post-game of the then just completed Nuggets-Lakers series, where he proffered that at the start of the series and through the first few games, he “saw the cracks in the Lakers,” but by the end, the Lakers had sealed up those cracks and become a better team.
Now if this wasn’t enough, there was an X-factor in every series that I call the Anaconda Squeeze. This is a period of the game when the Lakers seize control, usually with a debilitating run that breaks the will of the competition.
Last night it was a 16-0 run in the second quarter that ripped away any sense of tomorrow for the Magic.
Any way you slice it, winning 2 of 3 on the road is an impressive way to close it out, and the mark of a champion, a concept that would have been laughable at the beginning of last season when Kobe, disappointed in the quality of talent around him, literally had one foot out the door.
In reflecting about how the quality of Bryant’s teammates had improved in the past two years, Kobe beamed, "I had a bunch of Christmas presents that came early. Got a new point guard (Fisher), got a new wing (Ariza), got a Spaniard (Gasol), and then it was all good."
As to the other standouts on the Lakers, all that I can say about Lamar is that to watch him is to appreciate sheer poetry and whimsy in one package. When he was on, which was plenty this series, the Lakers don’t lose. It’s another dimension of scariness.
In tandem, Ariza was an absolute backbreaker. He spread the floor, hit big shots and was a disruptor on defense. A true killer.
In many respects, I am most happy for Pau Gasol. He was FAIRLY maligned last year, and to his credit, he not only answered his critics then like a man, but he elevated his game to a whole other level this year. Beyond the offensive efficiency, the high basketball IQ and crisp passing, it was the defensive intensity that was most impressive. Consider that in game 5, Dwight Howard faced up Pau 38 times in single coverage and did not score from the field on any of them.
Kobe went into every game this year knowing that he could count of Gasol to deliver precious scoring, rebounding, passing and solid defense, which paid huge dividends in Kobe trusting his mates to make plays.
With my other sports teams (St. Louis Rams and Los Angeles Dodgers), I can be admittedly fair weathered. With the Lakers, however, it is true dedication and love, dating back to a pre-Magic Kareem Abdul-Jabbar team back when Jerry West was still COACHING.
As I have written in other posts, I consider sports to be a great metaphor for life, and specifically look to NBA Basketball as an operatic style of performance.
But here is where that comparison falls short. There is nothing staged about what has culminated with the Lakers emerging as the 2009 NBA Champions. Grit, experience, desire, talent and execution equaled championship results this year. The best team won.
Stan Van Gundy put it best when he noted in response to a question about Phil Jackson’s dependence on having great stars in his prolific 10 championship titles that he couldn’t think of one team that had won it all even once without having great stars.
When asked about what Jackson means to him, Derek said simply, “Phil allows us to be ourselves and realize our potential. I love that man.”
The coach and his quarterback (Bryant) celebrate the game, playing with discipline and a respect (for the game), trusting in themselves and each other.
In the end, they found their game, and locked in on the prize.
What’s left? One question. Phil, what's with the hat?
Whatever. Today we celebrate.
UPDATE1: GREAT Forum Blue and Gold post, 'Deconstructing Kobe' on why Bill Simmons/ESPN Page 2 (one of my favorite writers) comes across as a sore loser in refusing to acknowledge Kobe's growth as a player, and the impact on that growth on the bottom line, the Lakers winning it all.
Some time back, I wrote a post where I asserted that Apple (and Steve Jobs) has done such a good job of teaching us to expect magic that when they merely execute, we hammer them because…well it isn't magic.
I called this knee-jerk response, "Punishing the Wizard" since, where I come from, discipline, execution and proof of same are to be celebrated (what's not to like about -- Step One: make great products; Step Two: wow your customer/developer base; Step Three: print money; Step Four: repeat Step One?), but that's not how we think when it comes to Apple.
Thus, it is with little surprise that I find myself dubbing today's keynote, "Punishing the Wizard, Part Two."
Consider the general tenor of blogosphere analysis on today's event, which ranged from "F-ck AT&T" (well-deserved, IMHO) to "Yawn" to "Uh, oh, where was Jobs?"
Now to be fair, part of this is simply our culture of "buying on the rumor" and "selling on the news," which is to say that today’s announcements (essentially, Snow Leopard, new MacBook Pros, iPhone OS 3.0, iPhone 3GS, $99 iPhone 3G) had largely been discussed, disseminated and re-assembled into a series of plausible best guesses well in advance of the event, so the shock and awe was less than it might otherwise have been.
Hence, some of this disappointment is akin to reading a "spoiler" in a movie review immediately before watching the film; gums up the element of surprise.
But, there are several nuggets from today’s keynote that underscore strategic narratives worth pondering in the days, weeks and months ahead:
Apple is Playing Block the Kick with Focused Intensity: iPhone is the unquestioned leading device platform and ecosystem in terms of delivering a best of breed Mobile Broadband experience, albeit with Palm Pre and Google Android offering their own bits of goodness and differentiation. By preemptively: A) Upgrading iPhone OS 3.0 and SDK (see my analysis HERE); B) Replacing iPhone 3G as the flagship with iPhone 3GS (faster CPU,
adds video support, better camera); C) Dropping the price of iPhone 3G
to $99 to capture the low-end of the market; and D) Adding the ability
to purchase movies, TV shows directly from iPhone to better leverage
its iTunes Media portfolio (versus requiring download & sync from
Mac/PC, as is the case currently); Apple is doing everything humanly
possible to remain on offense, and prevent the competition from finding
its footing; namely, a market wedge/niche that can serve as the
beachhead to slow down Apple's momentum. Plus, the $99 entry point on
3G appears to be the lower margin product that Apple had alluded to
months back in discussions about not leaving a pricing gap for the
competition to outflank them.
Pushing OS X Snow Leopard as a $29 Upgrade is Recognition that its 'Halo Effect' Opportunity Window (may be) Closing: Vista has been a debacle for Microsoft, and it has opened a door for
Apple to grow OS X powered systems from 25M users in 2007 to 75M this
year (inclusive of iPhone/iPod touch devices). But, Windows 7 is getting closer to release (October 2009), and in
the interim, Microsoft is intelligently bifurcating their strategy and
messaging between being the enterprise standard (we support everything,
we're legacy, legacy never goes away, there is no "serious" enterprise
alternative) and the consumer standard (we're cheaper than Apple,
ubiquitous and "good enough") as a way to stop the bleeding. My guess
is that Apple sees their ability to meaningfully differentiate on the
desktop as a window that is closing, and as such, need to make Snow
Leopard ubiquitous, presumably both to drive converts (esp. as the
economy improves) and as part of a push to go after securing new Mac
developers before Windows 7 ships (iPhone developers not currently
developing for the Mac represent the low-hanging fruit).
AT&T and Apple – This Can’t End Well: While there is no question that the exclusivity deal with AT&T
provided the launch pad for Apple to create the afore-mentioned
wizardry with iPhone, and of course, the rich subsidy is heroin for
consumers and Apple alike, there is also no question that the
relationship can't end well (or is highly unlikely to). Why? One,
today's announcement spotlighted the liability side of the AT&T
relationship; namely, a great phone on a crappy network with an iffy
track record of customer care, not to mention, a carrier and supplier
who are at strategic cross-purposes. Case in point, the audience booed
the moment they realized that a touted tethering feature, which allows
you to seamlessly use your iPhone as a broadband modem for your Mac/PC,
won't be supported by AT&T; and another feature, MMS support, will
ship later than with other carriers. Two is the simple fact that the
way people buy mobile devices is through their carrier, and as long as
Apple is selling exclusively through AT&T, that means that the
Verizons, Sprints and T-Mobiles of the world have to sell something
other than iPhone, which is the number one way Android and Pre will
find its initial market. As was the story with the PC, at some point,
mobile becomes a units game, so Apple must counter this one as soon as
humanly possible, lest the volumes accrue to the carrier independent
device makers.
The (Hardware) Matrix is Coming: What is The Matrix? Envision a world where the Mac, Apple TV, iPhone,
iPod touch, iPod HD Tablet (rumored) and iPhone Nano (rumored),
respectively, can leverage a common SDK, plug into the App Store and
integrate with Mobile Me (in addition to iTunes), and you understand
that this implies all sorts of hardware abstraction decisions. No less,
this implies Apple partitioning the platform that supports these
form-factors between device-specific functions, open PC-like layers
(i.e., download apps from anywhere), and managed/closed runtime layers
(App Store is THE marketplace with a singular SDK, APIs, etc.). This is
The Matrix, a potential hornet's nest of technical, user experience and
ecosystem decisions. Connecting the dots, I believe that Snow Leopard
is the conduit OS where these things converge, but that's a total
guess, based on the assumption that derivative form-factors are a
given; that App Store and iPhone SDK are the best practices approach
with the biggest developer ecosystem; and that Apple's best way to win
in the Mobile Broadband Era is by making their products work together
in a unified, but more than the sum of the parts, fashion. This would
be another reason to push Snow Leopard NOW at $29; namely, so that when
The Matrix emerges, and there's a requirement that all interconnecting
devices run Snow Leopard to work together seamlessly, it's less
disruptive of a proposition than it might otherwise be. And more to the
point, it offers developers the largest potential installed base to
develop for (i.e., the 40M iPhone/iPod touch owners PLUS the ~35M OS X
powered Mac owners).
Looked at from this perspective, today's keynote may come to be known (with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight) as the keynote that was The Calm Before the Storm. Stay tuned.
A light flickers from two distinct points in time. As a child in the early-1970s, one of my toys was a View-Master,
a binoculars-like device for viewing 3D images (called stereograms),
essentially a mini-program excerpted from popular destinations, TV
shows, cartoons, events and the like.
Flash forward to the present, and
we are suddenly on the cusp of a game-changing event; one that I
believe kicks the door open for 3D and VR apps to become mainstream.
I
am talking about the release of iPhone OS version 3.0.
Read the rest of the post HERE (at O'Reilly Radar).
This one strikes a personal chord. Back in fall of 2000, my partners and I sold Rapid Logic, a device management platform and tools company that we had built from first heartbeat to a $10M business, 150+ customers and 225+ design wins (I was co-founder/CEO throughout) to Wind River for $67M. Today, the news dropped that Intel is buying Wind River for $884 million dollars.
While some will spin it as Intel getting serious about software, or moving up the solutions stack, my guess is that the net out is a 1+1= <2 outcome (something that Intel factored into the price that they paid for the company).
If anything, Wind River's inability to breakout, despite a once Microsoft-like position of dominance, is a by-product of their failure to meaningfully go "up the stack" and away from their historical focus on the silicon layer as a primary differentiation point.
In other words, if Wind River had enabled the next generation of Cisco and Apple killers by providing more differentiated OEM-in-a-Box offerings, ala what Google is now trying to do with Android, they would not be staring at a $900M market cap and relatively flat revenues, margins and stock price.
In fairness to them, it's not like anyone else stands out as knocking the ball out of the park in the embedded domain, so this is perhaps just the last chapter (for now) in a book that began when Wind River and Integrated Systems merged back in 1999 (read: commoditization/consolidation).
The counter to that, though, is that the failure of the embedded gorilla (i.e., WIND) to innovate its way to greater heights made them susceptible/blind to disruptive threats like Linux, mainly because they never grokked the essential point that a loosely coupled combination of OS, silicon abstraction and protocol soup were no longer enough to build a multi-billion dollar company.
In other words, when a market's 800-pound gorilla shows as little vision as Wind River has, doesn't really try to set any meaningful standards that others can build upon in some sort of synchronized fashion, but yet manages to stomp out nascent companies, that has to feed back into the market as well.
Specific to Intel and their aims via this deal, let’s be clear; there is very little software systems DNA within Intel, despite the fact that there are many thousands of software engineers within the company. A paradox, I know, but hard truth based on 13+ years of working with them.
Hence, barring a pretty serious religious conversion, software will always be the conduit to sell more silicon, which gates the likelihood of truly innovative solutions coming out of the combined entity.
Here’s some data on Wind River’s performance since the acquisition of Rapid Logic became “liquid,” with a chart on their performance relative to NASDAQ (courtesy of Kedron Wolcott, one of Rapid Logic’s co-founders with James Blaisdell, Lee Cheng and myself).
Wind River Stock Price since (12/8/2000) Number of days above $40: 4 Number of days above $30: 47 Number of days above $20: 130 Number of days above $10: 1190 Number of days below $10: 932 Number of days below $5: 212
The other night, in Game Six, in impressive fashion and on the road, the Lakers closed out a very difficult Denver Nuggets team (the Nuggets are for real; a really exciting team).
The Lakers played an absolutely brilliant and magical game. The stat that says it all is that the Lakers team made all 24 of their free throws.
That speaks volumes about the kind of focus and intensity that they brought to executing on both sides of ball. No player missed even one free throw all night.
In the post-game, reflecting back on the series, Denver Nuggets coach George Karl proffered that at the start of the series and through the first few games, he “saw the cracks in the Lakers,” but by the end, the Lakers had sealed up those cracks and become a better team.
Next up is the the Orlando Magic for the NBA Championship. Orlando has a great team, a monster defender in Dwight Howard, exceptional three point shooting and has beaten the Lakers both times they faced them.
Nonetheless, I am expecting that the Lakers will raise another championship banner and beat the Magic.
Why? The team has a unity of purpose; namely, putting the sourness of a Series defeat to the Boston Celtics last year; a series that included a monumental collapse in Game 4 and a 39 point beat-down in Game 6.
For Phil Jackson, winning also means earning his 10th title, and putting Red Auerbach in the rear-view mirror once and for all (and as a Laker diehard, I am a fan of anything that puts the Celtics in the rear-view mirror).
For Kobe, it means putting Shaq in the rear-view mirror by winning a championship without him.
SIDEBAR: Give Kobe his props, as he has played brilliantly, and now is unquestionably the quarterback of the team, which has added a sweet dimension to his game, and made the Lakers a much better team, almost “scary good” at times.
The bottom line is that whereas last year's Lakers were paper tigers, through repetition and good old-fashioned execution, this year's team is spun-steel, tiger meat, having gotten it done for a full season plus three playoff series.
In other words, they are at a special place, simultaneously battle-tested and battle-ready to win the Big Prize.
Case in point, last year they lacked mental toughness, and/or the ability to re-factor and rebound from serious body blows.
As a result, despite an incredibly enjoyable run to the title series (after they acquired Pau Gasol), they fell out of their game and got pummeled when confronted by a more physical, hungrier Celtics team.
Last year, they had a pretty smooth path to the Finals. This year, they had to face down some serious adversity to get where they are.
I hearken back to when Andrew Bynum went down for the second year in a row (both times playing against the Memphis Grizzlies) at the start of a major road swing.
How the do the Lakers respond? Well, in the next game Kobe scores 61 against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, which set the tone.
The trip culminated with the Lakers beating the Celtics and Cavaliers on consecutive nights to go undefeated for the road trip.
Moreover, this year, the Lakers were money when it came to winning games that were super close, coming down to who executed in the final 2-4 minutes.
That this is so speaks to a team-level commitment to lock-down defense at key points of the game, something that they absolutely lacked last year.
This year, they have what I affectionately call the Anaconda Squeeze, a point in the game, typically between the third and fourth quarters, when they absolutely squeeze the life out of the competition.
They do this by running off a debilitating run that breaks the spirit of the competition and puts the Lakers in a very hard to beat state (typical run: 21-7).
I have seen many a game completely turn this year where the Lakers basically overwhelm the competition, and the competition collapses from the pressure.
The Anaconda Squeeze is what the Lakers did to Denver multiple times in Game 6 (and when they took over and won Game 5). They learned something from the No Mercy sentiment that Boston cast their way in relentlessly stepping on the throats of the Lakers them in Game 6 of the Finals last year.
But here’s the irony. While getting through Houston and Denver were really hard, sometimes painfully so, karmically-speaking, it served a greater purpose.
As a result, all is well now in Laker-land, a sentiment best articulated in a wonderful write-up at Forum Blue and Gold:
The road to the finals favors the Lakers. Apollo Creed identified hand and foot quickness as Rocky’s weakness. So he had him chasing chickens. You have a problem guarding quick point guards and perimeter shooters; practice against Houston for 7 games. Tough athletic post players have pushed you around in the past? Practice against Denver for 6 games. Ali prepared for Foreman by sparring against Ernie Shavers, not a lightweight.
In contrast, none of the teams the Magic has played thus far has prepared them for the challenges that the Lakers bring. They had so many physical mismatches against the Cavs that it was like seeing Ali beat up on the light-heavyweight champion, Bob Foster.
But this practice was no preparation against Ken Norton, who broke Ali’s jaw.
Last series against the Nuggets, I thought back to a younger Kobe against Sacramento Kings, a series where Kobe promised to cut the Kings hearts out on the road, and did just that.
Simply put, it's deja vu all over again, and feels like everything old is new (again).
As such, my money’s on the Lakers.
All season long, when confronted with a supreme challenge, they have risen to the occasion.
I expect them to do the same once again, and to take home the trophy.
Related Posts:
Laker Thoughts: Playoff Edition (Game 2 vs. Houston Rockets)
Maker Faire Bay Area 2009, the World's
premiere DIY (Do-It-Yourself) event, is returning to the San Mateo Event
Center this weekend May 30th - 31st, which is officially Maker's Weekend as
proclaimed by the county of San Mateo. With more than 600 Makers scheduled
to show off their inventions including robotics, rockets, crafts and food,
organizers are expecting record crowds with attendees from across the
state, country and beyond for this one of a kind event. (Last year's show had 50K+ attendees).
Produced by the folks who bring you MAKE Magazine, Maker Faire celebrates things people
create themselves -- from James Bond-worthy electronic gizmos to Martha
Stewart-quality "slow made" foods and homemade clothes. Inspiration is
ubiquitous at the festival and there are surprises around every corner for
people of all ages.
What I Am Presenting (from Program Guide)
Imagine a universal remote control device that controls your home
entertainment center, home alarm system AND functions as your
interactive programming guide.
This presentation, by digital
entrepreneur Mark Sigal and Square Connect (doing the demo) will
discuss the hardware and accessories that you need to build an iPod
touch/iPhone powered universal remote control “touch pad.”
It will show
you the necessary wireless signaling protocols that you need to control
your home entertainment center, activate and deactivate your home
alarm, turn on, off or dim lights, and more.
Finally, premised on an
objective of making media more interactive, Mark will introduce an
framework (lifecycle) for thinking about social, metadata and services
overlays and interconnects.
In ‘Den of Thieves,’ James B. Stewart’s brilliant expose on the Insider Trading Scandals in the 80s (that brought down Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert), you read about people doing unquestionably illegal and amoral things. Ultimately, they are carted off to prison.
This storyline plays out again during the S&L Crisis and following the Tech Bubble burst.
But, this time…not so much. How could that be?
A better proxy for the present times is the Collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998, which required a joint save by the US Government and the major Investment Banking houses to avoid a major earthquake hitting the global financial markets.
Then, as now, the ultimate crime was embracing as the gospel that models are always right and human intervention won't offset or derail them.
True believers, not deep cynics, who assumed that the level of risk that they were taking was so unlikely to yield a doomsday type of outcome (and corresponding negative returns) that such outputs were treated as rounding errors, and NOT one of the central equations to be continuously re-calculated.
Add in compensation, investment and liquidity externalities that incented behaviors that were asymmetric to national and personal security/stability, and you have a pandemic case of people's eyes deceiving them.
Thus, at every turn you see people putting a large percentage of their balance sheet and liquidity in play versus running for the hills.
The individual investor, the institutional investor, the investment banker, the real estate broker, the loan officer, the developer and the entrepreneur were all (or mostly) true believers.
To be sure, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight a great many truths appear to be patently obvious, almost demanding (for the benefit of our psyches) that crimes MUST have been committed.
Yet, once you get beyond the Madoffs and schemers/deceivers who arise whenever the ground is fertile, my honest belief is that (in the moment) there were very few canaries in the coalmine that were signaling imminent danger.
Intellectually, maybe a tiny alarm bell sounded that outsized returns, in absence of a corresponding REAL risk to principal, was perhaps too good to be true.
But let's not be too hard on ourselves, or too quick to blame others.
The road ahead looked pretty clear - until the hard data arrived in the form of a series of seismic events that VERY quickly became the New Normal - doing long-term damage to personal portfolios and mortally wounding our financial system.
What is most amazing about the carnage that resulted is how few people were required to perform the actual trades that resulted in the fiscal equivalent of a nuclear meltdown.
In ‘AIG: We Own It,’ 60 Minutes interviews Ed Liddy, the emergency CEO parachuted in to stabilize the company that is one of the poster children of this saga.
He shares this interesting tidbit. While AIG has 116,000 employees, it took only about 20 people to bring AIG down. Think about that one from a systemic risk perspective.
When you think of companies that are not only built to last, but rather, built to thrive – in boom times and tough times; in times when incumbents rule and times when disruptors rule – what companies logically sit at the top of the pyramid?
Equally important, what should be the criteria for assessing them?
Beginning with the second question, let me propose a straw man for assessing the "Built-to-Thrive" bunch:
Differentiated Products: the company’s core offerings are not commoditized relative to the competition, which gives the company pricing power.
Diversified Revenue Sources: the company’s aggregate revenue is split up across multiple lines of business.
Depth of Product Pipeline: the company’s R&D engine is healthy, delivering with regularity and predictability not only new commercial-grade products, but also new revenue sources that favorably impact the bottom line.
Quality/Depth/Durability of Management Team: the company’s management team is high-caliber, the "bench" is deep, and top management tends to stay at the company for the long haul.
Operating Margins: the company exercises stringent fiscal controls and operates within prescribed operating margins.
Profits: the net effect of the above is a highly profitable business.
Cashflow: the business generates positive cashflow and lots of it.
Cash Reserves: the company has ample cash reserves to weather storms, accelerate R&D, up marketing spend or M&A activities as needed.
Healthy Balance Sheet: The balance sheet is not weighted down by debt, uncollectible receivables or other financial engineering that hobbles the company.
Well-defined Corporate Culture: Employees know what the company stands for, how that drives decision making, prioritization thinking and it serves as a unifying force within the company.
Based on the above criteria, the following are my Gold, Silver and Bronze standard-bearers:
Apple is the Gold Standard It should be no surprise to readers of this blog, that I put Apple at the top of the pyramid, inasmuch as they do spectacularly well on all of these criteria, save for a perceived dependence on Steve Jobs (gut: we’ll find out soon enough if perception is reality) and an uncomfortable (for me) proclivity to mislead/abuse press, partners and investors on fringe items (Exhibit A: matters pertaining to health of Steve Jobs).
Google is the Silver Standard From Search to Keyword-based Search/Display Advertising to Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Earth, Desktop and Maps for mobile, Google does very well in a lot of categories, has achieved a dominant position in a couple of others, and runs a very profitable enterprise. Some recent brain-drain and a failure to materially diversify revenue sources must be counterbalanced by a strong corporate culture, the courage to dive aggressively into new markets (e.g., mobile devices via Android) and a recent increase in fiscal discipline; most notably, the maturity to feed the winners and starve the losers product-wise.
Amazon is the Bronze Standard Amazon has so totally reinvented retail, and its model is (somewhat) category independent that, combined with a relentless focus on customer satisfaction, their foundation is solid. No less, Bezos and company have built a platform that enables third-party merchants to plug into their technology infrastructure, their consumer base and their physical fulfillment capabilities. Plus, they are pioneering cloud services (via Amazon Web Services - Elastic Compute, Mechanical Turk) and reinventing the book for the digital age (via Kindle). Finally, they have a very strong, healthy culture, subject to the caveat that Jeff Bezos so overshadows his executive team that they are in a similar bucket to Apple with Jobs, and their fiscal discipline seems to ebb and flow based upon real-time reads of the market.
Cisco: Close, But No Cigar While Apple, Google and Amazon regularly swing for the fences on the innovation front, all the while protecting and nurturing their core businesses, Cisco tends to “talk” about swinging for the fences; namely, wholly new services that combine voice, data, video and information. In practice, however, they feel more like they are in the "ingredient" business when they need to be in the "recipe" business. In other words, while they are the unquestioned leader in networking gear, have a tremendous sales organization, and are aggressive on marketing spend and on the M&A front (e.g., Cisco’s Consumer unit bought Pure Digital, makers of the consumer-friendly, Flip Video video camera), they seem to be more rhetoric than revolution these days. They are IBM, which has its merits, but the downside is that they no longer feel like a game-changing company.
Am I Showing a Consumer Bias? Maybe I am showing a pre-disposition to favor consumer-oriented companies in my Gold, Silver and Bronze selections, but that is also a reflection of a core belief that post-tech bubble, innovation flows from the consumer realm back to the enterprise, and not the other way around (i.e., the enterprise is a follower, not a leader, in adopting technology innovation).
As a result, this tends to make companies focused on the enterprise segment less dynamic in terms of their cultural and operational DNA. This obviously can change if and when enterprises embrace technology innovation with greater fervor than they have in recent years.
Who Else? Who Did I Miss? Did I miss anyone obvious, especially outside of tech? Who looks better than these three companies on a long-term basis in terms of differentiated products, diversified revenue sources, depth of product pipeline, quality/depth/durability of management team, operating margins, profits, cashflow, cash reserves, balance sheet strength and strong corporate culture?
Being a bit of a Buddhist at heart, I subscribe to the axiom that experience "cuts." Simply put, when you climb steep mountains, when you aspire to meaningful accomplishments, when you put yourself out there emotionally, with true skin in the game, you will get cut. And being sliced up, hurts. That's just the way that it is.
Unfortunately, human nature is to convert the real "physicality" of pain into a confused state. We do this by attaching our egos to the suffering at hand, and giving birth to a discursive thought that begins with the question, "Why is this happening to me?"
Given that, how is it that some of us come through the grist mill of life basically happy and contented, while others get chewed up, ending up as disconsolate, broken spirits?
In other words, is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and
psychological adaptation—for a good life?
'What Makes Us Happy?' by Joshua Wolf Shenk (in the June issue of The Atlantic) is a thought-provoking article that tries to answer this question based on the conclusions of a multi-decade Harvard study, as summarized here:
For 72 years, researchers at
Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who
entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and
divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to
the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in
history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound
insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind
of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.
Here is excerpt that captures one fundamental element to being happy; namely that perspective is everything:
"Yet, even as he takes pleasure in poking holes in an innocent idealism, Vaillant says his hopeful temperament is best summed up by the story of a father who on Christmas Eve puts into one son’s stocking a fine gold watch, and into another son’s, a pile of horse manure. The next morning, the first boy comes to his father and says glumly, 'Dad, I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.' The other boy runs to him and says, 'Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, if only I can just find it!'"
So what makes us happy? Relationships (esp. with siblings), living a productive life, maintaining a healthy perspective, and beyond that, it's murky.
Read the full article HERE. It's pretty illuminating.
Imagine being able to deploy a remotely controllable squadron of unmanned planes (drones) that can view the activity on the ground from 10,000 feet or higher with incredible clarity, day or night.
These planes are able to remain aloft and stationary for up to 24 hours at a time, and at that height, are virtually invisible and make no noise.
Not merely eyes in the sky, these drones can fire laser-controlled 500 pound bombs, all directed from a central command center thousands of miles away.
You can see how such an approach would change the game, militarily speaking.
But while it all sounds like science fiction, would it surprise you to know that next year is actually going to be the first time that we (the United States Air Force) are buying more of these unmanned planes (known an Predator and Reaper) than manned ones? Blew my mind.
Surreal, but real. Watch the video below from ‘Drones: America's New Air Force’ (on Sunday’s '60 Minutes'), and see for yourself.
Excerpt: From 10,000 feet above, the Predator was able to zoom in and send back a very precise image of Logan and the 60 Minutes team standing on the grounds of Creech Air Force Base. The Predator couldn't be heard or seen by the team, even though they knew the exact whereabouts of the drone. The Predator's camera even followed the 60 Minutes team as they drove off the base's flight line. It's this ability that makes it difficult for enemy fighters to escape.
“The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.”
I know, I know. Proprietary is Evil. Open is Good.
But, not so fast, my friend. I am here to tell you that there are only three reasons to embrace open standards.
Thus, if the definition of the situation regarding the standard that you are contemplating embracing does not fit within one (or all) of these three buckets, do yourself a favor, and choose a different path:
Indisputable Market Momentum: Front-line products or services supporting the standard are shipping (or imminently will be). Don’t get fooled by pledges that products will support the standard in the future, or a company hedging its bets by supporting the standard on a third-tier, obscure offering. This is all about tangible, meaningful proof.
Clear Technical Leverage: Does the standard solve a real problem that eases your development cycle TODAY? Too often, a standard promises to solve a meaty problem down the road, but in practice, does nothing for developers today. Be vigilant and discriminating in assessing if there’s a “there” there in the present.
Brand Awareness by the End Customer: While the media will often tout a given standards-based approach as a game-changer, customers rarely care, unless the product solves a specific, well-understood problem for them. Thus, this is a two-part question. One, does the customer REALLY care? Two, do you know who the actual decision maker to buy your product is (technical buyers and non-technical buyers often have very different criteria)?
Duh, sounds obvious, right?
Yet, I am amazed how often the rank-and-file diss a particular approach as proprietary, as if being differentiated and having a fig leaf of defensibility is something to apologize for.
Or worse, they tout a so-called standard when it is neither widely embraced in real shipping products nor offers compelling technical leverage or explicit marketing advantages.
When confronted with such folk, approach them as you would the door-to-door salesman who's pushing an unwanted trinket, and simply say, "Thanks. Not interested at the present time."
Now this is a series. The Rockets and Lakers have contrasting enough styles that whoever’s style prevails, wins the series.
No shortage of drama, either. Dating back to Utah, the officials had allowed first the Jazz, and then, the Rockets, to manhandle the Lakers, and they weren’t calling that stuff a foul.
Calling the game that way shows a prevailing bias to a particular style of play, and it aint the Lakers (style of play).
Regardless, the Lakers had to answer the physicality of the Rockets. Otherwise, they didn’t deserve to become champs.
If Houston won, they would have been up 2-0, going home for the next two games and playing in front of their fervent fans.
Beyond knowing what that would have meant for the Lakers, for Houston it would have meant that they are THAT good – i.e., good enough to be champions.
Yao is a warrior. Artest is excellent. He has played big. Their players are very tough and play together with fervor, commitment and heart.
An Incredible Game: Smash Mouth Basketball
Case in point, after an brilliant First Quarter by the Lakers, in the Second Quarter, the Rockets took the Lakers out to the tool shed and whipped them. It took a Kobe three for the game to be tied at Half.
During the Halftime Show, Kenny Smith nailed it, saying that the game had championship implications.
Which style would prevail in the Second Half?
The Lakers, like true champs, answered the bell, and (re) took the game.
Playing Three Card Monte
At the same time, the way they answered – with Fisher taking down Scola, and Kobe locking down into Artest, basically said, “bring it on.”
But it was more than that.
It was so blatant that it sent an emblematic, heart-felt message to a Party of Four (FOUR!!): Stu Jackson, the Rockets, Jordan Farmar and Rick Adelman.
To Stu Jackson, NBA Officiating czar, the message is simple. Know your place. Does the league really want Cleveland versus Houston? (Yeah, yeah, the league isn't about that, just like it isn't about relevance, money and ratings.)
To the Rockets, it sends a clear message that the Lakers aren’t intimidated. Tonight, they showed they could be plenty tough.
After the game, I think Jackson equated it to the team finding its purpose.
In that sense, Fisher was a masterstroke, pretty poetic. For one, it created the perfect situation for Farmar to come in. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder because Fisher was gone.
And in the closing rotation, which I loved (energy, defense), both he and Shannon Brown were able to share the floor, so he could focus on playing ball, and he did great.
That rotation (Kobe, Pau, Farmar, Brown, Walton, I think) throws a true speed and disruption look that the Rockets will have some trouble with, and with some burn, the rotation will become better finishers (Odom or Ariza can plug in pretty well, I think).
Minimally, it will force Houston to mix up some personnel at a time of Phil Jackson’s choosing; namely, when he needs a tempo reset to break Houston’s flow, and establish LA’s own.
No less, it adds another dimension to the Lakers, something that Phil Jackson has struggled to find since the role players haven’t, for the most part, answered when called in either of the first two series before tonight.
Welcome to Round Three of Jackson v. Adelman
But, here’s the thing. None of this is the REAL drama. That would be the happy fact that this is "Round Three of Phil Jackson versus Rick Adelman," and Laker fans happily remember how the last go around went.
Round One. The Adelman-led Portland Trail Blazers face off for the 1992 NBA Championship against Michael Jordan and the Phil Jackson-coached Chicago Bulls. The Bulls, of course, win the crown.
Round Two. In 2002, the Rick Adelman-led Sacramento Kings were about to go up 3-1, heading back to Sacramento.
Yep, that’s the game where Horry made that falling away three pointer to steal the game (after the Lakers had been down by as many as 24 earlier in the game), make it 2-2, and the Lakers prevailed in a colossal seven games.
The Lakers won their third championship under Phil Jackson, and the Kings never made it over the hump. Tonight signifies Round Three has begun for Adelman.
The Zen Master Arrives
If you doubt that Jackson is the Zen Master, consider this. The net effect of what played out tonight was that Fisher left, Farmar entered, Artest got kicked out, Von Wafer had words with his coach, and was sent to the showers early. All in the same game.
And the Lakers tempo prevailed; they won. I think this game perhaps re-awakened some bad memories for Adelman.
Also, let's not forget Artest's history of self-immolation, so some element of psychological voodoo is clearly at work on the part of Jackson and the Lakers.
That’s where Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley have it wrong.
This isn’t analogous to a playground-ish type of sport. The Lakers weren't being thugs. This is the NBA Playoffs, and the game is played on multiple levels, something PJ clearly relishes.
His mantra: refs, call it the same both ways. In well-matched series, it comes down to the stars stepping up. It comes down to a need, a collective will, not backing down from the challenge, who wants it most. It comes down to who answers the call.
It’s matchups, adjustinments, having a point of attack, and a lock down efficiency on defense, which the closing unit had tonight in spades. It's about having a clear purpose, and keeping the competition off-balance.
Somewhere in the distance, Game Three looms. I love this game.
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