The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blog

Understanding New Mediums: Why Post PC is Not Merely the Web with a Native Wrapper

This is a fable for a future truth.

There is an analog from the past that frames how I think about the rise of new mediums. It's the motion picture.

Once upon a time, our notion of the motion picture was that it was silent, with accompanying music to set the tone of the story, and sub-titles to stage specific scenes.

It was a simple medium that was inexpensive to distribute to theaters far and wide. It traveled well internationally, too (just "localize" a few text boxes).

Kind of like in the early days of the web.

Along comes the 'talkie,' and conventional wisdom saw the idea of driving movie narratives through talking actors as a fad at best, and an expensive gimmick at worst.

It required new types of actors, new approaches to filming and costly retrofitting of theaters.

Amazingly, in just four years the talkie subsumed the silent picture.

What's interesting is that this occurrence not only changed how movies were made, and the economics of the movie business, but it fundamentally changed our notion of a what a movie could BE.

It became a different medium.

The Rise of a New Medium

This is what the next wave will look like.

It will change our notion of what computing, connecting and communicating experiences can be.

The magical opporunities will come from figuring out the types of interactions that come to life when:

• Client and Cloud Converge;
• The field of play is 10 Billion Devices worldwide
• Our concept of an interaction can mean "Humans," "Machine-Assisted," or "Autonomous and Invisible."

The tendency for consumers, technologists, analysts and investors is to confuse attributes, like browsers and URLs, with outcomes.

But attributes are merely artifacts. 

Outcomes are aspirational; jobs to be defined; the embodiment of a medium.

The hot category of messaging apps, which Ben Evans talks about in his excellent post, 'Interaction, canvases and ecosystems,' is a good example of the emerging medium at work. (SEE: WhatsApp | Kik | SnapChat)

Why? Because such experiences have a notion of state, distribution, message and payload.

Here, I'd assert that there are a lot of interaction models and interesting workflows that this type of runtime structure can support.

It lends itself to new experiential forms that are the "talkies" to today's "silent" web.

What's Past is Prologue

Ironically, unlike the many mediums to get disrupted by digital - music, books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast television - the talkie, an early twentieth century creation, has stood the test of time.

It's proven elastic and durable across genre, geography, demographic and viewing screen.

This is something to think about as the Post PC era takes hold.

Related

1. (SLIDESHARE) The Mobile Native Cloud: An extensible computing model for the Post - PC Era
2. Progress Waits for No One, and Other Harsh Truths
3. The Mobile Broadband Era: It's About Messages, Mobility and The Cloud (O'Reilly)

Dots versus Lines in the Matter of Google and Apple

Jean-Louis Gassée wrote a thought provoking piece called 'Puzzling Over Google's Nest Acquisition.' In it, he wondered why Google opted to make Nest its second biggest acquisition at $3.2B. Gassée couldn't connect the dots.

I'd argue that the Nest story is indicative of the difference between Google and Apple.

It’s dots vs. lines. The Google approach is to keep putting dots on the board on the premise that sooner or later, enough of a pattern will emerge to connect those dots.

By contrast, everything that Apple does is about drawing well formed lines.

Both have their virtues, but they are fundamentally different approaches to looking at markets, platforms and the types of solutions that are worth their investment.

Dots centricity means Google is simultaneously willing to pursue strategies that are: A) Big, wild ass bets that have low probability of success; B) Sustaining investments that protect and extend their core business; and C) Get in the game investments that extend the “field of play” that they have a relevance for.

In this regard, they don’t always even distinguish between concept products, prototypes and real shipping products that contribute material revenues and profits.

Apple, on the other hand, is only willing to make investments in strategies for which they can become the standard bearer within; that have high consumer engagement to the point of love by the consumer; and for which there is a product (refresh) lifecycle that can be predictability modeled AND a hardware-software-service-tools-media platform that underlies it, thereby anchoring their differentiation.

In the case of Google, it's an approach that has yielded: YouTube, Google Maps, Android, Gmail, Chrome, AdWords/AdSense and Analytics. 

The Apple approach has yielded a unity of iOS devices, Macs, iTunes and the App Store. 

Again, a lot of this comes down to how one defines success and what are the metrics that underlie that success.

The Apple way is clearly not the Google way -- any more than the Amazon way isn’t reflective of either Apple or Google.

Apple founder Steve Jobs had a very zen-like take on dot-connecting:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” 

Amen to that.

No good deed goes unpunished at the iPhone company

The moral of the story when it comes to the Apple investor is that no good deed goes unpunished. Expect Apple stock to get hammered on Tuesday for what is a very real shortfall in the projections of analysts. 

Of course, the moral of the story here is that Apple specifically told its investors a year ago that it was no longer going to "manage" earnings expectations with pre-ordained beats.

So what happened in the most recent quarter? Apple hit its own sales projections, which if you take the company's specific proclamations at face value, was the real, achievable goal.

Given Apple's unparalleled track record, you'd think that they've earned some benefit of the doubt. Namely, that they actually know what they are doing.

But, purely as a stock, Apple is seen as the iPhone company.

And the picture there is decidedly more complex. At a minimum, iPhone sales growth is flattening (for now). China Mobile could be anything from a moonshot to mediocre.

Footnote: China Mobile is the largest network in the world, with over 750 million customers.

From the tenor of the call, it seems clear that the company misread consumer sentiment (and demand) for the iPhone 5c. What does that say about the Apple innovation engine post Steve?

Domestic sales were very strong, but flat, and there were some rumblings of carriers stretching out the time periods on consumer refresh cycles.

A lot of the attention shifts to emerging markets and Asia driving growth. Very possible, but not guaranteed.

At the same time, you have to be pretty dense to diminish what 51M iPhones in a quarter means in terms of the depth of the iOS platform.

This completely discounts the potential for Apple to culitvate an ewallet (read this story on Starbucks $1.4 billion in quarterly gift cards).

I'm starting to feel pretty strongly that mobile payments will be a front seat item for Apple very soon.

Oh, and there's iPad, which did pretty well too. If there's a device that embodies post pc computing, it's the iPad.

I would love to see the company put more energy towards developing integrator channels.

That way it can penetrate more enterprise-scale verticals, like medical, pharma, field sales, retail and training, where it already has footholds. 

The other big variable is that the Apple retail stores are still humming along.

They host 144 million visitors at their stores each quarter, or about 21,000 visitors per store, per week. 

With ~420 stores open, average revenue per store was $16.7 million, compared to $16.3 million in the year ago quarter. 

By design, Apple's end-to-end-ness remains its biggest advantage.

The company with $158.8 billion in cash (or equivalents), after adding $12 billion in the quarter should get hammered on Tuesday.

It's small thanks for being transparent, disciplined, prolific and purpose-driven.

Speaking of which, let me end this post with this answer from Apple CEO Tim Cook on whether the company is actively pursuing the Mobile Payments space:

"Let me sort of avoid the last part of your question, but in general, we’re seeing that people love being able to buy content, whether it’s music or movies or books, from their iPhone, using Touch ID. It’s incredibly simple and easy and elegant, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of opportunity there.

The mobile payments area in general is one that we’ve been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID. But we’re not limiting ourselves just to that. So I don’t have anything specific to announce today, but you can tell by looking at the demographics of our customers and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices versus the competition that it’s a big opportunity on the platform."

Seems near term.

UPDATE: With rumors heating up about Apple’s Mobile Payments plans, PayPal wants in as an Apple partner (highly unlikely to happy). 

Related

1. 9 logical applications for iBeacons
2. NIKEiD and the Uber-ization of Global Logistics
3. Cry Babies: The Strange, Confusing Path of the Apple Investor

The Daily To Do - Design Your Day

I read a great article by Jay Yarow in Business Insider called, 'This Is The Internal Grading System Google Uses For Its Employees — And You Should Use It Too.'

It's about OKR's, an organizational system called Objectives and Key Results that was pioneered by Intel.

The basic premise of OKR's is conveyed by Mark Pincus:

“John Doerr [the venture capitalist] sold me on this idea of OKR’s, which stands for objectives and key results. It was developed at Intel and used at Google, and the idea is that the whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results, and if you achieve two of the three, you achieve your overall objective, and if you achieve all three, you’ve really killed it.”

This just makes sense.

It got me thinking about how I could incorporate elements of OKR's within my business (and life).

The Big idea is Designing Your Day with a Daily To Do List

After having read 'The Checklist Manifesto' by Atul Gawande (one of my favorite writers), I am now a big believer in the power of Checklists.

The idea is that whenever possible, try to "Design" your day.

You do this by creating a To Do List. 

It's really that simple. The Daily To Do has only two elements:

1. One Objective: One task succinctly defined;
2. Three Key Results: Three outcomes you'd like to see happen;

When applicable, items in The Daily To Do can be Calendared so you can fit things into the Desired Flow of your day.

This same model scales to a Team, Department and Company level. Try it!

Related:

1. Start in the Middle

9 logical applications for iBeacons

As much as anything, the Internet of Things is about the rise of smart, connected sensors. Apple's iBeacon harnesses smart phones and super-cheap Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensory 'beacons' to bring location-aware services into a bunch of new categories.

They include: 

1. Get a coupon for 10 percent off a TV because you stood in the TV department.
2. Your home will automatically react to you.
3. Your phone will give you a tour of museums.
4. Organize neighborhood pick-up games for kids.
5. Tickets that automatically load as you enter sporting events.
6. Win something for visiting a car dealership.
7. Toys that are aware of each other.
8. Get a free cup of coffee or snack while pumping your gas.
9. Be warned that your bike or car is no longer in the garage.

'How iBeacons could change the world forever' is an excellent article on this topic. Well worth a read. 

10 questions to help you write better headlines

Let's face it, the headline is...the envelope, the tweet, the forward-along and the subject line.

It's the moment of truth when your audience either gets engaged, or moves on.

That's why this quicklist of 10 questions to ask while writing a headline is worth a read:

1. Is the headline accurate?
2. Does it work out of context?
3. How compelling a promise does it make?
4. How easy is it to parse?
5. Could it benefit from a number?
6. Are all the words necessary?
7. Does it obey the Proper Noun Rule?
8. Would it work better as an explanatory headline?
9. Does it focus on events or implications?
10. Could it benefit from one of these 10 words? Top, Why, How, Will, New, Secret, Future, Your, Best, Worst.

via poynter.org

Perpetually Synced Services: Ruminations on Ubiquity, Persistence and Composition

We are getting to the point where you and I can take for granted that our content, context and conversations are perpetually and autonomously synced across all of our devices.

Today, this means Photos, Contacts and Calendar. In many cases, it extends to Songs, Mail, File Sharing, Text Messages, Apps, eBooks, Maps and To-Do Lists. 

The systems that drive such syncronizations are part Client and Cloud.

At some point, we will build meta-platforms and marketplaces on top of this layer that give rise to entirely new categories of applications.

Owing to the rich strata that such systems will be able to mine and refine, the applications that emerge during this wave will for the first time, be built around Me, My Interests, My Content, My Recurring Workflows and My Extended Networks.

Phase one (happening now) is the emergence of these 'Perpetually Synced Services' as a utility that is every bit as reliable, boring and invisble as electricity.

Phase two is the rise of new vehicles that harness this utility.

My bet is that such systems will be built upon the backs of smarter messaging systems, a bit like the example of WeChat, where consumers can hail a taxi and pay for it while chatting with friends.

Every time you ride an Uber, and appreciate the seamless, almost magical, nature of that experience, or delight in the elegant simplicty of Dropbox, know that you are staring squarely into the future.

It's a fractal of a greater truth yet to be revealed.

Related:

1. The Mobile Native Cloud - An Extensible Model for the Post PC Era
2. How Uber is like Southwest Air - The Art of Reinventing an Industry

How to Build a Mass Movement Quickly

I love this blurb from Felix Salmon of Reuters:

To build a mass movement quickly, it helps to have an over-simplified, emotive narrative with a single demand. It also helps to tell people that by doing easy tasks -- sharing a link on Facebook, buying a bracelet -- they can make a material difference (e.g., save lives). Central to the formula is that the agency of "local actors" gets downplayed to hype up the importance of action by outsiders. 

via blogs.reuters.com

VALUATION METRICS: 10 factors to consider when assessing if a company is 10X Revenue Club material

Bill Gurley of Benchmark is one of the smartest VCs I know. His investments include Uber, DogVacay, GrubHub, Zillow and OpenTable.This is a great filter for assessing investing in private companies as well.

We created a list of 10 factors that public investors consider when trying to qualify if a company is deserved of such a prestigious and lofty valuation. These factors are:

1. Sustainable Competitive Advantage – how big is the competitive Moat?
2. Presence of Network Effects – does the model tip to a single vendor?
3. Visibility/Predictability – is the revenue consistent
4. Customer Lock-in / High Switching Costs – is it expensive to leave?
5. Gross margin levels – How much leverage exists is the business?
6. Marginal Profitability Calculation – is the leverage still expanding?
7. Customer Concentration – are there key dependencies?
8. Major Partner Dependencies – are there key dependencies here as well?
9. Organic Demand vs. Marketing Spend – is customer acquisition expensive?
10. Growth – how big will the future be?

via abovethecrowd.com

Triangulations: Quality of Life - Is There More to Life than "Winning"?

"Software devs be like, 'We can change the world! ...unless it involves race, gender or economic oppression, then that's just how it is.' - Benito Applenoms (‏@yeloson)

Life presents a Parodox. It really does.

Are you satisfied with exhibiting a well-executed Pose?

Do you demand Performance from yourself?

Do you pursue a directed Path?

How about holding your Peers to some measure of Accountability?

Are you willing to look the other way so that Wall Street can hide behind the credo that Capitalism has no duty to the Greater Good? Or, Society for that matter?

It's why Wall Street can unashamedly steal from its own government with impunity. Pure capitalism, after all, is about the pursuit of Profits and Growth over Everything Else.

It's a revolving door. A lotto ticket to be cashed in. You would, too. Or, would you?

Is the Social Contract Dead?

Is so, what then? What's the end-game for the "Losers" in the game of life?

Silly talk? Get with it. A non-trival percentage of the population doesn't see itself as being gated on any sort of social responsibility boundaries. The market cures all, after all. The great antiseptic.

It doesn't see funding Safety Nets and Education as an "Us" topic. But rather, a Them topic, or worse, tantamount to waste and dead-beatism.

It raises a fundamental question of what represents Quality of Life in our society.

Is it collecting Stuff?

Is it Pursuing Big Ideas?

Is it Family and Friends?

Does establishing a Collective sense of "We"-ness matter anymore?

SImple questions, but the practice of actually building truths that do it in an always-on, always connected, Mobile First world require a fresh take on systems design, workflow, marketplace structuring and economic models.

TED as Emblematic of the Empty Sound Bite

Which brings me to TED. And sadly, no, I am not talking about that Ted.

Writing in theguardian.com, Benjamin Bratton argues compellingly that science, philosophy and technology run on the model of American Idol – as embodied by TED talks – is a recipe for civilisational disaster.

Read the full article, which is rich and thought-provoking. This excerpt captures what Bratton is advocating:

"Instead of dumbing-down the future, we need to raise the level of general understanding to the level of complexity of the systems in which we are embedded and which are embedded in us. This is not about "personal stories of inspiration", it's about the difficult and uncertain work of demystification and reconceptualisation: the hard stuff that really changes how we think. "

Amen to that. This requires multi-generational thinking. Can WE do that?

I pledge to do my part in the Year Ahead.

How about YOU?