buzznovation

An open letter/E-Mail....

A friend of mine gave me Steve Ballmer’s E-Mail address the other day and told me that I should write Steve a note. You are probably thinking as you read this that I was going to write him that he should buy ActiveWords.

Not a chance, although the thought has occurred me that I would love to do that.

Actually I was going to write him to suggest that he should take the $44.6B that Microsoft wants to use to buy Yahoo, and instead capitalize say 44 new companies at $1B each, and find a way to own the future of technology. That in and of itself would probably be construed to be an “anti-trust” event, but what I find most amusing is that I have yet to find anyone who can remember using anything on Yahoo. I, on the other hand, routinely read Yahoo’s college basketball page, yet I don’t think I have even the vaguest recollection of ever seeing an ad on those pages. I just checked and they do have ads. Today one for Oracle, but any association between Oracle and college hoops is probably ignored by 99.99% of basketball fans. ( But thanks I suppose should be given to Oracle for sponsoring the page…)

But what sparked this post was an article in the N.Y. Times this morning entitled “A Highflier Loses Altitude as Google’s Clicks Go Flat” The writer notes that Google’s stock has lost $283 per share from last Fall’s high, or basically twice the value of Yahoo per the Microsoft offer. The write, e.g. Michael Helft notes a report that people just aren’t clicking on “paid clicks”. I don’t think I have ever clicked on one, and only rarely have heard anyone say that the do. Perhaps my friends and my life is different, but I don’t think so. My sense is that the real customers that companies want, e.g. the ones with discretionary income and the ability to influence others are ad blind, i.e. they just don’t see the ads anymore.

Microsoft has all kinds of bright, talented and creative people. They have all kinds of great technology waiting in the wings, and lots of smart people seeking to do business with them with excellent technology.

So, Steve, if it makes any sense, use the cash and stock to invest in the future of technology and in your people, and find a way to make the world a vastly better place.

Just my thoughts for today….

Making the Seattle "A" list...

Today was a pretty interesting day vis a vis my real or imaginary blogging skills.

First up I was named #3 on the list of influential entrepreneur-bloggers in Seattle, and given the competition, both in terms of great guys and great writing, I am honored, and frankly am going to demand a recount, e.g. as in how could I possibly rank this high….  

And then, Rob La Gatta of LexBlog posted an interview that he did with me.

To put it all in perspective. The Seattle start up world is thriving. Being part of it is a huge amount of fun. I went to the weekly coffee meet up this morning that Andy Sack organizes at Louisa’s on Eastlake. Louisa’s was jammed with people with all kids of ideas and energy.

And as for LexBlog, Kevin O’Keefe has built a great company, providing both the foundation and infrastructure for lawyer bloggers, and my interview did nothing more than state what I see as the obvious.

If you seek to provide professional services of any kind and choose to ignore blogs, then you will be eclipsed by those who get blogs, and are easily discovered by great clients.

Enough said…

Some modest thoughts on the future of travel...

I spent an hour being interviewed the other day as to my thoughts on blogging, and found myself thinking again about what I have often found myself blogging about, e.g. "It is not about building cool technology, but how you aggregate technologies to build great solutions". The young man that interviewed me wasn't quite sure what I was talking about until I put into the context of what I have been thinking about vis a vis travel. So, as they say, here it goes...

I have a HDTV, (High Definition Television ) it is 42" in diagonal. When I watch it, I am typically about 7' away from it. I read a while back that the right metric was to sit 30" back for every 12" of diagonal screen. So, I am probably right where I should be related to seating and viewing angle. My present HDTV is only, and I say only 1080i. Which from a resolution perspective less than the 1080p sets, which are now cheaper and better than they have ever been. (and which I would buy in a second, e.g. at least 60” in diagonal, what with March Madness coming up….)

But the good news in my case is that I bought my set at BestBuy at an open box sale. What that means is someone bought it, didn't like it, brought it back, and I got it dirt cheap. I have it hooked in to a Comcast HD box, and I have a bunch of HD channels. Not sure how many, but in a funny way not enough. As watching TV in HD is sometimes like a religious experience, particularly for someone who didn't have TV until he was 18 years old, and then had two channels. Both in black and white. Side note, I once told my young pal Patrick Scoble that I only had 2 channels growing up, and his response was "how could you live?":...

So, back to travel, and why will HDTV change it. On Comcast, there is a channel, 663, which is I think is related in some way to The Discovery Channel. And what they show on this channel is great, I repeat great hour long programs on places like Venice, and the Mekong Delta, and Australia, and a very clever and cute series called "1,000 Places to go before you die...". Which features a very attractive young couple who seemed to have been recruited as they came from the altar at their wedding, and given the opportunity to take about a five month honeymoon, and have been sent to some drop dead gorgeous places...."  Most of which I would go to tomorrow afternoon.

So, here's my thought on how this all will play out. Let's say you are the director of tourism at some destination somewhere in the world. And one day you have this wake up call that says, “what if I find a great film crew, get them to film my destination in HD, make it look spectacular, show the very best parts of what my area has to offer, e.g. the best sites, hotels, food, weather, etc. and then I take it to channel 663, and plead with them to run it”.

They, channel 663,  are only too thrilled to have great content for free to show.

And all those people in America sitting on their couch are kicking back, and suddenly find themselves immersed in this great travel experience. They, e.g. the viewers, suddenly forget about little items like the hassle of getting through airport security, miserable airlines, awful food or non-existent food on planes, uncomfortable seats, jet lag, strange beds, devalued currency, hoping to experience what they have seen on HDTV. And those destinations who have broken the code will generate great business, and only get better. And the rest, will suffer.

And by way of a little postscript, I have also been watching a dynamite series on Public Television, called In Search of Shakespeare, hosted by a very engaging guy named  Michael Wood.  This series ran originally in 2004. I missed it, but this go around I have found it to be dazzling. But watching through the prism of my thoughts on travel, I can tell you I am ready to head to England when the weather gets better, and what public television needs to be selling at the end of each of the four episodes are tickets to walk through the same sites in England that are featured in this series as the travel components are dazzling. 

A friend said and what happens when you see places you don’t like, and my response was, I just think of the time and money I have saved not going there.

ActiveWords Scripting in Outlook...

 I live in Outlook, and every day I find myself thinking about how to script more things in Outlook. I have been using Outlook 2008 since before it “shipped” and couldn’t imagine using a computer without it. But there are things inside Outlook that are baffling. A simple example is the idea of forwarding a vCard in an E-Mail. It is a bit like one of those conversations where you know it is there somewhere, but you just don’t know where.

If you hold down the “alt” key inside the contact window, certain keyboard equivalents are revealed, but not enough. Hence today I scripted the ability to forward a vCard using ActiveWords and it was pretty simple, e.g.

<ALT>H</ALT>NI

Which is ActiveWords speak for:

<ALT> lowers the alt key

H…=hit the “h” key

</ALT> lets up on the alt key

N … = send

I…= Use Internet format, e.g. a vCard.

So, the next time someone says, oh, you have say Buzz’s contact info, you find it, and type say “fv” and whammo the vCard is in a new E-Mail ready to address and send on.

Works way too well, and the same logic applies for pretty much everything else in Outlook.

p.s. I am also looking for what I am told is the “MOSS”, e.g. the mother of all spreadsheets with every keyboard equivalent in Office, Vista and Outlook. If you know where I can find it, or who to reach out to, don’t hesitate but to ping me!

Tags: Scripting