Trends for Entrepreneurs – Part 4: Hyperpersonalized, Time Shifted Information
Photo Credit: jurvetsonThe move from delayed portals to instant, custom streams of information. DVR your favorite TV program and you’ve just participated in “time shifting”. The broadcast model and economy described by the Pareto principle has been severely disrupted by a long tail (Chris Anderson) niche economy. Couple this with increasing access to broadband and [...]
Trends for Entrepreneurs – Part 1: Bad Robot
Photo Credit: à voir etc…I wanted to stock of some of the most interesting developments that we’ve witnessed (and have yet to) with respect to technology, business and behavior with an entrepreneurial hat on. So I did what any logical blogger would. Make a list. Here’s number 1 of many: 1. Bad Robot: Miscreant artificial [...]
The Future of Surfacing
Listen! Quick thoughts on content distribution and discovery on the Interwebs.
Interview with Kent Mihlbauer in Saudi Arabia
Kent Mihlbauer (LinkedIn Profile) is an agency marketer with a 20 year background in the automotive marketing field who recently transplanted to Saudi Arabia. Listen in as he describes his recent adventures as part of an in-house agency handling rebuilding the Lexus and Toyota brands in the Middle East. In the first of several [...]
Future Twitter
If you’re one of the many individuals quick to dismiss Twitter, give this short audio quickthought a listen. I believe Twitter is about a lot more than the 140 character updates we see today and I’ll tell you why. Tell me what you think about Twitter and how you believe it will evolve… Listen!
Don’t Confuse Creating Value with Monetization
LookSee.TV: Monetization from Ciaran Foley on Vimeo. Creating value as an entrepreneur in a high-tech venture can be significantly more important than focusing on early monetization.
Strategy: Look Outside Your Industry
I recently co-hosted a pair of Idea ClinicsTM with Kent Mihlbauer (@kmihlbauer) and Tech Coast Venture Network (tcvn.org) here in Orange County. The goal of the Clinics is simple: introduce entrepreneurs to new ideas in guerrilla marketing (definition) and provide insights, experience and consulting to assist each in meeting specific challenges.
The format of our first program allowed participants maximum latitude in directing the discussion. No long introductory speech or presentation and no agenda. (the horror!)
Beginning a program in a completely free-form way can have a jolting effect on attendees. For some, it’s a (comically) disturbing experience.
Moving to SquareSpace
A little update to the branding of my blog: www.looksee.tv. Content being turned up soon.
March 5th and March 12th Guerilla Marketing Workshops
For those of you in the Orange County or Los Angeles areas this month (March 5th and March 12th) I'll be joining Kent Mihlbauer, Managing Partner with Decipher Marketing for an Idea Clinic on Guerilla Marketing. Bring
real-world issues and your own business challenges before two industry
experts and watch in real-time as they perform a live rapid-fire
interactive brainstorming and solution session. Looking to create more
brand awareness? Want to develop strategic alliances? Boost sales?
Confused about the role of social marketing in your business? Bring a
notepad and lots of questions! Register here.
TripIt & Evernote
This week, I'm off to the International ASIS Security conference in Atlanta, GA. so I thought it fitting to discuss a couple of tools I've found instrumental while traveling. One allows me to organize trip details, gain access to flight details, maps and weather information at a glance on my iPhone or through any net-enabled connection. The other facilitates fingertip access to notes while on the go.
Travel invariably generates all kinds of emails and clutter: hotel reservation confirmations, car and flight details arrive in a flurry from online reservation sites, travel agents and colleagues.
If these emails were consistent in their format (and a lot shorter) I'd have less of an issue accessing them from the road. But as any traveler knows, critical details are often lost in the shuffle. You could, as many travelers do, elect to print all of these confirmations and bring them with you, but I prefer the electronic route.
This is where TripIt (www.tripit.com) comes in. TripIt is a free web-based service that allow easy access to itinerary information anywhere there is a net connection. This isn't what makes the application noteworthy, however. It's in the way that the service works. Create a free account, register any email addresses you send from frequently and you're off and running. When you receive your next flight plan, car reservation or hotel detail confirmation, simply forward the email to the service. TripIt parses the emails you sent it and extracts the most important information to you: airport designators, e-ticket confirmation numbers, hotel check-in times, rental details and adds maps, directions and weather to the mix. Login to view your itinerary and you're treated to just what you need, when you need it. Have an iPhone? Even better: fingertip access to your most important information without having to search for it.
The second tool I've begun using in earnest is an online and client-based information repository service called Evernote (www.evernote.com). Given some of the features of the software (and the fact that it is cross-platform, operating within Unix, Mac and PC client environments as well as on the iPhone and web) I predict we'll be seeing some unique developments as this service matures.
Evernote allows for the easy capture of fragments of information: text, photographs, web-clippings and audio. Its simple interface allows for the creation of "notebooks" into which snapshots of information can be easily placed, stored for review later or searched. One of the more interesting features of the service is its ability to do a text search through photographic as well as text-based material. This comes in especially handy if you have a smartphone with a camera. Evernote isn't perfect, but the ability to record and access information on any system you're working on (including the iPhone) synchronize it surprisingly quickly and have it available to you anytime, anywhere is phenomenal. There are a few features I would like to see added — features I've found critical in other note taking applications I've used, such as Circus Ponies Notebook application on the Mac or Microsoft's own note taking software.
Here are some of them:
1. More robust search. Being able to do keyword search is useful – but in order to make searching for relevant and actionable information a powerful feature, in-context searching is key. Knowledge management tools (and Notebook on the Mac) display multiple "hits" for a particular search in context, without forcing you to switch between pages to view the results. This means, a simple search for "Bob Jones" would reveal the 30 instances this search on a single page, in situ (as opposed to the more familiar, here's Bob Jones #1, hit next, here's Bob Jones #2, hit next serial representation so common in search.
2. Another useful feature I've become quite cozy with (again on the Mac with Circus Ponies' Notebook) is the way in which the application creates automatic "indexes" of information. I can immediately jump to an automatically generated index of URLs, capitalized words, numbers or other information quickly and easily.
3. Lastly, one feature I miss (from the Microsoft side) was the ability to record audio easily with typewritten notes. Because the audio is synchronized with the notes being taken, it becomes elementary to click to a particular region of text and hear precisely what was being discussed at that point. To me, this is ideal: the ability to record a verbatim soundtrack, while generating text highlights. This feature might be a little much to ask, given the more space-intensive needs of audio – but I feel as Evernote continues its development, these are the key features it could add to become an extremely useful business tool.
Next post, I'll be talking about my new digital personal assistant, Sandy.