Notes From Akash

Looking Up Once in a While

I’ve read a few things that inspired me lately and they actually fall into two themes.  

One is whether the Internet has depleted our capacity to think deeply or rather has it increased our productivity by allowing us to connect and produce with ease and immediacy.  I am going to say that on a personal level it has allowed me to achieve much more but often times I do feel stretched and distracted.  

Two is how it’s important to stop and look around once in a while, get “unconnected” if you will.  I think there’s a remarkable truth to this as I talked about on this blog some time ago. 

Nick Carr made a splash some time back with his piece in The Atlantic about whether “Google was Making us Stoopid.” Fun with double consonants aside, he now has a book and also wrote what I found to be a thoughtful piece in Wired Mag outlining research around the implications of the Internet on learning and other areas.   Of course Wired also featured Clay Shirky and Daniel Pink in the same edition with their thoughts, that are contrary.  Again something I talked about on here before, but great reading that focuses on the time we free up by not watching TV and how it actually allows us to do great things using technology - namely the Internet. 

I have to say I think that my life is more fulfilled by being more connected.  But being more connected has it’s downside.  The editor of GQ (I picked up at the airport during a delay but I do read Esquire) I thought had a nice piece with thoughts on how much time we spend glued to our devices (laptop, mobile or otherwise).  I realized this one day while in NYC for work, I took several cabs and walked in and out of a few buildings and did not look up once.  It’s this constant connection that convinced an HBR voices author to return his iPad.  I’m glad he did, it helps justify me still not having one.   

Either way I think we continue to forge into a reality where our opportunities to connect will only continue to break new ground.  We are already 24/7 always on with the devices we have but new technology will only push what you can consume and accomplish.  Are you happy or sad when the airplane has WiFi?  I have mixed feelings as I like to use that time to be productive but how productive am I if I never unplug? I don’t want this to be a WIlliam Gibson-esque post I just think that it’s important to shut down.  I have a hard time doing so — most of this blog is written after 11PM — but when I can I find it’s an important way to get out of your daily skin and take a look at things in another way.  So read up and I hope you come to the same conclusion. 

What I Read this Week

NYTimes reveals that a pay wall will come to their online and other digital presences from Fast Company - http://tinyurl.com/3afzlkp

With it’s distribution across models and networks Android platform surpasses the iPhone OS from NPD: http://tinyurl.com/23786d9

Scathing post from Jason Calacanis on “Getting Zucked” but it also features a nice set of reference links on the recent buzz on Facebook - http://tinyurl.com/36m6yfr

Data for texting and other usage surpasses call data for cellular networks - consumer behavior has changed and will only shift more if 50% of phones become smart phones in the next year or two: http://tinyurl.com/336qxuc

I admit I have not been following the Apple v Adobe story line so I just read the Apple Letter from Steve Jobs when I saw this post from WSJ All Things Digital on the new Adobe Ads. 

Weekly Roundup May 8th

Fascinating article about how we track and optimize our lives: The Data-Driven Life - http://nyti.ms/cf0OwX

Check out Gillette’s mens grooming site, winner of AME award and from our Toronto offices, very helpful and entertaining - smart way to reach this target: http://bit.ly/iUgEx

Great idea: a 23 year old just won a million dollars playing 2k MLB video game - http://bit.ly/cbYZMd

Kudos to Pringles for seeing there’s a behavior of oversharing on social networks and seeing how its brand could play there: http://tinyurl.com/25qqrz8

The public gets to ask FB some questions about privacy - NYTimes: Ask Facebook Your Privacy Questions http://nyti.ms/a1sfUE

Very interesting information on video consumption and behavior online. Although earned media and search make up less views nice to see high engagement - harder to earn these two types of visits but they are worth more: http://tinyurl.com/2vkutlb

Weekly Roundup

As time gets tight, I’m toying with the idea of posting some of the most interesting items I find each week.  So here’s this week: 

Apple buys mobile search service, mobile consumers are more likely to use search that delivers a specific answer vs. google several times to find an answer: http://bit.ly/bzEykj

Nice collection of links and opinions on Facebook’s open graph privacy implications: http://bit.ly/aRCg7w

Great three part write-up from ReadWriteWeb on Mobile, click within article to get to other parts: http://bit.ly/9FdWco

Interesting notions about success within start-ups: NYTimes: The Rise of the Fleet-Footed Start-Up http://nyti.ms/ajC7oU

Scarcity & Value

We are in for a long recovery, out of this there’s an interesting notion for businesses that companies and their brands need to be prepared to think about their value in a new way.  I thought many of the questions that HBR proposes business leaders address are the challenges that we face everyday because of how digital has changed media and consumer behavior, namely: value, innovation and consumer-driven demand.  

First where we are, the Lean Years as Thomas Friedman explains: 

A small news item from Tracy, Calif., caught my eye last week. Local station CBS 13 reported: “Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 911 for a medical emergency. But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year, which allows them to call 911 as many times as necessary. Or there’s the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.”

Welcome to the lean years.

Yes, sir, we’ve just had our 70 fat years in America, thanks to the Greatest Generation and the bounty of freedom and prosperity they built for us. And in these past 70 years, leadership — whether of the country, a university, a company, a state, a charity, or a township — has largely been about giving things away, building things from scratch, lowering taxes or making grants.

Next what some HBR strategists say should be the response of businesses to these times: 

The “S” word was on the lips of all CEOs and politicians attending the World Economic Forum at Davos last month. No, it wasn’t “stimulus” — as global leaders looked beyond the bailouts of 2009 and into the future. Instead, this year’s ‘S’ word was scarcity.

We believe that this new age of scarcity in the face of ever more demanding consumers will require a new strategy for disruptive innovation and growth that we call More for Less for More (M4L4M): a strategy that places an emphasis on delivering more value for less cost for more people.