Au revoir, Minitel

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On Saturday, France will turn off Minitel. Unknown to most Americans, Minitel was ubiquitous in France. Launched in 1982 and based on Videotex, Minitel was end-user information system provided to almost every home and business in the country. From its beginning, Minitel users could send email, buy merchandise, make train reservations, trade stocks, search the white pages: in short, do everything that people use the Internet for today. The article quotes Valerie Schafer, co-author of a book on Minitel: “People forget that many of the ideas that helped form the internet were first of all tried out on Minitel. Think of the payment system, not so different from the Apple app-store. Think of the forums, the user-generated content. Many of today’s web entrepreneurs and thinkers cut their teeth on Minitel. The world did not begin with the internet.”

I first saw Minitel in 1991 while visiting a friend in Paris; she showed us all the things it could do. I remember exclaiming “You’ve had this for ten years already, and there’s one in every home in France?” Back in America, .edu domains still outnumbered .com, and home computers still used modems to dial into bulletin board systems. And what was on those BBSs? Mostly chat rooms, email and Usenet. We certainly couldn’t trade stocks or make plane reservations. Minitel was way ahead of its time.

But is it education?

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An interview with Bill Gates made headlines yesterday because he said that tablet computers in the classroom aren’t the solution: “Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record.” It’s a good read, although I confess my first reaction to the article was “Good grief, Bill Gates is looking OLD”. The comment feed on slashdot, where I first read about this, ran predictably along Gates-Jobs lines; we can wade into that swamp later.

And of course giving people devices isn’t the answer. The answer is education. Good teachers, paid well. More emphasis on science and math, way way less emphasis on standardized tests. In the 1960s the space race galvanized this country to excel in science, but that war is over and we have lost to China. Time to wake up and smell the reality, folks.

Coy:
I really identified with the analysis of completion rates. University rankings have typically focused on whether or not the best and brightest attend, not on how well they do once they have students in place. In every society there will be over-achievers and really bright stars that succeed wildly regardless of what system they have to run through (or step outside, as in the case of Gates and Jobs). A more practical measurement is: What are we doing with everyone else? My evidence is anecdotal, but I see many college systems that create professional students, not educated and enabled adults; and I think the way we teach math and science in high school is the reason that we are so far behind in those fields. We make it a joyless slog…who wants to do that? And the culture of school is no help either. The closest analog we have to American high school is the American prison system. Sad state of affairs.

I think it’s funny that they decided to highlight device technology in their headline. Clearly, Bill falls into our camp: tablets are content consumption devices, PC’s are content creation devices. And that’s not the biggest part of it, as you so eloquently put, David.

By the way…reality smells like raspberries.

The Anatomy of Tech Fandom

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This has been ruminating inside my head for a while, so I thought I’d post about it. That’s what this is for, right?

I am not the first to write about this, nor will I be the last. And it isn’t just tech, but fandom at large. However, this is prevalent inside of the tech industry, both on the consumer and business level.

What we are talking about here is…why? Why do we choose sides? Why do we align ourselves with companies and their products? What are the triggers?

It’s obvious that companies want to produce fans. With fans, you can withstand bad product cycles, because fans forgive. With fans, you can build hype around releases, because fans will buy and will influence their circles to buy as well. But why do we take part in this? Are we really doing ourselves any favors by being fans?

Case in point: The Apple iPhone 4s. What about this phone makes it worth the price of admission? Especially when you consider the technology you likely already had, which is the iPhone 4. It did not have what everyone really wanted in their new iPhone which was support for faster data (there is no 4G yet. It’s marketing. 4G will be MUCH faster than what we have now, but i’ll take 4G “lite” over 3G any day of the week, and twice on Sunday). It did have a dual core processor that no one cares about, and a slightly better crappy camera (there are no good mobile phone cameras. the sensors are too small. SIZE MATTERS). But I saw all the people line up to buy it, as did you. I saw and read the hype, as did you. The EXPECTATION was that this would finally catch up, speed-wise, to other phones on the market. The community expressed disappointment, surely, but they still bought the stupid thing. Because they are fans. And Apple KNEW they would buy it. And every other gadget/tech company in the consumer space is desperately trying to figure out how to build the same kind of fandom.

Look, I’m a fan of things too, so I’m not the dispassionate observer that you think I am making myself out to be. I’m just trying to figure this thing out myself.

Apple isn’t the only company with fans. Some companies have fans of only one product (Microsoft XBox) and some companies have fans only among IT sectors (Cisco).

So, back to the “why.” I think there are two main driving factors that build product/company fandom, and I think they work in tandem (see what I did there?). First is the positive personal experience. Every fan, at the very beginning, took a flyer on the product. They hadn’t experienced it before and they felt that they needed to. So, there is an initial risk, a very personal one. This is an exposure of vulnerability in order to fulfill a desire (that we often classify as need). This is non-trivial because it almost always involves more than just financial outlay. With phones, there are usually contractual obligations that tie us in for an extended time. Another risk is that, by choosing one, we automatically eliminate the alternatives. If that risk gets rewarded positively, then it triggers an association. We associate the positive personal experience directly to the company/product that provided the tech we chose. And companies LOVE it when this happens.

The second factor is community influence. This is made up of the fan’s relationships with other people (or advertising) that influence their decision. More on this later.

David:
The May 14th issue of the New Yorker profiles Clayton Christensen, author of the 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma. Christensen sought to discover why large successful businesses could go from successful to bankrupt so quickly. I won’t retell the story here; please read the article. But there are clear parallels to what’s happened with the iPhone.

The revolution began with the iPod and, more subtly, with iTunes. The iPhone was just a big iPod with a phone and camera slapped on. It wasn’t very good phone service, and it was a lousy camera—but the point is, it was good enough, so people used it anyway. In particular, young people used it anyway, and with fandom it’s young people that matter. Low-end digital cameras have been in trouble for some time because of camera phones: sure real cameras are better, but it doesn’t matter because camera phones are good enough for what most people want (this is one of Christensen’s main points).

I’m one of those who went from a iPhone 3GS to an iPhone 4G. Why? Because my wife and I wanted to switch from AT&T to Verizon. Arlene is a realtor, and she spends all day on the phone; she needed better phone service. I’ve always been a Macintosh enthusiast (I’ve owned one since the very beginning, in 1984) but I’ve never stood in line for anything when it first came out. Not sure whether that makes me a fan.

Why Would Doves Cry? Who Wears Damask Clothing? Woodrow Wilson Doesn’t Capitulate?

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I know. Best I can do under current conditions.

So, we’ve all been digesting the “news” that came out of the WWDC that started on Monday. In case you were wondering, I’m kind of the opposite of an Apple fanboy. Not going to get into it deeply today (I have already talked about some of it here), but I did want to talk about this.

One of the more interesting bits I’ve read came from this article at Business Insider. It doesn’t really talk about the tech, but more about the attitude at Apple. In a nutshell, Apple is still acting like the plucky young upstart trying to establish space. They aren’t that company anymore, but their language still sounds like the kind of competitive smack-talk that an aggressive start-up would use. Mr. Blodget (if he dropped the “d,” he’d have the near perfect name for the type of work he is doing) makes the point that it isn’t funny anymore…it’s classless. One of the things he brings out is the comparison to Microsoft back in the day, and how the FTC and EU ultimately responded to their arrogance.

I think that’s something Apple needs to be concerned about. You see, they are releasing bundled features (Maps, Ticketing, etc.) that compete with applications that already exist in the app store. So, you’re a developer that makes this cool little app, you run through the gauntlet that gets you inside the walled garden, and now you are reaping the rewards for your hard work, providing service and features that your users want. Then Apple comes along and does essentially the same thing. What do you do?  Because, since it is a walled garden, Apple reserves the right to completely remove your app without notice or recourse. And I’m gonna bet that this will happen. When it does, what is the government response going to be?And I also believe that Apple’s risk is much higher overseas than it is here in the US. Just having the bundled app may be enough for the EU to take action.

Thoughts?

Way to go, Microsoft affiliate.

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So…I assume you’ve seen this, right? We all have, haven’t we? To be fair, it isn’t MS directly that did this, but an affiliate in Norway for the developers conference. Wacky Vikings. Still, Twitter blew up over this (which, I believe, is the constant state of Twitter). And now MS Azure is hunting down the culprits so they can do whatever it is that Microsoft does when someone else embarrasses them publicly. I’m not sure what that is, exactly. Maybe release the Clippy?

I’m writing about it because it seems that this happens to companies WAY too often. Either it’s an internal marketing department, an external contracted marketing endeavor, or from a third party affiliate. Someone, somewhere, makes the decision that this is a “Good Idea.” Then someone else, or a group of them, executes that idea. Nowhere in the process does anyone say, “Um, wait? Isn’t this a little weird?” Then the event happens, or the commercial is made, or whatever…and then the mad scramble is on to control the damage. Why? Why does it happen in the first place, and why do we all go completely bonkers about it in the second?

I blame the 24 hour news cycle.

David:
There’s an old joke about the driver who gets out of his car and asks the policeman “May I park here?” The policeman shakes his head, and the driver objects “But all these other guys are parked here!” The policeman replies “They didn’t ask.” So you’re a Microsoft affiliate, and you’ve got this great idea for a great show. You could ask Marketing, but you know what happens to Dilbert when he talks to Marketing. (Marketing often gets a bad rap. I really like the Marketing group at my company.) So the affiliate doesn’t ask, but goes ahead with the great idea. Besides, it’s a funny joke if you’re a geek, right? And surely we’re no longer surprised that song or rap lyrics can be explicit, or that cultural attitudes differ widely across international boundaries? America is more stodgy and conservative than most European countries, and Europeans often roll their eyes when Americans make a big deal out of something like this.

Still, the author was just the latest in a long line of victims who discover how quickly “a little thing” can virally morph into a big thing. Certainly it’s embarrassing to Microsoft.

Tradeshow Culture, Part 1: Attending

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dac2012
Your basic tradeshow floor. This is part of DAC 2012 in San Francisco.

Believe it or not, David and I were chatting about the weird sub-culture of tech tradeshows a few days before this article hit the streets. Not to worry, we’ll get to that.  But we kinda wanted to talk about the whole experience. You see, David and I used to work together, and we have a history of attending tech tradeshows together. Now, though, we work apart (sad face). And also, we are both on the other side of the tradeshow…its seamy underbelly, encrusted with gum wrappers, gaffer’s tape, and half consumed peppermints.

So, tradeshows are kind of weird.  Let’s look at it from the attendee point of view, shall we? As attendees, you basically fall into one of two categories: a grazer or a hunter.

Grazers aren’t sure why they are there, but they are pretty sure it isn’t an official work day (even though they are getting paid), so they take advantage. Grazers are interested in seeing everything, getting every free piece of swag and marketing slick, and buying nothing. Grazers like to say they have decision power in their company, but they don’t. Not really. Grazers, however, are not valueless, nor is it completely pointless to be a grazer. As a grazer, you have a wider opportunity to see more at a tech tradeshow and your ability to be surprised/excited by something new is much higher. Grazers are also, by and large, more “joyful” attendees.  Genuinely happy to be there, usually, and much more likely to smile at, nay, even talk to, another human be(an)ing.  Grazers truly appreciate the spectacle before them, and will laugh and dance with you and your colored lights. Grazers are more likely to have exploratory conversations with those that work the booths, and everybody walks away happy.  Or, at the least, slightly dreamy and mystified by what just occurred.

Hunters know exactly why they are there. Hunters are working on a project or evaluating a specific branch of tech wizardry, and they have no time for the dilly dally. Hunters have no patience for the marketroids and fluff at the booth that is their current target…they only want an engineer. They have five other engineers to talk to that day, and then they have to evaluate what they have learned. Good hunters take notes. Hunters, however, aren’t always the best type of attendee. Hunters tend to have blinders towards the other tech on display, and overestimate their own opinion. Rarely is a hunter open-minded, and hunters engage in the conversation process poorly at times, since they tend to mistrust any claims made by the obvious shysters working the show booth.  After all, if you work as a sales entity for a manufacturer, you must be a soulless demon spawn from the netherworld, right?

I’ve been both in my career as attendee, as has David (probably). I’d like to think I’m more intelligent than all that, but it isn’t true. I’ve been the poorest example of both hunter and grazer, and maybe the best, too. I’ve treated people working in booths poorly simply because I associate a perceived shortcoming in their product to, what must be, an obvious personal flaw for trying to get me to buy it. I’ve also wasted more people’s time than I feel I should have done, but over all, I have enjoyed my time in trade shows. After all, I have all the Splunk t-shirts and branded Rubik’s cubes to show for it. And I have made tech decisions based on the initial introductions to technology I have seen at tradeshows…some good decisions, some not so good. As with anything, it’s a mixed bag.

David:
There’s a third kind of tradeshow attendee: the job seeker. A tradeshow is a tough place to look for a job, because hiring managers are rarely the ones staffing the booth. But occasionally you find a good match; when searching for my current job I landed two interviews with hardware vendors, although they didn’t pan out. We’ll write another post about job seeking soon; watch this space.