Fortune’s TechMate segment about Apple’s upcoming tablet (referred to as the next Newton) proves to me that Michael Copeland has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
The TechMate video automatically starts when the page loads — and their embed tag does not permit a video to begin when triggered by the user…..so here is the link
Tags: Michael Copeland, Fortune, Tablet, Apple, TechMate, Newton, trends
Today Tom Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution–and How It Can Renew America is available.
The 1.0 release was a very interesting read (my review here) and I’m looking forward to the update.
Check out Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 online in PDF format.
I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing. Joining The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success comes his latest work What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures which is a collection of his writings with the New Yorker. I have enjoyed all of his books and this new release is no exception.
And to prove life again is all about timing the NYTimes has it’s book review hitting tomorrow’s Sunday paper. The book’s title is from his writing about Cesar Millan, the noted animal trainer with the hit cable show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.
Gladwell breaks the book into three parts: Minor Geniuses, Theories – or ways of organizing experience and Predictions we make about people. From these points Gladwell shares those articles that have stuck with him long after the New Yorker articles were published.
I was pretty amused in reading What the Dog Saw right after finishing SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
To say the data and stories by Gladwell and Dubner & Levitt may overlap, it was nevertheless a lesson in looking beyond the regular story to take the opportunity to learn hidden lessons.
Chris Anderson visits Google to present his book “Free” This event took place on July 9, 2009, as part of the Authors@Google series. My book review of Free.
From the Google Author Series:
He makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company’s survival.
The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate. Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long. Just think that in 1961, a single transistor cost $10; now Intel’s latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor–effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don’t apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage.
Yet this is just one engine behind the new Free, a reality that goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of Free; and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you’re trying to sell.
I found Chris’ idea really is not so radical given today’s economy. It will benefit those companies smart enough to recognize the innovative opportunity to grow their customer base.
Tags: Chris Anderson, Free: The future of a Radical Price, marketing, Google Author, copyright, internet, economy, innovation, ideas, business, radical, reading, trends
Dan and Chip Heath made a splash with their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (my 2007 review) and now the Heath brothers are up to it again.
Their follow up book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard is expected in early 2010.
If Switch is anything like Made to Stick, we’ll have our hands full of more great lessons about change.