Outcome-based action

I don’t think there’s enough meat to make this into a GTD or even a DSN-style mantra. I’ve been thinking about outcome based actions. This is where you make decisions on your next action based not on what you want to do now but rather based on what result you might want in the future. … Continue reading “Outcome-based action”

I don’t think there’s enough meat to make this into a GTD or even a DSN-style mantra.

I’ve been thinking about outcome based actions. This is where you make decisions on your next action based not on what you want to do now but rather based on what result you might want in the future. This requires obviously a bit more reflection and forethought but it’s been valuable to me in business, in gaming and also in personal living.

On the face of it, it makes me sound like a “schemer” because I’m trying to think of the Big Picture when dealing with friends, family and co-workers.

It can lead to you being a little detached at times but that’s not a bad thing. I still feel passionately about things, still have boundless enthusiasm for the things that make me happy but when faced with adversity or an argument, I think it’s better to react with thought, patience and calm. This isn’t to say that emotive thinking is wrong but in my experience I’ve regretted more decisions made in the heat of the moment than I have decisions where I had time to consider possibilities, not with cold logic, but with time to consider both the logical process and the emotive process. One without the other is bad, mmmkay?

Make decisions based not on your personal needs that day or the conversation you just had but always ask, “Is that what you want?”

Inertia

I can’t speak for the bank themselves, but their advertising company deserves some kudos. This made me chuckle. RaboDirect Advert (flash video). Related posts: Flash: a legacy technology Ugh. More Flash. Do not read. ADBE vs AAPL ADBE: Nearly there

I can’t speak for the bank themselves, but their advertising company deserves some kudos. This made me chuckle.

RaboDirect Advert (flash video).

John Welch has a Wii

Nice knowing ya John. And do buy the Rayman game. It’s just really stupid. I got mine a month ago and it’s changed my life. I no longer need human companionship. It’ll be even better when they sort out the obvious thing and make the Mii have any relation to multiplayer across the net. Quite … Continue reading “John Welch has a Wii”

Nice knowing ya John. And do buy the Rayman game. It’s just really stupid.

I got mine a month ago and it’s changed my life. I no longer need human companionship. It’ll be even better when they sort out the obvious thing and make the Mii have any relation to multiplayer across the net. Quite fancy a bit of Wii Bowling while not having to entertain 🙂

And yeah, plenty of PS3s and XBOXen here too…

Who wouldn’t choose Google over Microsoft?

The Scobleizer writes: Doubleclick turned down Microsoft and were bought by Google instead. I’d previously riffed off Paul Graham on this idea that Microsoft may actually be dying by attrition. I know there’s a lot of people who are wowed by WPF but I’m not particularly bothered and yet the same sort of thing from … Continue reading “Who wouldn’t choose Google over Microsoft?”

The Scobleizer writes: Doubleclick turned down Microsoft and were bought by Google instead.

I’d previously riffed off Paul Graham on this idea that Microsoft may actually be dying by attrition. I know there’s a lot of people who are wowed by WPF but I’m not particularly bothered and yet the same sort of thing from Adobe I see as exciting.

Part of it is that I really see no need to allow myself to get mired within a “Microsoft-built standard” even if they make it as open as an very open thing. I just don’t trust them. They’ve spent too much money and time trying to tie people to their products that I feel a lot of bias against trusting them in the future.

The idea that the movers and shakers might ignore Redmond is further support for PG’s assertion that Microsoft is Dead, even if just “figuratively dead”. I know I’m not alone in considering this.

But does this make us actually biased against Microsoft or are we just not part of the Windows ecosystem. I have friends in the IT world who would always consider a Microsoft solution and I have friends who would never consider a Microsoft solution. Very few of them are non-partisan.

I’ve seen things I liked and disliked. I wasn’t very impressed with Microsoft’s CRM solution. It just didn’t add anything that I hadn’t seen in a hundred other CRM solutions and neither was it the cheapest. And it required not only signing up to Microsoft’s CRM solution but to use it you needed to be running Windows servers, Exchange Server, SQL Server, Outlook on the desktop and Windows as your operating system. These additional requirements killed it for me. I just couldn’t work up the enthusiasm as each extra step was one more lock-in. And what, if in a year, they vastly increase their fees for these components? I’ve a heap of stuff invested and all my data locked in so either way I’m buggered.

So in the end it’s not that Google is not evil but more that Microsoft just isn’t anything to write home about. I mean, for example, their Mac Mojo corporate mouthpiece waxed on about how much they love Entourage. Big bloody surprise there. The team that built it, loves it. Whoop-de-fecking-doo. Entourage to me was the end of two useful email clients. Outlook Express for the home user (which was largely supplanted by Mail) and Outlook (which was a must-have app for any Mac user in a corporate environment). Entourage was a pale shadow of either and the additional insult of including Project Center for the “soccer moms” rather than actually building a version of “Project” for, say, business people who wanted to use a Mac in business, smacked entirely of market segmentation and trying to keep the Mac in the home and off the corporate LAN. Entourage was an insult and nothing from the PR mouthpiece of Microsoft can try and disguise it for what it is.

I still agree with Paul Graham. Microsoft isn’t dead in a corporate sense, but they have proved time and time again that they have absolutely nothing interesting to say.

This is a company that harps on about creating opportunities, unbridled innovation and unlimited potential. What they mean is opportunities for them, unbridled ways of exploiting the market and unlimited potential for profit.

[Update: The Lone Sysadmin adds a good ending:

The reason I can’t save my Microsoft Project file as a web page is then there wouldn’t be a need for the Microsoft Project Server 2007!

Microsoft: not interested in helping you just get your work done.

That’s just poetry.]

[Update 2: The Inquirer says:

Microsoft has lost its ability to twist arms, and now it is going to die. It can’t compete on level ground, so is left with backpedalling and discounts of almost 100 times.

What we are seeing is an unprecedented shift of power. It is also an unprecedented admission of failure. And the funniest part about the moves made? They are the wrong things to do. Microsoft is in deep trouble.

This is based on Dell offering XP-based system again and Microsoft selling Vista for $3 in China. Priceless]

Followup on Skype Problems

The last thing I got from Skype on my SkypeIn frustrations was on 17th March. Thank you for contacting Skype Support. Maybe there is something wrong with the numbers of the certain area code that you have. As I have mentioned I will get more info from the PSTN this Monday. I really hope that … Continue reading “Followup on Skype Problems”

The last thing I got from Skype on my SkypeIn frustrations was on 17th March.

Thank you for contacting Skype Support.

Maybe there is something wrong with the numbers of the certain area code that you have. As I have mentioned I will get more info from the PSTN this Monday.

I really hope that the problem will be resolved very soon.

I’m still waiting for a reply. A month of service wasted so far. Craptastic Service, Guys

CoWorking Map of Ireland

James, the Clever Bugger, has used the Google MyMaps feature to produce one of those push-pin maps of Ireland to identify co-working locations in Ireland. I thought it would be useful to have the following colour scheme for pushpins – Red = possible (requiring a lot of negotiation) Yellow = probable (being actively pursued) Green … Continue reading “CoWorking Map of Ireland”

James, the Clever Bugger, has used the Google MyMaps feature to produce one of those push-pin maps of Ireland to identify co-working locations in Ireland.

I thought it would be useful to have the following colour scheme for pushpins –

  • Red = possible (requiring a lot of negotiation)
  • Yellow = probable (being actively pursued)
  • Green = confirmed / active

Here’s the co-working map of Ireland. Not surprisingly, the North looks underpopulated compared to the far South.

Let’s get to work.

It’s been one of those days…

Related posts: Guns and Games: it’s a dirty deal cultureTECH: What I did… EA refuses to licence guns and war paraphernalia its action games this year iPhone countdown: 2 days to go

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It’s better to have a cool name than not…

James writes about the difference between Jaiku and Twitter: I actually registered for Jaiku last year but soon gave it up for the busier Twitter. That’s the argument Robert Scoble makes in favour of the latter – that community (and simplicity) wins. He might be right… I reckon that Twitter is just a better name … Continue reading “It’s better to have a cool name than not…”

James writes about the difference between Jaiku and Twitter:

I actually registered for Jaiku last year but soon gave it up for the busier Twitter. That’s the argument Robert Scoble makes in favour of the latter – that community (and simplicity) wins. He might be right…

I reckon that Twitter is just a better name than Jaiku. It’s a name that’s a lot more likely to be adopted because it got an onomatopoeic quality (No, it’s not the right word but it’s as close as my tired mind will find tonight.)

I kinda want a Twitter-like service but I want it to set my iChat/MSN status as well. And I want it to be set-able from my phone so that when I choose “Meeting” on my phone, all of my communications services also change to “Meeting”.

Where’s the Web 2.0 companies springing out of nowhere to create that, eh?

coworking.ie

A new blog designed to promote and collect information about collaborative workspaces in Ireland. Community driven and non-profit and hosting the first of my posts on the subject. Last year when I started all of this, I was sufficiently keen on the concept of Bedouin workspaces that I wrote up a business plan about it. … Continue reading “coworking.ie”

A new blog designed to promote and collect information about collaborative workspaces in Ireland. Community driven and non-profit and hosting the first of my posts on the subject.

Last year when I started all of this, I was sufficiently keen on the concept of Bedouin workspaces that I wrote up a business plan about it. Adding some things, excising others to make it into a plan that an investor could get excited about. I’ve still got the plan, still got the desire to do it but placed it on the back burner until I get some other things sorted.

My posts on coworking.ie will be mainly distilling ideas from the business plan, both the final version and the parts that we excised for brevity and focus, in order to build a picture of what a coworking facility should provide.

Schrödinger’s Microsoft

Is Microsoft dead or not? Paul Graham says yes.. He’s referring to the reduction in stature of the mighty giant from being the unstoppable force of the 90s into one of many software giants that may affect the future. In the past I’ve referred to the “big three” as GMY as others have before me. … Continue reading “Schrödinger’s Microsoft”

Is Microsoft dead or not?

Paul Graham says yes.. He’s referring to the reduction in stature of the mighty giant from being the unstoppable force of the 90s into one of many software giants that may affect the future. In the past I’ve referred to the “big three” as GMY as others have before me. It’s true though, Microsoft is dead as a company that innovators look to for innovation. They’re still raking in the billions, having crossed the chasm many year ago, but they’re desperately trying to avoid the inevitable: realising that they themselves stand now as the old guard, post-chasm and can just sit and wait while a new breed of smaller, leaner companies are generating buzz pre-chasm. Some of them will be acquired and swallowed/destroyed by GMY but some will become the household names of tomorrow. Looking at the big three, you’d be looking at three very different companies.

Google, the media darling with infinite money and possibly infinite future products sitting waiting in the wings. For Google, the weather of their Spring has been brightening and we can see them entering the Summer of their development. Expect a lot of good things and a heap more money to be generated as they enjoy their growth.

Microsoft, the giant which has had a worthy Spring and Summer and is now sliding into senescence, well into late Autumn. They won’t be dead in the traditional sense for many years as they slip through Autumn and into Winter.

Yahoo? Well, I’m surprised they’re still alive really which goes to show yu my abilities as a prophet. They’re in their summer already but have managed to eke out a long, cool summer. They’re well past “exciting” or “cool” however.

Bob Grommes says no. This isn’t surprising as he concentrates on the .NET platform, architecting and building line-of-business applications, usually involving large databases.. He gives some good reasons why he thinks they’re not dead but in his argument he actually lends credence to Paul’s statements. The fact there’s uncertainty in his statements tells me all I need to know. The company is most definitely in a box with an atomic clock and a canister of nerve gas. They’re unlikely to die on Thursday but as time goes on the odds of their continued survival begin to fall.

Bob does come out with one corker however:

What he fails to understand is that Microsoft is perfectly capable of reinventing itself (again) and is already doing so.

This is an interesting use of the phrase “perfectly capable of” in the sense that he really means “serially uninterested in” or “philosophically entrenched against”. Microsoft’s ventures outside the box have been very hit and miss and hardly represent any shift in business direction so I wonder where Bob sees Microsoft having reinvented themselves “once” never mind “again”.

Bob’s business relies on Microsoft and .NET. He’s not building the Google, Microsoft or Yahoo of the 2010s or 2030s. Paul Graham on the other hand is working with the people who might be building the GMYs of the future. And these startups are treating todays Microsoft with the same contempt that Microsoft and Apple treated Digital and IBM.

Time for an anecdote. When I worked in Nortel in the late 90s, there was this thing that was becoming REALLY popular called the “Internet”. Nortel, still primarily a voice solution provider expressed a desire to transition to data networking. Entrenched and fearful management resisted the approach because they were confident that people would always need to talk and therefore their future was secure. It took a lot of effort, a large aquisition/merger with Bay Networks and a whole heap of internal marketing of a “Right Angle Turn” to get the voice managers of yesterday to be the data managers of tomorrow. Whether or not they managed it is a footnote I guess. (And I guess if they had listened to me at the time, things would be different but then they were more interested in hiring Microsoft shills at the time but I digress).

Microsoft is in this position at the moment. They can see a shift in the market but haven’t got the leadership or vision to make the call. In a company filled with brilliant people, they can’t see a way to change because their philosophy is entrenched in doing things the way they have been doing them for 30-odd years.

That’s why they are being outpaced by a teenager called Google. That’s why Google can sell web versions of word processors and spreadsheets and Microsoft can be reviled for trying the same thing. They’ve spent millions telling us the web is shit and now they want to sell it back to us?

This is also why they’re being force fed their own crap by Apple (iPod versus Windows Media and then iPod versus Zune) and Nintendo (XBOX360 sales pale in comparison to Wii sales). Oh, to have the decision making ability of a major product manager in Microsoft. Let them hate as long as they fear….

Q: So are they dead or not?

Simple question and the answer is most telling.

A: Who cares?

That is essentially the summary of Paul Graham’s essay and the perfect riposte to Bob Grommes’ parry.