When I joined the techiteasy mob a while back, I was introduced as the first parent in the team. I never really brought anything on the topic so far I’ve decided to change this reading this disappointing essay by Marc Prensky. (Yep, the same one that coined the Digital Natives wonderful term which I’ve already blogged about somewhere else).

Marc develops a theory whereby :

Programming, aka the ability to control machines, is indeed the key literacy (i.e the ability to carefully read and write a contemporary spoken language) of the century (…) and that who can’t will be increasingly left behind.

How Vs Why

At that point I guess we need a Diane Ravitch quote : The one who knows “how” will always get a job. The one who knows “why” will always be her boss.

Programming some HTML/Flash tools is just like doing DIY, I guess this is rather trivial. For major houseworks you’ll still go with a contractor, though, because that’s a genuine professional job.

In my opinion, this may be important but not as much as being literate (in the tired 20th century sense as M Prensky puts it) because learning our own language, culture and history not solely teaches us how to interact with the outside world (be it human or machines) but also the ability to produce sense and to become a thinking human being. In France we used to call old greek and latin studies les Humanités.

Programmes Vs Money

Marc then comes with Microsoft and Google examples of programmers leading the world, both being not really appropriate here.

The most important thing Bill Gates ever did from a strategy perspective was to buy the Q-DOS rights – for a mere $US50,000 – any money better spent ever ? No programming skills involved here.

As for Google, Brin and Page program has only started to bring revenue when they took the idea pioneered by goto.com to sell keyword advertising. Up to then, regardless on how powerful their search engine was, it was just useless from a pure business perspective,

One click away dictionary

When you are surrounded with chaos, the thing you need the most is a dictionary (Confucius)

True, kids are very fast in learning how to use these tools. But what the key thing is not “how” they use it but rather “what for” and the type of skills they have developed.

I have a 12 years old girl and what I’m most impressed with is not how she customizes her myspace page. It is how she googles to search on any topic and come with amazing analysis. This can be music, education, environment etc …

The dictionary is now one click away, and digital natives love using it. As a result they understand the world in a much quicker way then we did when we were their age, relunctant to grab the big and heavy book on the top of the bookshelf.

They are used to deal with massive amount of information and they’ve developed the ability to quickly classify it, find their way into it and come up with a synthesis. Techie tools have just dramatically changed the education tempo in that respect.

Human Synthetizer

As a digital imigrant responsible for a digital native education, I make sure this does not stop her from reading any of Tom Sawyer or Holden Caufield adventures. Because the main skill in the 21st century is not the ability to code a for each loop. It remains the same one as in the 20th, i.e. the ability of making sense out of the vast amount of data we are surrounded with. Or, to quote David Armano, to be a human synthetizer.

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Everymonth same question : Why shall I pay this horrible mobile bill?

Reflex-logic tells me it’s because there is my name on it, I am the person who did all these calls, who used all this bandwidth and all these services.

But what do I pay for?

When I place my calls I take the initiative of starting bipartial exchanges and if people I am calling (Hillary, Pico, Woody) don’t reply, I don’t pay.

If they accept my calls, then they confirm the fact that it is also a good initiative for them.In this case it is also a good initiative for my operator because I confirm the usefulness of the service that is provided to me. Well, for the operator of the receiver it sucks a bit, because during all this time I pay my operator, Pico cannot initiate any rewarding conversations for his operator. Which is another evil benefit for my operator, since I crunch competitors’ revenues.

So why do I have to pay for taking such a good initiative?

Well, this corrosive question was planted in my mind around ‘98 or ’99 or ‘97 (I don’t really remember) through eeea.gr, but at the time having a mobile phone was rather generating social value and competitive advantage over rigid fixed-line communicators so model was right. Plus I was too young too pay for anything and thus to ask questions on my business model and how it fits with my mobile operator’s one.

But now that I am surrounded by attention-driven models and staples are harder to find on a desk than cellphones, I find paying for calls I place simply obsolete and naive.

Obsolete because I am child of the attention-era. I am immersed in a world that the more buzz you create the more precious you are considered (name it web socializing or coffee-brake storytelling it is always business and if you want to calculate your ubiquous score just play with this socialbomb game). Under these criteria, buzz is more valuable than the business itself. So if I buzz I should get the business (the call) for free as a minimun reward.

Naïve, because charging only for duration is reducing the communications’ value chain

to a single parameter. Driving earth flat again.

And behavioral yield? Why not rewarding me for calling numbers I used to/could call from skype or fixed lines? For calling people I haven’t called for some time? For calling people that have a free line (because they work for an operator not because they have a corporate contract)? Why not penalizing me for ringing?

And geography?

My operator is totally indifferent if I use my mobile from my bathtub or from a train in Marseille.

And so on…

Most people that do dollarious bills, don’t go through their notices to verify them. We don’t have a personal registry to compare it to the one we receive from our operator. Only when it feels completely absurd we will go through the verification Golgotha. (when for example your operator decides that you have moved out of the country because you have a boyfriend in another country and therefore charges you with roaming prices for all local calls ! ..!!yes yes).

So billing should first create the feeling that it is fair. And complex models based on behavior are very good at this.

Marketing is very good to acquire new customers but we won’t stay loyal to something that it doesn’t feel right. Look at facebook, does it charge you for throwing sheep to people?

Well I only hope that my operator won’t begin intelligizing his billing by adding the parameter “ corrosive bigmouth”…

… end of story- I’d better prepare my “Why I love my operator xxx” article

… sweetness, sweetness I was only joking…

Georgia

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Okay, I was wrong at least on one count. iPhone 3G will hit Finland and pretty much everywhere on 11th of July and I wasn’t expecting it before September. Other than that, I still agree with my previous posts about iPhone (before European launch and after it) and smartphones in general.

One thing to keep in mind is that iPhone 3G is still mostly hype. It’s not available yet so we are seeing just Apple’s marketing material and also I’ve no idea for example what my operator’s (TeliaSonera) plans will looke like. As I’ve written in my previous posts, I still expect carriers to earn premiums from internet access fees. In the US, we already saw that the 200 USD price reduction was more than balanced out by a 10 USD increase in AT&T’s data plans.

The fact that iPhone 3G will be priced at maximum 199 USD is meaningless. I can get a Nokia N95 for (the law-mandated minimum of) 1 euro and the USD/EUR exchange rate isn’t that bad yet. Comparing iPhone’s max 199 USD subsidised price to other, unlocked, smartphones is worse than comparing apples to oranges (or, as someone might say, lemons). I can only assume that for some reason, in the backwaters of mobile world (aka the US), iPhone is the only subsidised smartphone available. Otherwise, for example, this post announcing the death of smartphone market doesn’t make any sense. As I’ve pointed out time and time again, the mobile markets are totally different around the world. The main reason for this is the mobile operators who have quite total control of the whole value chain. I think Apple would really love to learn couple of their tricks.

I’ve found it strange that many U.S. websites somehow say that iPhone “killers” and its competitors are some never-heard-before handsets – and the only apparent similarity is that they happen to have “touchscreen”. I’m pretty sure Apple isn’t worried about these also-rans because I’m guessing they’re not in the same markets Apple is aiming the iPhone 3G at. The first market is the normal enthusiasts market Apple sold the 1st generation iPhone to. This is the market where “cool”, features and such are important. Compare to how Apple markets iPod. This is why iPhone 3G has 3G, GPS and 3rd party apps.

The second market is “enterprise”. Steve Jobs spent a long time talking about how iPhone 3G and Fortune 500 companies are best friends forever and for a reason, the first major critical backslash to 1st generation iPhone was that it wasn’t “business-friendly”. This market is now dominated in some countries by BlackBerries and in some other by Nokia’s E-series. This is why iPhone 3G got Exchange and Office document support.

Unfortunately, the latest (and in my opinion, misguided) trend in corporate IT is “mobile device management”. See, for example, Nokia’s Intellisync. Fortunately, most companies’ IT systems are so vendor-locked-in that it’ll be years before they can even dream to get anything beyond Exchange to mobiles, so this doesn’t really matter. But, the control-freak nature of corporate IT means that iPhones aren’t still “enterprise-ready” unless they can (if they wanted to) lock the user out of using iTunes-functionality of an iPhone.

Anyway, let me reiterate the numbers: “Smartphones” make about 10% of the global mobile handset market. About 50% of this belongs to Nokia and Apple is third with appx. 7%. 18,5 million Symbian phones were shipped to consumers in Q1 2008 alone. Also, Nokia makes most of its profits from its low-margin phones.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the product itself. My main point is that it is easy to fall for all the hype and marketing fluff going around. It is way too early to call Nokia, RIM, Motorola or Samsung irrelevant and my guess is that Nokia will still lead the market – their current volume is just so huge. Apple is no doubt one of the big boys, but one of the reasons is that the market isn’t that big to begin with. But there’s nothing wrong with that, as this is exactly how Apple operates with its laptops. Its niche there is the high-end, high-margin, over $1000 USD laptops – a niche it has a nice 66% market-share in.

So, iPhone is one of the phones I’m considering now that my current plan runs out. The problem isn’t iPhone as a product. The main barrier is my mobile operator, which in addition to sucking also charges pretty nicely for data – and without internet access, why would I want an iPhone? I already got a mobile phone and an iPod and in their normal use, I couldn’t care less about things like UI or touchscreen (which would mostly touch my pant pocket). It’s the other functions that make iPhone great. For me, it’s the mobile operator who makes or breaks iPhone and also the reason why I don’t see Apple ending its exclusive deals anytime soon.

All the smartphones, and especially iPhone 3G, are designed for a world where the cost of internet access is not relevant. The only people living currently in that world are business users. Do not forget that the true clients of phone manufacturers are the operators themselves and it could be argued that the true function of their phones’ features is to make “value-added” profit to the operators. Want to guess why iPhone’s Bluetooth is still crippled?

PS. And seriously, many of the “innovative” applications of iPhone have already been done for the Symbian like ages ago. For an example, see how many people have suddenly reinvented Jaiku Mobile et al. True, it doesn’t really matter who does it first, but who does it best.

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Hello again. This here is a typical “fill in the blanks” write-up. I like thinking about starting companies, haven’t as yet engaged on starting one, though I feel relatively confident that I understand what it takes, but also that there are several ingredients that I still lack.

Following is a diagram of all the components of a company, that I could think of, without opening a book or consulting other people. That is where you come in. If I made vital errors in my logic, I would appreciate being corrected, no matter how harsh your criticism may be.

Ultimately, I see companies as coming out of a number of basic building blocks. An important one is the idea, and in order to bring that idea from production to market, you need an excellent multidisciplinary team (which includes partners), sufficient cash, and the right legal structure, the latter serving as both protection for an idea and for its stakeholders. I call them basic, they are in fact essential, and the hardest to achieve of all.

Decisions on the production side include where to locate your “plant,” the production-facilities needed to produce your product as cost-efficiently as possible. You need to decide on materials, which in the case of IT is hard- and software, needed to produce your product. And design also plays an important part in the way customers perceive your product. All of which feeds back to the basic building blocks that ensure that these things are executed well, funded, and protected legally.

Logistics is a function that I usually consider as (partially) outsourced, because it is both a relatively expensive process and there are plenty of efficient global operators that can take over most of that task. As production increases it may be logical to take over that function yourself, though it’s still better to hire a ship than to buy it, I think. And of course, economies on the internet are entirely different, though things like hosting are again more logical to be outsourced most of the time.

Decisions on the sales & marketing side include whether to target businesses (B2B) or individuals (B2C) and whether to operate nationally or internationally. This is a pretty complex decision-process, which comes with a number of trade-offs. If you target too large a market, your production may not be able to handle it. If you’re a B2C company, growing international may require working with local partners (B2B), and the same applies to national-to-international B2B-strategies. And you need to position yourself well enough to reach the right customers and protect against competitors & new entrants. Again, commercial strategies require the right team skill-set, sufficient funding, and legal structure that protects your business, nationally & internationally.

So, while I realise I’ve been speaking in generalities all this time, it’s nice to hear where my logic falters, or where I see things too simplistically or complex. Please let me know in the comments.

Time and inspiration permitting, I may write a number of more focussed posts in the future, asking about strategies towards attracting the right basic building blocks (ideas, people & money mainly), as well as regarding the production and sales & marketing functions.

Vincent van Wylick is a co-author on Tech IT Easy. Rumours of his demise have been far exaggerated (by himself mainly).

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Hi ! it’s Cecil here. (A copy of this post is also available on heavy mental)

I’ve been quite upset lately by a few essays from every blogger’s darling : Paul Graham. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with Paul Graham writings about start-up (there or there or there) or Lisp : his background speaks for itself, and one will hardly find any blogger offering more insight regarding these topics.

How art can be good (ouch !)

The problem appears when he leaves his area of expertise. At that point his peremptory voice, fed by his success in IT business, starts to sound a bit annoying. I already have been quite surprised when I read the one about art. Our relationship to art in all its forms has been one of the main subjects of my thoughts for the last 20 years. The bottom line is rather hard to swallow “listen boys and girls, I’ve studied art in Florence and I found out, so I’m gonna tell you How Art Can Be Good and when it just cant“. I really felt uncomfortable about it : the essay was rather childish and narrow-minded, at time to some embarassing extent. Same with philosophy : just by reading the title you dont feel like reading any further.

I was just as uncomfortable reading lies and kids : it reads as if he doesn’t have any, or they just are abstract incarnations of the child concept. Then there is this essay on school and teenage popularity concerns, where basically junior high school is presented as the worst place on earth, and it is compared to prison and, worse, Manhattan society wives .

Paul just jumped the shark with the last one on Cities.

As of this writing, Cambridge seems to be the intellectual capital of the world. I realize that seems a preposterous claim. What makes it true is that it’s more preposterous to claim about anywhere else

Thinking about a intellectual capital of the world is useless. Especially if the conclusion is the place where the author lives. The bits on London or Paris are terribly naïve and missing the point. Whoever is using the word hip for London or art for Paris can only have a vague understanding of what he is talking about. In addition, big blocks of human culture are completely overlooked here : how about Tokyo ? Shanghaï ?

Hackers are not Painters (thanks God!)

So far I didn’t really feel like blogging anything about that since Paul still is referenced on a regular basis on some of my favorite blogs. But the above is just preposterous indeed. So I have been looking around and via Coding Horror I found this brilliant and sooooooooooo funny post on Idle Words about the famous Hackers and Painters essay. Best parts :

To which I’d add, what hackers and painters don’t have in common is everything else. The fatuousness of the parallel becomes obvious if you think for five seconds about what computer programmers and painters actually do. Computer programmers cause a machine to perform a sequence of transformations on electronically stored data. Painters apply colored goo to cloth using animal hairs tied to a stick.

The reason Graham’s essay isn’t entitled “Hackers and Pastry Chefs” is not because there is something that unites painters and programmers into a secret brotherhood, but because Paul Graham likes to cultivate the arty aura that comes from working in the visual arts

Also remark that in painting, many of the women whose pants you are trying to get into aren’t even wearing pants to begin with. Your job as a painter consists of staring at naked women, for as long as you wish, and this day in and day out through the course of a many-decades-long career. Not even rock musicians have been as successful in reducing the process to its fundamental, exhilirating essence.

But after a while, you begin to notice that all the essays are an elaborate set of mirrors set up to reflect different facets of the author, in a big distributed act of participatory narcissism.

Looking into Paul’s ferocious defiance towards school and corporate culture, it is easy to imagine Paul being a rather shy person, who would rather jump in the ocean than being part of anything looking like a team. I believe that his study of Art and Philosophy probably have been for him an attempt to gain back some of the popularity he has not been enjoying as a nerd in junior high school. Whatever the reason behind these choice, it still proves an amazing strive to learn such strict disciplines.

Writing a blog post ranting about something is one thing. Writing essays and coming up with theories engraved in marble is another one.

Great mind drowning

Computer science (including the related business) is a rather young discipline ; as such, a discipline you can embrace within a lifetime. Which is not the case of art and philosophy. I believe this is why his pattern of thoughts fall flat when he tries to tackle these disciplines.

Reason is surely not the main engine behind artistic creation, who, besides, has no functional purpose whatsoever. There is no way you can cover in a comprehensive manner a Philosophy topic, like you would a programming language or an operating system. This is quite embarassing to see Paul’s great mind whenever it comes to produce valuable sense and unwavering reasoning in IT business, drowning like it does in other areas.

Hackers definitely are neither artist nor philosopher. And reading these essays on the topic, I have the feeling this is not such bad news.

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