The Teckki Says

In this increasingly connected world, there are two major reasons to possess a smartphone - the need to be connected and the convenience of being connected. I fall into the category of the latter. I check my email, news websites, and sometimes my Facebook page, among other things, all before I get to the office. The convenience of not having to wait several minutes to boot up a computer is ideal.

Often, I bounce between the two. These little devices could never replace a full sized computer. With the industrial strength computing power I need in developing programs and editing pictures and video, something that I hold an arm’s length to use one-handed could never replace my high-powered box.

Or could it? The following story may make you think about just how fast current technology, and conventional wisdom, could evolve.

I worked at Sears Roebuck when we were celebrating out 100th year in business. At the time, Sears was the world's largest retailer. There were others, Montgomery Ward’s, among them, but there was also Kmart. Wal-Mart was still a collection of rural stores. You could even buy groceries at some Sears’ stores. We were so big for so long, no one ever dreamed we would be anything less.

But we were wrong.

What we told the public, and what we did in private, were different things. We were losing money, and closing stores. We ceded the rural market to Wal-Mart. We didn't realize how fast the environment would change, and didn't adapt fast enough to make a difference. We were also being attacked not as a large department store, but in segments. Home Depot was attacking the Craftsman and hardware brands. J.C. Penney and Kmart were attacking apparel and merchandise. Best Buy and Circuit City were attacking Kenmore and appliances. Wal-Mart was beating up everyone on price, and it hadn't even moved into the suburban areas. The retail market was changing and taking no prisoners.

I see parallels in the computing world. First, Blackberry devices have taken over the email world. Google is in active battle with Microsoft on three fronts: Desktop applications, the Chrome web browser, and at the heart of Microsoft itself, the operating system Android. This battle has even spilled into the mobile world where Android is on target to snare the largest market share, having already dwarfed Windows Mobile, but soon overtaking Apple's iPhone OS4. As an extension of that battle, the tablet, which the troika of Microsoft, chip maker Intel, and the small cadre of computer hardware companies like Dell, HP and Toshiba hoped to dominate, Apple’s iPad is king. All of this will be at the expense of the big box.

Sears didn't disappear, and neither will the big box. But Sears I used to work at in no way resembles the Sears that exists today, and in the next decade, neither will the desktop computer in which I type this post. The Internet, along with wireless devices, has forever altered the landscape, and is quickly relegating the big box to the background as a hub in which all others draw upon as needed.

These changes will cause their own issues, but the momentum will go forward and resolve these problems, not backward to the familiar. It will also mean that businesses and organizations will have to adapt to a multi-device world. In this scenario, people have not stopped using their computers; they have added other devices to the mix. There will not be less of an information demand, just multiple different ways of presenting it. Access and presentation will be key.

In a companion article, The Eye of My Apple, I chronicle Charlie Havens, of Wooded Isle Computing, as an early purchaser of Apple's iPad. As an Apple computer consultant, Charlie keeps abreast on Apple's technologies as his clientele, mainly business and organizations, are increasingly looking for ways to incorporate Apple's new devices into an increasingly crowded world. His experiences with these technologies gives us insight, and will likely mirror our own.

If there is someone who should know how Apple's latest technologies will fit in or complement the business world, it's Charlie Havens, of the Apple computer consultancy Wooded Isle Computer Consultants. If there is someone who is still trying to figure this question out, it's also Charlie Havens. This is not a knock on his expertise, he's first rate. It does demonstrate the flux these new products are creating, and since they are directed at the consumer world, it also shows the complexity of making the crossover to the business and non-profit worlds. In comparison, Research in Motion's (RIM) Blackberry products went the other way, from the business to the consumer world. That is a much easier transition.

Havens' first thoughts were that his iPad was a lot more fun to use than his iPhone, but quickly found some quirks, such as the way either device displays the keystrokes of a password before it hides them on the screen. The iPad’s screen is much larger, magnifying this effect. Typing, while better, is not as easy as it is on a laptop, so most heavy interaction will continue to be on a big box. For the features the device shines at, like reading eBooks, web browsing and email, Havens gives the iPad very high marks.

Havens’ experience has been that of an early adopter. He encountered this a few years earlier with the iPhone. Both experiences are still fraught with growing pains. Apple makes it child-like simple on the consumer side to operate its devices, but something that businesses want, and take for granted, is integration of services on the back-end. Email, Google and Facebook work extremely well on the iPhone, but you are talking about systems that have hundreds of millions of users, and the experiences of each user are rather generic. Customized solutions for the iPhone OS-based devices yield mixed results at best, and some horror stories, as Havens can relate in trying to make Apple work in a still Microsoft-dominated world. I expect this to continue as Google becomes more pervasive in our computing experiences, and Apple continues to develop divergent paths with its new rival.

Havens’ job going forward will be to sort out this mess, and find new ways to use these devices. One such way was the use of an iPad as the server of a Keynote (Apple’s equivalent of Microsoft’s PowerPoint) presentation he made at a seminar back in May. First, hardware connections, like VGA adapters, had to be purchased, since they are not built into the device. Another challenge is getting that laptop-built-but-excellent presentation over to the iPad, since there are no disc or card slots. Finally, he had to deal with differences in laptop machine fonts that were used in the presentation, but were not natively loaded onto the iPad.

It struck me as curious that days prior to his presentation, he downloaded several different presentation applications from the App Store to get a feel of how each app might work with one. Apple had developed Keynote to the iPad, but it is easier to create more robust presentations on a laptop. To him, it seemed that every app had something that he wished was on all of the others. He settled on Keynote, and after the technical hurdles, everything was plug and play. Havens was able to do a great presentation, and his audience was wowed by the sight of an "everyone wants’ one" device demonstrated in the real world.

It might sound like a reinvention of the wheel here, because Havens had his laptop and could have easily done the presentation using that device. Havens wasn’t doing this as a part of an ego trip, but I am sure that advertising had some role to play here. More importantly, a client is going to clamor for a solution that involves the ability to use an iPad in this manner, and the client will expect Havens and Wooded Isle to deliver. That will require more than a Keynote presentation of how this might work.

Too often, I don’t do something unless I have to.

I now have to.

I have to begin using LinkedIn, not that I disdain it. To the contrary, I had been a casual user, and recently began to ramp up my usage. Like Facebook, the LinkedIn app on my Ipod Touch made it much more convenient. I will occasionally switch between the small and large screen versions, because like Facebook, LinkedIn displays more features and information than you would see on a handheld. The distinction will probably disappear when I purchase an iPad or similar device, but that is another article.

I belong to an online networking group comprised of Sears Roebuck and Company expatriates, as I was employed there for over a decade. This group existed on Yahoo for several years. The moderator polled the group to see if we should migrate to one of the social networking sites. Because most of us used the site to get or give information on job opportunities, LinkedIn won over 60% of the votes. In contrast, Facebook won just over three percent. Staying on Yahoo garnered just over a third, which can say a number of things, such as change doesn't come easily, or that traditional email is alive and well.

Although my use of LinkedIn is more casual, a collection of people who I know fairly well, I tend to communicate with them via other means. Maybe it is because I am more used to calling them, emailing them, or eventually seeing them at events. I haven't mined LinkedIn for sales leads, but I am planning to use it as a sounding board for future blog and news articles. Now, I have to step it up and use it more regularly.

More of my world is migrating to social media. I even find myself asking people if they are on a network, as if phone numbers and email addresses are no longer valued. But one thing is as sure as it is convenient - if I am going to pass on information in an efficient manner, I am not going to make a ton of phone calls and, outside of Constant Contact, I'm not going to send too many mass email blasts. I am going to use the social network mediums, and I want most of my friends, fans, followers, or whatever f-word they may be called, to get the message in one post.

I now have to be more than LinkedIn, I have to be linked up. The beauty of it is that I’m going to make a whole lot of new connections, and renew some old ones along the way. I’ll report back on my experiences in later articles. Enjoy!

Sales and marketing is always posed as a matter of numbers, and most of us would agree with this. But as social media now permeates the way we network and collect those numbers, are we looking to game our networks by inviting all of our friends, friends of friends, and friends of our friends' friends to become our connections? I have to question the numbers when I see friend "X" has "2,689" friends or connections just how well do they really know them, or is it just how good they are at building lists? Rebecca Palumbo is different, for really knows all of her connections.

Although Palumbo has had a LinkedIn account for about three years, she began to really become active on it last summer. Palumbo, Creative Director at Rollins-Palumbo Creative, an advertising and marketing firm, has used LinkedIn to strengthen relationships she has already established, using the social networking site to introduce new products and services to contacts she is well acquainted with.

Palumbo’s approach to LinkedIn is like that of an intimate contact list – her contacts are not people who are there just because they met at an event and exchanged business cards. She reaches out to her contacts by spending personal time with them at a lunch or meeting to seek out mutual interests.

She believes heavily in this strategy, because she feels that LinkedIn has two main purposes – to be able to have a contact be able to introduce others to those in an industry, and to be able to make credible recommendations for either jobs or business leads. "...your connections are a direct reflection upon you and your reputation. Make sure that the connections you make are solid, reliable and ethical," says Palumbo.

In evaluating a group of her contacts, Palumbo devised a test using ten contacts in the marketing and financial industries. Of her sample, two did not respond. Four did not know the people well enough to make the proper introductions. Two responded with a no need for services, and two resulted in meetings, but those connections were not aggressive in furthering introductions within their connections. Her conclusion is that she felt she was reaching her connections fairly well, but she needed to tweak her message to pinpoint her target better. Her test, however, demonstrates a sort of "quality control" that keeps her lists relevant and reliable in promoting her business.

Many business people using LinkedIn and other social media use the site as a way to meet new people, but there is a temptation to collect a list of people, many whom we’ve had only incidental contact with, and begin to follow up with an advertising or cause message. Palumbo notes the urgency of connecting with new contacts, but is resolute in her LinkedIn connections:

"I am trying to link in more aggressively with those I already know, and will add my stack of business cards after meeting people each week, but I stand by my (and LinkedIn’s) recommendation that you only connect with those you know, like and trust."

Palumbo has a three step approach in gathering contacts for her LinkedIn list. The first step is to evaluate the people she meets. She looks for connections who are not selling "today’s fashion", the popular trend of the day, but really believe in what they do and what they sell can improve the life of their clientele. She looks for other traits in her connections, such as enthusiasm, a positive disposition and a "can do" attitude, qualities all relevant in business. Her next step is to get to know them, forming bonds of likability and trust. She will begin this process with some form of a meeting or other personal interaction. The last step comes as the person is active in his or her arena; this will begin to appear on Palumbo's radar (if it had not been already). Palumbo will then extend the invitation.

Palumbo’s approach is more than a mere collection of names – directories are full of them. Her approach of more intimate contacts goes beyond knowing them and a couple of details, but to stay visible to an active audience, enhancing her opportunities to promote her company, and theirs. This is something to consider the next time we get a request to join someone's network, not really being sure we know them.

Richard Buchner, of Hyde Park Systems Group, doesn't know well all of the people he is connected with on LinkedIn. That doesn't mean he doesn't know his connections. Buchner sees one of the most important features of his LinkedIn membership is that of discussion groups. As a software developer and computer systems professional, LinkedIn serves Buchner well as a place of collaboration in addition to a networking place for clients and sales.

"LinkedIn is very useful in forming connections with people I want to work with or people buying my services. The single most valuable feature is groups and discussions. Discussions are a good way to get to know people you may work with or work for," says Buchner.

Buchner has been on LinkedIn for about 2-1/2 years, and has about 280 connections. He had looked at other social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebok. He found that LinkedIn was business focused, business-like, and professional, fitting his needs more closely over the others.

He can connect with software and computer experts worldwide. In some specialties, there might be 10 – 15 experts worldwide. He says he’s more likely to meet them on LinkedIn rather than bumping into them in person. They’ve also taken the place of attending conferences in person. About four or five years ago, he used to attend 6 – 7 out-of-town conferences annually on Microsoft and/or Internet technologies. They have become less important due to the economy, and as online networks have played an important role in disseminating information.

If he is bidding on a project, he can do research with discussion groups. For example, in developing software for academic writers, he located a professor with extensive academic experience on LinkedIn, located at the Oriental Institute [in Chicago], a couple miles away from him. He doubts if he would have met him through other local connections. The professor was able to perform reasonability studies on the software. As a byproduct, Buchner learned how academic institutions purchase software. This was greatly beneficial in terms of selling and sales to that market.

Buchner has taken advantage of discussion groups, and is currently at the maximum allowed to participate in, fifty, at his membership level. He is the moderator of three of them.

As it is for any tool, LinkedIn can present some initial apprehension for those new to it. Buchner offers this advice: find groups of interest or form them – participate in discussions, find interesting people, look at their profiles to see what they say. Write your own profile. Be aware of keywords – profiles are now searchable as web content. Ease into it to see what it is like. Decide how you want to present yourself. If you participating as an employee, see how your company presents itself – it may have its own group. Note there are differences if you looking for a job or own your own business. If you are looking for employment, rules applying to openings via paper resume apply here. Ensure the truthfulness of your information, because it can be checked.

Buchner demonstrates how LinkedIn can be used to foster collaboration and communication. While LinkedIn is generally used to make connections between people who know one another, it can also be used to foster online groups and communities, to the benefit of both the individual and the group.