Amazon's Corporate Headquarters

Having spent some time recently praising Seth Godin’s writing, I’ll take a moment to jump on the other side of the fence.  Today, he takes a moment to hold accountable Nick Bilton for a New York Times blog post about the Kindle.  Seth rightly points out several issues with the author’s charts and underlying assumptions.

Bilton’s point is that through time, the number of customers who express dissatisfaction with the newer Kindles sold by Amazon is growing larger.  Seth’s perspective is that the market served by each Kindle has changed through time, progressing from technology early adopters to a more general market consumer.

I would argue that Bilton’s point is valid.  As Amazon attempts to grow the market served by the Kindle, they are struggling to maintain the customer satisfaction ratings they received with the early models (and original market).  Put another way, there is a mismatch between the Kindle DX and the market it is serving.

I’m speculating, but I would guess that Apple’s products do not receive a similarly large number of negative customer satisfaction responses.  Their products are well designed for the target market and the disconnect between what is delivered and what is expected is smaller than what we see with the Kindle DX.  Apple is the common exception to many rules, but it is possible to design a mass market product that appeals to both the technologists and the mass market.

Shortlink

While  inevitable, it is sad to see newspapers disappear.  The entire industry is in disarray and until someone somewhere finds a profitable economic model – the mood will be somber.  I work in a similar industry.  We have seen a decade of decline and have struggled to shift in to growing markets.  It is hard, and I know that the day will come when my company closes or is bought out.  The hard, cold reality is that no business can survive if it is not profitable.  Reporters will not volunteer their time (for long).  Printers will not donate paper and ink.  The barriers to entry in to the news industry have dropped so low that anyone can enter and publish online.  But while publishing costs have dropped precipitously, revenue has as well.

The staff of the paper did a great job publishing this video:

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

A story entitled Satellite Radio Still Reaches for the Payday published on December 26th, 2008 describes the challenges facing Sirius XM.  There are several interesting insights shared in the article.  If you’ve read some of my other material here, you know this is a subject I care about.

Before the merger, I did not pay that much attention to Sirius.  I enjoyed the service XM provided and wasn’t really concerned with the business decisions being made by its competitor.  Not that it would have mattered – but I should have paid more attention.  Some of the significant numbers:

1. In 2005, Sirius secured the exclusive services of Howard Stern for 500 million dollars.
2. It costs between 250 and 300 million dollars to put a satellite in space.
3. The company earned 613 million dollars in the third quarter of 2008
4. The company has 1 billion dollars in debt due in 2009

That’s alot of large numbers.  But to balance the equation, the stock price of the company currently sits at 16 cents per share.  InfoWorld believes satellite radio will not survive the recession.  Add on that the combined company has let go approximately 25% of the company’s associates and you are left with few options.  The company’s chief assets appear to be its satellites and Howard Stern (based on the value they placed on his contract).

I like the service – but it looks like some banks are going to hold some more useless paper here pretty soon.

My favorite service disappeared today.  XM and Sirius have merged creating Sirius XM.  The Justice Department has indicated that the merger would not harm competition, er the consumer.  We effectively no longer have competition so we’ll have to cross our fingers on this statement. Engadget has the full announcement.

I am concerned.  My cable provider provides an almost weekly lesson in how the lack of competition creates a poor service provider.  This statement on Washington Business Journal is supposed to help me feel better.  It accomplishes the exact opposite:

Subscribers will also now have the option to pick from different packages of channels, known as a la carte programming.

My belief is that in a year’s time I will have the privilige of spending more to get less.  A la carte pricing = nickel and diming.

Update:
I ran across a few more quotes I’d like to add to my bonfire of disgruntlement…

He said the review showed that, because XM and Sirius equipment was not compatible, subscribers rarely shifted from one system to the other in their homes or cars; a switch could be expensive and time-consuming.

“Historically, once you choose one or the other of the audio services, you’re not going to switch,” he said. “A price switch is not going to cause you to jump to the other services.”

That rationale could be used to support a merger of any two competing yet dissimilar technologies. Do you suppose we’ll be asked to accept a merger of DSL and cable providers any time soon. It’s about the same exercise switching a satellite receiver and a modem. Right?

E-mail is top of mind for many people now.  The New York Times and other mainstream media sites have jumped on the bandwagon bemoaning the flood of e-mails burying us all.

“It is a poor craftsman who blames his tool” – or so it’s been said.  With so many of us abusing the same tool you’d think we would have figured it out by now.  But it’s not just tool abuse that is burying us.  We need some new disciplines– and at least one new tool.

Disciplines

The cure to our collective problem starts with each of us.  Just because we can send an e-mail doesn’t mean we should.  Spam not withstanding, we each are inflecting a small wound on each other when we send an e-mail that does not accomplish a purpose.  Be purposeful in what you say.  Be purposeful in what you send.  Are you informing/influencing, entertaining or collaborating?

Informing/Influencing:  Who needs to know?  If everyone needs to know then e-mail is not the right answer.  Post it on a web site, or a bathroom wall.  Whatever works.  How do you know who needs to know?  That’s a post in itself, but until then give some critical thought to each person you copy on each e-mail.

Entertaining:  Please don’t.  The world is full of people sending humorous and inspirational messages.  You can not improve the world order one bit by forwarding the latest collection of jokes.  Believe me – someone already beat you to the punch.

Collaborating:  This is our greatest opportunity for improvement.  There is a genuine need in this space – but we have not decided to use the right tool.  In my role, work is measured in issues, risks and action items.  None of these units of work are best accomplished through e-mail.  A group collaborating on an issue should have a central discussion – open to all stakeholders – of the decision criteria.  Risks likewise should have consequences, likelihood and other characteristics described in one place.  Finally, action items are done, being worked, or not really in action.  Communicate status – done or not done – and any associated issues and risks.  Do it in one place.

GTD advocates (and I’m one) describe a discipline for (mostly) reacting to what the world throws at you.  We need just a little more scaffolding around what we should do when communicating with others.  If enough of the GTD’ers take up the cause, the volume of non-UBE (ham) will be reduced.

Tool

We have the tools in front of us.  Any of the threaded discussion boards meet the need.  The biggest problem with these kinds of tools is they are either too public – or too unstructured.  Imagine a hybrid tool which documents community understanding once – in a central place.  All we need is some enterprising individual to take a basic discussion board and add some ‘smarts’ so that leaders (anyone who has an issue, task or risk) can pin an item to the board and others can link items and add depth.  Now add a nicer user interface and I think you’ll have a winning enterprise application.

No time for the book? Google has made video of a session David Allen conducted with their staff. Listen to David Allen himself describe the Getting Things Done system.

Now go get the book.

Verizon recently won a patent lawsuit against Vonage. The common wisdom in the industry is that it will have a chilling effect on the VOIP market.

Again, companies should be rewarded for their patents – but patent law has not advanced with technology. Patent law is not being used to protect patent holders – it is being used to lock out competition. All of us as consumers suffer waiting for significant patent law reform.

This study pretty much debunks the value of biometrics to secure identify that’s all the rage these days.

I have had so many people make the following claim to me that I now wonder whether I’m the victim of a mass lie. It is funny though that he would manufacture a lie to cover his own disfunction. Even better is that he now is being quoted on the web as having lied to all of his family, freinds and acquaintances.

A few months ago, Scott Stratten was suffering from what he terms “inbox paralysis.” A marketing consultant in Oakville, Ontario, he had 500 old messages in his inbox, all needing responses. “I felt so guilty, I couldn’t even bring myself to open my email,” he says.

In desperation, he decided to delete all his messages. He then sent an email blast to 400 people on his contact list, telling them a lie. He made up a story that his Internet service provider had informed him that some emails weren’t getting through, and that was why friends and clients never heard back from him. “People were very empathetic,” he says, “and it allowed me to start fresh.”

An article by by Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal (reprinted here in the Northwest Florida Daily News).

I work in a cubicle. It’s a cubicle designed for six and there are only two of us in it – but it’s a cubicle. A decade ago I was part of a team which selected the current model. We traveled up to Steel Case’s office showroom in Michigan and checked out the options. I drank the Kool Aid – came back a zealot for modern office designs. Imagine my angst when I discovered no one else had any interest in cubicle-ville.

Of course, my disappointment can’t come close to equalling that of the inventor of the modern cubicle. How ironic that he thought he was making things better for the American worker. Then, heaping sarcasm on top of irony – we have the Dilbert Cubicle.