Ideas are Orange

Apple TV - Quicktime - Youtube - Bollywood

Apple is out to change the movie business as it seems. Both through their software (itunes) and hardware (appletv). Part of getting people to use Apple TV and let apple grab the market, will have to do with the same two critical success factors that got people to use the ipod. Those are software and content.

Software

• The more I think about it, itunes (reads tunes you know) shouldn't have flicks.
• The software should be iflicks and be a new tab, new piece, etc... or simply be a souped up version of quicktime. Why is the quicktime offering (which delivers movies) not aligned with the appletv-video content initiative?
• Quicktime could be a movie library, the same way itunes is a music library.
• Let video sites use some Apple web services to promote their content on the software.
• Let it have a powerful search engine... what about "search inside the movie"?

Content

• Go global... not just US. How feasable is it to get Bollywood movies or Chinese/Hong Kong movies on board? There is a lot of content there. Perhaps create a geo-reference of where movies come from.
• Let people upload movies, much like Youtube lets people upload video. Host an "Apple Oscars" ceremony handing out awards.
• Link Youtube in there. Get Youtube to deliver a Tubefeed, which via xml lets quicktime (or iflicks) know the latest and greatest. Its podcasts for video... or videocasts -duh. They could just be videocasts, but they could come from youtube mass users, specialized users, etc...
• Use a "meme" approach to crate a new Pixar hit. Post the script online and let people work out scenes with common characters. Pick the best scenes.

There are endless possibilities, but it seems to me that the more they try to fit the round peg in the square hole (the movies into music software) the more it limits them from expanding the offering.

The Corporate Nintendo DS

I recently bought a Nintendo DS with games Brain Age and Big Brain Academy. I have to sharpen up for some tests and decided to try all available alternatives. I am stunned at how effective and fun this is. These games take the rust off the basic skills that help you think an react fast.

Nintendo should make corporate games! A DS is not a kids toy and corporate games could be a great alternative to engaging in business situations. Games such as>

• Virtual stock exchange (Stock simulator, could connect to the net to get daily close quotes for example... or have them be fake.)
• Supply Chain Manager (imagine a fictitious country where you can chose a fleet and have to stock different sales channels)
• Selling & Marketing (something around building brands and building brand value with consumers with several sorts of experiences and advertising)
• HR Management (something like a tamagotchi, except you recruit, train, develop, compensate, etc...). You could build a workforce... perhaps "export it" to second life.
• International M&A - A game on acquiring and merging companies through several mechanisms like LBOs, reverse mergers, equity swaps, etc... You could dominate the globe and create funds.
• CBM- Certified Busines Manager practice test questions. Why isn't there a GMAT, SAT, GRE, or LSAT preparation game?

I was not a DS fan, but think there is application for this beyond the traditional video games.

This makes interactivity accesible and portable, vs. carrying a laptop computer to "train your brain".

There could also be a market around getting companies to create their standard competency models and Nintendo getting them to be assessed on a DS. People could train with situations, cases, questions and other elements to build up their skills.

Anyways, I found it tremendously fun and will continue training my brain.

Making the Gootube awards the new oscars

The Internet over time has proven the difference between most well designed, well built, etc.. and most widely used applications. This is a notion from way at the beginning when we were told (Michael Porter) that what mattered wasn't the technology, it was the use given to it.

The Youtube awards are the formal milestone that is testament to that affirmation. Video is a global phenomenon, so much that it warrants a complete award ceremony. It is most viewed videos and that is not exactly related to best filmed, directed, profuced, etc...

I had an idea to make the Oscar's more like the World Cup of soccer. Make it a truly global event. I doubt it will happen, no point in trying to change a 70+ year old legacy award show. They won't decide to change until it is to late.

But Google and Youtube can innovate here. Perhaps they can make the Video Awards a global event. Something massive. Something that is held annually across borders, in several countries and with several categories - expanded beyond those that exist now. It would draw millions of virwes, just what the Oscar's needsa. The post on the Oscar's might be insightful, and innovative if put into practice by an innovative company.

Salesforce + eProject = Deliveryforce

The service economy value chain has a common macro-process taxonomy.

It is esentially based on preparing, selling, and delivering work. This means that the first input of the process are prepared knowledge workers with adequate skills and competencies. Then, that knowledge put into working practice is used to sell services, through several techniques. Finally comes the delivery process, in which you have to plan, execute, control the engagements to deliver the work that you proposed.

Salesforce.com is a brilliant tool that enables de "Propose" process of this "service economy" value chain. They are the clear leader, perhaps with crmondemand.com (ex-siebel now Oracle) lagging behind.

But there is no clear leader that is enabling [online] the "Deliver" process. Mostly this has been done in a one-to-one manner through Microsoft Project, and then - in very sofisticated teams - using MS Project Server. But Project and Porfolio Management (PPM), structured in SaaS could be owned as a value chain by Salesforce.com

Salesforce could snap up eProject and own the service economy value chain in its main processes. eProject is a brilliant web-based PPM (Project Portfolio Management) tool for professional project managers. All web-enabled, all web, all the time. No software!. MS Project comes above on features in a web review, but the best timeline is no good if your customers can't se it, and the era of one-to-one collaboration (oxymoron there) is very much over.

I am currently an eProject customer, and it gets the job done. I am also an MS Project user (you can upload MS Project files to a web timeline in eProject).

It would be great to have a fluid transition between selling and delivering. Sales turn into projects and there could be an adequate hand-off between sales and production/operations teams. It would allow to really look at a client from a full view (just sales is not a full view) and establish a solid link between the importance of selling and delivering. After all, successful implementation/use is what earns you the right to the next sale/project.

More info on revies for PPM software: http://project-management-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

Management Consulting needs Flickr

When it comes to creating and experience or remembering one, nothing "says" it like some pictures. And to get that huge visual library organized, nothing does the job like Flickr with all its capabilities and user friendly interface. Flickr is in my opinion an essential web 2.0 tool for personal use, and a revolutionary tool for business - if only business was more sensitive. Management consulting needs Flickr

www.flickr.com This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from andresnaranjovillamizar tagged with pwc. Make your own badge here.

The consulting business is based on delivering engagements. On getting people together to deliver a project to achieve some objectives. The objective can range anywhere between selling a company, to integrating and acquisition, redesigning processes, or getting a huge system installed. In any case, ANY case, it involves people. And people love pictures. Also, in any case, ANY case, it involves some small, medium or large problems associated to project management. These can be simple communication problems, or huge scope management problems.

I have learned in my consulting career that a great relationship or keeping people friendly can help solve project problems in an easier way, or make them less evident. I strongly feel that photographing an engagement experience would do the same for a whole team. If key meetings, important sessions, important achievements, everyday working conditions and other situations were all photographed, a visual log of a project would be a great tool to get people to be more sensitive and remember the experience for its good moments instead of its small problems.

Sometimes what's achieved in a project is underscored by the issues faced in the process. Even though clients expect a result, they judge by the effort. A great result with a Phyrric effort leaves people devastated.

Flickr is the tool to document engagements visually>

• Use sets of pictures to organize projects. One set for each project.
• Use tag clouds to create a visual verbal representation of the types of engagements that are being delivered. Tag projects with the client name and the industry... or only the industry if confidentiality is important.
• Use tags also for the event name and people that take part.
• Use comments on pictures to highlight important stuff from the meeting.
• Allow users to comment with the picture if something was fun or cool, or something they remember.
• Use the Geographical Map Representation tool to place all engagements globally and show what the "global delivery promise" means. Especially for Big 4 Firms.
• Use flickr badges to put on project intranet tools.

In the future, perhaps when you want to learn about a project you don't have to consult a huge business case, but can just go to the engagement's Flickr Set.

Apple TV could own the living room... but no

Apple TV will be released in a few weeks. No huge buzz has hit the Internet around this, and if it did, I missed it. This is essentially an "airport express" for video, not audio. All movies you download to your itunes can be beamed to Apple TV. This has an HDMI cable from Apple TV to your TV to get the image through, and voilá, you have wireless movies being projected to your TV.

But this is all a closed circuit - no surprise from Apple, and some people were here before Apple, with different formats which puts Apple at a disadvantage.

1. Most people who have had experience with downloading movies have DivX as their preferred movie format. Apple either needs to buy DivX to own the digital movie world (much like they own the digital music world) or it needs to come up with an open way of ripping DVDs into digital files, much like you rip a cd into itunes songs.
2. DivX movies are usually played with DivX player, Windows Media Player or any other option as long as you have the codec. Movies cannot be beamed from these applications to Apple TV. This really is the killing benefit, at least the reason I won't buy. I already have movies that I get from my home pc to my TV using a DVI cable to HDMI cable. Sure I would love to beam, but not at the expense of reincoding.
3. Why isn´t there an iLife suite, and that has itunes (for music), and iflicks (for movies), and pretty soon something like imobile (for mobile phone stuff). Apple needs to match hardware and software one to one, have a clear alignment here instead of mixing apples and carrots in the itunes offering.
4. iflicks needs to be a new piece of software. This could keep a repository of everything you've watched, beamed, etc... just the way itunes does for music. It also needs to be able to handle external drives with movies (hard drives will fall short if you intend to have 150+ movies).P eople would probably want to beam from Youtube, iFilm or other sites, Apple will own the TV when they get this done.
5. Apple could also be piggybacking on MS Windows, much like everyone has piggybacked on the ipod. They could be selling iLife for MS Windows, so that people got Music+Movies+Pictures in one place, which is pretty much what Apple boiled life down to. They haven't ever made a puse for the work side of the equation, buy they have at life.

I will not be buying Apple TV until it can beam DIVx Movies or any other movie file... including Flash files that can be downloaded from the web. That is why you need iflicks, to organize video content and beam to AppleTV.

he internet is between the Internet and the user. The TV involves family and friends. More viewers means more money. Having a piece of software to organize video - not apple movies - and beaming any of that to Apple TV is where its at.

Laser Graffiti Innovation

Talk about stumbling onto amazing stuff. Take a look at this unique way of using Lasers

Cool fact> In a Laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emmision of Radiation) light oscillates, instead of being amplificated. But they couldn't name the discovery Loser. My friend Jorge Camargo (MIT MBA Candidate told me this.)

Watch below...

This could be sensational for several commercial uses such as>

• Getting cool artists to graffiti buildings for charity
• Creating different characters on landmark buildings across the globe for a specific marketing campaign
• Having a web controlled robotic arm that can paint your own laser and you can have a pic taken and sent back to you via e-mail.... on the building of your choice... in the country of your choice.
• Painting graffiti on buildings at night for advertising. The Real Estate companies could charge for the "visual real estate"
• Doing a manual countdown on new years eve, projecting that laser on a huge building
• Having a global valentines day with red lasers, or a global earth day with green lasers, or a global halloween with orange lasers

Well, hope you enjoy the video. Kudos to the inventors, how amazing. Do create something remarkable out of this.

MS Apps - When Windows becomes a browser

A browser can handle multiple windows right? Isn´t the natural transition from the PC Windows to the Web Windows right there for the taking? You have a browser that can handle multiple windows - but they are calling them tabs. They are in fact Windows. MS already has names for all the life and business apps that we use, but they need to be migrated to the web to "comply" with the Web 2.0 and one day 3.0 market risk - where the Internet will be the sole platform.

Windows will probably become a web platform instead of a PC platform eventually. It will probably be delivered from www.windows.com (hopefully - no tough domains please), nor domains that don't build on the windows brand.

So in a few months we should be able to go to URLs such as:

• games.windows.com (for an index of MS games on PC Windows now on the web... and play:)
• solitaire.windows.com
• freecell.windows.com
• hearts.windows.com

These should all seem like simple options. Think of this, companies block or outright uninstall the games. This is what you call a quick win, instantly getting people to move online to use the apps they really like. No need to figure out how to move the users from the PC to the Web... they will go where there apps go and corporations are doing part of the job of moving or restricting some apps. I'm sure that MS probably wants to move Excel or Word before the games... I would move the games, build some web platform cred with the real MS user.

Now think of your accessories folder:

• accessories.windows.com (note that all the usual Windows menu items are mapped to a domain)
• notepad.windows.com
• calculator.msn.com - to make those fast calculations we love
• wordpad.windows.com - to write down small notes
• mediaplayer.windows.com (media player with all your favorite stuff. Linked to MSN)

One day we will probably have the MS office apps

• office.windows.com (to see all the apps. that your or your company has licensed for you. Options or widgets could be added for 9.99 (think itunes) to perform additional functions - like converting to PDF or exporting to Flash, or sending pictures to flickr, or "pimping" your PPT presentation, or distributing your MS Project Progress with a small videocast, you get the point.)
• excel.windows.com - Google Spreadsheets killer - once and for all... please.
• word.windows.com - with cool BIG features like online translation from chinese to english
• project.windows.com - think of e-project.com (which I use)
• visio.windows.com - with collaborative editing for those flowcharts or those ERM models
• publisher.windows.com - so that marketing can show you the brochure

All of these in multiple Browser Windows. No more Windows on your taskbar... the windows on your Browser navigation bar.

MS Windows would need to be a platform instead of an OS. It would serve all other apps, and you would probably install them by "pulling them" from other sites. This would not install them on your computer...MS is your computer online, and they can shift their desktop ownership to browser ownership.

This is where MSFT needs a verb that has category killer potential. A verb that signifies "dynamically retrieving and installing a web application from a website onto your windows web platform". Something like "Google" for search... except that it needs to sum this up. Marketers contribute... although they should probably use a decision market for this instead of hiring a big ad firm. I can already picture those "xxxxx it" buttons on windows to get the latest software.

I liked the Vista launch and I like MS Vista. But some quick wins really need to start to surface that show the web migration effort. The games, accessories and other apps seem like obvious choices to test out with a HUGE user base.