Are we falling or flying … and will we ever know?

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Posts Tagged ‘managers’

A Netflix Stream in Hand…

August 3rd, 2009

… would be a killer app – and in more ways than one; streaming more than one movie would easily eat up most people’s iPhone minutes package on AT&T without making *any* calls…

Today, from TechCrunch, via Hacking Netflix:

Rumor: Netflix Streaming Coming To The iPhone

by MG Siegler on August 3, 2009

One big story today is that Netflix added ABC content to its streaming service (it actually did this a couple days ago when episodes of Lost started appearing). But there’s a potentially hotter Netflix streaming rumor floating around out there right now: That it’s coming to the iPhone.

Multichannel News wrote a story a few days ago that Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming service would soon have an app in Apple’s App Store as well be available on the Nintendo Wii, citing an industry executive familiar with Netflix’s plans. Both of these devices would seem to play well into Netflix’s strategy of getting its service on as many consumer devices as possible (already it’s on the Xbox 360, Blu-ray players, the Roku box and built into a few TVs). But this rumor is interesting for a few reasons.

First, Netflix on the iPhone would be awesome, but you have to wonder if Apple wouldn’t worry about it cutting into services it already provides. That has been the basis for a few app rejections, and it would seem that with on-demand movie streaming, it would remove at least some of the need to buy movies for your device through iTunes.

Second, talk of the service coming to both the iPhone and the Wii is interesting because of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings‘ position on Microsoft’s board of directors. While I’m sure Netflix’s overall agenda is outside the influence of Microsoft, remember that Netflix streaming is currently only available on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and none of the other gaming consoles. This is a big advantage for it in terms of being a living room entertainment hub (which all of the consoles aspire to be).

And one would have to imagine that Microsoft would love to see a Netflix streaming app on its Windows Phones (the artists formerly known as Windows Mobile phones) before it sees it on iPhones. I’m not saying that will happen, but that it may come up between Hastings and Microsoft.

Third, and most importantly, if such an app were to exist, it would undoubtedly bring up the AT&T bandwidth restriction debate again. While AT&T and Apple allow apps like MLB At Bat to stream video over the network, other apps, like SlingPlayer, are restricted to stream video over WiFi only. AT&T has stated that it doesn’t want all this video streaming to further clog its pipes, which is also why it would likely restrict a Hulu app that was rumored a few months ago.

But streaming over WiFi is significantly less interesting than being able to do so over 3G. If a Netflix streaming app were to be released and limited to WiFi, you can be sure it wouldn’t dampen the booing of AT&T that has been going on recently. The fact of the matter is that eventually apps such as this are going to need to work over cellular networks and not just WiFi.

Again, the existence of a Netflix streaming app on the iPhone is very much a rumor based on one source, but it is interesting for the potential can of worms it opens.

[via Hacking Netflix]

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Netflix, its Algorithm, My Neighbors, and Me.

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Rescue Me

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And One More Thing…

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Customer Experience, Part II

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Ego, Redux

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For Whom The Bell Tolls… or, Another Business Model for $0.00

From Techcrunch, last week: At first this announcement appeared to be a good candidate for “News of the Weird:” Microsoft Officially Retires Soapbox, The Poor Man’s YouTube by Leena Rao on July 21, 2009 Microsoft’s YouTube clone Soapbox is officially shutting its doors, according to reports today. Soapbox, which was launched in 2006 as a hub for downloading …

Guy Kawaski’s Corollary on Hiring; or, How Work Teams Go Bad

In July, I blogged about my theory “great managers hire great talent; similarly, bad managers hire themselves.” The more I re-examine the hires I helped managers identify, and then make during almost 14 years of recruiting, approximately 9 years as an independent head hunter, and 5 years as a corporate recruiter who primarily …

Tags: streaming service, apps, soapbox, managers, app, multichannel news, reed hastings, streaming, wii

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Tags: app apple apps blu ray players entertainment hub gaming consoles industry executive iphone killer app managers multichannel news netflix nintendo wii reed hastings s board siegler soapbox streaming streaming service wifi wii xbox 360

Systems Thinking in the Real World

July 12th, 2009

The more I read about Steve Jobs, the more I want to work for Apple; except for the work | life balance, he really, really gets it, and on so many levels – about people and about products.

The good and bad of thinking in terms of systems is not many people view the world that way, even though the world is a very large system; if/when one component changes, that change will influence other components within the system. Innovation does parse a leader from a follower. Not enough people value quality, are not used to an environment where excellence is expected, and then don’t try.

I thought I could change the world by helping hiring managers hire A+ players; and to some extent, the world did change, and in a good way; “the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.”

This year I began the journey to move into a technical project management role. Now I’m learning and integrating many new business rules, best practices, processes, methodologies, and tools to enable me to GTD on a more global scale, and from the business side.

I earned my PMP certification in June; now I’m heavily focused on improving my requirements engineering skills; becoming a certified scrum master (CSM); and refreshing my knowledge of SQL and XML (which needs to be a seperate blog posting; watch for the upcoming “Getting By With a Lot of Help From My (new and old) Friends”).

Last week I was fortunate to learn requirements engineering from Earl Beede of Construx Software; and highly recommend Earl, Construx Software, and its Requirements Bootcamp. I learned a lot from Earl: best practices; new methodologies; and tools and techniques. Equally valuable was his insights and advice for implementation and change management; including the heuristic “it’s not a technology problem, it’s a people problem.”

I think Steve Jobs best captured this key to project success:

“Hiring the best is your most important task.

No major work that I have been involved with has been work that can be done by a single person or two people, or even three or four people. Some people can do one thing magnificently, like Michelangelo, and others make things like semiconductors or build 747 airplanes — that type of work requires legions of people. In order to do things well, that can’t be done by one person, you must find extraordinary people.

In most things in life, the dynamic range between average quality and the best quality is, at most, two-to-one. For example, if you were in New York and compared the best taxi to an average taxi, you might get there 20 percent faster. In terms of computers, the best PC is perhaps 30 percent better than the average PC. There is not that much difference in magnitude. Rarely you find a difference of two-to-one.

I noticed that the dynamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to 1. Go after the cream of the cream. You can then build a team that pursues the A+ players. A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players.

After recruiting, it’s building an environment that makes people feel they are surrounded by equally talented people and their work is bigger than they are. The feeling that the work will have tremendous influence and is part of a strong, clear vision — all those things.

Recruiting usually requires more than you alone can do, so I’ve found that collaborative recruiting and having a culture that recruits the A players is the best way. Any interviewee will speak with at least a dozen people in several areas of this company, not just those in the area that he would work in.

When you’re in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the company succeeds or not. Each is 10 percent of the company. So why wouldn’t you take as much time as necessary to find all the A players? If three were not so great, why would you want a company where 30 percent of your people are not so great? A small company depends on great people much more than a big company does.”

I really, really want to spend an afternoon with Steve one day, do a Vulcan mind-meld, then integrate and build upon his really great ideas.

In the meantime, I just ordered Leander Kahany’s book “Inside Steve’s Brain.” But don’t worry, I promise never to wear a black turtleneck.

Success – and Failure – Really Do Depend on the Customer Experience.

June 29th, 2009

And, customers experience your company in a lot more ways than you realize.

Every day, and via multiple mediums, customers receive some kind of experience, ranging from positive to negative; with customer experience being defined as the sum total of conscious events/experiences. A company’s ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its customers serves to inspire loyalty to its brand, products, and services.

People are customers without yet having purchased or used a company’s product or service; word of mouth (both good and bad) is a very powerful influencer; it takes a lot of future customers to a new product or service “the new, new thing;” only a few unhappy ones can and will deter 4x as many others from trying/buying.

I was an extremely unhappy Hyundai owner during the first years they were sold in the US; fifteen years later, I still won’t consider ever buying another. I replaced way too many defective rubber engine seals on that manual transmission car, each time at an out of pocket cost of $500 (in 1990’s $$).

On the other hand, my aunt loves her Lexus, and my cousins adore their Hondas; each which incurred very minimal maintenance expenses.

Hmmm. The only way I’ll ever own another Hyundai is if it was free *AND* came with a free 100% parts and service warranty for the first 10 years of ownership.

Similarly, several years ago a friend was in the market to purchase a new Volkswagen. The dealer nearest her house assured her over the phone they had the exact model, color etc. she sought, and that car was available for her to drive home that day as she went with a certified bank check in hand to pay for the car in full.

After arriving, she discovered the sales rep did not have that model or color in stock, that day or even recently.

Even worse, that sales team strung her along for several hours, first trying to locate that desired car from other dealers; then trying to persuade her to purchase one of the cars that was in stock, but not at all comparable to the model she’d researched and already selected.

End result? She purchased her new Volkswagen from another dealer, and also spent exactly the same amount of time sharing her experience with that dealer with her friends, co workers, and others. Including travel time, the dealer had wasted approximately 3 1/2 hours of her time. And, she knows a lot of people.

I used to work in corporate staffing orgs as a recruiter, almost always in the role of headhunter/outbound recruiter. Depending on the company I worked for, I sometimes faced substantial resistance from potential senior candidates, who ten years before had worked together on an Industry Standards committee with several of that company’s employees.

Their interactions with those folks were so bad ten years later it was a serious uphill struggle to persuade them to consider a job opportunity with a totally different, and really good team.

Similarly, I already know my next smart phone won’t be the same brand I currently own; not because of a bad customer experience with the product, but because of an unprofessional experience I had while being recruited to work for that company.

People think elephants have amazing memories; but unhappy customers do too. And sadly, too few companies realize how broad and how powerful a customer’s experience is or can be; or understand almost all of us are customers in some way – either past, present, or future.

Thoughts to ponder, compliments of Customer Focus Inc.:

95% of senior business leaders believe that the next competitive differentiator is customer experience.
Eighty percent of companies believe they deliver a superior customer experience. But only eight percent of their customers agree.
Only 22% of respondents agreed that companies “currently provide an excellent customer experience.”
Almost every U.S. consumer surveyed (96 percent) had a negative service experience in the past year, with 80 percent subsequently severing the relationship.