from the editor of aseidman.com

Nike+ iPod: Starting the Self-Instrumentation Age

Posted by Ariel Seidman | December 16, 2007

@Work we instrument our products/services to ensure that we can track important metrics — as Peter Drucker said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”  Yet, for metrics that impact our quality of life @Home we have yet to develop products that help people efficiently manage some of the more important aspect of their lives:

1. Health
   • How much exercise do you get per week?
   • How much crappy food do you eat per week?
2. Energy Consumption
   • How much money are are you spending on energy and do you know the cost of your energy choices?
   • How much damage (carbon emissions) are you doing to the earth?
3. TV consumption:-)
   • How much time are you wasting?

Because we all just have one shot at life, these are actually are a lot more important then the @work metrics.  Measurement and analytic products in the business domain are well-established and long-ago crossed the chasm.  However, on the consumer side while there are niche products such as Polar watches there are no self-measurement products (needs a catchier name, but for now this highly descriptive will work) that have successfully crossed the chasm. 

Nike+ iPod is poised to cross the chasm and is starting to uncover the opportunities of a self-measurement age. There are a couple of things that they nailed in this first version that will enable them to cross the chasm:

1. Plugs-Into Existing Products
   • We don’t need to create new products from the ground up to measure these everyday activities we simply need to plugin sensors and displays into existing products. Contrast this to a product like Polar that is attempting to build niche products from the ground up that help athletes measure their performance.
2. Low-Cost
   • Once you’ve spent $400+ on an iPod and Nike sneakers buying an Nike+ iPod Kit for $29 is not going to break your bank.
   • This point is driven by #1 above.
3. Simple Setup
   • Just put the sensor below the insole of your sneaker and a small receiver snaps into your iPod — that’s it your done. See here.
4. ‘Thermometer’ Interface
   • Explains to the user how they are progressing or regressing with their runs.
   • Lightweight analytics that allows you to slice/dice your runs — for those of you familiar with Business Objects or Siebel Analytics there are hints of those types of experience here.   Below are my runs for the past few months as seen on nikeplus.com

What still needs some work:

• Positive Peer Pressure
  • Enable users to encourage and compete with each other. This is incredibly imporant because it keeps people engaged and provides a viral way to introduce potential customers to the product.
  • They don’t need to create a new social-network to develop this community and positive peer pressure. Rather tap into an existing social network at the point of registration (more on this for another post).

Beyond the value that this creates for users, it also builds lock-in for Nike and Apple — when I get ready to buy a new set of sneakers in a few months guess what I will be buying.

DARPA Challenge: Predictable Anthropomorphism

Posted by Ariel Seidman | November 11, 2007

This year’s Darpa challenge introduced the autonomous cars (yes— no drivers or human input to navigate the cars) into an urban environment — NY Times has some good coverage here.


Below is the strange yet predictable part of the article — the media always tries to anthropomorphize robots — uhh… last time I checked this is software that operates metal and plastic. Once we do get around to commercializing this stuff, these autonomous cars will have brands much the way an Apple computer has a different kind of brand vs. a Dell computer, but we won’t confuse them with people. Talking about the applications and commercialization of this technology seems like a far more useful conversation to be having.

“Donald A. Norman, a psychologist and an industrial designer, argues in “The Design of Future Things,” his recently published book, that a new organism is emerging that he calls a “person+machine.”

“Machines have neither motives nor emotions,” he wrote recently in an e-mail message. “Still, machines, appliances and even services have personality traits, if only because they were designed to be conscientious or not, friendly or curt, smooth or abrupt, condescending or understanding, recalcitrant or forgiving.”

Autonomous machines of the future, he said, will increasingly have emotions for the same reason that people have them: to protect themselves as well as to make choices among competing demands for their attention as well as a mechanism for social cooperation.

Though the Darpa autonomous vehicles were clearly not “thinking” machines, there was evidence that the line between human and machine consciousness might have just become a bit less clear.

{note to self: never use words with more then two syllable in a title}

Silicon Valley Power Play — When will the Pendulum Swing?

Posted by Ariel Seidman | September 23, 2007

Silicon Valley is fortunate to have leading companies in large industries — media, computer/devices, and micro-processors. With lots of cash on the balance sheets, confident execs, and smart folks on the payroll some of these growth companies (Google, Apple, HP, etc.) in these industries are starting to expand out of their core business. This expansion has been pushing the pendulum to a point where the concentration of power in Silicon Valley may soon hit a wall.

Lets have a quick look at the current lineup of major industries in the Valley and the top players in those industries:

Media companies

• Google
• Yahoo (ok, 9% growth is not exactly hitting it out of the park, but there is untapped potential here — full disclosure: i work at yahoo)

Computer/devices companies (both of these companies are on a tear)

• HP
• Apple

Micro-processor companies

• Intel
• AMD

Well — when times are good folks start to expand beyond their core and these companies are expanding — especially the folks at Google — into the following industries:

• Wireless & Telecom
  • iPhone
  • Gphone
  • Buying wireless spectrum: Apple & Google are each other
  • Undersea fiber: Google
• Entertainment
  • Apple TV & iTunes –> distribution hub for all entertainment
• Energy (alternative forms)
  • Silicon Valley in general is playing a major role in this space — however with the exception of Intel and AMD the companies above are more dabbling then anything else — but $20M here and $30M there and it becomes a bit more then dabbling.

For the past 4 years the pendulum has been swinging in favor of these Bay Area companies but when you expand beyond the core you inevitably start to piss off the legacy players… Once these legacy players start fighting back and the economic slowdown forces these companies to curtail their investments beyond the core will the pendulum reverse?

We are still in the early days of web search

Posted by Ariel Seidman | March 7, 2007

Tom Foremski asks some rhetorical questions regarding the state of web search -here - and while some of his points are inaccurate (e.g. Google is not encouraging your avg. publisher to upload content into Google base) his larger point is a fair one — search engines still need enjoy the help of humans (in this case publishers, webmasters, etc.).

Given how much room for innovation is left combined with the fact that there is still billions of dollars of ad spend that will come online in the next few years these calls and rumors of consolidation of the major players e.g. Microsoft buying Yahoo!, Google buying Yahoo!, Microsoft buying Google, and every other combination you can possibly think of are somewhat silly.

Protect Your Downside with Farecast.com

Posted by Ariel Seidman | February 11, 2007

Farecast is a great service — here’s why:

1. Clever use of free data (costs a ton to process this much data, but the data itself is free)
2. Deliver the right information (will fare’s increase or decrease) at the right time (at the point of search or transaction)
3. Leverages consumers fear of overpaying. 

However, will your average consumer spend enough time to grok how this works — not sure about that one.  Some good marketing folks will be needed on this one. 

Two Winning Issues for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton

Posted by Ariel Seidman | February 11, 2007

While there has been lots of talk in the media regarding both Barack Obama’s recent formal announcement and Hillary’s latest (As a former Chicagoan it is great to see two serious presidential candidates with strong Chicago roots).  However, the mainstream media (and they are all – CNN, NYTimes, Fox, ABC, etc. equally culpable) focus more on character and controversy then the actual policies that will impact our country and the globe over the next 6 years.  Here are two serious issues that both Barack and Hillary should begin offering serious proposals for: 

 

Energy Policy  

How will we go beyond simply taking about the need for renewable energies and clean technologies to actually constructing meaningful policy that will incent business and consumers.  Here are a few suggestions 

1. Immediately remove Rep. John Dingell as Chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee as he is single-handedly obstructing the long overdue increase in gas-mileage for cars.  Why does a Chevy Impala only get 21MPG – that is a rather sad statement on American manufacturing technology and government institutions inability to effectively regulate.
2. Incentivize (tax breaks, etc.) employers to provide fuel efficient transportation for their employees such as: 
3. Free daily bus shuttles with free Wi-Fi Internet access – both Yahoo! and Google provide this service for their employees. 
4. $5,000K towards the purchase of a hybrid car that gets at least 45 mpg. 
5. Create a DARPA like program for Renewable Energies and Clean Technologies.  For example, the DARPA Grand Challenge was an amazing and successful event — can’t we compete to develop base technologies that will improve vehicle gas mileage by a factor of 10.  Let Toyota, Ford, and others focus on the 20-30% annual increases… while our major university institutions focus on the breakthrough technologies that will be a 10x force — I want my children’s car to be one that gets 500 mpg. 
6. Provide greater incentives for developers and consumers to build and buy housing within major metro areas.  If you only live 5 miles from your office and your city provides convenient and affordable mass transit there is little reason to drive to work.   

Uncontrolled Spending & Looming Unfunded Mandatory Benefits (e.g. Social Security)  

While many will not agree with President’s Bush decision or handling of the war his attempt to do something about the huge increases in our mandatory spending is a good thing — you many not agree with the how, but at the very least such as significant issue deserves a more thoughtful debate.  Germany, France, and others are good examples of what happens when you let the problem linger too long.  Here is chart (courtesy of IBM’s Many Eyes project) from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that provides a good illustration of the components of the Federal budget — here you can clearly see that items such as Social Security, Medicare, Interest on debt, etc. dominant our federal budget:While many will not agree with President’s Bush decision or handling of the war his decision his attempt about the huge increases in our mandatory spending is a good thing.  Germany, France, and others are good examples of what happens when you let the problem linger too long.  Here is chart from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that provides a good illustration of the components of the Federal budget — here you can clearly see that items such as Social Security, Medicare, Interest on debt, etc. dominant our federal budget:

(courtesy of  IBM’s Many Eyes project)

Why should you care?

All this mandatory spending leaves little room for investment in education, technology, and social services (all discretionary spending) that will impact the quality of life for future generations. 

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