If you’re wondering what convergance looks like in the entertainment space, look no further than iTunes, iPods and Apple. It’s not breaking news, but iTunes now allows you to download music, movies and TV (if you didn’t know the latest iPod allows you to watch video as well as look at pictures and listen to music)
According to a post on ZDNet the relationship between iTunes and TV is working out….
Television networks took a leap into the unknown when they started selling their shows on Apple Computer’s iTunes online store, but even in these early days, it’s starting to look as if that faith in digital downloads was well-placed.
I still have one very un-answered question for the entertainment industry… why, when your business model is crumbling all around you, and you’re resorting to extremely desperate measures to hold on through your draconian behaviour, and you see a bright shining star like iTunes, don’t you hop on board and allow them to lead you to a new paradigm?
Who on the planet would have thought that just 3 years ago that a computer company like Apple would do what it’s doing to the entertainment industry. From computer company to worlds biggest online entertainment content provider. In fact if iTunes started providing porn they’d probably clean up in that category as well. It’s a wonderfully, amazing, fast paced world. And I get to play in it. Yes puleeeeze!
Oh and one last prediciton for iTunes’ next move…. a strategic relationship with someone like Flickr.
September 2004 was a significant moment in South Africa’s political history as 486 councillors ‘crossed the floor’ to opposing parties. Not particularly sure on how to curb future crossings, the political parties concerned have opted to fine councillors crossing the floor in upcoming seasons. Behold, the political world, in South Africa at least, has realised the pain of losing talent. And so, councillors are charged between 2% and 5% of their salaries for election costs and are being made to sign contracts that state they’ll have to repay up to R500, 000 if they cross the floor. Yes, it is a common clause in study agreements, but recovering the recruitment costs from the incumbent is a sure way of chasing talent away. Finweek, 2nd February.
As we watch society for shifts that will affect the way business is run, this is a liminal event in the course of South African retention strategies - the option of threatening the employee with exorbitant costs for “disloyalty”. It is widely known that the costs of replacing your better employees can amount to nearly 3 times their annual salaries. Opting for such a retention stratgey will surely prevent these talented employees from even getting out of their cars at the 1st interview. It is better telling a Gen Xer not to touch wet paint! It is doomed to fail.
Continue reading ‘Dis-incentivising Politics’
Would you invest money in Colin Fitz-Gerald….
“I’m currently launching RoofShout.com with no money, no real experience running a business on the internet, and no real solid business plan,” Fitz-Gerald said. “But I figure there’s a lot of blank roofs and a lot of advertising that could go on the roofs.”
I’m not sure I would, but what criteria do you use when making a decision about investing in a roof advertising company? Roof advertising? Not for planes or parachutests. But for Google Earth and Microsoft’s Live Local.
RoofShout.com isn’t the only one doing this. There’s also RoofAds as well.
In fact we’re thinking of purchasing RoofBuzz.com in anticipation of this being the next big thing! We figure that if Wired Online carries a story like this, with a guy talking about starting a business with credentials like that, then anything is possible and we’re going to be ready for it. Colin watch out, we’re watching you from the sky!
I had a chat the other day to a company involved in the sale of new and resale units in Retirment Villages. They have about 150 of these Villages on their books in South Africa. He says the waiting list is long and the average time for the resale of a unit is ONE hour. Who would not choose to want to be involved in a market with this kind of return? Is the market ready for the retiring Baby Boomers?
Like in every other area of life I believe this generation will change the way we GROW older and buisness needs to watch for changing trends.
As I indicated a few weeks ago (see here), I am currently reading John Ralston Saul’s, Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West” (buy it at Amazon.com or Kalahari.net). The central theme of the book is that reason and logical analysis are responsible for the emergence of the society that is not healthy. In chapter 8, “Learning How to Organize Death”, he has an interesting comment on leadership and a critical characteristic required of great leaders - leaders who are not trapped by logical analysis.
“The ability not to panic has been turned into one of the great virtues of the last hundred years. Not only military, but all sectors of leadership are judged on this ability. Everywhere we hear businessmen, bankers, bureaucrats, politicians and generals calming us with expert tones; indicating that we may relax and follow their expert lead. The rational method has become the cool approach of the insider.What is this an air of superiority based upon? Where are the examples to prove that a cool knowledge advances the cause of civilisation? In reality the ability to panic has always been one of the great strengths of those in positions of command.
Continue reading ‘Permission to Panic’
Some time ago I wrote about the way SAA dealt with delays on the Sunday night of the A1 GP out of Durban. No problem about the delays (after all who can control a thunder storm!) but rather the total lack of information to those impacted by a delay that in my case was actually 4 hours.
But there was another issue I had with SAA: On an international flight out of Jhb to Hong Kong the flight was delayed by 2 hours. This meant that the staff overshot their no more than 16 hour continuous service law. The compromise was to refuse to serve half of the evening meal and breakfast. As I had traded in 35 000 voyager miles to secure business class this response wasn’t good enough. I wrote asking that they reinstate my miles as I had paid for a service that in part I had not received. This is SAA’s response. The saga will not end here…
Continue reading ‘SAA does it again: saga continues…’
A few years ago, Hollywood actor and Oscar winner (and nominee for 2006), Charlize Theron, returned to South Africa, the country of her birth, and shot an anti-rape advert. It was a hard hitting advert aimed at “the men of South Africa”, in which she berated us for not taking a stronger stand against rape. In her latest movie, North Country, she pursues the theme of abuse against women. The movie is inspired by the true story of the first major class action sexual harassment case in the United States — Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines.
Besides being beautifully filmed, and wonderfully acted by all the lead and supporting roles, this movie has a strong and important theme: the way women are treated in the workplace. Its a powerful reminder that even in these so-called enlightened times, we have yet to overcome our prejudices and abuses. Women are badly treated in countless ways, overtly and subtly in the world of work. This movie reminded me again how important the message of our “World of Women” presentation is, and inspired to tell it with even more conviction and passion.
The DVD is being released at the end of this month, and will certainly find its way into my collection. I have three daughters, and when the time is right and their ages make it appropriate, I’d like them to see this movie and understand the shoulders on which they stand. I truly hope that by the time my girls step into the world, the type of discrimination and victimisation of women depicted in this movie, will have been removed and stigmatised out of existence.
When the Secretary-General of the United Nations makes official mention of your newspaper, its either very good or very bad. For the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, its very, VERY bad.
The paper is being protected by security guards and several of its cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons about the prophet Muhammad (see them all here - scroll down). According to Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. In response, Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists. Around the world, Danish embassies are being picketed, and as of an hour ago, at least one (in Syria) had been set on fire (see CNN report here).
Continue reading ‘How to Lose Friends and Inflame People’
I read TechCrunch. It’s a blog, wirtten by Mike Arrington, that documents and reviews newly released second-generation (Web 2.0) Internet companies. If you have any interest in the evolving relational Web, I’d advise checking it out.
Recently Mike did a feature on online file storage companies (read it here). This post is not about online file storage though, it’s about someone I discovered because he did the research for the post on TechCrunch. Mike was particularly complimentary of this paerson, so I thought I’d check out his site. This is what I found:
Continue reading ‘The youth of today’
We have all been to them, we all know what they are like and yet nothing changes. I’m talking about conferences in general and in some cases the strategy sessions and planning sessions that go on in the corporate world. They are generally, to use an analogy, like last weeks rolls that have been warmed up in the oven. They seem to be good, they look good, until you bite into them and then you know they are stale. The same goes for company planning sessions and conferences, they are generally stale and boring. So what is the fix. Well, according to Chris Corrigan, an Open Space Technology practitioner, an unconference based on Open Space needs to be arranged.
So what is Open Space Technology? Here is a definition from a practitioner of it in the States called Michael Herman:
“Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 15 years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.
Continue reading ‘How about doing an unconference?’
BBC News, 20 January, run a story on Google’s approach to releasing products “early and often”. “We want to try things out, lots of things. Our goal is to fail fast, get the product out, and see what users like,” says Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products. This approach flies in the face of traditional product releases, where Google release a product in Beta form, knowing that 9 out of 10 products will fail. So, “Beta” has become the new mantra of failure? Read the full article here. BTW, Google have underdelivered on market expectations for 2005, read here how rain is falling on Google’s parade.
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