WorldChanger's Journal

The hopeful continent

2011-12-08T19:20:00.000-08:00

Just came across an interesting article on the rise of Africa - below is an excerpt......
Over the past decade six of the world’s ten fastest-growing countries were African. In eight of the past ten years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan. Even allowing for the knock-on effect of the northern hemisphere’s slowdown, the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia.

The commodities boom is partly responsible. In 2000-08 around a quarter of Africa’s growth came from higher revenues from natural resources. Favourable demography is another cause. With fertility rates crashing in Asia and Latin America, half of the increase in population over the next 40 years will be in Africa. But the growth also has a lot to do with the manufacturing and service economies that African countries are beginning to develop. The big question is whether Africa can keep that up if demand for commodities drops.

Copper, gold, oil—and a pinch of salt
Optimism about Africa needs to be taken in fairly small doses, for things are still exceedingly bleak in much of the continent. Most Africans live on less than two dollars a day. Food production per person has slumped since independence in the 1960s. The average lifespan in some countries is under 50. Drought and famine persist. The climate is worsening, with deforestation and desertification still on the march.

Some countries praised for their breakneck economic growth, such as Angola and Equatorial Guinea, are oil-sodden kleptocracies. Some that have begun to get economic development right, such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, have become politically noxious. Congo, now undergoing a shoddy election, still looks barely governable and hideously corrupt. Zimbabwe is a scar on the conscience of the rest of southern Africa. South Africa, which used to be a model for the continent, is tainted with corruption; and within the ruling African National Congress there is talk of nationalising land and mines (see article).

Yet against that depressingly familiar backdrop, some fundamental numbers are moving in the right direction (see article). Africa now has a fast-growing middle class: according to Standard Bank, around 60m Africans have an income of $3,000 a year, and 100m will in 2015. The rate of foreign investment has soared around tenfold in the past decade.

China’s arrival has improved Africa’s infrastructure and boosted its manufacturing sector. Other non-Western countries, from Brazil and Turkey to Malaysia and India, are following its lead. Africa could break into the global market for light manufacturing and services such as call centres. Cross-border commerce, long suppressed by political rivalry, is growing, as tariffs fall and barriers to trade are dismantled.

Africa’s enthusiasm for technology is boosting growth. It has more than 600m mobile-phone users—more than America or Europe. Since roads are generally dreadful, advances in communications, with mobile banking and telephonic agro-info, have been a huge boon. Around a tenth of Africa’s land mass is covered by mobile-internet services—a higher proportion than in India. The health of many millions of Africans has also improved, thanks in part to the wider distribution of mosquito nets and the gradual easing of the ravages of HIV/AIDS. Skills are improving: productivity is growing by nearly 3% a year, compared with 2.3% in America.

All this is happening partly because Africa is at last getting a taste of peace and decent government. For three decades after African countries threw off their colonial shackles, not a single one (bar the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius) peacefully ousted a government or president at the ballot box. But since Benin set the mainland trend in 1991, it has happened more than 30 times—far more often than in the Arab world.

Population trends could enhance these promising developments. A bulge of better-educated young people of working age is entering the job market and birth rates are beginning to decline. As the proportion of working-age people to dependents rises, growth should get a boost. Asia enjoyed such a “demographic dividend”, which began three decades ago and is now tailing off. In Africa it is just starting.

Having a lot of young adults is good for any country if its economy is thriving, but if jobs are in short supply it can lead to frustration and violence. Whether Africa’s demography brings a dividend or disaster is largely up to its governments.

More trade than aid
Africa still needs deep reform. Governments should make it easier to start businesses and cut some taxes and collect honestly the ones they impose. Land needs to be taken out of communal ownership and title handed over to individual farmers so that they can get credit and expand. And, most of all, politicians need to keep their noses out of the trough and to leave power when their voters tell them to.
Western governments should open up to trade rather than just dish out aid. America’s African Growth and Opportunity Act, which lowered tariff barriers for many goods, is a good start, but it needs to be widened and copied by other nations. Foreign investors should sign the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which would let Africans see what foreign companies pay for licences to exploit natural resources. African governments should insist on total openness in the deals they strike with foreign companies and governments.

Google's Halloween Home Page

2011-10-30T22:17:00.000-07:00

I just checked out the Google home page, to see what they would come up with, for Halloween. I have to admit - I really like what they did with their home page - link here: http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en

Really creative stuff....

Okay - Groupon's IPO is on, really......

2011-10-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

So, looks like Groupon is finally going through with it's IPO offering afterall. According to the Wall Street Journal

"Groupon will in fact be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol “GRPN,” with shares starting between $16 to $18. The Chicago-based venture has also set a date for Friday, November 4th for its IPO with an updated plan to raise up to $621 billion, meaning the company will be valued at up to $11.4 billion"

Earlier this year, the company had planeed to raise less than $1B, so clearly it's valuation has gone up considerably.

I'm still amazed by it's high valuation, given it's business model and balance sheet. The US Financial markets have been very unstable all year, so there's no telling how it's IPO will land. Should be interesting to see what happens, come early November.

Even Great Leaders Sometimes Make Poor Decisions

2011-10-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've heard that great leaders are often sound decision makers. Truth is anyone can make a poor decision in the heat of the moment, or with limited information. Perhaps, great leaders are very good at leveraging the outcomes of good decisions and dealing with the repercussions of bad ones. I came across a great article on ZDNet – called “all time worst tech industry exec decisions. I’ve selected a few of them for this piece – below.

IBM, Digital & Microsoft
In the late 1970's, a small team within IBM began development of its legendary 5150 PC, which recently had its 30th anniversary. But to run this PC, IBM needed an operating system.
At the time, there was only one serious contender, Digital Research's CP/M, which ran on a number of early personal computers including the Apple ][, The Osborne and the Kaypro, all of which had substantial market share in a small but quickly growing industry.
In 1980, Under the direction of CEO John Opel, IBM attempted to contact Digital Research's founder and CEO, Gary Kildall, to license CP/M for use on the 5150 and other future PCs, but when negotiations failed, IBM went looking for another suitor.
Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen at Microsoft, seeing an opportunity in the making, approached a tiny software company, Seattle Computer Products, which had an x86-compatible OS which used a similar command interpreter to CP/M called 86-DOS. Microsoft purchased the OS and perpetual usage rights, which they then re-christened as "DOS", for a mere $75,000.
After negotiating an almost unheard of non-exclusive licensing agreement with IBM, the company would be established as the leader in personal computer software for decades to come.
Microsoft's MS-DOS would go on to sell tens of millions of licenses, and the software business for Windows and related follow-on products that Microsoft would generate which would build upon it would turn the company into an industry giant.

Digital Research could very well have had the same licensing deal and IBM could have imposed stricter licensing terms on MS-DOS, or could have purchased either of the two companies outright, giving the company an exclusive. But it was not to be.
Digital Research's CP/M became an also-ran and the company eventually attempted to produce it's own DOS clone, DR-DOS, which although having a number of technical improvements over Microsoft's OS, was a dud. It was eventually sold to Novell, then Caldera and then later on became the property of SCO.
Eventually, the highly competitive MS-DOS based PC clone business made Digital Research's CP/M irrelevant and also would eventually force IBM to exit their own PC business in the late 1990s and early 2000's.

Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard: Compaq Merger
While the Itanium partnership with Intel surely started HP down the road to hell, it was accelerated in 2001 when HP, under the guidance of CEO Carly Fiorina decided to merge with Compaq in a $25 billion dollar deal.

Many large shareholders opposed the merger, including Walter Hewlett, the company's outspoken director and son of the company's co-founder, who engaged in a proxy battle in an attempt to prevent it. The prime objection was that Compaq had many overlapping product lines and would get the company involved in the low-margin PC business that its main competitor, IBM, was already in the process of exiting.
Under Carly Fiorina's reign, the merged "New" HP lost half of its market value and the company incurred heavy job losses. Fiorina stepped down in 2005.

Since the Compaq merger, HP has endured numerous problems with failed initiatives, dubious acquisitions (3COM, EDS) and has been plagued with ineffective management, including two major ethics scandals that have forced Chairwoman Patricia Dunn and CEO Mark Hurd to resign. The PC business that HP gained from the Compaq merger is now in the process of being spun off, after losing money in the face of tremendous low-margin industry competition.

Jerry Yang Plays Hard To Get with Microsoft; Carol Bartz Gets Screwed
Yahoo! grew rapidly during the early 1990's as one of the first search engine companies and went on a steady path of acquiring smaller Web companies and offering other Internet portal services such as financial news, web and image hosting (such as Flickr) but its failure to adapt to competitive forces, notably the rise of Google and FaceBook, caused the company's revenue to go into decline as it was unable to monetize these properties effectively.

Looking to expand its online presence, Microsoft made an unsolicited offer to purchase Yahoo! Inc. In February 2008 for approximately $47 billion. CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang, playing hard-to-get, formally rejected the bid, stating that it "substantially undervalued" the company and was not in the interest of shareholders.

Weeks of back-and-forth of highly publicized meetings between the two companies resulted in a standoff.

Shareholder and Yahoo! investor Carl Icahn attempted to patch things up in a last ditch attempt to get the Redmond-based software giant to come back to the table and attempted to force Yang out via a board room coup, but Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had enough and walked away completely exasperated, directing his company to create its own search engine and web properties under the Bing and Windows Live brands.

The company entered a round of heavy layoffs in 2008 following the failed merger attempt with Microsoft, and the market value of the company went into steep decline. As of September 2011, the market capitalization of Yahoo! Inc. has plunged to a low of $17.66 Billion, a far cry from Microsoft's original offer of $47 Billion. Jerry Yang eventually found himself ousted and replaced with the very dynamic and outspoken CEO Carol Bartz in 2009, who ironically ended up entering a partnership agreement with Microsoft in a 10-year deal to use Bing as the search engine for Yahoo!.
Carol Bartz tried desperately to improve Yahoo's business, but was unable to turn the company around, whose initiatives had little support from her Board, and her tenure was marked by yet another round of heavy layoffs. On September 6, 2011, the Yahoo CEO picked up her iPad and sent a broadcast email her employees, notifying them that the Chairman of the Board of Directors had just fired her via prepared company statement during an impersonal, cowardly phone call.

While Steve Ballmer and Microsoft's investors are probably quite happy in retrospect that they walked away, for Yahoo, it will always permanently scar the company for what might have been because Jerry Yang decided to play hard-to-get -- and it is questionable at this point the the company will ever recover.

Study Trip To Ghana

2011-05-29T11:34:00.000-07:00

I recently co-led study tour trip to Ghana with 24 other students from the University of Washington's Leadership MBA program. In planning this Global Study Tour, our primary goal was to provide aspiring leaders with first hand opportunities to learn how global business leaders approach key challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.

We chose Ghana for several reasons including her rich culture and history, economic climate, access to industrial sectors and favorable public relations and political climate. We met and engaged with senior level executives of large, thriving indigenous and multinational organizations.

Study Tour Initiative
1. Company Visits: Meet with Senior Business Leaders – discuss challenges & opportunities
2. Visit Educational Institutions: Leadership Symposiums
3. Non-Government Organizations: Focus on Micro Finance
4. Cultural Activities: Visit key tourist sites such as Cape Coast, Ashanti King Palace, Kente Village and learn the Adowa dance.

By interacting with executives and observing company practices, UW Students learned firsthand knowledge of challenges and opportunities involved in driving business initiatives across international markets. Ultimately students from the UW MBA program returned to the USA with a better understanding how national and multi-national organizations operate in a global business environment. A second goal of the study tour was to provide students the opportunity to experience a foreign culture first-hand through music, customs, cuisine, and architectural sights. The tour provided us with opportunities to learn about new cultures with fellow peers, student leaders, and the faculty representative.

The tour also yielded some key insights on that impact Microsoft in Ghana/WECA. Most notably :
- Competitive Landscape – Google is the new “Cool”
- Potential increase in revenue due to influx of foreign investments
- Ghana is expected to have the fastest growing economy in 2011 – World Bank
- Potential partnerships with Telecommunication providers to deploy cloud and hosted services
- Emerging business opportunities with Mobile apps

Clearly the West African region presents very compelling business opportunities for local and multi-national organizations. Ghana in particular, is poised for very strong economic growth, driven in large part by incremental revenue from it's key natural resources - Oil, Cocoa and Gold

So, How Did The 2011 Superbowl Ads really do?

2011-04-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

Here's the ranking of this year's Super Bowl ads - according to USA Today.

Bud light and Doritos tied for the top Super Bowl commercial as selected by consumer panelists rating the ads as they aired in the game for USA TODAY'S 23rd annual exclusive Ad Meter. Both starred dogs acting like, well, people.

My personal favorite is the Audi ad, suprisingly it ranked 20th out of 61 ads.

Visit to Vestergaard Frandsen

2011-03-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we met with Michael Steen Lunde, the regional director for Vestergaard Frandsen, in West Africa.

Vestergaard Frandsen is a Europe-based international company specialising in complex emergency response and disease control products. It is guided by a unique Humanitarian Entrepreneurship business model, whose "profit for a purpose" approach has turned humanitarian responsibility into its core business.

Michael share some great insights on the work that Vestergaard is doing, in Africa. Two really great products which are saving lives all around the world. The PermaNet Mosquito net and the Life Straw water filter are two of the key products manufactured and sold exclusively by Vestergaard. The organization focusses on

Vestergaard Frandsen is committed to saving lives from easily preventable diseases. The company focusses on a core set of targeting key diseases with products which help prevent the spread of such diseases.

Day 2, In Ghana.......

2011-03-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Our team toured the city of Accra today – we drove through old and new Accra and learnt about the history of this great nation.

We visited the home of W.E.B Du Bois, in Accra and learnt about his role in helping Ghana achieve it’s independence.

Next – we visited the final resting place of Ghana’s first President. Finally – we visited Ghana national museum and learnt about the history of Ghana, it’s people, it’s culture.

Just arrived in Accra, Ghana

2011-03-12T16:39:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I arrived in Accra, Ghana to start a two week study tour, with 26 other students from my MBA cohort. Great experience so far - I'm enjoying the climate and making the most of this opportunity......

What is the consumerization of IT?

2011-01-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

The term the “Consumerization of IT” is popping up all over the place. What do we actually mean by it? It refers to the increasing influence that our technology experiences as consumers—both hardware and applications—have on the technology that we expect to use at work. And it’s something I’d be willing to bet most of you are already experiencing to some degree in your organization. How many of you have employees accessing Facebook on a regular basis? Or maybe you have actually put in measures to block social networking sites? How often do your staff use their personal computers to do their work—perhaps as they are getting caught up in the evening or over the weekend? How many are using their personal thumb drives to take work home with them?

The reality is that many of us have powerful computer systems at home, and social computing tools like MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc. are a part of our everyday lives. As technology plays an increasingly important role in our personal lives and we become accustomed to the power, convenience, flexibility, and connectedness of consumer technology experiences, we want those same capabilities to help us at work. However, in most cases we aren’t being given the tools. Consider the comment there on the screen by Ars Technica. It wasn’t that long ago that we learned about and experienced cutting-edge technology in the workplace. How quickly that has changed—as consumers, we now have access to and take advantage of the latest technology to hit the shelves or even be streamed as a service through our high-speed broadband connections. The reality of corporate IT for the most part means a long wait before budgets and deployment cycles align to bring us the “latest” offerings for the enterprise, a few years late.

Let’s add into this mix the influence of the “millennial” generation. These relative newcomers to the workforce are a technology-savvy generation that has never known a time without the Internet and constant connectivity, whether by mobile phone or instant messaging. They are avid users of social networking and other social computing tools, regularly expressing themselves with blogs and through online forums. They love their devices and stay at the forefront of what technology can do. And this generation expects to be able to use these same tools at work. In fact, Symantec conducted a survey and found marked differences in the attitudes and behaviors of millennials compared with other workers towards using Web 2.0 applications and personal devices. Notably, a full 69 percent said that they would “use whatever application/device/technology they want, regardless of source or corporate IT policies.” That’s compared with only 31 percent of employees of other generations. They were also much more frequent users of social networking and Web-based e-mail at work, and three times as many of the millennials reported that they had downloaded software at work for their personal use. They also regularly store their work data on their personal devices—whether PCs, USB drives, or smartphones.

In discussing the increasing consumerization of IT trend, Forrester likewise picks up on the strong influence of the millennials, but notes that they aren’t alone. They observe that Gen Xers are “asking their IT departments to deliver at work the same consumer applications that they enjoy at home.” But millennials are “even bolder” and “completely eschew conventional productivity tools like email in favor of text messaging and Web 2.0 tools.” Ultimately, Forrester believes that “individual people, not IT organizations, are fueling the next wave of IT adoption.”

So what does this mean for businesses? It means that the influence of consumer technologies on your organization and your workforce is largely unavoidable—and it has some real implications on a number of fronts, including security and employee satisfaction. Ultimately, as Gartner puts it, this will be “the single most influential trend affecting the technology sector in the coming decade, but the effects are more subtle and broad-reaching than most observers originally imagined, and we have reached a tipping point.”
If this trend is something that no organization can avoid, the next question is, what can you do to capitalize on it and make it work for your business? This is the topic that we want to focus on today—how you can take advantage of consumerization to realize tangible benefits for your business without compromising enterprise security. Let’s get started.

So, how can consumer technology help your remote workers work more productively? Consider first the nature of remote work. We’re talking here about workers who spend some or all of their time away from the office—whether they are working from home or another office, constantly on the road visiting customers or prospects, taking advantage of a few hours stuck in a departure lounge at the airport, or even prepping for a meeting at a local café. The reality is that the “typical” workplace is no longer just the office but also increasingly people’s homes and public venues. Being away from the office and not connected to the corporate network can make it challenging to access the data and line-of-business applications that people need to get their work done. Plus, because of the confluence of more powerful consumer devices and a blurring of work vs. personal time, remote workers increasingly want to use their own devices to do their work, which might not even have the same standard productivity applications that they use every day and can mean they’ll spend more time transferring files around—all of which adds up to lost productivity.

On the flip side, most employees actually believe that working at home has the potential to make them more productive. In fact, according to a Yankee Group survey, workers say that “working from home is the single most important improvement their organization can make to improve their productivity.” At the same time, though, Yankee Group found that 54 percent of employees believe they would be more productive at work if they had access to the technology they use in their personal life.

The question is how to bring the two together—how to support workers’ preferred work styles without a loss in productivity? We believe the answer is through desktop, application, or user state virtualization as appropriate. There are a couple of options here:

 For non-mobile remote workers—for example, those working from home or offsite contract workers—desktop virtualization enables you to separate and centralize user settings, data, applications, and even the operating system from the device they are using and then enable access through an unmanaged computer with network connectivity

 For mobile workers, with user state virtualization you can store user settings and data in a centralized location and then synchronize that information with local copies of files for offline access. Plus, you can use application virtualization to “stream” applications to users rather than installing them locally. This enables you to support a more flexible work style while making it easy to replace PCs in the event that they are lost or stolen

The bottom line is that there are options here to give your workers the flexibility they need to work where, when, and with the tools they want to use—which will not only help them get more done, but make your business more agile too.

Blogs are also great for sharing information, either internally or even extended out to customers or partners; with blogs they can easily publish information online in a conversational way and invite comments or feedback

And finally, wikis can be an invaluable tool for recording the best practices and shared knowledge from across your organization, as everyone can contribute. Plus, they’re easily updated, and since there is a single, central copy, you don’t have to worry about confusion over multiple versions.

How To Move Your Business To The Cloud

2011-01-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

How in the world does a chief information officer or information technology professional cope with the challenge of delivering solutions for the second decade of the 21st century when they are saddled with 1980s technology?

Add the issues surrounding reduced budgets and the ongoing knock on IT workers--that they do not respond in a timely manner to changes in business--and you have the setting for change. Both in how IT delivers solutions and how IT needs to change itself.

The good news is that for once in almost 30 years, software is changing. No longer are you stuck with simply new features using outdated technology. You now have an alternative technology solution. The historical technology providers are, of course, trying to maintain their hold on you and your budget dollars by marketing "internal clouds," alliances that merge hardware and software stacks that imply "infrastructure to application" environments but totally miss the point and the benefit of cloud computing. But of course you would do this, too, as part of the innovator's dilemma.

As a CIO, how does your company take advantage of this changing technology and business model called the cloud?

There are a few things to consider with cloud computing. First, a number of research firms suggest that cloud implementations can take up to 50% less time, and total cost of ownership can be up to 46% cheaper. Both of these are shown in numerous white papers provided by cloud solution providers, and for the most part are reflective of the power and benefits cloud computing can provide.

However, one caution: Should you need or require multiple integrations, go cautiously. Integrating cloud solutions to on-premise solutions still takes time. Although somewhat less expensive, it still can add to project costs. Also, ERP cloud providers have some perverse view that makes integrating their solutions with other necessary cloud solutions very difficult. This is still the throwback to the "old software model" where your vendor "knows best." Key takeaway: As you get into cloud computing, make sure your vendors not only have robust application programming interfaces, but also that they have demonstrated those integrations with other vendors you may be considering.

Another consideration in cloud computing is the vendor's openness regarding service-level agreements, disaster recovery and security. Even the larger providers have their outages, but they still deliver higher uptimes than your internal data centers. However, with newer vendors and providers, make sure they are invested in your SLA so it is not just a contract term.

Final consideration for you in exploring cloud computing solutions: customization. One of the key benefits of cloud computing is the ability to customize the solution to some degree. So you have the advantage of changing the cloud solution to your process and behavior; with on-premise solutions, you need to change your behavior to their process.

Cloud computing will change your internal business model. It allows you to significantly reduce your capital outlays for hardware and software.

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It allows you to take your IT spending and direct it towards innovation and meeting the needs of the business in a timely manner, rather than deplete your resources on support and maintenance. This is key. Most IT budgets are really focused on supporting existing technology. Your move to cloud computing allows you to shift your focus back to providing solutions within your budget and to scale with the business rather than being one of the last departments sitting on very fixed costs.

Also, cloud computing impacts your disaster recovery and redundancy spending. Good cloud solution providers have set up redundancy and disaster recovery processes that you can test without burdening your organization. As you use a wider selection of cloud providers, your risk is spread physically, as each provider likely uses different data centers in different geographies. All this allows you to focus on your most important resource, your employees. Using a complete cloud solution, if your firm has a disaster, you simply need to get your employees to an Internet access point and you are up and running.

Don't be misled by the marketing hype of the old technology providers. Cloud computing will have huge benefits for your company. It will be the way businesses run their infrastructure, and it will evolve much faster than the 30-year software cycle we have just lived through. Start slowly, experiment, be critical of your suppliers, but start now to move your IT business model to cloud computing.

Steve Cakebread was chief financial officer at Salesforce.com and Autodesk.

Virtualization vs. Cloud Computing

2011-01-01T19:04:00.000-08:00

It used to be that something virtual wasn't real. And that clouds were just that--those puffy things in the sky. Today we have the tech industry terms "virtual computing" and "cloud computing," which often get mixed up. Fortunately, there's an easy way to tell them apart, and it involves hearkening back to the age-old distinction between hardware and software. When you're talking about virtual computing, you're invariably talking about hardware; specifically, making PC-style hardware available to users in a new way. A new layer of software, typically running in a far-off data center, tricks users into thinking they are using a desktop PC like before.

Cloud computing, by contrast, usually refers to the sorts of software that run once a computer gets turned on. The "cloud" indicates that the software is hosted in a data center, not sitting on your desktop. If you use Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office for your word processing or spreadsheets, that's cloud computing. You can mix and match these two approaches, undertaking cloud computing on a nonvirtual, traditional PC. And the opposite: You can use traditional, Office-style programs on a virtual PC

The Microsoft Web Platform

2010-11-15T06:37:00.000-08:00

"With the Microsoft Web Platform you get more than just a powerful set of tools, servers and technologies. You get a complete eco-system of products, technologies and partners all looking to help you succeed on the web"

The MSFT platform consists of the framework, the server, the database and the tools...

The Framework
ASP.NET is a free, fully supported Web application framework that helps you create standards-based Web solutions. It provides a rich set of features and easy integration with databases, web services and rich internet applications. With features such as WebForms, MVC, dynamic data scaffolding, an AJAX framework, templates and themes, hundreds of built in controls and free developer tools, ASP.NET will enable you to build Web apps better and faster

Get everything you need to start building web applications with ASP.NET using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. This simple, streamlined installer will get your development machine ready to go. The installer includes the latest version of the .NET framework including ASP.NET. You’ll also get Visual Web Developer Express which is a full featured FREE web development editor for working with ASP.NET and other Web technologies.

The MVC value prop: Use rich server-side controls and data binding with ASP.NET WebForms or take control of your HTML and easily incorporate Test Driven Development with ASP.NET MVC. Both approaches provide full support for core ASP.NET features such as membership-based authentication and authorization, URL routing, caching, master pages and localization.

The Server
Internet Information Services 7 (IIS 7.0) in Windows Server® 2008 provides a secure, easy-to-manage, modular and extensible platform for reliably hosting Web, sites, services and applications. With IIS 7.0, you get choice and control without giving up reliability or security. Customize and add new features, such as Intelligent Media Streaming through free IIS Extensions. Maximize web security through a reduced server foot print and automatic application isolation. Easily deploy and run both ASP.NET and PHP web applications on the same server. Get it all with IIS.

Why you'll love IIS 7.0 - Easy to get. Free to use
Get everything you need to start running and hosting web applications with IIS using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer. This simple, streamlined installer will get your development or hosting machine ready to go. The installer includes the latest version of the IIS 7.0 and Extensions. In addition, you’ll get the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform including frameworks, database and development tools. Best of all it’s all free!

From ASP.NET to PHP, IIS 7.0 provides a powerful and flexible Web server for the world’s most popular Web applications such as Umbraco, WordPress and Drupal. ASP.NET hosting is even more simple and powerful, with deep integration directly in the request processing pipeline, configuration system, and management console. Learn more about PHP on Windows.

The Database
SQL Server Express is free database software that works great with any web application framework such as PHP, and your favorite applications such as Wordpress, and Drupal. Free SQL server comes with reporting options and other expansions you're simply not going to find anywhere else. It's everything you're looking for in a database.

The Tools
Visual Studio, Expression Web and Windows Internet Explorer 8 with its built-in developer tools, provide a complete environment for building and maintaining standards-based web sites, services and applications, across multiple devices. Whether your focus is design or development, HTML or ASP.NET, the Microsoft Web Platform includes the right tools for the right task.

The Evolution of th LAMP Stack

2010-11-14T14:56:00.001-08:00

LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, originally coined from the first letters of Linux (operating system), Apache HTTP Server, MySQL (database software), and PHP, Python or Perl (scripting language), principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.

The exact combination of software included in a LAMP package may vary, especially with respect to the web scripting software, as PHP may be replaced or supplemented by Perl and/or Python.[2] Similar terms exist for essentially the same software suite (AMP) running on other operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows (WAMP), Mac OS (MAMP), Solaris (SAMP), or OpenBSD (OAMP).

Though the original authors of these programs did not design them all to work specifically with each other, the development philosophy and tool sets are shared and were developed in close conjunction. The software combination has become popular because it is free of cost, open-source, and therefore easily adaptable, and because of the ubiquity of its components which are bundled with most current Linux distributions.

When used together, they form a solution stack of technologies that support application servers.

The LAMP stack is widely used because it offers a great number of advantages for developers:

Easy to code: Novices can build something and get it up and running very quickly with PHP and MySQL.
Easy to deploy: Since PHP is a standard Apache module, it is easy to deploy LAMP web applications by uploading .php files to an Apache server and connecting to a MySQL database.
Develop locally: LAMP can be set up so an app can be built locally, then deployed to the Web.
Cheap and ubiquitous hosting: Many inexpensive web hosts provide PHP and MySQL services.
Linux
Main article: Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system kernel. A major emphasis of Linux development is security[citation needed], which makes it an appealing choice for a web-server application. Like the other LAMP components, Linux is free open-source software which means the source code is provided with operating system, which can be edited according to specific needs. Also, because Linux-based operating systems are Unix-like, a Linux server is more natively-compatible with other server-oriented platforms, such as Solaris and BSD, than non-Unix-like systems like Microsoft Windows.

Apache
Main article: Apache HTTP Server
Apache is a free software/open source web server, the most popular in use.[7]

MySQL
Main article: MySQL
MySQL is a multithreaded, multi-user, SQL database management system (DBMS) now owned by Oracle Corporation with more than eleven million installations.[8]

MySQL has been owned by Oracle Corporation since April 20, 2009 through the purchase of Sun Microsystems.[9][10] Sun had acquired MySQL originally on January 16, 2008.

PHP, Perl, or Python
Main articles: PHP, Perl, and Python (programming language)
PHP is a reflective programming language originally designed for producing dynamic web pages. PHP is used mainly in server-side application software. Perl and Python can be used similarly.

Windows Live Spaces - Transitioning To WordPress

2010-11-14T14:35:00.000-08:00

At the end of September, Microsoft announced the migration of Windows Live Spaces sites to WordPress.com, which will happen over the next few months.

The 30 million people that use Windows Live Spaces will have to migrate their blogs to the WordPress.com blogging platform and they have six months to do so, before Spaces is shut down.

The old Spaces URLs will also be redirected to the new blogs, so that no visitor will get lost along the way.

WordPress is powering more than 8.5% of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is visited monthly by over 250 million people.

Wordpress.com uses load-balanced hosting at Layered Technologies and Peer1 and this month both companies saw modest increases in the number of sites using nginx (60k and 48k hostnames respectively). For the moment, Windows Live Spaces sites in the sites.live.com domain whose blogs have been moved to WordPress.com remain online redirecting users to their new location.

For example, http://mikese.mobile.spaces.live.com still exists served by Microsoft but when accessed redirects to http://mikese.wordpress.com, which is running nginx. In contrast, blogs on their own domains will result in losses for Microsoft as the DNS can simply be updated with no need for redirection. An example of a site in this category is http://ozzie.net which switched over in the middle of October; at the time it was not clear if this change from IIS on Windows to nginx on Linux was a deliberate move by Ray Ozzie as he prepared to step down as Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, though it now appears to be part of the wider Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com migration. Since WordPress.com is served by nginx, we expect to see a continued increase in sites using nginx as the migration takes place.

Despite the changes described above, Microsoft gained 3.1M hostnames this month, mostly in the United States. The largest increases were 942k hostnames at GoDaddy and 717k hostnames at Demand Media Inc.

Public Cloud vs. Private Cloud

2010-11-14T14:33:00.001-08:00

The lure of cloud computing is that it offers organizations some choices. Companies can add capacity required to process and analyze data, as needed. There's no doubt that cloud computing offers great cost savings and increased efficiency for any organiztion.

However, i'm often drawn into conversations with colleagues adn friends about the wisdom of deploying private vs. public clouds. First - a few definitions.

Private Cloud (Web Definition,
Web

PHP vs. ASP

2010-11-14T14:32:00.001-08:00

If you were to make a search on the Internet on how loyalists of both PHP and ASP.net are doing almost everything by biting each other's heads off, you will realize how hot this debate actually is. The major contention is that Microsoft products are generally considered to be superior to other products, but then there are programmers that have been using PHP since ages and never once has it let them down. While there is acclaim for ASP.net being more robust and speedier, PHP fans maintain that PHP has much better support and a very easy to understand language.

As the debate between PHP and ASP.net rages on, it is important to make a frank comparison between the two languages, so that other developers who are not so strong in their opinions are not caught in the argument between the two. Here are some of the important points that distinguish the two programming languages from each other:-
(For the uninitiated, PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and ASP.net stand for Active Server Pages. It helps to put things into better perspective!)

PHP is a relatively simpler language to use than ASP.net. Initially, PHP was written in the C programming language to replace a set of scripts in Perl. That is the reason why coding in PHP remains simple even today. Many developers find themselves to be more at ease with the user-friendly nature of PHP when it comes to coding. However, critics also count this advantage of PHP as a disadvantage. Some of them maintain that the language of PHP has not been updated much, and hence it is still quite archaic and even, somewhat cumbersome for coding. ASP.net, which is a relatively new development, has a lot of options when it comes to languages. Here, you can use languages such as C#, J#, C++ and VB.net. Hence, when it comes to sheer choice, ASP.net has better to offer. But PHP is no less, since it can do its task quite well, even with its minimum language tools.

PHP is has much better support for the database management system, MySQL. In fact, the very popular blogging platform, WordPress uses the formidable combination of PHP coding on MySQL for its content management system, which includes about hundreds of thousands of blog posts every single day. Another very popular and frequently updated service that uses the combination of PHP and MySQL is Wikipedia. ASP.net can also support MySQL, but PHP is unanimously hailed, by the masses and classes alike, for its great support for this database management system.

People who use both PHP and ASP.net also maintain their opinion that PHP is better for embedded support with another database management system, viz. SQLite. SQLite is described as a relational database management system and since it is contained in a C programming library, PHP can provide better support to it.

PHP has also a very good support for object oriented programming, on which whole scripting languages are being built nowadays. ASP.net also provides very capable support to OOP.

When it comes to support, PHP wins over ASP.net. The main reason for this is that PHP is open source. Hence, the support can come freely from all over the world. In most cases, PHP fixes are made instantly. Being open source also ensures that there are very few snags in PHP. While, ASP.net could take a while to make fixes. That is because it is owned by Microsoft, and it is the development team of Microsoft that will need to respond to the support query. That could take more time than the worldwide open source support that PHP is able to get. Most PHP supports can be instantly found online by doing a simple search on the Internet. Some of the providers of support for PHP are Zend, NuSphere and ThinkPHP.

» PHP can use the command line to perform many everyday activities. Some of the things that the PHP command line is useful for is for manipulating across many files and for putting files into multiple directories at once. These are just some of the important features that PHP's command line is used for.

PHP is an open source programming language, which means it is free for anyone to use. Programmers can develop PHP applications virtually at no cost, because PHP is free to use. ASP.net is not free too, but its extensions are available for free on Windows platforms, upwards of 98. Hence, ASP.net is available to Windows users when they buy it. That puts a bit of restriction in its use.

ASP.net is compiled into memory in binary code. So, when ASP.net is used for coding, it is evident that it takes much longer time to process since the codes need to be retrieved from memory. However, PHP is not compiled into memory like ASP.net is. It is interpreted at runtime. That is the reason why PHP coding leads to better speed and even efficiency. However, it must be said that both PHP and ASP.net can run at supreme speeds and efficiency when they are coded expertly.

Talking about hosting charges, both PHP and ASP.net are quite cheap to host. If you do a good deal of shopping online, you will also be able to find hosting for as little as $4. While there are several pricier hosting services out there, their charges are higher for both PHP and ASP.net. Hence, it can be said that both PHP and ASP.net are at par with each other on the hosting charges.

Since PHP is older, there are many people who claim that it is much more secure than ASP.net where coding is concerned. ASP.net is much new, and the security options may not be fully in place yet. However, many programmers will pooh-pooh at this point, because they maintain that security in coding does not depend on the language that is used, but in the way that the coding is done by the coder. Even so, there is a lot of talk on the Internet about PHP coded sites being more difficult to hack into than those done with ASP.net.

Hence, there is a lot to debate on about the worthiness of PHP over ASP.net or vice-versa. There is probably no end to it, and there never shall be. The problem mainly is that both of them are good in their own place, but people who have been staunchly using PHP for several years now – some of them for more than a decade – would certainly not like to go in for the new ASP.net. The price to be paid is quite high, i.e. learning a whole new syntax and getting used to it. That is more the reason why PHP is still so popular.

But, to ASP.net's credit it must be said that it is much more dynamic, even if the mere use of different languages are concerned. While PHP is still stuck to its scripting language days, ASP.net has broken new grounds by entering into new languages, and even developing some of its own.

The Cloud - as a computing platform

2010-09-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

"the cloud" is a computing platform - it has to be managed on an ongoing basis.

Any comprehensive cloud strategy must involve a complext evauation of costs, benefits, busienss cultureal issues, risks adn coprorate and govet standards.

In future, as well-tested commercial cloud services becoem available, companies will increasingly be able to relay on these services not just for IT cost savings but also for delivering new vaue to the organization.

Companies which strive to provide cloud based services must provide customers with a simple process for monitor busienss process which live enitrely or partially in a cloud environment. An organizations computre dependent business processes need to be constalnly monitored by softward.

Cloud computing business models are essentially baesd on rental arrangements.

Compare two cost models.

Operating Expenses: Paying per month, per user for each service
Capital Infestments: paying a purchase fee plus yearly maintenance for sofware that resides within your organization.

Application Platform Interfaces (APIs) - are an important phenomenon in cloud computing. Vendors develop proprietary APIs for their own cloud computing platforms, so customers are forced to support multiple APIs. For an organization to readily build connections between it's internal data centre and teh cloud, it must use stnadardized APIs and data trrsnasformation capabillities.

Provisioning - is a term whjich refers to immediate requests which cloud computing customers make for resources.

The cloud service provider is resonsible for aintaining anagreedon level of servicesand provisions resources accordingly.

In the case of PasaS or IaaS, customersnmay need to directy requeset additional resources, becuase tin both cases they're directly managing the cloud resources instead of haing them managed by the cloud provider.

Note: One of the immediate attractions of IaaS is that a data center could move its volatile workloads into teh cloud adn pay for addtional resources on demand.

So, hardware use inteh data centre is much more efficient, when a cloud computing option exists.

The cloud itself is a service managment ploatform.Therefore, well-designed cloud service protfolio's include a taight integration of the core service managmeent capabillities and well-defined interfaces.

Biggest Problem which Organizations face when considering moving applicaton systems to the cloud isthe issue of software dependencies. The cloud uses service oriented archietecture approach (based on loosely coupled services).

Cloud Service Delivery Models

2010-09-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Infrastrucutre as a service: offers storage and compte resources that developers and IT organizations use to deliver custom business solutions.

Platform as a service: offers development envioronments ath atIT organzations can use to creatse cloud-rready business applications

Software as a service: offers purpose built business applications

Infrastructure - as a Service
This refers to teh delivery of computer hardware - including Servers, networking technology, storage and data centre space), as a service. It may also include the delivery of operating systems and virtualization technlogy to manage the resources

Customers can rent computing resources instead of buying and installing them in their own data centres. (it's typically a pay as you use model). the service may incldue dynamic scaling - (bursting up or scaling down).

Key Example - Amazon's EC2 (Elastic Cloud - IaaS)

Organizations can "rent" computing resources - to boost their data centers by renting computer hardware adn appropriate allocations os sservers, networking technloogy, sotrate an data centre space - as a service, instead of laying out the capital expenditure for the maximum amount of resources to cover their highest level of demand, they purchase computing power if and when they ned it.

Platform as a Service
teh platform provider delivers more than infrastructure. It delivers a solutions stack - integrated set of software that profides everthign a developerneeds to build an applicationf for both sofware deevelopment and runtime.

This is an evolution of Web hosting. PaaS - provies lifeecyle managment capabillitys to manage all software delovelopment stages from plannig and design to building and deployment to testinga nd maintenance.

Key benefit: customers can haev sofware development anddeployment capabillity based entirely int he cloud. No mgt or maintenance efforts are reeqired for teh infrastructure.
all aspects of software develoment exist in the cloud. From design stage to build ing adn deployment - everything lives in the cloud.

Key Caveat: PaaS offerings have proprietary elements - so customers are tied to their PaaS providers adn may face high expenses if they choose to switch.

Software as a Service
This phenomenon refers to business applicatons that are hosted by the provider and delivered as a service.

Application Service Providers and CRM applications are the most common categories of Software as a service. (key example - Salesforce.com).

Advantages: Price of the software is on a per-use baseis, adn invoves no upfront costs from teh service provdier.

initially SaaS offerngs were not implemented over the internet. For the same oof security adn reliability , these offerings woudl normally involve virtual private networks.

Management & Administration - as a factor of cloud computing models.

Cloud computing services are easy enough to explain conceptually - however in implementing cloud services, one has to integrate it into the IT operations of the organization.

Note: Becuaes cloud requires a sel=service capability, it must be edesigned to manage not just provisionoing customer reqeusts but also issues sucah as workload managment, security, meteriing, monitoring and billing services.

For cloud serivces to be safe adn effective, they must measure and monijtor performance.

What is Cloud Computing?

2010-09-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

Cloud computing is the next state in the evolution of the internet

The cloud in cloud computing provides the means throughw hich everything from computing power to coputing infrastructure applications, business proceess to personal collaboration, can be delivered to you as a serveice, wheereve adn whenever you need.

Clouds are fluida dn can easily expanda or contract.

This elasticity of the cloud means that users can request qdditional resources aon demand anad jus ast as easily depoirvisiton or release those resources when ytey're no longer needed,.

This elasticitiy is one of the main reasons indivuduals, businesses adn IT users are moving to the cloud.

Cloud computing infrastructures maie it easier for cmpanie sto treat their computing systems as a pool of resources rather than a set of independent environments that eadh has to be managed.

4 Basic Characteristics of the Cloud.

1. Elaasticity and abillity to scale up and down
2. Self-service provisioning and automatic deprovisiioning
3. Applicaton programing interfaces (APIs)
4. Billing and metering of service usage in a pay-as-you-go model

Good cloud services must have a comprehensive approach to service management and a well-definied process for security management.

The evolution of data centre management
over time, it became easier for IT Service Providers to add hardware to the data centre rather than to focus on making the dtata centre itself, more effective. By doing so, IT ensured that critical applications woldn't run out of resources. At the same time, these companies built or bought sofaware to meet their business needs - large cmmoplex applications were built to run in large data centres, and modified to meet changing business needs.

Technlogoy advancements such as virtualization, service oriented architecture and service managment have helped address some of th e needs of companies adn their IT service providers, as they strive to manage huge adn unqieldy business software adn data centre constraints. These technolgoy enablers have helped companies become more efficient adn cost effective - however teh cloud promises to improve their abillity to leveragte what they've bought and make use of external resources, designed to be used , on deamnd.

Note: Some applications wil simply not be successful when thron up on tht ecloud - virtualize adion also ads some performance implications. A database bound application will remain data base bound, regardless of the additional compute resources beneather it.

Important beneft if cloud computing: abillity to add new instratructure capacity quicly and at lower costs. (enables companies to gain IT resources whilst saving time and money. Typical cloud service providers have economies of scale - resulting int eh ability to spread fixed costs over more customers.

Organizations can try out new aplications without having to invest int eh hardware, sofaware or networking capacity.

Why go with a public cloud?

2010-08-21T07:10:00.001-07:00

Private vs. Public Clouds -

2010-08-21T06:14:00.000-07:00

There's an ongoing debate about whether companies should embrace the public cloud or invest in a private cloud. I think it's important to set the context by defining in

"The reality of what service to choose comes down to what fits with your company culture. Even though the cloud has its own level of security, a private cloud environment may make more sense for the more conservative enterprise" Forrester's James Staten

Private Cloud - Overview and Advantages
A private cloud is a highly virtualized cloud data centre, often located inside your company's firewall. It may also be a private space dedicated to your company within a cloud vendor data centre, designed to handle your compnay's workloads.

What sets a private cloud apart from a commercially-used public cloud is how the hardware is kept and maintained. Typically, the hardware is hosted and maintained on the company's own servers, within their own network infrastructure.

The main advantage one has with a privately-managed cloud is direct control over every aspect of the cloud’s implementation: the hardware, the networking, the operating system and other software used to create the cloud itself; the way security is implemented; even the APIs used (that is, if you’re using an open source system).

Key Characteristics

Provides self-service provisioning of hardware and software srouces
supports specific workloads
Optimizes the use of computing resources such as servers
provides a well-managed environment
automates management tasks ans lets you bill business units for services they consume
allows It to provisiton services and copte capabillity to internal users in a sel-service manner

Another advantage of a private cloud is that it can generally be built from reasonably current commodity hardware. The most stringent requirements, apart from disk space and memory, are processors that support virtualization -- e.g., the Intel VT-x or AMD’s AMD-V extensions.

Most server-grade hardware, and even a fair amount of desktop-grade hardware, sold in the last few years will sport such features. If the hardware is available and isn’t provisioned for anything -- or is being de-provisioned from other things -- it can be put to use as part of a cloud.

A third advantage is locality. A cloud hosted in your own datacenter, or on your own property, is far easier to move data into (and out of) than a cloud hosting elsewhere. If you have the servers on another floor and want to use a 30GB disk image as part of your cloud setup, it’s easy enough to just walk over there and add the disk to the cloud.

A fourth advantage is security -- that is, up to a point. If you are hosting your own cloud infrastructure on a private LAN, with no connections to the outside world, it’s theoretically a good deal easier to secure. Since it’s your network and your boxes, you can exercise that much more discretion over it. That said, this presumes you have good security protocols in place to begin with:

Sounds a lot like a public cloud - a private cloud exhibits the key characteristics of a public cloud, including elasticity, scalabillity and self-service prvovisioning. The major difference is CONTROL over the enviroment. In a private cloud, the customer controls the service management. (a good analogy would be Internet vs. Intranet).

The Evolution of Outsourcing

2010-08-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

In the next five years outsourcing as we know it will disappear. The legion of Indian service providers will be sidelined or absorbed. U.S. and European companies that pioneered this corner of the high tech industry will suffer similar fates if they don't wake up. Who will emerge as the new leaders? Google (GOOG) and Amazon.com (AMZN), brands that we associate with search and retail, will become better known for outsourcing.

Ludicrous? Not if you follow this industry. Desktop computers yielded to laptops. Web portals AOL (AOL), MSN (MSFT), and Yahoo! (YHOO) are giving way to social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Software once distributed by disk is now available as apps over the Web—often for less than the cost of a slice of pizza. And so it goes. The same Darwinian process is creating a fresh ecosystem in outsourcing, one that will usher in an era of consolidation and a new way of working with clients.

Traditionally, outsourcing companies sell customers deals that can span a decade and easily run to tens of millions of dollars. The service provider takes on the expensive, time-consuming task of building and operating the digital tools that the customer requires to vanquish the competition, often involving development of custom software to get the job done. To do that, service providers need aisles of powerful computers, armies of programmers, and lots of applications, which are housed either at the client's site or located at a third-party data center that's usually owned and paid for by the client but managed and maintained by the outsourcer. Accenture (ACN) is a good example of the old model

The Consumerization of IT ??

2010-08-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

In many ways, consumerization of IT is the process by which the IT industry is being transformed from its roots as a business tool into primarily a social medium. It's consequences are expected to grow sharply in the future

Symantec conducted a survey and found marked differences in the attitudes and behaviors of millennials compared with other workers towards using Web 2.0 applications and personal devices. Notably, a full 69 percent said that they would “use whatever application/device/technology they want, regardless of source or corporate IT policies.” That’s compared with only 31 percent of employees of other generations.

They were also much more frequent users of social networking and Web-based e-mail at work, and three times as many of the millennials reported that they had downloaded software at work for their personal use. They also regularly store their work data on their personal devices—whether PCs, USB drives, or smartphones.

In discussing the increasing consumerization of IT trend, Forrester likewise picks up on the strong influence of the millennials, but notes that they aren’t alone. They observe that Gen Xers are “asking their IT departments to deliver at work the same consumer applications that they enjoy at home.” But millennials are “even bolder” and “completely eschew conventional productivity tools like email in favor of text messaging and Web 2.0 tools.” Ultimately, Forrester believes that “individual people, not IT organizations, are fueling the next wave of IT adoption.”

So what does this mean for businesses? It means that the influence of consumer technologies on your organization and your workforce is largely unavoidable—and it has some real implications on a number of fronts, including security and employee satisfaction. Ultimately, as Gartner puts it, this will be “the single most influential trend affecting the technology sector in the coming decade, but the effects are more subtle and broad-reaching than most observers originally imagined, and we have reached a tipping point.”

Mike Parker - On Nike

2010-08-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

Great article on the CEO of Nike, in fast company.

I was struck by his humility and focus on Nike's business priorities.

At the end of the article, he references his choice for Nike's mission statement ""To bring inno-vation and inspiration to every athlete in the world".

Two other noteworthy quotes - which I feel are pretty inspirational.

"If you have a body, you're an athlete" and one of Nike's 9 key maxims - "Be a sponge. Curiosity is life. Assumption is death. Look around."

Just something to thing about ....

Windows Azure

2010-08-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform is a cloud platform offering that "provides a wide range of Internet services that can be consumed from both on-premises environments or the Internet"[1] (though the platform itself is not made available for on-premises deployments[2]). It is Microsoft's first step into cloud computing following the launch of the Microsoft Online Services offering. In short, it's Microsoft's platform as a service.

The Windows Azure platform uses a specialized operating system, called Windows Azure, to run its "fabric layer" — a cluster hosted at Microsoft's datacenters that manages computing and storage resources of the computers and provisions the resources (or a subset of them) to applications running on top of Windows Azure.

Windows Azure has been described as a "cloud layer" on top of a number of Windows Server systems, which use Windows Server 2008 and a customized version of Hyper-V [5], known as the Windows Azure Hypervisor[6] to provide virtualization of services

2010-08-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, the NPD group reported that Android has hit the top spot in U.S. smartphone market. "Android operating system accounted for 33 percent of all smartphones sold in the U.S. consumer market. That number pushed it ahead of Research In Motion with 28 percent and Apple with 22 percent".

Learning The Basics fo Cloud Computing

2010-08-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Attending The ELC's Leadership Training Conference - in Vegas....

2010-08-03T18:36:00.000-07:00

The advent of Cloud Computing

2010-08-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

Washington Cash

2010-03-06T17:14:00.000-08:00

Hi all, last year I started volunteering some of my time with an organization called the Washington Community Alliance for Self-Help - also known as Washington Cash.

The folks at Washington Cash organization provide very useful business training, supportive community and capital to help enterprising individuals with limited financial resources gain self-sufficiency through small business ownership.

I know a lot of people who want to help others but are not sure how to make a difference - for those of you reading this blog, I strongly encourage you to find an organization like Washington Cash and use it as an outlet to help others.

We all have plenty of useful knowledge and insights which we can share with others - if you live in Seattle area, pls take some time to learn more about Washington Cash, I'm sure you'll be impressed by the work their doing.

Cheers,

Rotimi

It's because I've failed - that I succeed

2009-09-08T15:12:00.000-07:00

I heard Barack reference this old Michael Jordan commercial, during his speech to high school students, today. I remember how I felt the first time I watched the ad.

Here's another one - which may be even more powerful. "I have something more important than Courage - I have patience. I will become - what I know, I am".

I guess the key learning here is aspiring leaders must nurture patience, self-belief and a spirit of continuous learning.

Peace.

33 Strategies of Life?

2009-08-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Tips To Keep Your Job

2009-07-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

I came across this great piece in Fortune. It's geared towards women, however these insights are useful for every one. I've listed the top 5 tips - below. The full article is available - here

1. Take On Important Assignments
In the aftermath of layoffs, remaining employees are often asked to pick up slack. But don't get stuck doing low-impact work just because you want to seem helpful. Identify projects that will be valuable to your company and management team--and then volunteer yourself. If you are asked to take an assignment that you know will have little impact, mention that you've been thinking about another--more important--assignment and have some ideas ready to share.

2. Initiate
Don't hang low and await instructions. Particularly if your company is looking to trim the fat, being seen as not having enough on your plate is a worst-case scenario. Let your boss know that you recognize that times are tough and are willing to do more work to advance the business. Suggest a skill you have that could augment a certain project. Ask to help or take over a project that you know your boss doesn't have the time to get to. And give updates regularly so that your managers know you're working hard and want extra responsibility.

3. Know Your Company
You need to understand what's deemed valuable in your company and who the key decision-makers are. Revisit the basics of the core business model. Consider what value you're adding, and shift focus if you realize you may not be working to your fullest potential. Having the ability to pinpoint how your work affects the bottom line could save your job.
And identify who's really in charge. Always shine in the company of the "big boss." Even if you're at odds with your immediate manager, make sure the key people know what you're worth.

4. Be Adaptable
Change is never "if" but "when," especially in this economy. Research new technologies that might make the business more efficient, and then learn them. Your new expertise may keep you in demand. And if there's a change in management, roll with the punches. Even if you're not happy about it, the worst thing to do is get caught up in gossip or to seem disgruntled and entitled. Think of a new boss as a new challenge. Prove your worth by doing great work and remaining open-minded.

5. Aim for the Promotion
One of the biggest mistakes women often make is hiding behind a desk, awaiting praise from managers and focusing too intently on turning in perfect work. Smart women know that the goal isn't just to stay employed but rather to continue rising up the ranks and gaining greater responsibility--and perks. Experts agree that now's the time to take risks. When your job is on the line, you want to show your potential. Present yourself as a leader by dressing like an executive, speaking up in meetings, projecting authority with your tone of voice and body language and by thinking two steps ahead.

Full Article....

The Best Advice I Ever Got...

2009-07-17T18:52:00.000-07:00

Just read a great piece in the fortune - titled "The Best Advice I Ever Got". The piece features comments from some accomplished, famous people. You'll find the article here.

I have many personal "best advice" moments as I'm sure most of us do.

It's been a while.......

2009-07-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Last year, I accepted a role in the Windows Consumer Marketing Team - driving Business Intelligence for some of our key online assets. I've spent the past few months trying to get my head around the Windows Business - as you would imagine, there's a lot to learn.

A few months ago I also launched a second blog - focused on my passion for Leadership Development. It's been a busy time and I haven't had the bandwidth to do post regular write-ups in the World Changers Journal. I'm hoping that will change in the weeks and months ahead.

Hope you're all enjoying the summer - look forward to reengaging with all you fellow World Changers in the weeks and months ahead.

Cheers.....

The Essense of "Outliers"

2009-05-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Malcom Gladwell's most recent offering - a book called Outliers. In the book, the author puts forward his views about key factors which contribute to an individuals success. He starts out by examining the causes of why the majority of Canadian professional ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes.

I enjoyed the book and decided to find out how others felt about Malcolm's ideas. As I read through various reviews and interestingly, most people seemed to like the book - but for very different reasons.

I picked up some new learning's and reaffirmed others - from Outliers.

There are 3 key criteria which working individuals need in order to excel. Autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward. These are the 3 key qualities that work has to have, if it's to be satisfying.

It has to be about more than just - the amount of money we make. We spend so much of our lives working that it would be a real tragedy if our work does not provide us with a strong sense of personal or professional fulfillment.

Work that fulfills these 3 criteria - is meaningful. I truly believe that if you work hard enough, assert yourself and stay focused on purposeful goals, you can accomplish some great things.

Hard work can be very hard - if it doesn't have meaning. Once it does, it's no longer work - it becomes a means to an end. A happy, fulfilling and invigorating end.

Malcom makes two interesting assertions about children's upbringing. The first is that parents who take an interest in their children early, and teach them to be confident, self assured and assertive, are preparing actually preparing them to grow up with a healthy sense of "entitlement". Having grown up in a country with a very high respect quotient - I see the value in striking the right balance between teaching children to be respectful of their elders whilst simultaneously building their self-confidence.

The second key point which Malcom makes - is that the children of Eastern Jews who relocated to the U.S and started their own businesses - benefited from the can do environment in which they grew up. They watched their parents accomplish some great things through sheer determination - and this had a very positive and indelible effect on their view of the world.

There's no doubt that it helps to grow up in a home where your parents and relatives are smart, resourceful, driven - go getter's. However, the most important point here is that the Jewish families which Malcolm profiled were likely very close knit and worked hard to provide their children and relatives with great opportunities. That trend is likely the single most important reason why their children grew up to be successful Doctors, Lawyers and White Collar workers.

President Lula

2009-03-29T14:03:00.000-07:00

Zakaria's interview with President Lula, was interesting for many reasons. Hear what Lula says about Obama's inauguration.

President Lula "I told my people, during my inauguration address - I do not have the right to make mistakes, I cannot afford to fail". I believe that God put Obama there for a reason - I told him that he cannot afford to fail."

Undoubtedly, Lula has come a long way since his days as a Machine Operator, in a factory. His comments regarding democracy, socialism and the role of emerging industrialized nations - were insightful and well presented. Undoubtedly, many will disagree with his position on U.S relations with Venezuela & Cuba - as well as the role which emerging nations should play, in global affairs.

Still, it's important to understand different perspectives of World Leaders, especially those from nations like Brazil.

The Key To Leading A Purposeful Life

2009-03-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

The key is to help someone - anyone

analogy for church -

mentoriship

holding ones self accountable to somneone else, or some initiaitve

it's not about one goal or another - if so, what do you do when you've achieved the goal or you realize that there's no way you can accomplish the goal.

It's great to be goal oriented - but what happens when you hit the goal.

Tyler Perry said in a recent interview with Larry King, that he was depressed after buying his multi-million dollar studio - because he'd achieved a major goal - probalby much earlier than he had previously though he could (he's not yet 40 years old).

He's since set a new goal - to own a Television Network. (but check this - he wants to own a network which would ALWAYS provide uplifting programming, for others). That goal is tied to his childhood - a period of his life when he endured physical abuse from his father and probably didn't have too many people lifting hime up....

The Leadership Journal

2009-03-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Last month - I launched a new blog called "The Leadership Journal". It's been a long time in the making - I'm glad we're finally up and running.

Key Objectives: I created the Leadership Journal with one purpose in mind - to create a repository for the types of leadership training, insights and resources which could help improve the skills of aspiring leaders, anywhere in the world.

I am convinced that Truly Effective Leaders are made - not born. The quest to be a great leader is a never ending journey of continous learning. I'm hopeful that the Leadership Journal will be a good source of information for all leaders.

World Changer....

Are Your Truly A World Changer?

2009-03-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

Are people better off because they know you? Do you think others have a more positive attitude, a more cheerful demeanor or a brighter outlook on life - in part, because they're associated with you? In Church this morning - I heard a song with these words - "People's life's should better because they know me". It set me thinking about what it really means to be a World Changer. Are we really leading purposeful lives?

We all live very busy lives - constantly juggling the urgent with the important. We often have to re-prioritize work items and deliverables as I try to accomplish my goals. Smart Companies are learning to reward employees not just for hitting agreed upon goals, but for doing so in a collaborative manner, non-destructive fashion.

During the course of my (admittedly) short career - I've been guilty of being too overbearing in some cases and overly deferential, in others. I'm learning to be assertive and express myself in a non-confrontational fashion.

Every day, we are presented with great opportunities to have a positive impact on others - simply by the way we present ourselves and the approach we take to dealing with challenges.
I try to look for the win-win - I hear you all saying that's much easier said than done. That's true - sometimes we do have to compromise or even give in, but even when that happens, we need to maintain a positive outlook.

I'm hoping this post will be a therapeutic one for me - I don't always project a positive attitude. I certainly can't categorically state that any of my colleagues are better off because they've worked with me, although I do hope so.

It's a fact that we're all affected by the environment in which we live, the words, actions and attitudes of those around us.

World Changers: The song reminded me that we all need to keep trying to have a positive impact on those around us. That way, we're sure to continue to change and affect people's lives - for the better......

Peace.

Captain Sully Sullenberger - "My Aircraft"

2009-03-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Taken from a blog post titled - "An incredible lesson in crisis managment"

From the interviews that he gave on 60 Minutes on February 8th to Katie Couric on CBS and on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 10th and 11th on Larry King Live on CNN, following is how did Captain Sully Sullenberger manage the crisis of his life and saved 155 lives!
Recognizing the Uniqueness of the Crisis:

“About 90 seconds after takeoff, I notice there were birds, filling the entire windscreen, from top to bottom, left to right, large birds, close, too close to avoid. I felt, heard and smelled the evidence of them going into the engines. I heard the noises. I felt the engine vibrations of the damage being done to the engines. And, I smelled what I described at the time, and I still would, as a burned bird smell being brought from the engine area into the conditioning system of the airplane...It was obvious to me from the very moment that we lost the thrust that this was a critical situation. Losing thrust on both engines, at a low speed, at a low altitude, over one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. Yes, I knew it was a very challenging situation.
The airplane stopped climbing and going forward, and began to rapidly slow down. That's when I knew I had to take control of the airplane. I put my hand on the side stick and I said, the protocol for the transfer of control, “My aircraft”, and the first officer Jeff (Skiles) immediately answered, “Your aircraft”. (With no engine power) you use the forward momentum to provide the air flow over the wings to provide the sufficient lift...I knew immediately that this, unlike every other flight I'd had for 42 years, was probably not going to end with the airplane undamaged on the runway.”

World Changer

Google's Toolbar Push

2009-03-04T10:30:00.000-08:00

Back in January - Microsoft announced a deal with Dell - The deal indicated that, in February, Dell would start distributing Live Search on a majority of consumer and small business PCs that it ships globally. Live Search will be the default search engine in the browser, and the PCs will also include our Live Search-powered toolbar. Dell is the #1 PC provider in the U.S. and #2 worldwide. The agreement will give new Dell users, in over 20 countries around the world, the opportunity to experience Live Search over the three-year period of the agreement. I love Microsoft and I'm very happy about this announcement - I've always favored a more aggressive distribution strategy for Live Search, as a means of driving up revenue and global query share. I also use - and have written about Google, on a regular basis.

This morning - I noticed something on the Google home page which I hadn't seen before.

A really huge box, promoting the Google Toolbar. This - on a home page which Google has been very, very careful about keeping clean and uncluttered. Clearly, the goal is to win back all those Dell, HP & Lenovo users who are buying machines with Live Search toolbars & search functionality. Don't get me wrong - I know Google has periodically promoted it's toolbar through the home page, in the past. However, I don't recall the Toolbar download box being so large or so prominently positioned on the Google home page.

The challenge for Live Search is that, it' still not known as a Search Engine - query share sits at below 9% in the U.S, versus over 60% for Google. If I'm a Google user - and I buy a new machine, I'm still going to go to http://www.google.com/ to initiate my search. I'll be greeted by that massive stamp inviting me to download the tool bar. As far as I know, once a user downloads the toolbar, Google becomes the primary search engine on the machine and Live Search looses out.

No doubt, some smart folks have figured out how to address this issue - I'm simply pointing out my observation about how Google is aggressively promoting it's toolbar, even as MSFT aggressively signs distribution deals......

Follow The Money

2009-02-28T07:19:00.001-08:00

The term Sovereign wealth fund was first used in 2005 by Andrew Romanov in an article entitled 'Who holds the wealth of nations? In the article, Mr.Romanov mentioned that “Typically, sovereign wealth funds are a by-product of national budget surpluses, accumulated over the years due to favorable macroeconomic, trade and fiscal positions, coupled with long-term budget planning and spending restraint. Usually, these funds are set up with one or more of the following objectives: insulate the budget and economy from excess volatility in revenues, help monetary authorities sterilize unwanted liquidity, build up savings for future
generations, or use the money for economic and social
development”.

Translation – Sovereign funds functioned as a vehicle through which cash rich nations could invest in fairly stable, promising investment products.

Follow The Money: The current global economic downturn offers some unique opportunities for cash-rich global funds to pick up choice assets at bargain prices. A brief study of the key holdings in some of these funds may offer some insights for would-be investors.

Note: I’m making an assumption that these sovereign wealth managers will make smart investment decisions. At the very least, we should notice some consistent themes across funds from Asia, S/America & the Middle east.

Below is a list of 14 funds – which were featured in Mr.. Romanov's article, back in ‘05.

Country	Fund Name	Assets ‘05 $B	Assets Feb ‘09
United Arab Emirates	Abu Dhabi Investment Authority	$250,000 Billion	$875 Billion
Norway	Government Petroleum Fund	$170,000 Billion	$350 Billion
Hong Kong	Investment Portfolio (HKMA)	$100,000 Billion	$173 Billion
Kuwait	Kuwait Investment Authority	$65,000 Billion	$202 Billion
Singapore	GIC	$100,000 Billion	$330 Billion
Brunei	BIA	$30,000 Billion	$30 Billion
USA (Alaska)	Permanent Reserve Fund	$29,800 Billion	$29 Billion
Russia	Stabilization Fund	$27,700 Billion	$137 Billion
Malaysia	Khazanah Nasional BHD	$ 15,800 Billion	25.7 Billion
Trinidad & Tobago	Revenue Stabilization Fund	460 Million	2.9 Billion
Canada	Alberta Heritage	$9,800 Billion	14.9 Billion
Chile	Copper Stabilization Fund	$3,900 Billion	$21 Billion
Oman	State General Reserve Fund	$2,000 Billion	$8.2 Billion
Venezuela	FIEM	$714M	$~700M

The Real Value of Sovereign Funds

2009-02-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

So, what's the real value of sovereign funds?

Years ago, I worked for a mutual funds company called Trimark. At the time, it was one of the largest fund company's in Canada. At the time - mutual funds were the primary investment vehicle of choice for many North Americans.

The key selling point? Mutual funds are stable - less volatile than owning individual stocks, and safer too, because you spread the risk across different investment vehicles. I learnt a little about the investment industry and even did a little day trading.

Lately, I've developed an interest in sovereign funds - a friend asked me why and I decided to respond through a series of blog posts.

First - What is a Sovereign fund? A sovereign wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund composed of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, property, precious metals or other investment products.

Some sovereign wealth funds are held solely by central banks of the country in question. The central banks often accumulate the funds in the course of their management of a nation's banking system; this type of fund is usually of major economic and fiscal importance to the country.

Other sovereign wealth funds are simply the state savings which are invested by various entities for the purposes of investment return, and which may not have significant role in fiscal management.

During my days at Trimark – I learnt the importance of following the money. Any Mutual fund performs only as well as it's key holdings. These Sovereign funds have 100's of Billions of dollars invested - worldwide, and a cursory review of their key holdings can offer interesting insights about global investment trends.

Sovereign funds offer a great window into the global investment strategies of some of the brightest investment managers in the world. Over the next few months – I’ll identify and group a handful of investment products, based on my research into Sovereign funds.

I’ll build a series of portfolio’s – based on my findings, and share monthly performance updates with the rest of you World Changers.

Have a great weekend……….

World Changers Always Finish Strong

2009-02-26T00:28:00.001-08:00

I came across this video clip and I figure it's worth sharing. I'm constantly reminded of the importance of finishing strong ........

Sound Judgement & Discernment

2009-02-18T04:17:00.000-08:00

Greetings, fellow WorldChangers - This week I'm in Salt-Lake City, Utah - attending a Conference. If you've never been to Salt-Lake City, I'd highly recommend it - very beautiful terrain.

Lately, I've been spending more and more of my time thinking about Leadership - thought leadership, servant leadership and personality traits of great leaders. Recently - I launched the Leadership Journal - to help socialize some of my ideas and those of other thought leaders. I'm hoping that the Journal will become a good resource for aspiring leaders everywhere. A forum through which we can all learn about the skill and character traits required to be a great leader.

This morning - I found myself thinking about Dr Ben Carson, and what I learnt from him, about leading a purposeful life. One thing he mentioned - which resonated with me, was that he reads something the book of Proverbs every day.

I understand that not all of my blog readers are Christians - some of you may not be religious, that doesn't mean you won't benefit from the insights in the book of Proverbs. There is something for everyone and every situation - in that book.

Today - I read Chapt 3 - vs 21-25. It talks about the value of sound judgment and discernment. It also counsels readers not to be consumed by fear of sudden disaster. It seems to me that, in these hard times, we all need a little encouragement. I get mine through prayer and reading the bible. I'd like to challenge anyone who reads this post - to pick up a bible and read one or two lines from the book of Proverbs. You can get a version of the bible which breaks down the core message, in simple everyday language.

Perhaps you're thinking - You don't have time? 5 minutes is all you need...

Try to make the effort - you have absolutely nothing to lose, and plenty to gain.

Peace........

Dr. Ben Carson

2009-02-07T23:32:00.001-08:00

Tonight – I watched the TNT Movie - “Gifted Hands”. It’s the story of Dr. Ben Carson, one of the most gifted Pediatric Neurosurgeons the world has ever seen. I feel truly blessed to have watched this movie – and I’d recommend it to any aspiring World Changer. Here’s what I learnt from Dr. Carson.

His Mother taught him the value of reading at an early age, by challenging him to read 2 books each week, and write a report. Reading books is one thing - writing a report or some sought of of review helps ensure that the key learning's stick.

When Ben was an adolescent – he was plagued by a very violent temper. One afternoon at school,a colleague attempted to bully him, Ben was enraged and actually stabbed the individual. Fortunately, he caught a break – the blade broke. That day, he prayed to God to help him gain control of his temper – the rest is history.

God Answers Prayers…

When Ben arrived at Yale, he was consumed with self-doubt. He was able to pull through – by drawing on his strengths and the self-belief that his mother had constantly instilled in him, from a very young age. Words are powerful – we need to continually nurture strength of spirit, inspire ourselves and others.

Shortly after he started at John’s Hopkins – the nurse on duty mistook him for an orderly and not a new intern. Undoubtedly he must have faced a great deal of provocation – but he never let it get to him. He stayed upbeat and focused and allowed his work to speak for itself.

Dr. Carson was and remains a remarkably introspective person, with a strong sense of self belief. Like Barack – he’s proven that it’s possible to be confident, self assured and very driven – without being arrogant, derogatory or overbearing.

I hope to learn more about Dr.Carson in the months ahead – he has written 3 books and over 100 journals – so there’s much to learn.

Suicide - In The Aftermath of the financial crisis

2009-01-11T17:20:00.000-08:00

I just don't get it -why would a rich man kill himself. I come from Nigeria - a country which is no stranger to corruption, fraud and scandals. Back home, we live in a very materialistic world - where the have's are readily distinguishable from the have nots.

People make and loose fortunes everyday - under unfortunate circumstances. We are a proud people, so when a person's fortunes take a turn for the worse, it's often deeply embarrassing for that person's entire family. However - the prospect of suicide rarely crosses our minds.

I recently read about the rising number of Suicides - apparently due to the ongoing financial crisis. An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years. In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family's mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead."

It's one thing for someone who loses a home, a job or perhaps one's life savings - I'm an optimistic person, so I can't understand why anyone would commit Suicide. I'm even more befuddled by the suicide deaths of a Adolf Merckle and Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet.

It would seem that both men were still wealthy - even though their assets were diminished in part by Mr. Madoff and by the ongoing financial crisis.

Perhaps I'm an internal optimist - I can't explain why anyone would commit suicide - let alone someone with hundreds of millions in the bank.

We need to strive to lead Purpose driven lives - and a life of purpose should never be about amassing material wealth. Our source of being shouldn't revolve around what we own or even our personal/professional accomplishments.

Not saying that's the case for any of these folks - I do know that if your life has true purpose, the concept of suicide should never cross your mind

Tough Love For Microsoft?

2009-01-04T20:34:00.001-08:00

Recently - Danny Sullivan wrote this piece, on Microsoft's Search Engine. It's a lengthy write up, but definitely worth a read. I've attended a number of events at which Danny has spoken, including the Webmaster Series which he referenced in this article.

Having spent the last 4 years covering the Global Search Industry, I have a lot of respect for Danny's opinion. Much of what he's written is spot on.

I do have one slight disagreement though.

Danny "Word-of-mouth is far more powerful, in my opinion. Google was built on it. It was a great product that took off like wildfire on the web. Distribution deals certainly helped Google, but I don’t buy into them alone being what “made” Google. It was far from the only search engine to cut distribution deals. For one example, Excite gained important distribution via Netscape, but that didn’t save the company in the long-term."

Word-of-mouth was great for Google, however - by far the greatest catalyst for the companies success, was it's revolutionary monetization platform which enabled it to sign distribution deals with AOL, CNN & several of the most popular general interest portals of the day.

It's worth noting that Google "Stole" many of those distribution deals from Overture - which was the pre-eminent Search Player at the time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

Hi all, I apologize for the radio silence over the past few months. I had to take some time off from writing - primarily because of my commitments at work & the holiday season. I'm also planning the launch of a new online initiative which will revolve around my passion for Leadership Development.

The month of January tends to be one of great optimism, chuck full of new year resolutions, and millions of people signing up for gym club memberships. This morning, I heard that all new year resolutions are broken or forgotten by valentine's day. Hopefully that won't be the case, this year.

I believe '09 is a year of restoration - I've labelled it, the year of the "Big Push". (More on that later). Over the next few months - the World Changer's Journal will feature bi-weekly write-ups on a variety of core topics - including Web Analytics, Professional Development & Leadership Strategies.

Happy New Year.......

Introducing The Leadership Development Series - (LDS)

2008-11-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

In a recent business week article, Jack & Suzy Welch have put forward the notion that - by and large, "change is made by people with some sort of authority. By managers who have a platform to advocate for a new direction and the ability to hire, promote, and reward those who embrace it".

My position is that change agents are often thought leaders, some of whom start out with no authority over others. That said, I understand that people in positions of authority are certainly better positioned to effect change.

So, all self professed "World Changers" will either need to become very adept at impacting and influencing those in authority over us, even as we aspire to be Leaders.

Today, the World Changer Journal will launch a Leadership Development initiative - called the Leadership Development Series (LDS). Each month, I will publish a write up - for the LDS, I’ll also invite a few of my mentors, colleagues and fellow World Changers - participate in this initiative.

I truly believe that all of us have the potential to go from being Individual Contributors, to thought leaders and change agents. Some of us have the ability to be Managers and a handful of us can become great Leaders. If the LDS initiative can help make that transition possible for even one person - then it's well worth the effort.

Cheers.....

I Guess We Can

2008-11-04T22:39:00.000-08:00

Much will be written about today - Nov 4th '08. I'm sure most Americans are well aware of the historic nature of Barack Obama's campaign. No doubt, many a case study will be created, based on various aspects of this campaign - even Jack & Suzy Welch are already weighing in on key lessons from Barack's '08 Campaign.

Here's what I know for sure, Hope may not be a plan, but it's certainly a good thing to be hopeful.

I know Barack has redefined American Politics as we know it. He will define a new style of inclusive, consultative leadership. It may take a while, however - I believe that he will bring about much of the change that he promised.

As for those of us who aspire to do great things - to be World Changers, this is your victory...

God Bless You All & May God Guide & Protect - Our New President.

Peace....

Fighting Sickle Cell Disease

2008-10-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

I don't often blog about my community outreach work - however I'm very passionate about the work that Seed of life organization is doing to raise awareness about the dreaded Sickle Cell Disease.

October is the month of giving - here in Seattle, and we're asking friends to donate their time and resources to help create awareness about this dreadful disease and help us fight it. There are several types of sickle cell disease, Sickle Cell Anemia (SS), Sickle-Hemoglobin C Disease (SC), Sickle Beta-Plus Thalassemia and Sickle Beta-Zero Thalassemia

Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA)Sickle Cell Anemia is the severest form of Sickle Cell Disease and the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States. An estimated 1 per 1,000 Hispanic Americans are affected by sickle cell disease in the US, however it appears to be prevalent amongst African Americans affecting 1 in 500 African Americans. (Source: Genes and Disease by the National Center for Biotechnology)

There is no known cure at this time – bone marrow transplants are an option however this has a low success rate among older patients. The Seed of life Philanthropic Organization also known as SOLPO, exists to raise awareness about this disease – especially within the black community. We also seek to educate those who may be at risk of giving birth to children with Sickle Cell Anemia.

In my next SOLPO post – I’ll outline some of the key initiatives which YOU can undertake to increase awareness about this disease and support our efforts to contain it.

4 Stage Process - The Sequel

2008-10-18T08:53:00.002-07:00

So, why is it that most of us don't make it past Stage 2? According to a study by Paul Thompson and G.Walton - there are a number of interesting and perhaps contentious reasons - you be the judge.

1. Exclusion From Informal Networks
Some people never fulfill their real potential because they're simply not given the opportunity. They're excluded from informal meetings, social events or functions - where crucial decisions are often made. This challenge exists primarily because some people are simply not very comfortable mixing with others.

2. The Fear of Failure
Nobody wants to fail. Some of us are so consumed with the fear of failing at something - of falling flat on our faces, that we're afraid to try. We don't want the embarrassment or ridicule which often comes with failure. So, we don't take even moderate risks, preferring to stay in our comfort zones - or play it safe..

3. In-group or Peer Resentment
Sometimes we're so concerned about how others will perceive us that we don't even try to succeed. Have often heard the stories about young black students who intentionally flunk tests and exams so that they're friends won't see them as being too studious...

Often, we're so scared of resentment that we talk ourselves out of applying for bigger and better paying jobs, or taking on more responsibility.

4. Lack of Honest, Constructive Feedback
Strong, Honest Feedback is the key to personal and professional improvement. That's how we learn what we need to work on in order to get to that next level. If you're stuck at Stage 2 - it probably means that you're not receiving enough feedback on how to improve, or that you're simply not open or receptive to honest feedback.

Truth is we need to be "worthy" of honest feedback - in order to receive it in the first place. Also - we need to be mature enough to take the information for what it's worth and use it to improve ourselves. Not long ago, I had a boss who made a habit of stabbing me in the front. I'd say he is a Strong Stage 2 with some good Stage 3 characteristics. We had our differences - but I'll remain forever grateful to him for always giving me interesting & often constructive feedback. I didn't always agree with everything he said, but his insights were often thought provoking. I made sure he understood that I value feedback, so he was always glad to provide it.

I will give him credit for making me a stronger Individual Contributor and a confident thought leader - and I hope he develops the skills required to make it to Stage 4.

In my next blog post, I'll chop up a 5th factor - based on my own personal views...

5. Lack of Ambition & Drive - the Why Not? factor...

ELC: Organizational Agility - The 4 Stage Process

2008-10-18T08:53:00.001-07:00

By far - the best session I attended was delivered by a truly talented speaker - Michael Hyter of the Novations Group. The title of Michaels presentation was on Organizational Agility - much of this information is based on a study by Paul Thompson and G.Walton.

Below are my key takeaways from the session..

Why is it that, when people of comparable talents and experience are hired by organizations - some rise quickly and continuously perform at a high level, while others peak at low to mid level mgt?

The Difference?

High performers are given the challenging, often complex jobs. 3 key characteristics of great jobs are high visibility, a high level of complexity and meaningful, measurable business impact.

Michael's position is that the key factors which prevent blacks from being consistently amongst the high performers - is our focus on mastering "technical" skills and not building relational or influential skills.

I'll try to chop this up - as best I can.

Building Technical Skills: Acquiring the knowledge and skills required to be effective on the job. (Basic or even fairly complex processes, administrative work and technical expertise).

Relational Skills: The ability to build a strong support network of relationships - based on trust and mutual respect.

Influential Skills: The ability to impact and influence individuals and situations. This skill is especially important when dealing with individuals or teams over which one has no direct authority

Many of us seem to forget that our ambitions and our relationships go hand in hand, perhaps even more so than our skills, talents or smarts. It's your organizations perception of your performance that matters, and not your own interpretation of how well you're doing.

According to Michael Hyter - there are 4 Stages of Contribution - Into which our career performance falls;

Stage 1: Dependent Contributors
When your career starts - it's very supervisory dependent. In Stage 1, we are fully dependent on others.

Stage 2: Independent Contribution
Contributing Independently with minimal supervision. By this point - we have strong technical skills and possibly some good relational skills as well. We're contributing to our organizations with very little supervision

Stage 3: Contributing Through Other People
People who are able to contribute through others - have strong internal & external networks. Such people are mentors , coaches and ideal leaders in their corporations. They share, teach and mentor others.

Interestingly: According to the study, over 80% of these people are not managers. Instead, they act as resources on projects, often they are thought leaders informal leaders in their organizations.

The key to being a great "Stage 3" person - is to be a continuous learner - someone who can (and is willing) impact knowledge, insights and learning’s to others. It's a mindset - not a title.

The transition from a Stage 2 to Stage 3 is the toughest/hardest one that anyone can make. It requires a significant psychological shift in how one thinks about work.

Managers should be in Stage 3, but most are in Stage 2. Many managers simply do not have the skills to play at the Stage 3 level.

STAGE 4 - The Pinnacle
Individuals in Stage 4 - contribute strategically to their organizations Strategic Direction. This requires very strong relational and influential skills. "Stage 4" folks make their organizations better - they value contribution through others - as a key mindset.

So, ultimately - this is all about Professional Development.

We need to think about how to develop the skills required to make significant contributions and show meaningful value, in our organizations.

If you focus primarily on building and improving technical skills, you may plateau at Stage 2. The vast majority of great leaders - live in Stage 4.

In my next post, I'll outline the key reasons why most of us don't make it to Stage 4 or even Stage 3......

ELC Session: Building Global Acumen

2008-10-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

The first session I attended was one on building Global Business Acumen. Having worked in Europe, Africa and now in North America - I was keen to attend this session and learn more about how I can strengthen my global acumen.

We started out with a few polling questions - I learnt that about half of the audience worked with International colleagues, but over 50% hadn't actually travelled outside the US, on business. There was some interest amongst attendees about International Assignments - and the panel sought to provide some insight on how to build Global Business Acumen - below are my key takeaways....

Our colleagues around the world seem more keenly aware of what's happening in International Markets. Many of them speak more than one language and have a keen understanding of how Global Financial Markets, work.

We all know it's important to find ways to differentiate ourselves - to stand out, for the right reasons. Gaining International Experience is one great way to do so - especially if one works for an organization that has a presence in key International Markets.

I reaffirmed the importance of being informed, of understanding how International Financial Markets really work - of knowing how the Global Economy affects me and my employer. A stint in an International Market present great opportunities - however one needs to be prepared.

Why would someone consider you for an International Assignment?
1. Do you understand the strategic (global) plans of your corporation?
2. Do you understand your company's strategy - as it applies to key European, Asian or S/American Markets?
3. Do you read Analyst Reports about your company?
4. How familiar are you with your company's main International Competitors?
5. How many languages do you speak?
6. Have you thought about getting a mentor who lives & works in a key International Market?

We also explored the challenges and nuances involved in living and working abroad – such as language barriers, cultural factors, loosing contact with friends & relatives back home. Strong International Business Leaders are adaptable, flexible and have a willingness to learn new ways to accomplish things

Ultimately though – the decision to seek International Experience must fit into one’s career growth model. There will be many sacrifices and whilst the opportunities may bring richer experiences, they may not result in very rapid climb up the corporate ladder.
It’s important to outline a “what if” analysis and create a series of back-up plans.

That said, it’s almost certain that any Global Corporation would value individuals who have some Global Business Experience.

ELC Managers Symposium: Building A Personal Brand

2008-10-18T08:51:00.002-07:00

The mid-level Managers Symposium featured an opening address and 3 key sessions - all geared towards highlighting multi-dimensional approaches to career enhancement. The morning session revolved around one consistent theme - in order to be successful one must develop a strong Personal Brand. We all have our own ideas about what Personal Branding here's what I got out of the session.

There's no doubt that a strong Personal Brand is built on a number of principles, key competencies and reflected in specific behavioral tendencies.

In order to make any headway in Corporate America - it's important to be very strategic about how you shape your career. A strong personal brand is integral to one's success....

The process of strategic thinking begins with a series of key questions.
1. What impressions do you want others to have of you?
2. How are you preparing yourself for future challenges & opportunities?
3. What type of people do we surround ourselves with?
4. Are you being your own best advocate?
5. Do you understand what it means to add value or to provide a demonstrable business impact at your place of work?
6. What do you stand for and how do you differentiate yourself?

The term personal brand is believed to have first appeared in the August 1997 issue of Fast Company Magazine, in an article by management guru and author Tom Peters, who wrote, "We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You." If you haven't already done so, it's time to launch your own Personal Branding Campaign - here are some things to think about.

-> Learn the art of listening and asking questions for the purpose of assessing and navigating your corporate landscape.
-> When the opportunity comes to lead - do so with a human touch. If you treat people like human beings you'll get much better productivity & a higher quality of service
-> Look for mentors and for opportunities to mentor others. (My Observation about Strong Mentorship is that I look for people who excel in specific skills which I long to develop).
-> Make time for self-reflection - it's the key to personal and professional development
-> Be ambitious, but strive for self contentment. This one may be at odds with the "American Dream" and the notion of instant gratification, but it works for me. The idea is that one should not worship a job, a car, a house or any other material thing.
-> Be hopeful. Say what you will about Barack Obama - no one can deny that the man is an inspirational figure and he's nothing if not hopeful. Judging from the amount of success he's had, I'd say there's nothing wrong with being hopeful.

Peace...

Blogging @ The ELC Recognition Dinner

2008-10-18T08:50:00.001-07:00

I arrived at the ELC Dinner event - not sure what to expect. I attended this event last year - but that was in DC and the nation wasn't yet on the verge of electing it's first Black President. The atmosphere at the event was great - of course, it helped that Barack was in New-York at the time attending the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.

Council Chair - CT Tomlin has been my mentor for just over a year & I remain grateful for all that I've learnt from him, thus far. The event was a memorable one for several reasons. I was fortunate to meet one man I've long admired - Ken Chenault of American Express.

This year, the ELC honored one of the original members of the "Little Rock 9" - a man by the name of Ernest Green. I sat at C.T's table, next to Ernest Green and managed to speak with him for a few minutes, after he received the Alvaro Martin's Heritage Award, (I even got his autograph). I'll always remember is the man's humility, his smile - and his easy going demeanor.

I'm generally not big on award ceremonies - I believe our greatest reward comes in the form of blessings from God. That said, I'm always very keen to hear what important/accomplished people say - when they receive awards. During his acceptance speech, Ernest Green spoke about the experience - back in '57, about attending Little Rock Central High School and going on to graduate. He mentioned some of the people who had influenced his life - like Dr. Bernard Harris, Jesse Tyson and Andrew Young and then proceeded to accept the award on behalf of the other members of the "Little Rock 9". His delivery was contemplative, relaxed and filled with humility - it was truly a great speech.

As the event ended, I was struck by how far the ELC has come - with over 400 members, most of whom are officers in the largest corporations in America.

The comment which most resonated with me - was made by one notable corporate executive, in speaking about Barack Obama's candidacy and the fact that we may soon elect our first black President.

"This is the era of No More Excuses" - I couldn't agree more...

Peace

Heading To The ELC - Mid Level Managers Symposium

2008-10-15T20:44:00.001-07:00

A year has passed since I attended my first Mid Level Managers Symposium - in DC. I'm grateful for the opportunity to attend this year's event - in New York City.

I head to this conference with great expectations. I'm optimistic that we'll receive great insight from some of America's great leaders.

Should be a great event...

You Better Be Running

2008-10-08T02:26:00.002-07:00

Here's an interesting African Adage - which encapsulates one of my key learning's about Corporate America, 10 years into my career.

"Every morning in Africa, a gazette awakens knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion if it wants to stay alive. The lion also wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazette, or it will starve to death. It makes no difference, whether you are a lion or gazette, when the sun comes up, you better be running"

So Run Hard if you can, - Run Smart if you mush, - whatever you do,

You Better Be Running.

World Changer

You Better Be Running

2008-10-08T02:26:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting analogy - which typifies my principles about work ethic

Every morning in Africa, a gazette awakens knowing that it must outrun the fastest lion if it wants to stay alive. The lion also wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazette, or it will starve to death. It makes no difference, whether you are a lion or gazette, when the sun comes up, you better be running" – African Adage which encapsulates my biggest learning about MS

I'm a PC Breaks New Ground In TV/Internet Advertising

2008-09-18T23:02:00.002-07:00

The "I'm a PC" campaign, which launched earlier on today, is one of the smartest examples of cross channel advertising that I've seen. First, it cleverly flips the Apple campaign, ultimately leveraging the success of the Mac vs. PC ads, by embracing the "I'm a PC theme.

So, viewers instantly recognize the punchline.

Second - it has such a wide variety of characters that it's sure to appeal to a wide audience. I've always believed it's smart marketing to identify a your brand with different types of people from all works of life. That's something that most Globally successful brands, do effortlessly.

Third and probably most important - the viral element of the campaign. Ton's of Internet "experts" have raved about the popularity of social networking forums and the impact that facebook, youtube and myspace are having on our online habits.

There's no question that thousands of people will upload "I'm a PC" video's to the windows.com site, thousands more will share those videos with others. So, there's no question in my mind that this campaign will get plenty of attention.

It remains to be seen whether or not Microsoft will follow-up with more ads or whether Apple will retaliate with a flip of their own. Either way, Microsoft and Crispin - deserve some credit for coming up with a creative campaign......

Now I'm off to watch "I'm a PC", make it's way up the Google Trends. Last I checked, it jumped from #87 to #72 on Google Trends

Peace.
09/18: 11.55pm PST.

I'm a PC & I'm doing Just Fine

2008-09-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

I've just watched - the I'm a PC ad - windows ad, and I like it. Even those who love to hate Microsoft will have to admit that this is a creative, viral advertisement which will resonate with PC users all around the world.

Only one software company can rightfully claim that it connects billions of people everyday. The fact of the matter is that millions of real, everyday people use Windows, on PCs - everyday. Many rely on it's features and functionality - for their livelyhood.

I think the smartest thing about this ad is that it takes the core message of Mac vs. PC ads and uses it against Apple.

It will be interesting to see what Apple come up with next. Somehow, I doubt that those Mac vs. PC ads will be quite as effective as they were.

Oh, by the way - I'm a PC too .......

Is that item a want or a need?

2008-09-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

The age old dilemmhttp://www.blogger.com/upload-image.doa – is that item a want or a need? No doubt, one’s financial health plays a key role in making that determination. Apparently – geographical location plays more of a factor than you may think. The NY Times site has a great interactive tool, which shows how people across various countries spend their discretionary income – i.e. the cash that goes to clothing, electronics, recreation, household goods, and alcohol – on a per capita basis. You can access the tool through this link : http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/04/business/20080907-metrics-graphic.html

Apparently, people in Greece spend almost 13 times more money on clothing as they do on electronics. People living in Japan spend more on recreation than they do on clothing, electronics and household goods combined. Americans spend a lot of money on everything, but then – this is the land of opportunity and instant gratification, so that’s no surprise….

Gates & Seinfeld - II

2008-09-12T08:05:00.000-07:00

So, the ads are beginning to roll out - and naturally, everyone has an opinion. Most people think this campaign is Microsoft's response to the famous Mac & PC ads. You've all seen the first - Shoe Shop commercial - the latest ad was released yesterday.

I’ve started an informal poll, asking friends their impressions about the ad. For the most part – people are trying to figure out the core message of these ads – is it about Windows vs. Apple? What’s the deal with the leather shoes? Why Seinfeld, where's the punch line? I'm actively looking for a consistent them between the different ads - I haven't found one yet, but I'm sure it's there .....

It's a little surprising how cynical some folks are about these ads. I’ve read a number of pretty negative posts – on Mary Jo’s blog and a few others. It’s easy to criticize these campaigns, Microsoft is the company that so many people love to hate, and most consumers still trying to understand the core message. However, the ads are getting peoples attention, that's probably a good sign for Microsoft.

One door closes - and another opens .....

2008-08-20T08:10:00.001-07:00

After, almost 4 years working on various aspects of a growing Search Business – the time has come to take on some new challenges. Over the next few weeks, I’ll transition into a more strategic role in the Online Consumer Marketing space.

It’s been fun to learn about Search – and work with some very smart, very passionate people. Now, it’s time to close this chapter and open a new one.

Peace…….

SES San Jose - My Recap of a few key sessions..

2008-08-20T08:09:00.001-07:00

Universal (Blended) Search This session was very popular last year – this time around, it seemed a little boring. I’m tired of hearing people say that the “10 blue link” search experience, is dead. I’ve spent many years in the online services industry, so I fully understand the value of a blended search interface – I think it’s great, however I don’t believe it will replace the simple SERP experience which made Google and other Search Engines so popular. I can only imagine how the SEO folks in these sessions, must feel. Each year they go to these sessions hoping to gleam some insights on how Search Engines trigger blended search results. The truth is, even the Search Engines are still figuring things out - and as they do so – traditional SEO tactics will not yield the expected results for certain types of keywords. The Product Mgr from Google provided some interesting insight: “Blended Search is great for advertisers – it drives more traffic and offers opportunities to present new ad types”. Someone else mentioned that paid listings as they exist today, will have to evolve. What’s interesting about all of this is that we all assume that the blended search experience is truly vastly better than the plain blue links with 2 or 3 lines of supporting text. If you show me a SERP which blends search results from video’s, Images, Blog Post and Maps and then show me another with just 10 blue links – I’m going to tell you that I love the blended search approach. I’ll say it’s more relevant, I like the value added content and I’m really loving all the bright colors.

However, If I'm searching for very specific information - my mind has already been conditioned to believe that 10 blue links with some accompanying text, is all I need. The problem with the Blended Search experience is that it starts to resemble a portal home page experience - which users can get from Yahoo, MSN, AOL or any general interest portal.

The key benefit of the traditional 10 blue link user experience - is that it's simple, easy to navigate and informative as well. Search Engines can present useful, relevant algorithmic results along with Sponsored links. Creating compelling advertising links over a blended search interface, will be challenging. There's so much great content available, that users are unlikely to actively engage with sponsored link placements.

This goes back to my central argument about the Search Landscape. In order for a Search Engine to be successful – it must serve 3 distinct customer segments, very well.

è Online Users – who generate the search queries and click on the sponsored links
è Website Owners/Keyword Buyers: Website Owners, Retailers/Wholesalers, Companies of all shapes and sizes – looking to profit from Search Engines
è SEM/SEO Players: Those who make a career out of helping Keyword Buyers & Website Owners – to gain exposure to the Online Users

Google is the only Search Engine which services the 3 customer segments very successfully – Blended Search hasn’t really taken off because – although it certainly provides some great value to Online Users, the rich results page experience presents challenges for SEOs and Keyword Buyers alike. Perhaps most significantly – users seem very content with the 10 blue link experience – ask.com can testify to that…….

SES San Jose - Day 1 - The Global Search Landscape

2008-08-20T08:08:00.003-07:00

I noticed that the SES folks introduced a track called World View - on day 1 of this event. The first session focussed on Asia Pacific & Latin America - Part 2 centered on European Markets. I've summarized my learnings and takeaways below.

Latin American Market
The Hispanic Community is a rapidly growing, but largely underserved Market. There are over 44 Million Hispanics online, they’re young, highly engaged, spend plenty of time online. Spanish-dominant users are the fastest-growing online segment. The purchasing power of U.S. Hispanics is growing faster than many other segments; It is currently more than $750 billion and will likely exceed $1 trillion by 2010

While the U.S. Hispanic market is just 2 percent of the total search market worldwide, they are growing by 5% YoY. Hispanics are great Internet Explorers – and are known to use Google: 87%; Yahoo! Search 68%; MSN Search: 40%; Ask Jeeves: 32% and Altavista: 12%; amongst other Search Engines.
-> The average Latin American Internet user spends 29 hours online during the month –more than the global average of 25 hours
-> Video Search has a high penetration with the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America
-> Search Engagement is especially high in 3 major Latin American countries - Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina

The key takeaway here is that the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets present huge opportunity for sustainable online advertising growth. Hispanics are very engaged and will likely be included to respond to targeted SEM Campaigns

Asia Pacific Region
The Internet is increasingly popular on a global scale: The most popular languages used on the Internet include English, Spanish, Japanese, French and Chinese. Internet penetration remains strongest in N/America and Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific and the Middle East regions are growing very fast.

Japan is one of the most prominent Internet Markets – with over 89M people online and 85% broadband penetration. Online advertising spend topped $4.6B in ’07 and is projected to hit $7.6B by 2011. Japanese Internet Users are very engaged individuals, online video players, blogs, Mobile services and QnA features – remain very popular. The social networking phenomenon, epitomized by services such as Mixi, has really taken off in Japan - as is the case in China and South Korea. Google and Yahoo are both very strong local players – however Yahoo has an edge because it’s portal content and communication services are very popular with users.

Chinese users are relatively more turned on, tuned in versus their western counterparts. Given fewer media choices, much of China’s public Internet companies value are based on entertainment and communication.

The most popular online activities amongst the 250M Chinese Internet Users – are: (Online Music: 86%,Search: 72.%,News: 72%Instant Messenger: 81%, Online Games: 59%). This actually makes sense – given the peoples’ love of Music and thirst for information. The online advertising landscape is growing fast – approximately $961M was generated in ’07, this amounted to about 7% of total ad spend in China. Search alone, accounted for $309M / 32% of total online ad spend. Current forecasts indicate that China will generate over $1.38B from Search advertising – by the year 2010. That estimate is not very far fetched given the fact that less than 50% of the Chinese population is online.
The sheer number of web sites and web pages continues to grow at a very high rate.

Baidu remains the strongest Search Engine in China – with over 71% Query share and revenue of $234M in ’07. Google has approx 23% query share and Microsoft, Yahoo and a string of 2nd tier players – share the remaining 9% query share. In addition to its Search Engine, Baidu has its own monetization platform and a growing list of online services & features

Europe
As Yahoo struggles across Europe – Google has grown even stronger. A recent report by “relevant traffic” indicates that Google gets over 80% of the Search advertising spend across all key European markets – including UK: 80%, France:75%, Germany:95%, Italy:95% and Spain:95%.

In France, broadband penetration is very high (94%). Much of the online advertising spend is driven through Media Agencies – so Search Engines without their own monetization platforms (like Microsoft and Ask) are at a distinct disadvantage. Add to this, the fact that Yahoo is focusing more on display advertising and it’s not difficult to understand why Google has over 75% share of Search advertising spend, in France

One thing European Markets have in common with Asian ones is the growing popularity of Social Network Systems and Video players. In France, Skyrock, Facebook, Spaces and Flickr. In Germany – local social networking players, such as y!gg, Mister Wong and mienVZ are doing much better than facebook, myspace and delicious.

In Germany, enthusiastic Searchers generate over 100M searches daily – 3B/month. Google has over 90% Market share, Yahoo:3%, Live Search:2% and T-online:2%, jointly account for 7% query share. Ultimately – Google is the key driver of traffic to key general interest portals and websites across DE and other key markets across Europe.

Overall, the speakers were okay and the sessions were fairly informative. Many of the key insights are not new - Social Networking is very popular, Google dominates in query volume, share and online advertising revenue - in most markets. One key trend is the Yahoo's query share and Search Revenue continues to decline across Europe and Asia. It does appear that YSM! is de-prioritizing Search in favor of online display advertising and perhaps choosing to stand it's ground in specific markets - such as UK and JP.

Microsoft derives search revenue in UK, France and Canada, through it's own monetization platform - adCentre, but relies on YSM! to help drive revenue throughout the rest of Europe and much of Asia/Americas. Without a truly global monetization platform which can offer formidable competition to both adwords and adsense, neither Live Search nor Yahoo Search - will make any headway against Google......

SES San Jose '08

2008-08-20T08:08:00.001-07:00

I arrived in San Francisco this afternoon for what will probably be my last Search Engine Strategies Conference. These events are nice to attend once or twice - after that, the novelty quickly wears off.

Last year, I covered a number of interesting key notes and blogged about a few key sessions. This time around – I’ve decided to focus on specific sessions and spend more time talking to Search Enthusiasts at the Expo Hall.
So, I’ll post a handful of blog entries about my perspectives on a few key sessions. The SES blog does a good job of recapping the key sessions, as does Danny Sullivan’s Search Engine Land

Does Microsoft Have A Search Engine?

2008-08-05T05:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I took my daughter to a birthday party. As the event got started, I met the celebrant's Dad, and we started a casual "get to know you" conversation. Once he found out that I worked in the Online field - he was keen to ask me about Google.

He raved about the service and told me all about the leads he was getting from Google. Then he asked what I do, I mentioned Live Search and he had no idea what I was talking about. So I explained that Microsoft has it's own Search Engine - as does Yahoo. And that we both offer a similar offering to Google.

I then proceeded to explain that when MSN users initiate Searches, the results featured are actually served by our very own Search Engine - called Live Search.

He's response was instructive. "Why don't you guys just tell us about your Search Engine - that way I'll know that I can go to Google or whatever your engine is called - for my Search Results".
It's also worth noting that this individual knew nothing about adCentre - even though he leaves in the Seattle area and has been an active user of Google adwords for some time.

He mentioned that he goes to MSN to be entertained and informed. He probably uses our communication tools (hotmail & messenger), as well.

This isn't new - we all know that both Microsoft and Yahoo could do a better job of actively promoting their Search Engines. But that's becoming increasingly difficult because both MSN and Yahoo are known as general interest portals - not destination search engines.

3 Key Customer Segments
Users - like my host, who are oblivious to most search engines and simply associate Search with Google, similar to the way hotmail and Messenger are often associated with MSN or Yahoo.

Customers: Who leverage monetization platforms to drive users to their sites - by buying keyword placements

Influencers/SEO Community: Individuals & Corporations who influence the online habits of both Users & Customers, albeit in different ways.

At core, the Search Engine must deliver very good results and have a reliable platform to monetize those results - not just in the US, but Globally. Only Google does this today - only Google consistently delivers strong ROI to each of the customer groups outlined above - on a Global Scale.

That's the enormity of the task facing both MSFT and Yahoo and for that matter - Mahalo, Cuil, Ask and the other niche engines. I have yet to see a Google TV, Radio or Newspaper ad - So this is not all about Marketing & P.R campaigns, although that certainly helps.

So, after listening to my host rave about the leads he gets through Google - I politely mentioned that Live Search is a great engine and we have a great monetization platform in adCentre. Hopefully, he'll take the time to check out our Search offering, and see for himself.....

Musing On The Concept of Customer Loyalty

2008-07-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Notion of Customer Loyalty certainly varies from one industry to the next. It becomes evident when customers make specific decisions about the products or services they choose. It’s rarely about what they say in survey’s or feedback sessions – it’s about what they do, what actions they actually take. I don’t consider myself a loyal customer of Coke – I know it’s not particularly healthy and I have lots of other options, but when I’m out to lunch or dinner, I often drink coke. I’m comfortable with the brand and what it represents – but I wouldn’t necessarily chose it over Pepsi. So, I guess, customers can be very satisfied and still not be loyal.

So in essence, loyalty is always action oriented, retaining customers is all about seeking behavioral drivers which can trigger specific actions – on a regular basis.

So, how does an organization build customer loyalty? It starts with the value proposition – what does the product offering or service do for the customer? How does the company outline its value proposition to potential customers, such that the average individual can clearly see the ROI in buying a specific product or using a service.

Once your initial Consumer Marketing Campaigns, promo offers and free giveaways – have turned potential customers into actual ones, how do you turn first timers or occasional customers – into loyal ones? It’s all about building relationships, communicating a consistent value proposition through different channels and finding ways to maintain that dialogue with your customers in different forums. It’s about making the customer feel that your product or service is useful – even integral to some aspect of their well being. One thing that most successful Global Brands have in common – is a strong Customer Base.

In many cases, customer loyalty is the result of well-managed customer retention programs; customers who are targeted by a retention program, generally tend to be more loyal to a brand, product or service. The process and forum through which one communicates with potential or existing customers is key to retaining them and building customer loyalty.

I recently had a conversation with a colleague who asked – how I would define and measure customer loyalty in the Online Business. Web Analytics tools can tell slice and dice user demographics & trends in many different ways. One can always find data on what types of products or services your users are interested in – so various online customer engagement metrics, could be a measure of loyalty. Certainly, Internet users response to specific Online Marketing Campaigns could provide some indication of how a specific brand is perceived. Especially if the campaigns have strong interactive elements and feedback channels which enable potential customers to maintain a dialogue with a company, about its value proposition.

I don’t believe it’s possible to measure and manager customer loyalty using two or 3 specific metrics – especially in the online realm. One needs to review a number of different indicators providing different perspectives on how visitors and customers think about their relationship with your brand. It's not just about how they behave, but also about what they think. The emphasis between the two will depend on the specific products, services or value proposition which the company presents.
Web analytics tools will track online behavioral trends, specific actions which can serve as indicators of customer loyalty. It's also important to take into account what visitors do when they get to the site. Someone who visits a site three times and spends five minutes there each time is considered more loyal than someone who visits once and spends half an hour on the site. A frequency metric is useful, but does not necessarily serve as a strong indicator of Customer engagement or Loyalty.

If a person visits a site often and spends time interacting with features, tools and proprietary content – that person is displaying strong engagement and certainly has the potential to be a loyal customer.

Clearly, there are several factors which may be considered, when measuring customer loyalty, what’s key though is that turning potential customers into loyal ones – is a function of a number of key initiatives, which every company must take note of.
ð Customer Awareness: Knowing the core set of consumers who would most value your products or services and creating awareness amongst the core set - about your products/services
ð Customer Acquisition: Companies need to quickly determine how to engage with and acquire potential customers. start the dialogue and acquire them
ð Customer Service: Continuing the dialogue with customers, delivering a consistent message, creating and maintaining brand awareness, providing value added services
ð Customer Retention: Initiating programs, campaigns and support services to help retain your core group of customers – and turn them into raving fans

Ultimately, Customer Loyalty is primarily driven by the value proposition to the user, as well as the means by which that value prop is communicated to the user. It's made manifest by the types of actions and behavioural tendencies which the customer displays.

Customer Loyalty

2008-07-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

Times are hard - bankruptcy levels continue to rise and spend levels are down across the US in several key sectors. Consumers are grappling with +$100/barrel oil prices and the resulting impact on the gas prices, air fares, groceries and just about everything else. It's at times like this - when every dollar counts, that we learn the true meaning of Customer Loyalty. Why is it that some companies are able to maintain and even thrive during economic downturns, while others are going out of business? I believe Customer Loyalty plays a key role in this trend. Over the past month, I've researched a number of companies across very different industries with a view to understanding what type of dialogue they're having with their customers and to what degree, they're maintaining or improving Customer Loyalty. The term customer loyalty is used to describe the behavior of repeat customers, as well as those that offer good ratings, reviews, or testimonials. Some customers serve as advocates for specific companies, telling friends and family about products offerings and services. This word of mouth buzz is a very potent means of creating awareness about a company’s value proposition & driving customer loyalty. Google is one company that has benefited immensely from the loyal behavior of it's user base.

However, customer loyalty includes much more. It is a process, a program, or a group of programs geared toward keeping a client happy so he or she will provide more business. Customer loyalty can be achieved in some cases by offering a quality product with a firm guarantee. Organizations often use special offers, gifts and promotional campaigns coupons, low interest rates on financing, high value trade-ins, extended warranties, rebates, and other rewards and incentive programs to drive customer loyalty. The ultimate goal of customer loyalty programs is to create happy customers who will return to purchase again and persuade others to use that company's products or services.

The Dialogue
I believe it's important for companies to maintain an ongoing relationship with existing customers and start one with potential customers. Good customer relationships are driven by having a meaningful dialogue on an ongoing basis. One which highlights the strong value proposition which the company provides as well as the value added services which are available to users.

The theme, tone and key underlying message should be conveyed through every level of the customers experience. So Marketing Campaigns should push a consistent, integrated message - through various mediums. Sales, support services and strong customer relationship management are amongst the key drivers of customer loyalty because of the constant, high-level interaction with customers. If a client has a problem, the company must be very responsive and should strive to address it in a timely fashion.

This should be standard procedure for any reputable business, but those who wish to develop customer loyalty on a large-scale basis may also go above and beyond the standard. In an upcoming post, I'll review the Customer Loyalty Initiatives of a handful of well known companies........

My Take On MSFT's Earnings Report

2008-07-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Micrsoft reported it's earnings earlier this week - and for the most part, results were in line with estimates. Q4 revenue was up 18%, but losses hit $1.2B - primarily driven by investments in it's Online Services Group.
"Revenue growth was primarily driven by increased Windows Server / SQL Server revenue, increased licensing of the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Vista, and increased Xbox 360 platform sales." Favrourable foreign exchange rates were responsible for an incremental $542 million in revenue. Here's a transcript from Microsoft's earnings call, key Metrics Below.

Since the earnings report was released - MSFT has dropped below $26 and will likely decline futher, next week. Clearly, investors & analysts remain concerned that the company is spending too much time and resources trying to grow it's Online Services Business. I reviewed the comments which the Microsoft CFO made - addressing concerns about the Online Spend in FY08 and guidance for FY09.

Transcript From The Earnings Call - & Insights/Inline
”I will start with an overview of our broad strategy and then provide details into the additional investments. With the online ad spending expected to reach $80 billion by 2012, this area represents one of the largest growth opportunities for the company. We segment the market for online advertising in four distinct categories -- Search, Advertising Platforms, Information Content, and Communication/Social networking. For search, we’re focused on driving query share improvements and business model innovation, specifically in the area of high value commercial search. Our recent release of Cashback is a good example of executing on our strategy, which combines innovation in the shopping experience with a shift in the distribution of advertiser economic towards the end users. Additionally, we also [seek to win] targeted distribution through OEMs, ISPs, ISVs, and retailers. The recently announced deal with HP in the U.S. is an example of [this].”

WC: Although the online advertising market has slowed in recent months - as evidenced by Google’s results, there’s still plenty of potential for online advertising to snatch a larger share of Billions spent on global advertising WW. Search Advertising remains one of the most cost effective online advertising mediums so the top search engines are positioned to continue to grow revenue. However, building, maintaining and constantly improving a Search Engine is a very expensive endeavor. In Microsoft’s case, it’s made even more so, because the company doesn’t yet have the scale to challenge Google on Syndication/Distribution deals. (Recap: Search is key to driving online advertising revenue – which is forecasted to continue to grow rapidly and take share from the traditional $100B Global advertising Market. There are no half measures with Search – if you’re in, expect to spend billions developing global data centers, hiring talented technologists and improving core features & functionality).

“Turning to the ad platform, our strategy can be summarized as consolidate [when in] display, and there we are focused on integrating our advertising assets into a single comprehensive system that can deliver our publishing partners’ industry leading yields and our advertisers optimal return on their ad spend.”

WC: The purchase of aQuantive helps make the Microsoft ad platform offering – even more robust. Once the various systems have been integrated with one another – the Online Services Group will be well positioned strong reporting functionality to its clients. This helps optimize campaigns, improve overall ROI and drive customer loyalty/ retention. (Recap: Strong ad Platforms are the backbone of any Global Online Advertising Business. Key Investments in reporting infrastructure, will help drive online advertising revenue World Wide and provide Microsoft with a distinct competitive advantage in the online advertising space)

“In the area of communication and social networking, which includes our mail, messenger, and social networking assets, such as Spaces, we’ll deliver the leading end-to-end experiences across the PC, phone, and web. And finally, in the category of information content, we plan to invigorate our MSN portal experience with improvements in user experience, social media consumption, and premium content.”

WC: As an avid MSN User, I’m happy to hear that the company plans to improve the overall user experience of the portal and closely integrate its communication tools (messenger/hotmail), with useful, relevant, proprietary content. I’m not sold on the whole concept of Social Networking – as a revenue generating medium, however I believe it’s a key piece of the puzzle. There are only 2 global general interest portals – Yahoo & MSN. Both have similar features – and though Yahoo has been the stronger portal in the US, it’s been losing volume & reach lately. If MSN can become the undisputable Top Portal, it will draw even more Display Advertising revenue – especially from Large Companies – looking to build brand awareness online or start an interactive dialogue with Internet Users. Google can’t offer this type of value proposition through its Search Engine – so it’s a distinct opportunity for Microsoft, one the company should certainly invest in.

“So about two-thirds of the incremental spend that we are planning is related to investments to drive usage of our search offering. We’re dialing up our search distribution initiatives with targeted OEM toolbar [alt] search deals, scaling search globally with investments in localized engineering and data centers, pursuing acquisitions and partnerships to build vertical content to support our commercial strategy, accelerating the rollout of our Cashback program, and increasing marketing in the business to grow awareness and drive traffic. Second, we are upping the investments in our ad platform and increasing the number of advertisers and high quality inventory on that platform. Specifically, these investments are in the area of accelerating the integration of our ad platform assets, expanding our sales and service capabilities, small acquisitions to enhance the platform technology, and investments in strategic partnerships to increase third-party inventory available to advertisers on our ad platform. “

WC: I don’t know how much money Microsoft may have to spend in order to reach competitive relevance parity with Google. I’m not sure how many Syndication and/or Distribution deals would be required to help drive query share growth – or how long it will take. I do know that the Online Advertising Business worth Billions of dollars & it’s still growing. There are only two Global Players – Microsoft is one of them and the other is Investing as much, perhaps even more – in its Online Services and Offerings.

Key Metrics:Revenue:

$15.84 vs. 15.65 billion consensus
EPS: $0.46 cents vs. $0.47 consensus
Operating Income: $5.684 vs. $5.8-$6.2 billion guidance
Q1 Revenue Guidance: $14.7 billion - $14.9 billion
Q1 EPS Guidance:$0.47 or $0.48 vs. $0.49 consensus
2009 Revenue Guidance: $67.3 b - $68.1b vs. $67.29 billion consensus, $66.9-$68.0 billion prior guidance
2009 EPS Guidance: $2.12 to $2.18 vs. $2.16 consensus
2009 Operating Income Guidance: $26.3 billion to $26.9 billion vs. $26.7-$27.4

Est. Revenue Breakdown
-> Client: $4.37 billion vs. $4.19 billion est.
-> Server/Tools: $3.74 billion vs. $3.67 billion est.
-> Online Services: $838 million vs. $949 million est.
-> MBD: $5.26 billion vs. $5.37 billion est.
-> Entertainment/Devices: $1.58 billion vs. $1.55 billion est.

Google Should Report +$3.8B

2008-07-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

As Google prepares to announce its 2nd quarter earnings – the expectation is that the company will deliver about $3.8B in Revenue. That said, a close examination of how it makes its Revenue figure will give a good indication of where the company is going.

One of the key’s to Google’s dominance is that it’s able to provide a clearly defined value proposition to its core customer groups –through the quality of its Search Engine and it’s adSense/adwords programs.

I’d be interested in find out how much revenue the company manages to drive through its adSense (contextual) model – vs. the regular bidded Search Model. It would be interesting to review the split between Revenue reported from US and ROW. Even more insightful to review the breakout in ROW revenue between UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe.

Revenue growth has declined YoY from 52% to 45% in Q1, Google is still gaining more query share worldwide. If the Yahoo Deal pans out, one can expect that Google will increase revenue even further, as Yahoo’s European Customers will start to allocate more of their spend to Google.

Clearly, the Microsoft / Yahoo debacle has benefited Google while Yahoo has been the biggest Loser. A review of Google’s US/Intl Rev should give some indication of just how much of a problem both companies face, in making headway in Search.

World Changers

2008-06-14T15:28:00.000-07:00

Some have asked me what I mean by World Changer. I guess to some it may seem like an arrogant or self serving title for a Blog. Truth is, anyone can be a World Changer. All it takes is a commitment to lead a purpose driven life and a desire to change and affect people’s lives - for the better. I happen to believe that - we all have the capacity to change and affect the lives of others, simply by the way we lead our own lives.

Not all of us will have the same level of influence as a John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Indira Ghandi or Oprah, that's not what this is about though. You can inspire, encourage or motivate one person who then goes on to do the same for thousands, even millions of others. Individual opinions expressed in this blog may not be meaningful to all readers - that's okay. Some will find value in our subjective commentary, and if that inspires dialogue or a different way of thinking -that's a good thing. The flow of positive feedback from readers is so encouraging that I've decided to expand the scope and coverage of the Journal.

In the months ahead, I intend to expand this forum to accommodate a larger group of World Changers. Soon, this Journal will start accepting write-ups from a handful of International World Changers from all around the world. Ultimately our scope will expand - and that's probably a good thing.

So, the "WorldChanger" is a state of mind. We all have the capacity make a difference, if we choose to do so. Peace….

TV Advertising - Is Evolving

2008-06-07T21:36:00.001-07:00

I recently blogged about the series of competitive - comparison TV ads which Apple has been running lately. After going back and reviewing some of those ads - I was struck by the innovative way in which Apple is able to get several key messages across to users - using a consistent theme. These days - various advertising mediums have to aggressively compete for "eyeballs". None more aggressively than TV, which has seen it's ratings and share of ad sales decline rapidly, in recent years.

I'm impressed with the way Apple constantly finds creative ways to communicate the core value proposition of it's products - directly to consumers. (see iphone, itunes, & my personal favourite).

UPS is another company that's actively trying to reach consumers & small business owners through it's UPS Whiteboard Campaign. After suffering through the stodgy old "Brown" Campaign - I find the whiteboard approach refreshing. If you haven't seen these ads - please click the play button below.

Not everyone likes these ads - however I think they're cleverly done. The UPS Brand Message is reinforced and I can clearly understand the value prop of the companies core service - in 35 Seconds. Interestingly, these whiteboard ads have sparked plenty of

Moreover, it has sparked an avalanche of video spoofs on You Tube, some of them are pretty unflattering. That said, I think the positives of this ad, far out weigh the negatives. The company has found a way to create a series of interactive "dialogue ads" - which speak directly to the needs of it's core customer base.

Not so sure about these SAP ads though, I haven't quite figured them out yet.

What would you do if you weren't afraid??

2008-06-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've found myself dealing more and more with the concept of fear. Most of us experience fear of some sought on a regular basis. In fact - we can probably identify different types of fear with key stages of our lives. Fear of failure, rejection, missing opportunities, underachievement, new challenges or new environments. The Fear of Change is probably the Mother of all Fears - because often, we characterize change as a departure from our comfort zone - from what is familiar, safe and predictable.

Recently I read Who Moved My Cheese - and I was struck by the simple way in which Dr. Johnson delivered his change message. One may find the book useful, others may think it trivialises the serious impact which change can have on our lives.

Critics of the the book have claimed that it's far too simplistic and doesn't necessarily address the challenges of everyday life. I read this critical review by Ms Coffin - which appears to suggest that the actual content of the book hardly justifies all the attention it has received.

Interestingly - the Author actually commentate that both fans and critics are "right" in their own way.

Having read the book myself - I believe it teaches valuable lessons in a simple straightforward fashion. Certainly - some will find it more useful than others, like most self help material - it's all about the attitude with which one reads the book and Interprets the core message.

For me, the key learning is that when we face opportunities, challenges, periods of change - we should ask ourselves "what we would you do if we weren't afraid"? Perhaps some of us would seek new horizons, leave our comfort zones in search of new challenges - or maybe even commit ourselves to something or someone.

We all go through tough times - and often we feel that no one can fully appreciate the depth of the challenges we face. The appetite for new cheese tends to wane - as we get older and take on more responsibilities. At the very least, this book encourages the reader to anticipate and even embrace change. You may feel that the message is simplistic, but I don't think anyone would argue with it's verity. And in this world of instant gratification in which so many of us indulge ourselves in wants - disguised as needs, I'm okay with investing $20 in a quest to find some new cheese. If you feel the same way - here's some food for thought .......

Change Happens
Anticipate Change
Monitor Change
Adapt To Change Quickly
Enjoy Change

Apple Computer - Repositioning The Mac vs PC - Through Interactive TV Ads

2008-05-24T12:13:00.001-07:00

I recently started to develop an interest in the Apple vs. Microsoft saga, after watching a series of cleverly created Apple ads. (see below). Apple has probably featured over 20 of these TV ads -in strong rotation, over the past year and frankly, I've rarely seen a more effective campaign - from a positioning standpoint.

First, Apple manages to drive start contrasts between it's offering and that of Microsoft - by comparing Macs to PCs, which everyone knows run Windows Software Applications. The Subtle message here is that Apple brings you all the cool stuff, it's safe, secure, youthful and cool. Windows is uptight, Susceptible to viruses, older and doesn't provide nearly the same value proposition for it's users. Generation Xers will get this ad and may be influenced to at least go to an Apple store. Teenagers and Young adults are even more likely to be receptive to this sort of messaging - especially because they already associate the Apple brand with a cool, youthful lifestyle - think iPods, iTunes & iPhone.

Take a moment to watch a few of the ads embedded in the player below - you'll note that each ad attacks drives home the perception that Apples are far superior to PCs - for everyday folks, who want to have fun with their computers. Apple also drives home the message that Macs can run key Windows Software applications - such as Microsoft Office, so users can have the "best of both worlds".

Last quarter, Mac sales blew away all forecasts, grew 51% YoY, more than 3 times the rate for PCs, although Apples base is admittedly much smaller. Clearly, the Macs resurgence is as much about Consumers rejection of PCs as it is about the value proposition which Apple presents. Whether or not all that cool software really merits the premium which each Mac commands, over PCs of comparable functionality - is probably debatable. Over the next few weeks, I will examine the various factors at play between these competitors - and hopefully offer more insight.

Enjoy the ads.......

Competence, Excellence, Mastery

2008-05-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Like just about everyone else in N/America - I've been swept up in Obama Mania and his whole concept of "Change we can believe in". However, the focus of this piece is inspired by a speech which Barack delivered in his Senior Year @ Harvard. The theme of the speech was Competence, Excellence & Mastery - referenced here - by Artur Davis.

"He said we faced three challenges. First: competence, which was expected. Second: excellence, which only some seek. Third: mastery, which very few ever tried for. It was a level of proficiency and skill so high it allowed you to do something better than anyone else. He urged us to seek that."

I spent some time thinking out these words in the context of my life and my career - I've formulated a view point which I hope will be useful to some World Changers out there.

Competence
My first real job was with a large Law Firm. I worked in the mail room, as a clerk - sorting and delivering mail to over 100 lawyers each day. Before then, I'd had part time jobs here and there but never really felt any sense of responsibility. Now, I was on someone's payroll and eager to do a good job. So - I sought to achieve competence. Years ago, it used to be that in order to do well and possibly get a promotion or a raise, one needed to exhibit a high level of competence - doesn't matter what job you're doing. If you're competent - people will notice and you may catch a break.

In the World we live in today, Competence barely gets you in the game. In fact, a lack of strong competence will often mean your job could be in jeopardy, especially in Corporate America. There are so many smart, hungry people out there, looking to take your spot - that you need to reach a high level of Competence as quickly as possible (imho within 90 - 120 days of starting a new job, you need to start dislaying Competence).
When you begin a new job, your boss will outline your key responsibilities and let you know what's expected of you. She may even proactively tell you what you need to do in order to be successful in role - if she doesn't, please ask. In my view, competence means - you're hitting all your goals, meeting all your deadlines and exceeding all expectations of your boss and the team as a whole. (That's your starting point, in today's ultra competitive environment)

Excellence
Barack's speech seemed to indicate that only some seek excellence. Actually I suspect that at least 50% of reasonably driven individuals seek excellence - most simply don't know what it is or what it looks like. Others think they've hit it- because they show up when it counts or clinch the occasional mega deal - perhaps nail a key presentation, or execute a complicated strategy. Many of us think we're in the "Excellent" category - but are we really?

I have learn't that - "Excellence" can be subjective. If you're competing in individual sports - the criteria for excellence is pretty well defined, it's a win or lose scenario. In team sports - you could do really well, and your team could still lose. Could you claim to have been excellent - under such circumstances? So, Excellence can be defined in many different ways.

In the workforce however - "Excellence" is often defined by what your boss feels is important and more importantly - what your bosses, boss - feels is important. In my field of interest, it's extremely important to work on initiatives which have strong "Business Impact". That often means Sales, Revenue, Profit/Loss, Business Strategy and whatever else your orgs Senior Execs see as being crucial to the financial well being of the Organization. You could be working really hard, but if you're not paying attention to what's important to your Managers - you're not in the excellent category and you may very quickly find yourself outside the Competence field as well.

So, in striving for Excellence -make sure you understand what's important to your Managers - and always be at least 2 steps ahead of your Manager, in terms of what he's priorities are and how he thinks about success for your team. I'm not saying, agree with everything your boss says and spend all your time schmoozing up. Have periodic synch sessions with your manager, and quarterly sessions with your Managers, Manager. Make sure you understand their priorities and seek their feedback on what you're doing. Once you're clear on key priorities, you align your work items accordingly and strive to excel in your deliverables and find ways to add value - above and beyond your core responsibilities.

The difference between Strong Competence and Excellence is not as vast as one may think. My position is that each org may have a slightly different opinion of what excellence in a specific role, looks like. Your Manager may know, your Managers, Manager certainly will. That's why you have to strive to stay two steps ahead of your Manager's thought process at all times. Every now and again, it's important to reflect on the Orgs position from 50,000 ft. Don't be too wrapped up in the everyday grind -that you don't see the big picture. Use your insights to create value for your organization -In my opinion, that's what excellence - in role, looks like. In striving for excellence, it is important to have role models or Mentors - for inspiration and counsel. I'll delve into the subject of Mentorship and Professional development, sometime in future.

Mastery
Now, here's a category that most people definitely don't strive for - for two reasons. I'd say 80% of individuals out there have no idea what the concept of mastery is about. 20% of us, have a good idea of what Mastery looks like - in our careers, or various fields of interest. But, only a very small percentage of that 20% actually aspire to that level - and fewer still get there. There are a few very good reasons for this trend.

Most successful individuals reside in the Excellence category - CEOs, Corporate Leaders, Presidents, Academics & and the vast majority of very successful individuals - get there by exhibiting Excellence at crucial periods of their Personal/Professional Development.

The majority of us understand that to be excellent at something, requires plenty of hard work, dedication and self-sacrifice - we intuitively feel that Mastery is out of reach, because it requires a special gift in addition to all the other stuff which excellent people do. Most of us know that we can be very successful in life and accomplish great things without ever coming close to becoming Masters in our fields of interest or our Career Paths.

Mastery - is defined as the superior command, grasp or control of a subject of study. It depicts thoughts of one who possesses consummate skills and power to dominate others. I believe that it takes someone who is extremely driven, focused and accomplished to even identify an individual who has a shot at Mastery, in a particular subject or field of endeavor.

Those who strive for Mastery need an extra something - which goes beyond talent, hard work and drive. It takes a self-belief and restlessness which defies logic to most of regular folks. So, I disagree with Barack - when he says we should all strive for Mastery. I think we should all strive for Excellence - and in doing so, we should make sure that we (and those we hold dear), are well aware of the personal sacrifices which must be made. We also need to be very clear about what we as individuals want to accomplish. On a personal note, I'd add that we must constantly remind ourselves that one’s happiness & Peace of mind is more important than any earthly endeavor.

Many have developed themselves to the point where they have achieved Mastery - if only for a brief period of time. I'm sure we can all reel off the names of great Masters in Business, Law, Medicine, Sports, the Arts, Biological Sciences, Politics and many more fields. All are World Changers and all have paid some significant price for their pursuit of Mastery. So, if you're reading this and you've resolved to seek Mastery in your field - by all means go for it, just be sure to begin with the end in mind.

World Changers - Rock On !!

Yahoo vs. MSFT - Icahn Steps In

2008-05-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought things couldn't get any more complicated - in steps Carl Icahn, to muddy the waters even further. Carl Icahn has bought 50 million Yahoo shares since Microsoft withdrew its bid, which perhaps helps to explain why Yahoo shares haven’t fallen back to pre-proposal levels since the bid got yanked. If history is any guide, we should soon hear Icahn’s views on Yahoo’s situation and the failings of its top officials in great detail.

Icahn is known to be a very tenacious and determined person. He gets in at a low and gets out at a high. (Anyone remember Icahn /Motorola or more recently, the Icahn/Time Warner debacle?). Truth be told, Yahoo should probably have sold out at $33 - but it got very personal, very fast. It appears that the Yahoo Board did not look at the deal from a Business Perspective - it was personal. Jerry Yang did NOT want to sell out to Microsoft. That much is clear - but if you want to stay independent - don't go public. When you start taking money from Wall Street, you have to deliver strong value to your shareholders. I don't think anyone out there believes that Yahoo can get to $33 on it's own - so how do you justify this decision? By retiring the monetization platform that you said would save your search business, and partnering with your strongest adversary?

Eventually, Yahoo will be sold off - either as one entity (Display + Search), or broken up into little bits and pieces. The sad thing about this is that the board members who scuttled the deal with MSFT will still walk away with millions, but the everyday shareholders who hung with Yahoo during the rough times, may not be so lucky. Icahn won’t be able to sack Yahoo’s board before the next board meeting in July’08. By then, Yahoo’s June results would’ve been released. If the Company can’t deliver strong earnings – then the original MSFT bid may start to look pretty exorbitant.

Either way, Yahoo would be wise to prepare for a bumpy ride - Icahn is the real deal. He won't stop and he won't quit - until he's made he's killing. Now, Microsoft can simply play the waiting game and let Carl carry the battle forward on their behalf...

Fight The Good Fight

2008-05-04T17:30:00.000-07:00

So what is my VC friend talking about? The larger the Web grows, the more important search becomes, right? That’s probably so, and as a note of clarification, he changed his statement slightly to say, “Search, as we know it, is dead.” What he means is that, with the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, LinkedIn and even Google’s own Orkut, the next generation of Web users may find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right? Actually, the issue is even larger than searches and social networks. The Web is, in a sense, maturing into a different medium than the one that search engines were originally designed to tackle. Allow me, for a moment, to oversimplify the issue in the interest of making a point: Until now, the Web has largely been a resource for information organization and consumption, with the user functioning as a consumer. In this scenario, a search engine is an ideal tool—you need some information (a restaurant address, the name of a song stuck in your head), but you don’t know where to find it, so a search engine is the natural first stop in your online journey. But in the past few years, a bunch of sites have begun to pop up based on the philosophy of user-generated content—a phenomenon often referred to as “Web 2.0” (a term, which, if I had my way, would be violently abolished from the lexicon). Flickr, for instance, is predicated on the notion that people don’t want just to look for photos but to share them. Same goes for YouTube, more or less. This, in turn, led to an explosion of online communities—once you’ve amassed a bunch of content to share, the natural next instinct is to create social bonds around it. This, of course, is the online equivalent of what people have been doing for centuries: finding other people with similar interests and forming social cliques, or vice versa. This is not a totally new phenomenon. The Web has, since its inception, been used as a social tool, with community discussion boards for tech heads, bird-watchers and so on. But what is new is that the interfaces have changed to allow each member of a community to have their own microsite—an identity on the Web that is unique and centralized. And this focus on online identity is what could turn search upside down. Udi Manber, Google’s vice president of engineering in charge of search quality, spoke with me about this phenomenon—and his thoughts on Google’s goals as the reach of mobile devices, advertising and more expand—in a rare interview this past week (click here for more of the Q&A). He suggested that Google’s search could quite naturally evolve to embrace the data produced from social networking. “Search has always been about people,” Manber said. “It’s about getting people what they need. The art of ranking is one of taking lots of signals and putting them together. Signals from your friends are better, stronger signals.” But what may turn out to be the strongest signal of all is the footprint you make with your online identity. Consider how much information you voluntarily provide on your Facebook profile. Now imagine if you could combine that with your Netflix renting and Amazon buying habits. Then throw in the suggestions of your friends and the pages you visit the most often. All those various sources of information about you are currently stored in different locations—on your computer’s browser history, on your Facebook page, on the servers for Netflix and Amazon—but just imagine how accurate a search could be if every time you had a query, the mass of data about you that exists on the Internet could inform the results. (Google and Yahoo already do this to a limited extent by tracking your search history to refine results, and surely startups will try.) In fact, as we each carve out our individual niche on the Web, the logic of search may well flip inside out. Since we are essentially meta-tagging ourselves through our social networking memberships, shopping habits and surfing addictions, it’s conceivable that the information could attempt to find us—the old concept of push media, but in a far more refined way. As new content enters the Web, it could tumble through the various filters that you set up around your identity and then show up on your home-page news feed, or in your in box, or pop up on a ticker that follows you around as you browse from page to page. The point is that even though Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Amazon and others all have elements of this new relationship with users, nobody owns this space the way Google “owns” search. And as it evolves, there will be an unholy mess of privacy and security issues to work out. So in the future, the way we are guided around the Web may look very different from search as we know it. In the meantime, search is not, in fact, dead … yet.
QnA With Udi Manber: http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4259137.html

Microsoft Walks!

2008-05-04T08:52:00.001-07:00

So, I'm sure there will be much written about the Microsoft-Yahoo Saga, by folks who are much more knowledgeable than I am. Here's my two cents though... Microsoft clearly expected that the deal would get done one way or another - evidently, everyone underestimated the resolve of Yahoo's core Investors. (By core investors, I mean those who have a personal connection with the company and its brand, and not the fat cats on the board who've been along for the ride. In previous commentary, I maintained that Yahoo seemed ready to do almost anything to stave off Microsoft - even considering partnerships which were clearly not in its best interest, or those of its Investors. I'll admit though, even I was surprised by the Yahoo-Google pact.
It wasn't so long ago that Yahoo was touting the breakthrough capabilities of Panama - and the value it would bring to its network of advertisers. The deal with Google will most certainly result in incremental Search Revenue - but at what cost? In his letter to Jerry Yang, Steve Ballmer rightly commented on the impact of the deal on Yahoo's Engineering Team and its position vs. Google. The Winner!The net-net is that Google is the winner here. It remains the strongest player in the online space and its two main competitors are left weakened by an incident which will cast doubt in the minds of their customers about the quality of their Search Platforms. If Yahoo does go ahead with the pact and actually start monetizing some or all of its traffic volume through Google, that could signal the end of the Overture Platform. In effect, over 80% of the queries driven by Major Search Engines could be monetized through the adwords platform. I expect regulators won’t let that happen though, so we’ll have to see how that plays out.

Both Yahoo and Microsoft have lost out here. Microsoft because, this entire fiasco has been a distraction for the Management Team and probably has sown some doubts in the minds of many investors, about our entire Online Strategy. More impotantly - Microsoft monetizes it's Search Engine through Overture - in key markets across Europe and Asia. If Yahoo can't or won't actively invest in winning new clients for Panama, both companies will continue to loose ground to Google Globally.

The Biggest Loser
Yahoo - is the biggest loser, because it's handling of this issue casts doubt on its strategy and its ability to survive as an independent entity. The prospect of incremental revenue by monetizing with Google's adwords and even adSense won't be sufficient to stem the freefall of its stock - come Monday (05/05).
I’d said before that Google had much to gain in the short term, even if the deal went through, because the way in which Yahoo reacted to MSFT’s proposal was so negative that the Integration process would have been pretty challenging.

As things stand today, it’s hard to think of a way to spin this – that looks good for either Microsoft or Yahoo. Certainly, Microsoft can solider on and will benefit from its size and scale – and from market place that is growing increasingly uncomfortable with Google’s Monopoly of Online advertising Revenue.

I’d be interested to see how the Financial Markets react to Yahoo’s stock – come Monday Morning. The Stock reached $29.70 on Friday 05/02 and was at 26.82 in after hours trading.

Google's Evolving Strength In International Mkts

2008-04-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, Google published it’s much anticipated quarterly results. A few key points struck me about the Q1 Results (full details outlined below).
- Revenue totaled $5.19 billion YoY increase of 42% & 7% stronger than Dec’07 figures. So even in the midst of a “recession” in its largest market – Google managed to grow revenue

- TAC totaled $1.49 billion: 9% of advertising revenues, and it's declining....

- Strong Q1 revenue results of $5.2b or 42% QoQ growth
- International Revenue increased from 47% to 51% of total revenue.
- AdSense Revenue is up 25% over last quarter and Paid Clicks are also up 20%
- Net income for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.31 billion as compared to $1.21 billion in Q4 of 2007 (8%)
- Google Sites Revenues hit $3.40 billion, or 66% of total revenues, YoY growth of 49% increase and 9% over Dec ’07 figures

Global Domination Is Not A Far Fetched Prospect
Google stays ahead of the game by paying attention to what’s important – driving core relevance improvements in both algorithmic search and sponsored (paid) listings. It’s admirable that Google dominates the Internet Landscape in the United States. However, I’m even more impressed by its strong foothold in key European Markets and it’s growing influence in the very competitive Asian Pacific Mkts.

I marvel at the progress Google has made in Japan, China, South Korea and India – against strong local players with all sorts of intangible advantages. At core is the unparalleled effectiveness of PageRank in providing market specific relevance, across diverse markets with very different languages. The use of Universal / Blended Search in S/Korea and Japan and the focus on Music Search in China – are smart, strategic initiatives. As is, the proliferation of Mobile Search and Mapping functionality in regions where PC sales are dwarfed by those of Mobile applications. Even the purchase of Youtube, though unlikely to ever be ROI positive, has enabled Google to further strengthen the ubiquity of Video Search, across different platforms.

Revenue from Intl Mkts hit 51% of total revenues, for the first time. UK alone accounted for $803 million. Google already generates Billion’s each quarter from European and S/American Mkts – It stands to gain even more once it’s only real competitor (YHOO), starts using adwords in key markets. Microsoft’s adCentre is the only other monetization platform which may have the resources to challenge Google – but without a strong presence in Key Global Mkts – it will likely cede Intl Search Business, to Google. (unless of course, it can buy Yahoo and revitalize Panama J).

Q1 Financial Summary
Google's results for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, include the operations of DoubleClick Inc. from the date of acquisition, March 11, 2008, through the end of the quarter, and are compared to pre-acquisition results of prior periods. The overall impact of DoubleClick in the first quarter of 2008 was immaterial to revenue and only slightly dilutive to both GAAP and non-GAAP operating income, net income and earnings per share.

Google reported revenues of $5.19 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, an increase of 42% compared to the first quarter of 2007 and an increase of 7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting traffic acquisition costs, or TAC. In the first quarter of 2008, TAC totaled $1.49 billion, or 29% of advertising revenues.Google reports operating income, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures, as well as free cash flow, an alternative non-GAAP measure of liquidity, are described below and are reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measures in the accompanying financial tables.

GAAP operating income for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.55 billion, or 30% of revenues. This compares to GAAP operating income of $1.44 billion, or 30% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP operating income in the first quarter of 2008 was $1.83 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $1.69 billion, or 35% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2007.

GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.31 billion as compared to $1.21 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP net income in the first quarter of 2008 was $1.54 billion, compared to $1.41 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. GAAP EPS for the first quarter of 2008 was $4.12 on 317 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $3.79 for the fourth quarter of 2007 on 318 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS in the first quarter of 2008 was $4.84, compared to $4.43 in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP operating margin, non-GAAP net income, and non-GAAP EPS are computed net of stock-based compensation (SBC). In the first quarter of 2008, the charge related to SBC was $281 million as compared to $245 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Tax benefits related to SBC have also been excluded from these non-GAAP measures. The tax benefit related to SBC was $51 million in the first quarter of 2008 and $42 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to GAAP operating income, operating margin, net income, and EPS are included at the end of this release. Q1 Financial Highlights Revenues – Google reported revenues of $5.19 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2008, representing a 42% increase over first quarter 2007 revenues of $3.66 billion and a 7% increase over fourth quarter 2007 revenues of $4.83 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.

Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $3.40 billion, or 66% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2008. This represents a 49% increase over first quarter 2007 revenues of $2.28 billion and a 9% increase over fourth quarter 2007 revenues of $3.12 billion.

Google Network Revenues - Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $1.69 billion, or 33% of total revenues, in the first quarter of 2008. This represents a 25% increase over network revenues of $1.35 billion generated in the first quarter of 2007 and a 3% increase over fourth quarter 2007 revenues of $1.64 billion.

International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $2.65 billion, representing 51% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 47% in the first quarter of 2007 and 48% in the fourth quarter of 2007. Revenues from the United Kingdom totaled $803 million, representing 15% of revenue in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 16% in the first quarter of 2007 and 14% in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 20% over the first quarter of 2007 and approximately 4% over the fourth quarter of 2007.

TAC - Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, increased to $1.49 billion in the first quarter of 2008. This compares to TAC of $1.44 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 29% in the first quarter, compared to 30% in the fourth quarter of 2007. The majority of TAC expense is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.34 billion in the first quarter of 2008. TAC is also related to amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $143 million in the first quarter of 2008.

Other Cost of Revenues - Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, credit card processing charges as well as content acquisition costs, increased to $624 million, or 12% of revenues, in the first quarter of 2008, compared to $516 million, or 11% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2007. Pursuant to our acquisition of DoubleClick, we allocated $862 million to identified intangible assets, which have a weighted average useful life of 6.3 years.Operating Expenses - Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $1.53 billion in the first quarter of 2008, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.43 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, or 30% of revenues. The operating expenses in the first quarter of 2008 included $809 million in payroll-related and facilities expenses, compared to $756 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Stock-Based Compensation (SBC) – In the first quarter of 2008, the total charge related to SBC was $281 million as compared to $245 million in the fourth quarter of 2007.

We currently estimate stock-based compensation charges for grants to employees prior to April 1, 2008 to be approximately $1.1 billion for 2008. This does not include expenses to be recognized related to employee stock awards that are granted after April 1, 2008 or non-employee stock awards that have been or may be granted. We currently anticipate that dilution related to all equity grants to employees will be at or below 2% this year. Operating Income - GAAP operating income in the first quarter of 2008 was $1.55 billion, or 30% of revenues.

This compares to GAAP operating income of $1.44 billion, or 30% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP operating income in the first quarter of 2008 was $1.83 billion, or 35% of revenues. This compares to non-GAAP operating income of $1.69 billion, or 35% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2007. Net Income – GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2008 was $1.31 billion as compared to $1.21 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Non-GAAP net income was $1.54 billion in the first quarter of 2008, compared to $1.41 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007.

GAAP EPS for the first quarter of 2008 was $4.12 on 317 million diluted shares outstanding, compared to $3.79 for the fourth quarter of 2007, on 318 million diluted shares outstanding. Non-GAAP EPS for the first quarter of 2008 was $4.84, compared to $4.43 in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Back On The Block

2008-04-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Just back after a lengthy lay off. For a while, I didn't feel a strong urge to write. I've been doing a lot of travelling - Asia, Europe and most recently - back home to Nigeria. It's good to be back and I'm gradually rediscovering my enthusiasm to write - and hopefully, change and affect the World, in my own little way.

The Evoloving Internet Landscape - Volume I

2008-04-04T09:05:00.000-07:00

Summarizing the current overiding trends in the Online Advertising Industry - today.

Thanks For The Published Comments

2008-04-02T13:08:00.001-07:00

I'd like to thank those individuals who published comments recently, on my blog. I truly appreciate your feedback and suggestions, particularly the kind words about my picture.

Thanks Again,

World Changer.....

The Are of the Start

2008-04-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Getting Rich Quick - 5 Key Tips

2008-04-02T12:48:00.000-07:00

Okay,

Fish Market - in Tokyo

2008-03-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

Back In London -

2008-03-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

After travellling for over 20 hours and being up for over 24 hours - I finally arrived in London, late last night......

Disecting - Quiet Strenght

2008-03-01T20:21:00.001-08:00

One of my goals this year is to read some interesting material which challenges and stimulates my mind. I'm always looking to pick up new insights which may help improve my cognitive abilities and Leadership Skills.......

Today, I finished a book by Tony Dungy - titled Quiet Strength

Visiting Tokyo

2008-02-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

I'm in Tokyo for the next few days - attending meetings and trying to earn more about the Online landscape over here - first hand. This is my first trip to Tokyo - and my second to the orient. I arrived last night and I'm already learning some of the interesting nuances of Japanese Culture. Hope to blog about some of my key learning's and takeaways - in the days ahead.

Yahoo: AKA - You always have other options!!

2008-02-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the week I blogged about the Microsoft -Yahoo saga and expressed mild concern that both orgs could loose key talent in the wake of a drawn out proxy fight. Clearly, Microsoft is serious about seeing this deal through, this initiative should, at the very least, serve as a forcing function to bring yahoo to the negotiating table. It makes no sense for MSFT to raise the offer when key Yahoo stakeholders seem deadset against the deal. So, the Proxy Contest - will go ahead.

That said, Yahoo is thinking well ahead. The company has announced its directors had decided to offer all full-time employees enhanced severance benefits in case they were terminated without cause in the two years after completion of any merger. Yahoo said that the enhanced benefits, which include accelerated vesting for stock options, were intended, in part, to prevent an exodus of employees.

The new severance plan is intended “to help retain the employees" - They also include accelerated vesting for all stock options, restricted stock units and other equity-based awards, and reimbursement for outplacement services up to a maximum of $15,000. All this from a company which was laying off 1,000 staffers last week.

All of this reminds me of a comment I read in a recent blog post by Mark Cuban. He referenced a conversation he once had with Jerry Yang during which Jerry mentioned that Yahoo stood for: You Always Have Other Options.

In an ideal world, we always have options. If we plan ahead, maintain a level of independent, introspective thinking and stay driven - we tend to have more options. In this case though - Yahoo Investors have few options, none of which seems better than the deal at hand.

Peace...

Yahoo - Still Not Feeling MSFT, Now Talking To AOL

2008-02-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

I read this morning that Yahoo & AOL are actually in talks about a possible partnership which (they hope) could help fend off Microsoft's friendly advances. This news comes on the heels of last week's discussion with News Corp.

Clearly, Yahoo is showing that it will consider any alternative to partnering with Microsoft. This is no longer about trying to drive the price up by $3 - $5 dollars. I can't see how a deal with AOL would be significantly more advantageous than one with News Corp. These guys are seriously looking for a "White Knight".

AOL has some similar products to Yahoo - and a merger would probably provide a whole new bunch of integration headaches which are sure to distract Yahoo's Mgt, at a time when they desperately need to provide stronger returns for Investors. According to the Silicon Valley Insider, If the companies combine, therefore, Time Warner could have about a 20% ownership in the New Yahoo. One hurdle to an AOL-Yahoo deal in the past, however, has reportedly been that Time Warner doesn't want Yahoo stock, which means that the deal would have to be done at least partially for cash. A private equity firm could provide some of that cash, but then the question would be: At what value will Yahoo issue the new stock--the post-Microsoft bid $29, or the pre-Microsoft bid $19?

Truth is, Yahoo is not going to find a Suitor better positioned to offer a strong incentive to it's shareholders, to sell out. It's also worth mentioning that -with Yahoo clearly struggling to build its Search Business, Google stands to gain even more in the short to mid-term and could lock up the Search Syndication / Distribution sector - for years to come.

Last week Friday (02/16), the World Street Journal reported that Alibaba, the Chinese Internet Company, part-owned by Yahoo Inc, has hired advisers to help negotiate for expanded management independence in the event of its U.S Partner, being acquired by MSFT.

Alibaba hasn't publicly commented on the Microsoft bid. On Friday, Jack Ma, told his employees that Alibaba management "will always maintain its independence and management control" over the company, regardless of who its shareholders are. Alibaba's reaction is not surprising, given the Chinese Governments involvement in Internet Companies.

I can't figure out why Yahoo is so dead set against this deal. It's doubtful that Microsoft will kill off any of Yahoo's priced assets, as this will certainly diminish the power of the Yahoo Brand, which is undoubtedly reflected in the $42B offer.

Yahoo's initial response indicated that "The board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo!, including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects."

Fine, but it's safe to say that MSFT will probably come back with a higher bid - especially since $31/share bid has dropped. Both companies must know that by dragging this out, they risk losing talented Leaders & Mid-level Managers, in both Corporations. If Yahoo forces Microsoft's hand, and the Software giant decides to go hostile, that would be the worst possible scenario for Microsoft. Ultimately, Yahoo shareholders would prevail over Jerry Yang, he'll resign and a lot of his loyalists will follow suit. Many who are on the fence, will most certainly be poached by the likes of AOL, Google, IAC, eBay, Large Worldwide agencies and a host of start-ups

That would make the integration of Microsoft's OSG and Yahoo's Global Org, much more complicated and very expensive. What may have been a 1 year integration plan, could quickly become a 24 - 36 month affair. That would certainly have a significant impact in the $1B in gains and expected growth in Search Revenue & Query Share, which this partnership is expected to present.
For now, this saga makes for some very interesting commentary. However, I can only imagine how Yahoo employees are feeling right now.....

Google Losing Online Advertising Share?

2008-02-15T15:47:00.000-08:00

A recent report from IDC indicates that Google’s Internet Ad Share is slipping while Online Ad Spend Rises 28%: USA Internet ad spending in 4Q07 grew nearly 28% over the same quarter in 2006 to $7.3 billion. For the full year 2007, online ad revenue grew 27% year over year to $25.5 billion. IDC research also found that Google's net USA market share declined for the first time in two years due to slower growth in domestic fourth quarter 2008 sales. Google's net USA Internet advertising market share was down 0.5 percentage points to 23.7% in 4Q07 compared to 3Q07. Google's estimated net USA Internet advertising sales (excluding the traffic acquisition costs they pay out to the partners in their networks) grew by a little more than 40% in 4Q07, but its year-on-year growth rate in the quarter before had been 50%.

Since Microsoft made the $40B+ offer for Yahoo - the Online advertising industry has been in the spotlight. A potential merger between Microsoft's Online Services Group and Yahoo would create a global Media organization which would control over 15% of the US Online advertising market. Expect that figure to grow, as the new organization starts to promote an unprecedented mix of online assets to an advertising sector, eager to bring more of their marketing budgets online.
Google would still be the "King of Search" - however, display advertising would take on a whole new level of importance. Microhoo! would be competitive in Search - both in terms of algorithmic search and monetization through distribution deals. As for Google, unless it can find a new differentiated revenue stream - it's best days could well be, right now..........

Yahoo Searches For Options

2008-02-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

I read today that Yahoo appears set on delaying the inevitable.... Not sure whether Jerry Yang et al, really don't want to sell out, or if they're angling for $36/share. Either way, this deal is not a slam dunk - at least not yet. Apparently, the Yahoo board is split - between two key Factions. You've got the hardnosed investors, who evidently think $40B is a no brainer, and Yahoo loyalists, led by Jerry Yang - who are much less reluctant to sell out to Microsoft.

Hey Jerry, it's always hard to say goodbye, but you may want to consider your shareholders, who stock with you when times were rough and now deserve a decent payout. You could partner with Myspace or Google, but neither one of these companies can offer Yahoo a $40B payout. The Myspace deal smacks of desperation and you're giving all the leverage to Rupert Murdoch.

Google can monetize your search engine results - but then you'll become reliant on a 3rd party for over 50% of your revenue. You've been down that road before and it's not fun.

Now, you need a plan which willl persuade Yahoo shareholders to willingly take an instant 40%+ hit to their holdings on the hope that the Company will be able to deliver even more value over the next couple of years.

Good luck..........

Yahoo & Google - Can Lightning Strike Twice ?

2008-02-13T12:37:00.000-08:00

Much has been written about the reasons for Google’s remarkable growth and the Global Power of its Brand. It’s worth reiterating that the first Google site was launched in ’97, at a time when literally no one was paying any close attention to Search. The key reason for the company’s success is that it’s able to provide core value to the 3 key Audience Segments which power the entire online services industry. Online Searchers, Search Advertisers and Search Distribution Partners.

Google
The Google founders set out with one key goal in mind – to create a Search Engine which would deliver more relevant and hence, more useful results than any other Engine available at the time. The extrinsic value of the Page Rank Algorithm helped fuel the word of mouth buzz about the Google and its popularity grew amongst Internet Users, the most important Audience Segment. By the Year 2000, Google was synonymous with Search – and was becoming the World’s best known Pure Search Engine. That same year, Google started selling advertisements associated with Search Keywords. The popularity of the adwords platform helped create a second audience segment – Search Advertisers. The value created by the adwords platform was a clear win-win for Google & its Ad-buying customers and Internet Users were not deterred. The click threshold which Google applied to its keyword bidding model also helped improve ad relevance.

Around that time, Overture made a key decision to stop driving traffic to its own site, and instead syndicate its monetization platform to other search engines and general interest sites. By the end of 2001, Overture had distribution deals with most major sites, portals and Search Engines –with the exception of Google. By this time, Google was widely seen as the only Pure Search Engine and this further enhanced its popularity in the minds of Internet Users.

In 2002, Google started to aggressively build its own distribution network. It signed deals with Key Overture partners – including Earthlink, Ask Jeeves and most significantly, AOL. These distribution partners became the 3rd and final key Audience Segment. Overture was left with two major partners – Yahoo and MSN. Today, Google is far and away the Global Leader in Search Syndication – after re-signing with AOL, Ask and thousands of smaller general interest websites. Google’s Financial Reports and accompanying commentary provides some indication of the benefit of a strong distribution model on Google’s query volume and revenue.

I provide this historical context – in order to make the point that Google’s popularity and brand Strength didn’t happen overnight and it can be traced directly to its laser focus on providing a valuable offering to its core audience segments (Searchers, Advertisers/Customers and Distribution Partners). The core value proposition remains the relevance of its core web search results and the overall performance of its engine.

Yahoo
Yahoo was launched in ’95 – primarily as a web directory and later diversified into a Web Portal. Yahoo originally sourced Search Technology from Inktomi from ’98 – 2000. In June ‘2000, Yahoo and Google signed an agreement which retained Google as the default world-wide-web search engine for Yahoo sites. Google’s popularity grew in leaps and bounds as it benefitted from brand association with Yahoo and AOL – two of the leading General Interest Portals – at that time. Gradually, Google started adding features people normally went to Internet portals like Yahoo, AOL and MSN - to find. Including, Maps, News Aggregation Services, white pages-style phone and address look-ups, maps and Web site translation services. At the time, Yahoo was monetizing Google Search Results through Overture.

In Dec ’02, Yahoo purchased Inktomi, then in July ’03 it acquired Overture Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries AltaVista and AlltheWeb. On February 18, 2004, Yahoo dropped Google-powered results and returned to using its own technology to provide search results. At the time, the Overture deal seemed to make sense – even at $1.6B, because Yahoo was very much dependent on Overture for its paid listings and the control of both key elements (Search Engine & Monetization Platform) was supposed to help secure Yahoo’s future as a search destination. What has happened since then is instructive – Yahoo lost its marquee client – MSN.com and its Search Business has been in freefall ever since. The Company did invest in improving its YSM monetization platform, but it has not been able to maintain query share or

deliver sustainable Search Revenue. Although the Yahoo brand is a strong one, it’s not Synonymous with Search. Although it still provides a good Search Engine to Searchers – the organization has struggled to compete with the relevance of Google’s Search Engine and the efficiency of its ad platform. As a result, it’s Search Distribution Network has suffered, query volume & share is down Worldwide.

Ironically, recent reports indicate that Yahoo may actually be thinking about coming full Circle and once again partnering with Google – pure speculation at this point though, but it's not surprising that Jerry & David would consider this option. A sale to Microsoft would mean the end of a dream for both of them - although I strongly suspect the Yahoo brand would live on regadless. Google clearly fears that a combined Microsoft/Yahoo entity could slow the Google Juggernaut. At the very least, the online behemouth could provide a viable alternative to online advertisers, many of whom don't want to do business with Google. One things for sure, Google is not in a position to bail out Yahoo, regulators would be waiting with baited breath to kill that deal. They can't simply offer to host Yahoo's search or monetize Yahoo's search engine, as they did before. It's too late for that - $44B too late......

Microsoft -> Yahoo -> News Corp -> Microsoft ??

2008-02-13T12:25:00.000-08:00

So, what's on Jerry's mind. First he get's a call from Steve - informing him of the Microsoft Bid. Then he get's a call from Eric - offering to help him out of the $44B bind. Not surprisingly Eric backs down in the face of the very obvious regulatory issues which would surely consume him and his Management Team. A relative calm ensues -which lasts all of a few minutes, before Rupert, steps up and professes his interest, again.

Jerry et al and Rupert have talked before but could never agree on the correct valuation for Myspace. Probably due to the fact that Social Networking Sites don't make a whole lot of money - relative to the sheer number of eyeballs they attract. Apparently, no one has figured out how to effectively monetize the Social Engagement piece -which faciliates user generated content and ultimately makes sites like Myspace and Facebook, so popular. The deal would allow Yahoo to remain independent while giving News Corp. substantial control over a huge array of Internet properties and advertising opportunities. Clearly a big win for News Corp - with very little upside for Yahoo! - so why go through with it?

The fact that this discussion is even taking place, gives an indication of the Yahoo founders feeling about selling out to Microsoft. Jerry wouldn't even consider this deal now, unless he was feeling the heat from shareholders -who have been pretty patient thus far. Let's face it - $44B is a lot of cash. So, ultimately, a sale to Microsoft still appears to the most likely scenario for Yahoo. And, apparently the MSFT Team knows it. There's no sign of anxiety in Redmond, even as Yahoo actively seeks alternatives. The company has said it is willing to "pursue all necessary steps" to consummate the deal, which could mean going directly to shareholders. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. A protracted battle, would be bad for morale at both Companies - and the only clear winner would be Google.......

Policeman Catches A Baby Thrown From Burning Building Lives

2008-02-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

I saw this story earlier on and I felt compelled to post a comment. In LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany - two parents faced an unbearable dilemma. They were trapped in a burning building with their 9-month-old baby girl and were forced to make a split second decision. If they threw her out of the window, would she be caught four stories below? The split-second decision paid off: Onur fell safely into the arms of a policeman below. The parents also survived, although the mother was still in a hospital Tuesday, two days after the blaze that killed nine people, including five children. I lifted this picture from the MSNBC Piece earlier on today – you can make out the parents looking out the window and the baby falling through the air. This truly was an unfortunate incident and hopefully the ongoing investigation will provide more clarity on what exactly happened here.

I’d like to focus on the Policeman who stepped up and caught little Onur. Picture with me, if you will – the circumstances under which this whole thing went down. Screaming Victims, panicked onlookers with thick smoke billowing around them. With the staircase destroyed by flames, adults also jumped for their lives while others formed human ladders to help save people trapped inside, police and rescue workers said. Children from lower floors were handed to rescue workers atop an ambulance. Some who jumped missed rescue nets laid out by police. In the face of all this chaos, a Policeman was called upon to catch a 4-month old child. He probably had no time to think about anything, one can only imagine what was going through his head, as she flew down towards him.

Hopefully, most of us will never have to face a challenge quite like this one. There was absolutely no margin of error here, the officer could easily have been killed whilst trying to save the baby. According to reports from the Police spokesperson, he was injured after he fell to the ground and struck his head. Thankfully, he was treated at a hospital and released. Don’t know anything about this man, but he’s a World Changer in my book, because he stepped up when it counted and saved Onur’s life........