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Diversions • (3) Comments • Permalink

When I began writing book take-aways, it started with a goal of clearing my bookshelf of long unread books. But as I traveled along this literary journey, I discovered other books to read, many of which were mentioned in some of the books I previously read. One of those books is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

I look forward to finishing this book and writing my take-aways, if for any other reason it is well over 1,000 pages long! Most of the books I have previously read were no longer than 300 pages, so it will be interesting to see when I finish it. Stay tuned.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • (5) Comments • Permalink

It’s hard to believe it has been over a month since the Nokia OpenLab in Helsinki. As well, it has been a month since I have had a Nokia E71 device in my possession. Over this time I used it quite a bit in Helsinki, and only for the last couple of weeks here. But alas, it is time to send it back, and I am now working on my review of this amazing, hard-working device – look for it soon.

When I sat down to put some notes together on the E71, I looked at the phone and noticed the navigation button of the phone – or the Navi Scroll Key – glowing. This is a really neat add-on to the phone, going above and beyond as most of the design features of it have. When you press and hold the glowing key, you see the current time – another cool feature, as I don’t carry a watch and like many my mobile device is also my timepiece.

Needless to say, I was inspired and the following video came to mind, which I quickly shot with my Sony DSC-T200 digital camera and my Gorillapod tripod. Note I am not a filmmaker, but as a comedy improviser, I did it all in one take.

Enjoy! If you don’t see the embedded video, you can view it here.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Mobile Technology • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

In honor of Blog Action Day, I am breaking my tradition with posting a photo for Wordless Wednesday and joining in the conversation on this year’s topic – poverty. I have to admit I have never been in a position where I would say I was poor. In thinking about what to write, I decided to take a higher-level approach to helping organizations. This is based on my own personal experience as well as my involvement in being a member and leading Jaycees’ chapters.

Whenever we think of helping a cause – any cause – the first thing that comes to mind is donating money. For some people, this may be the only way they would want to help, and it doesn’t need to be elaborated on how money helps. However in times like today, when people either don’t have the funds to donate or are being cautious on any expenses other than what is absolutely required, we should seek other ways to help worthy causes and organizations that support them.

How?

Your Time - Many organizations can use volunteer help in their offices or in delivering their services, whether in your neighborhood or around the world. As well many general service and religious organizations do similar volunteering. There may be some costs involved in getting to your volunteering location (especially abroad) but your time is the key in what you are giving.

And why go it alone? Organize a family or company group.

Your services - What applies in our personal finances also applies in the finances of our businesses. By evaluating what your company does and finding a match in the community and in the world for someone who may be in need of it is surely a win-win. Whether you are a bakery or a Web developer like Dunkirk Systems, LLC, there are organizations that can use what you have to offer.

As with any donation, I recommend learning as much as you can about the organization. Read their Web site, talk with their executive director, visit their offices – whatever it takes for you to understand where what you are donating is going. This not only gives you a comfort level, but by this hands-on learning you can better tell the story of this organization to others.

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Announcements • (1) Comments • Permalink

You have heard the saying ‘you are what you eat.’ But how about you are what you buy? Or the reverse? The latter question is the premise behind a great book Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker.

In Buying In, Walker explores this relationship, or as he calls it dialogue, between what we buy and who we are. It is packed with examples of brands and consumer goods and the ways they interact with consumers, the very people who are on the selling side with the marketers and others who connect them with consumers. There are also many great terms that come from this book – from Pretty Good Problem describing a plethora of “pretty good” products to choose from, to Desire Code, which comprises all of the factors leading one to buy something to Murketing, a contraction of the words “murky” and “marketing” which are themes throughout the book.

My greatest takeaway from Buying In is the consumer can make – and sometimes demand – an individual connection with a product. Going away are the days of mass-produced and mass-marketed goods. The Internet has broken down the technical barriers between consumers and companies, and now companies need to realize this and converse with their customers. Technology alone won’t do it all, as there needs to be a fundamental realization first that a company wants to do this!

Another takeaway is consumers don’t want to feel like they have been sold something. Call it a win-win situation - or call it consumers don’t want to feel like they are at the bottom of a pipe of products being fed to them. Scion is cited as an example of this, where they took a non-traditional approach to reaching out to the Generation Y-ers, their target audience.

A final takeaway is that it may not be your product or service, rather how it is marketed. American Apparel moved form promoting their Los Angeles-based manufacturing and selling to wholesalers to retail stores selling hip clothing. Timberland created a professional shoe line to reconnect with their traditional market after growing a new base of younger, urban consumers.

Shortly after reading Buying In, I attended the Nokia OpenLab in Helsinki and saw in action a lot of what I read in Buying In. There were those who were Nokia mavens as well as those who have built businesses around Nokia products. Even Nokia has gotten into this by buying all of the Symbian operating system that powers their phones and turning it over to a non-profit foundation, open-sourcing it for all to develop on and extend. Where some may see this as a lack of control, Nokia doesn’t, and has profited well from this.

There are many other studies and examples in Buying In that get you thinking a lot about what you buy and why or what you sell and how. I highly recommend it to entrepreneurs and business people – large and small – as well as to those interested in why they may have the things they have.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Book Take-Aways • Business • (0) Comments • Permalink