I literally took a page out of my blogging notebook – a blank one – to log what I learned and observed for this the last week of February.

• It almost seemed like for a while I was replacing CFL bulbs almost monthly, like they just weren’t lasting anywhere as long as they were supposed to. As this was a hypothesis, I decided to record the date on them that I I actually changed them, and this past week the first of them went out. Maybe I need to write install dates on a lot more things I own?
• This past week Jim Lange, known best as the host of The Dating Game, left this mortal coil at the age of 81. Interestingly, most of his peers – game show hosts from the 70’s and 80’s – are still alive and kicking, including Wink Martindale.
• Three words – beer pretzel caramels! This past week my lovely wife and I stopped by The Nosh at Block 37 and she saw someone she knows from our old church who now has her own confections business, selling at such events and online. The only problem with these caramels is they seem to disappear pretty quickly.
• Amtrak announced this past week that it was starting a residency for writers to write aboard train trips. I think this is genius, as I personally have written many of the posts here at The Hot Iron aboard the Hiawatha train between Chicago and Milwaukee, and I once took the Metroliner from Boston to Washington, DC and got a ton of reading and work done. The seats they will be offering probably would have gone otherwise unused, so what is the added cost, compared to the benefit, for having someone aboard ideally plugging the fact they are on an Amtrak train. This would also extend nicely to my friend Arie’s HugTrain as well as what my friend Leyla did when she took the train west for vacation.

• The first ingredient listed for Goldfish crackers is smiles. Can your product make a claim like that?
• I find myself making product buying decisions based on whether they have Box Tops for Education on them or not.
• After several months of driving by it while it was under construction, I was eager to see the inside of The Godfrey Hotel here in Chicago and we visited it last weekend. It is a beautiful space with an amazing indoor/outdoor patio with an amazing skyline view, a great restaurant with cocktails that are made in the kitchen, and after a great meal we asked for a tour of the hotel room and got to see some of the very stylish rooms. I am looking forward to a staycation getaway there some weekend.
• Puffs Plus Lotion facial tissues are just right. Puffs Plus Lotion with the scent of Vicks is way too much.
• Words that came up in conversations pronouncedly this past week include eminence and polymath – something I am hoping to achieve high levels of both.
• Seeing is believing, and I learned that when I saw first-hand the craft of Gentry Design Company which makes handcrafted gemstone jewelry. It is run by a colleague’s wife, and when he told me about it I was like, “ok, she makes jewelry” until I saw some of the pieces she has made and I was extremely impressed Of course what I wrote here doesn’t do the same justice as seeing the photos for yourself on her site.
• GiveForward is a Web service based here in Chicago where you can contribute to the medical expenses of people. It can be compared to a KickStarter or IndieGoGo but for quality of life. I met someone who works there and as I don’t know anyone who has a fundraiser on the site I did a quick search on “liver” and saw many real stories of people’s medical needs. If you are looking to make a donation to truly affect someone’s life, I recommend visiting this site.
• I have been trying to write at least 2 blog posts a week – my “what I learned” posts as this one is plus one other. This past week I did write one on the Web service CentUp which offers a unique revenue model for bloggers, writers and publishers while also helping charities. The only problem was the first draft was dry as a bone, and would not do justice to this amazing Chicago-based start-up. Especially one which would make a great video as they did for their IndieGoGo launch last year. So I will work on the blog post for next week and in the meantime you can watch it embedded below or watch the CentUp video on Vimeo.

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

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Last week was an off week for me, with this cough getting the best of me. It is getting better, but my mind was not always aware of things, so my list is not as extensive as last week, but ever unique. I used the back of an envelope for a bill I always pay online to capture my learnings.

• After almost a year of carrying it, someone finally recognized the design on my Discover card is a cassette tape. The guy was my age, and the guy with him had no idea what we were talking about.
• Not everyone knows that a general term for Safari, Firefox or Chrome is “browser” - seriously.
• I learned about trisodium phosphate as an effective cleaner for painted walls. I also learned it is an approved food attitive in the EU.
• Taxi-hailing app Hailo is beta testing a “black car” option for hailing a sedan instead of a standard taxi in its app. I learned this first hand as I was presented with the option last week when hailing a taxi with the app. In the beta period the sedan fare is the same or similar as a taxi. Though it was a short ride, it was a very quiet, comfortable ride, and I am looking forward to this feature going full-out live.
• This study on mobile platforms in South Africa by Deloitte Digital shows the Symbian OS in second place with 26% of the installed base. Not bad for a “burning platform!” Check out the study and see the other numbers which overall are much different than in the US.
• My 2-year old thought February 14 was Halloween, which clearly means she got way too much candy with her Valentine cards.
• When I was living in the Boston area barely a year would go by when I would miss the Hometown Throwdown, a concert series around the holidays by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. They considered it a gift to their fans and hometown, and it was always an awesome show. Now that I am a thousand-plus miles away, I haven’t caught a Throwdown in years, but I did catch this video from this year’s show at the House of Blues in Boston (which wasn’t even there when I last lived there) and some scenes from an event they held at this little old ball field across the street. Check out the video embedded below or view it on YouTube. It made me laugh, it made me dance, and it made me cry a little.

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

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Earlier this week global software giant Microsoft named Satya Nadella as it’s 3rd-ever CEO, succeeding Steve Ballmer, who succeeded Bill Gates. Where the position is highly regarded, and the opportunity is immense, Nadella will have the challenge of defining what Microsoft will be going forward and especially what they won’t be. Some say the company is too big, rooted in its traditional PC and server operating system and software business while trying to be a consumer business with video game consoles and mobile devices.

Where there are many opinions on where the company should be overall, one area I will be watching closely is how it moves forward with mobile technology. Its Windows Phone platform is a distant third after industry leading iOS from Apple and Android from Google. Even a close tie with former mobile industry leader Nokia didn’t prove to be a winning combination, which will be taken to the next level with Microsoft buying Nokia’s mobile division outright.

Can Microsoft be successful at mobile? I believe it can, and if it were up to me, I would follow these 3 major activities to not only succeed at mobile but to thrive and be a contender for the industry lead. Seriously! But as I am not in that role, I will share my ideas here, and Mr. Nadella is free to take them if he chooses. If you’re familiar with the novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, these 3 journeys are similar to those of Scrooge, dealing with the past, present and future.

First Reconnect With Your Corporate Roots

Where many know Microsoft as the people who built DOS and Windows for their PCs, the majority of their business is in running corporate computers and servers, and the additional software and consulting services that go with them. Where in 2014 many companies run Linux servers, for many years CIOs shied away from the open-source platform, relying on the operating systems from Microsoft, warts and all.

As Nadella previously led the cloud computing business at Microsoft, he knows how many corporate clients are moving much of their infrastructure to the cloud. He must also know that for as much as companies are looking to save shedding physical servers, they are now spending some of that on mobile devices, providing smart phones to their staff to keep them in contact and productive wherever they may be.

But have these mobile devices been Windows Phone devices? Some may have been, but there are probably still more BlackBerry devices in the hands of corporate users. And that number is probably dwindling, swinging towards iPhones and Android devices, which can integrate well with corporate email and are also popular platforms for the development of corporate apps, not to mention personal apps and Angry Birds.

In reconnecting with the corporate customers, mobile must be leading the conversation. What exactly is said depends on the following 2 activities in my plan.

Next Throw Money At Mobile Today

Yes, I said throw. Microsoft is well-known for its cash reserves in the billions. Where some of it is held for fighting legal challenges, some has been used for acquisitions, including Nokia’s mobile business. Where I don’t know exactly how much they have as of writing this post, I have heard it is anywhere around $50 to $60 Billion dollars.

So when I say throw, Microsoft needs to use its reserves to spend and better position itself right now in the mobile world, and fast. Over the past few years I witnessed Google do this with Android, going from nowhere to it being the second-largest mobile platform. They spent money on advertising, promotion, and on developers to build apps for Android devices. All of this for what is technically an “open-source” platform as well!

Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system has a unique interface and personally I feel it is more robust than screens full of icons in iOS. Couple this with solid engineering and technology it acquired from Nokia, including it’s high-quality Zeiss lenses for its cameras, and you have a solid device that can be used by anyone. But do they know about it?

For Windows Phone to be successful it needs both marketing and buzz. There are plenty of agencies out there would love the opportunity to really sell the “experience” of Windows Phone, just as or even better than Apple has with the iPhone. For buzz, people need to hear about the features from their friends and family, and here Microsoft can tap into the agency that did this well for Nokia for years, 1000heads, as they are the leaders of word-of-mouth marketing and would love to bring back the raving fans they cultivated for Nokia in the past for Microsoft.

At the end of the day, it is really about what you can do with the mobile device, and what most people use is apps. Here’s an area where Windows Phone is way behind. Most app development is done either just for iOS or for Android, and in some cases is done just for iOS. Windows Phone is usually a distant third, if at all. This is an area where a large chunk of that Microsoft reserve money can come in handy. Both consumer and corporate apps are needed for the platform to thrive. Here is the tie in with the corporate relationships – give money, tools, support, consultants, devices… whatever is needed for corporate clients to build apps for the platform. Help them leverage technology like PhoneGap where they can build apps “once” and port them to each platform (I am streamlining a lot of technical detail, but that is the 50,000 foot view of it).With corporate apps, plus seamless integration with Microsoft Exchange mail servers, you have an employees empowered with a sleek device and all the tools they need to log their hours or whatever it is they need to do.

I did not gloss over consumer apps, as these are direly needed. When it was announced the social photo app Instagram was coming to Windows Phone, it was over a year and a half after it came out for Android. Looking at some of the top apps I use – Starbucks, Hailo taxi, the Weather Channel and MapMyRide for bike ride tracking, only the Weather Channel app is available for Windows Phone. The fact the Starbucks app is not on it is almost shocking, seeing the headquarters of Starbucks is only about 16 miles from the headquarters of Microsoft! And if the large corporate players are not building apps for Windows Phone, neither are the small start-ups. Here Microsoft needs to do what Google did before them and what I am suggesting they do for corporate clients – throw money at it, pay key app developers to port their apps to Windows Phone, hold developer conferences, buy developers free food and beer, give them free devices… all what they need to help bolster the Windows Phone Store so you won’t have to think about what apps are available for the platform, at all and never again.

Define The Future Of Mobile

What will mobile devices look and feel like a few years from now? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? Whatever the answer to the question is, Microsoft should be looking to be the one to answer it, and set the bar high for the rest of the industry to follow.

Hopefully among all of the chaos with Nokia over the last few years they have some of the brilliant hardware and software designers joining them as part of the acquisition to help define this. Where everything Nokia did was not always a top-selling device, they did create some interesting form factors, from fly-out keyboards to round devices to the small thin candy bar device. Today, with the lead from Apple and the close following from everyone else, including Nokia, everything looks like a black slab, and I know personally myself – and many others in the industry – are tired of black slabs! This is an area where Microsoft is not completely known for – amazing user experiences – but they have a start with Windows Phone, have some advances in their gaming devices and – with the right innovative leaders – create what is next, while not forgetting where it came from, as Nadella said in his first remarks as CEO.

No Time Like The Present

Right now is a good time to make moves in the mobile area for Microsoft. Apple is still feeling the loss of Steve Jobs and trying to define its next versions of devices and operating systems, with the last round not receiving the glowing praise it usually does. Google just unloaded Motorola to Lenovo and may be taking a different direction with hardware. Samsung keeps making bigger and bigger and bigger black slabs. And don’t forget BlackBerry, as they are still hanging on and trying to define what their future is while everyone else is digging their grave.

I wish Satya Nadella much luck and good fortune as he takes the helm at Microsoft. Having Bill Gates step down as Chairman and simply being an advisor was a great first move by Nadella. There is a lot to sort out and a lot to prioritize, but I personally see great opportunity with mobile, and Redmond taking the reins from Cupertino is not completely out of the question.

Go ahead – let me know what you think in the comments to this post.

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

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Though a day late, hopefully you will find useful at least 1 thing I learned this past week, as collected on the back of a flyer for VHS to DVD media conversion.

• Though every media outlet and their grandmother in the Windy City reported on the demise of Chicago Grid by Wrapports, the publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, nobody has noticed the Grid Web site is still up-and-running, at least in part. I only found this out as I was still subscribed to their RSS feed, and after several days a daily summary was again appearing. Though I shared this several times this past week with media outlets in the city via Twitter, nobody else seems to be talking about the ghost RSS feed or seems to care.
• If you read any book, especially children’s stories, through the lens of the late Dr. Sigmund Freud, you will never read one the same way again, or may not want to read one at all.
• When you use a service on a daily basis and never even think twice about its quality or reliability, that is not a good thing, that is a great thing. It also probably explains why I haven’t blogged about my great experience with Phone.com over the almost year I have been with them for my home phone service. I need to do something about that.
• Beverly Hills, California got its name from Beverly, Massachusetts, namely its Beverly Farms section. Now I have been to both communities, and I couldn’t think of any 2 places that could be further opposites of each other.
• When I tell people I am from Massachusetts, the next thing they say is that I don’t have a Boston accent. When I go onto explain to them my roots are in the western part of the state, where they use all 26 letters of the alphabet and put them in the right place. For as many times as I state that, it really doesn’t resonate with people, so I thought I’d let the good Dr. Westchesterson explain it better than I possibly could with his video Western Mass. – it is embedded below or watch it on YouTube. I can’t think of a better way to end one month and begin another!

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

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So I got me some of those MOO MiniCards.

When it comes to business cards, some people always carry and offer them, others feel it’s 2014 so we should just digitally connect only, and probably the majority of the people out there are indifferent to them. As someone who is of the first group, I try to always carry cards with me, as you never know who you will connect with and where.

As the name goes, they are business cards, and those cards are all, well, business. It has my business title, phone, email, etc. It doesn’t list my blog, my Twitter account, or have other identifying information about me, personally. So if I meet someone personally and want them to reach me personally – or the converse for business – shouldn’t I have separate cards for that?

That was my thinking when I ordered MOO MiniCards. Now these slim cards – which measure 2.75” x 1.10” (or 70mm x 28mm) – are nothing new, and I began getting them from people as far back as 2008, and maybe even earlier. I felt these cards would be perfect to share the basic info I want to offer to someone, as well as the best identifying information about me, my face. Someone doesn’t need my home address when they first meet me, and if they want to send me a Christmas card, they have my email address to ask me for it. I also thought it would be a good idea to get MOO cards before I turned 50.

In the past I used to carry personal business cards, even before the days of free business cards from the likes of VistaPrint came along. But that was also in the 1990’s, when texting someone your contact information was not an option, for most likely the person you met didn’t have a cellular phone.

For full-color, good stock cards MOO MiniCards are affordable. You can get 200 cards, full-color and double-sided printing, for under US$40. I also chose the optional rounded corners. You design and order the cards through their easy-to-use Web site at moo.com. Of course you can find an online coupon code or get on their email list for specials. They sent me a coupon code with my order – 2RB2CK – for 15% off. I don’t get anything if you order, that is unless you give me one of your cards.

So did I convince you to also get MOO MiniCards? Do you already have them? Do you think they are not worth it, or are you indifferent? I welcome your thoughts in the comments to this post.

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

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