Digital Living

Amazing! This Digital Screen Could Be Folded Like Paper!!

It is amazing to see the form factor, dimension and capability of latest digital screen that Sony produced and reveal to public just recently:

Oh My GOD, can you believe that this ultra-thin, plastis, foldable object is actually a screen???

It is so magical.

People say that this "foldable screen" is made of organic plasma, which is being encapsulated in foldable plastic film. By design it is extremely "paper thin"! People can fold it and carry it around very lightly.

Here's a video that shows that:

Purely magical!

Imagine what would happen if one day this "foldable screen" also become so "affordable" in price, and so "connectable" to the internet.

1. More and more people would eventually more prefer to carry this "foldable digital paper" around,   instead of carrying physical paper anymore, because this digital paper can stream and browse information direct from the net.
2. We no longer need to carry "stack of paper", because everything is now available from the internet's digital realm.
3. Our computer would become thinner and more flexible, and we can fold this "computer" to make it easy to carry around. Then we can "unfold it" quickly when we want to start work at anytime.
4. Eventually we might be able to "write" on top of this "digital paper" computer, and send the result to the net to be stored and saved. We no longer need to carry our today's "thicker, luggable notebook computer" around anymore, because eventually our "digital paper" has become the "computer".

Imagine how a great amazing future it would be!

Through this "digital paper", everything that we want to do suddenly probably could be done more intuitively, more ergonomically, more flexible, powerful and easy than we could done it before.

Everything back become "as easy as paper" once more. The difference is that we are all now doing it "all again" through the new "digital realm" that is made possible by this cute little powerful "magical paper".

Wonderful!

ps:

• Some more information about this "foldable technology" current research state, and its future development, can be found here.
• Also do take a look here to see the latest state about this technology's reincarnation and development.

Wall Computing Is "Coming Soon"...

A new exciting form factor for interaction design might emerge soon in the marketplace. It's called "surface computing" -- or if I would rather prefer to call it: "Wall Computing".

With "wall computing" the impact and potential of information and technology to surround, influence and enhance our interaction and everyday living would be even higher.

Imagine at anytime during the day we can turn our "wall" into a "screen" and can immediately talk, video chat, conference and interact each other through this "wall" with no hassle.

Being able to do such would be truly awesome.

You might say, but that's just like the "Web TV" thing that we talked about a few days back. You probably right. Yet now imagine what would happen if -- instead of just being able to "read, chat and interact" through this wall -- we could also writing on top of those "walls", and -- as we write on top -- the "wall" smartly, seamlessly and interactively send the data/image across?

Such would bring computing and interactivity design into a whole new package of "great experiences", in ways that we never seen (nor never experienced) before!

People would then be able to wake up everyday in their home, go to their wall to check their morning "journal" (on their wall), and immediately save, tag, comment, annotate, jot down and respond to that piece of news and information online, right through their "wall", right ON TOP of their "wall" !!!

When such "wall computing" capability happen, our digital world will reach its greatest potential. That's the time when the power of the web magnificently combined with the potential of the interaction device that we can leverage and use, everyday.

Through that our daily living and working chore would never be the same again. It will improve significantly so much, for the better.

I can not wait to see it happen ... (and/or to participate to make it happening too). :-)

This TV Has A Browser Built In!

This might be a beginning of something important in the future:

A new generation of TV (from Sharp) now has a browser built-in. The announcement said that this device had a LAN connectivity and a built-in browser, hence at anytime we would like to switch from "viewing" mode to "browsing" mode, we can do that without having to switch to our computer.

I wonder whether this means that with this "Browser TV" we would be able to run YouTube also or not. If we can, then it will be really great. We then can start to experience "personalized TV" on our "everyday TV"!. For example:

• We can turn on our "daily TV" everyday for "normal mass-aired-program", but when stuff start to get boring, we can switch to our own "personalized" TV (for example by turning on YouTube, and other personalized web stuff), and enjoy our own personalized channel broadcast and programming.

• When we saw something interesting about product, or event that is currently happening, we can then turn on the "browser mode" as well, hence we can start to see various related information about that subject -- news, information, pdf, presentation, youtube, blogs, people commentary, etc -- right on the same screen, on our TV!!! Even we can chat with our friends live about that subject (that we saw on TV) and hear their opinions about it ... around the world!!

• May be someday we can also "tag" this TV? For example, when we saw a great program, product or advertisement, we can "tag" that content, store it as a "bookmark" in our browser, and then forward it to our friend as recommendation. We can say: "John, do take a look at this product and program, it looks fun!". Or we can also say: "Have you seen the new spiderman movie, I saw the advertising and video clip recently here". (And then the TV will display the video clip on when people click on the "here" link).

This brings personalized content richness and bi-directional interaction capabilities of the web, with the powerful event trigger capabilities of the "traditional mass TV" together.

• Such will have great influence on how we (consumers) consume media, and how branding, marketing and TV-programming would be done in the future.

• Such also will bring new tremendous power we never seen possible before, and open up totally new possibilities of how we (mass consumer) would see, think, feel, and experience TV in the future.

I guess it's a start of many more great "social interactivity design" and "personalized media consumption" things to come.

What a fascinating possibilities!!

Google Is No Longer "Just A Software" Company!

Google expenditure for hardware (a.k.a massive data center) increase -- this quarter -- to an all time high of $800 milllion.

Indeed, since the very beginning, Google is not just a software company. Every internet business will rely on its ability to do both great software and massive scale hardware (a.k.a "infrastructure") combined.

But the recent massive transformation at Google really shows that it tries to become not just a vertically integrated internet software+hardware company, but also a horizontal internet software infrastructure company, AND a horizontal internet infrastructure company, at the same time.

• Would this increase in infrastructure spending mark Google's aspiration (and transformation) to become  the greatest massive computer provider of the world?.

• Would it mark Google's most significant transformation  to become the giant infrastructure provider of "cloud computing" around the world where every single transaction that happen (in the world) eventually will be related with Google's massive cloud-computing infrastructure?

• Would this initiative eventually become Google's next biggeest revenue stream? Something that is eventually becoming larger and more continuous than its current per-click advertising revenue?

• Would this strategic investment bring the NEXT strategic position for Google in the web internet market, something that can bring it future returns that would be even better than what it had today ??

We shall see.

Palm Is Back ??

While everybody is getting excited about the iPhone, in the market Palm seems to make a come back. Since its introduction of its Palm Centro series in September last year, the company today has reached 1 million sales mark with this product.

This is wonderful. With palm software simplicity (especially compared to the Windows mobile complex and confusing menu structure), and great pricing point of $99, this is really an alternative internet-phone to go.

My guess is the mobile-internet world market is going to be even more exciting pretty soon. Consumers will soon see various generations of internet-ready mobile devices from Apple (iPhone/iTouch series), HTC (Windows Touch series), Palm (Centro series), and probably Samsung (Android series).

The symbian group of companies will have to prepare a solid response to this, I guess. If not, then the next exciting battle of mobile computing will be lost.

For all these handset/mobile OS/mobile infrastructure provider, key element to win -- or at least -- survive in the upcoming internet-mobile competition would be:

• Can they provide powerful yet simple and appealing mobile user interface and user experience?
• Can they provide powerful and complete mobile internet computing infrastructure?
• Can they provide powerful, seamless and easy to use mobile computing API? (online & offline mode)
• Can they provide powerful, complete and easy to use multimedia content repository?

These are the essential ingredients required to survive.

• iPhone seems definitely ready for that. Their touch interface and software interface -- not to mention their superior hardware clamsell -- is superb.

• HTC touch seem to have a great start. Although -- again and again the lauzy (and complicated) Windows Mobile infrastructure beneath it is really a pain to embrace.

• Palm seem to have a chance, but its overall "old looking" GUI approach probably need to be beefed up a bit so it resonate more fresh modern interface. (The current interface can provide complete functionality, but it really feel like using simple applications of the "80s").

• Symbian has some interesting interface, but overall its  complicated SDK and C programming interface might shy away developers from them -- if they can not fix these soon. Their current 'best" bet today (while initiating major transition to their SDK structure), probably is to rely on the web as their greatest mobile computing interface!

• Android seem to be a great potential contender to Apple iPhone. But this remain to be seen. When Samsung and the Korean manufacturer come up with a great, workable model for this, there are a lot of reason why the Symbian manufacturer has great reason to be afraid.

Overall, there would be great battle ahead. While everybody is now getting totally excited with "touch-based" interfaces, my guess in the future is this: the one that can provide the most seamless pen + softkeyboard + touch interface is the one that's gonna win.

Why do I say so?

I think it's simply because, as we use and live the internet everyday, there would be more and more activities that we would like to do with it. Consequently:

• We are not just gonna browse on something (where touch interface is best for browsing), but we are also going to annotate and/or write something on it (whereby the pen and type interface is the best for it).

• We are not just gonna take snapshot on something (where touch interface is best for example for photo taking and photo manipulation), we are also going to comment and put granular effect detail on it (whereby the pen and the typing interface is probably still the best for it -- after all pen is more adequate for precisise operation than our "larger size" finger).

It is fascinating to see how the future of mobile computing would be. If Palm can build again on their recent "come back" success with their Palm Centro, and can beef up again their UI and leverage the strength of their pen-computing interface and infrastructure, then the future would become even more interesting.

Today Palm is commanding 1 million unit sales (since the first launch and introduction of Centro in September 2007), HTC Touch is  reaching 2 million unit sales (really not bad for a clunkier Windows OS at the bottom), and iPhone is reaching 4 million unit sales (which is truly perfet).

But the future is remain to be seen, if Palm can leverage on their "long historical rooot" (seamless - easy to use user interface, great pen-computing interface, low-price Zire computing infrastructure) and can best fit it again for the future, the market might be heading forward for a very very exciting future.

As for Palm devices that is using those clunky Windows OS? Oh forget it! Why putting complexities inside (once) a great device, if your own OS will do better?

The era for Windows mobile -- if Windows mobile still keep it's current tangling interface and really messy mobile computing infrastructure -- is over. Or at least almost over, if the camp at Microsoft is still not majorly prepare, evaluate and change for the next long future.

I really doubt and eager to see whether the slower, stubborn-ner, and "dumber" Ballmerian-style Microsoft would be able to do that. I mean, Microsoft under Mr. Ballmer is nothing but just an "uglier photo-copy machine" of what others do.

I mean, Microsoft was just simply so busy "copying" the MacOS X GUI concept, copy the Adobe Air concept, copy the touch concept (and rename it a bit) ...

Has the beast of Redmon really lost its innovatie soul?

The next computing era (mobile, desktop and hybrid) I guess is poised for the most innovative contender; not the most "photocopy-capable" one.

We'll see together how the "future" upcoming computing landscape could be. Mobile computing is definitely the "next computing" scheme that would be embraced by EVERYBODY.

March 26 - "Document Freedom Day" -- Why It's Important??

March 26, 2008 marks the birth of the first document freedom day initiatives around the world. Many people may not have heard about document freedom day before, and ask probably "What is the significance of this for me and how it impact my daily activity?".

Here are example of some important facts that perhaps would help us getting aware and understand how "document freedom" initiative is an important concept for our future and how how it is actually one of the most important major issue facing our modern digital living society today.

• Still remember the problem when we can not read nor access important document that we create sometime in the past, because the application program that we used to create that document (in the past) is no longer available? What we can do about it? nothing!

• Still remember how bad it was when -- after trying so hard to find the old program, the document still can not be read because the operatingsystem no longer support that program?

• Still remember how bad it was when -- after trying so hard to find the latest version of that program -- the document seem can not be read because the latest program does not support the old document format anymore, because this document format is already "too old"?
  

These are examples of context of problem that the world society face today, which never get solved accordingly, which the document freedom day initiative try to resolve and address due to its significant importance for world society as a whole.

In essence, the core basic idea of document freedom day initiative is to raise awareness of people, public, business, organization and society as a whole about the importance of carefully (and smartly) considering the document format that we use to store our digital document, so we can avoid MAJOR problem  of  "critical document inaccessibility" (such as the one we described in above example) from happening anymore.

To "free our document" from such terrible-destiny on a world-scale basis, the core idea of the initiative is this:

• Document format shall be open, and equally accessible to everybody, instead of being locked to one vendor or proprietary format provider.
  
  • The core problem with "document format" is that many of document format that we use today is too tightly integrated with the application program that creates it.
• This means, for example: if we use format X, we need application X to edit, read and modify it, if we use format Y, we need application Y to edit, read and modify it.
• Under such monolitic, "proprietary" structure, the content and document format belongs to the application, instead of belong the public and society that suppose to own it.
• The consequences of this:
  • When the application no longer available, the document suddenly also "vanish" without reason.
  • When the application is available, but not accessible from where the owner of the document would like to read, edit, modify or access the document, then for that particular moment, the document become "locked"  and "temporarily" not accessible from its owner.
• Document format shall be freed from the tool nor application that we use to create it in the first place.
  • This means we can create the document using application X, but later on we can always access it, or edit it further using application Y, or Z, because all equally recognize and understand the open document format standard.
  • This concept is not much different from internet content and browser we use today. For any information on the internet, we can use any browser to read it, despite the application or program that was being used to create the website itself.
  • Even, if no program is available at our disposal, we shall be able to use our basic browser to access and read the document!

If we can do above vision, then the whole world knowledge and information can be stored in a secure, safe format, because through that format everybody can now create document with whatever tool and technology that available to them at particular time, and sometime later in the future, the same document can be edited, read and accessed again from a totally different tool that is available at that particular time in the future.

This is the ideal situation that is aimed to be happening, which will "free" the document from its proprietary boundary that annoyingly exist as of today.

• If eventually we -- and world society -- eventually can understand the concept, and start smartly  (and carefully) choose the document format that we use to store our digital document and information, then we -- the world society -- would have access to the powerful power and flexibility that open document format can provide.

• Yet at the same time, if we don't do anything to change our current condition, many of our world knowledge and information will be "lost" simply because we can not access, read nor edit it anymore.

With that perspective, supporting the noble idea behind document freedom day initiative, by adopting, spreading the importance of embracing the world's open document format (ODF) and standard becomes important.

By doing so,the world document and information is now has a chance to be freed from any proprietary format nor unnecessary boundary that surrounds it today.

Further information about the vision and "extended future capability" that open document format might be able to provide is as follow:

• Document Can Be Read, Edit And Accessed "Forever" Form Any Tool And Device That We Had, Because From Day 1 The Format Has Been Designed To Be Future Ready.

• No longer document format tightly dependent on any proprietary program that creates it.
• Now we can compose document with any tool we like, and we can use different program to read it, or even to edit it further.

• Document Can Easily (And Friendly-ly) Be Made Exportable To Any Other Popular/Important Format, As We Wish It To be.

• Translation to Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls) or adobe (pdf) or other popular format that we need is no problem.
• Yet at the same time the original document itself still can be edited and read using any tool that we like (or have accessible to us at particular time), at anytime.

• Our Document Can Be Easily Made Accessible & Transportable Everywhere (Soon/Sometime In The Future).

• Transporting documents to any kind of devices, whether it is a Mac or a PC, a computer or a PDA, shall be easy.
• We can use different application and program to edit, access and modify our document.
• Even if we don't have the program that we need, we can use our browser to read the document.

• We No Longer Need To Pirate Legal Software, Because The Open Document Application And Program Is Free.

• Document can be created with high quality -- yet using free wordprocessing or spreadsheet tool, or office program of our choice.
• This way we don't have to pirate office software anymore.

In summary:

• Document freedom initiatives brings the power and control of our document back to the consumer, who is actually content creator and owner of the document who should have the full right to have access to the future of the document lifecycle.
• With Open Document Format, it is now us -- the content owner and content creator -- that can decide what tool we would like to use to create, read and access our documents, rather than a few vendor that dictate what tool we can use, and we can do (and can not do) with our own digital document that we create today, in the past, and in the future.

• Through document freedom initiatives, now we as consumer have our freedom back to freely choose any tool, program to create our document.
• We also now have have our freedom back to access and read our document without being trapped nor limited by any proprietary application tool, application format or standard.

• Document freedom initiatives makes the world one step better because the container for our information now no longer limited by document-format barriers nor application-tool boundary that makes the document so difficult to be exchanged from one person to another, and from one device to another.

• Document freedom initiatives brings back open-democratic mechanism that  enables world innovation and world creativity to flourish once more, because the mechanism of storing, editing, viewing and processing documents now again back become fully accessible to everybody and the most creative and dedicated individual for that matter. 

Through document freedom initiatives, everybody can now help and contribute various thinking, idea and continuous innovation to world's most open document format. The human digital container for knowledge, work activity and work result become continuously better as the result.

It is because of that idea, great perspective and honorable spirit that no matter what, for the good of information access and information control of greater world society today and the future, supporting open document format (ODF) and various associated initiatives that relates with it (OpenOffice.org, Document Freedom Day, etc) is a "must".

Happy ODF-ing! Happy "Document Freedom Day" too!

My Favorite Branding & Marketing Subject

How is branding and marketing differ in today's digital new age, compared to few years back?

What works, what doesn't work, how to differentiate the "fad approach" from the "workable ones"?

How do you measure success, and return on brand-investment?

Here are some of my favorite slides regarding the subject:

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Is This How The "Upcoming" MacBook Touch Will Look Like ??

See below "mockup" of a "MacBook Touch" computer, and allow yourself to be impressed by its sense of design freshness, originality, and creativity.

The "wow factor" of the design emphasis on the "core idea" that a "flip cover" approach is a good basis to create of super thin and super-intuitive-to-use Tablet computer. Through this "flip cover" approach, the device could seamlessly transformed from a normal computer into a great Tablet, intuitively, quickly and very easily.

It is amazing to see how this "simple-yet-surprising" perspective and approach, changes almost everything:

• It makes the process of "transforming" the computer from "notebook-mode" to "tablet-mode" (and vice versa) very simple, intuitive and easy.
• It makes the number of step required to do such transformation (from notebook to tablet-mode and vice versa) very few, especially if compared to the "rotate the keyboard" approach that many player in the industry took.

This genuine (and ground-breaking) design approach makes the "old" concept of Tablet PC "fresh" again. It comes with excellent WOW factor that we never thought before.

The most amazing thing is:

• Once people seen it (or hear about it), such approach (and solution) seems to be the most "OBVIOUS" approach and most "obvious" solution. May be this is what we called "intuitive"-ness of the design approach. And the "natural" experience that such interaction design approach produce.

• Since it is so "obvious", sometimes people then start to wonder why other people (and the  rest of the industry) not thinking about that, nor doing that in the past -- in the first place.

Ingenuity and creativity may be is not a commodity that is applicable to everybody.

Nevertheless, although we might get excited with the glimpsed of this great idea, it is still remain to be seen whether this approach will work perfectly when transformed into actual product or not.

Some technical "problem"  might still remain, before the overall concept and idea can be successfully implemented. Each "problem" will require its own "innovative" solution as well. Hence creating a perpetual chain of innovation attempt.

For example:

• The back of the display area will be thicker for sure (as it has to stationed the CPU as well). Because of that, naturally the display would be heavier than the keyboard/body part itself.
• As we know, when people use notebook, they usually tilt it in 15-20 degree angle. Now if the monitor is heavier but the body is lighter, there'd be tendency that the computer will flip and fall over.
• We don't know yet how this would be addressed
• This "problem" might require a new "innovative approach" by itself, probably in the way the transparent keyboard (transparent casing) being designed, and in the way the screen joint being designed.

In summary: Although we still have to wait to see how this great concept will be implemented in the future, the overall creativity, ingenuity and fresh-ness of the idea itself already make this design approach something unusual -- which is worthed the time and effort to be dig into more detail.

This design approach once again probably proves that human imagination perhaps indeed has no limit nor boundaries. And that the best innovation companies seem to always know how to nurture, give birth to it, and how to start practicing it at best!

That's probably what makes Apple (and Sony in the past -- during the "Walkman" reign of their great founders: Akio Morita & Masaru Ibuka -- and long before that since Sony was born) so much different!

ps:

1. To read our previous prediction and discussion about how -- after successfully creating the super-thin MacBook Air -- Apple might soon be in a very good position to come up with a successful Tablet computer, pls. click here.
2. To see more picture and information about the conceptual design of this magnificent Tablet, click here.

Silverlight "SPAM-AD"

Why Microsoft Try To Make Silverlight Popular By "Forcing" People To Download???

I don't know whether we should call this "forcing" people to download, or -- to be more polite -- shall we phrasing it as "encouraging" people to download. But if recently you to go Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com), you will be surprised to be "greeted" by the following "annoying banner ad":

Since when business-website being transformed to become such an annoying pop-up-banner ad?.

In our daily digital living space, we are already being "annoyed" by spam and stuff that we don't want, which keep coming at us -- everyday. Microsoft itself is aware such condition and situation, and  is always among the companies that is busy and  actively promoting "anti spam" software,  and anti annoying-pop-up-ad software -- to the world. The whole idea is: Microsoft understand that people (and society as a whole) "hate" getting message that they don't want from the net, no matter how "good" the intention of those "spam" nor "popup" messages would be.

Seth Godin phrase this "permission marketing". Companies shall only  contact and send information to their customers -- through the web, and/or through other channel -- IF their customer already agree for such information to be send to them. ONLY if they allow the company to do such to them.

And yet now somebody out-there start doing this???

Notice how this kind of new "monsterous" banner ad is being made "so smart". It resides on the most popular web-address that people usually come, once the address is chosen it "pops-up" a display dialog, it says "many good things" about the product, ask the customer if they want this, provides a big OK button, YET makes the NO button so small, located in scattered place ... and so difficult to find!, so unless you really look for "NO" very very carefully, the only button that you see is "Click Here To Install"!.

This might seem "smart" initially. But are WE loosing our sense of self respect here, just because companies nowadays suddenly know they can do "just anything" to make their "strategic" product desperately popular??

What is the difference between this kind of "ad" with the spam that populates our email, or pop-up add that clutter our browser??

• Previously our email contains spam ...
• Then our web-browser cluttered by pop-up add ...
• Now our web-sites contains "SPAM-AD" ????

Some "smart" people at Microsoft -- or whoever junkies who come up with this idea -- may be think that this a very innovative brilliant idea to pursue. It will put the product strategically in the marketplace.

But come to think about it carefully:

Do we really want this to be the "standard way" every website operate??

Can we imagine what would happen, if Google do the same thing and approach, and now each time we type "google.com" then google will say: "welcome, have you seen our toyota ad before? no? well would you want to see one? you don't want to? well sorry, we don't provide a "no" button for that? so just click the big button that we provide and enjoy your toyota ad, ... anyway it will make your google experience better"???!!!

Can we imagine how catasthropic our internet experience would become if every popular website around the world done that?

Would Microsoft -- through this approach -- gives the business community a "good" example of how "new kind of spam" can be created??

Should not we then create an "anti-spam" community for that? Ban the website??

Of all things surprising about Microsoft lately, perhaps this is the most surprising "change at heart" that I ever seen ever happen at Microsoft.

I mean:

• Microsoft actively provides Email Anti-Spam: "Hey, your email got a lot of spam? we have a CURE for it -- the Microsoft anti-spam -- and our email system is being designed to be specifically smart to handle it you know".
• Microsoft actively provides Browser Anti-Popup-Window Ad: "Hey, your browser got a lot of pop up? we have a CURE for it -- the IE anti pop-up -- and our browser is being designed to be specifically smart to handle it you know".

yet, ALSO in the words of Microsoft:

• You want to see our www.microsoft.com website? We'll SPAM you first BEFORE you can see it.

Has something major changes lately within Microsoft's heart?

• Has business ethics, and respect for society wellfare and others gone in the market, in the pursue of "greater domination" and nothing else but greater domination"?

• Had we forgotten the "small little stuff" that makes Microsoft so great and loveable in the past for the sake of "Microsot have to pursue the next strategic domination for the sake of domination"?

• Have we lost our senses of how inconvenient our internet experience would be, if every websites turning to become an "oily salesman" pitch service like that, rather than a great "personalized social service" we always love it to be?

Microsoft Silverlight promotion (and distribution) approach might mark one of the latest "ugly" development milestone of how the "ugly" internet could be.

Strong pursue for domination, competitiveness and differentiation is indeed important. It is a strong value system that every business must show. But in the execustion of such spirit, probably "heart" should still be a "guiding light" of what's right and what's wrong. Business at all time, perhaps shall continue remember that no matter what, ethics and to always try to do goods for society is one key essential essence that shall never be forgotten, no matter what.

That's what "traditionally" differentiates good business from the bad one. That's what "traditionally" differentiate "the tiny Microsoft" in the past from the rest of the big ones.

Remembering the 80s and the 90s, Microsoft -- after all -- was a indeed really good and indeed a really great company to be, and to be in love with.

Fast forwarding into today, Microsoft example with their "Silverlight spam-ad" is definitely not a good example of what the internet today nor internet in the future could be. (Internet as a a source of spam ad ?? What an idea!!).

DO NO EVIL, after all perhaps is still one the best (and most important) business mantra -- and business principle -- of all. It is the seed of the many key "little something" that differentiate companies that is  BIG in size and yet really BIG at HEART as well, or company that is SMALL in size-- but BIG at HEART -- from companies that is actually is BIG in size -- but sadly  PUNY at HEART.

Looking at the whole thing in retrospect, some level of re-consciousness might be required within Microsoft camp to see itself back that Microsoft was indeed (and is and could still be) a good, great, BIG HEART company it once was.

It is still not too late for Microsoft to consciously take that BIG HEART approach, and do a LITTLE THING that produce a BIG impact for the whole internet community and the future of the internet as a whole: TAKE OUT that annoying LITTLE ad of the Microsoft site! It is not just dampen Microsoft image as a whole, contradict it to what Microsoft core kind heart was; even worse: it is also "polluting" the internet for the worse.

In all contrary, at least the NO button should be equally easy to find and as easy to locate as the OK button. Even better: to  take that spam-banner-ad approach entirely out!.

We sincerely hope that common care, politeness, humbleness, yet the same aggressiveness is back again emerge in the heart of every Microsoft act. Without that, the "king" seem has just lost its "clothes" that once upon a time makes it really a great and a truly "loveable" dream-"young prince" of everybody in its community.

"Just Talk" Technology: Who Say We Have To Type-In (If We Want To Put Our Comment On The Web) ??

In the past, to put our comment on some documents or material on the web, the only way to do it is to type our comments in.

But today's technology brings new exciting possibility: instead of forcing people to "type-in", it is now allowing us to "just simply talk" to add our comment to the web.

Take a look at how amazon.com did it:

Isn't it amazing??

Now if we translate that into business context:

• Imagine we have a customer that have question or complaint regarding our company's product or service.

• With this "just talk" technology in place, we can do the following:

1. We can allow the customer can go to the website that the company provide.
2. The customer can video recording their comment, question or complaint.
3. They can "just talk" (and describe context and detail of their problem -- or expectation).
4. Once recording finish, they can review it.
5. Then they can submit.
6. The contact center agent and the case manager staff will receive it.
7. They can "read" it and understand it quickly
8. They can probably solve/process it faster. (Because everybody has the same understanding about the problem that the customer mean).

• This approach have several advantages:

1. Now the customer can do all these activities more conveniently -- as they now no longer have to queue for a long time, nor having to type in their information (which is far less convenient than if they can "just simply talking").
2. The person handling the case can now "see" how the problem looks like more clearly, hence can advise solution to solve it more quickly too.

Such could be the wave of the future. As our internet increasingly become a "powerful streaming internet", this kind of "streaming" solution become a very natural for all of us. Such approach will fit naturally into our new daily living activity. It will redefine customer service excellence and customer convenience expectation to a new higher level the world never seen before.

Most importantly: it probably can change the world for the better.