The Personal MBA

This is an interesting project I ran into at ChangeThis. The idea is studying MBA type curriculum on your own using proven business books. It's a really cool idea for anyone truly interested in getting good knowledge, no degree attached, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper.

If you are a voracious reader and want to increase you're knowledge of business take a look at it. I'm reading the books and contributing to the discussion group online. They are also looking to get a LinkedIn group going to help network like minded members, and they have a neat discussion method started using wiki technology at www.personalmba.com/wiki/

Look forward to learning with some of you.

-Tyler

Johnny Cash

I recently saw the new trailer for The Shield, which is a TV show on FX that I really enjoy. It includes a bunch of clips set to Johnny Cash's version of hurt. This song is amazing anyway you see it, but seeing this powerful visual medium use the song reminded me of a SPIN article I read recently.

"It's about the difference between a man at the beginning of his life and at the end of his life. In the video, that mortality is so visible, and the layers of regret are exponential. Johnny regretted the drugs and alcohol, that his life was shortened because of them. During filming, I said to him, 'John, this is the last take in the dining room, so if you want to sweep the dishes off the table onto the floor or something, you can.' So he poured out a glass of wine. When his family saw the video, they wept." - Mark Romanek (Director)

The statement Cash is making there is incredibly powerful. I remember being blown away when I first read that. So as I listened to hurt I decided to find a link to the video and share this with all of you.

Johnny Cash was an amazing man, and while not a lot of people would guess I listen to his music, I find a lot of great material in what he has put out. If you haven't heard his music, give it a listen, I almost guarantee you can find something you like in it.

Expletive Power

PNO has really begun to take off and in a long letter written to some of my friends and family recently I explained all my motivations and efforts in significant detail. The replies have started to come in. I've noticed a few trends in those replies I've gotten so far. One is that they are positive and include praise; the other is that from the younger recipients I seem to inspire lots of expletives. The first trend shows me that any true passion about improving the social sector is inspiring to people, and I hope some of those recipients will jump into the fray and do a little good. In a ChangeThis manifesto I read yesterday the author discussed "checking the cosmic do-some-good box twice a year and then returning to thinking about ourselves," I hope we can migrate from this way of thinking and instead do some small acts of kindness on a more routine basis, small amounts of persistence rules over larger fits and spurts any day, the tortoise and the hare comes to mind. I would like to spend a little time analyzing the second trend as it has to do with social language patterns, which interest me quite a bit.

Here are two excerpts from emails I have received

"d****t Tyler!! I knew you had it in you! I'm so f***ing proud of you and your motivation to start this project.... I hope to see you [soon]."

"You f***ing inspire me."

These were amazingly powerful for me to read. To my knowledge I've never inspired anyone before, let alone inspired them enough to feel that the sentence needs more power then already there. Both of these emails came from people I count as good people and great friends. Once I realized I was taking a lot of pride from these emails I chastised myself for it and then got to thinking.

As someone who swears on occasion I think from time to time on how it affects how people view me. There is no question that expletives offer a great deal of power in everyday language. I've heard that using language like that indicates possessing a weak enough vocabulary that you can't express exactly what you want to indicate ("swearing or cursing is a substitute for a good vocabulary." -Wayne Willis).

It's my personal opinion that this is partly malarkey. While an impressive vocabulary does help you express your exact ideas, sometimes a "forbidden" word carries power that is not impossible to replicate with any vocabulary. I try not to curse but I understand that there are rare occasions when using expletives is permissible, even perhaps necessary, when you are dealing with people you know will not be offended; it can make a powerful statement even more so. Although when using expletives to express anger or disappointment, one would do well to study the quick wit of Winston Churchill instead of relying on a four letter word.

No matter what the case is here, I appreciate all the emails, and I appreciate that you have indicated such a strong feeling.

-Tyler Willis

Murtha Calls for Immediate Withdrawl

Well I woke up this morning (ok really late in the morning) and flipped on the TV. Quite the hubbub was going on re: the speech that called for "immediate redeployment of troops in Iraq." I bit; I hung around for 15 minutes until John Murtha (D-Penn) came on and delivered a mediocre speech calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq of all but a [mobile strike force] that could quickly deploy against necessary threats. World orator awards aside, I have some really significant problems with this speech.

Should we be in Iraq? I'm not sure, I wasn't politically active enough to know whether we were right or wrong, but I supported it at the time. Here's what it boils down to, we're there. Hindsight's 20/20, so please stop assaulting me with wishy-washy crap. I supported the war, and I support finishing it in a manner that makes up for the complete incompetence we have carried ourselves with so far. I have lots of respect for those who have been against this since day 1 and still want us out of it. Politicians who hop on the bandwagon depending on public opinion garner no respect from me. Murtha was a longtime Marine, and seems to be an honorable man. I believe he is being truthful in his request to withdraw from Iraq, but I don't think he would have the guts to give that speech if public opinion weren't in his favor. He said the American public is light years ahead of the government, but he forgot to add "and I'm going to be the first to capitalize off it."

John Murtha, if you are going to blindly follow Public Opinion and not offer creative ideas, get a public-speaking coach and a better speech writer.

Now with my knee-jerk anger out, let me address the "plan" offered by Murtha. It's not great, but it did give me an idea on how exactly to approach the situation. He mentioned massive majority amounts of Iraqi's not supporting our presence there. So here's the deal, if Iraqi's don't support our troops we aren't going to do anything of merit, and have Lt. John Murphy walking around M16 in hand probably isn't going to inspire him to our cause. We can win bodies easily, but we need to win hearts and minds. Why don't we prove our commitment to Democracy? Put an issue on the Ballet. "Do you want American forces to remain in the country to help deter those against the peace process?" Give local leaders 8 months to campaign and change minds. Vote on the issue. If we lose, pack up and leave. Come back once every year for 5 years, and ask the people if they would like us to return or if they feel they are getting along fine without us. We can write in exceptions for a small force, or intelligence centers, or whatever we "need" but we should leave if a majority of Iraqi's ask us to, make it 2/3 majority required if your worried about corruption, or other issues that could skew the vote. According to Murtha, 80% of Iraqi's want us out anyway. We can't institute democracy if 2/3 of the people don't want us, we are wasting everyone's time, money, and lives.

So let's put our faith in Democracy, we shouldn't be there to support our own selfish interests, we should support what Iraqi's want and try our best to help them achieve a good result for their people. I think we owe them that after what we've put them through. Why don't we stop thinking about ourselves for 10 minutes and do what's best for the Iraqi people.

Update: Here is the text of the speech.

The Wireless Battleground

So my RSS aggregator is chock full off 2 weeks of mobiledia news about all the latest and greatest wireless handsets. After reading the Q3 numbers it got me to thinking how the 4 major companies (accounting for 78% market share between them) would compete with each other in Q4 and 2006. So I’m taking this opportunity to make a few predictions along with recapping some of the more exciting mobiledia revelations. By the way, if you are a Cell Phone geek you should read www.mobiledia.com, most of the trusted news I get about the wireless field comes from them.

As far as Q4 goes there is no doubt in my mind that Motorola will crush the competition. There is only one idea cooler then the RAZR and that’s the ROKR, which includes iTunes on the phone. The music phone idea isn’t being widely accepted yet in the US, but the common reaction to the idea is always favorable. While I was bragging about my new RAZR phone to a friend recently, he immediately responded that he had gotten “the iTunes phone.” I know personally from the position of a wireless snob, I was very jealous. Luckily he was kidding and my ego was returned in tact with only a large bruise when it came to Music phones. Well in Q4 Motorola combines the two with the RAZR V3i (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39386.html) which will put iTunes into the RAZR. This phone will be great. Motorola will also debut the RAZR V3c (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39385.html) which brings the popular design to Verizon’s CDMA technology. This will increase Motorola’s market share in CDMA phones, and deal a direct blow to LG and Samsung. In Q3, LG lead both Motorola and Samsung by 9 percent market share in CDMA handset sales. In Q4, Motorola will top LG and Samsung, claiming number one in both CDMA and GSM sales. They will maintain if not increase the healthy 17% lead over Nokia in GSM markets spurned on by the iTunes RAZR, The new V360 for T-Mobile (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39442.html) , and the new RAZR colors being offered (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39384.html). All these Motorola winners will carry them into 2006 as a powerhouse.

Even as LG loses some of its CDMA market share to Motorola, I see opportunity for Samsung to take even more. Samsung just needs to continue its European innovation in slim phones (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39443.html) in the US market. With fully featured phones under 15mm, LG doesn’t offer much competition. The cool factor is based on functionality and form. With Motorola offering functionality with good form, and Samsung poised to deliver form with decent functionality, things look bad for LG in the near future.

Sony Ericsson is looking to increase its 4% total market share with 3 new low cost handsets (J220a, J230a, and Z300a). Everything about these phones says it’s the free phone you’re going to want to put under the tree for your responsible 13 year old daughter. The very basic features, low cost, heck the Z300a even comes with “Crystal Décor” to decorate the phone with. Everything about this sector of the market makes me recoil in horror, but it does offer a viable customer base, and Sony Ericsson might just have made an incredibly good move here.

Nokia isn’t putting out sweet new handsets that make me drool and praise them here, but they aren’t exactly resting on their laurels either. With the 770 Internet Tablet Debut, successful HSDPA test, and purchase of Intellisync; they are making lots of moves. The 770 and Intellisync acquisition (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39813.html) seem to point to a more mobile computing focused Nokia. I think Nokia will maintain wireless handset market share in the teens as it focuses in other arenas. Partnering with T-Mobile on the HSDPA (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39758.html) will provide dramatically better download speeds and could maneuver them into a more innovative company similar to a current Qualcomm, which is at least kind of ironic since Qualcomm is currently suing Nokia (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39331.html, Nokia’s response can be viewed at http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39329.html).

As far as Providers go I would rather not get far into depth on it. I think Cingular and Verizon will rule the day in Q4. Cingular’s history of innovation (I still remember being jealous of a girlfriend who had “real music” for her ring tones, a Cingular-only service at that time) and Verizon’s level of Customer Care are both great selling points. Verizon has the network, the customer care and now the RAZR, and Cingular has the popularity with the young demographic, and all sorts of cool phones. As far as the future goes, I can’t wait to see what T-Mobile does with the HSDPA.

Targeted Advertising you Might Not Hate!

I really can’t do this one justice, you're going to have to visit the link on this one. According to mobiledia, PromoTel (one of the main companies behind ring-back tones) is pushing to replace all ring-back tones (the ring ring ring you hear when waiting to connect) with targeted advertisements and then allowing customers to make unlimited free calls. That sounds amazing to me, I will listen to some 10 second plug to talk to grandma for free. Unfortunately, I’m convinced that's not what will be happening. I see a future where phone bills are exactly the same cost but can pay 4.99 a month not to hear the latest crappy offer. That’s much more likely then free phone plans, even if it does represent “close to 14 Billion Dollars” in revenue for the wireless industry. Sorry grandma, but I don't think we'll be having any 2 hour long free conversations.

Note to PromoTel - If you're in need of a beta tester for this Free unlimited calling thing, I'm your man!

The Cell Phone Society

3Q sales have come out as reported by The NPD Group. The prospective numbers are pretty telling. 2 Billion In sales, a 7% percent increase over last quarter, 30% over this quarter last year. Not only do everyone and their grandma now have a cell phone, but many people are buying them like candy. The situation is getting dire as more and more people become like me.

I spent 15 months employed at my local Circuit City during my last two years of High School. The first 6 months of that were working in the Wireless Department. To bad we aren’t talking about a record 2Q of 2004, because then I could claim it was all my doing. Anyway while I was selling all the latest and greatest gizmos I fell in love with my cell phones. So when I finally made the jump to Verizon I decided to buy two phones. Yes it was a complete waste of money but I would keep both on me and switch back and forth depending on what functionality I needed. My Samsung was a trooper when it came to battery life, and my Motorola was loaded to the gills with so many cool features that even an extended life battery barely kept it running for more then a day and a half (and I was often away from a charger for longer). When I left for Europe I knew I would have to cancel my Verizon service and due to the CDMA platform I would have to buy a GSM phone that could support European SIM cards. So in the roughly 3 months I was in Europe, I bought 3 GSM phones. Yes I am a very sick individual. I purchased a Nokia with horrid sound quality, a very functional Siemens phone, and the uber-sleak Black Motorola RAZR V3 (The top selling handset of Q3). The RAZR will continue to make even more money for Motorola with a CDMA version and new colors appearing in Q4.

So If you are keeping a running Tally, that’s 5 phones I’ve purchased in the past 10 months. That’s one phone every 2 months. That’s a disgustingly materialistic reality. So when this years Q3 numbers are beating last years by 30% I wonder if it is purely a reflection of increased users, or if the number of Power Users who own multiple phones they switch to for various purposes (which is about 1000 times easier with GSM) is increasing.

Could this trend open up the possibility of returning to profiting on the hardware rather then the service? The American phone market isn’t saturated enough to warrant that yet. I do see a possibility that creative hardware and price plan opportunities will present themselves, and may indeed prove the only way for small companies to battle network giants like Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, and T-Mobile.

Watch the power users, especially as Mobinet’s new research has indicated that data services are on the rise (http://www.mobiledia.com/news/39129.html).

Some other interesting tidbits from Q3 numbers show that Motorola is leading the GSM market, and the LG is still riding its popularity (which was all but secured with the VX6000 back when I was selling them) in the CDMA market. Motorola also commands almost double market share as the 3 second place finishers; Nokia, LG, and Samsung.

ChangeThis

I have found a good site that I'm exploring called ChangeThis.

The main premise is that people crave good intelligent arguments about everything, since we rarely get it in the Media, conversations, or even the blogosphere. So the idea is people will come to the site and post their manifestos. It encourages smart discussion about various topics and relies on word of mouth to pass on the winners. The idea is great ones will inspire readers to pass them on and bad ones will sit stagnantly.

I think this is quite an interesting tool. While perusing the different topics, most revolve around business or politics, which suits me perfectly fine. I recognized Guy Kawasaki's name from a recent post to the 800-CEO-READ blog talking about his new book "The art of the Start." Turns out Guy is giving away a teaser of his new book on CT. This site not only is great idea, but allows much more effective marketing. It's yet another venue to get your ideas out there by word of mouth. Even better for people like me, it forces you to be succinct and to clearly define what you're trying to say. It should be mentioned that 800-CEO-READ runs CT.

Well I decided to see how this system works and I downloaded a few manifestos, one was Ira Williams take on humility in the American Spirit. I had a lot of good historical and spiritual references. One bitingly sarcastic quote from George W. Bush, and overall was an interesting short read. I firmly agree about how unfortunate that humility as become associated with weakness. While I don't feel like I need to pass on this particular manifesto, I've downloaded a few more to read tonight, and I may blog about one of them tomorrow.

Go check out the site if you're looking to express or read succinct, well-structured arguments.