Angelica Cabrera

The following entry is a response to Rachel Emma Silverman’s blog post “Making Work Like Angry Birds”  from Wall Street Journal Blogs.

Silverman discusses the trend of “gamification” emerging in the workplace, in regards to how an increasing number of firms are incorporating videogame-like aspects into employee tasks to increase productivity. Employees get points and rewards for completing tasks within a certain amount of time. In some workplaces, a leaderboard even shows the highest-ranking employees. Silverman is enthusiastic about this system because most work is “dull”.

The idea of motivating workers through creating a rewards-based, competition-like environment is interesting, and seems to make a lot of sense. For tedious, “number-crunching” jobs, this system could work very well in terms to increasing employee engagement. However, this would not work for all types of jobs, such as those that demand a high level of creativity and innovative thinking: as in this situation, gamification’s effects would not be great as employees are probably already highly motivated and enthusiastic. The appropriateness of gamification for each workplace should be evaluated before being introduced, but seems like a possible productivity-raising system that employers can consider in the future.

Source: Wall Street Journal Blogs

RIM’s Blackberry Messenger has been known to be consistently reliable service for its users. However, this reputation acts like a double-edged sword as its customers are less forgiving when the service goes down. This past week, a hardware failure temporarily rendered the service useless to tens of millions of Blackberry users. Because RIM routes all Blackberry data through its servers, a system crash affects users around the world.

Fortunately, RIM has a loyal customer base, so it is not likely that many will jump ship for the iPhone or another smartphone device right away. However, the event it did negatively affect their brand image, stock value, and will deter potential customers. Although RIM’s customer loyalty may have lessened the impact of this crisis, RIM should take steps in the future to ensure that incidents like these do not happen again, as a customer base faced with so many other substitutes for RIM’s Blackberry may not be as forgiving next time.

Source: The Globe and Mail

A new report by the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing has found that almost half of all Canadians are now watching TV shows or movies online. As well, one in three are considering cancelling their TV services. Most home viewing is still done the “traditional” way, but the Internet is quickly changing that. The most popular online viewing sites are YouTube, Netflix, and iTunes.

Consumers enjoy watching content online because they can choose to view what they want, when they want. In addition to allowing them to customize their content viewing, online streaming comes at a greatly reduced price – and in the cases of file-sharing services like torrents – free. The use of technology as alternatives for traditional ways of doing things may not be totally successful, however, as seen in the unimpressive growth of the E-book market. However, the Internet can deliver video content to users with a closer similarity to how a television delivers its service compared to how an E-book acts for a paper book. As the digital age progresses, it is probable that the use of the Internet will be a viable substitute for television subscriptions.

Canadian-based start-up Keek is gaining recognition for its “microvideo” service. The social network site allows users to share short 36-second clips, called “micro-video status updates” to people in their network. The videos can be posted through webcam or mobile  apps. The service is targeted mainly to the under-24 market and is to YouTube like Twitter is to Facebook. The unique venture has just recieved $5.5 million in financing.

The reason the company’s unique selling point is perhaps only gaining popularity now is because few microvideo startups in the past years have failed to gain traction. But the fame that Keek is enjoying now is a result of changing customer tastes who are more connected with the Internet in anything they do, increasing the demand for services such as Keek. However, tt will remain to be seen whether the rising popularity of “micro-blogging” (Twitter) can translate to video.

Source: Financial Post

India recently introduced a cheap tablet computer intended to lift villagers out of poverty and bridge the country’s “digital divide”. The computer, called “Aakash”, is part of a series of “cheap” innovations that are now frequent in India. The company’s developer, Datawind, is selling them to the government, teachers, and students for as low as $35. The Aakash can handle word processing, Web browsing, and video conferencing.The company intends for the technology to help rural businesses. For example, it could provide farmers with information to improve their yields.

The company wants to start a price war in order to lower the price of the Aakash as much as possible. Other than intending to drive prices down, Datawind encourages competition so that the “cheap” tablet can be improved.

Although the Aakash was developed with good intentions, it remains to be seen whether the device can create a significant effect on society, namely the problem that the product targets: poverty. It will be a challenge for Datawind to develop their simple and tangible product in order to combat a complex and intangible concept such as this. Without the correct implementation and distribution of the Aakash, the “cheap” innovation may not make much of an impact at all.

Source: The Globe and Mail