Hi guys, check out this amazing new invention from a team in MIT, called inFORM.
It’s phenomenal.
We all know how the world, due to leaps in technology, is heading towards the “smartphone” era, where we all have many smart devices that make us focus on the virtual screen more, and become more antisocial as a community.
Well, this new invention combines both an innovating technology leap and a tool that increases human’s social interaction. Instead of virtual pixels from smart devices and apps, we now can interact socially through atoms!
The invention is not fully developed yet, but basically we can imagine it as how the first telephone was invented. It is, to quote the article, “a self-aware computer monitor that doesn’t just display light, but shape as well”. In other words, inFORM is both a hardware and software. With it, two random people who live half across the world can basically talk and see one another’s face through Skype on their iPads, and hold one another’s hands on inFORM!
Scientists are optimistic about the possibility. And, just like smart software and hardware we already have, this can be used for future business people and managers to communicate, even experiment and demonstrate prototypes! Just imagine there might not be any Apple’s product launching presentation anymore, but instead an inFORM demonstration session of iPhone 6 (well.. maybe not that soon)! I am personally intrigued by this possible insight into the future!
Nam,
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I recently read an article on HBR blogs named “Is it OK to Yell at Your Employees?”. Very interesting.
First and foremost it points out that the answer is open. There are many leaders famous for raising their voices, especially Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Sir Alex Ferguson. However, the core problem does not lie in the decision to yell or not.
It is in the leadership style, the personality of both the leader and the organization. Yelling indicates high expectations and level of intensity. However, if one only yells for the love of yelling and bossing around, the result might turn out not that good..
I personally lean towards the yelling side, as I’d prefer a high level of intensity at work. It shows a high expectation of every task, as demonstrated in organizations like Apple or Manchester United. I think great companies should work this way (at a high level of intensity I mean, not… always yelling at each other).
So, as a lesson for me to take away from the article, a company’s culture is important as an underlying factor affecting its productivity, as learned in COMM101. If the environment is enthusiastic yet can get intense at times, employees should pay a little more attention and do their work more passionately. Or, as quoted in the article, “…at the organizations that seem to have the greatest energy and drive, the conversations aren’t whispered and the disagreements aren’t polite”.
Nam,
Check out the interesting article.
Yesterday I checked out Forbes’ list of the most valuable brands in the world! It’s fascinating.
Not surprisingly, tech companies are the most common ones, showing how “hot” the market currently is. If you’re guessing Apple takes the 1st place, then prepare to be surprised to know, not that it doesn’t, it does, that it is worth nearly twice as much as any other brand on the list! Yes, 1st place: Apple, worth $104.3 billion. Coming at 2nd place is, yes, another tech company, which is, yes, Microsoft, at $56.7 billion. Other tech companies on the list are IBM (4), Google (5), Intel (8) and Samsung (9).
Apple stands out as the most valuable brand in the world
If you’re wondering who’s the other one in top 5, it’s Coca Cola. And it might also interest you that Pepsi is ranked at only 25.
The automobile industry also accounts for a few places, with BMW the leader at #11, Toyota #14 and Mercedez Benz at #16. BMW’s prestige of building luxury vehicles make it stand out from its competitors.
The automobile industry also has a lot of members on the lists
Other popular brands that you may care about: McDonalds at #6 (yes!), Louis Vuitton #10, Disney at #17, WalMart eighteen and Budweiser at 19. It might be surprising that Nike ranks at only 24.
The fast-food giant McDonalds stands out at #6
Perhaps the most important lesson I learn from this list is that one can be successful in whatever industry, as long as he is passionate and intelligent enough to stick to his brainchild.
Also drawn from this list, you can never be the best forever. The world changes at the blink of an eye and someone’s going to get left behind, as in the case of Microsoft.
On a more business-related note, these kinds of surveys let me know more of currently “hot” markets. Applying Porter’s 5 forces, one can determine that, for example, the tech market, both in hardware and software, are extremely competitive with many valuable brands competing for market shares.
Nam,
Also, all hail Steve Jobs! We all remember how Apple was on the edge of bankruptcy not that long ago before Steve’s return..
So I recently followed on a number of articles on Forbes regarding Twitter’s IPOs, which is certainly an usual thing for such a hot event, and picked up some thoughts and knowledge: (Warning: Scary Interesting finance stuffs below)
It is actually extremely hard to determine the value of Twitter, and therefore the decision whether or not to buy its stocks. A professor in Wharton Business School, Luke Taylor, gave his graduate and undergrad students an assignment determining Twitter’s value and share’s price. It varied. The reason behind this is that it is extremely difficult to determine the profitability of the company. Tech companies are just popular, not necessarily profitable. What is more, it’s also really hard to identify the market size. Twitter is surely popular, has a lot of users, but its market cap is not that large compared to Facebook, LinkedIn and a few other rigorous competitors.
Estimates of Twitter’s value from Wharton students
However, there are certain advantages we can see in the company. It has not reach its full potential. In fact, it lost over a million of dollars (Yes!) in the first 9 months this year. Thus, investors believe they should buy in Twitter’s stocks, as it might not lose much more money than the above number in the next 9 years.. So yes, it offers a bright prospect. Twitter also managed to avoid Facebook’s mistakes, for example by listing its IPOs on NYSE instead of NASDAQ like many other tech’s, or using money raised for operation rather than shareholders’ stake. Another interesting study has shown that a Twitter user is actually the most valuable social media user. What it did was simple math, taking the value of the company, based on its current stock price, and divide it by its number of users. So, for Twitter, 25.5 billion over 232 million users means 1 user is worth $110, compared to $98 of Facebook and $93 of LinkedIn!
It was fascinating reading these articles, and the bottom line I draw for myself: Finance is harsh! There are numerous underlying assumptions, which directly affect how much money goes into, or out of, your pocket. Thus financial ventures like Twitter’s IPO can really be called, as used in the article, “Art over Science”.
But, as they say, possibilities make all the fun!
I, unfortunately, have yet created a Twitter account. But here is my LinkedIn if you want a new connection.
Nam,
-> You might find it interesting to read these Forbes articles mentioned above:
Ten reasons why Twitter IPOs aren’t like Facebook
Twitter: What It’s Worth?
A Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn user’s value
So I recently read an article on former BuzzFeed Creative Diretor Chris Baker (picture above), and found it both phenomenal and hilarious the way he came up with his “viral ideas”.
The article summarized Baker’s viral ventures, typically the two websites called Unbaby.me and TheWorldsMostExclusiveWebsite. The former helps users remove their Facebook friends’ new-born baby photos (yep..) and the latter only has “exclusive” doors for people to pass through, based on the number of followers on their Twitter account.
Spontaneous as these projects may seem, they actually helped Baker make a substantial living. It makes me think about entrepreneurship in this era. A viral idea does not have to be that giant or outstanding, it just needs to “kill some pains” for customers, or as Baker put it: “if this little stupid thing on the Internet is bothering me, it’s probably bothering 20 million other people.”
I did learn about the “pain-killer” effect as a value proposition in Comm101. Turns out, it is an indispensable, if not sole, factor for a viral idea. With the power of the Internet these days, perhaps all a successful entrepreneur needs to do is surf around, watch trends, notice pains in the neck, create a tool, sit back and count cash..
Nam,
Just got back from Class 12 of COMM101 today (10/15/13). Such an amazing experience with lots of things to draw from!
The design of today’s class has given me an absolutely exciting insight into how companies make big decisions. From the Consultants to Investors and CEO, everyone will need to gather to help define, identify benefits and risks among a bunch of options and recommendations to arrive at a final conclusion.
Further from realizing the basic necessity of a meeting, I’ve also learned from today what makes a great meeting great. By being put into small groups and try to competitively take a stance, the model meeting we had today, I believe, went as smoothly as it could. The atmosphere was friendly yet competitive, pushing every one’s minds at work and contribute their ideas to protect their opinions, which is really important for investors and CEO to fully vision each option’s pros and cons, yet always bear in mind the larger goal of a united ‘company’.
Aside from that, my group (Netflix buying content) won! How awesome. And, today I’ve come to realize I go to school with a bunch of great people.
Nam,
So, I figured I would write another blog on what I feel about another legendary release: FIFA 14!
Creating the exact same phenomenal effect on public as GTA, EA’s marketing strategies on FIFA 14 would also worth considering.
In the first place, the most obvious and invaluable strength FIFA 14 has for itself is the brand name. Take a look at another logo of the game to see for yourself:
Yep. “FIFA Official Licnesed Product”. Eat that, Konami!
First and foremost, EA has managed to demonstrate the FIFA brand as a ‘legit’ one. Aside from being first in the soccer video game industry, FIFA gains so much from earning official license to use brands and names of many leagues, clubs and players in the world, which acts as a perfect point of parity as well as difference, to compete with Konami’s PES (Pro Evolution Soccer). The key partnership with FIFA gives the game a significant amount of competitive advantages, such as recognition and professionalism, as opposed to PES, which has always had to alternate league and team names, even important ones, owing to lack of licensing. Another advantage would be name power. Its ability to take the largest, most popular association in the real-world soccer industry, FIFA, as its product’s name presents a major advantage in impressing the public, in lieu of the abbreviation PES, which has, to some extent, fallen into the ‘No-Name trap’, according to Al Ries and Jack Trout’s arguments.
Furthermore, EA has barely ceased to increase FIFA’s gaming experience. One of the major categories to establish good PODs, brand performance has always been zeroed in on. The game is providing better service, operating efficiency, and, especially, much more impressive graphics and design, which all play a really important role in the field of sports’ video games, where appearance of players, voices of commentators and so on strongly affect the experience of players.
Seriously?
“Give me some competition,please”, said FIFA14 team.
From quick consideration of the two successful video games released in 2013, marketing strategies, especially that of brand positioning, display how important they are to sales.
Nam,
Yay!
As the epic action-adventure video game has come out for a while, I’ve decided I’d like to share some of my thoughts, and excitement, as my college housemates have already started playing, for the product. Apparently there has been many amazing enhancements and new features in the game, surrounding the whole plot itself (playing under 3 characters instead of 1 in the past), new ‘missions’, and better graphics. Certainly there have been words of mouth all over the world looking forward to the game’s release and booming sales that follow (within 24 hours of release, Grand Theft Auto V generated more than $800 million in revenue … Three days after the release, the game had surpassed $1 billion in sales, making it the fastest selling entertainment product in history), which is an inarguable validation of Rockstar’s, GTA’s producer, marketing strategies. Interestingly, the game was first acknowledged in 2011, 2 years before the official release, and has been able to keep public’s attention ever since. How? Apparently, GTA is one of the strongest brands in its current market: Enough P.O.Ps to go about and lots, I mean lots, of quality P.O.Ds (I have yet to find such a comprehensive game, where you can drive, shoot, rob and play tennis at the same time), few competitors (only 2 or 3 video games as I know of are still pursuing the action-adventure type, but yet to come close to GTA’s comprehensiveness).
GTA is probably the first to introduce a super comprehensive video game, which has helped create a perfect frame of reference. It has also managed to avoid the ‘No-name Trap’ for the abbreviation ‘GTA’ (Grand Theft Auto), probably by focusing on the quality and customers’ experience of the game and, since GTA I, kept on frequently developing sequential products with awesome enhancements and certain uniqueness, and come up with other supplementary apps as an usually recommended strategy for market leaders.
In general, GTA has succeeded in getting into customers’ mind and stayed on top ever since (according to GameRankings, the game received an average review score of 97.15% and 96.09% for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, respectively)
Nam,
Now, what are we gonna do about this thing called.. HOMEWORK?
Bill Gates!
Recently there’s been an article about the potential move of Microsoft to ask its wealthy co-founder and current Chairman, Bill(ionaire) Gates, to step down, following the soon-to-be-former CEO of the Company, Steve Ballmer. It provides that the top 20 investors in Microsoft is lobbying the board to “press for Bill Gates to step down as chairman of the software company he co-founded 38 years ago”. The main cause for this, as we can all guess, would be money, or ‘capital allocation’, as used in the article.
What? No way money can cause problems to me!
Apparently, Microsoft, and its Office products specifically, are in a declining market, yet still brings in a great amount of profits each year. The argument as to whether or not Gates would keep on doing wonders for the company arises from the strategy Microsoft has been using with its money. As a goliath in a shrinking market, all Microsoft needs to do is to remain effective a monopoly. Nevertheless, the Gates or Ballmer strategy is to invest all the profits into new businesses, most of which have never before related to the Company value proposition, such as its recent purchases of Nokia, Skype, aQuantive or Bing. Shareholders believe that doing the opposite, maximizing profits and allocating them to shareholders to do whatever they want, would be the better choice (well for you obviously). Surely this sounds like a plan to phase Microsoft out of the market, maybe in 10-15 years, which is also the reason why people want Gates to step down, as who would go ahead with a strategy to abandon his own ‘son’?
This’s got me thinking about the ethics that we business students are often taught about. After all, even in one of the wealthiest corporations, money still comes across as the biggest concern, always being a motive for people to ‘kick others out’, including the richest man on Earth. Even in this case of Microsoft, when there’s no ‘correct answer’ in terms of the future yet, everyone seems to prefer a happy ending with a pocketful of money to go home and play with the kids.
Nam,
On a different note, aside from the Gates & Melinda foundation, I wonder how the ‘super fanatic workaholic’ Bill Gates would do when he … runs out of work?
Maybe this again?
*I’m splitting my original entry to 3 small ones by each main point, as I realized it went way over the 200-word limit.
Recently I read an interesting article on BusinessInsider which talked about the flaws in our brains that subconsciously affect how we behave on a daily basis. One of them, though not as surprising as the others, seemed fascinating to me: The confirmation bias. It states that the majority of us want and try to surround ourselves with people and things that present the same believes. For example, you would rather get along with people who share the same opinions as you do, read the articles that share your topic of interest, and of course, ignore ones that do not (which I hope is not happening now). The article considered this phenomenon a flaw, and advised readers to challenge their beliefs on a regular basis. Basically, it claimed that we’re reluctant to change, and (ironically) had better change it. This kept me thinking. About Change.
Throughout the course of history we human have witnessed so many stories about great leaders and visionaries who seem to be born a genius and just keep on being themselves and defying other trivial beliefs to eventually arrive at greatness. In fact, many of them have become popular inspirational anecdotes, such as one about The Beatles when they were told that their music sucked, did not care, and went on to become worldwide famous. But is never agreeing to change really the case, or is it the opposite as suggested by the aforementioned article?
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