Archive for the 'Innovation' Category

When Good Isn’t Good Enough

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 22-February-2008
in Business Excellence and Innovation
. Comments

Great Business Week article (written by CEO of Rapleaf) on hiring the right employees as a startup or small company.

A company with fewer than 50 employees needs great programmers, not just good ones. And once you find them, you have to hold on to them. A startup needs people who not only can think creatively and process complex concepts quickly, but who are also fun to be around and enjoy working with others. We also look for people who value good ideas even when they come from someone else and who are unafraid to seize opportunities to grow. In a nutshell, we want the person everyone else asks for advice. In college, this is the person every other computer science student wanted on his team. No wonder so many people hire friends and former colleagues. One of the best predictors of future success is past performance.

Once you find great people, you need to work at keeping them. This, too, is an art.

The thing about great people is that they only want to work with other great people. This leaves you in something of a bind once you recruit a few. From then on, you can only recruit other great people or risk losing the ones you have.

Some great tips:

  • Don’t rely on academic background
  • Ask the candidate to solve a hard problem or show their creative skills, An example might be to explain a database to an 8 year old.
  • Avoid false positives (multiple rounds of interviews)
  • Work at keeping your great people
  • Big innovation often comes from massive collaboration and rapid iteration, get your people in one location

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Seattle Taps Its Inner Silicon Valley

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 8-February-2008
in Innovation
. Comments

Many communities dream of becoming the next Silicon Valley. But Seattle is actually doing it. The influx of entrepreneurs and of venture capitalists to bankroll them is slowly reshaping this city and a regional economy long buffeted by the booms and busts of the aerospace and timber industries. A start-up ecosystem needs social networks, support businesses and a business culture that views failure as a badge of honor, not shame. All of that is in place in Seattle.

Money is pouring in. During the last 12 years, venture capital investment here has more than tripled, to about $1 billion annually. Last year Washington tied with Texas as the third-largest destination for venture capital money nationwide, behind California and Massachusetts.

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Verizon Embraces Google’s Android

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 4-December-2007
in Communications and Innovation
. Comments

It is premature to remove Verizon from the list of anti-tech companies, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google’s (GOOG) new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam tells BusinessWeek. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”

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The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 3-December-2007
in Communications, Content, DRM, Innovation and Media
. Comments

Excellent article @ PCWorld written by Mark Sullivan on the 5 most anti-tech organizations in America. History is replete with examples of products, companies, and industries that fail to adapt and adopt to new technology. These 5 will be next.

From PCWorld by Mark Sullivan

Their names keep coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country–those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers. They come in many forms: associations, think tanks, money-raising organizations, PACs, and even other tech-oriented industries like telecommunications.

The tech issues that they’re concerned with are what you might expect: digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality. I talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, D.C.–mostly off the record–to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills. We’ll start with the biggest offenders first and work our way down.

1. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

Issue: Copyright and Fair Use

The Internet economy should be a boon for digital media companies and for those of us that like to buy our music and video online. It’s also a very powerful way to connect with people of like mind with a view toward learning about new things to watch and listen to. Unfortunately, the content owners in the record and movie industries have mainly seen the Web as a platform for piracy, and have mainly failed to adapt their businesses to the realities of online, as one lonely industry executive recently admitted. Continue reading ‘The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America’

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Mac OS X Leopard: A perfect 10?

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 27-November-2007
in Apple and Innovation
. Comments

Leopard BoxApple’s new operating system and its massive new feature set challenge users and developers to explore new and better ways of working. I don’t think Leopard is a perfect 10, but the author, Tom Yager, opines that Leopard’s many new features and underlying capabilities allow Leopard to “stay out of the user’s way while being a microsecond away from answering any user demand, and to make sure that the user never has to do anything twice.” This article is worth a read.

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Intel to Unveil Chips for Improving Video Quality on the Web

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 11-November-2007
in Content and Innovation
. Comments

From the NYT:  Intel plans to announce a family of microprocessor chips on Monday that it says will speed the availability of high-definition video via the Internet.

As consumers clamor for more Internet video, a huge computing burden is placed on companies like Google, Microsoft and providers of digital video, who must compress the video files so they can be streamed to desktop and portable computers.

Intel’s new family, made up of 16 processors, would first be used in servers and high-end desktops that compress the video. They are the first chips based on a new manufacturing process that Intel says will give it a significant competitive advantage by increasing computing performance while reducing power consumption.

To get better video compression, Intel has added a set of 46 instructions it calls SSE4 to the new microprocessors.

The leading designer of the new processor, Steve Fischer, said the new instructions would make possible a new generation of servers that enhance the compression of digital video. “Video is becoming ubiquitous on the Web,” he said.

“This is a step in the right direction,” said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, “and it’s probably the best use for this 45-nanometer technology over the next couple of years.”

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I Want My iTV

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 9-November-2007
in Content, Innovation and Media
. Comments

Cliff Sullivan from BusinessWeek writes,

But I won’t be getting it soon. While the technology is mostly in place, the players—from cable companies to film studios—can’t agree on how to make it happen.

I want to listen to music, have a box pop up on my screen telling me who’s phoning my home, or watch a vacation-themed slide show before forwarding it on to bore my friends on Facebook—all while sitting in front of the set in my living room. No one has yet put this wish list together in one nice, easy-to-use package.

They sure haven’t. As the author correctly points out, the reason is not the technology, but protection of existing business models. No one is addressing the gap between online content and the television.

While new technologies like IPTV bring digital content over IP to a STB connected to a TV, they do nothing to bridge the gap between online media and the TV.

So read the article at the BusinessWeek site and weigh in. What do you think? Is anyone addressing this gap? Do you want to watch online media on your TV? What features would you like to see in an iTV offering?

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Goodbye Myrio

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 31-October-2007
in Communications, Innovation, Personal and Work
. Comments

Myrio Logo

Dear friends and colleagues,

As I depart Nokia Siemens Networks (Myrio was acquired in 2005 by Siemens and is now subsidiary of Nokia Siemens Networks), today marks the end of an era for me–11 amazing years.

When we started working on the technologies that became Myrio, we had a
dream that one day companies all over the world would be delivering TV
services over IP. We were certainly not clairvoyant enough to predict how,
what is now called IPTV, would develop over the coming years, but we knew
the power of Internet combined with entertainment would create amazing new possibilities. Although IPTV seems so “well duh” now, this was not the case–even just 5 years ago.

I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for
believing in Myrio and the possibilities it created. We could not have done
it without you!

In 2005 Steve Jobs gave the commencement speech at Stanford.

Full text:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Youtube:

YouTube Preview Image

I want to share a short excerpt from that speech. He said, “You’ve got to
find what you love. [sic]. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,
and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great
work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the
heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it
just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you
find it. Don’t settle.”

Myrio and IPTV have most certainly been a labor of love.

As I sign off, I extend my best wishes to all of you.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

-ryan

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The Map Just Changed

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 23-October-2007
in Apple, Computers and Innovation
. Comments

Green apple logoToday, Apple’s market cap exceeded that of IBM. Apple finished the day at $186.16 giving it a market cap of $161.89B (IBM’s market cap is at $156.01B). Makes you wonder about Apple’s 1984 Ad.

Over at bbum’s weblog-o-mat he has created a graph showing the relative market caps for the leading computer hardware companies. Over at SilliconValley.com, they point out,

And while Google-watchers go gaga over its soaring share price (see “A six-letter word for bubble? Try gasbag“), note that an investor who bought Apple on the same day Google stock debuted in 2004 would have, as of the close of market yesterday, made 40 percent more than if the same money had been put into the search sovereign’s shares.

Congratulation to Mr. Jobs and the entire Apple team on this truly amazing occasion!

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10 Cutting Edge Projects, 8 Inovators, 8 Bold Ideas

Published
by
Ryan Petty
on 12-October-2007
in Apple, Business Excellence, Innovation and Microsoft
. Comments

3D PrinterAt the Popular Mechanics website, they have compiled a list of 8 inventors and 10 great new projects.  My favorites are the “make anything” machine (pictured on right), the “hands on computer” which forms the basis for Apple’s multi-touch technology in the iPhone and iTouch iPod and Microsoft’s Surface Computing initiative mocked earlier here on Xlog.

More on the 10 cutting-edge projects and 8 bold ideas @ Popular Mechanics.

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