My Reading Highlights 10/14 - 10/20

This week was filled with readings of future Apple, Google, and Microsoft announcements starting at the end of Oct.  I'll defer discussing those until they happen.  Below are some of my highlights from this weeks on-line reading.

How Amazon Controls Ecommerce (Slides)

I just recently came across this TechCrunch article from a year ago through a post from Scott Stone.  It's  a rundown on Amazon's business strategy.  Worth a look through the 71 slides from faberNovel.  What was interesting to me was this new term on slide 36:  CRAP Product = Can't Realize Any Profit.

Interesting how they use this metric in their online store in the determination of where to go next in the market. Digital. This is where your cost can be low, inventory high and margins are high. Thus the move into steaming services, ebooks, digital magazines, etc.

If you can't explain what you do in one paragraph, you've got a problem

I can't explain how much time I've spent over the years working on this one topic.  We still call it an elevator pitch.  Basically making your point during a short ride in an elevator. In this post Brad Feld lays out the three basic sentences that need to be addressed in your pitch:

1. What we do
2. Who we do it to
3. Why you should care

The No. 1 Enemy of Creativity:  Fear of Failure

Interesting post from the Harvard Business Review on innovation, leadership and one of the big reasons why it never happens in today's corporate structure:  Fear of Failure.

Tech That Protects The President:  Image Analysis

Last week RWW started a series on technology used to protect the President of the United States.  Last week it was all about Data Mining.  This week it is Image Analysis.  Basic SW that integrates in the so called "pole cameras" that are all over urban areas into a software tool from BRS Labs called AISight.  AISight is basically creating a normalcy model of the area and then alerts when something is out of normal.  A common techniques with these systems.  AISight's claim to fame is they use a proprietary algorithm for behavior analysis in their process.

How To Create An Iconic Logo For Your Brand

Recently we are looking to update a Logo for one of our lines of business and create a new logo for a new line of business we are adding.  Here is an interesting post on creating a logo for a business.  We are struggling with some of these same issues.  One thing we are doing now is using a crowd source model called 99designs to get new ideas.  It's working out great so far.  I recommend it for getting ideas on you new logo.

Why becoming a data scientist might be easier than you think

There has been much talk about novices in the data scientist arena doing amazing things and getting recognized for it.  I recently posted one of the successes from Kaggle a week or so ago.  Derrick Harris in this post postulates that novices are able to get up to speed fairly quickly with some limited training and become very productive.  I agree with this assertion and have seen it with in my business.  It just takes willingness and focus by the individual and it can happen without years of specialized training.

When Is It Time To Pivot?

We seem to have a yearly discussion at work about this topic.  We ask ourselves, should we pivot?  I came across this post from ReadWriteWeb this week which was timely since we were having our yearly discussion of this topic.  We've decided no need to pivot.

Futurist's Cheat Sheet:  Artificial Intelligence

I came across and interesting read on Artificial Intelligence.  Just the basics, which sometimes it good to just review. It's a short read but worth some time.