Reading highlights 9/30/12 - 10/6/12

This week had a large number of interesting posts to read.  There seemed to be a quite a bit of fighting going on:  election debate (Obama vs Romney & Stewart vs O'Reiley) to Syria and Turkey to Japan and China and even Google vs Microsoft in their patent war.  Below are some of the posts that caught my eye this last week:

The Power of Defining the Problem

Dwayne Spradlin from HBR provides three examples on how "...asking better questions delivers better results".  He presents how understanding the problem and clearly articulating it can yield innovative solutions.  I particularly like the one on NASA where big data was used.  Using a traditional governmental approach NASA would have probably spent a lot more that 30 K in getting this solution, if they would have gotten it at all.

How a rogue appeals court wrecked the patent system

Following all the patent lawsuits these days in the technology sector can be mind numbing.  Here's an interesting read on how things went astray.

Should You Trust Your Gut? The Answer Is Yes.

I talk about the process for decision making in my business.  In those talks I generally discuss that most decisions are made by the gut of the decider.  His or her experiences drive the decision.  One thing that I look to do is to bring analytics into the decision process so the decider can make a data driven decision with their gut.  Derek Andersen discusses this in this article centered about start-up / tech investment.

Which of the 3 cups has a cloud under it

With OOW underway and all the talk about cloud from Larry I found this article right on point.  Thiele lays out of the "false" arguments for or against cloud architectures that I face throughout my work week.  He closes with a discussion on what really matters:  "...getting on the actual cloud thought process."

Balancing team passion and product-market fit

Dave Kashen discusses in this post the notion of how passion is key to making it especially in the start-up arena.  I know from personal experiences that without passion that the long hard days of trying to make it on your own would simply crush you out.  He starts off by asking this simple question:

“You must follow your passion. Startups are so hard that if you’re not passionate about your mission, there’s no way you’ll succeed.” At the same time, the lean startup movement has entrepreneurs everywhere “building, measuring and learning” what the market wants, to find the illusive product-market fit. But what happens when what the market wants is not what you’re passionate about?

NYPD to bolster gang unit to battle teen violence fueled by dares, insults on social media

This is an interesting article in the Washington Post about NYC's exploitation of social media to stop crime and violence.  It is a short read but it highlights an on going discussion within Government on how to strike a balance between needed effects with a new information source and privacy.  They still haven't figured it out as far as I can see but here is an interesting quote:

The NYPD has developed strict guidelines for investigators using social networks “to instill the proper balance between the investigative potential of social network sites and privacy expectations,”

Fusion Centers

There were articles across the US this week discussing a Senate sponsored review of the 70+ Fusion Centers developed in 2003 to promote agency communication and data sharing in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.  He is one of the quotes from the LA Times review of the report:

But the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, in a 146-page report released Tuesday that reviewed intelligence reports from fusion centers between April 1, 2009, and April 30, 2010, "could identify nothing that uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution any fusion center made to disrupt an active terrorist plot."

Ouch!  My business has tried for years to help DHS, State, and Local Governments in getting these centers performing better but it has been real tough to break into that market space. We'll see if attitudes change in the future and they become more open to innovated ideas on data sharing and intelligence driven operations.   Here are two of the most interesting reads from this week:
Senate panel criticizes anti-terror data-sharing centers - LA Times
Inquiry Cites Flaws in Counterterrorism Offices - The New York Times

Comic

Best comic of the week has to go to Mashable on Apple's Maps and Siri applications.

2012 Annapolis Boat Show

So to end this week here are a couple picture from the 2012 Annapolis Boat Show.  I attended two days of the show and loved every bit of it.  More to come on that in the future.

Apple and Google Interoperability - Not!

If you are a user of Google products such as Gmail, calendar, contacts, etc and a heavy user of Apple hardware,  iPad, MacBook, etc, you know that these two worlds just don't integrate very well.  Basic poor interoperability which is very frustrating.  Apple pushes their solutions that compete with Google just like they push the ones that compete with Microsoft, e.g. Keynote.

Google release earlier this year a Capability, called google sync, that does address some of these interoperability issues with Apple software and account management.  Is does allow your contacts to stay in sync as well as your mail on their mobile devices, however it limits you to only one calendar.  Really!

If you are like me I have access to a number of calendars and need to see them on my iPad when I'm mobile.  Here is a good description from Google on setting up google sync on an iPad:  Google Sync Instructions for IOS.  For me I have enabled this from both my email and my contacts but have disabled it for my Calendar.  To get around the limit for only one calendar using this method I have gone through the typical Gmail account setup on the iPad and have only selected the calendar app not the email app.

All of this works without any issues but come on.  Google should be all about addressing this issue with Sync and Apple should be more responsive to working with other platforms.  Why can't they just get along? Oh right it's all about revenue.  I think that is a shortsighted quarterly view and they should know that if they work better together they can dominate in their respective areas instead of battling it out with these little annoyances.

So now let's move on to Apple's iCloud.  I was pretty excited about jumping into the iCloud world until I read the fine print.  This is from a google forum on how to set it up:

Full Blog The *Crucial Step* In order for your iCloud and Gmail contacts to remain synchronized with one another is to ensure that they are only ever edited on your iOS Device which is synchronized with iCloud and Gmail contacts. When you edit a contact on the Device, you will be warned that you are “editing 2 linked contacts”. This is how you know that your changes are being pushed to both accounts. If you edit the contact via iCloud or via Gmail directly, such as through their Web Contacts, it will only change that particular account’s “card”, not both. You will see changes on either iCloud or Gmail on your Device, but these changes will not have been, nor will they be synchronized across accounts. 

Only changes made directly to the contact on the iPhone or iPad will synchronize across accounts. You must also ensure that when you are editing the contact that you are editing the ‘linked contacts”. You will know you are looking at the linked contact when the contact says “Unified Info” at the top center of the screen. This is arrived at also by ensuring you are within the “All Contacts” group.

Oh come on! Really! This can't be!

I guess I'm staying away from iCloud and using my current setup for now.

Are Macs going mainstream Forrester?

I want to start out saying that I have fostered an equal platform / opportunity workplace for sometime now.   When you walk around today in our offices you see people with Macs and PCs; both laptops and workstations.  You will also see iPhones, Blackberry's, and Android mobile phones as well as iPads and Android tablets.  All of these connected via wired or wifi throughout all of the offices. This is accessible to employees using company issued devices or employees owned devices.


This is totally against my higher headquarters IT policy but I've felt this was one of the keys to our innovative culture. 


It was surprising to see that Forrester, via GIGAOM, just released a report stating the following:

"Forrester made some waves in the IT world Thursday morning when it released a report strongly urging large enterprise companies to let their employees use Macs at work, or as they phrased it “it’s time to repeal prohibition.”

I believe that mainstream corporate IT departments just had a stroke!  Their entire existence is standardization on basic platforms, e.g. Dell latitudes, running Windows 7, BTW just migrated from XP, and ensuring that nobody downloads any unapproved application.  Not to mention that a standard computer is the only one authorized to connect to the network.  It's great we have the freedom to lean into the 21st century in our office.


So with the release of this report by Forrester I wonder when I will see something in the works in the mainstream C suite embracing their recommendation.  I'll report back when I see that happening.  Don't hold your breath.

IOS 5 Frustration

Upgraded my iPad to IOS 5. After upgrade non of my purchased apps would work. Immediately went to the web to see if someone was having the same issue. Web forums are open up with lots of people having a similar problem. UGH!

I read an article that one of Apples' key tennets is not to release a product until it is polished. They don't do public beta like some.

Not sure this is the case today. Antenna Gate to IOS 5 failure sums it up.

Now I have to find a way to fix my iPad before Monday when I need to use it for work. Great Sunday Beta testing Apple IOS 5.

Google Music - I'm Sold

I recently received my invite to the new Google Music Beta.  There has been a great deal of press surrounding the release of this service.  Especially of note was the inability of Google to receive agreements with major music labels prior to going live. This didn't seem like a big deal to me but I can see that it will be a big detractor in the future it they don't get it solved.  One other note, I haven't used Amazon's cloud service either, I'm pretty much an iTunes guy.

So iTunes became the biggest issue for me in considering Google Music Beta.  All of my current music is stored within iTunes.  Reading through the release notes Google said there would be no issues with importing my music into their cloud from iTunes.  So I decided to give it a try.

BLUF:  I'm a big fan of Google Music Beta.  Their seamless integration with Android and the cloud where my music is copied is a perfect combination.

After I receive the invitation to try our Google Music I downloaded their application from the log in page. It is called Music Manger (See below).

As you can see I selected the iTunes player, hit OK and 1950 songs were automatically copied to Google's Music cloud.  Actually it was that easy.  It did take over an hour for all the music to appear and be available to play.  Also all of my playlists were copied over intact with links automatically set up for playing.  Artwork was also associated correctly and I was offered free music to get started.  See below for a screen snapshot after the sync.

One question that I had with this process was whether or not I would run into any licensing issues with my music.  I've ran into this with Apple all the time, especially when I change computers.  Basically there were no issues with licensing with Google Music that I found.

So onto the most important question.  So how does this work with my Android phone?  Basically I already had Google Music on my Nexus S already.  As I opened up the application all the music I had loaded up to Google Music cloud was there and ready to play.  I was about as seamless as you can get.  No more fussing with iTunes and my android phone.  Music Manger now keeps my iTunes library in sync with my Google Music cloud and my Android.  I was basically sold from that point forward.

I've used Google Music Beta now for over two weeks and have traveled with it across the country.  Basically all the 1950 songs are not automatically downloaded to my Droid, they are playable over the internet.  As I play them they are then downloaded and available whether I'm connected into the internet or not.  This is only a problem when seating on a plan when you are disconnected.  Basically in that situation you can see and play the songs you've listened to before, but the songs that you havn't listened to are not available for playing.  That seems like the only drawback that I can find.

If Google can figure out how to solve the partnerships issues with the major record labels I can see using Google Music exclusively for management of my music as well as purchasing of tracks.  From what I've read this may not be a quick offering by Google.