Video Of The Week: Benedict Evans InContext Keynote
Arnold and Andrew suggested I watch this last week. I finally got around to it and it is great.
I think everyone knows how much of a Benedict Evans fan I am. This video covers a lot of the most important topics of the time we are in.
Comments (Archived):
How uncomfortable does @benedictevans look during Tim’s 2 minute story.
What is better is when Tim says he uses his Tablet to delete emails and Benedict says you have depressed a bunch of people and he starts backpeddling.
True story.Back in ’97 or ’98 I sent an email to Draper and got a meeting. He had been on TV (some tech show) the night before (was like 11pm with John Dvorak).So my ex wife was with me (in the kitchen) and made some comment that she thought he was a really good looking guy.The next day I wrote to him and started off by telling him what she said recognizing the angle immediately. And he was a big deal in the 90’s.As far as “depressed a bunch of people” I think if you are in sales and/or you want to be an entrepreneur and that is the type of thing that you don’t have the tenacity or perseverance to overcome you might as well pick a different career. Or ride on the coattails of someone else.
Such a handsome comment.
I’m here to entertain and to educate. Btw Jim, my current wife thinks you are good looking.
Thanks. That really means a lot to me. Not as much as your first wife’s opinion, but hey I’m no dapper Draper.
True story.I met Tim Draper in Jan 2014. He was wearing a tie with lots of white sheep and a single black sheep.At exactly the same time, we both pointed to the black sheep on his tie and said, “That’s me!”He gave me his card and told me to email him.In the email I said that I wasn’t a black sheep but a black swan (a la Taleb).No sales person or entrepreneur should get depressed if Tim Draper or another “name VC” passes or deletes their email.Rich Weisberger makes a spot on comment about Tim Draper’s two-minute story:Entrepreneur: “I’m solving the pain point of kyackers getting caught in the fog who need to find the app on their smartphone that helps with navigation”VC: “That’s a problem I can identify with”Different investors identify with different problems and pain points and founders. What matters to investors may not matter to founders and vice versa.At some time-point though, the founder-investor fit happens and both sides simply have to be patient, tenacious and open-minded to that maybe happening.It’s worth watching the first 10 minutes of Jack Dorsey’s talk at Startup School:* http://www.youtube.com/watc…He quotes from a passage that describes the artist’s struggle and how they don’t paint someone else’s picture but what they see and want to see in the world.So they make it happen on their canvas — be that an app, a community or a platform.
great comment. thanks.
the number of references he makes to the younger members of the audience might lead one to believe that he is of a certain vintage, and yet he looks like a public school boy about to sit his English Baccalaureate.Headmaster and the naughty pupil caught sexting with a local Essex girl?
Thanks for sharing.The data for phablets in South Korea is fascinating; it would be interesting to get some market growth comparables for that. It’s iPad Mini vs Amazon Kindle vs Samsung.
are Korean pockets bigger?
These articles seem to explain why phablets are popular in South Korea. It’s to do with economic efficiencies (not spending money for separate phone, tablet, gaming console) and government’s $2 billion education initiative to put all textbooks onto tablet PCs:* http://www.androidauthority…* http://singularityhub.com/2…So it’ll be interesting to see how the South Koreans innovate around content for that size of device — particularly in terms of kids inputting and annotating onto the digital textbooks.Maybe there’ll be a version of Medium with a souped up keyboard-calculator input for that size of device?
a phablet isn’t going to fit in my pocket
A phablet may not fit into men’s pockets easily but they’re a great size for:* kids* women’s handbags along with the other near 6 lbs of paraphernalia we like to carry with us; a phablet / Kindle is a natural replacement for the Filofax and about the same size as our makeup bags.
Would be interesting to see a gender breakdown in phablet v. regular size phone sales.
I wonder if it’s because less of them also have access to a desktop, so its their larger screen size?
the takeaway is that there is no end game.I’m thinking David Hockney.
How does WordPress feel so far?
DisorientingCouldn’t figure out how to embed a videoJust guessed and guessed right
Then you could say it worked perfectly, even for the disoriented ones 🙂
Change is never easy. My first week with my MacBook Pro really threw me for a loop or two after having been a Windows and Linux user for many years.
Harry Potter’s charts are, unsurprisingly, spellbinding.
He’s right about Apple and Google running completely different races and how Android isn’t about hardware per se but simply another data entry point to “train the engine” (that is Google Brain).With the exception of the SIRI acquisition, Apple doesn’t seem to have any particular strategy wrt Artificial Intelligence whereas Google, IBM Watson, Facebook, Microsoft and others are investing significantly in their AI efforts.It’s interesting because the mobile hardware and sensors do provide some forms of context:(1.) geo-location;(2.) motion via accelerometer and gyroscope so we can detect if someone’s going uphill at a 20 degree incline or at rest, for example;(3.) social connections via contacts book; and(4.) biometrics including face-voice recognition and touch pressures and speeds from which some basic emotions could be inferred (eg quick typing = anxiousness to get their communication out there; slow typing = relaxed).However, there’s a whole set of contextual data which can’t be measured by mobile’s onboard sensor chips and which aren’t (yet) being measured by any technology from Google, FB, Amazon, eBay, Pinterest et al or the smaller startups and apps.Those affect the 3 categories which he had for search and discovery:* You know what you want => Google * ? => ???* You’re bored, restless => Facebook, Twitter etc.That contextual data would be the purpose for which you’re looking for that item and your perceptual state of mind as you go in search of it.For example, you want a fridge for your kitchen and you’re in a great mood because you just made your annual bonus so you can afford to buy a Smeg because it’s retro and they have it in banana yellow.That type of context.
I think they’re going to start trying to butt heads though, even if it’s just to trip up the competition. Innovate in different areas that their strengths play to.Examples being Google buying Nest, and Apple starting to be involved in vehicle design elements, which indirectly or perhaps directly is a competitive move towards Google.
In the Apple vs Google discussions, it would be interesting to get a breakdown of the male:female ratios for which gender buys the iPhone, iPad Air, iPad Mini vs their Google equivalents.Benedict Evans commented about how Apple was on track to reach 950 million iPhones sold compared with 1.3 billion Android phones and he questioned whether Apple had much to be concerned about. As well as the mobile devices themselves, it would also be interesting to compare male:female ratios of app downloads.There are some interesting articles about the difference between how men and women source and shop for consumer electronics etc here:* http://www.insidetechnology…* http://readwrite.com/2012/0…As long as Apple makes hardware that seems to have a “feminine design touch” combined with powerful functionality, it’ll hold its natural market.Google’s migration towards more “feminine” products in recent years is interesting. Before, it focused on pure hard engineering.
I imagine it comes down more so to how they end up using their device, which will depend on who they are and how they spend their time on a daily basis. The people (male/female/etc) I know who use their phone as part of their daily work just want a good, fast phone – Android phones can be that. I wonder if it can then be assumed that people who aren’t as concerned with function and usefulness perhaps have a perfectionist sub-personality being a strong influence – which is because they have the time to just look at the world, instead of acting in the world.Chicken/egg problem. Which comes first. Perfectionist sub-personality having a stronghold, or not being busy enough which allows that to evolve? Other thought – what happens when you’re stuck in both states.. of course it’s a spectrum..More beautiful phone vs. more functional phone.If I ever had the opportunity to design mobile devices, I would thoroughly enjoy that process.. Unfortunately I imagine there will be a patent for every single possible characteristic of a “mobile device.”
“For example, you want a fridge for your kitchen and you’re in a great mood because you just made your annual bonus so you can afford to buy a Smeg because it’s retro and they have it in banana yellow.”Not sure I’d be comfortable with that. Most people, if they need a new fridge, might have been planning to have a new fridge – and so perhaps have a wishlist of fridges they like.I am not sure this will be how people buy in the future though.
That’s a good point: for larger items like fridges people usually have had time to build up a wishlist.A better example would be for a lower-ticket $50 less item maybe — like a meal or a pair of jeans.
.If you are married, you cannot possibly buy a refrigerator without at least 25 trips to boutique appliance stores where they will give you a latte — tempered by visiting every big box retailer buttressed by a day or so of looking up prices on the internet.Then and only then are you ready to begin thinking about a new refrigerator. The Magna Carta was a “wish list”, this is something altogether more complex. Trust me.Pro tip: When you agree to even consider buying a refrigerator, you are also agreeing to replace every working appliance in the kitchen to ensure they match. If you have renovated a home together, you already know this. I did not know, at first, that stone countertops were appliances. But I learned and now I know.You will say “refrigerator” and your beloved will hear range, ovens, microwave, wine cooler, trash compactor, freezer drawers under the island (I have come to calling our island “Manhattan” as it too is very expensive), two dishwashers and an appliance ranch to hide your blender, panini press, toaster and Keurig.So, don’t tell me about refrigerators.The richest experience of my life has been gutting a lake house which then freed the process from the constraints of dimensions. A simple pull down bed, a toilet and I could live in the kitchen. Yes, it has an island.JLM.
Haha, JLM, that’s a brilliant observation about what we women hear when our partners say “refrigerator”.Yeah, we’re serial matchers; we swap out and match white goods in the same way we do our dresses, shoes and make-up. It’s about how the items make us look and feel not just its functionality and purpose.The context of an item’s utility and value is different between men and women.And now I need to get a “Manhattan” too, haha.
Women, or anyone who’s into the design and aesthetics of spaces they use – to be highly functional and beautiful at the same time.
“Men and women deserve equalrespect as persons but are notthe same.””Of COURSE, women are MUCHmore emotional than men — that’sthe cause of all the problems”between men and women!I remember: Mom wanted theliving room painted. The existingpaint looked fine to me. So,Mom spent weeks going toboutique interior decorating paintshops and finally picked out avery special, nearly unique, color,blended in the shop, with bothsome yellow and charcoal thatwas so subtle that one had tostrain to see the exquisite,profound artistic value!Dad liked to have Mom happyand among his many skills wasjust excellent at very high qualityinterior painting — finishcarpentry, brick laying, framingcarpentry, roofing, furnituremaking, welding (high pressuresteam boiler certificate), machinetool usage, engineering drawing,mechanical systems, appliedchemistry and statistics, plumbing,electricity, basic aeronauticalengineering, and more.So, Dad emptied out the livingroom, did a great job at surfacepreparation, got out his rare,coveted paint brushes withChinese hog bristles, and paintedwith flawless perfection not seensince Michelangelo. And the paintwas — well, if you have to ask,then you can’t afford it!Mom didn’t say much but didn’tlook happy. As the days wentby, she looked less and lesshappy. Finally, the dam broke:Mom was very UNhappy. Heck,she likely liked the ‘before’ situationbetter! The color was just allwrong, just not what she hadimagined. She was devastated:When her high end social friendsvisited for rare tea from hersilver tea service and specialchina cups, they just would notget the desired effect from thepaint — whatever the heck thateffect was!So, Dad, did I mention, he likedto see Mom happy?, movedeverything out of the living roomagain, took Trial Two of thespecial boutique paint, andthis time, right, no surfacepreparation, slap it on, f’getabout it, and put the furnitureback and done! Yes, the paintfrom Trial Two would fall offif more than just lightly touched!Yes, there were runs, drips, anderrors! Dad was DONE. Momwas ‘happy’ if only by definition!I thought the paint was fine tobegin with!It’s like the two ugly sisters inDisney’s ‘Cinderella’ who threwaway perfectly good clothes, etc.just to get new clothes. ThenCinderella — as a great exampleof a ‘good woman, wife, andmother’ prospect — picked up thethrowaways and looked likea princess!So, sometimes a woman willwant a ‘MAKE over!’.Or, “Never can tell what a womanwill do next’ (‘The Big SkyCountry’).Or, from Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’,”La donna e mobile”. http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Your Dad sounds like a diamond of a husband.Some husbands would just hire the painters for the weekend, tell their wives they have to travel to an out-of-town conference and then scoot round to their best friend’s to watch sports all weekend!Yeah and we are……MOBILE (and not the Rigoletto version).Mobile and social took off because women love to share, communicate and curate.We are what drove the successes of iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, after all.:*).
Some husbands would just hire the painters for the weekendNothing wrong with that in my book at all.I think before deciding that the hiring strategy doesn’t make sense you have to actually calculate the amount per hour that the painter is actually making. Could be as low as $25 per hour all in. (Don’t forget there is also prep and moving things). And buying the paint.So if you want to paint then some or all of following has to be satisfied or true:a) You think you can do the job better than a professional painterb) You want to experiment and it’s easier to do that if you do it yourself (although I would argue that you can both experiment and use a painter).c) You enjoy (or think you will enjoy) painting. What fun.d) You think you will save money painting. (I mean if your time is worth $16 per hour and the painter makes $25 then assuming you are as efficient as the professional you will save some money not factoring in that he might buy paint cheaper.)e) You feel that you are doing the painting in hours that you wouldn’t normally be working so in that sense even making $15 per hours seems like a good idea. Found money.f) You don’t have a business. You are a wage earner. In other words if you have your own business and you are spending time doing painting instead of improving your business is that the best use of your time? g) The party in your brain makes you feel good even given “f”. Or you rationalize that it’s some do good or frugality or Ben Franklin thing.My feeling though is that most people who would do “e” would never do “e” for someone else even for more money. Obviously.When I started my first business I had plenty of time and little money so I spent my own time (and the time of my girlfriend at the time) painting the place. In that case the opportunity cost didn’t matter.Separately I feel gardening or lawn cutting to save money falls the same way. We paid the gardeners to clean up the leaves which my wife thought we should do. I said not ever going to happen. It took 4 men maybe 4 hours to do the job. And the cost per hour was something like $20 per man hour. For really difficult work. That said I generally clean my own bathroom at work. Because it’s easy and interruptive to have the cleaning lady come and do the job.
Congrats on knowingabout Rigoletto!Since you are a womanhere in the ‘AVC highT locker room’ with usguy nerds, Welcome!Even guy nerds like tohave some girls around– they are MUCH nicerthan guy nerds!> Your Dad sounds likea diamond of ahusband.Mom didn’t reallyappreciate him: Momand Dad occupied wellestablished ‘roles’and, thus, didn’t muchthink about theirsituation anymore thana tiger thinks abouthis stripes which, tothe tiger, are just’givens’.Dad was a somewhatbetter cook than Mom,if only because Momresented cooking andDad didn’t! Dad’s Momwas a good cook, e.g.,could take an old,wild turkey and makeit moist and tender.She baked a pie a dayfor about 60 years.So, Dad was good atbaking pies,especially apple.Dad’s stuffed, roastedThanksgiving turkeywith dressing andgravy was reallysomething — he usedhis mom’s techniquesfor old, wild turkeyson modern, grocerystore turkeys! Dad’sstrawberry shortcakewas simple but,somehow after an hourin the refrigerator,was off the tops ofthe charts. Mom’s bigcontribution was toset a table close tosomething for a statedinner in BuckinghamPalace!Early in my ownapartment I did somecooking if onlybecause I liked toeat! At one point Igot good with scallopsin a hot custardsauce, that is, whitewine, stock, usualsuspects, roux, andfinished with eggyolks, butter, lemon,and salt. Fingerlickin’ good (FLG)stuff.Then I took come crabmeat, wrapped up insome crepes, linedthem up in a bakingdish, warmed them inan oven, poured overthe hot custard sauce,topped with a fewshreds of Swisscheese, browned alittle under abroiler, and servedwith some Macon to Momand Dad. Momdiscarded her usualdecorum, reached forthe baking dish, ranher index fingeraround inside, andconfirmed FLG! Net,she liked some of myefforts at fancycooking better thanher own!But she did have aLobster Newburg thatwas good!> Mobile and socialtook off because womenlove to share,communicate andcurate.> We are what drovethe successes ofiPhone, Facebook,Pinterest, after all.No joke. You are 100%right-on!I long kept wonderingjust why mobile phonescould be so popular.I thought about, say,a plumber who wantedto call back to hishouse, wife, businesspartner, and ‘workscheduler’ and saw thevalue there; but stillmobile phones didn’tlook like such abiggie. I had ahandicap: I don’t usea mobile phone;someone gave me one,and I don’t use it.Finally I noticedteenage girls walkingaround with phonesattached to the sidesof their heads!What were those girlsDOING?Well, inDeborah Tannen, ‘YouJust Don’t Understand:Women and Men inConversation’, WilliamMorrow and Company,New York, ISBN0-688-07822-2, 1990.men communicateinformation and womencommunicate emotions.Women like to form’herds’ — “Yes, theydo form herds”(‘Jurassic Park’!).So, there was thepromo for the TV ‘TheBabysitters Club’ withthe girls walking downa sidewalk with eachgirl wanting to becloser to the centerof the herd than allthe others — the guywho filmed that hadsome good insight intogirls or maybe justlet the girls do whatthey would donaturally anyway!In short, teenagegirls ‘gossip’. Inthat way, by bringingjuicy tidbits to thegroup, they get’acceptance’ into a’group’, ‘membership’in a group. In E.Fromm’s ‘The Art ofLoving’, thefundamental problem inlife is doingsomething about theanxiety of feelingalone, and his thirdmost recommendedsolution is’membership in agroup’ — girls knowthis intuitively(‘instinctively’!!!!:-)) without readingFromm!Small stuff? Nope!As explained hereyesterday, much of thevalue of WhatsApp, $19billion, was from itsability to let girlsdo ‘texting’ (maybealso ‘sexting’) fornext to nothing incosts by just usingthe Internet insteadof the phonecompanies’ high pricedSMS ‘short messagingservice’.Still, I’m reluctantto take very seriouslybusiness directionsthat have most oftheir usage based onthe propensity ofteenage girls togossip. Why? Becausesuch girls quicklyflit from fad to fad.Yup, the girls in highschool were pretty,beyond belief, oftensweet, darling,adorable, andprecious. “Can’t livewith’em; can’t livewithout’em.”.Dad, since he got justto play a well knownrole, didn’t muchunderstand girls. Bythe time I gotinterested in girls,the roles were gone,and I was in troublebecause Dad had nottaught me about girlsand it took me a longtime to understandthem. In a word,girls are ‘different’– understatement ofthe galaxy.
It’s Fred’s bar rather than a locker room?Of course, in the real world, a woman wouldn’t go up to a group of guys “talking shop” in the bar, but the virtual world makes it seem more socially acceptable and easier?As time passes, traditional “roles” blur as both partners share the challenges of dual-income employment.It simply makes sense to play to the strengths of your partner rather than have set “roles”. For example, if the man is a MUCH better cook and enjoys it, then he should make dinner 3 out of the 7 days while she does it 2 nights rather than have a set-up where she preps dinner 7 nights so it’s on the table when he gets home.(The other two nights are a meal out at a restaurant and a meal at one of their parents’ or at friends, btw).
Likewise if the woman is a dab hand at putting up shelves, then she should go ahead and do it and not wait for the man to do it.
> It’s Fred’s bar rather than alocker room?Yes, you are correct! Myanalogy was a bit off! E.g.,women wouldn’t go into a “lockerroom”!But, I was roughly partlycorrect: Although you womencan’t really know this, theconversation here is much likein a nerd guys locker room!And, of course, “Fred’s Place”is much closer to what’s goingon here.> Of course, in the real world,a woman wouldn’t go up to agroup of guys “talking shop” inthe bar, but the virtual worldmakes it seem more sociallyacceptable and easier?You are correct again: Even ifwhat the nerd guys talk abouthere is much like they would ina locker room, your “talkingshop” is a still betterdescription.And you are correct about “moresocially acceptable and easier”.Once again, there’s no way forme to compete with a brightfemale on verbal ability andsocial insight!!> As time passes, traditional”roles” blur as both partnersshare the challenges ofdual-income employment.My experience suggests thatnearly no couples know what theheck to do yet. E.g., I marrieda girl bright beyond belief,genuinely brilliant,Valedictorian, PBK, ‘Summa CumLaude’, Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D. inmathematical sociology. Andmore that was even moreimpressive. But of her, hermother, and her two sisters,none of those four females couldfigure out how to live happilyor effectively with a husband;they didn’t like any of the oldroles, but without the roles, asbright as they all were, none ofthem could figure out what to dowith love, marriage, a husband,a career, or life. They weregood mothers with their smallchildren but not so good afterthe kids got to, say, fourthgrade. They all did well ormuch better in college, and ofthe four two were RNs.The problems those four womenhad with the ‘world of work’were beyond belief: Looking ateach of them in college andwould conclude ‘great promise,no problems’. But for all fourof them, serious problems poppedup seemingly out of nowhere.My advice, considered for morehundreds of hours than I want toadmit, to any young man whowants to get married is (A) makea lot of money, (B) get a girlthat is young, bright, veryhealthy, pretty, sweet, darling,adorable, precious, regards youas a god, is desperate to pleaseyou, will willingly follow yourlead, and is from a family asmuch as possible like the oneyou want to build, (C) hurry upand get her married andpregnant, and maybe not in thatorder, (D) keep her pregnant,about once each two years, untilshe has at least eight of herown children walking around andhealthy and is totally dedicatedto being a wife and mother, (E)shower her with praise, romance,and all forms of security, (F)minimize her time outside thehome where she might encounterbad influences, (G) as theyoungest of her children reachesfirst grade, have her work withthe older children on gettinggood marriages and then startbeing a good grandmother, (H) doas much as possible on ‘homeschooling’ the children, say,with tutors of just a fewchildren at a time, (I) early onwork hard on the emotional,psychological, social, artistic,verbal, spacial, and athletic,development of the children, (J)later work hard on themathematical, scientific,engineering, technological,political, athletic, andbusiness development of thechildren, (K) expose thechildren to ‘pop culture’ onlyvery carefully.The strategy here is to reducethe very considerable risks.First, just do not place anysignificant trust in her being agood ‘partner’ with you from herrational and cognitive thinking.That and a dime won’t cover a 10cent cup of coffee. Second, gowith what clearly is reallystrong stuff: So, go withchemicals, strong chemicals, ofromance, love, sex,childbearing, nursing,mother-child bonding, anddevoted motherhood. Add inhappiness from security of ‘loveof spouse’, feelings offinancial and emotionalsecurity, praise, belonging,productivity, andaccomplishment. E.g., draw alot from E. Fromm, ‘The Art ofLoving’.It’s not nice to try to foolMother Nature; so, don’t try.My experience is that it’stotally impossible for a humanfemale to be bright enough forher rational and cognitiveabilities on their own to play asignificant role in her behaviorin a marriage, that is, toovercome what Mother Nature hashad in mind. Or, any genes thatwould let a women set asideMother Nature were removed fromthe gene pool long ago.I can build a simple butsurprisingly solid argument thatour genes are essentially thesame as 10,000 years ago. Thechanges since then have been inthe rest of society –mathematics, physical science,engineering, technology,medicine, laws, government, theeconomy, the military, religion,etc. These changes have beendriven almost entirely by men inways convenient for men butmostly in strong conflict withthe lives and genes of women of10,000 years ago. Net, womenare not suited for close contactwith the modern world in themore industrialized countriesand, instead, are still verysuited for aspects of lifecommon 10,000 years ago,especially having to do withmotherhood.Did I mention, it’s not nice totry to fool Mother Nature, sodon’t try.My parents had “dual-incomeemployment”, but the ‘world ofwork’ was MUCH easier for myfather than my mother — MUCHeasier — and where my father’scareer was much more responsibleand stressful than my mother’s.I saw a lot of wives that justdid NOT know what the heck to dowith their time or energy.Up close I’ve seen nearly nosuccessful two income marriagesand very few really successfulmarriages.Darwin is having the last wordhere: The birth rate is so lowthat people of Western Europeandescent are going extinct. Myguess is that two incomemarriages tend to be weak, sick,or dead limbs on the tree.> It simply makes sense to playto the strengths of your partnerrather than have set “roles”.Here I will differ: What youare saying is correct as far asit goes, but my understanding isthat (A) too many females makeway too much out of who cooksthe dinners or washes the dishes(supposedly Bill Gates washesthe dishes; he doesn’t mind;when my wife was alive, Iwillingly shared the housework;no biggie; now I do all thehousework; no biggie). (B) Myunderstanding of the issues ofmodern marriage is that whocooks the dinner is mostly justa superficial symbolrepresenting much deeper issuesmuch more difficult to address.The roles had a big advantage:They were more effective atcreating strong limbs on thetree.
Sheryl Sandberg and her ‘Lean In’ movement cover the challenges of working women, both in terms of self-identity, sexism and sharing responsibilities in child-rearing and in the home:* http://www.youtube.com/watc…It’s true that “nearly no couples know what theheck to do yet”.It’s social engineering going up against our natural biochemistry.
> It’s true that “nearly nocouples know what the heck todo yet”.Yup. Glad you noticed this.> It’s social engineeringgoing up against our naturalbiochemistry.Yup.Once again I can’t compete inverbal skills and socialinsight against a brightfemale .You suckered me into watchingSchmidt interview Sandberg.Her comments that were moreobvious were okay.Some of her other commentswere not good and stand tohurt a lot of women,marriages, husbands, andchildren and fill a muchneeded gap in lives andmarriages.She is ‘wound up’ and, thus,uncomfortable to listen to –not a good sign.It sounded like she got mostof her parenting from herfather, wanted to please herfather, and wanted to be aboy. Not good. It soundedlike in college she liked the’excitement’ of dating “badboys” and getting so drunk shehad hangovers. Dumb.The song was ‘The Sweetheartof Sigma Chi’, not the drunkenslut.If I was on a date with her(her lower legs are way toothin, especially for the restof her — a better thing forher to do for the next 18months would be to leave theoffice and go to the gym) andlearned either that she hadbeen drunk, ever, or was’excited’ by bad boys, thenI’d take her by the fastestpath back to the place fromwhence she came and would notpass GO or collect $100. Onlyan idiot would spend anevening of time, money, andeffort with a girl didn’t wantto see in the morning or, inthe morning, would want a passby the student health center.Semi-, quasi-,pseudo-effective, efficient,brilliant Sheryl needs to dosomething with her hair — itkeeps falling in front of herright eye. She doesn’t noticethat? As I recall, girls inthe first grade had aneffective solution for thatproblem. I never knew muchabout that solution, but sinceI’m a boy I never had thatproblem. Is Sheryl really afemale or was she a girltrying to look like a boytrying to look like a girltrying to be a boy?I can guess as a ‘staffassistant’ to Summers atHarvard and at Treasury sheworked hard, went withoutsleep, made out lists andchecked off the items, and gota lot of routine things done.I can believe that at GoogleSchmidt liked having heraround for much the samereasons and at Facebook shehelps keep Zuck organized.No, I won’t say that she keepsZuck in clean T-shirts andhoodies!She mentioned that she likesto hire for “skills” and not”experience”. Well, thecomputer industry view of’skills’ is not good: Theycommonly insist on ‘skills’that even chaired professorsof computer science andEditors in Chief of some ofthe best computer sciencejournals don’t have. Mostlythe ‘skills’ are forsuperficial familiarity withsimple syntax and semanticswith programming languages andAPIs — bummer. If the lastfive programming languagesdidn’t yield a good career,then why learn the next five?A smart approach in computingis to know the skills thatreally need, to minimize timespent on skills, not maximizeit.In contrast, some aspects ofexperience can say much morethan a weekend with aprogramming language ‘dujour’. E.g., having inventedand implemented a programminglanguage — e.g., with LALRparsing and optimization ofthe output of a code generator– would mean more than, say,a weekend with Python. Sowould some good peer reviewedpublications in computerscience or even just a goodcourse of study in computerscience. And for severalsteps up, a good pure/appliedmath major is more importantfor the future of computingthan computer science.Sandberg’s claim that thecomputer industry has a’skills shortage’ and needseither better ‘education’ ormore immigration from the’better’ educations in, say,India, Taiwan, China, Viet Namis nonsense. A collegeeducation in computer scienceis mostly not about learningsyntax and semantics of 10programming languages and 10APIs.For all the emphasis oncomputer programming, itappears that, including inSilicon Valley, an RN makesmore money — she certainlyhas a more stable job.Apparently at both Google andFacebook Sheryl was good atgetting ‘recruiting’organized. Hmm …. What doesshe understand aboutcomputing? If she wants todesign experiments to find thebest recruiting techniques,what does she know about’experimental design’, i.e.,in the context of ‘analysis ofvariance’, e.g., as longheavily used in agriculture,George W. Snedecor and WilliamG. Cochran, ‘StatisticalMethods’, The Iowa StateUniversity Press, Ames, Iowa?How much code has she written?Can she explain ‘thread safe’code? What is a ‘transaction’in database? What about ACIDin relational database? Howcan a relational databasesystem do a full backup of thedata while the systemcontinues to performproduction transactions? Whatgood architectures of largesoftware projects has shecreated and implemented? Whathas she done in nontrivial,original algorithms? What isthe importance of the questionP versus NP (Clay in Bostonwill give $1 million for thefirst correct solution). Whathas she done in statisticaland optimization techniques,hopefully powerful andoriginal, for ad targeting?Uh, maybe Zuck & Co. could usesome help there. To me shesounds like a good way toshoot much of recruiting inthe gut.HR is easy: Each candidatetalks to someone who isrelaxing, pleasant, and nice.In person they smile and arenice. Major HR tasks inrecruiting include helpingwith long distance travel,e.g., hotel, rental car, localroad maps, offering beveragesand snacks, handing out afloor map, especially to therest rooms, helping withtravel arrangements andexpense reimbursements, makingthe organization chart clear,helping keep the interviewschedule up to date andgetting the candidate from oneinterview to the next, helpingarrange meals, hopefully withrelevant employees, handingout the benefits packet andcontact information, handingout good information on thesurrounding community withschools, churches, shopping,real estate, recreation,smiling and being nice. Did Imention that they should smileand be nice?Oh, yes: No one in HR shouldever do anything to ‘evaluate’a candidate!Sounds to me like, to go to amovie with Sandberg, herhusband has to schedule amonth in advance and expectthat she will cancel at thelast minute and for his secondeffort suddenly pick anothertime.I understand that she’s hadsome children. And likely shehas money enough for life.So, if she has any sense atall, then why the heck is shestill going to work instead ofdoing what is MUCH moreimportant, being a wife andmother? What’s wrong withher? Looks to me like shestands to be a weak, sick, ordead limb on the tree.This is all quite old and wasquite clear in the movie’Woman of the Year’ withSpencer Tracy and KatharineHepburn (Heartburn?) wherefinally the Tracy charactersaid, “You aren’t a woman atall.”. He was correct.Someone, maybe Betty Friedan,the Communist saboteur whowrecked millions of US homes,told a lot of women that menhave it great, do all theimportant things, have all thepower, make all the money, andget all the glory while womenjust keep worrying about”where the yellow went” andtalking mostly only at thepreschool level.Nonsense. Sucker punch.Instead, men make green stuff,fungible, a commodity, andbring it home and put it inthe family checkbook forwhat’s really important. MayI have the envelope, please?And the candidates are goodsex, a new BMW to keep up withthe neighbors, a display casefull of Steuben glass, toyslike a new Ferrari, a$1,000,000 ‘I would do itagain’ ring for the wife, IvyLeague educations for thekids, a yacht over 100′, and agood home. And the winner is(drum roll, please) a goodhome!!!! E.g., everyonetogether and happy forThanksgiving dinner!Listen up, Sheryl and herreaders: And this post didn’tcost you even $14 with 40%off. Actually I’d say thatSheryl is about 90% off.And if Sheryl were reallysmart, then she’d be good athomeschooling her kids.
You wrote “HR is easy” but is it?If it is, then why is there a “WAR for talent” (war as Hobbes would say is “hard, brutish and ugly”) and why is the constant refrain in the tech sector, “It’s really hard to find great talent: co-founders, designers, developers, sales leads et al”?If there is a “war for talent” in Silicon Valley and other tech ecosystems, General Sandberg has succeeded in enlisting an army, retaining and incentivising of 6,000+ Facebook soldiers as well as shape the strategy of FB to its 1+ billion users.To my knowledge, Sheryl Sandberg doesn’t code — unlike Marissa Mayer and myself — so the technical interviews are likely, and rightly, conducted by the technical leaders whilst the senior-level business interviews would include an interview with her, probably.You wrote: “So, if she has any sense atall, then why the heck is shestill going to work instead ofdoing what is MUCH moreimportant, being a wife andmother?”The question could also be asked of Mark Zuckerberg. Why is he still going to work instead of doing what is MUCH more important, being a husband and father, when he is wealthy well beyond need.It boils down to: “What makes sense for one person is nonsensical for another because our perceptions and self-identifies are complex and diverse.”Some male construction workers may believe it’s ridiculous that bankers “get insane money and they don’t even MAKE stuff!”Just as some women may believe their life’s purpose is to contribute to tech at the code level or be appointed to the board and they regard ‘ladies who lunch, don’t work and live off their husband’s salary” as not for them.The main thing is that we have choices and we make whatever sense we can of those choices.
> You wrote “HR is easy” butis it?Yes it is easy; all the HRdepartment should try to do iswhat I outlined. Did Imention, they should smile andbe nice? It is easy.[Yes, HR also has some legalresponsibilities in recordkeeping.]> If it is, then why is therea “WAR for talent” (war asHobbes would say is “hard,brutish and ugly”) and why isthe constant refrain in thetech sector, “It’s really hardto find great talent:co-founders, designers,developers, sales leads etal”?The “war for talent” is muchlike the shortage of farmworkers in Californiaadvertised to homeless peoplein Oklahoma during the GreatDepression.That “war” is a flim-flam,fraud, scam, along withSandberg’s ‘need forimmigration’ just to lower thecost of programmers who arealready paid less well than,say, RNs.> If there is a “war fortalent” in Silicon Valley andother tech ecosystems, GeneralSandberg has succeeded inenlisting an army, retainingand incentivising of 6,000+Facebook soldiers as well asshape the strategy of FB toits 1+ billion users.I doubt that. I doubt thatSandberg has ever had anysignificant, beneficialleadership accomplishments atall, back to childhood whenshe was trying to organize theplay of the other children. Ibelieve I have Sandberg mostlyfigured out — net, it’s notgood. Any ninth grade girlwho organizes the decorationof the gym and the punch bowlfor the homecoming dance coulddo as well or better.> To my knowledge, SherylSandberg doesn’t code —unlike Marissa Mayer andmyself — so the technicalinterviews are likely, andrightly, conducted by thetechnical leaders whilst thesenior-level businessinterviews would include aninterview with her, probably.As I wrote, HR should neverattempt to evaluatecandidates. So, right, thereal evaluations should bemade by “the technicalleaders”, but there was noindication from the interviewjust how the evaluations aredone. Whatever, it’s tough toconclude that Sandberg didmuch to improve on some of thebetter, long standinginterviewing practices in theindustry. I saw a lot ofrecruiting and interviewing atIBM’s Watson lab in YorktownHeights, the results were goodenough, and there was no verytricky stuff. I doubt thatSandberg improved on what Isaw.> You wrote: “So, if she hasany sense at all, then why theheck is she still going towork instead of doing what isMUCH more important, being awife and mother?”> The question could also beasked of Mark Zuckerberg. Whyis he still going to workinstead of doing what is MUCHmore important, being ahusband and father, when he iswealthy well beyond need.If I were Zuck, then I’dlikely quit and do what Iwanted, in my case, family,mathematical physics, and,maybe, take a stab at an ideaI have for artificialintelligence. Bill Gateslargely quit and did,apparently, what his wifewanted and, likely, learnedfrom nuns in her high school.Good for Bill and Melinda.But some ‘norms’ have grownup: Long it was men who hadto work, whether their wivesdid or not, and had to workuntil they were forced toretire. So, men were ‘taught’that they had to work andcould just f’get about muchelse — their work and lifewere much the same, andwithout their work theywouldn’t know what the heck todo. Sad situation. Menshould get away from that, andwomen certainly shouldn’t fallfor it.Women were rarely taught sucha lesson. Instead the usuallesson for women was be a wifeand mother, work if you haveto, but when the home/work nolonger take up all your timethen do volunteer work to’save’ the planet, atmosphere,top soil, rivers, groundwater, oceans, whales, poorpeople, etc.My recommendation, instead,would be to home school thekids and/or grand kids and bea good wife and grandmother.> It boils down to: “Whatmakes sense for one person isnonsensical for anotherbecause our perceptions andself-identifies are complexand diverse.”True, but it doesn’t tell mewhy Sandburg doesn’t just gohome, with some side trips tothe gym, and devote herself tobeing good as a wife andmother; I believe that she ismissing some things, is a fewcans short of a full six pack,and is being a fool. Sheshould GO HOME.> Just as some women maybelieve their life’s purposeis to contribute to tech atthe code level and regard’ladies who lunch, don’t workand live off their husband’ssalary” as not for them.You are much better, on a jobor off, than either of thosealternatives.> The main thing is that wehave choices and we makewhatever sense we can of thosechoices.Sure, but more depth ofunderstanding is needed. Inparticular I would urge you,Sandberg, Zuck, Fred, etc. toregard home and family strongenough that no one in thefamily will ever feel alone asthe main goal in life (E.Fromm).
If Ada Lovelace, Adele Goldberg, Grace Murray Hopper, Mandy Chessel and Hedy Lamarr had “stayed at home” instead of going out to work and exercise their brains and choices, global society would not have had the innovations of the Difference Engine, smalltalk language, COBOL, ATMs and pins and wi-fi.They are why I work in tech and build my AI system.The major tech breakthroughs happen when men and women work in complementary ways like: Lovelace and Babbage, Goldberg and Alan Kay, Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil.So…women at work leads to innovation.
> If Ada Lovelace, Adele Goldberg, Grace MurrayHopper, Mandy Chessel and Hedy Lamarr had “stayed athome” instead of going out to work and exercisetheir brains and choices, global society would nothave had the innovations of the Difference Engine,smalltalk language, COBOL, ATMs and pins and wi-fi.I don’t know how wi-fi works — maybe it’s a lowpowered case of spread spectrum. I always thoughtthat Hedy Lamarr’s main contribution was an earlyversion of spread spectrum.Once a bright girl told me, “Women don’t have tojust be cared for. Women can do things, too. Iwant a career.”.So, I’ve heard such thoughts before.Well, in many ways, of course women can do things,too. I’ve seen some cases: E.g., at IBM Research,Fran Allen, wife of Jack Schwartz, was on the samefloor as I was and not far away. She always had asmile. Once her group did something on matrixmultiplication exploiting parallel processors. So,I wondered, what’s the big deal and typed in asubroutine in PL/I using PL/I’s ‘tasking’ to dothat, ran it, saw that it ran fine, and then askedFran what the big deal was. She explained how, aspart of a math package her group had, they wereexploiting what they knew about the processorcaching to do better keeping data in the cache.Yes, the addressing in the more popular approachesto the fast Fourier transform can cause too manycache misses and can be improved by adjusting theaddressing based on how the cache works. I wonderedif such details were really worthwhile for matrixproduct.Gotta tell you, though, essentially everything inthe world of work, mathematics, physical science,medical science, engineering, technology, andbusiness was created by men in ways convenient formen. From all I’ve seen, in that world, women fitlike a fish out of water, like a dog walking on itshind legs where the surprise is not that he does itwell but that he can do it at all. And from all Ican see, there is plenty for a woman to do being awife, mother, and grandmother, and doing well atthose is crucial for the future of civilization.”The woman who rocks the cradle rules the world”.Darwin will win this argument.”Just a homemaker” is a grand and ignorant slander,maybe from someone who didn’t have a good mother,maybe a mother who read Betty Friedan.Again, it goes back to the movie where the SpencerTracy character said (a more accurate quote) “Thewoman of the year is not a woman”, that is, womenwho neglect love, home, family, and motherhood inpursuit of ‘something better’.’Equality’ for women would be a big step down forwomen, in their privileges, responsibilities, andaccomplishments.> They are why I work in tech and build my AIsystem.Go for it, but don’t let love, home, and familysuffer. And do all you can to home school yourkids.> The major tech breakthroughs happen when men andwomen work in complementary ways like: Lovelace andBabbage, Goldberg and Alan Kay, Hedy Lamarr andGeorge Antheil.Well, some breakthroughs may go that way! When Iget back to physics I want thoroughly to understandthe point that a conservation law corresponds to asymmetry group — that point was not covered at allin my undergraduate physics studies. There’s asurprisingly good introduction athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wik…So, yes, Emmy Noether played a role there.More on Jack Schwartz athttp://www.nytimes.com/2009…with> In the mid 1980s, he spent a year as the head ofthe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’sInformation Processing and Techniques Office.> While there he shifted the research focus of theorganization away from artificial intelligence.Good decision! From all I can see, no one has madeany real progress in artificial intelligence (AI).Just when Schwartz was saying good bye to AI, I wasworking on it. What we were doing may have had somevalue, but ‘intelligence’ had nothing to do with it.> So…women at work leads to innovation.Fine. But 99 44/100% of men who work do so just tomake green stuff, and when they have enough, e.g.,Romney, they quit and GO HOME. There typically theypay more attention to love, home, and family but maycontinue working on whatever.This 99 44/100% of men are not really working forstatus, power, prestige, praise, acceptance,approval, the roar of the grease paint and the smellof the crowd, a sense of accomplishment, pride, orproductivity, or to improve the world. They areworking for green stuff, hopefully to support a wifeand family and a good home. Not a lot of glory inthe green stuff without the home.Women should not get confused: They should not cutback on love, home, and family to pursue green stuffthey don’t need.
Might as well just buy a new house and rent out the old one.
and you’ve gotten off easy too!
Now, now, now, the two diswashersare absolutely essential!!!!So, you get two pieces of whitecardboard, glue a magnet on theback of each, on the front of themwrite “A” on one and “B” on the other, draw the clean dishes fromA and put the dirty dishes in B;when B is full you run it and thenswap the labels A and B. I thought that’s what everyone did!For a stone counter top, what happens when set a good wineglass on the counter a little toohard? Stone — does that reallydo well resisting vinegar or winestains? The old solution, basicallya fancy version of paper, mightbe more useful! Yes, the old paper was more useful, but wehave to understand, the stone ismuch more expensive!
Now, now, now, the two diswashersare absolutely essential!!!!That houses don’t automatically come with 2 (clothes) washers and 2 dryers (or at least 2 washers and 1 dryer) is a good example of how men solve problems for men and not for women. Because they fix things that matter to them and what they don’t know they don’t think about.Anyone who has ever done wash will know how much more efficient it is to not have to deal with only 1 washer and dryer.
If you do not have his and hers refrigerators you have a problem in my world.
LOL, I thought that was just the bathroom not the fridge as well!
Ah, it’s just a very simple matterof classic ‘time and motion’efficiency!Case A — old way: Move dish fromcabinet to table to dishwasher tocabinet. Three moves.Case B — new way: Move dish fromone washer to table to other washer. Two moves!Case B saves 1/3rd of the effort!Besides, the dishwashers actas a ‘most often used’ cache!
I’m with you on that. Anything to improve efficiency. It’s actually fun and a game.. I used to get paid piecework as a kid and what I learn I still use to this day.I use the stapler setting that spreads out the back of the staple because it’s easier to remove the staple that way. And you don’t need a staple remover.
You will say “refrigerator” and your beloved will hear range, ovens, microwave, wine cooler, trash compactor, freezer drawers under the islandYou are no doubt married to someone very high on the “girly girl” scale. My dad had to twist my mom’s arm to get her to allow any changes or renovations or anything. She didn’t like the dust and the mess and was happy with what they had and didn’t see the need for a change.
I would have been happy with a functioning and normal kitchen growing up, or rather overall environment. I know normal is relative, though the normal level of the environment I grew up in wasn’t healthy for me.. Fortunately/unfortunately for me, aesthetics is equally as important to function for me to fully enjoy and use an environment to its fullest use.
Or a mental wishlist which is determined by how often they’ve seen advertisements for them – whatever absorbs through passive listening, etc..If people start planning out things, researching beforehand – this will significantly cut advertising budgets AND it will reduce the overall cost of items, because those manufacturers don’t need to spend the money on advertising.High quality product vs. high advertising budget, word of mouth vs. buy because it seems to be what everyone else is using (in ads you see).
Are most people not commenting because they’re consuming and processing the contents of the video? 🙂
It’s a long video. So most blog visitors here won’t watch it. And therefore won’t comment.
Length of video is quite the wrong leading metric on whether to watch content ….. their loss. 🙂
True.
IF (FREETIME * VALUE OF DO SOMETHING ELSE < LENGTH OF VIDEO * OBVIOUS ROI OF WATCH) THEN YOU NO GET WATCH VIDEO.
Comments are always super light on Saturday videos
One of those things people can eventually get to.. 🙂
I usually wait until after I consume it to comment. Don’t want to look like the kid who showed up to class without doing homework 😉
I sometimes do the reverse, as a bit of an exercise. Read everyone’s comments first and see how that translates into meaning for me – and then watch the video to see what more I resonate with it. And then sometimes make a comment(s) of my own after. 🙂
This was the first time I had seen Benedict on video. He seems like a really like able guy. I’m a big fan too and first discovered him through this blog. Thanks for the mention!
For whatever reason I didn’t know anything attached to name before watching this video.Tim definitely knows his stuff, on the holistic level.Edit: Crossed my wires somehow.. confused two people.. so removed that part of my reply.
Entrepreneur: “I’m solving the pain point of kyackers getting caught in the fog who need to find the app on their smartphone that helps with navigation”VC: “That’s a problem I can identify with”Entrepreneur: (to himself) “Shit, that was supposed to be a joke. How am I supposed to pitch my method of revolutionizing medical research using native smartphone data?”
Thank you, great speaker and interview, thought provoking and well worth watching all the way through. Was curious and found this is from Feb 5, 2014.
At’s a lot’s a stuff a.(1) Evans is very much underestimating how smartpeople, the common people in the streets fromIndonesia to NYC, are: E.g., in Indonesia they areplenty smart, are able to keep their bicycles,motorbikes, and cars running. Likely what they aredoing with mobile devices often requires them to cutthrough enough English, some European languages, orChinese or Japanese.(2) Evans is overestimating how important it is tohave a mobile device, once just opened up or turnedon, automatically to tell the user what they need toknow. Maybe for a tiny fraction of the populationsome such approach would be feasible, but generallythere is way, Way too much variety to make that workvery well — 99 44/100% of the time the results ofsuch an attempt would be just laughable.(3) Evans is greatly underestimating how difficultit would be to do the software and systemsdevelopment to have a mobile device, once justopened up or turned on, automatically to tell theuser what they need to know. He needs to be askedsomething like, “Now, let’s get an outline from,say, 10,000 feet just how such software is to work?.With (3) Evans wants a ‘Girl Friday’, but that’stough to do even with a smart, real girl!Correction: Do? Easy. Do well enough to beuseful? A long way from doable now.So, (3) says that (2) is too difficult to do, and(1) says that the users are smart enough not to need(2). I’m sorry two guys got lost in the fog on SFBay and found using the GPS in their mobile devicenot quite convenient enough! I was wondering aboutthe risk of their getting run over by a ship or evenmotor yacht, one with an operator with radar, Loran,etc., and GPS.The need for more in discovery and search for themobile world might be correct, but Evans doesn’thave even a weak little hollow hint of a tiny clueabout how to proceed. Instead he is still thinkingin terms of efforts he saw from the past — Yahoo,Google page rank, Facebook ‘friends’, etc. Maybesomewhere in there Evans said that something new isneeded; if so, then he is correct. For some of whathe wants, the ‘discovery’ need seems to be met by’virality’, i.e., the high propensity of teenagegirls to gossip! A million people a day have beendiscovering WhatsApp long before my daily newsreading said much about it — there are some waysfor people to do some discovery now.In particular, his slide 23 withI know what I want — GoogleI didn’t know I wanted that — ?I’m bored — Facebook, Buzzfeed, etc.is not well considered.His numbers on expenditures and users areinteresting, and from those numbers we can guessthat there should be some good startup opportunitiesin there somewhere, but Evans is very light on justwhat those opportunities are, what can be done,versus off the top of the head guessed about, andhow to do what can be done (that is, assuming thatmore than just routine software will be needed).Evans is saying that a huge market wants a safe,effective, cheap, one pill cure for any cancer. I’mglad he wants such a pill; so do I; so doeseveryone. But an issue is how the heck to make sucha pill? Hint: It’s not just a mobile device with64 bit addressing, an app based on routine software,the Internet, servers with ‘big data’, and thewireless last mile.
Thanks for sharing. I saw these slides weeks ago without the audio. Ben’s narrative adds a lot more.Slide 31 on atomization and cards resonates with your recent post on cards. Makes me want embeddable comments more – something I see as a natural extension of featured comments.#thinkingoutloud
mobile = iceberg
Very good presentation full of great data and thinking. For those interested in the slide deck you can get it here: http://www.slideshare.net/b…
True that our smartphones know so much about us, but are they helping us accordingly?It’s time our “smart”phones get smarter.
At some point doesn’t the process of automating context get pushed too far thus flipping it from tool into impediment. It gets to the point where the user starts to forfeit autonomous/creative control over their own contextual realty.For most people, most of the time, their contextual needs are fairly simple. The average user has already largely saturating most of their core personal contextual needs. This endless push to monetize around commercially over extended context surely leads to user burnout and backlash at some point?To me the future is about the organically complex, harder to reach, high hanging fruit. It is about our collective contextual visualization/control over corporate, political and financial governance/steerage.To me that is the real contemporary instantiation of the medium is the (social) message.
I agree with that, but that doesn’t negate more contextual smartness. I think both needs are compatible.We haven’t seen apps interact with each other too much.The most contextual intelligence we have so far is a) around geo-location – it knows you’re here, b) your friends – it knows who your friends are.Now, imagine the smartphone as a sensing device for your body, or even your daily work, and let it spit back some intelligence to you.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the problem of discovery is really just flipping the problem of marketing and putting the burden on the user. I do not know any users with an app discovery problem; they are not interested in installing apps. As someone who uses lots of apps I never have a discovery problem. Between friend recommendations, the iTunes store, and other things I have more good quality apps than I could ever hope to use.Install friction is high. There is nothing worse in the world than having to refresh my iTunes credit card info when going to install an app, or an app getting updated and demanding I re-login. A local burger joint had a loyalty card app and killed my login because the update allowed users to add a credit card, and I definitely didn’t scan the loyalty card during the visit when I discovered that because I was not going to hold-up the line.
“IN-CONTEXT” DISCOVERY IS NEXT THING.ASSUME USER PROACTIVE, SEEK OUT APP? DUMB.ASSUME INTERRUPT AND ANNOY USER WITH ADS LEAD TO INSTALL? DUMBER.AT STORE, BEACON ALLOW INSTANT INSTALL STORE APP? AT AIRPORT, INSTANT INSTALL AIRPORT APP? AT SPORTS, INSTANT INSTALL TEAM APP?THAT SMART.AND SOON.
Good potential if Apple and Google make it native and not require an app.
IF SOMEONE SMART ENOUGH FOR DEFINE “CARDS” AS PROTOCOL, THEM MAYBE IT HAPPEN.
Twitter cards?
SOMETHING LIKE THAT.ME ARCHITECT IT 3 TIMES ALREADY AT DIFFERENT STARTUPS, NO ONE EVER END UP IMPLEMENT.THAT WHY THEM DEAD NOW.
Great post and awesome information that for sharing such a great information with us its really informative and interesting i m looking forward to see more update like that Thanks once again .
is ben an independent consultant or employed by a research consultancy?
has foursquare found its battleship design yet?
What a great question. Very timely too. I can’t answer it but I hope to soon
when i watch a Dennis Crowley interview or presentation i really want to see foursquare succeed. he comes across in the right way.
oh, not a facebook acquisition?
A rich and provocative video. Thanks. Early question raised: what is the interaction model of the future? will it always be through the browser box? what if we could go direct – without a directory? what if we didn’t need the web?
i was in the room for this.Tim ( i don’t know the man) was very out of touch. Ben was struggling to have the conversation with him.I am a big fan of Ben’s – i obtain direct benefit from his insights and opinions.
that makes two of us.
artificial intelligence and robots a mere fifteen years from now;//www.theguardian.com/technol…
Really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing.Benedict comes across as super smart and a really polished speaker / communicator.
I just got to this tonight, via Chromecast.I have nowhere near the time, the smarts, nor the access to data as does Ben Evans, and I had to rewind the early parts to ensure I missed nothing.Wow does this talk need a narrative.The blitzkrieg of charts and figures happens before we see a thesis or know where this is going. Even better would be if Ben introduced himself or told us why we are seeing his views.I am a fan and a reader, but this was Ben’s time to say who he is and to share what he wanted to say to us.
I don’t follow?
we didn’t change the way comments worked in the redesign
Yeah, I wonder if he’s seeing something different..