coffee, black   no sugar

I cannot help but feel irritated by Apple these past weeks. Even John Gruber writes Apple needs competition..

First the ringtone silliness then the iPod video cable annoyance, now the Touch mail-lessness. This is not my idea of business. It gets in the way. Exactly the opposite of what I liked in the products so far.

Apple, your desire to please your new associates makes my skin itch!

Technorati Tags: apple, branding

The new iPod product line reminds me of the coca cola branding disaster of the 80s. The "classic" iPod's name is perceived as a prelude to death or at least something that will not develop any further. And the name "iPod touch" just, well, fizzles. And if you look at the iPod family picture, the touch looks totally out of place.

Hey, guys, what's up? Are the techies finally developing products faster than marketing can come up with names?

I think the problems mainly arise from the fact that the iPhone is called, well, the iPhone. Now the iPod touch is clearly in the same family as the iPhone, but it is not a phone. Whooops. May I use your iPhone? No, sorry, it's an iPod touch. Well, whatever you want to call it, can I have it to make a call? No. What do you mean: No? I let you have my phone the other day...

Personally, I was waiting months now for a new flagship iPod, since my old 40GB model is full and also acting up a bit. So, I definitely was not interested in any 8 or 16 GB model, however cool the interface. My main use of the iPod is at home and in my car and on both places I want my complete music collection. Period.

Now I have ordered the 80GB classic (black), but I must say it feels totally unhipp, uncool, old school to order that very nice thing. And mainly for that "classic" branding. A disaster: my first uncool iPod.

Update (2007-09-11): People expect the Touch to behave like an iPhone.

Technorati Tags: classic, coca-cola, uncool

Great.

Technorati Tags: maps, communities

Don't complain. You knew the end was coming some day, right?

Technorati Tags: delicious, fun

From the about page of the longnow foundation comes a gem:

"When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life.[...]"

That sounds so true to me, it resonates in my soul. Maybe it's the opportunity for the next generation to create a new dream of the future. I don't see a concept of it among people my own age. At least nothing which expresses itself in society, whatever that is.

Interested in long term thinking? You can listen to the seminars and get the MP3s for free.

Technorati Tags: future, longnow

Today is "talk like a pirate day"! So? Wanna shiver me timbers? Arrrr!

Technorati Tags: pirate

One of my favorite places on the Net is deviantart for years now. It's a good mirror of the People Out There: crazy and straight, dark and humorous, brilliant and stupid and you can always find something unexpected.

I was triggered to finally write about it when I saw this piece:

Technorati Tags: art, costumes, deviant, style

Now the german wikipedia has an entry about Klaus Kleinfeld the Siemens CEO. Turns out that Siemens employees changed passages which could be seen as cirtisizm of their boss. News covery in Heise Newsticker and Spiegel Online.

Interesting is that changes of the entry and posts in the discussions are done by the wikipedia user Siemens_AG which, according to its own description, is the account used by the Siemens public relation branch.

This means that, for one, Siemens is doing this in the open. This is good thinking. It shows respect to wikipedia and its processes. Nowwhere in the wikipedia documentation I found a statement that corporate users are discouraged.

But far more important: it means that Mr Kleinfeld is rewriting his own wikipedia entry. That he never typed a letter is irrelevant. The changes were made by Siemens AG and he is the CEO. That makes them his changes. This really smells.

Siemens claims that the original article was not neutral, even hostile. Now, how neutral and objective can Mr Kleinfeld write about himself? Or how neutral can an employee of Mr Kleinfeld report on facts? Siemens own arguments work against them.

In hindsight, it would have been much smarter for Siemens to engage (not hire) someone with credibility to publish a revised version of the entry. Get two journalists from opposing camps to agree on a wikipedia article (stating facts, not opinions) and give that article to the wikipedians for further discussion. That certainly would have changed some passages without Siemens getting into the line of fire.

Taking a few steps back, this shows how important and alive wikipedia is. Controversy about entries shows that people care. That is good. Open discussion and peer reviews are what gives the best results, may the way be actually a little bumpy.

Technorati Tags: controversy, siemens, wikipedia

I was just reading this piece about motivation and it rang true to me. Which then led me to considering what my own mental state these days is. And I found out that indeed the purpose is what i was missing in my work for the last months and that led to degraded motivation.

Fortunately, things are changing here. Just remember, when you feel lack of motivation (at work/family/hobby/sports take your pick) try to see if you for yourself still feel a purpose in what you are doing. Maybe by thinking about it, you can find it or redefine it.

It works the other way around of course, too. When you want to motivate someone, you better show him a purpose for him and his role instead, in what basically you yourself want to achieve (otherwise, what motivates you to talk to that person in the first place?). If you can show him a purpose he can feel, his motivation will not be your worry.

And then there are other motivators:
Fortunately, the success of those guys has on average a rather short lifetime.

Technorati Tags: motivation, society, purpose