BRITE Conference Blog

Battle of the Productivity Tools

Right now I'm using 3 devices to up my productivity when I’m out of office and working as a digital nomad:
•    iPhone 3G -- running on AT&T's 3G network
•    USB laptop modem -- running on Verizon’s EVDO network
•    pocket notepad -- running on pen & paper

Here's how I rate them on three essential criteria: “Always On,” “Range of Work,” and “Speed of Input.”

iPhone 3G
Always On: Working in & around New York City, my network coverage is pretty good. But, I spend an hour a day in the subway where there’s no coverage (unlike when I’m in Seoul). (Rating: 4 out of 5 stars)
Range of Work: Accessing my email via Outlook and Gmail, making phone calls, scanning RSS feeds, finding directions, checking design updates on our websites, logging into Google calendar and online to-do lists, checking train schedules, killing time on Twitter… I can knock off an impressive range of small tasks. (Rating: 4 out of 5 stars)
Speed of Input: Once I learned to mistype as fast as possible (and let iPhone autocorrect it all), my thumb-typing approached Blackberry speeds.  But let’s not kid ourselves: as someone who took the time to learn to type by touch, there’s no comparison between thumb speed and a real keyboard. A waste of time for composing a well-developed idea or a complex email. (Rating: 2 out of 5 stars)

USB laptop modem
Always on: I first saw an EVDO connection being put to use by Jeff Pulver as he streamed video of our BRITE conference live from the stage on his handheld videocam (cool).  USB modem plans are independent of phone plans, so I got mine through Verizon, which gives slightly better coverage than AT&T gives my iPhone.  However, my laptop is not nearly as flexible as a handheld: I’m not going to whip out my laptop in line at Fedex, waiting to buy concert tickets, or standing under the grate at the 96th Street subway station.  (Rating: 3 out of 5 stars)
Range of Work: What can I say?  Anything but grilling a steak.  With this baby plugged into a good Dell laptop, I can access every file I own, working with webpages, spreadsheets, Word docs, PowerPoints, and blogs… and viewing them all on a 14” screen.  This is where real work gets done (Rating: 5 out of 5 stars)
Speed of Input: The key to real speed is two things: a full-size QUERTY keyboard and a full-size mouse with scroll wheel (trackpads and clit-mice are like thumb-typing: better than nothing, but vastly inferior to the real thing). (Rating: 5 out of 5 stars)

pocket notepad
Always on: Works anytime & anywhere, when your breakthrough comes as you least expect it. Battery never ever runs out.  The ideal tool for capturing ideas. (Rating: 5 out of 5 stars)
Range of Work: Limited to creating text and graphical documents (think: MS Word + Adobe Illustrator). A great, intuitive interface (see how much faster you can lay out a flowchart than in PowerPoint).  But doesn’t sync with my laptop, so finished work has to be manually typed later. (Rating: 2 out of 5 stars)
Speed of Input: For quick scribbles, this is the fastest by far – no booting up, logging in, or wifi connecting; and I can scribble pretty darn fast… For longer compositions, it lags a bit vs. the laptop. (Rating: 4 out of 5 stars)

And the winner is…

All three. As a digital nomad today, you can’t get by with only one portable work device.  So don’t believe the hype about any single productivity tool.  Arm yourself with a set of tools that complement each other, and you’ll be ready to maximize your next idle moment or commuter inspiration.

Why Most Corporate Online Communities Are Ghost Towns

The WallStreetJournal.com ran a piece this week entitled “Why Most Online Communities Fail” by Ben Worthen.

In it, he discusses a new research study of online communities run by businesses.  A variety of worst practices lead to most corporate-sponsored communities becoming “virtual ghost towns.” 

Businesses launching online communities repeat a series of blunders. First, they have a tendency to get seduced by bells and whistles and blow their online-community budget on technology. [Study author Ed] Moran suggests that businesses spend resources identifying and reaching out to potential community members instead of investing in software that makes predictions, or even social-networking technology.

Two of the study’s lead researchers, Ed Moran (of Deloitte) and Francois Gossieaux (Beeline Labs) will be presenting their findings on Oct 16 at our BRITE Workshop on Online Communities.

Image: Andrew Dunn via Wikipedia

It’s Official: Average TV Viewer “Too Old” to Count

Like many mass media that dominated in the second half of the 20th century, television is dying a thousand slow deaths in the rising tide of digital media.  (See also: print newspapers, recorded music, the adult movie business, etc.…)

I used to think that I was terribly retro because I rarely watch television, have only sporadically owned a set, and have paid for cable just one year of my life.  But recently I realized I haven’t been living behind the curve of American media consumption, I’ve been ahead of it. 

At a roundtable at the Ad:tech conference, I noticed that the participants who were 10 years younger than me didn’t have television service either.  Who needs to scroll through channels of ComWarnerCast when you can choose on-demand from the vast menu of the Web -- with a side order of Netflix?  Especially with sites like surfthechannel.com and  pandora.tv streaming all the network TV you could want, for free, over web servers in South Korea and China.  College students are increasingly watching tv on their laptops. 

In our Center office, most of the under-30’s either prefer their TV content over the Internet, or are source-agnostic (“Wherever the game is” said Anthony, whose EuroCup viewing skipped from cable to web and back).  Apparently, my in-office poll is not unrepresentative either, because…

It’s now official. Half of the people still watching live broadcast television are so old that advertisers won’t even pay to market to them.  I just read the sobering facts on the Silicon Alley Insider: 

The average age of the network TV viewer hit 50 years for the first time this year. Consider, for a moment, that advertisers don't pay the networks a nickel for any viewer older than 49 -- except during news programs, when they'll pitch adult diapers to those up to 54 years of age. So viewers' average age is now too old.

Lisa Hsia, VP of Bravo TV told me recently about the dynamic work they’re doing to put their content in new interactive media, from Hulu.com to online voting contests.  She conceded that despite making money, the interactive outlets are still a small minority of Bravo’s revenue.  But at least they’re moving in the right direction.

Broadcast as a mode for any medium (1-way, top-down) is a waning game.  TV networks will need to aggressively embrace social media and disruptive business models if they’re going to avoid heading into the steep decline of the music industry. In the meantime, I’m going to pull out another episode of “House, M.D.” from Netflix.  My media, my schedule.