Updated: 5/1/05; 6:19:00 PM

 Saturday, April 23, 2005

iPod - TryPod

Yep! I need one of these for the office.

SavitMicro TryPod.

tripod.jpgThe TryPod is a triple-speaker iPod tripod (try saying that 5 times fast. I know. It's easy.)

It's a bit aged, but we'd say that this would be the perfect accessory—aside from a screen—for the Shuffle. A stereo jack on the top can accept just about anything you plug into it, however, and it makes an excellent wedding centerpiece.

Product Page [via DigitalMediaThoughts]

[Gizmodo]
- Posted by William A. Riski - 8:46:41 PM - comment []

BusinessWeek on Blogs

Thanks to Doc Searls for the link to this very well written article in BusinessWeek about the impact of blogging from a corporate and MSM perspective. Doc says ...

So I'm walking through the lobby of my hotel here in Paris when I spot the May 2 BusinessWeek, with Blogs on the cover in giant red type. The full title is, Blogs Will Change Your Business, with the subtitle "Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later." Written by Stephen Baker and Heather Green. (The byline is where it belongs in the print edition, but all the way at the bottom in the online one.)

There's probably not much in the piece most bloggers don't know, but it's worth reading for the writing, and for seeing what the biz corner of the MSM is grokking about the subject.

(Disclosure: I added the links to Baker and Green above.)

While from Doc's perspective most of this may not be new, I found the article both very well written and full of interesting insights. Here's a few of my favorite tid bits. Baker and Green said in BusinessWeek...

"Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later.

But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business -- including yours.

Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they're losing control of it.

Now Rubel is positioned as an all-knowing Thumper in a forest of clueless Bambis.

Any chance that a blog bubble could pop? The answer is really easy: no.

Picture the blog world as the biggest coffeehouse on Earth. Hunched over their laptops at one table sit six or seven experts in nanotechnology. Right across from them are teenage goths dressed in black and thoroughly pierced. Not too many links between those two tables. But the café goes on and on.

In a world chock-full of citizen publishers, we mainstream types control an ever-smaller chunk of human knowledge."

Good article, but BusinessWeek doesn't go far enough. While there are many advantages to having a corporate blog, there are many reasons companies don't have them. I work for a company that does lots of work for the US Department of Defense. In fact, I work at a client site in a highly secure facility. If I look at the question, 'Should my company establish a public blogging presence?' from their perspective, there is much to fear. I don't think this BusinessWeek article addresses this fully.

Seems to me the way to rationally address this decision is from a risk / opportunity perspective in the context of particular markets. Work through the likelihood of some negative events being triggered by blog entries and the associated consequences. What are we afraid of? What could we do to mitigate these adverse events (e.g., corporate policy, selection of seasoned, well qualified, and well informed voices, just accept it, etc.)

But we should also address the up side; the opportunities that will arise. I've got to tell you, my employer is very conservative - read 'risk adverse'. And when you generally are quite successful and have more work than you can handle, taking on the perceived risk presented by a corporate blog seems pretty unnecessary. This won't be an easy decision for my employer.

BusinessWeek doesn't go far enough in discussing the blogging opportunity in different contexts. To use their analogy, which market segments (i.e., types of industry) seem ripe for entering the coffee house? Which do not?

Now that they have their own blog, maybe BusinessWeek will be exploring these questions further. I'd like that; and my employer needs the push!

- Posted by William A. Riski - 12:09:08 PM - comment []