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I'm a Mac, and Here's Why: 'It's All One Product'

Just before Christmas, the Boston Globe ran a story ["Where old-fashioned customer service meets edgy technology," Dec. 20, 2009, by D.C. Denison] that might be considered a puff piece for the bright, white, and translucent Apple Stores. But I found some insight in the article for why Apple technology tools have become a big part of my life.

The story recounts the development of Apple Stores. I've been a fan of the stores since visiting my first, in Indianapolis, about a year before I switched from PCs to Macs in 2006. The stores are an embodiment of the John Naesbitt "high tech/high touch" futurist call for successful businesses, which is also pretty much also the point of the Globe headline. Apple Stores are full of interesting people (and by this, I mean the staff, not the customers) who seemingly just want to help. They are empowered to give answers or get answers. They know their stuff.

When I visit Apple Stores for purchases, for browsing, for training, and especially for in-person technical support from the "geniuses" at the "Genius Bar," I feel like people give me credit for knowing a thing or two. I don't feel as if I'm being put down, and I don't feel as if the staff is so undertrained — as is often the case at other stores — that they are operating several rungs below me.

I also like making reservations for a Genius Bar time slot from my computer at home or inside the Apple Store.

But the true reason why I am an Apple Mac and iPhone fan, including hardware and software, comes at the end of the Globe's piece. It's all one system, one experience.

[A]t the Genius Bar, ... architect Dave Schatzle sat down for a session he was hoping would pay off short-term, as in immediately.

"It's a long story," Schatzle said as he presented his iPhone to Apple "genius" Nick Foh, "but let's just say that a cup of coffee fell off a shelf and splashed all over it."

A faint constellation of tiny, brown speckles gleamed from inside the display. The main controller was no longer responsive, Schatzle said.

Foh took the unit to a backroom workshop.

"It's in pretty bad shape on the inside," he said when he returned a few minutes later.

That was the bad news. The good news was that the information of his coffee-crippled phone could be transferred to a new unit, and since the phone was less than 3 months old, the store would replace it at no charge.

Schatzle looked surprised and relieved.

"The iPhone is cool, but this is really cool," he said, waving an arm in the direction of the Genius Bar.

"If this store wasn't here," Schatzle added, "then this iPhone wouldn't be that good. When you think about it, it's all one product."

I've had a dozen experiences just like this — without a newspaper reporter around. I think architect Dave Schatzle has it right: "It's all one product." And a good one at that.

The Bottom Drops Out of Newspaper Circulation

A disturbingly impressive graphic depiction of circulation among America's largest newspapers from the past two decades. Via Steve Rubel's Lifestream, at which you can read comments. More comments -- and an explanation of why USA Today is missing -- at The Awl, whence this graphic originated. 

While I mourn the loss of newspapers, I welcome the range of communication tools that the lack of newspaper hegemony is introducing into culture.

Making Thoughts Apparent Globally is Obama's Internet Touch

UPDATED 11:30 a.m. 4 June 2009 -- I also liked receiving an email from David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, with a link to video of the speech. The White House is pushing this content out beautifully.

ORIGINAL POST:

It is thrilling to see how fluid President Obama and his team have become at making his thoughts and policies apparent to as many people as possible globally using the Internet. The latest piece of evidence comes from the White House's buildup to the Cairo speech today.

According to a New York Times report, "In a bid to make sure that Mr. Obama’s message will be heard, particularly among young people, the White House has mounted an unusually aggressive campaign, including a Web site created in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English where people outside the United States can sign up to receive the speech via text message. The State Department is to translate the speech into at least 13 languages."

This is a great commitment. I like the idea of people worldwide debating the speech in its original text, even in a U.S.-disseminated official translation text, on their own phones or laptops today. Great move!

Clear Discussions of Our Problems with Economy and Environment

Two publications I came across this past week have unusually clear explanations for two of the major problems facing American society now: the economy and the environment. On Saturday, the New York Times published a story explaining the Chicago Fed National Activity Index. This story doesn't make the economy any less unpleasant, but it does provide a graphic that rings true to me and lets me appreciate the economic trend at a glance. (The Chicago Fed has a webpage devoted to the index.) Also, I read the November/December issue of Mother Jones, which is all about a call for a new economy based on saving the global climate from the fossil fuel economy. Two Nobel Prize winners write articles: Al Gore and Joseph Stiglitz. The issue is titled, "How to Rescue the Economy and Save the Planet." (At this writing, the November/December content has not been published to Mother Jones' website. It's still showing the September/October issue.)

Cousin Heather Kirk-Davidoff on Churches and Blogging

The Rev. Heather Kirk-Davidoff, who is married to my cousin Daniel, is the author of an article in Congregations magazine this fall about successful blogging at her church. She is the enabling minister of Kittamaqundi Community, an independent church in Columbia, Maryland, USA. She is also the founder of her church's blog, Grounded and Rooted in Love. The title of Heather's article, which is available only to members of the Alban Institute (a not-for-profit think tank for congregational development), is "Entering the Blogosphere: One Church's Journey from 'Heaven Forbid!' to 'Why Not?'" I've been reading Kittamaqundi's blog occasionally since it was started, and I've been impressed by the number of authors who have become involved. I like this statement by Heather concerning the blog's success:

Our church's blog has enabled us to both open up our communication and also streamline it. Within six months of starting our blog, we stopped publishing our newsletter, which had been limping along for years. Between the blog, a once-a-week e-mail of announcements, and printed announcements in our Sunday bulletin, the newsletter had become completely redundant and no longer worth the administrative time spent on developing it or the cost of printing and mailing it. ... When our blog had been up for about nine months, I began my report to our Church Council by saying, "Guess what? One hundred and twenty-seven people stopped by our church yesterday!" Everyone was stunned and when I explained that was how many people had read our blog, they all started to smile. They knew people had begun to use the Web to find information about churches in the community, but since our website is largely static, once a person has read what is on it there is not much of an incentive to return. But our blog is so dynamic and so engaging that people come back to it again and again.

Why Not Talk About It? This Economy Is A Reality Check, Even For Alfred E. Neuman

What, me worry? Given the developing economic slump in the United States, if not throughout the world, corporate blogging expert Paul Gillin thinks that even the best corporate blogs are keeping their pens -- if not their heads -- in the sand and just try to ignore our festering troubles. As Debbie Weil points out, Gillin's headline says it all: "Corporate Blogs Blather While Markets Tumble." After reviewing blogs for 15 blue-chip corporations, Gillin writes:

Between checking Marketwatch.com and commiserating with colleagues, it’s safe to say there wasn’t a lot of work getting done this week. Nervous investors flocked to the Web for some sign that the turmoil in the financial markets would soon die down. With so much attention riveted on the future of the economy, this seems an ideal time for corporations to use their blogs to provide guidance and reassurance, or at least perspective, on the Wall Street meltdown. However, a quick tour of 15 prominent sites demonstrated that they were doing anything but that.

Three companies from Gillin's research are worth calling out because they bucked the trend set by the rest.

1. General Motors, which is famously synonymous with the U.S. economy, has a recent post on its highly regarded FastLane Blog containing a YouTube clip from CEO Rick Wagoner favoring federal financial intervention in the form of loans to automakers to meet fuel economy mandates. Give GM lots of credit for currency and realpolitik on this one.
2. The BenettonTalk blog has had two entries on the crisis. On Sept. 30, Benetton's blog addressed the economy's disintegration. And the next day, the economy was back with a blog review of Americatown, an HBO serial that looks at a near-term future in which U.S. economic dominance has waned.
3. PriceWaterhouseCoopers addresses the crisis from the standpoint of corporate directors.

On the other hand, Southwest Airlines, whose Nuts about Southwest blog just won the best blog award for the second year from PR News, has said little about the financial markets crisis. I agree with Gillin's conclusion about the need for straight talk and clarity about the economy and our roles in it. Here's how Gillin concludes his review:

My point isn’t to ridicule these companies as much as it is to demonstrate how far we still have to go in achieving the culture of openness that new media enables. Here was an opportunity for some of America’s most respected corporations to offer guidance and thought leadership to frightened consumers. Instead, most have chosen to serve up the same old happy-talk mush they’ve delivered for years. That’s their right, but that isn’t leadership. These are historic times that offer businesses the chance to break through the noise and do something daring and different. So far, corporate America has fumbled the opportunity. Perhaps, as the economic picture becomes clearer, some will start talking with their customers instead of marketing at them. That would be a welcome development.

Global Warming: Gore Eloquent in Nobel Peace Prize Speech

Al Gore's speech yesterday accepting the Nobel Peace Prize is a classic. I loved its eloquence and its imperative.

A speech is a derivative of face-to-face contact. A good speech can change the world. In the case of this particular speech, I certainly hope that it does. Al Gore is one of my heroes.

Which Came First - The New Employee or the New Employee's Blog?

It's a joy to see the devotion of cutting-edge companies like Cisco to a cutting-edge panoply of blogs.

But I had to chuckle when I read the Chicago Sun-Times story about Padmasree Warrior, age 47, who on Monday departed Illinois' Motorola, where she was chief technology office, to take up the same post at California's Cisco.

Howard Wolinsky reported on Tuesday in the CS-T that Ms. Warrior made the move on Monday. He added this: "In her personal blog at Cisco, she said: 'It is an exciting time to join Cisco. Cisco is the company whose leadership legacy defines ‘The Network’ in many ways. Today, it is a company driving many new paradigms in communications and information technology. In the future, it will be a company poised to lead the industry to the next phase of Internet.'"

Now, that's speed! She leaves on Monday and has a blog post on Tuesday. Kudos! (Here's the link.)

Internet's Share of Global Ad Spending to Overtake Radio in 2008

Radio, historically the most flexible and most immediate of the major media, is giving ground to an even more flexible and immediate medium: the Internet.

Tuesday's Chicago Tribune carried an Associated Press report that the global share of advertising spending on the Internet will top the share of ad spending on radio in 2008.

Zenith Optimedia, an English ad firm, said the Internet's share of the global ad spend would rise to 9.4 percent in 2008, up from 8.1 percent in 2007. Radio's share will slip to 7.9 percent from 8.2 percent.

I like the power of radio. But I like the power of the Internet much more.

Chicago's Sun-Times and Tribune Show Their Stripes This Sunday

You've got to hand it to competition. Chicago's two dailies today showed why in rollng out their Sunday best. The newly redesigned Sun-Times tabloid and the nationally under-appreciated Tribune reached to their strengths in their main news sections.

It helps that there's no compelling spot-news story that competed successfully for the front page of either paper, forcing both to show their hands in enterprise copy.

The Sun-Times gave us this front-page grabber: "The party's over, Jerry / You owe $29,627! / Chicago's top parking violators / Sun-Times special report." The package is about the 20 top parking offenders, who combined owe the city in excess of $700,000. Could there be a mlre local local local topic for the Sun-Times, whose neew motto, in speaking of Chicago, implores "Let's get into it."

Meanwhile, the Tribune covered this hemisphere literally from top to bottom. The front page feature package was on BP oil's big infrastructure challenges. The story and photos come from Trib staffers who traveled to Deadhorse, Alaska, to cover a visit to the Prudhoe Bay oil operations by Robert Malone, BP's top executive in North America. About the only place in Alaska further north than Deadhorse is Barrow. (And the newspaper's staff has visited there, too, recently.)

Meanwhile, to the opposite tip of the Americas, not far from Cape Horn, another Tribune reporter was in place to profile the city of Ushuaia, Argentina. Billing itself as the End of the World, Ushuaia's 55,000 residents are building a booming tourist trade as a center for adventure travel including embarkations for the relatively short trip to Antartica.

Lest you think the broadsheet forgets its origins, I should note that the front page also includes profiles of a South Side charter school and the excitement of a Mexican soccer star taking up residence here to play for the Chicago Fire pro soccer team. And the BP story notes that BP is big here because it purchased Chicago-based Amoco in 1999, and because problems at BP's huge refinery in Whiting, Ind., are lerading directly to Illinois having the nation's highest gasoline prices.

Home is never far away to any newspaper.