04 · 09

Sneak Peek: Twitter’s “Huge Redesign” Is Coming [PIC]

04 · 08

Live from Apple's iPhone OS 4 event! -- Engadget

Media_httpwwwblogcdnc_otlwb

Great new things for the iPhone OS4. I am eager to take a look at it this summer!

04 · 08

14 Ways to Be the World’s Worst Web Project Manager

There are a great number of ways to manage website projects, but regardless of your management style, there are behaviors that you should learn to avoid as much as possible. Steering clear of these pitfalls will not only allow you to get through projects on time and on budget, but will leave a very good impression on your clients, and win you more work in the future.

Let Interruptions Dictate Your Schedule

Too often we allow ourselves to be distracted from what we need to be focusing on right now. Mostly it’s unnecessary to jump on every new email immediately; issues can usually wait until we’re done with the current task.

As a project manager, you’ll most likely be in charge of multiple projects and employees at the same time. It’s important to have a system that allows you to have a lot on your plate and still be on top of things. This could include creating a priority list when you check your email/voicemail messages, or when you’re available for meetings. The key here is to make sure you get done what needs to be done.

Tim Ferriss wrote a great blog post on the topic called The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now; I highly recommend you check it out.

Don’t Communicate Clearly with Your Clients

The way you communicate through email and voicemail will be reflected in how clients perceive you. This can include both the clarity and conciseness of your writing, as well as spelling and grammar. Often I’ll re-read an email three to five times before I send it out, just to make sure I catch any remaining glitches.

Keep in mind that clients typically respond better to shorter emails and voicemails. Write short, focused messages that communicate key information and action points. Sometimes you need a long email to clearly explain an involved concept or process, but as a general rule make a consistent effort to trim the fat.

When I have a choice between a phone call and an email, I usually stick to emails, as they provide a communication trail that I can access later on. This is especially valuable when dealing with clients who are busy and forget to read the email, because you can go back and resend it at a later time if necessary.

Keep Your Clients Guessing

Nobody likes to feel out of the loop. The more time you spend in making it clear to your clients what your team is working on, the more they’ll appreciate your work.

All this usually takes is an email letting them know what you achieved today or in the last few days, and what your team is going to work on next. I also find this is a great opportunity to remind the client of anything you’re still waiting to receive from them (content or images, for example), and the timeframe within which you need to receive it in order to avoid holding up your process.

If You’re Not Going to Meet a Deadline, Don’t Tell the Client

As I outlined in the previous point, this scenario can be prevented by doing a good job of keeping the client in the loop. If you do find you’re going to be unable to meet a deadline, make it very clear to the client why this is happening.

Say that you originally thought that integrating a new API was going to take two hours, and it ended up taking eight hours. The client should be made aware of this as soon as it happens. You could word it like this: “We originally thought integrating X was going to take 2 hours, but we had issues making their examples work and it ended up taking much longer than we anticipated. I do apologize for the delay, but we’ll do our best in making up the lost time.”

The client should be made aware of any delays that will affect a deadline well before that deadline. If you end up telling the client this on the day of the deadline, then you’ve spent too little time planning and communicating to the customer what your team is doing or of any delays you’ve encountered.

Always Underestimate the Resources Needed for a Project

The scenario: Client A wants a website “just like Facebook,” but is only willing to pay $5,000 for it. We think we can cut a few corners to make this happen, and so we agree to do it for $5,000 to keep the client happy. What happens is that the project takes much more time than we’d originally thought it would, and either our company ends up wearing the cost of the extra time spent on the project, or we displease the client when they receive a finished product at odds with what they expected.

This can be prevented by doing a good job in estimating the time and cost of each element in a project, and being honest about the scenario when speaking with the client. If your client thinks you can build a site like Facebook for $5,000, perhaps you could be doing a better job helping them understand how much time goes into various elements of site design and development.

Another option is to present them with a realistic estimate of what can be done with their proposed budget, and possibly come up with a plan that includes a series of development phases. This way, they can kick-start their project with the budget they have, and then expand on it later when more funds are available.

If a Client is Being Rude, Respond in Kind

It’s always in the best interest of your company to be professional. If a client is growing agitated over the phone, it’s advisable to say something like: “I’m sorry to hear that this is happening. My team will look into it immediately and get back to you.” Having a shouting match with your client will usually end badly, and could potentially land you in trouble with your boss.

Knowing when you’re becoming too worked up takes a level of maturity and professionalism. By realising your error at the time, you can make amends to turn the situation around and please the customer.

Never Admit to Making a Mistake

Most clients won’t be upset with you if you make a mistake, as long as you’re honest about it and take steps to avoid the same problem happening again. They understand that you’re human and will make mistakes. The key is to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again; otherwise, your apologies will be hollow.

Usually, just explaining to the client in an email what happened is enough to satisfy them. Making sure to fix the issue immediately will give you bonus points in the eyes of your client, because that communicates that you care about what you do.

If you’re giving your client access to an area that you’re still working on, or that you know has bugs, you should clearly communicate to them that it’s a staging area, and that your team is still ironing out the bugs. If there are major bugs, it’s a good idea to let the client know about them specifically, so that they won’t have a panic attack when they come across them.

Shift Blame to Someone on Your Team

If you’re a project manager, you’re responsible for your team. If a team member makes a mistake and you fail to catch it before the client, it’s ultimately your fault. Your instinct to shift blame might come from trying to protect the client’s image of you personally, but more frequently it will have the opposite effect. Trying to shift responsibility for mistakes just makes it look like you’re not paying attention to your team’s work.

You should, however, still talk to the team member about their mistake. But think about it from the client’s perspective: they just need to know that you’re in control of your team. The occasional slipup won’t hurt the client’s perception of you in any significant way. But pay very close attention to the mistakes your team members make, and ensure they’re learning from them.

Furthermore, each and every person on your team needs to earn your trust, so that you feel comfortable taking full responsibility for their work in your dealings with clients.

Don’t Double-check Your Team’s Work

We’re all human, and on occasion we’ll make mistakes. But part of being a project manager, as I’ve already outlined, is taking responsibility for the team’s work. And that means ensuring that as well as being bug-free, the site also works the way the client expects it to work.

Project managers need to connect the dots in ways that their team may miss. Does the gallery do everything the client wants it to do? What exactly is listed for this area in the agreement? Is the site compatible with the major browsers? Running through a simple checklist like this will not only make sure that the project meets the specifications of the agreement, but allows us to improve on the work that our team produces, which ultimately reflects on us.

Spend Very Little Time Writing Emails

A quickly written emailto which little attention was paid can be easy to misinterpret.

You want to ensure that you’re clear and concise in your emails. If you need the client to send you anything, make sure to outline everything you need in a numbered list. The same goes for any questions you have. This makes it easy for them to respond via email, because they can reference each of your inquiries by number. Never put a bunch of questions or requests in a paragraph, as they’ll frequently be missed.

If you need to receive an item before you can continue work on part of the project, make this very clear in your communication with the client. In fact, I suggest bringing this up multiple times. If these factors will affect a deadline, make that clear to the client. For example, you could word it as follows: “Please keep in mind that if we’re still going to make the 2/10/2010 launch, we’ll need to receive the content for the website by 2/2/2010.”

I always aim to sound gracious when writing to a customer via email. It might take a little bit more time to achieve the right tone, so that you’re sure it won’t be misread, but avoiding misunderstandings with your clients is well worth the effort.

Don’t Get to Know Your Team

If you’re managing a team, it’s your responsibility to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team, as a whole and of each member. Managing a project shouldn’t be like a game like Russian roulette, where you’re never sure what your team is going to produce. As project managers, we need to do put ourselves in a position to succeed. Below are a few questions that may help you:

  • What does this team member’s code look like?

  • Will they be able to complete their part of the project on time?

  • How reliable have they been in the past?

  • If they fall behind, what is my backup plan?

  • Does it make sense to have this team member work on a project that is this complicated?

  • Have they worked on other projects with a similar level of responsibility?

  • Will it be more work for me to have them work on this?

Assume Your Team is on Schedule

A project that was on time last week could suddenly find itself well behind schedule, because an element that you thought was done properly turns out to have been botched, or because a team member misunderstood what needed to be done.

Set up firm deadlines for your team, but give them some cushion for any unexpected items that arise. Make sure that your team members clearly communicate with you if they’re unable to meet a deadline, and train them to do this long before the deadline arrives. Make it very clear that you’re okay with them asking you questions on a project, and that you would rather have them ask more questions than to assume.

With a big project, this becomes even more important, because being behind in one area could affect the whole project. Make sure you’re doing a solid job on what should be prioritized. If half your team has to wait on one team member to achieve what they need to do, that item should be on top of your priority list so that no time is lost.

Don’t Create a System to Remind You to Contact Clients

If you’re managing many different projects, and you have a long list of clients that you’ve worked with in the past, it’s easy to lose track of who’s waiting on an email from you. You need some kind of system that allows you to know who you need to contact. This could be as simple as having a folder or label in your email system for emails that require a response. That way, when you want to play catch-up, it’s very easy to determine who’s still to be contacted.

It looks extremely bad if you constantly forget to respond to client emails, or if you’re slow in getting back to people. Even if you’re busy, you need to let your clients know when you expect to be able to deal with their query. I have found this method to be very effective, and it gives me some extra time to prioritize and figure out what I need to jump onto next.

Come into Meetings Ill-prepared

Even if it’s difficult to be 100% prepared for everything in a meeting, you should never go into a meeting unsure of what you’re going to say when they ask you about specifics on the project. If you’re asked for a detail you’re unsure of, let them know that you will look into it and get back to them later. Don’t make promises that are impossible for you to keep, or that you’re unsure about, even if they push you for answers. This includes deadlines and timeframes.

In whatever you’re talking about, be confident. You’re the expert in your field, not the client. But just make sure you’re very deliberate in what comes out of your mouth. The main objective of the meeting should be to convince the client that you’re in control, and that they made a good choice in going with you. Even if you’re behind, or if something went wrong, how you word it can determine the success or failure of the meeting.

I have found thatin most meetings that happen during the course of a project, the client is mainly looking for reassurance. Do not give them any reason to doubt that it’s all under control, and you’ll have a happy client who loves to work with you!

We all make mistakes, and the area of managing web projects is far from immune to human error. But if we’re deliberate in learning from our mistakes, and learn how to improve on what we’ve done in the past, we can keep our clients, bosses, and team members happy, and lead our projects to success.

04 · 08

Top 5 Ways to Make Your Site More Fun

Just like sex, fun sells. The early proof of that can be seen in the amazing success of location-based networks such as Gowalla, MyTown and Foursquare, and in the breakthrough marketing efforts of major brands like Nike, Coke and Chase. Even finance made fun can be a winner — Mint.com’s meteoric rise was in no small part due to the fun, social engagement of its approach. Ever feel elated while using Quicken? I didn’t think so.

The trend continues, with an ever-increasing number of startups looking to get an edge with consumers through fun. Their weapons of choice: Game Mechanics.

When taken together, game mechanics such as points, leaderboards, badges, challenges and levels form part of what we call a Funware Loop. In my latest book I argue that the best and most compelling loyalty programs are built extensively around Funware and when applied creatively, can make any consumer web or mobile app experience more engaging.

Whether you sell organic foods online, develop mobile application or run the world’s largest social network, you can benefit from applying the 5 simple strategies listed below to increase engagement.

After all, who doesn’t like a little fun every once in a while?

1. Points

Points are an essential part of any Funware Loop, and a great starting point for “gameifying” your site or app. Points allow you to keep track of user activities and make it easy to shape user behavior. Start by listing all the actions that you’d want users to perform and assign relative values to each, taking care to get the balance right.

In most cases, you’ll want to emphasize user growth and engagement, so be sure to offer healthy point slugs for referrals and activities that generate user interaction (adding friends/followers, for example). Keep your point denominations reasonable: if you begin by giving away millions of points for every activity, you’ll reduce your future room to grow. Also don’t over design to deal with cheaters on day one; you’ll have plenty of time to work on that later.

Once you’ve begun to assign points for various activities, you’ll need to ensure that you’re giving users an easy way to see their score and how they compare against others. The easiest way to accomplish both is with a leaderboard.

Points help your users keep track of how they are doing in your app. Here, popular mobile social network MyTown uses dollars in lieu of points (something you should generally avoid unless it’s thematically relevant to your site/app).

2. Leaderboards

Like the scoreboard at a sporting event, leaderboards are a universal way to convey to your fans and customers that a “game” is being played. The key to being successful with a leaderboard mechanic is to ensure that users are motivated by friendly competition while simultaneously not de-motivated by users who are better, faster and have been playing longer than them. There is no better solution to this problem than Facebook Connect.

The easiest option: show the points accumulated by your customers relative to their social graph, giving them a contextual ranking. Through callouts, illustrate how easily they can rise to the level of their next-highest performing friend (e.g. “invite two more people to beat Debbie’s score”). Of course, you should also show a global Top 10 and geo-located leaderboards if you can, but these should actually be somewhat buried in your design.

Though points and leaderboards are quite powerful (and sufficient for most game-like experiences that target the achiever in us), they lack the ability to create social rewards for parallel or tangential activities. For that, there are badges.

Social leaderboards, like this one from the wildly successful Facebook game Who Has the Biggest Brain (Playfish/EA), show your score relative to your friends on Facebook, making it easy to both feel successful and competitive at the same time.

3. Badges

The best way to think about badges is as a demonstrable, fun reward for a specific activity that is easily socialized with others. Much as Boy and Girl Scouts receive merit badges for particular activities, you too can create an almost limitless set of attractive, visual objects that can be “sewn” onto a users’ social graph – typically their Facebook wall or Twitter stream. By giving your customers an easy thing to crow about, you maximize the likelihood that they will evangelize your site/product to others while also creating a positive association for them.

Think of badges as rewards for ongoing contests that users are constantly engaged in – whether or not they are directly connected to point balances. In many applications, badges are issued without warning (see Foursquare), leveraging the power of operant conditioning – like slot machines – to keep users playing. Where possible, offer an auto-tweet/post option for your badges – braggarts are a great way to get the word out about your app.

Where badges are frequently (though not always) given as a reward for a set of non-obvious activities, challenges are a direct way to engage users around a specific task – and are an essential part of the Funware Loop.

A badge by any other name is… a ribbon? Farmville, the uber-popular Facebook game uses ribbons to offer periodic rewards to users. Where possible, make your badges attractive and relevant to your users.

4. Challenges

Most walkathons and sales campaigns start with a challenge: “sign up ten walkers/new customers/friends and receive a reward.” Everyone has, at one time or another, taken up a challenge like this, and they are an essential part of an end-to-end system for customer loyalty. Once you have a sufficient group of users collecting and comparing their points, you can start offering them the option to compete for more points and virtual rewards.

For example, you could offer users 10,000 bonus points for signing up 4 friends for your service. Automate the notifications, issue a congratulatory message, and immediately offer another pre-built challenge (e.g., 100,000 points for 20 signups). Consider offering a wide range of challenges tied to your evergreen and time-sensitive business objectives and allow users to access a list so that they can pick their own.

With all the activity around points, badges and challenges, it seems obvious that users might need some easy way to track and reflect on their achievements within your app/site. Levels, a game mechanic from the earliest of video games, are the perfect solution for creating a constant sense of forward motion and the opportunity for reflection.

Gowalla, a mobile social network, has a sophisticated and well-conceived challenge mode, known as trips. Like many winning Funware designs, Gowalla allows users to also see the complete list of challenges to choose the ones they like best.

5. Levels

If there is a single mantra we could extract from the multi-billion-dollar casual games industry that has spawned Bejeweled, Diner Dash and Farmville, it’s “Reward Early, Reward Often (and don’t go negative).” While this is relatively easy to do, users in a more complex loyalty program or on Funware-based sites, frequently need levels to create a discrete sense of achievement. Levels allow users to feel like they’ve accomplished something by showing structured progression through the overall experience.

Levels can be complex to design properly, so start with simple breakpoints and leave yourself room to expand. Use numbers or letters to denote your levels and set their breakpoints with increasing degrees of difficulty. A good rule of thumb is that it should be at least twice as hard to complete the fourth level as it is the first, and so on.

Diner Dash uses a clearly defined level system. Every time you clear the restaurant of patrons, you clear a board; multiple cleared boards gives you a finished level. Imagine doing the same thing with a fitness app: as users perform tasks and improve their health, they ascend the ranks.

Conclusion

With the breathtaking growth of game mechanics and Funware in the current crop of popular apps and sites, it’s easy to see why so many startups are interested in incorporating points, leaderboards, badges, challenges and levels in their designs.

Whether you are building a healthcare app, forum discussion site or the next Mint.com, these simple game mechanics can make your consumer-facing mobile or web experience substantially more fun and engaging — all for far less than the cost of a traditional loyalty program, and with far greater satisfaction.

 

04 · 08

Apple iPad: Is there an ROI for business?

The Apple iPad has officially arrived, accompanied by an overload of hype. We suggest it may actually make more sense for businesses than consumers.

The Big Question is a joint production from ZDNet and TechRepublic that I co-host with ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan.

You can play this 20-minute episode from the Flash-based player at the top of the page, read the full transcript below, or:

If you enjoy this podcast, please go to to our iTunes page to rate it and leave a short review.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Full transcript

Jason Hiner

Welcome to The Big Question podcast, episode number 26 for April 7, 2010. I’m Jason Hiner.

Larry Dignan

And I’m Larry Dignan.

Jason Hiner

And this is a joint ZDNet and TechRepublic podcast where we pick one of the hottest issues in the tech world and attack it head-on. This week’s big question is “Apple iPad: is there an ROI for business?”

This episode is sponsored by TechRepublic’s Guide to IT Policies and Procedures, which has over 100 customizable templates that IT leaders can use to really save some serious time and money. You can purchase a copy today and download it right away at policies.techrepublic.com.

So, Larry, the Apple iPad has finally been released, accompanied by an obscene amount of hype. We have both written about it. And now that it’s here, the conversation starts to get a lot more real. And of course, we want to talk about it from the business perspective and look at whether there really is a case to be made, an ROI case, return on investment, for the iPad.

Do you want to start this off by telling us why businesses would even be interested in considering the iPad?

Larry Dignan

Well, I think for some fields, a device like the iPad will make a lot of sense. Real estate, you can find some implications. Retail, perhaps. There are a few verticals where the iPad may make sense; items where you’re in the field. Anywhere where you see folks running around with little handhelds.

Jason Hiner

Yeah, where you’re not at a desk.

Larry Dignan

Right. For people in the field, it may make sense. Because it would be easier to pop up an iPad than it would be to fire up a laptop. So I think that’s one avenue to be explored at least. And the iPhone does have some - you can get Oracle apps and salesforce.com apps. So there is a business ecosystem for the apps that would work on the iPad. I think that’s a baseline place to look.

Jason Hiner

Okay.

Larry Dignan

I think it would probably be more high-touch people in the field sort of focuses.

I almost - I mean I haven’t really thought this through per se. But as a consumer, you’re looking at it, and you’re like, “Okay, it’s one more device to carry.” And you’re going back and forth. Is this a laptop replacement? It’s kind of expensive. The sell process for a consumer is different.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

I think a consumer is going to have to go into Best Buy three or four times, pass that thing, play with it a little bit and maybe they take the plunge and buy it, maybe the fourth trip. Right?

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

So aside from the people that bought it first on the weekend or whatever. But that’s Apple’s core crowd.

So then that gets you to, what other folks can use it? And I almost think you can - businesses want to think about the iPad. I almost think you can probably make more of a case for business than you could necessarily for a consumer.

Jason Hiner

Interesting. Okay.

Larry Dignan

Because if you have somebody in the field and you just need to access a CRM app or salesforce.com or whatever your use case is, it’s all about just sucking down data and getting information out to people.

Jason Hiner

Yeah, one-app or two-app jobs.

Larry Dignan

And that’s what it does well, right?

Jason Hiner

Yeah, that’s true. Because of its limitation, doesn’t do multi-tasking. There are jobs out there or at least tasks that are relegated to certain positions where they only use two to three apps all day. And that’s the stuff you’re getting at.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, I mean I almost - conceptually, I almost get it more as a business device than I necessarily do as a consumer device. And - I don’t know, you’re going to need enterprises to think about how this would work and IT’s going to do what IT does, which is sort of close it out at first, [and] figure out how it goes with their network. It’ll be like when folks brought in their iPhones to work, right? What happens when they bring in their iPad?

Jason Hiner

Yeah, similar stuff.

Larry Dignan

Right. The problem with the iPad is, there’s no - there’s no handy way to connect it to the PC or the corporate network.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

Right? Because -

Jason Hiner

There’s WiFi. It’s a WiFi-only device. Or 3G, once the 3G version comes out later in April.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, so you kind of wonder about that long-term as far as it impacts the business. But I can picture these things in the field.

Jason Hiner

Interesting. So what do you think about some of the verticals where, to a degree, tablets have already been accepted? Medical, mobile point-of-sale, I think [that] is where you’ve seen line-breaking and things like that, at places like theme parks and those kinds of places. Kiosks - by kiosks, I mean the places where somebody has like a [sales] stand. Some of these you’re seeing with handhelds now, Windows Mobile devices or even iPod Touches with an antenna, WiFi in it with a little card swipe in it, those type of things.

Do you think that this device - let’s talk about healthcare first. Because I’ve heard rumors - maybe you have too - about doctors getting on board with the iPhone in some cases. I’ve not seen one single [doctor] anywhere, but I’ve read a few stories that doctors and medical professionals are starting to get on board with the iPhone. Does the iPad make more sense? That group has also been one of the few that has taken on Tablet PCs, which nobody [else] wanted. What do you think there?

Larry Dignan

Ah, could be. I mean the one thing to remember about doctors is they also tend to love technology.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

Every time I see my doctor, it turns into, “Oh, what about this technology” or whatever. It’s almost to the point where you don’t really mention where you work or what you cover. Because who wants to go into geekdom when you’re at the doctor.

So it doesn’t surprise me that iPhones would be at a doctor’s office. They’re probably all over the place, just sort of that consumerization thing where the consumers are doctors and they bring those puppies in. I can see the iPad being used for educational purposes. There’s multiple purposes in the healthcare industry. And like you said, if you want to find a tablet in the wild, that’s kind of where you go.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

That’s probably the only place I can think of where you go. Because you just don’t see tablets out there too often.

Jason Hiner

They’ve really been rejected by most industries and by businesses in general, especially pen computing. The difference is, this is kind of touch computing. Microsoft’s Tablet PC was using the stylus and writing on the screen. But unfortunately, the handwriting recognition was never very good. People just didn’t use them. They didn’t feel real great about using them.

There is some evidence that with the iPhone and iPad Touch, that people are more comfortable with this kind of interface. So one of the questions is, can touch tablets succeed where the pen computing tablets failed?

Larry Dignan

Well, I definitely see touch tablets doing much better than pen. The pen just took too much to get used to.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

There’s too much of a learning curve. There was no pre-work involved.

Jason Hiner

It was too unnatural, too, wasn’t it? It didn’t - it wasn’t just like writing on a pen and a piece of paper.

Larry Dignan

Right, it wasn’t natural. That - the touch interface, I mean anybody with a smartphone kind of knows it by now, right?

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

No matter you have a BlackBerry Storm, an iPhone, an Android device -

Jason Hiner

Palm Pre.

Larry Dignan

You kind of know how to point and move things around. So in that regard, the learning curve isn’t nearly as steep as it would be for pen sort of stuff.

Jason Hiner

Yeah. That may be the biggest thing it has going for it in business. In that - because businesses are going to look at this, especially IT departments, from really a cold, hard case. And they’re going to look for what kind of ROI - what’s the ROI I come up with. Like okay, look - this thing, I’m only going to typically use about three apps. I can teach anybody, I don’t have to go through a big training course to teach them anything. I can give them one of these. I can tell them touch that one, go in here and do it. And I can cut training time by half a day. And if I have 10,000 new employees a year or something, then they’re going to say, okay, that adds up to $1.3 million or whatever it is.

I think that could be one of the ways that businesses get on board with touch computing. And it may not just be the iPad, we are going to see some other lookalikes. We are already seeing the one from HP. Today Nokia mentioned that they’re going to be coming out with these. So for touch tablets, the iPad is kind of the beginning of touch tablets, don’t you think?

Larry Dignan

Yeah, I could see that for sure. I just think it’s going to be a question of time, right? And all these tablets are going to come out and they all have different operating systems. And you sort of have this operating system conundrum, like can Windows 7 scale down to be on the tablet, can Android and the iPhone operating system beef up to work - sort of become a laptop replacement. Businesses will be watching that very closely, especially since at some point, these things might connect to your corporate network. So, you know, does HP and Microsoft bring certain core competencies to the table that would matter to an enterprise more?

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

I don’t know, you would think, right?

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

But who knows.

Jason Hiner

Certainly, there is some behind the scenes stuff that favors them, right? They’re used to selling through the channel, through IT consultants and integrators; that could help. You know HP and Microsoft, they’re also used to selling in bulk and working out big contracts. These are things that Apple’s not - has historically just not been real great at. So as good as the product is and as great as they are at selling to consumers, they’re almost that bad at selling to businesses and large organizations. Do you agree?

Larry Dignan

Yeah. Well, yeah, for the most part. You know, it all depends on how much you believe in that consumerization thing. That the workers are going to bring the super device in and you’re going to have to - the corporation’s going to have to deal with it. I mean, I know one professor at one school where she brought in her iPhone, and they said well, tough, here’s your BlackBerry. So yeah, it remains to be seen how that battle plays out.

Jason Hiner

Yeah. And I believe in it, I think it’s just a little longer slog than they’d like to think in Silicon Valley. I mean, I think it’s a -

Larry Dignan

Well, it’s like everything.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

It’s always - I mean, if you watch the Jetsons, you’re stunned at how undeveloped we are, right? We’re supposed to be in floating cars and we’re supposed to have robots doing things for us and aside from the iRobot, you get the thing to vacuum for you but that’s -

Jason Hiner

The little Roomba, that’s about as much of a robot as we’ve got, right?

Larry Dignan

Yeah, exactly. So all these things are going to take longer. And I think that’s - that might be the lesson for the tablet adoption. I mean, I think all the people with ADD are going to look at this - that first day sales and you know - because my guess is it’s probably going to underwhelm some people right out the gate.

Jason Hiner

Interesting.

Larry Dignan

But I think the iPad is a different sort of device. There’s a learning curve. And I think HP is going to see that with its slate. And I mean businesses might look at it today. But realistically, they’re not going to have to revisit it till at least a year, if not more.

Jason Hiner

Interesting. I think - I’m not sure if people - I’m holding [an iPad] right now, we’ve got one in here at TechRepublic, we cracked it apart yesterday and we were going to be posting some photos and an evaluation of the innards. But I think it’s actually a pretty shiny object when you first have it. It feels pretty good. I was surprised at how fast it is. And the touch interface is far more precise than the iPhone and some of the Android devices I’ve used.

Larry Dignan

Yeah.

Jason Hiner

Even the Palm Pre. So that kind of bodes well for it. I think it’s a pretty good first impression with it, at least mine was. It’s pretty easy to use. I just wonder, over time from the consumer side, if people will stick with it or if you’re used to using a laptop or used to using a smartphone, the only thing that those folks, business travellers, if we talk about that market, that’s kind of what I’m getting at. I think some of those folks are the ones who could influence this.

Business travelers I think are going to really like this. It’s great for [them]. Not only can you read books, but you can watch movies, listen to your audio books, that kind of thing. And hotel entertainment and airplane entertainment being lacking as it is, and even for [light] productivity. This thing has a chance to win over some of those folks.

But those - some of those are executives and salespeople who a lot of times they buy their own stuff anyway and they either just expense it or write it off on their taxes. I think this has a chance with those folks. Because they also like their shiny objects, kind if like doctors, like you said. But not only that, it’s pretty usable. I just don’t think it’s as much of a replacement for your laptop, your daily kind of computing tasks as Apple would like you to think. I think for light computing, some email, send a few messages, and maybe do a little bit of IM on the fly, that stuff is going to be fine. But when you really have to get down to work, you’re still not going to use this thing. And then, if you have to do some work on a trip of if you’re a business person - you’re still stuck with three devices, a smartphone, a tablet and a laptop.

And I think that’s what you are getting at is, that’s where this thing may be is in a little bit of trouble. Until it can become more of a laptop replacement, its audience is pretty limited.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, I’m not bringing three devices, is what it comes down to, right? I mean the Kindle, you can kind of justify because you’re carrying something instead of a paper book. And I guess you could kind of do that with the iPad too. But it is bigger. And I don’t know…

Jason Hiner

It is. And heavier too, it’s heavier, definitely.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, it’s bigger, it’s heavier. I need something to consolidate devices. And this isn’t it.

Jason Hiner

Yeah, it’s another - it’s an add-on. So that’s going to be something interesting to watch and we will certainly -

Larry Dignan

Now, that said, if it goes to 300 bucks, I’m in. Right? So yeah, the price too. I mean the price point right now matter a lot.

Jason Hiner

Yes. That’s funny.

Larry Dignan

Because at that $500 range, which is the least equipped one, you look at it, and it doesn’t compete with just devices, it competes with everything, right? 500 bucks. Well that could be used to pay down your mortgage.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

You know, it can knock down your credit card bill. It can fund your college plan, right? I mean 500 bucks is real money.

Jason Hiner

There’s a lot you can do with 500 bucks, that’s true.

Larry Dignan

And then once you get up for the 699 one, then you’re like, well, why don’t I just buy a MacBook?

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

So I mean it’s tough.

Jason Hiner

Or like that little - what was that one we were talking about? The Dell Vostro V13 or something? That one is like six or seven hundred bucks.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, exactly. It’s kind of the same price.

Jason Hiner

Yeah.

Larry Dignan

So, those are real issues.

Jason Hiner

It’s really - to me it’s a netbook plus an e-reader. I never was really into netbooks, I had no use case for those. And this one is - that’s where this one is kind of in muddy water for me a little bit too. But it succeeds where the netbook fails in that it’s far more usable. Like, I could actually do a lot more stuff on this. Watching video is far better. Reading is much better than on a netbook. Even the Kindle, I wasn’t crazy about the reading experience on the Kindle. The reading experience is much better [on the iPad].

So as a media consumption device and a light computing device, which is kind of the Kindle plus a netbook, I think it beats both of them. And it does do a little consolidation. But the thing is, I don’t know that many people that were going to have both a netbook and a Kindle. So that’s sort of the - there’s where the consumer conundrum kind of comes in.

Larry Dignan

Yeah, exactly. I mean I just think it’s going to take time.

Jason Hiner

Yeah. Fun stuff, though. It could be - the touch stuff is here to stay, I do think. And I think this is going to have implications for laptops and potentially smartphones - something we will keep watching. We also have a lot of coverage on this on ZDNet and TechRepublic. You can find links to those articles in the show notes, I wrote my first impressions, which is called iPad for business: Three reasons to love it and three reasons to ignore it. You will find that linked in the show notes as well.

And as always, ZDNet is your source for latest news and perspectives in business tech. TechRepublic is a source for IT leaders to engage in peer-to-peer conversations and get some tips and best practices. And also, you can find Larry and I online. So Larry, where do people find you?

Larry Dignan

[Between the Lines] btl.zdnet.com and on Twitter I’m ldignan.

Jason Hiner

Alright, so you can find my blog, Tech Sanity Check, at sanity.techrepublic.com; and you can find me on Twitter at twitter.com/jasonhiner.

Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time.

Kyle Reddoch

I am an aspiring Web Developer, Android Fanatic, Family Man, and all around Web Geek! I also do Freelance Development work.

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