The Outsidr

Sorry to all for the looooooong hiatus but things have just been too busy for me lately to focus on getting good content up on TO. Hopefully that will change soon and in the meantime, I’ve tried to get some interesting reading through to all of my RSS subscribers via Ma.gnolia.com.

As I have a few minutes of downtime right now, I wanted to put a little post together inspired by Papa Arrington. It’s actually a very cool idea – put together a list of products you “can’t live without” at the start of each year and see how that list changes 365 days later. Note that I put can’t live without in quotes because obviously I would be perfectly able to go on without any of the items listed below, but materialism and object-dependency are topics for an entirely different post…

So without further ado, I give you my short list of tech-focused products that I use and enjoy on a regular basis:

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Quite some time ago, I was chatting with a group of people about Nokia’s effort to break into the US market with its high-end smartphone lines. Among those in the group were two well-positioned higher ups from Nokia, two bloggers and a handful of people I hadn’t been introduced to.

At one point during the conversation, we began talking about advertising and marketing. Being a marcom guy, I jumped right in. Nokia had hardly been aggressive up to that point in time (not that it is aggressive now) and I began talking about what might help the company position its devices a bit better in the US. Directly addressing the Nokians, I talked about apps.

There are only a handful of factors that separate one phone from the next in the eyes of the typical US consumer. Styling and form factor are among those factors; camera quality and dedicated multimedia keys are not. Why not focus on some of the amazing applications that have been developed for Nokia handsets? Why not bring some of this functionality – that is entirely unheard of where the typical US consumer is concerned, mind you – before the consumer and wow him/her? Show him that his handset can automatically switch profiles to silent or vibrate when he arrives at the movie theater to catch a flick. Show her that she can snap a picture and upload it instantly, without pressing a single button, to her Facebook page. Show them that they can actually speak to their handsets and their speech can be converted into text, to then be emailed/posted/texted and so on.

They looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my forehead.

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Apparently not everyone here thought that little joke was quite as funny as I did. Regardless, it was all in good fun despite a heaping portion of it possibly falling into the sad but true category. If you’d like to read Maroon’s follow up – recommended – head on over.

I know I shared this via delicious but I had to put it up in a post. Originally posted on Matt Maroon’s blog, the following is a presentation given at a recent Whiner Jerkins meeting with all of the CEOs from its portfolio companies in attendance. There is only one word that can describe it: AMAZING. Please view it in full screen mode…

Speaking of SpinVox, Mr. James Whatley composed a very interesting post yesterday over on the SpinVox Blog. Entitled Confidence in Communication, Whatley dives into the various mediums he uses to communicate on a regular basis and considers how SpinVox fits into the fray. I’ll pause here for a few moments while you head over and absorb his post.

Right then. In Whatley’s post he outlines his “Hierarchy of Communication” – a representation of the various methods of communication he uses ordered by the prioritization or weight he gives each different medium. He asks readers to do the same, so here is my personal hierarchy (reverse it for the B Party of course):

1. Face to face
2. Call
3. SMS
4. IM
5. Email
6. Social

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