Resolutionary indeed...

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So many good things have been written about the launch of iPad Mk III, almost all of it justified, it's fair to say that the fruiterers from Cupertino have pulled off a minor engineering miracle in assembling a device that, along with the already existing iPhone 4, establishes the benchmark for what we will then demand from the market as a whole. I only wish I owned shares in a flat panel display company right now (let's hope that my 401K manager has done their homework!).

What was interesting about Apple's keynote two weeks ago was not what they announced, but a sidebar comment made by Apple marketing VP Phil Schiller prior to the demo, which paraphrased was 'the projector we have cannot fully resolve what you see on the screen of iPad' (jump to the keynote replay and fast forward roughly 00:20 in to hear it from Phil's own lips).

While he seemed to blow by the comment without a second thought, in my mind, you could hear a pin drop. I stopped listening to the demo of the new, newness and instead felt my mind drifting to the changes happening in the video production world when it occurred to me that we probably should be planning to quadruple our plans for compute, bandwidth and storage - especially if you're in the content business.

I see RED

Part of what stunned me about Phil's throw away comment is that it wasn't actually true. "What?!" I hear you ask, a marketing person engaging in hyperbole? Never! :-) To help explain my claim, you might want to settle back in your seat as I catch you up on the changing world of content -where it's been, where we are now and importantly where I think it's going.

Filthy lucre and why I switched on Google advertising

Some of you might have noticed that I switched on Google's built-in advertising today and might even be wondering why I did it or disappointed that yet another small corner of the internet has been polluted with people pimping their produce.

Too many bad slides!

I've recently been on a customer seminar tour spanning all of our regions and I (re)discovered a disturbing trend - our presentations are awful and our presenters are frequently ill-prepared or worse treat their presentations as a sermon versus a dialog.

 

The content for two of the most recent events I attended was so incredibly bad that it was all I could do to stop from poking myself in the eye with a nearby chopstick (one of the dangers of doing business in the Asia-Pacific is that sharp objects are too easy to come by). The very worst part of those experiences was that only one person came up to me afterwards and asked me how they could improve, and I suspect that was because they sat next to me while I ranted about the people who went prior.

While each coaching moment is different, there are a few rules I have found that have helped me when driving a presentation session that have always helped, starting with;

kanban boards in LEGO?

Dedicated boundary spanners that are not already subscribing to FastCompany's Co.Design email digest need to get on it right away. Yesterday's issue contained a great article about how GM are using LEGO to track defects on the production line, the visualisation of which reminds me of a kanban board.

 

A time of remarkable change?

If you've been reading my blogs on Enterprise CIO and Discover Performance, you'll know that I've a part-time career as a soothsayer, trying to predict the future. The central theme to my predictions is that scale and complexity will dictate the future history of companies and public services.

This great little infographic video, "Digital Life: Today and Tomorrow," created by NeoLabels, with a script by Inés Leopoldo of Mitsue Venture tells the story brilliantly. Thanks to Design Taxi for bringing it to my attention.