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Still a WordPress blog, though. We love ya, WordPress.

Happy New Year to all!

http://www.secondmarket.com/

In the U.S., either the banks are going to have to figure out what to do with their debt or the government is going to set up a Resolution Trust Corporation-style sort of solution. Either way, SecondMarket looks like a very, very good idea.

Here’s how Whitney Hess describes the project in front of her, “So I have quite a challenge ahead of me — how do I preserve the existing elements of delight while making the app more scalable, more social, more effective and easier to use by a larger audience?

I’m starting off by doing usability testing with current alpha users, using boxee both on laptops and TV set-ups, and will additionally conduct interviews with prospective boxee users to learn their media consumption behaviors, attitudes, motivations and frustrations. Together these findings will be brought to light in a small set of user personas and scenarios, from which the necessary features for the ideal experience will emerge. Working closely with the boxee team, I’ll develop a set of wireframes to communicate how the features should be woven together in the most useful, usable, pleasurable way, screen by screen. From there the visual designer and developers will bring the product to life, infusing all of the sleekness and fluidity you’ve come to love so much. And all together we’ll test it, and validate it with users, and tweak it and test it again. On and on and on until we’re ready to launch beta.”

On the past:
“In 1946 4.3 billion movie tickets were sold. By last year the population doubled so we would have needed to sell 9 billion tickets. Instead we sold. 1.4 billion. The movies are a shell of what they used to be but the theatrical film business is a thriving, high-profile business and it is not a coincidence that it reached its peak in 1946 on the eve of the introduction of television.”

Even more interesting than the history lesson is his view of the digital future and the ensuing discussion.

Hint: John Wanamaker’s conundrum will be answered, “I know that half of my advertising budget is wasted, but I’m not sure which half.”

“Ideally, the following use cases could be common in ten to fifteen years. To complete shopping in bricks-and-mortar retail stores, customers could simply walk through doorways to check out, debit accounts, and receive e-receipts that they can inspect via the displays on their cell phones. A soldier could rapidly learn how to perform a maintenance procedure by scanning an item of equipment using a handheld device and reading the device’s display. Handheld devices could become not only information sources but universal remote controls for the environment—user interfaces for engaging lights and appliances, locating misplaced and loosely-organized objects, diagnosing problems with systems, and controlling tele-operated objects from greater or lesser distances.”

The Internet of Things (PDF) appears to have ben coined by a member of the RFIDS development community around 2000. I would suggest downloading the PDF, printing it out, and thinking about some of the ideas put forth in the paper. As always, think big, because NOW is when the game will change.

Since no one can be an expert in everything that is out there, I am going to explore some of the tools in my consideration set as we build a business.

It all starts with a business plan and I will get to that next but, first, let’s look at some of the tools that Intridea offers to get the ideas flowing. This is a bit bassackwards but it is a good thought-starter exercise if you are considering a digitally-enabled business. We need new ways to work together and communicate with the marketplace. We’re not going to throw everything old out…but we are going to look new tools and new media consumption patterns. As you look at these tools, think about how they might be used to leverage your business. Think big.

Present.ly: Private Micro-Blogging for Your Business.

Crowdsource: Customer Feedback Widget.

SocialSpring: White-Label Social Networking Platform.

MediaPlug: Media Transcoding Appliance (whew, that’s a mouthful).

Scarlr: Cloud Computing, Minus the Sky High Prices.

Intridea offers a program that I think is brilliant. It is called Live In Five and what they will do is implement your business concept in five days. Devloping a proof-of-concept is always critical and frequently problematic. The Live In Five program is very powerful because there is a big difference between talking about a business and actually building one.

In Paul Gillin’s book, The New Influencers, he desrcibes “The Marketer’s Dilemma”. “The shift to small markets served and influenced by an entirely new breed of opinion-leaders is a sea change for markters. Most marketers still have no idea what to do about it.”

And therein lies our opportunity, doesn’t it?

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: Business Model Innovation, digital, Innovation Process, intridea, new influencers, small business, social media, tools ]]> http://digitalindustrialpark.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/using-tools-as-thought-starters-the-art-of-the-possible/feed/ 0 digitalindustrialpark http://digitalindustrialpark.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/balsamiq-100k-in-5-months-nice-business-model/ http://digitalindustrialpark.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/balsamiq-100k-in-5-months-nice-business-model/#comments Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:59:19 +0000 digitalindustrialpark http://digitalindustrialpark.wordpress.com/?p=174 Continue reading →]]> ReadWriteWeb has a great story on balsamiq, a software company started by Peldi Guilizzoni who wrote an app and then published his revenue for all to see. As it says in the article, “a simple tool coming along at just the right time!” There is opportunity out there, friends.

[Link to Balsamiq here]

“We love this story. Back in July we wrote about the inspiring experience of Peldi Guilizzoni, a lone software developer who’d built a web design mock-up tool called Balsamiq and who was opening up his financial records on his blog to show everyone how things were going. We’d been following his progress since before he launched, but just 6 weeks after Balsamiq hit the market at roughly $79 per license, we wrote that Peldi had already made $10k in revenue.

That was a cute story, but now it’s been just 5 months and today Peldi reports that he’s just cleared $100,000 in sales of the four variations of his product. Talk about a simple tool coming along at just the right time! It’s cool software, too.”

REST of the article is here.

A recruiter that I have known for a very long time told me, “Bill, 2009 is going to have two polar-opposite types of positions: Positions with companies that are trying to do more with less and sole proprietors”.

Even if you are in a large corporation, it will be helpful to think like an entrepreneur. And if you happen to be amongst the staggering number of newly unemployed, here are some places to think about starting some revenue-generating opportunities from Rajil Kapoor, Managing Director at Mayfield Fund.

If you are new to usability, this is a great resource. If you are a practitioner, then it’s a fine reference page.

“In this article we present 30 important usability issues, terms, rules and principles which are usually forgotten, ignored or misunderstood. What is the difference between readability and legibility? What exactly does 80/20 or Pareto principle mean? What is meant with minesweeping and satisficing? And what is Progressive Enhancement and Graceful Degradation? OK, it’s time to dive in.”

>>Here’s the highly-usable link<<