20091231

What will you have to show for it?

Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers. I don't always agree with him, but his perspectives are often stirring and compelling. In his latest post he looks back to an article he wrote a while ago about planning for the future, and with 2010 looming, I thought it would be good to echo his thoughts and add my own.

Howard Behar, former COO of Starbucks and author of It's not about the coffee once said "When you don't know where you are going, every road looks like a good one." He was talking about the need to have goals. If you don't have goals, then how can you be upset if, after a period of time, you have achieved nothing of value? It's a simple concept, but very powerful.

Both Seth and Howard are saying the same thing in different ways. You must have goals, no matter how simple. You must write them down. Date them. Review them periodically. Assess how well you are proceeding toward them. Decide if they need to change. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

If you do anything different this year, consider this. When you look back on 2010 a year from now, what would you like to say about yourself differently than you can right now? What would make you proud to achieve? How would you like to see yourself and your accomplishments?

Got 'em? Ok. Good. Write them down. Date them.

Those are your goals.

Now go make it happen!

20091219

Happy Holidays!

I hope everybody out there in Cyber-land has a great Holiday season. There is a lot of crazy stuff out there, good and bad, and the world is more chaotic now than ever before. But each year we stop, pull our heads up from our desks and computer screens, and take a breath. Look around, see your families, friends, and loved ones. Realize why you work so hard. Realize what you come home to each night and why you get up in the morning. Take stock. And give thanks.

Here's hoping we all realize just how lucky we still are in this county to have the opportunities we have. All we need to do is capitalize on them, and never give up.

Have a great Holiday, however you choose to celebrate it. But do celebrate. Come January, it's back to work!

20091204

Marketing 101, CrunchPad-style

If you have been watching the news about the "apparent" demise of the CrunchPad, you have been witness to what appears to be a mess. How could Mike Arrington, the visionary behind this fabled device, have messed up the management of the media so badly? Or did he?

Admittedly, Arrington looks sort of like a goofball right now, with his design partner, Fusion Garage, apparently running amuck and about to hold their own press conference next Monday. But consider this. What if you really didn't have enough money to complete the project? Or what if you simply wanted to whip the media and other folks into a frenzy right before you came out with something in order to stimulate initial sales? What if you needed to divert attention from the fact that you really weren't delivering exactly what you said you'd deliver for the price you initially said you would? If any of these scenarios were true [and I'm not saying they are, wink-wink] then you might just concoct this type of media circus. And believe me, Arrington is just the guy to pull something like this off.

So we'll see. We'll see if my predictions are right or wrong. We'll see if someone actually ships a robust tablet that costs $199 $299  $399 or, as they are saying now, "$399-ish"...which in my book is more like $499, which is exactly my bottom-end prediction for the Apple iTablet. Now a company like Arrington/FusionGarage might just be willing to sacrifice margin early-on to get market share, so I would not be surprised to see initial pricing pretty aggressive. But I stand by my predictions.

This may be as it appears. It may simply be a bunch of buffoons stumbling around messing up a good idea because they are letting their emotions get in the way. They may be incapable of balancing hype and reality. They may actually be practicing What Not to Do. Or, it's just possible it's all part of the plan. If so, they are not messing up. It's simply Marketing 101.

For now, we'll simply have to wait and see.