About ‘Steve Jobs’ and the biography

Steve Jobs passed away a couple of weeks ago and its biography, that was in the works for some time now, was released. I just finished reading it and enjoying it.
The first chapters about Steve’s childhood are good, and set up the ambiance for what comes next, a very interesting and rebel youth. All the middle part is what makes the book really valuable. The first Apple and ‘jail time’ at NeXT is very very good!
All the most recent times at Apple are well know history and there are not so many details you wouldn’t know if you’ve just been following the news all along. The last chapter could be a book on itself, it is an excellent summary of all of Steve Jobs’s values and it even has it in his own words.

The book is long and fun, some chapters are not so fun (probably his personal life wasn’t so exciting as his professional life) but it is very very easy to read. I would advice anyone to get a copy and read it, if you’re interested in recent technology’s history. It was very interesting to go in a travel through time and read about history so recent, and a cool way to remember.

One more thing, about Steve

I have a history with computers that goes back to my childhood, I started my career working with Microsoft and after many years I learned to discover and love Apple and its ‘think different’ more artistic approach. I still work with Microsoft technologies and feel really sad that they couldn’t learn much from Apple as they should have.
I feel deeply the loss of Steve Jobs as one of the great technology visionaries of the 20th and 21st centuries, and I think we’re gonna miss that industry guidance and path that Apple marked in the past years. Most of companies are not so daring and bold as Apple to innovate (Microsoft used to be but they lost that edge in the past years) so I really hope that someone can stand up to the challenge of being the next Steve Jobs.

If Google is the new Microsoft, Microsoft is the new Xerox

A couple of days ago, as Steve Jobs passed away, I watched again Pirates of Sillicon Valley, the movie that tells the story of the first years at Apple and Microsoft.
It was good to remember that, at that time, Xerox and its PARC had enough budget to invest in R&D and let its engineers create crazy things like the mouse and the Graphical User Interface. They actually had so much money that they didn’t care about having them, as they were sure that the current status-quo was to last forever: computers were just a thing of the distant future, photocopiers are forever.
And so along comes Apple, “borrows” the idea of the GUI and applies it to its Macintosh computer. And the Microsoft “borrows” that idea from Apple and Windows is born.

What if you change a couple of names and re-read that same story over ? In version 2.0
– Microsoft is the new Xerox
– Google is the new Microsoft
– Mobile is the new Personal Computer (Mobile as in smartphones and tablets)
– Apple is the new … Apple!

Microsoft has grown so out of proportions and so sure that PC and Windows kingdom were to last forever, that they had the luxury to ignore all of the money the invested in R&D to develop new products like the Tablet PC and Windows Mobile.
And so came along Apple, “borrows” those ideas and applies them to its iOS platform (iPhone, iPad). And then Google “borrows” that idea from Apple and Android is born.

Toastmasters Project #5 – Your Body Speaks – Just a Jump

This was it.

The moment when everything clicked. I got it. Call it “presentation enlightenment”, I felt like a Buddha under the Bodhi tree. Project #5 was the speech that changed everything for me. Several things conspired to get me here:

  • Project objectives and subject were well aligned right on target.
  • Presenting a personal experience, and a powerful one, is the best subject you can always choose. You won’t need any notes, you know your subject very well!
  • I had four other previous speeches to play with and understand what works and what doesn’t.

It is no coincidence at all that by the time you get to the halfway point of the Competent Communicators manual, you start to see improvements.

My speech was about bungee jumping. I told the audience how my experience was. The fact that bungee jumping is something that many people are frightened of (just like public speaking) helped me gain a lot of confidence and that was projected in the audience. I didn’t use notes at all, I was just telling my story so that made it easier. I felt how the audience got engaged in what I had to tell and I picked up that energy and gave it back, that created a very interesting and meaningful connection in the room.

Conclusions:

  • Always use personal experience to make your speech more vivid and easier to remember.
  • Be a clown! Make them laugh! Or at least, that is what makes me comfortable. Some other people might find that is easier for them to inspire something else than laughter, but in the end, inspire some kind of feeling into the audience. That is what will make your speech enjoyable and memorable.

Toastmaster’s Grammarian Role

Yesterday I have been filling the Grammarian role at the Toastmaster’s weekly meeting.
I had basically two responsibilities:

  • Choose the word of the day/week. This has to be an uncommon word, but that gives you opportunities to be used in daily language.
  • Pay attention to the use/misuse of grammar during the meeting. This is more an exercise of attention and listening.

As the meeting’s topic was going to be ‘Information/misinformation’, I decided on something that is somewhat related to the information age we live in today…


So when the meeting starts, I have to explain what is my role and present the word, its meaning and possible uses. I also encourage everybody to use it, and when someone does, we knock on the table to acknowledge it, cool!
For a meeting with 14 people, the word was used 8 times, which is about 50% “success rate”.

I was also paying close attention to the use of grammar during the speeches, and I was surprised to find that there were no major issues there, so I asked for a round of applause from the attendees to cheer up the spirit and give everybody a nice pat in the back.

Being grammarian was a very interesting experience, you have to pay close attention not only to the speeches but to everything said in the meeting. You also have to keep up with filling your report plus all the feedback for the speeches, a ‘plethora’ of things to do. It is a great opportunity to attend to the meeting but in a totally different role than the regular, and I encourage you to step up and fill the role at your local TM meeting!

Toastmasters Project #1 – The Ice Breaker

I just had my first Toastmasters speech! I am so happy about it. The first project is called “The Ice Breaker” and the objectives are to give a 4-6 minutes speech where you talk about yourself. The name of my speech was “Fears and Believes” and here it is.

I used some freewriting to come up with the ideas that become the pillars of the talk. Then I wrote down the speech on a pages document, split it into Keynote slides. I used a PDF version of the presentation on my iPad to help me with the notes. I have to say that having a PDF document on the iPad with a large font and just having to swipe the pages through is amazing!

Anyways, I gotta say that the feedback I have from my first speech is unbelievable to me. Could it be that I don’t suck at public speaking? After each speech, all of the attendees to the meeting are asked to give you some feedback and this is what I got.

  • Bernardo: I loved the topic! Great for a first speech, it was universal and still gave you a chance to talk about yourself. You seemed comfortable and your speech was obviously well rehearsed. Good job!
  • Very good expression. Reflexed. Well delivered. Good vocabulary
  • Loved your speech. You displayed a lot of human throughout. I learnt a few things about you – where you are from and your sense of travel and adventure. You showed a great presence upfront and your voice projected well. You also had good eye contact. The speech could have been better structured. But that did not take away from your speech. Overall, well done.
  • Bernie: you have a lovely command of the english language, selecting word to describe so much. You started out with your hands in your pockets — nerves? But you quickly withdrew them and looked more comfortable. Well done!
  • Bernardo: Very engaging topics discussed. Good eye contact with users. Excellent job, if you were reading from your notes, I could not tell.
  • Good speech, with confidence. Good job!
  • BernardoBernie 🙂 Good eye contact, friendly and comfortable delivery
  • Bernie: AWESOME!!! Love the demonstration of voice variation. Try to use that throughout your speech. Slow down. More is less. Amazing first speech. You are a natural.

Obviously I was a nerve wreck before I started speaking and also the fact that I was speaker #2 didn’t help, seeing someone else give a great speech, because it makes you think about comparisons, and if you are going to be able to step up to that level.

Overall, I feel just great, it is wonderful to start this journey with the right foot!

Spreadmarts…

Some time ago I read a report by TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) where they talk about something that’s very common in most companies: Spreadmarts.

What are spreadmarts? Is usual to see in every kind of organization the wide use given to Excel Spreadsheets. Every manager, every employee saves his or her own data selfishly in spread sheets that they can edit, change and transform according to need. Is this mix between “spreadsheets” and data marts what originates one of the most extensive problems in small and medium sized companies: Excel fever.

Every company starts using this tool in early stages, where they think that “everything can be solved by just using Excel”. This later becomes in a “temporarily … for ever” situation, where growth creates a crisis that leads to change. Also, this wide use of spreadsheets has many consequences, like “information silos” (where every person or department manages its own data) and has terrible outcomes like decisions taken using outdated or even wrong data.

Excel gives users such ease and dynamism to manage their data, and that’s very hard to get using other tools. That’s why, when facing the idea of keep using spreadsheets, it’s so important to put in the hand of users (specially “owners” of this information islands on companies) new tools to let them use information more easily. In some cases, it might be useful to keep using spreadsheets, maybe they can be automatically generated by some system.

One of the most important things to understand is that there’s no silver bullet, no one-size-fits-all solution for this, but just general guidelines, like aiming to information integration inside the company. You know that one of the most important capitals of your company is information, and special attention must be paid to its care, trying to avoid information silos as much as it can be. Another guideline I always have in mind is gradual tool changes and migrations. It’s natural that users might feel like they lost control, but it’s our duty to make them understand that collaborative work an integration lead to higher performance levels. Sometimes everybody has to cede a little bit of personal control for the greater good of the whole organization. And always, listen to the user. An imposed solution will never be well received and accepted, and sooner than later it will be misused or even worst, not used at all. And this might even reinforce the uses and practices one was trying to change.

Google is the next Microsoft

I’m totally amazed at how fast things go in the technology business this days! And I mean business and not technology development, that is a totally different lane.
Remember the days when everybody bashed Microsoft for being a “copycat” in lots of their products? Suddenly they started to expand in unimaginable ways: Internet portals (MSN), Instant Messenger (MSN Messenger, now Live Messenger), browsers (Internet Explorer), even TV (MSNBC channel).
Well, it seems that Google is now playing pretty much the same “me-too” strategy! First, we watched as a nice “competition” and it was nice to have more options to choose from. But now, it seems rather silly. Here’s the list:

– Gmail (vs Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail)
– Google Docs (vs Office)
– Picasa (vs Flickr)
– Talk (vs MSN Messenger and Skype)
– Buzz (vs Twitter)
– Chrome (vs Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari)
– Chrome OS (vs Windows, Linux, Mac OS)
– Android (vs iPhone)

And today they add a new item to the list. As if Orkut (their own social network) wasn’t enough, they now want to add something called “Google Me” that seems to be their response to Facebook. I understand that once you reached such status in the industry you have to start to protect yourself against possible new competitors, but is this the only way they can come up with?

I really love options, but do you think that just because of Google having its own social network everybody will start moving from Facebook to theirs? I think lots of people have invested a lot of time in building their Facebook profile (adding friends, posting thoughts, uploading photos, learning how to use it) and their not willing to do it again just because some other company has a product that does the same. I mean, it really REALLY has to be something so much better than Facebook to lure me into it. Like totally revolutionary, in the way that Apple revolutionized mobile with iPhone three years ago. Or the way Google itself revolutionized search more than a decade ago. Otherwise, just let me be happy with my Facebook profile. I will probably open an account, play a day or two, and then let it rust (as I think we all did with Google Wave).

So, remember again when everybody bashed Microsoft for this same behaviour, and think: Why isn’t everybody doing the same with Google now?

Business Intelligence Presentation (Part 1 of 2)

I wanted to post this for some days now, and finally now I had the time to do it. This is a presentation I created to one of our customers back in Buenos Aires about Business Intelligence. As the original presentation was in spanish and then I translated it to english, some words or phrases may sound weird or funny.

Their specific question was: “What is business intelligence and what can we do with it?”. So here is the answer in slideshow format!

This is just the first part, the second part (covering Data Mining) will be posted in a few days…

Microsoft’s Lost Decade

What happened to Microsoft? I used to love their products, know each release in their line-up, enjoy every innovation. But lately (more than lately, I could say like for more than ten years ago) it seems like the innovation front has moved from MicrosoftLand to some other fertile grounds. So I would like to share some ideas about what I think about them, taking a step back and looking at their last ten years.

For what I can recall, the last good operating system they released was Windows XP, and that was in 2001! Let’s forget about their whole Vista fiasco, and just face that Windows 7 is just Vista’s Service Pack 2. I remember when XP SP2 went out, they got a totally reliable system back then! Innovative is not an adjective you can put on any of those two releases: Windows still suffers the same security problems as always, it got more annoying and more difficult to manage than before, and it still does the same old things: filesystem management, presentation management, peripheral devices management. So many great things to do on so many fronts, so many lost opportunities! Let’s just take an example: Apple Mac OS’s Time Machine. Boy, I would really like some of that on my Windows. And there are so many great things to still make computers easier to use. But, no, they have this silly TV ads where they tell you that W7 is better just because you can arrange your windows by just dragging them to the borders of the desktop? C’mon, is that all that you could think of as an innovation?

So, what about Office? I think Office is just a finished work of art, guys. We really don’t need anything else in our word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software. That’s why OpenOffice caught up with them and offers a totally free (meaning you don’t have to pay a penny) bundle of software that does pretty much the same that Microsoft Office does. And with browser’s and JavaScript getting its fair share in the development world, you also have Google Docs, now followed by Microsoft’s version… Office Web! Even Apple has some nice products on that field: Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Have you noticed Keynote lately? Is so easy to make such wonderful presentations on it, I wish Powerpoint got that same “designer” treatment (I know they’re doing better on that, but again, this change wasn’t lead by them).

In development tools, the last good product Microsoft released was .NET around 2001. I know this is not fair to say, they were many many advances in the .NET area, and it was planned to be this way. NET is a platform more than a product, and that’s how platforms go, they grow slowly and steadily over time. But those changes seem too much now. Remember the good old days when all you needed to know was just a little bit of Visual Basic (maybe VBScript) and you could come up with a nice Windows Application, or even a website in ASP? Well, now that is so much more complicated and fragmented now. You have to know WCF (Windows Communication Foundation), WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation), Silverlight, ASP.NET is way more complicated than ASP (that’s why so many people couldn’t come up with it and jump the fences to easier PHP). And let’s just assume that you don’t want to know how to put .NET assemblies in your SQL Server, instead of just writing some simple stored procedures. And all of that just because of trying to keep up with the latest tendencies in programming!

So let’s talk about their product lineup. They used to have the Server products (Exchange, SQL Server, MOM and some other great stuff), the Operating System products (Windows in all of its variances), the Office products (with productivity tools like Project) and their Home line (all the software that you would buy for your kids, including the old Encarta). If you look at their product lineup now is a total mess, just the names of the products are confusing. It seems to me they need a house cleanup in that area!

Mobility is an area that I really used to love. Microsoft was THE player in mobility. Windows Mobile, based on the solid foundations of Windows CE, was the only serious smartphone that was around. You could develop applications for it using almost the same tools you used in your desktop applications: C#, SQL Server (with some quirks) but it was totally bearable. As soon as Apple released iPhone is like they totally froze up! And they’re coming up with an incomplete operating system in the next few months: no database support, no filesystem access. Really!? I knew that they had to ditch the original project they were working on and start all over again. Can they be so out of focus? Guys, this was THE opportunity, you were the ones that were calling all the shots, and now look at you, you’re just another player on the battlefield. I know you have all your big friends like HP, Dell and such, but is this really how you want to see yourselves, as another one on the list? Are you happy with just that?

Open source is another battle they’re losing. First, they tried to convince everybody that OSS is a bad word, you would get sued, the software is not as good as theirs, and lots of nonsense that time took care of proving they were wrong. Now, Linux is a pretty good alternative on the server front (specially for web servers where all you need is LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and is becoming better on the desktop field too, thanks to the guys at Ubuntu. They came up with a “good enough” version of a computer operating system and set of productivity tools that you can use even if you’re not a NASA engineer (as it used to be when I ran RedHat Linux in the old days). They guys at the open source movement showed all us that you don’t have to be a multi-billonar company to write quality software. You just have to good programmers and good policies to get things going. And as Microsoft started to slow down, more people starting to notice that there were some other options, and that those options were not so bad as we had been told. So why not try them? They’re free, so it wouldn’t cost us a dime to just see what’s up with that. And that is a hard battle to fight. How do you compete with free?

So what happened? Well, my idea (and it seems I wasn’t the only one with that in mind, as I been reading some other people’s blogs) is that Microsoft has a serious management issue. And it might even have a name: Steve Ballmer. If you think when all the innovation stopped, and when was the last change of management, both things coincide. As soon as this man got the steer, the company’s star started to fade. Maybe it’s because Bill Gates is more of a technology guy (makes sense to have such a person running a technology company), maybe he is not so smart as it seems (just look for some videos of him on YouTube to find it out). But for me, those to things happening at the same time are not just coincidence.

I don’t intend to rain on anyone’s parade, that’s truly not my intention. As I told, I used to love Microsoft, and I still have a pretty amount of respect for them. They make one of the best software products in the world. So this post is just a summary of ideas I have on my mind right now. I would really like to help you guys regain the leadership position you used to have. But it looks like there’s a long way to go, and as far as I’m looking, no one is acknowledging this inside the company.