Connecting the Dots

Is Microsoft still playing games and accelerating toward irrelevance?

My level of trust in Microsoft has always been incredibly low. From the crushing of Netscape to the "hidden" API's to the games they've played to make any competitor's software run poorly and ending with the lack of support for Web standards, I've never been at all interested in anything they do.

With Ray Ozzie coming on board and seeming moves to embrace an increasingly fragmented and disparate developer ecosystem -- and an accelerating amount of choice with Web applications (and huge competition from Google) -- I thought they'd learned their lesson. Maybe they have....maybe they haven't. I don't spend much brain energy thinking about them but I continue to simply have poor experiences with virtually every use of a Microsoft product or service.

As I'm scanning my RSS feeds (Note: in Google Reader), I just saw this post on Engadget about an apparent stumble on the Today show where Meredith Viera was unable to figure out how to take a call from Matt Lauer on the iPhone. Engadget mentioned, "We couldn't get the video to play on a Mac, but we'll keep an eye out for a YouTube version, let us know if you see anything." I thought, "Nah....can't be" and went there to try for myself on my MacBook Pro.

As you can see from the graphic, to view the video you need to "install free software" including "Firefox 1.5 (I'm on 2.0.0.4) and to "Download Macromedia Flash Player" (I'm using Flash Player 9).  Why don't they just say, "Hello Loser. Why don't you join the dwindling majority of the rest of the planet who are still using Internet Explorer 6 and our operating system?"

Let's suppose that the iPhone is, in fact, wildly successful and the best user experiences are with Web hosted sites and applications that work on this phone. Let's further suppose that Linux iPhone clones proliferate (several already exist in some form like these)? Will Microsoft support them? Don't count on it.

There are so many areas that Microsoft is increasingly irrelevant...like video. I understand that they're beside themselves or the ubiquity of the Flash platform and that virtually every video (and video streaming) site uses Flash technology. According to this article, YouTube's market share is greater than the next 64 video sharing sites combined and Microsoft isn't a factor anywhere within this space. So, should Microsoft create and deliver an offense that focuses on the best, most ubiquitously delivered video platform in the history of mankind or play defense by throwing up obstacles and barriers? IMHO, the former is today's recipe for success and the latter an accelerant toward irrelevance.

NOTE: I just re-read the error screen and tried it in Safari 3 beta and it worked. The kicker? I don't use Safari since WYSIWYG editor toolbars (like I use in Typepad to do a post) didn't work in Safari though do somewhat in Safari 3 beta.

Future of Work is Gaming

For years my 12 year old son has expressed over and over again how he wants to be in the video game space. He's stayed on campus at the UofMN for two years with ID Tech Camp's summer programs in video game design and is immersed in gaming and virtual worlds.

At first, my bride and I were concerned by his rabid and passionate embrace of games. "Hey...go outside and ride your bike or something" was our constant refrain on beautiful summer days when he was opting to be inside gaming with a buddy or a team online. As a parent, the key to successful launching of a kid is to find and fuel their passion -- whatever it may be and regardless of how we might feel about it -- so we're fueling his gaming passion (and still ensuring he is balanced and in the fresh air!).

I've been skimming articles for a few years now on the examinations of gaming theory on learning, collaboration, team building and educational process. Great minds are examining the power of video games -- a power which even was being looked at as a possible psychiatric addiction...but the American Medical Association recently eliminated it from inclusion in a widely used diagnostic manual of psychiatric illnesses.

Now IBM has been seriously exploring the future of work and gaming (by way of 3PointD) with the firm Seriosity.

Figuring out the importance, the best practices and zero'ing in on the most powerful aspects of virtual work -- and creating software systems and processes that are effective -- make perfect sense for an organization like IBM and this study and their initiative is highly interesting. But I'm more interested in the fact that IBM is even looking at this category as I join other strategists and visionaries in determining what it means when business, education, social ties and human consciousness are connected and increasingly virtual.

How do we come together in teams virtually? What software can we use that is instantly intuitive and fosters collaboration and, especially, creativity and innovation? What are the protocols and behaviors we need to exhibit in order to make virtual connections trustworthy, meaningful and productive? How can coming together virtually be really fun and delightful so it will be attractive rather than a burden to participants?

iPhone: Don't forget the 1st generation iPod

I promised myself that I wouldn't do an iPhone post, but I figure I may as well join in on the phun.

Six years ago in October of 2001, my (then) 12 year old daughter and I stood outside the Mall of America Apple store in anticipation of the release of this new music player called the iPod. I still own this device (and it's still working) and when I hold it side-by-side with my current 60GB video iPod -- or my wife's nano -- I'm stunned by how far Apple has come iterating this little music player and the category overall.

I expect nothing less from future iPhone devices.

In an increasingly mobile world, easy to use and fully functional computers on our hips or in our purses is key. When I did the post, "Mobile Global Grid: When the world is at your fingertips" I was really clear on the importance of having the world's knowledge at our fingertips. The iPhone and the design bar Apple is setting will benefit all of us as mobile devices become more powerful, the network bandwidth larger and more of us with these devices.

I read Walt Mossberg (here) and David Pogue's (here) reviews and it's amusing to see how the blogosphere is leaping on to anything that smacks of a negative perspective. Mossberg's "on balance it's great" and Pogue's seeming major concern about the AT&T network, "The bigger problem is the AT&T network. In a Consumer Reports study, AT&T’s signal ranked either last or second to last in 19 out of 20 major cities. My tests in five states bear this out. If Verizon’s slogan is, “Can you hear me now?” AT&T’s should be, “I’m losing you.” are clearly spot-on but many are leaping on them as harbingers of why the iPhone isn't hype worthy and may stumble.

Look...any first generation "category killer" product has warts. There is no perfection but Apple has clearly entered with a disruptive device that will only get better as they iterate. Knowing Apple as I do, they've already got generations 2 and 3 well planned out and the mobile telephony device industry is undoubtedly shooting to meet-n-exceed the current iPhone design...

....but if they are, by the time they ship the next generation iPhone will be on the shelves.

What if there is no equilibrium?

One result of an increasingly interconnected world -- and we humans who are leveraging this network, adding ourselves as nodes to it -- is that hundreds of thousands or millions of changes are occurring everywhere. Change is being accelerated because people can help people; ideas are propagated at the speed electrons can traverse the 'net; and thoughts inform others thoughts which build upon one another quickly.

New companies are popping up all over, industries are being disrupted globally, and the fear most status quo holders have is about the disruption we will NOT see.

I've been observing this massive change enabled, in no small part, by the Internet-as-a-platform, Web/Enterprise 2.0 space and have slowly realized that no one, no analyst organization or set of thought leaders is going to be able to track and even identify disruption and emergence everywhere on our planet.

When I think about industries that have been disrupted by quickly emerging competitors in the past: railroads; vacuum tube companies; minicomputer makers; today's newspaper and television providers; or even the printing industry my 94 year old father-in-law worked in for his entire career; I see now that disruption occurred but there was ample time for adaption. Companies adapted, industries figured out how to stay relevant or go away, economies discovered new revenue streams, and equilibrium was reached.

But what would happen if equilibrium is no longer within reach?

Choosy thieves choose Dell....or do they prefer Apple?

Was delighted to have breakfast this morning with an old friend I haven't seen in several years since he moved to Michigan. It was great catching up and sharing stories and some context around our lives currently.

One anecdote I'd like to share -- with an appropriate dash of empathy for he and his bride -- was his story about the two of them going out to dinner last night here in Minneapolis with a friend and they left her MacBook Pro and his Dell laptop in the car (I assume) partially covered up in the back seat.

When they came out after dinner, the back window of the car was smashed and her MacBook Pro was gone! You guessed it....they left Tom's Dell laptop on the seat.

Discover Your Strengths

The more you know about yourself, the better able you will be to make the choices in life that will ensure you're doing the right work, taking your optimal path and ensuring you're working up to your potential.

Same thing goes with people you manage, those you mentor or even your kids. If you learn what makes them tick and fills them with passion, they'll have a spring in their step and achieve their greatest potential -- and be in the right place in or out of your organization.

I've been assessed, probed, analyzed and dissected by the best. I've done the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI); Myers-Briggs; Spencer, Shenk, Capers assessments and executive workshops; and many more. Thousands and thousands of dollars have been expended on my behalf to figure out how my brain is wired and who I am.

Here's the funny thing: my bride has never thought anything accurately assessed the essence of Steve Borsch until my executive coaches, George Johnson and Jeff Staggs, had me buy a $35 book and take the online test that comes with it. The book? Marcus Buckingham's Now Discover Your Strengths and the online test done by the Gallup organization.

When I came back from George's place on Lake Superior early last year having my assessment results in my hands, I sat down with Michelle and read her the five paragraphs which laid out my top five strengths. When I finished, she grinned and exclaimed, "Steve, that is THE best description of EXACTLY who you are that I've ever heard!"

Oh how this knowledge has helped guide my client choices; ensured I turned down job offers I previously would've leapt at; and the result is that I'm significantly happier with my work today than ever before (and I can also look back at high achievement past jobs where I performed but was miserable...because I wasn't capitalizing on my strengths).

Being dependent on applications in "the cloud"

Vonage's dashboard page has been down all morning. This is the place where all features of the service can be tweaked like voicemail, forwarding phones and so on. Fortunately this hasn't been a deal killer for us today, but it reminds me of my increasing dependence on service levels for applications that live in the cloud (i.e., hosted applications served via the Internet).

More of my life is entangled with Google (Gmail; Reader; Notebook; Analytics) and when there is a hiccup with email specifically, much of my communication grinds to a halt.

This Vonage "upgrading" is bothersome since there isn't any convenient way to perform tasks with Vonage offline (I could do it via the phone itself, but the help system is online!). Google Gears is interesting as is other offline use for other Web applications, but if you haven't sync'ed recently and the hosted application goes offline, it's a moot point.

Will Apple's Safari become a rich, Internet application container?

When Steve Jobs put up the slide at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) last week that the Safari browser would be available on Windows, there was interest but not much discussion in the blogosphere of why Apple would do it. Some thought it was stupid to try and fight the browser war on Windows.

I see the logic of it and think it's stealthy, clever and absolutely brilliant. Here's why...

Apple announced at WWDC that there are currently 500 million active users of iTunes. Every iTunes installation has Quicktime in it. Thinking about the huge install base of Quicktime for some time, I've been puzzled why Apple wasn't taking advantage of Quicktime as a delivery mechanism for cool online-n-offline functionality that is being delivered by Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight.

But then Steve Jobs shows Safari on Windows and I had one of those forehead-slap moments and a "Doh!" utterance: Safari will be the rich, internet application (RIA) container, not just Quicktime alone!

In his keynote, Jobs emphasized over-n-over again that "the iPhone contains the exact same version of Safari as this one" when describing Safari 3, played up strongly that this same Safari runs on the iPhone and that developers can now create apps for the iPhone by delivering them inside of Safari!

Check out this at the 37Signals blog where Jason says, "That is a bold idea. Very forward thinking. A whole new product with the opportunity for a whole new platform. But instead Apple chooses simple and familiar: HTML and Javascript. Tens of millions of developers already know it. Instant developer uptake and an instant batch of apps that likely already work with the iPhone." Then look at the first comment which says, "I fully agree. And these are scary times for those who try to push RIA  technology like Flex and Silverlight." (Note: John Gruber has a much different take on Apple's positioning of writing Web apps for the iPhone with Safari, "It’s insulting, because it’s not a way to write iPhone apps, and you can’t bullshit developers." 

But it gets better.

My Live TV Adventure...

Delivering live TV is always an adventure, but even more so when everything you're using is free and the sheer act of using it is stepping out onto the ledge with a 20 story drop in front of you!

Last Friday evening, Malcolm Cohan delivered a live webinar to ~20 or so people that I set up (this screenshot above is from a later date and it's only me in the chat room) scattered all over the US, London and Germany.

Though I'm not a developer, I knew what we were trying to achieve for Malcolm and that we'd be out on the bleeding edge a bit using the beta of this awesome video production platform, Mogulus, along with Malcolm's incredible energy and his TV production background. The screenshot is of a web page for this first small event. I embedded the Mogulus player as well as live chat with a Meebo room I signed up for and also embedded in the page. The whole page was under 100k since the functionality was hosted elsewhere.

We set up lights, the shot with Malcolm with windows behind him, a microphone and mixer and a separate prosumer camcorder on a tripod so the video quality would be good. He ran the Mogulus platform and cued up videos he'd uploaded previously (which was really cool) so he could play videos and insert them directly into the live stream. I modulated the audio as I watched and listened (and recorded) the live stream to ensure that our audience was having a good experience.

When I wrote this post about Mogulus a couple of weeks ago I hadn't yet used the platform. After our experience last Friday, I'm absolutely stunned with what power this brings to deliver Live TV *and* 24/7 playing of videos (which, by the way, is perfect to do before the live segment begins). I'm also acutely aware of my scale discussion since I could only imagine a hot show with thousands of people (or multiple tens of thousands) logging on to view and crashing the Mogulus servers. It could be ugly and there really isn't any way to predict if a Mogulus, uStream or Stickam could even handle large scale events.

This was not without hitches. One person viewing didn't have enough bandwidth (slow DSL connection) and another saw only a black square instead of the video (he didn't have a current Flash install) so there are still hiccups which browser sensing could help overcome (to check bandwidth and look for the correct version of Flash).

The other piece to this is what you see above. Look-n-feel is important. I want to pay for a branded, skinned player that is mine and a branded, skinned chat room that works great (because of Internet latency of multiple second delays, chat is currently the best method of interacting with an audience). I also don't want to pay more for monthly access to a live streaming platform than I do for my office space (most of the big providers: WebEx, Adobe Connect, charge hundreds or thousands per month) or have anyone insert their advertising into my live or recorded streams.  Bandwidth use as live TV shows take off and scale is going to be the #1 issue any of us who are dabbling in these technologies will face. Still, doing this event with Malcolm just made me grin as to the possibilities!

Get Smart about Helping Others Understand Technology

Was poking around Brightcove's site this morning and found a Time/Life channel with the clip below. I remember this show, Get Smart, and its bumbling spy Maxwell Smart (played by Don Adams). It was campy as hell but was fun to watch nevertheless.

This clip -- complete with a pinkish red wrapper and an ad for the series on DVD (Note: for some reason I noticed today, July 12th, that it had been taken down so I put up a new version) -- was still one I wanted to include in this post today. Why? Because the way Maxwell is using all his phone gadgets is how I sometimes think people see me when I'm goofin' with all my gadgets and technology. This might be an enjoyable clip that may also make you stop and think about what those of us deeply embedded in Web 2.0, the Internet, software and gadgets present with our use of technology. Let's help the rest of 'em catch up, heh?

The World is Awakening...

What happens when everyone becomes awake? I don't mean from sleep, but rather have fully developed a level of consciousness that ensures they're aware of human connection, ideas and possibilities in new and radical ways?

If you're a C-level executive, strategist, marketer, in product development, sales, are a teacher or small businessperson (or frankly anyone), the accelerating shifts in consciousness will impact what you do or deliver...and probably already is whether you're aware of it or not.

My work in Web/Enterprise 2.0, community and communications through the Internet-as-a-platform means that I am seeing and experiencing this awakening on a daily basis. Simple things like watching people come together in a collaborative space and discovering how important it is to have everyone see the same vision of a product so they're in sync; understanding the importance of ritual in a virtual meeting (e.g., how to lead a session and ensure everyone has a voice); deepening their understanding of markets and the people within them; and the inner drive people are exhibiting to move toward a vision for humanity that they live by. Businesses ignore this at their own peril.

This article in Fast Company (a publication I'm respecting more than ever as they push against the membrane of the future with articles like this one) is kinda, sorta a mashup about new concepts in 'green', activist capitalism, and open source and is one of the most fascinating examples I've seen for some time about strategies and concepts tapping into this awakening world and an ever-expanding human consciousness.

It starts out, "Somewhere between the Oscar for Al Gore's planetary-disaster epic, An Inconvenient Truth, and the canonization of Angelina Jolie by the United Nations (in association with People (NYSE:TWX) magazine), the message started sinking in: The cultural conversation around the environment, social change, and human rights is approaching maximum velocity. What is arguably urgent has become inarguably hip." To me, the operative words are "cultural conversation", "maximum velocity" and "inarguably hip" in that paragraph and it is blatantly obvious to me that the company discussed in this feature couldn't have happened until now.

As I read I realized that all that I've been seeing and experiencing recently -- both on and offline -- is but a tip-of-the-iceberg of this global awakening.

PUSH: Day Two of Two

As you read today's post, I need to lay out my initial perspective and, perhaps, my personal bias on conferences before I leap into an ongoing recap of today's events.

The concept of unconferences is one I embrace as well as its central premise: there is more intelligence collectively in the audience than any given set of presenters. The exceptions yesterday were the global perspectives of several of the presenters on geopolitics, macroeconomics and the core science behind energy and I found these quite valuable. As a consequence to the way this conference is delivered, there are less opportunities to interact with folks than others I've attended and/or methods to allow people to cluster around specific topic areas (e.g., tracks of topics, etc.).

That said, many of the side conversations I've been having are remarkably prescient about the future and have been probing about things that are *not* being covered at PUSH...like the Internet as a platform; the massive inefficiency and cycle times being reduced in virtually every industry and NGO because of it; and the biggest impact of what is occurring right now: the acceleration in human connection and what that means to the future of everything occurring here.

Perhaps it's the luxury I have of attending numerous cutting edge conferences in a host of areas as well as being married to a trend forecaster. Combine that with the volume of thought leaders I follow daily and books I read (specifically on the future) and I'm probably somewhat atypical as an audience member -- though I've gravitated to six other people whose perspective is exactly the same as mine.

One thing I will mention, however, about their positioning this as an unconference. What is atypical is that all sessions are in the theater and all attendees see every presenter. Therefore all the participants have a synchronous experience which doesn't do what I experience at all other conferences: I get bummed that I can't attend every single session and feel like I'm missing something at other ones.

Come back periodically today as I'll be publishing after the morning and afternoon sessions.

PUSH: Day One

Here in the auditorium at the PUSH Conference. Last evening's kickoff was a nice introduction for people to ease into the essence of what I'm expecting this conference to deliver.

I've already met people from major corporations (General Mills, Best Buy), the CTO of Dow Jones, a serial entrepreneur and key local technology leader (Dan Grigsby), a researcher from O'Reilly & Associates, Eric Utne (started the Utne Reader and now Earth Corps), folks from Minnesota Public Radio and many more.

That is what the conference is all about...just like other conferences I attend. The conference itself is useful and is most interesting as the focus of the event, but it's the hallway and break conversations where the sparks fly. It's the people. The perspectives. The energy of the people who are seeking to know more about what's just beyond that membrane of the future.

I'll be adding to this "Day One" post throughout the day so any of you RSS readers may want to come to this post page itself later today if you'd like to know more about what occurred.

PUSH the Future

Starting tomorrow evening I'm enthused, intrigued and delighted to be covering the PUSH Conference right here in my backyard in Minneapolis. I've known of it for its life thus far, but circumstances have never aligned so attending it hasn't been an option in the past. The stars aligned now so I'll be there.

"The PUSH Conference is designed for business leaders, policymakers, brand and R&D executives as well as venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, artists and others charged with shaping the future and leading the marketplace of ideas.  Founder Cecily Sommers notes “The PUSH conference brings together leading thinkers from across many multi-cultural and global disciplines to dissect and analyze change. PUSH offers a first-look at the people, ideas and technology transforming our world.”

If you read my blog frequently you may have come across one of my favorite phrases: pushing against the membrane of the future (like in this post which describes what I mean fully). My hope is to be surrounded by audience members pushing against that membrane in their own way and listening to conversation starters who've been pushing at it for some time in a given spot...and all indications are that this is precisely what I'll find.

Howard Rheingold, the author, tech visionary and speaker at last year's conference said, "PUSH is absolutely the best conference ever!  l speak at a lot of these things, and there's a heart and soul at PUSH that is rare and special, and really stands out." Big praise from someone who is all over the world at thought leading events.

So stay tuned and I'll be bringing you recaps and perspectives of this conference as I attempt to capture the zeitgeist of these two and a half days.

See the Dirty Little Secret for Yourself

The Associated Press had this article about a new, free service offered by the content delivery network provider, Akamai.

As you can see from the screengrab, I took a peek at the closest hub to me in Minneapolis (the Chicago one) and the end point in Sydney, Australia since I'm working with this guy on delivering live streaming video content from there to here.

In the article was this quote, "We originally built this feature as a tool for our customers, but once it was built it seemed like a fun thing to put out there to the public," said Tom Leighton, Akamai's chief scientist." A fun thing? I don't think so. More like, "We are delivering this to graphically demonstrate the latency on the Internet and the incredible performance boost we can provide you with the Akamai service." I'm enamored with what Akamai is delivering and particularly intrigued with their announcement of a Flash streaming service combined with their other media offerings (more here).

Performance with video streaming, webinars, application performance, content delivery and anything else that travels over the Internet is becoming increasingly dependent upon how much latency (i.e., the time it takes for packets to travel over the Internet and be re-assembled at their destination) is introduced. Of course, it isn't just the latency from one hub to another...it's also from that hub to its ultimate destination (including from the Internet Service Provider you have to your desktop).

Composite applications or "mashups" of discrete chunks of functionality (think widgets and gadgets) assembled together to deliver an end application is a real problem if there isn't any thought to how much time it will take for all that data to be grabbed and a Web page to be built.

I know I'm a broken record on the topic of the "dirty little secret" -- that Internetwork latency is already affecting mashups, Web/Enterprise 2.0 applications, video delivery and essentially everything we do over the Internet -- but dealing with this latency is something that should be baked into every Internet companies business plan as well as your business case if you're delivering anything over the 'net and/or relying on applications and data up there in that Internet cloud.

Live TV on the Internet

Searching for innovation in live, streaming video brought me to Mogulus last night. I've been enamored with uStream, Stickam and BlogTV but realize how limited and "Webcam-centric" they are currently.

Since Mogulus is in beta right now, I've not yet had a chance to put it through its paces. Viewing the video, going through this online presentation (that had too many people in it which caused a hiccup on Adobe's servers), looking at the screenshots absolutely blew me away.

Here's what excited me about this service:

a) The capability to deliver a live show with graphics, over-the-shoulder images like the news, crawls and more which look professional

b) Having multiple other people -- all connected through their own webcams or cameras -- allows a host or producer to switch between "feeds" instantly ("...and now let's go to our correspondent live at the conference...")

c) In advance of a live show, a storyboard can be created of assembled videos that can be in the queue and inserted into the live show at the click of a mouse

d) Assembled content can be delivered sequentially so a "channel" or "station" you create can broadcast programming 24/7. This meets the old broadcaster mantra of "no dead air" on a channel, but archived content needs to be available on-demand and I didn't see how Mogulus could achieve that for viewers.

Just days ago I wrote in this post, "I've brought up scale over-n-over again on this blog and I know that streaming video is really hard and the bandwidth needed is expensive. What if a hot 'show' is streamed on Stickam or uStream and has even 1% of the disappearing network TV show audience (37.5 million viewers in the US in March for broadcast networks), there is NO way that any of these lower end solutions would be up to the task of streaming to an audience of 375,000 people...let alone millions.

When individuals, companies or organizations start down a path of choosing superior communication technologies, they are placing a bet. I view many solutions -- Skype, Stickam, uStream, and many Web 2.0 solutions -- are bleeding edge and not a safe bet."

If you have a small audience, no problem. An important event that you need to have rock solid and guaranteed uptime? I wouldn't use any service that wouldn't provide me with an SLA (Service Level Agreement guaranteeing service parameters).

Mogulus will be one to watch as will similar live streaming offerings coming from Brightcove as well as the recently announced Flash streaming service from Akamai (more info here and a video with Akamai's streaming product manager here).

Figure out right now how you'll be delivering live TV over the Internet starting this Fall or expect that this time next year you'll be kicking yourself you didn't start sooner!

Fun with Video

I'm not usually trolling for videos online and am typically fairly serious about my examinations of the technology and social moves on the Internet/Web, but this one just tickled me today.

Called "Lip Dub" (and already appearing on dozens of sites and blogs with almost 1M views as of this morning), it appears that it was shot at a young company and done during a Friday afternoon beer bash where the group obviously was inspired to orchestrate lip synching to song. It's just delightful and goes far beyond a couple of people sitting in front of a webcam doing the same thing.

Examples like this are what fill me with unbounded optimism and joy that so-called "user generated content" and the Rise of the Participation Culture is going to change everything. Take a few minutes and watch...

Unleashing the Collective

Just returned to my office from this Thought Leader Gathering (TLG) put on by Heartland Circle and held this morning at Best Buy Company.

Being in a contemplative mood for the last few weeks, today's gathering was interesting on many levels and also brought me back to one aspect of my work: unleashing the collective. The collective of Internet-connected humanity is my work, but I was sort of surprised by how something NOT directly in my strategic technology domain informed my thoughts in such a profound way today.

The event was about WoLF: The Women's Leadership Forum at Best Buy. The leaders, Julie Gilbert and Mary Capozzi, led off with powerfully told personal stories that helped us understand what led each of them to the formation of this forum. WoLF's essence is that it empowers women in the organization and is clearly unleashing their perspectives, their influence and engaging them. Apparently most women had been relatively excluded.

A key aspect to this forum (and the WoLF 'packs' which have formed) is that partnering with the men within Best Buy is critical to bringing women's energy to bear for the good of them and, especially, the company. Read the link above to learn more but what you won't take away was how powerful this has become and the ROI that Best Buy the business is achieving from it.

If you want to get all left brain and quantified and dismiss my relating this event to you as YAWM (Yet Another Women's Movement) consider this: Best Buy is measuring the results of lower female turnover in an otherwise incredibly high turnover labor pool (i.e., retail). Another fact Ms. Gilbert articulated is that, "Women buy more technology products than men — spending $55 billion of the annual $96 billion in technology sales." Hmmm...so engaging women could be good business and profitable...hmmm.