Connecting the Dots Isn’t Enough

This interview with Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive of Adobe Systems, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

A. I really honed a lot of my leadership skills and style at Apple. I worked for Apple for many years, and I had a mentor, Gursharan Sidhu, from whom I learned just a tremendous amount.

I think two leadership lessons really stand out for me. He forced me to think about doing things that I did not think were possible. Challenging individuals by setting goals and then letting them use their ingenuity to accomplish them is something that I hope I can pass on as part of my leadership style. If you set a common vision and then get really scary-smart people, they do things that amaze you.

The other aspect of being a good manager has always been getting gratification from what others do, because the higher you get in management, frankly, the less you do yourself.

Q. How do you make sure goals are calibrated properly?

A. I like to say that if you can connect all the dots between what you see today and where you want to go, then it’s probably not ambitious enough or aspirational enough. On the other hand, if people look at it and say there is no way that’s going to happen, then it’s probably a little too much. So it’s a balance. Read more…

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Google Updates Blog Search-Where’s the Innovation?

Google just announced a number of changes to its blog search engine, Google Blog Search, but none of them will knock your socks off. RSS feeds for search queries were added, something that no self-respecting search engine of dynamic content would be without.Hot search queries and recent posts from popular blogs round out the slight redesign of the Blog Search home page.

While many different Google projects push the envelope with features and interface innovation - users are excited just to see Blog Search make catch-up moves, since it’s a sign that the product is still breathing at all. No news about much needed spam control, no response to Twitter stealing many blogs’ thunder, no personalization, no visualization, no semantics, no mobile play - nothing. It’s really disappointing. Google Blog Search remains the best option if you’re looking for fast results, but other options are better if you have any needs other than speed.

Six months ago we published an article titled The State of Blogsearch, 2009. Here’s what we wrote then about Google Blogsearch:

Google Blogsearch is the fastest in the industry but has gone almost untouched since the day it launched, except for a recent dabble with memetracking on the front page. Google Blogsearch spam control is not good and recently the search engine started bringing back search results from places like blog sidebars. [Update: that appears to have been fixed now.] It thinks that content is new, too, every time a new blog post (the content we really care about) is published. It’s painful to look at Google Blogsearch results pages, but if you’ve got a need for speed or want to make use of the relative heft of the Google search input box for things like complex queries - then it’s a good option. Read more…

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Google Launches Sms-Based Services for Africa

Google today announced a number of SMS-based services for the African market. Google SMS provides access to information by SMS (news, local weather, sports, agriculture tips, etc.), while Google Trader is an SMS-based marketplace where buyers and sellers can connect. Google SMS Tips is a query-and-answer service that can take any free-form text query, find the keywords, and then identify and return a relevant answer from a large database.

As Google points out, Africa has the world’s highest mobile growth rate and mobile phone penetration is far higher than Internet penetration. By focusing on SMS-based service, Google will be able to reach a far larger number of potential users than by working on web-based apps.

Just for Uganda at First

Even though Google stresses that it targets ‘Africa’ with these services, in reality, they are only available for users on MTN Uganda’s network, but chances are that, if successful, Google will expand these offerings in the future.

Google worked together with MTN Uganda, the Grameen Foundation’s “AppLab,” and a number of other local partners to get this service off the ground. Read more…

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How Facebook Could Create a Revolution, Do Good, and Make Billions

Great bruising battles between powerful antagonists is good for media. It “sells papers,” as we used to say, or “generates clicks”, as we now say. When you mix in a love triangle and jilted lovers, well, the audience just goes wild. And Wired did a great job in its piece on Facebook, Google, and Microsoft: riveting stuff. But the thought that kept coming back to me is that Facebook’s bravado, its “grand vision” talk, is what you would expect from a concept-level startup. Surely by now, about 6 years into its venture, Facebook should show some substance? It is time to deliver some real financial results. The concept-level talk is great for attracting capital and talent. Facebook has done that brilliantly. But the point of attracting capital and talent is to be able to generate financial results.

Give It Time? Too Important to Rush?

Anybody who criticizes Facebook’s financial results gets accused of being small-minded, of missing the point, of (gasp!) “not getting it.” In digerati circles, not getting it is like having body odor. Facebook is changing the world, they say. It is a new form of communication, akin to the printing press. Once you get to scale, profits always follow. Google created a service without knowing how to monetize it. Read more…

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Foes No More, Ad Agencies Unite With Internet Firms

CANNES, France — Advertising agencies and Internet companies once viewed each other as foes, but are now coming together to harness the potential for online advertising. Like many other segments, online ad spending has slowed from its previous breakneck pace during the deep recession, forcing companies to devise new ways to chase fewer dollars.

Last week, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, and Steven A. Ballmer, his counterpart at Microsoft, for the first time attended an annual advertising industry meeting, the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

With consumers spending more and more time online, analysts say Internet companies and ad agencies have no choice but to work together to develop ways to make money from digital media.

“There was an air of inevitability about it, because of the model not really working yet, and there’s so much content that will be dependent on it working,” said Paul Kemp-Robertson, editor of Contagious, an online magazine that tracks digital marketing trends. Read more…

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Best Practices in the Call Center: A Customer Touch-Point Methodology

This document explains about improving operational efficiencies and also customer satisfaction by establishing own customer touch-point methodology. This requires frequent synchronization with touch-point stakeholders, and an ongoing analysis of customer profiles, transaction taxonomy, and automation candidates.

Source: http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1232978665_667.html?psrc=RLT

3G-HSPA, Mobile Linux and Open Source are the Big Winners in Intel-Nokia Technology Partnership

Intel referred to it as “this year’s most significant collaboration in our respective industries.” The Intel-Nokia strategic partnership will “align and shape the next generation of mobile computing.” But it was very difficult to extract any tangible take always from the press conference announcing the partnership. That’s because no specific products were identified and no time frames were given to see the results of this highly acclaimed collaboration.

Source: http://viodi.com/2009/06/24/open-source-winner/

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