iPhone Poised to Snap Up More Business Users

The iPhone may or may not be a success in China, but some analysis just out suggests it's actually doing pretty well in the enterprise environment. It may even more than triple its market share compared to last year.

When you think of corporate smartphones, you tend to think almost automatically of RIM's BlackBerrys--they're solid, reliable, iconic, successful and have sewn up something like 40% of that market. The iPhone, with its glossy looks, high-tech allure, reputation as a gaming and entertainment platform and relatively high unit costs isn't something you'd necessarily associate with a corporate environment. Apple itself has gone on record to state that the tens of thousands of apps that are helping to make the phone a success (thousands of which seem business-oriented) are most definitely not business tools, implying the phone itself isn't.

Which is why Deutsche Bank's analysis is pretty surprising. It suggests that by the end of this year Apple will have sold two million iPhones to corporate users, through a mix of employee reimbursements and direct IT department purchases. That'll give Apple a 7% share of the enterprise smartphone market, versus the 2% it had in 2008--a massive growth.

Why the sudden interest? Deutsche Bank thinks its because the phone gets high user satisfaction ratings, that it's innovative, it has plenty of enterprise applications and the virtual keyboard may actually be a draw for some users. The application count is unsurprising, and with over 100,000 apps on sale now, it seems reasonable that the sheer number, utility and diversity of business apps are tempting people towards the phone. The touchscreen suggestion is more interesting though. BlackBerrys were attractive at first because they included a full QWERTY keypad when every other phone had a standard one, and the iPhone's virtual touch-sensitive keypad was seen as a distraction, and not suited for business environments.

That argument never made much sense, and doesn't seem to hold true either--if the iPhone is tripling its market share, business users must like it. But Deutsche Bank's data doesn't mention what may actually be the key driver behind business-use adoption for the phone: Jealousy. The iPhone's been in the limelight for over two years now, with more press attention than almost any other device, and with a booming ecosystem of apps and entertainment. Business users feature phones and BlackBerrys look dinosaurish in comparison--yes, even the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm--and lack the opportunities offered by the App Store. Many business users will have looked at this evolving situation and thought something along the lines of, "If the company's paying for it, then why don't I get some of that iPhone goodness?"

[Via TUAW]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/PuBp23e2IoI/iphone-poised
-snap-more-business-users

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Branding the '09 Political Races, and Rebranding
the Tainted Republican Image

Since it's election day, let's play an election-themed guessing game. Each of the following screen shots is from the Web site of a politician up for election today. Can you guess their party affiliations?

Bob McDonnell, running for governor of Virginia:

Creigh Deeds, McDonnell's opponent:

John Corzine, up for re-election in New Jersey:

Chris Christie, Corzine's opponent:

Answers from top to bottom: Republican, Democrat, Democrat, Republican.

But it's not obvious, if you don't already know the candidates: None of these politicians make any direct mention of political party on their Web site. As Nate Silver notes, that's a canny move: After all, New Jersey and Virginia are mostly blue, but independents will decide the races. The Democratic brand doesn't help much with independents; the Republican brand is positively toxic. The marketing and PR muscle which once drove both political parties is gone. Better to brand yourself as someone beyond party affiliation. And the first step is scrubbing your Web site of any mentions that you're a Republican or Democrat.

Now, there are a couple very subtle cues going on in the Deeds and Corzine Web sites: They both latch onto President Obama, without name-checking the Democratic party (of which they're both a part). As Silver notes, Deeds has a design basically lifted form Obama's own homepage, while Corzine has pictures of himself with Obama, Bill Clinton, and Caroline Kennedy. In other words, they're trying to latch onto those with decent public approval, while leapfrogging any party associations.

But what are Republicans supposed to do next? They can't play the no-party game forever, and they're facing a profound lack of national leadership. Silver has an interesting suggestion:

You can actually make the argument--although maybe it's not a good one--that Republicans should in fact find a way to pull a Blackwaterand switch their party ID when nobody is looking, from Republican tocapital-C Conservative. This would probably involve at least somedegree of bona fide structural change, and undoubtedly some near-term trauma: an orchestrated chaos. But the 'conservative' brand is just as powerful as it ever was in America, whereas the Republican brand is as weak as it has been.

Of course, as Silver implies, the Republican brand didn't spoil just because of the previous administration. Figures such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are dragging the Republican base further and further from the mainstream on issues ranging from abortion to clean energy to health care reform. A rebranded "Conservative" party might be able to leave that Republican base behind, simply by peeling off moderates that are now wary of voting Republican.

[Read more at 538]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/ytEkOgzw4Cw/branding-2009
-political-races-political-parts-not-allowed

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How to Lead Geeks

Read The Full Article:
http://projectsteps.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-lead-geeks.html

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C.K. Prahalad: How do you think about
sustainability

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/Ce1HFKo-FIk/C.K.+Prahalad

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Reserve Bank of Australia raises rates again!

Australia's Central Bank repeated its October 2009 comment when it raised rates for a second time by 25 basis points to 3.5%; saying that it is -

"'prudent to lessen gradually the degree of monetary stimulus.'"Australia Central Bank Raises Rates Again - WSJ.com:
Here's a chart of Interest rates before today's hike:

Let's take another look at the Central Bank's comment:

"'prudent to lessen gradually the degree of monetary stimulus.'"

Are these guys worried about Inflation, Deflation, Stagflation, Asset bubbles or just ADDICTION to monetary stimulus ?

While I do think that rollback of stimulus packages is impossible ( imagine how the stock markets would react!), longer term this free lunch policy is going to cause more imbalances and instability.

Can the Central Banks really start hiking rates agressively when the 'real economy' is still struggling? - NO

Can rates go up drastically when governments have so much more borrowing to do? -NO

As Marc Faber famously said -its time for Central Bankers to shut the 'Bar' down -its way past last orders anyway!

........only question is........just how are they going to do it??

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thebullishbear/~3/ShH1em2XGww/reserve-bank-of-aust
ralia-raises-rates.html

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Product Review: The Five #Fails of Twitter Peek

Twitter Peek is slick on paper. It's the first device designed in part by Twitter, for Twitter-ers. And of course it lets you Tweet anywhere, anytime, even without a wi-fi connection. And it comes from the folks behind Peek Pronto, an email-only handset that we've previously lauded.

Yet when I pulled out my aqua-blue test product, which bore a striking resemblance to an old-school digital dictionary, all I thought was, "Why?" Twitter Peek is ostensibly geared toward Twitter addicts who don't have smartphones. But that's an oxymoron. Why would any self-respecting Twitter addict drop $199 on Twitter Peek, when Blackberries and iPhones offer a much richer user experience? Moreover, given that Twitter isn't an "essential" service, like email, why does this product even exist?

But, hey, I'll try anything once, especially if my editors demand it. So I set aside my iPhone, and spent a whole weekend using Twitter Peek. Below, its five most noteworthy #fails:

#HomeScreenFailInstead of showing full, 140-character Tweets, this home screen shows tiny, 20-character Twees*, which are totally nonsensical. (Actual example: "so scary!! I really want to s ... ") To read the real deal, I had to click twice--first to select the Tweet, then again to select "view tweet" from a pop-up menu. (Turns out my Tweeter was referencing Paranormal Activity. Awesome.) As anyone who follows more than 50 people can attest, this isn't just annoying, it's unacceptable. Part of what I love about third-party mobile Twitter apps, such as Echofon, is that I can whiz through hundreds of 140-character Tweets in mere minutes. But even when I used the keyboard shortcuts--"N" for next Tweet, "P" for previous--the same process took twice as long on Twitter Peek.

*No, that's not an official term. But "Tweet previews" seemed unnecessarily verbose.

#BrowserFailOn any given day, roughly half the Tweets in my feed contain links to various Web sites. So it's unfortunate--nay, infuriating--that Twitter Peek's browser is so bug-riddled. Several links I clicked spawned an error message, even though they all worked on my laptop. And when links did load, they sometimes lagged for more than a minute before sputtering out text-only versions of Web sites that were weirdly formatted and missing random words and sentences. Needless to say, they were really toughread.

#PhotoFailOkay, so this one's just a pseudo-#fail: Twitter Peek can display images hosted on TwitPic, which is Twitter's most popular photo app. But if any of your favorite Tweeters use an alternate service, such as TweetPhoto or yFrog, you're S.O.L.

#PracticalityFailAfter switching my device off for 24 hours, I turned it back on, and waited for a hefty batch of Tweets to roll in, as they do with Echofon. A full two minutes later, I got my 10 most recent Tweets--a fraction of the 200 or so I had actually received--and this ridiculous missive from @peek_inc:

"Wow! You received a bunch of tweets since your last check in with us. We've delivered the last batch--please view the rest online. Thanks!"

No, @peek_inc, thank you! Just think: If only all mobile devices made us go home and use something else, maybe our cell phone bills wouldn't be so high. Speaking of which ...

#PricingFailAs of Nov. 3, Twitter Peek is selling for $99 (plus a $7.95 monthly service charge after the first six months) or $199 (plus no monthly service charges, ever). And for what? A device that's clunky, slow, and frustrating? When I spoke with the PR rep, she assured me that several of my issues would be addressed in forthcoming software upgrades, which could make Twitter Peek more attractive. But if you're one of those fabled Twitter addicts without a smartphone, and you simply have to Tweet right now, I'd suggest using Twitter's SMS service, or, um, buying a smartphone. As a Twitter addict who spent 48 hours struggling with Twitter Peek--before bolting back to my iPhone--I can promise you: It's worth the surcharge.

Click here to follow me on Twitter.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/bIbkiUPNjzI/product-revie
w-five-fails-twitter-peek

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RiseSmart CEO Sanjay Sathe on the new direction

I've already interviewed Sanjay Sathe once last year, and that was at a time when RiseSmart was trying to establish its own JobConcierge service for senior management.

However I guess the recession in the US impacted those plans negatively, and RiseSmart is now trying to establish an outplacement service too.

When it recently got $ 4.6 million in VC funding it seemed like a good time to catch up with Sanjay again and to understand what is in the future for RiseSmart.

Here are Sanjay's answers to some questions I sent to him via email:

1. What is RiseSmart planning to do with the latest VC funding?

At this point we?ve proven the business model of our outplacement solution, RiseSmart Transition Concierge, and it?s time to grow market share. So we?re going to expand our sales team while continuing to invest in operations and client service.  

It?s really been remarkable that we?ve been able to walk into Fortune 500 companies and win their outplacement business away from longtime, and in some cases deeply entrenched, incumbents.  We?ve done it time and again.  This reinforces our belief in our vision ? that our way of doing outplacement will become the dominant model in the future.  If we use the investment from Norwest Venture Partners and Storm Ventures wisely, we?ll be well on our way to making this vision a reality.

2. How is the new strategic direction being received by existing clients?

Nothing has changed for existing clients of our consumer service, RiseSmart Job Concierge.  What?s changed is our marketing strategy.  When we launched, we planned to build a B2C offering to compete with TheLadders ? and we believe our service is a better value than TheLadders.  But TheLadders is spending millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads, and the consumer market in general is crowded, so the investment required to cut through the clutter and build a brand is high.

With RiseSmart Transition Concierge, on the other hand, we are dealing with a smaller universe of prospective clients and the noise level is a lot lower.  Corporate clients are hearing the facts and connecting with our message.  As a result, we?re bringing thousands of jobseekers into our system much more cost-effectively than by trying to reach them individually through a broad-based ad campaign.  And because satisfaction levels have been very high among users, we can count on reaching new B2C customers through word of mouth.

3. What are the biggest challenges that a firm like RiseSmart faces?

Any upstart company faces challenges in going up against the big players and old guard.  Outplacement is a $3 plus billion industry, so the entrenched players have a lot to protect; they have been enjoying very nice margins for a long time.  Now, we are threatening to permanently reduce the cost structure of the industry, and they don?t like it.  We expect them to throw the kitchen sink at us from a sales and marketing perspective as we continue to win away their clients.  But we enjoy a good challenge.

4. What other players in the industry are you watching very closely - and with respect :-) ?

We watch the traditional players like Right Management and Lee Hecht Harrison closely ? and we do respect them for all they?ve accomplished.  They built this industry.  We?re just ready to take the baton and move things forward.  We expect our competitors to adapt and to begin offering services similar to ours ? but we?re confident they won?t be able to do it as well, and certainly not at our price point.

5. What should job seekers do to land jobs of their choice?

The most important thing is to use your time wisely.  You had a routine in your job that filled your days ? and now that is gone, like a rug pulled out from under you.  How do you fill all those hours?

What you shouldn?t do is sit in front of your computer searching different job boards for hours at a time.  It?s a time filler that can make you feel productive, but it?s not a good use of your time.  This is particularly true because job boards are notoriously inefficient ? how many times have you searched for ?executive? jobs and wound up reading job descriptions for executive assistants, for example?

That?s why our Job Concierge service ? which is not only our B2C offering but also the core of Transition Concierge ? is so valuable.  We do the online searching for you so you can focus on tasks that are more important, like leveraging social networks, sharpening your resume, crafting custom cover letters, and networking at industry and professional events.  This is the smarter route to finding a new job.from Gautam Ghosh's Blog |Follow on Twitter | Connect on Linkedin | Become a fan on Facebook | Join the HR Professionals' Community |

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GautamGhosh/~3/jtF8EWQxGf0/risesmart-ceo-sanjay-sa
the-on-new.html

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the “ALL IN” Gunslinger – part
2 – maxing out your trading account WITH risk management and position sizing

In part one of this series we the addressed short comings of moving your account “ALL IN” on a single trade. We acknowledged that yes – it can be done but at your own peril. If risk management and discipline are our ultimate objectives when trading (and it should be for every trader) then 99% of the time you will find yourself having to set stops so tightly in order to adhere to that ultimate objective  (risk management) only to have the market “whipsaw” you in and out of trades. The stops by default HAD to be set as tight as they were (in the hypothetical example from part 1 of this blog) because of the conscious choice to max out my trading account on an “ALL IN” trade. Let?s say for example you normally would trade 250 shares of XYZ stock and as a disciplined trader you would immediately place a -2 point stop in the event things didn?t work out in your favour. A losing trade would result in a -$500 loss before slippage and commissions. This time however, you decided to become aggressive, focusing only on the upside of this trade (which is the mother of all trading mistakes) and you placed an order for 2000 shares.

risk management and position sizing using m3 - Money Management Modeler

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.screencast.com/t/cfkVicwjwD (Click to enlarge)

It?s nice to visualize your profit potential – but is there any guarantee that this particular trade will be a winner just because you decided to go “ALL IN”? Absolutely not! Let?s play devil?s advocate for a moment and assume the trade was a loser. Your -2 point stop is hit (kudos to the trader who placed a stop loss order given the fact many traders DON’T!) and now what could have been a manageable -$500 loss is a -$4000 loss (-2 points x 2000 shares) OUCH! I suppose this is ok if you have a trading account balance of approximately $400,000 but then if that were the case, this wouldn?t be an “ALL IN” trade you probably could have afforded a lot more shares. Let?s assume that this is a modest $40,000 trading account. That -$4000 loss just crippled your trading account balance by -10% in a SINGLE TRADE! One of my favourite sayings (and this one I made up personally) goes like this ….

“Just because you can pay for a trade doesn?t mean you can afford it”

This is why position sizing is CRITICAL to long term trading success. I have not even mentioned the psychological toil you go through when a TOO large position begins to move against you. Often times traders cannot accept staring at a -$3000 or -$4000 loss and they end up abandoning the stop loss all together. Do that and you are on a slippery slope to …. well, I’ll let you finish the saying. I hate to admit it but ??been there and done that and I ain?t going back? . Enter the m3 ? Money Management Modeler

I left off part 1 of this 2 part blog saying that going ?ALL IN? with your trading account balance is not only possible, its ideal ? just not on a single trade. I regularly go ?ALL IN? each day with the money at my disposal over multiple trades. My risk management is sound and practical with each position I open allowing for calculated stop losses that won?t ?whipsaw? me with each tick. Yet if I am to be stopped out, the loss represents a predetermined and acceptable risk to my overall trading capital. The m3 platform calculates these values numerically and shows you visually through the use of dynamic graphs. The modeling capabilities in the heat of a trade are invaluable. I can control the percentage risk per trade to my account balance by modeling any combination of variables such as adjusting my stop loss; reducing or increasing the number of contracts or shares I am considering which will in turn alter the amount of trading capital I am committing to any single trade. I can now decide whether I wish to model my returns based on a CASH trade or on a MARGIN trade. Finally, with my latest upgrades to the m3, I can model out my returns on a leg by leg analysis. Prior to these latest changes a trader would be analysing returns on the assumption that your most optimistic profit target would be reached (usually that is your profit target or leg 3). Now with the quick click of a button on I can see what the return on my ?at risk? capital AND my entire trading account would be on profit targets 1, 2 and 3 individually.  When implementing the ?ALL IN? approach by trading multiple positions it is CRUCIAL to have a tool that can quickly show you exactly the weight of the position relative to your trading capital, the risk in percentile terms to your trading capital and on the dollars committed to this trade should the trade be a loser and the returns that will be realized as each successive leg is reached in the event of a winning outcome. The m3 ? Money Management Modeler does it all and more by allowing you ? the end user to manipulate, model and analyze your individual particulars on the fly with 100% confidence that you are protecting your most valuable asset ? your trading capital. Built within the Excel platform, m3 is THE tool for serious traders who wish to have control over the only thing that we can in the markets ? how much you?re willing to lose.

 

Fulcrum Shift Trading

Read The Full Article:
http://fulcrumshifttrading.com/blog/?p=1079

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Best of TreeHugger: Rent-a-Goat, Freezing Dying
Coral for the Future, and the Promising New Zinc-Air Battery

A Swiss company has developed a promisingzinc-air battery that could hold 300% more energy than lithium-ion.

Fearing the worst, scientists made plans to freeze samples of the world's coral reefs to preserve them for the future.

A Florida biotech company is developing a new material inspired by sharkskin to halt bacterial breakouts.

Toyota created a brand new species of flower to help absorb emissions at Prius manufacturing plants.

Fruit bats were discovered to be the only adult animal species to engage in a certain sexual activity . . .

A strange business venture has been getting attention--as anything called Rent-a-Goat is apt to.

The SuperFreakonomics controversy came to the Daily Show.

An unfortunate, ironic collision occurred in Denmark between a Tesla, a Prius, and an SUV. Guess who came out on top?

A toxic shipwreck in Madagascar is killing whales and making people sick.

TreeHugger is the leading online destination for the news and ideas that are driving sustainability mainstream.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/HRH5wDGBMdc/best-treehugg
er-rent-goat-freezing-dying-coral-future-and-

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Buffett Lets It Ride on the Railroad

Buffett has long been regarded by some as a leading indicator because of his proven ability to successfully act on a long term investment theses throughout his career. With today's announcement Buffett has followed through with the value investing style[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://blog.ockhamresearch.com/index.php/2009/11/buffett-lets-it-ride-on-the-rail
road/

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