LMI's Skunkworks, funded by DARPA, has been at work putting some meat on the bones of a submarine-launched UAV. One can't help but speculate whether gamers put to the same task might come up with better ideas than engineers steeped in the military-industrial complex.
2009-01-28
Question Software Maintenance? You bet.
A cover story in Information Week (January 26, 2009) poses the radical question, "What if I don't pay maintenance?" Or, at least, what if I go to a third party for software maintenance instead of the manufacturer? Oracle and SAP are moving to an annual maintenance fee of 22%. The software life cycle cost has been growing steadily since the "standard" rate of 18% was exceeded by some major players. What irks many who might otherwise be willing to pony up is that customers have little control over how the maintenance revenues are spent. Author Mary Hayes Weier suggests the alternatives include open source, SaaS, third party support, renegotiation, or moving to self-service maintenance. Whether any of these are feasible for your scenario is unclear, but it is clear that few companies offer much transparency about where your maintenance revenues are being spent -- though those same firms will be the first to make claims to Wall Street about how those revenues account for bottom line results.
2009-01-14
Discovery Is The New Cocaine - Going Beyond Engagement
Ng and Fung's "Discovery" distinguishes active vs. passive web interaction. Both modalities will flourish.
ZDNet: Twitter's CEO Predicts Utility's Future
The CEO of Twitter, seen (http://tinyurl.com/9o6cvu) on a video clip at ZDNet, says he isn't sure why people use Twitter at all. That doesn't stop him forecasting more and "favorite" uses. Sure to further stir up Twitter-haters.
Verizon Wireless Honors DNC Lists for Business Accounts
In yesterday's post on Do Not Call Lists, I mentioned that B2B DNC list management is not mandated but is often done as a courtesy. It is instructive to read the Verizon Wireless web message regarding its business account DNC practices.
Microsoft Compact .NET Framework vCard Success Story
Recently I purchased a special purpose Windows Mobile tool that allows for import and export of contacts using the VCard standard. Produced by PocketKai, this utility makes excellent use of the Microsoft .NET compact framework. In fact, the installer footprint for the application is only 192KB, and the \Program Files\vCard Manager folder is only 114KB. (On my HTC PPC6700 device, memory is at a nuisance premium).
My requirements Before email became the killer app that it now is, and before spam mandated the presence of marketing email addresses in the address book, Activesync and other synchronizing tools were adequate. Now my address book is huge, with 2715 contacts (and counting). I need a small subset on the phone. Further, I have a different set of requirements for work vs. home contact management. The vCard is perfect for this. I can mark contacts by category, import/export by category and then synchronize a selected folder between mobile, desktop and cloud locations. On the mobile device, a zip of all 2800 contacts, in vCard format, can be stored in removeable flash memory (not subtracting from precious main memory). Then I can draw from that folder to insert / export a contact from Windows Mobile as needed. PocketKai, at the attractive price point of $8, does the trick.
2009-01-13
Do Not Call (DNC) Lists for Business
I've been asked to discuss ways put a business number on a telemarketer's DNC list.
While there is no regulatory protection covering unsolicited B2B telemarketing , most reputable U.S. firms will add business phone numbers to their DNC lists if requested. To get on such a list, you'll need to find a number into the proper call center, or, failing that, someone in marketing who manages the call center contract. Since outsourcing is common, this may take some investigation. Working back from the outbound number, if you have a number from Caller ID, assume that there are multiple trunk lines identifying the caller. The numbers may or may not be contiguous. I've found that other people are very likely to have posted a complaint about the number and have discovered the firm behind the call -- so try your favorite search engine, and include the phone number in the search terms. Once you figure out the sponsoring caller, you may need to speak to an intermediate supervisor (It's not necessary to speak with the boss of the whole operation), since the call center rep is likely on a timer and may not be permitted to take out time, if they even have the capability / permissions, to add your number to the list.
In larger call centers, outbound calling is automated, and the numbers are compared to the DNC list by the autodial software. For full automated one-way (i.e., robot) telemarketing, widely used during political campaigns, the same process is involved, but there is obviously no way to pick up the phone and request to be put on the DNC list.
TIP The issue of trunk lines is important. If your organization has multiple inbound lines, you may need to request to have all of them individually added.
TIP Note that charities and nonprofits are exempt from DNC regulations, but they also will generally try to honor DNC lists -- if they are big enough to have sensible systems in place.
TIP In some organizations, the DNC list maintenance is semi-manual -- often there is less automation in the call center than one imagines. It could take more than one attempt to be placed successfully on the list.
TIP The phone number to successfully reach the call center may not be the same one that is provided in the Caller ID to your answering machine.
While practices may vary widely, most telemarketing firms are concerned about reputation and best practices. Because even the threat of federal or state fines can cause the loss of telemarketing firms' customers, and because state regulators tend not to be interested in the finer points of a defense ("We thought it was a business line"), telemarketing firms find it in their best interest to add your number to the DNC lists they manage.
DISCLAIMER My experience in these matters is based upon my work supporting DNC list management for a publicly held US company in the Northeast.
Image hosted by VisualDatasoft.com.
Windows 7 purchase planning for consumers
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that a "free" migration path to the new Windows version may be offered to purchasers of new PC's.
2009-01-10
Bad Documentation - Not Just Software and Music Electronica
As a (very) part time guitarist who does a fair amount of playing on nylon string instruments, strong nails are helpful. For a decade or more now, I've had aged-related ridges that can tear longitudinally. I took a long shot. In trying a product called "Total NailRx," I noticed that the manufacturer (who is unknown -- the product is distributed by Dermactiv Research Group, but their website is silent about the product; how about a little transparency?) has no instructions on usage. Not only that, but if your local Walgreens happens to have the product I'm describing, they might have other nail treatment products by this manufacturer. The manufacturer apparently wants you to buy everything they make and try them all, because they offer no guidance as to which you might want to try first.
The manufacturer is taking its cues from a number of software manufacturers, who run out of gas when it comes time to write an explanation as to how the thing works. Apply coat 1. Apply coat 2. Why do I mention music electronica? Thinking of Roland, whose documentation is poor, but at least they feel they must issue manuals and even post the PDFs of same on their website (unlike MOTU, who's decided that manuals can only be distributed with the physical product, pre-web style). Well, except for the wall wart I bought from them last week, which had only some vague disclaimers and warnings on the box. OK, you may not need one for a wall wart, but this one is kinda special and really needed a manual.
Oh, and the nails product? Well, I'm trying it (the 2 step version) every 3 days and not removing it between applications. This is working well so far, but I'm more than uncertain about this approach (as are others) --I feel my breasts growing larger.
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