INTERNET USAGE STATISTICS – The Big Picture
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
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Archived entries for
Computer facts
Brad Stone, “New Ways to Drive Home the Message”, Newsweek,
May 30, 2005, p. 56
“70 percent of DVR owners skip the ads. Meanwhile, the average wired
consumer now spends more time fiddling with the Internet at work and
home than watching TV.”
Brad Stone, “Hi-Tech’s New Day”, Newsweek, April 11, 2005, p. 62
“75 percent of Americans use the Internet and spend an average three
hours a day online.”
“No Net? We’d Rather Go Without Food.”, Newsweek,
October 11, 2004, p. 14
“…[T]hree quarters of all Americans have access to the Internet,
spending an average of twelve-and-a-half hours a week online…for those
between 12 and 18, usage approaches 100 percent. Though e-mail is still
the No. 1 activity, the study concludes that the Net has profoundly
changed the way we spend money, keep in touch with our friends and get
information (Internet users use the medium as their No. 1 source of
news, despite worries about credibility).”
“More Kids Say Internet Is the Medium They Can’t Live Without,”
StatisticalResearch.com, April 5, 2002
(thanks to Dick Halpern)
“Given a choice of six media, one-third (33%) of children aged 8
to 17 told KN/SRI that the Web would be the medium they would want to have
if they couldn’t have any others. Television was picked by 26% of kids;
telephone by 21%; and radio by 15%. For the top three media, results
were dramatically different among girls and boys. Twice as many boys (34%
versus 17%) chose TV as their must-have medium, while telephone was more
than twice as popular (31% versus 12%) among girls. The Internet placed
first with 38% of boys and 28% of girls.”
Percentage of Web users who value a site based on its having:
- Easy navigation – 80%
- Trustworthy information – 80
- Identifiable sources of information – 68
- Frequent updates – 65
- A familiar owner – 32
“Television Reloaded”, Newsweek, May 30, 2005, p.
55
“…[H]ouseholds that receive about 60 channels usually watch only
15. Households whose systems can receive 96 channels (around the
national average) actually watch … 15.”
Top Management Lies
Nobody says they want to hire “yes men”. They say they want
employees who are bold, creative, self-directed, take initiative, and
aren’t afraid to speak up. But what managers say they want and what they actually want (and reward) can be very different…
In a post last year on teamwork, I wrote:
“In his book Re-imagine!, Tom Peters
says, “We will win this battle… and the larger war… only when our
organizations are chock-a-block with obstreperous people who are
determined to bend the rules at every turn…”
I reckon that most top-level managers would agree. They’d
say that their company should take the bold whatever-it-takes person
over the ever-compromising, risk-averse Yes Man. “If that person shakes
us up, smacks us around, creates some creative tension, well that’s
just what we need to stay competitive”, the CEO says. Yeah, right.
While I believe most CEOs probably think this way, that attitude
reverses itself dramatically the futher you reach down the org chart.
There’s a canyon-sized gap between what top managers and CEOs say
they want (brave, bold, innovative) and what their own middle
management seems to prefer (yes-men, worker bees, non-boat-rockers). Of
course I’ve never heard a manager say that… but you see it
over and over again in their choices. When the tech downturn hit,
consider who were often the first to go during the layoffs… “
Feeling the same way today, and inspired by Guy Kawasaki’s Top Ten Lies of Engineers, I made a list of the things managers will often say, along with what some of those managers might actually be thinking.
(Yes, I’m aware this is generalizing, reinforcing negative
stereotypes, and is completely biased toward non-managers. It’s just
for fun ; ) Really.)
“My job is to be a buffer between you and upper management.”
“Your job is to make me look good to upper management.”
“We value your criticism and ideas.”
“If you’re so smart, how come I’m a manager and you’re not?”
“We set reasonable deadlines, and we never underbid our projects… so our employees don’t need to work weekends.”
“Since when is Saturday part of the weekend?”
“We provide our employees with the state-of-the-art tools they need to do their job.”
“When I did this job, a Windows 98 box and a 640×480 monitor was plenty. You’re just typing code for crise sake…”
“I know you’re working hard now, but we’ll make it up to you later.”
“Riiiiiiiight.”
“Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here. I’m on your side. But upper management just doesn’t get it.”
“You just don’t get it.”
“We empower our employees to do whatever it takes for the customer.”
“You gave that guy a refund?! What the #@&! were you thinking?”
“Nobody is getting a raise this year.”
“Nobody at your level is getting a raise this year.”
“My job is to hire good people and get out of their way.”
“But so far, I’ve never had an employee that didn’t need micromanaging.”
“I won’t tell you how to do your job.”
“…as long as you do it exactly the way I would do it.”
“We provide ongoing, comprehensive training for our employees.”
“Joe will show you around this afternoon, and then you’re on your own. Oh, and your first TPS report is due tomorrow.”
“You’ve got upper management written all over you.”
“Finally someone who does exactly what I tell him to without question.”
“Don’t hesitate to speak up during meetings.”
“…as long as it’s to compliment me on the great job I’m doing.”
“I really went to bat for you, but upper management just wouldn’t budge.”
“Oh, yeah, like I would actually risk my job for you…”
“When this project is over, we’ll talk about the promotion. I promise.”
“I’ve already forgotten we had this conversation.”
“We have a great career track for non-managers.”
“Let’s face it, programmers just don’t have leadership potential.”
Personal Value Precedes Network Value
The one major idea behind the Del.icio.us Lesson is that personal value precedes network value.
What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each
person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they
can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people
find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All
other usage is secondary.
As people use Del.icio.us more,
and in order to gain more personal value, they use tags to be able to
find their bookmarks later. Tagging isn’t even the primary function of Del.icio.us. Most of the tagging done on Del.icio.us is done secondarily, and for personal use.
The
social value of tags on Del.icio.us is only a happy side-effect. Even
though most of the ink spilled about Del.icio.us is about the social
value, it’s really not the reason why people use it.
Samsung Q1 Ultra Mobile PC
Starting at $1099.00 with 512 ram and a 40 gig hard drive the Q1 and its accessories will go on sale at www.bestbuy.com/ultramobilepc
Browsing the web- 84%, Checking e-mail- 81%, viewing MS office
documents- 71%, Voice Telephony-69%, and writing documents in microsoft
office-68%. Kudos to Samsung for having a range of accessories ready ship with the
Q1. Battery’s that run 3, 7 or 9 hours, a case with a keyboard,
and a external DVD finished in the same high gloss black as the
Q1. The Q1 also comes packaged with a wrist strap for that serves a dual
purpose. You can carry it by the wrist strap and it protects you from
accidentally dropping the Q1 while using it. The Samsung Q1 is the currently the only UMPC device to offer screen rotation.
GPS on the Q1:
Shown below is the Q1 using Microsoft Streets and Trips with GPS.
How to present
Not
just because of what he’s saying (which IMO has at present little
relevance to us at this stage of the game), but for how he gives his
presentation (you can watch it in Flash online or download).
The mess is the message
What do you want to watch?
The
answer used to depend on limits — what day it was, what time it was,
what channels you got. A handy little thing called TV Guide laid it all
out. Television was a one-way medium – big broadcasters pushing content
into our living rooms at a specific time and place.
Not anymore.
Online video has arrived, unleashed from the networks, cable companies,
and media giants. Thanks to growing bandwidth, easy access to the means
of production, and cheap storage, it’s exploding all around us and
becoming a very real, very different way to experience news and
entertainment.
Even the old guard gets it (sort of). From
Desperate Housewives on your iPod to MTV Overdrive, the networks are
racing one another to get their broadcast programs online, while also
creating Web-only content.
But don’t let them fool you. What’s
happening here isn’t just TV online. Gone are the rigid 30- and
60-minute blocks; now the clip is it – be it 30 seconds or eight
minutes, we’re watching only the money shots. Gone is top-down
broadcasting; instead, the network has been, well, networked, with
thousands of creators and places to watch, from single-serving sites
like Rocketboom to slick aggregators like iTunes and blinx. And gone,
too, is the at-this-time, at-this-channel programming; now we’re not
only time-shifting with DVRs, we’re space-shifting as well, watching
stuff on our laptops, iPods, and cell phones – even loading it back
onto our TVs.
Missed Oprah squashing James Frey? No matter – you
could catch the choice bits of the gotcha episode on YouTube later that
afternoon. Want to see the best shorts by SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” guys? You
won’t find them on NBC – try The ‘Bu on channel101.com. Still watching
Must See TV on Thursday nights? How quaint.
Sure, a lot of the
material is junk: dorm pranks, nip slips, America’s silliest home
videos. But some of it is brilliant: House of Cosbys, Kevin Sites’s hot
zone at Yahoo! News, archives of cold war propaganda films. Some people
look at the sheer amount of material and see a mess. But we see, amid
the flood of content and competing delivery services, a new medium
emerging, one with fewer gatekeepers, more producers, and – somewhere -
something for everyone. And that’s the point: The mess is the message.
How to Wow ‘Em Like Steve Jobs
Sell the Benefit
Steve Jobs does not sell
bits of metal; he sells an experience. Instead of focusing on
mind-numbing statistics, as most technologists tend to do, Jobs sells
the benefit. For example, when introducing a 30 GB iPod, he clearly
explains what it means to the consumer — users can carry 7,500 songs,
25,000 photos, or up to 75 hours of video. In January when Jobs
introduced the first Intel (INTC)-based Mac notebook he began by saying, “What does this mean?”
He
went on to explain the notebook had two processors, making the new
product four to five times faster than the Powerbook G4, a “screamer”
as he called it. He said it was Apple’s thinnest notebook and comes
packed with “amazing” new features like a brighter wide-screen display
and a built-in camera for video conferencing. It’s not about the
technology, but what the technology can do for you.
Practice, Practice, and Practice Some More
Jobs takes nothing for granted during product launches. He reviews and rehearses his material. According to a Business Week
article on February 6, 2006, “Jobs unveils Apple’s latest products as
if he were a particularly hip and plugged-in friend showing off
inventions in your living room. Truth is, the sense of informality
comes only after grueling hours of practice.” The article goes on to
say that it’s not unusual for Jobs to prepare for four hours as he
reviews every slide and demonstration (see BW, 2/6/06, “Steve Jobs’ Magic Kingdom”).
Keep It Visual
Speaking
of slides, there are very few bullet points in a Jobs presentation.
Each slide is highly visual. If he’s discussing the new chip inside a
computer, a slide in the background will show a colorful image of the
chip itself alongside the product. That’s it. Simple and visual.
Apple’s
presentations are not created on PowerPoint, as the vast majority of
presentations are. But PowerPoint slides can be made visual as well.
It’s a matter of thinking about the content visually instead of falling
into the habit of creating slide after slide with headlines and bullet
points. I once worked with the vice-president of a public company who
planned to show more than 80 data-heavy slides in a 40-minute
presentation. Imagine how quickly his audience would have tuned out.
After
I showed him just how visual his message could be, he went back to the
drawing board, dismantled his existing presentation, and reduced it to
about 10 image-rich slides. The next day a newspaper reporter wrote
that my client had “wowed” analysts and investors. The stock rose 17%
in the days that followed. Take a cue from Jobs and help your listeners
visualize the message.
Exude Passion, Energy, and Enthusiasm
Jobs
has an infectious enthusiasm. When launching the video iPod, Jobs said,
“It’s the best music player we’ve made,” “It has a gorgeous screen,”
“The color is fantastic,” and “The video quality is amazing.”
The
first time I watch my clients present, I often have to stop them to ask
if they are sincerely passionate about their message. They usually
assure me they are, but they tend to lose energy and enthusiasm when
they fall into “presentation mode.” Jobs carries his enthusiasm into
his presentations.
There is no better example of Jobs’ passion
than the famous story of how he convinced John Sculley to lead Apple in
the mid ’80s by asking him, “Do you want to sell sugared water all your
life or do you want to change the world?” The former Pepsi executive
chose the latter and, although the pairing ultimately failed to work
out, it reflects Jobs’ sense of mission — a mission that he conveyed
consistently in the early years of Apple and continues to today.
“And One More Thing…”
At
the end of each presentation Jobs adds to the drama by saying, “and one
more thing.” He then adds a new product, new feature, or sometimes
introduces a band. He approaches each presentation as an event, a
production with a strong opening, product demonstrations in the middle,
a strong conclusion, and an encore — that “one more thing!”
Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic
As
a follow up to yesterday’s post on Bill Gates’ presentation style, I
thought it would be useful to examine briefly the two contrasting
visual approaches employed by Gates and Jobs in their presentations
while keeping key aesthetic concepts found in Zen in mind. I believe we
can use many of the concepts in Zen and Zen aesthetics to help us
compare their presentation visuals as well as help us improve our own
visuals. My point in comparing Jobs and Gates is not to poke fun but to
learn.
Simplicity
A key tenet of the Zen aesthetic is kanso or simplicity. In the kanso
concept beauty, grace, and visual elegance are achieved by elimination
and omission. Says artist, designer and architect, Dr. Koichi Kawana,
“Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum
means.” When you examine your visuals, then, can you say that you are
getting the maximum impact with a minimum of graphic elements, for
example? When you take a look at Jobs’ slides and Gates’ slides, how do
they compare for kanso?
“Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means.”
— Dr. Koichi Kawana
Naturalness
The aesthetic concept of naturalness or shizen
“prohibits the use of elaborate designs and over refinement” according
to Kawana. Restraint, then, is a beautiful thing. Talented jazz
musicians, for example, know never to overplay but instead to be
forever mindful of the other musicians and find their own space within
the music and within the moment they are sharing. Graphic designers
show restraint by including only what is necessary to communicate the
particular message for the particular audience. Restraint is hard.
Complication and elaboration are easy…and are common.
The suggestive mode of expression is a key Zen aesthetic. Dr.
Kawana, commenting on the design of traditional Japanese gardens says:
“The designer must adhere to the concept of miegakure since Japanese believe that in expressing the whole the interest of the viewer is lost.”
— Dr. Koichi Kawana
In
the world of PowerPoint presentations, then, you do not always need to
visually spell everything out. You do not need to (nor can you) pound
every detail into the head of each member of your audience either
visually or verbally. Instead, the combination of your words, along with
the visual images you project, should motivate the viewer and arouse
his imagination helping him to empathize with your idea and visualize
your idea far beyond what is visible in the ephemeral PowerPoint slide
before him. The Zen aesthetic
values include (but are not limited to):
- Simplicity
- Subtlety
- Elegance
- Suggestive
rather than the descriptive or obvious - Naturalness (i.e., nothing
artificial or forced), - Empty space (or negative space)
- Stillness, Tranquility
- Eliminating the non-essential
Gates and Jobs: lessons in contrasts
Take a look at some of the
typical visuals used by Steve Jobs and those used by Bill Gates. As you
look at them and compare them, try doing so while being mindful of the
key concepts behind the traditional Zen aesthetic.
Above.
Does it get more “Zen” than this? “Visual-Zen Master,” Steve Jobs,
allows the screen to fade completely empty at appropriate, short
moments while he tells his story. In a great jazz performance much of
the real power of the music comes from the spaces in between the notes.
The silence gives more substance and meaning to the notes. A blank
screen from time to time also makes images stronger when they do appear.
Also, it takes a confident person to design for the placement of empty slides. This is truly “going naked”
visually. For most presenters a crowded slide is a crutch, or at least
a security blanket. The thought of allowing the screen to become
completely empty is scaring. Now all eyes are on you.
Above. Gates here explaining the Live strategy. A
lot of images and a lot of text. Usually Mr. Gates’ slides have titles
rather than more effective short declarative statements (this slide has
neither). Good graphic design guides the viewer and has a clear
hierarchy or order so that she knows where to look first, second, and
so on. What is the communication priority of this visual? It must be
the circle of clip art, but that does not help me much.
Dr. Kawana says that “to reach the essence of things, all
non-essential elements must be eliminated.” So what is the essence of
the point being made with the help of this visual? Are any elements in
this slide non-essential? At its core, what is the real point? These
are always good questions to ask ourselves, too, when critiquing our
own slides.
Above. Here Jobs is talking to developers at the
WWDC’05 about the transition from the Power PC RISC chips to Intel.
Sounds daunting, but as he said (and shows above) Apple has made
daunting major shifts successfully before. (He also said sheepishly
earlier in the the presentation, that every version of OSX secretly had
an Intel version too…so this is not a new thing. The crowd laughed.).
A note on having an “open style”
One thing that
would help Mr. Gates is an executive presentations coach and a video
camera. One unfortunate habit he has is constantly bringing his finger
tips together high across his chest while speaking. Often this leads to
his hands being locked together somewhere across his chest. This
gesture makes him seem uncomfortable and is a gesture reminiscent of
The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns. By contrast, Steve Jobs has a more open style
and at least seems comfortable and natural with his gestures.
Above. Mr. Gates needs to read Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points,
ironically published by Microsoft Press. Atkinson says that “…bullet
points create obstacles between presenters and audiences.” He correctly
claims that bullets tend to make our presentations formal and stiff,
serve to “dumb down” our points, and lead to audiences being
confused…and bored. Rather than running through points on a slide,
Atkinson recommends presenters embrace the art of storytelling, and
that visuals (slides) be used smoothly and simply to enhance the
speaker’s points as he tells his story. This can be done even in
technical presentations, and it can certainly be done in high-tech
business presentations.
The “Microsoft Method” of presentation?
The
approach we’ve seen in Microsoft’s last public presentation we can
label the “Microsoft Method.” This method is not different than the
norm, in fact it is a perfect example of what Seth Godin and others call “Really Bad PowerPoint.”
Here’s the rub: A great many professionals see the absurdity of this
approach, even a great many professionals on the campus of Microsoft in
Redmond. But change will continue to be slow, especially when the
executives of the company which produces the most popular slideware
program in the world use the program in the most uninspiring, albeit
typical way.
Above.
Chief technology Officer, Ray Ozzie follows the “Microsoft Method” too.
(Left) Bullet No.3: “…interfaces through…interfaces”? (Right)
Fundamental presentation rule: Do not stick your hands in your pockets.
Informality is fine, but this is inappropriate even in the USA (and
especially in cultures outside the U.S.).
Refrain: It all matters!
We’ve talked about many
presentation methods here at Presentation Zen, methods that are
different than the “normal” or the “expected” but also simple, clear,
and effective. Who wants to be “average,” “typical,” or “normal”? Ridderstrale & Nordstorm say it best in Funky Business:
“Normality is the route to nowhere.” I’m not suggesting you “present
different” for the sake of being different. I am saying that if you
move far beyond what is typical and normal in the context of
presentation design, you will be more effective and different
and memorable. Maybe Microsoft can afford lousy PowerPoint
presentations, but you and I can’t. For “the rest of us,” it all
matters.
Can we learn from a Japanese garden?
Looking for inspiration in different places? Find a book on Japanese gardens (like this one
from my friend, designer Markuz Wernli Saito) or visit one in your area
(if you are lucky enough to have one). You can learn a bit here about
the Zen aesthetic and Japanese gardens in this article
by Dr. Kawana. Living here in Japan I have many chances to experience
the Zen aesthetic, either while visiting a garden, practicing zazen
in a Kyoto temple, or even while having a traditional Japanese meal out
with friends. I am convinced that a visual approach which embraces the
aesthetic concepts of simplicity and the removal of the nonessential
can have practical applications in our professional lives and can lead
ultimately to more enlightened design.