也許有人會說：陳少白這個角色很不負責任，真自私，文人專送別人去慷慨赴義。我則要說，歧視文人，才是現代社會最大的問題。追求實際，取笑理想，也是現代社會之所以平凡人充斥的原因。在太平盛事大家講求什麼？講求生活 (請稍歇會兒，跟著 Steve Jobs 一起歌頌 life style)、講求享樂，而給你們生活，給你們享樂的，就是商人。也就是說，現代社會講求重商主義，士農工商，很遺憾，請反過來寫。平民百姓的認知中，現代文人若不是窩在學校教書，就是在淌在政治圈裡搞利益輸送。前者是不經世事的井底之蛙，後者是掠奪民脂民膏的米蟲。
說得含蓄點，就是大眾只對「貼近自己」、「容易理解」的創新有感覺，有反應，有記憶。至於讓 fortune 500 企業 LOB 效率增加 75% 的創新？讓 fortune 500 企業 IT 總支出減少 75% 的創新？省省吧，大眾沒興趣，別期望這些創新會有 pop momentum。
你不會因為 Apple 遲遲無法開發出適合企業使用的 mail server 就罵它不創新，不會因為 Google 遲遲尚未進軍 ERP 市場就罵它不創新。所以拿 lack of consumer technology innovation 來 challenge 當前將經營重心放在 enterprise technology innovation 的公司，有失公允。如果你是見識的菁英，如果你是有見識的記者，你會如何看待？
難得看到一篇批判 Google / Nexus One 的文章。十五年來，雖然資訊載體的形式一直推陳出新，但人受到媒體的影響程度 (或控制程度) 也同步加深。除了少數菁英，一般人不願或不配或無法成為能「獨立思考的考動物」。媒體 (as a whole) 會繼續扮演老大哥的角色，只是老大哥會逐漸把權利下放給你我身邊的堂主。
所以，有沒有想過，the power of media v.s. the superior product portfolio，你心目中的企業品牌，有多少成份是靠前者建立起來的，有多少是靠後者？
谷歌霹靂火繼續上演。WSJ 提到 CEO Eric Schmidt 支持 Google 繼續留在中國市場，但 Sergey Brin 則是堅持不能繼續向中國妥協。(推測多少和他小時候生活在蘇聯的背景有關)。看到一位網友認為，Google 就是因為 “startup mentality”，才會做出這麼「幼稚」的決定。如果換成 IBM 或 Microsoft 等 “matured” 之流，一定會選擇在檯面下把事情橋定。
差在哪裡？Google 是一間屬於創辦人的公司。IBM 和 Microsoft 是一間屬於管理階層的公司。
好在我們還有一間市值超國 1800 億美金的幼稚公司，仍然保有 “startup mentality”。站在股東立場，我不贊同 Google 片面撤出中國市場。股東，就是要賺錢。但今天如果我是創辦人，我也會希望能 leverage 這個位置的力量，做一點除了賺錢之外，有理想的事。
早上花了一點時間，看完 Wire 對 ”3D Realms” (製作毀滅公爵系列的那家) 關門大吉所做的詳細報導。畢竟 Duke Nukem 3D 曾經是 PC Game 史上的一個里程碑，曾經是繼德軍總部、毀滅戰士之後的 FPS 遊戲霸主，也是我在 1997 年資訊展買的唯一一套遊戲…現在雖然盒子丟了，但光碟內附的小冊子至今都還留著，冊子封底也有一張製作團隊大合照。諷刺的是，3D Realms 解散的那一天，也拍了一張類似的大合照…
3D Realm 會關門的客觀事實很簡單 – Duke Nukem 3D 的續集 - Duke Nukem Forever ，製作了 12 年，卻遲遲無法上市。士氣榨乾了，錢也燒光了，甚至演變到和發行商鬧上法庭的局面。
2. Duke Nukem 3D 成功大賣，創辦人拍胸脯保證：資金不成問題，卻也讓開發過程失去了紀律
從報導看來，感覺千錯萬錯，都是創辦人 George Broussard 的錯，但想想看，如果一個男人，把人生中最黃金的 12 年，統統壓注在一套遊戲上，換成是你，你會不偏執嗎？
George Broussard, co-owner of 3D Realms and the man who headed the Duke Nukem Forever project for its entire 12-year run. Now 46 years old, he’d spent much of his adult life trying to make a single game, and failed over and over again.
短短幾分鐘，讓我想起平時我們的客戶是不是都這樣看待我們的 pitch 呢？你覺得我是笨蛋嗎？benefit is benefit, value is value，不是 benefit，不是 value 的東西，不論你再怎麼包裝，提供再怎麼逼真適切的情境，搬出再怎麼無堅不摧的 talking point，聽在客戶耳中，都還是糖漿。
除非客戶是笨蛋。而你的生意也是建立在和笨蛋的關係之上。
好處顯而易見的產品或服務，不需要請 MBA 來精心規劃 scenario。只需要給我陳述事實 (e.g. 媒體報導)，我自然會發現好處。當公司的產品需要四處兜情境和 case study 來說嘴時，代表 1) 產品價值不明顯、2) 產品太複雜。那為什麼不在最初設計規劃時，就把這些絆腳石考慮進去呢？
其實這不是這篇的重點。我的標題是從 Michael Arrington 那借過來。他點出了 “newer” media disrupt new media 的現象。而這些 newer media 代表的是講求速度、膚淺、或是消費 (or paraphrase) 其他原創內容的內容。一語貫之，就是 fast food content。
我認為未來買高階筆電的人會越來越少，原本看上高階筆電輕薄質感的族群，會把錢花在更接近炫耀財的高階智慧型手機；剩下的，就是玩 game 和執行繪圖等高階工作的使用者。但因為線上遊戲要求的硬體效能其實已經沒有過去單機遊戲高，所以這個族群只會繼續痿縮。
就低階筆電來說，我自己的使用心得是：買過的人應該不會推薦朋友也去買一台。我幫朋友買的那台，後來也是換來抱怨 : P 這一切都是效能問題。我常懷疑 Atom 是不是要拿來做 single task 的處理器。只要多開幾個網頁和 Word 檔，系統資源就快被榨乾了，買小筆電的人雖然都認為自己只會做些簡單的文書處理，但相信我，現在影音資源橫流，小筆電買回家之後，一定會有拿來看影片的情況，這時，停格或是字幕對不上的問題，也會讓你想捶電腦。但當時大家不是說好只拿來做文書處理嗎？: P。另一方面，Intel 和 MS 也因為毛利率問題，不願意繼續支持小筆電成為主流，因此這個 segment 明年也不會有什麼搞頭。
When the market changes, you may be seeing all the new opportunities and problems the wrong way because of the solutions you’re used to. The reason so many organizations have trouble using social media is that they are using precisely the wrong hammer. And odds are, they will continue to do so until their organization fails. PR firms try to use the new tools to send press releases, because, you guessed it, that’s their hammer. (source)
Bonus Quote
Instead, you gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn’t think was so important. (source)
…The problem with being an amateur scientist is precisely the reason that marketers relish the opportunity to sell to us, the amateurs: we make stupid decisions, easily manipulated by those who might choose to do the manipulation (on their behalf or on ours). …
…The news here is not that people are irrational, giving too much credence to the dramatic and the local and the short-term (that’s not news), but that people have added a veneer of scientific rationality to their irrational decisions. …
…This is one of the problems with breast cancer screening. It appears to give information, really good information, but in practice, it doesn’t. Since the information is vivid, we give it too much credence. … (source)
I said that there are two kinds of api failures that I’ve noticed. The first is when the web app itself is not very popular and therefore developers aren’t compelled to build to its api. That is not an issue with the api itself. The second is when the web app itself is very popular but the api is not so much. (source)
I’ve been thinking about applying the concept of API for content creation on social networking model.
Plato describes five types of government in the Republic:
1. Aristocracy- Plato considered this the best form of government; aristocracy embodies wisdom of the philosopher king. 2. Timocracy- military government embodies virtues of honor and courage. 3. Oligarchy- rule by a rich elite, their vice is greed, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. 4. Democracy- mob rule, and chaos, it represents akrasia people are slaves of their desires and have little self-control. 5. Tyranny- this is the worst form of government. The vice is selfishness, one power crazed person in control. (source)
The central task in a gift economy is to keep the gifts moving. By social debt, barter, and pure charity, gifts circulate and generate happiness and wealth.
One question to ask yourself is: what doesn’t exist that should? Do you see something that is lacking in your neighborhood, your city or in the world? Is there anything you can contribute? Is there a niche waiting to be discovered? There most likely is. If people spent less time complaining and more time in productive and creative thought, we’d all be the better for it. It’s sometimes as simple as going beyond the status quo and having the courage to do so. (source)
1983 年， Richard Dennis 展開了著名的海龜交易實驗，入選的這十多位海龜，在五年的期間創下績效可觀的交易成果。但十多年來，當初表現最好的海龜，卻不一定能在離開「水族箱」後，獲得財富上或事業上的耀眼成就。Baylor University 的 Nancy Uptopn 與 Don Sexton 教授指出日後成功的海龜，和表現平平的海龜，其差異的分水嶺就在於企業家特質：
1.一個球棒和一顆球合計1.1美元，已知球棒比球貴1元，請問一個球幾元？ 2.5台機器花五分鐘可以生產5個產品，100台機器生產100個產品需要多少分鐘？ 3.有一個湖，湖中的水草覆蓋湖面的面積每天增加一倍，這個湖在第48天時被水草覆蓋滿，請問第幾天的時候湖面已經被水草覆蓋一半？(翻譯 by PJHuang)
最後補上 Shane Frederick 教授 CRT 研究報告的引言，難得有學術報告看了第一段後，會讓人有繼續讀下去的衝動。
People with higher cognitive ability (or “IQ”) differ from those with lower cognitive ability in a variety of important and unimportant ways. On average, they live longer, earn more, have larger working memories, faster reaction times and are more susceptible to visual illusions (Jensen, 1998). Despite the diversity of phenomena related to IQ, few have attempted to understand—or even describe—its influences on judgment and decision making. Studies on time preference, risk preference, probability weighting, ambiguity aversion, endowment effects, anchoring and other widely researched topics rarely make any reference to the possible effects of cognitive abilities (or cognitive traits).
A study last year conducted by members of PRS for Music, a nonprofit royalty collection agency, found that of the 13 million songs for sale online last year, 10 million never got a single buyer and 80 percent of all revenue came from about 52,000 songs. That’s less than one percent of the songs. (source)
根據統計資料，去年一千三百萬首線上販售的音樂中，有一千萬首一次都沒賣出去過。如果這一千萬首歌的作者沒花多少心力在構思、創作、錄製、散布這些歌曲就算了。但假如他們真的花了不少心力在賭這條長尾呢？大家似乎忽略了ROI這件事。說到底，當尾巴的那個 (Amazon, iTunes Store) 比在尾巴裡面當毛的的那個 (那一千萬首 white label music) 有賺頭。
人性其實沒那麼可悲，只是 soical or not social 就像惡靈古堡的病毒一樣，是屬於 all or nothing 那類。一旦組織內有人被咬一口，則 social 的必要性就會完全擴散，再怎樣專業理性的人，也逃不過變成 zoombie 的命運。
唯一能抑制 social 病毒的，就只有確保群體和病毒徹底隔離。有沒有這樣的群體呢？有，高中大學的社團是不是這樣？還記得大家心無旁鶩，共同朝同一個目標努力的感覺嗎？只可惜這樣的人出了社會，往往發現自己過去是如此的「天真」，急著想把自己變得更加社會化。而學校也成為理想的最後一道牆，成為「出社會」與「還沒出社會」的分水嶺。
還來得及反社會嗎？就像這位同學說，公司的 trader 同事，都穿得像 Google 員工一樣來上班，表象不一定要和刻板印象符合，就如同要在社會上立足，不一定得聽長輩 social 那一套。
這是大眾系列文第三篇。今天早上，我本來要針對企業過度壓低姿態，並針對現實、被寵壞的大眾發表一番看法。不過巧遇 Seth Godin 文章一篇，瞬時看清，近年來各界鼓吹的 marketing paradigm shift 本質上也不過是 political manipulation。「草根運動」這個詞，一向和政治脫不了勾，而如今，發動、操作草根運運動，也成了行銷重要的一環：
You can’t control what people are saying about you. What you can do is organize that speech. You can organize it by highlighting the good stuff and rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff. You can organize it by embracing the people who love your brand and challenging them to speak up and share the good word. And you can respond to it in a thoughtful way, leaving a trail that stands up over time. (source)
這段話是 Seth Godin 推自家開發的品牌聲量管理工具 – Brand in Public 時鼓吹的一種策略。不過這不是重點，這是問題。
問題就在於行銷人員建立了某種社群，接著希望社群人員能為自己的產品說好話，這樣的思維模式。這種模式導致企業過度討好民眾，尤其是過度討好網民的文化。但對一般網民來說，你還是企業，在他們的認知中，企業就是來收錢的，而老爺我，上網就是來享受的，你討好我，應該的，你沒搞好讓我罵一罵，應該的。民眾思考很淺，他們不會考慮到對等交易這件事，網路經濟體已經讓對等交易的概念傾斜，隱匿到很後方很後方的運作當中，不用心察覺，或是根本沒有能力察覺的一般民眾，會以為自己活在完全免費的網路世界，而未來是什麼？未來就是一路免費，直通到底。大眾不會關心，也無力關心 ad supported model, premium service model，大眾沒有成本轉嫁的想像力。大眾使用免費服務時，忘記背後有大企業，準備掏出錢包時，就想起了背後的大企業。而這一切畸型的大眾價值觀，就是你我高唱「顧客第一」、「顧客永遠是對的」之餘，所引發的後遺症。
In 1831, he failed in business. He ran for the Illinois General Assembly the following year. He was defeated, so he started another business and failed. In 1834, he was elected to the state legislature, but in 1836 he suffered a nervous breakdown after his sweetheart died. In 1838, 1840, and 1843 respectively, he ran for speaker of the state legislature, elector and Congress, and he was defeated each time.
In 1846, he was elected to Congress, but when he ran for Congress again in 1848, he was defeated. He ran for Senate in 1855 and was defeated, and the next year he sought the vice-presidential nomination and was defeated, receiving less than 100 votes. But here was a man who refused to give up. In 1860 he ran for President–and won. (source)
I think embracing failure is one of the things that makes this country such a great place to do business in. In many parts of the world, if you fail once, you are done. People won’t touch you with a ten foot pole. But here in the US, it’s almost a badge of honor. And our President explains why.
When we met with entrepreneurs, I’m always interested in their failures. And most people have them, you just have to dig a bit to find them. If someone has failed and taken the time to learn from it, I think that’s a big positive. It makes us even more excited to back them the next time.
So don’t hide your failures. Wear them as a badge of honor. And most of all, learn from them. (source)
Since Craigslist collapsed a multibillion dollar classified advertising business into a fabulously profitable $100,000,000 business, perhaps we should be talking about the potential deflationary impact of more "zero billion dollar" businesses. (source)
People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day," Newmark says. If most people are good and their needs are simple, all you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost certainly superfluous and could even be damaging. (source)
連續開了幾次 brainstorming 會議，除了一直被 idea 淹沒的感覺很棒之外，我也開始尋找一個有效但又不會干擾到快速聯想、快速思考的過濾器。今天我發現了指標：
Necessity is the mother of invention.
我想把這句話改為 “Necessity is the mother of innovation.” 應該也說得通。然後再變成 ”Necessity is the mother of creativity.” 應該也不為過。最後。我得到一個小結論：”Necessity is the mother of everything.” 需求是萬物得以存在之母。在目前唯物主義掛帥的社會價值體系中，你去做一件原先就沒需求的事情，就是沒有 ROI 。brainstorming 是由大腦和風暴兩個字組成，風暴來得急，去得也快，風暴降臨那一瞬間固然讓人興奮，但風暴也讓人失去理智。失敗的種子往往是我們在 euphoria 的狀態中種下的。
前幾天恰巧和同事聊到最近想來多看點文學作品。一直以來我都是商業書籍的愛好者，但離開學校後，我發現真正出現 a-ha moment 的反倒都源自於過去的人文記憶。久了漸漸察覺：商業知識實踐在日常細節中，文學記憶則落實在深度思考與方向探索。Fed Wilson 推薦的書單 for entrepreneur 正好符合我這種想法:
The point of this list is that there is way more insight to be gained from stories than from business books. And these are some amazing stories.
SAM ALTMAN: I think the technology is great, but one of the downsides to technology is it often isolates us behind our respective computers, and I we’ve lost some of this I think real-world interaction that we used to have. And one of the fascinating promises of location technology is this ability for us to have real-world connections. And so I can see people that I wouldn’t normally get to. Or if I’m a parent, I can use this for peace of mind, because I know where my kids are with their consent. Or if I need a restaurant, I could try one.
SAM ALTMAN: I think that location is going to be a huge part of the future of mobile advertising. If you think about all of the different things that advertisers use to target users, the biggest missing one has been location. And in some senses, that’s the most important one, because what we find is that users are very much more likely to act on an ad for something near them, because just — it’s relevant, it’s right now, it’s actionable. And so we have huge interests from advertisers all the time that want to deliver location-targeted ads.
AM ALTMAN: So, we have two primary revenue streams. One is a very traditional model that’s easy to understand, where either our users pay us or the carriers pay us to offer our product. And that’s a unique advantage of mobile. It has thus far been easier to get money on mobile than on the Web. Second, location-based ads are really worth a lot to a certain type of advertiser, and we think that will continue to develop into a very nice business for us.
People don’t live in quarterly campaigns, nor do they distinguish communication channels. They expect faster and constant communication with their brands across more media platforms and conversations.
With culture in constant motion there is also a need for marketers to be quick and nimble, so they can find opportunities where their brands can tap into cultural conversations that are part of people’s lives
It’s about being opportunistic and leveraging key moments with brand relevance. It’s about owning the current conversation to generate faster and more frequent communication points. It’s a new form of CRM using a mix of planned, anticipative and reactive micro initiatives.
部份 social media fanatics 過度誇張了負面 PR 在社群中的擴散效果。畢竟壞評比永遠和好評比共存，被拿出來放大討論的，往往是超級負面案例。 (如 Dell Sucks、Dell 標錯價；先和 Michael Dell 說聲抱歉，剛好都聯想到你們家的例子)。稍微留心不難發覺，論壇、部落格、噗浪、 推特、臉書、MSN 暱稱等社群，永遠會充斥著各式各樣的抱怨。那為什麼這些負面訊息不全然產生病毒式擴散呢？(內心OS：你還抱著任何東西一丟到神奇的 social media 許願池，就會自行擴散的思維嗎。)
The important thing to remember is that separate events are often separate. If you use the same ineffective approach on one thousand people, it’s not going to start working better just because you use it more often.
Connected events, on the other hand, often benefit from frequency and trust.
So context is critical, as Jobs sees it. Innovation happens when great people congregate, bounce off each other. (Good whether and pretty good food also help.) But equally important is mind-set – the determination, as Jobs puts it, “to express something of what [you] perceive to be the truth around [you] so that others can benefit from it.” Innovation is simply the fruit of that determination. Lots of people at Apple, Jobs explained, straddled the distinction between “artist” and “scientist.” They were computer jocks, but thay could have been poets:
If you study the people a little bit more, waht you will find is that in this particular time, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the best people in computers would have normally been poets and writers and musicians. Almost all of them were musicians. A lot of them were poets on the side. They went into computers because it was so compelling. It was fresh and few. It was a new medium for expression of their creative talents. The feelings and the passion that people put into it were completely indistinguishable from a poet or a painter. Many of the people were introspective, inward people who express how they felt about other people, or the rest of humanity in general, in their work – work that other people would use. People put a lot of love into these products, and a lot of expression of their appreciation came to these things.
If you don’t like the way someone is acting, understand you can’t change his behavior, you can only change his circumstances.
There’s an infamous scene in the Godfather where a movie producer turns down a ‘reasonable’ request from the Don. The Godfather is stunned. How could someone turn him down?
After the family kills the producer’s prize racehorse (and puts it in his bed), the producer changes his mind.
What changed? Before the intervention, the producer didn’t understand, didn’t believe, didn’t fear the Godfather. So he made what he believed was the best possible decision. Afterward, his worldview was forcibly changed and he made a different decision based on different facts.
Probably not a good idea to run around beheading horses, but it’s a useful lesson in changing perception. (source)
How do norms get formed? I think it’s simpler than it looks: we interact with people who use the norm we use. We follow or read or hang out with people who use the same social constructs we do. (source)
Q: Maybe a better way to ask that question would have been, in this new world, is there a place still for traditional operating systems and productivity software that you sell for $250?
Absolutely. As I point out in the chapter on how Microsoft competed with free, what they have found is that you can compete with free. You’re not selling software. What you’re selling is something else. Convenience, risk-reduction, peace of mind, a contractual promise. You’re selling something that people value. (source)
MP3到處流竄，為什麼付費的 iTunes 還是能做起來？破解軟體到處流竄，為什麼付費的 Apple Apps Store 做的起來？我自己親身經歷後 ，發現他們賣的不是商品本身的相對價值，他們賣的是上述提到的 “Convenience”。
當你推出某種流程，它的便利性大於使用盜版所需付出的成本 (含搜尋種子、載點，下載等待時間，抓到假檔、病毒檔風險，操作摸索等)，以及這種便利性，大於大腦做出「選擇」所需的成本 (iTunes 或 Apps Store 自動幫你分類、過濾實用軟體或熱門音樂，並提供其他使用者的評分或推薦)。以上情況都成立，使用者就願意付費。這種流程，就是潛在的獲利模式。
大多數人都是懶惰鬼，大多數人都不喜歡花時間做選擇。Windows Mobile for Marketplace 是否能成功，就看流程。
Imagine if you had a single data feed, fredsactivity.xml [which recorded all your online behaviors], that was hosted on the web and you could share with web services. I’d give it to Amazon to get better recommendations. I’d give it to Google Reader to find interesting blogs to read. I’d give it to Twitter to get better recommendations for people to follow. I’d give it to Netflix and Fandango to get better movie recommendations. I’ve give it to Goolge to get better search results. (source)
