Category: Services & Products

Our Iceberg Is Melting

No, it is not about the movie An Inconvenient Truth (lower your PC speaker volume before you click the link), but it is a book that talks about Change Management.

It is a very thin book that you can probably finish it in a morning, yet with a very good story / fable (how a coloney of penguins find a new home because their hometown’s iceberg is melting). And yes, the whole idea of the story is about how to manage change in a very solid 8 steps:

  1. Create a sense of urgency to deal with a difficult problem
  2. Put a carefully selected group in charge of guiding the change
  3. Find the sensible vision of a better future
  4. Communicate that vision so others will understand and accept it
  5. Remove as many obstacles to action as is pactical
  6. Create some sort of success quickly
  7. Never let up until the new way of life is firmly established
  8. Ensure that the changes will not be overcome by stubborn, hard-to-die traditions

A very good read and highly recommended !!

Web Idea: WeTube !!

OK, we are the person of the year 2006, according to Time. According to the magazine, we are the person of the year because instead of watching TV after work, we write, we shoot, we video etc. and contribute those contents to the web. And many of those contents, actually changed the world. Hmmm … I agree with that, but to me it happens every year since the born of browser back in 1994 / 1995.

Back to the idea, what will be the possible next step of all these photo, video, music sharing services ? In the past few years, there is one category of digital product waiting to take off – Digital Photo Frame. It’s now cost as low as US$ 100 and for some companies like Ceiva and eStarling, you can even update the photos automatically.

The concept of Ceiva and eStarling is quite simple but novel – the user upload the photos to a central storage or send the photos to an email address; and the digital photo frame will show the newly uploaded pictures automatically. Imagine you buy this frame to your parents and grandparents. They can see you new pictures without switching on their computers (even they know how to do it).

My idea is about combining these Web 2.0 stuff with the Ceiva / eStarling concept … WeTube !!

Imagine you can shoot a short video and upload to WeTube (the next generation of YouTube 8-). Your “multi-media player frame”, will periodically download the video and play it in the frame. Imagine … your family doctor will tell you to do a body check up in his / her video. Your children will send you the clip of their recent trips in Europe. Your friends will tell you their recent updates etc. etc. You tube, we tube, everybody tube …

All these can be done because of Google / YouTube already have hundreds of thousands of servers to provide the feed and in fact, the traffic shall be even less for such targeted video transmission if you use the Venice project approach.

In the ultimate WeTube X.0 version, even the TV and Cable companies will broadcast their shows using this approach … finally, a customer-centric TV.

Web Idea: Instant Expert

Years ago, whenever I visit a bookstore, I would spend a long time around a revolving bookstand next to the cashier – the bookstand of “Bluffer’s Guide”. There could be two dozens guides and each of these cover a topic – from astrology to wine and women. And I reckoned it’s the perfect way to learn something new in 10, 15 minutes, especially before a cocktail party that you need to talk to some total strangers.

You still can buy those guides nowadays from Ovalbooks (the publisher). But the point is you no longer need those books before attending a party, as all you need is to go to Wikipedia.org, type in the keyword and you will be an “instant expert” in a few minutes. The trouble is you still need to spend a lot of time to search around …

The idea here is to create a web site such that visitors can type in a keyword / topic and the web site will return a page of results – the history of the topic, the recent news of that topic, the famous men and women of this topic, and lastly, some jokes related to that topic. You see, all essential materials to make the visitor an expert, just in time for a cocktail party or a in-law dinner.

All it costs to the visitors is only US$ 6.99 – about the cost of the guide book. Of course, the real experts of the topic can contribute the much-needed information to the web site and get some handsome income. Hmmm … let’s call this website instant-expert.com.

Web Idea: Memory Box

One of the obvious problems of getting old is you forget things, things that you treasure most. So all along I want a tool on the web that can help me to “store” things. And I like to call this tool “Memory Box”. The box, reside on Internet, can store photos, videos, music, voice-recordings, links, stories, jokes etc.

Then I share the box with friends, or let my friends to “put in” something to this box. For example, I can create a box call “University Days”, then my mates can put in their “memories” in that box … a box that stores all our memories of the good old university days.

I don’t like Flickr, as it looks like an album, same to Youtube. And del.icio.us is a bit too limiting. Hmmm … can someone help me to build one ?