I fondly remember getting my first bicycle, a Huffy from K-Mart when I was 6. I recall being so proud walking my brand new blue ride through the parking lot to my parent’s car only to notice, to my horror, it had a flat tire. Not the best start to what would be a 30-year obsession with cycling. Against my parent’s wishes, I refused to learn how to ride with training wheels and inevitably crashed the first time my dad let go of me as I headed down the driveway. Not deterred, I brushed myself off and after a few wobbles and some tentative pedaling; I was riding on my second attempt. I remember the rush from the freedom of moving under my own power and the confidence I felt knowing that I had learned something that all of my friends were already having a blast doing.
Cycling has continued to be a passion of mine since that first ride and I feel fortunate that LEVEL encourages its employees to maintain an appropriate work/life balance. Additionally, LEVEL is continuingly looking for opportunities to become involved in and support charitable events. So, it came as no surprise when one of our projects, SanLuisObispoVacations.com, began promoting the SLO Gran Fondo that LEVEL employees who shared an interest in cycling as well as an enthusiasm to help the local community came together to form our own team for the event. For those unfamiliar with a Gran Fondo, it is a long distance, mass participation cycling event that combines professionals, amateur, and recreating cyclist of all abilities. The SLO Gran Fondo has distances of 25, 45, and 100 miles and the LEVEL team will have members participating in each distance. What makes the SLO Gran Fondo especially exciting is the professional cyclists that will be participating are members of Team HTC-Columbia, the world’s premier and top ranked professional cycling team based in San Luis Obispo and currently participating in the Tour de France.
Like many things in life, cycling requires dedication and the ability to overcome obstacles that are both physical as well as mental. Our LEVEL Gran Fondo team will be on their bikes anywhere between 2 to 6 hours, fighting the wind, climbing hills and battling through the mental aspect of keeping a positive attitude. Over the next few months, I look forward to providing each of them insights, support, and inspiration to achieve their goal and come across the finish line with a sense of accomplishment and more importantly with a smile on their face.
Posted by Matt Carinio on 7/19/10 9:44 AM
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Doug Klein, Senior Director of Marketing Strategy at LEVEL
Monday’s AdAge article, It’s Time to Prepare for the End of the Web as We Know It, left me with a serious case of déjà vu (note that you must be registered with AdAge if you want to view the article written by Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital). While most cases of déjà vu leave me with only questions, this one was a quick solve. Earlier this year Doug Klein, Senior Director of Marketing Strategy at LEVEL, released Preparing for the End of the Web: A Prophecy for Marketing Executives which gives a deep dive on the evolving eco-system and how marketers must adjust their strategies… no registration required! I asked Doug about what he thought of the article to which he answered:
I think we should be singing “It’s the end of the Web as we know it, and I feel fine.” I agree that there is a major sea change about to take place. But I don’t put all my chips in on that sea being a purely “mobile” one. More devices means more user experiences that take advantage of presentation capabilities (and design around limitations) of different form factors. But we’re not going to gravitate entirely away from one in favor for another. I’ll still have my tablet AND my laptop AND my smartphone AND my gaming console AND my internet-ready TV and… But I think content will have to change. No more one-to-many 24-hour brochures that you visit once and never return to. The web of information is becoming a cloud of information. Real-time, recommendation-driven, self-optimizing. Technologists will pilot the ships on this sea, not marketers. Those who understand connected devices, connected user experiences across disparate, constantly changing devices will plot the new charts. There are many changes coming, and coming quickly, and mobile is in the mix. But it isn’t the entire mix. And the world isn’t flat. – Doug Klein
Now if only I could get that song out of my head!
Posted by Alexandra League on 7/15/10 9:00 AM
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I’ve finally ordered an iPad. It was done in anticipation of my vacation in Europe this August. I’ll be returning
to the south of France, where I spent about a year almost 15 years ago. When I moved to France in college, I went with only enough clothes for a week, a dozen books, toiletries, and a Sony Discman – not bad for a 10-month stay!
This time around, my needs are rather different, which really makes me hope that the iPad can deliver promised results. First, I must keep my 3-year-old son entertained on a 12+ hour flight. Yikes. If it fails, I’ll be a wanted man by the end of the flight; however, it does seem the iPad’s long battery life and library of children’s books and movies should be adequate firepower. Second, my first stop is in London, where my wife will do archival research for her doctoral dissertation at the British Library and the College of Arms. My question is whether I can stretch the iPad as a true replacement for a laptop, even for serious dissertation work? I sure hope so because I can’t imagine lugging a laptop around around Europe. I plan to use Dropbox, so that my wife can access her GBs of docs while in the library. I will buy the Pages app, so that she create new content that will convert to Word docs upon return. Alternatively, I’m considering Google Docs as an option; however, I don’t think she will have Wi-Fi access in the reading room, and I’m not totally sure it can work effectively offline. Lastly, I hesitantly plan to bring the wireless keyboard from my iMac. I’m hoping my wife finds the touch screen adequate, but there is no room for typos when you are transcribing texts from 700 year old manuscripts!
The reason I write this blog is because I’m going to only have a few days with my iPad before the trip since I’ve joined the backlog of online Apple store orders. Any Apple gurus that can recommend quality productivity tools or caution me in my approach are welcome to chime in. If the iPad meets my needs for this trip, I think it can meet almost any expectation related to netbooks.
Posted by John Schneider on 7/14/10 8:53 AM
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Cisco sure seems to think so. My answer is maybe. Last week, Cisco announced their new product Cius, which is scheduled to be released in late March of 2011. Some product details were leaked by an insider early this year in speculation that Cisco was working on a 7″ tablet with real-time communication capabilities on the Android platform. Turns out they were right. The product announcement at the Cisco Live event in Las Vegas last week has definitely had mixed feedback. A lot of people are seeing this as direct competition with the iPad but as we’ve seen with Webex, Show and Share and Cisco’s Enterprise Social Software, Quad, Cisco is continuing to develop for the iPhone and iPad in parallel so there’s no reason to think why this would end.
I don’t believe there is any way that Cisco can compete at the consumer level in the tablet market. To me, that’s the point. The 7″, 1.14 lb. tablet built for real-time collaboration and corporate communication to keep mobile users in the loop and connected no matter the specific application is fully interoperable with telepresence tools, offers HD video streaming, multi-party conferencing, email, messaging, browsing and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored either locally or on the cloud. It features a front-mounted 720p HD camera. It’s WiFi-enabled, comes with an accelerometer, has a detachable battery and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. Somewhere I read that it also cooks you dinner, does it’s own dishes and for a monthly service will iron your work shirts and even hang them up for you. Ok ok, it doesn’t quite do all of that. Any of it really, but if those stats were on a Major League player’s baseball card, they’d be hitting .400 lifetime with Hall of Fame RBI numbers.
I really see this device being targeted at existing enterprise customers already using their major Unified Communications products. It’s called an upsell and it’s a genius strategy. Customers are already buying IP Telephony products, video sharing and streaming products, real-time collaboration communcation solutions. To think that organizations would buy a device for whole divisions and groups of users that would seamlessly link all of these solutions that are already in place in their organizations with virtually nothing for IT to do except tell users how to turn them on isn’t crazy, it’s a no-brainer.
The key to Cisco’s success here is to stick to the story. Stick to targeting enterprise, director level or higher management and power users. Stay with the message that this is not an attempt to directly compete with the iPad and that development for all major platforms which their customers might adopt will continue and I think this product will be highly successful. Cisco has promised a whole hell of a lot. Now all they have to do is deliver on those promises. No pressure.
Posted by Chris Guthrie on 7/8/10 10:27 PM
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Google made a controversial decision to stop operating its Search site in March 2010. Now Google awaits approval from the Chinese government to operate its mapping service due to a new regulation, while wondering if the government will pull their license for providing online content due to their bold action back in March.
Google’s journey reminds me of how complicated business can be in China.
It has been 5 years since I studied abroad in China. The charter of our trip was to examine how business operates in China and see if the incredible economic growth over recent years was “real” and how successful companies navigate the perceived complexity. It is interesting to reflect back on a subset of my research that was conducted during my intensive 2-week visit. The following are a few of the predictions and observations that I made during that trip, juxtaposed against more recent events.
First, I predicted that entering the World Trade Organization will force China to move towards a more open economy that allows for private ownership and foreign investment in an increasing number of industries. I was watching the news a few weeks ago, and a Chinese business woman was quoted saying that “[she doesn't] run her business, the government does.” Although this is only one data point, I guess my first prediction hasn’t fared so well.
Second, I predicted that as income rises, consumers will expect a higher standard of living. In turn, this means they will also expect more regulations related to consumer protection and labor rights. A staggering estimate of 90,000 demonstrations occur in China each year. It is no wonder that civilian unrest exists when catastrophic events such as the 2008 Chinese milk scandal occur, where milk and infant formula using melamine resulted in infants dying and being hospitalized. Sadly, the demand for consumer protection and labor rights continues; however, it appears little progress may have been made.
Third, I was not convinced that government sponsored business incubators such ZPark could emulate the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley. Essentially, we saw a replication of Silicon Valley that lacked free-market forces and was underpinned by little private funding from venture capitalists. The largest concern I had was around the lack of visible rigor put into each start-up’s business plan. It appeared new ventures had little to prove in order to receive and maintain funding, which makes me skeptical of the phenomenally low failure rate of 2% for new business ventures. In Silicon Valley, I would expect almost the opposite failure rate. For every true business success, there are many failures. I continue to believe my observations regarding entrepreneurialism are true based on the news Google has been generating as of late. If the government interferes with business, entrepreneurialism will suffer.
It seems navigating business in China might not be any less challenging than it was 5 years ago. Best of luck to Google and others trying to make a positive difference, while expanding their businesses into such important markets as China.
Posted by John Schneider on 7/8/10 5:31 PM
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