Mean Time to Response

There's an old axiom that action is the intersection of initiative and opportunity. Technology (and other conveniences we take for granted) very often solves the issue of lacking opportunity. It puts the world right at our fingertips. All that's left is the initiative part.

"I didn't think of it" often becomes the last refuge for us, which of course begs the question "why not?" Technology is our deus ex machina in that defense too with any number of reminders and calendars and alarms. So - no more excuses.

More than ever, the final weight of responsibility for taking action comes down to our sense of priority. That's all that's left. So is it the environment? family? career? financial security? character? reputation? respect for others and their time? You fill in the blank.

For many of us with all this ubiquitous technology at our disposal, the questions "why weren't you there?" or "why didn't you call him back?" or "why didn't you reply to that e-mail yet?" or "why was that presentation so lame?" are more dependent than ever on our priority-driven initiative rather than on a question of opportunity.

A good question now is whether our priorities today are different than they will be when we look back 100 years from now.

iOpener Event in Chicago

Today's i-Opener event packed the house at the Chicago Cultural Center and was highlighted with group discussions around the importance of creativity and innovation to the future of technology in Chicago. Edwin Lange, EVP at SAP, made some revelations about how a company like SAP harnesses innovation. Get a picture of the impact i.c. stars is having on changing young people's lives with technology here.

The Business End of Social Networking - Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook

A day after the launch of the new Facebook, is COO Sheryl Sandberg focused on growing revenues? No. The emphasis is still on user growth, particularly outside their core demographic, and outside English as the core language.

Facebook's revenue stream, she says, is built more around the networking nature of the application, things like the recent ad design contest on Facebook for the Mazda 3. In spite of the monetizing of click-ads that now appear on each page, Sandberg holds that Facebook's objective is not to compete with direct-response advertisers like Google (where she worked for six years prior to taking the COO position), but on viral and brand ads.

See the interview here.

A Smartphone for the Mensa Pro

For the Mensa crowd out there, Palm has just announced a really smart new smartphone called the "Pro" this week. And if you're in that market, you know who you are.

I suspect that, like the credentials of PhD's who consistently say "for him and I" and have three points in their four-point presentation, this may be something to hang on your e-mail signature ("sent from my new Palm Pro") rather than a huge jump in thinking power.

When the latest delay in the Google Android was announced, I decided to go ahead with Palm's Centro which had just been rolled out for Verizon users. Palm had quietly sold over two million of these by the end of July at $99 each. I'm not jeans-and-sandals enough for an iPhone yet, and I'm not ready for a phone that cooks breakfast for me, so the Centro is a good fit.

I'll leave the technical details to those above my pay grade, but there are some very handy improvements in the way I use the phone every day over my old Treo. It switches smoothly from MMS to SMS, copies and pastes from one application to another, has easily accessible "stacked" text conversations, creates a customizable drop down menu for any function (i.e. "text Joe," "e-mail Sue," or "GoogleDocs"), and it runs mobile versions of applications like Facebook, YouTube, TripIt and GoogleMaps very nicely. The "pTunes" audio player works for me and offers a bevy of web-radio stations. The keyboard is smaller but very usable and fast and I prefer it to the virtual version.

See if you can save yourself a couple Ben Franklins - and if you edit your signature to say you're e-mailing from your Palm Pro, I'll never know the difference.