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    Sorry, that fat lady never really did sing

  • Alex Neihaus 4:51 pm on June 24, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: nursing, podcasting, technology adoption

    podcasts and the fat lady singing

    Years and years and years ago (OK, I’m feeling Boomer today), I was involved in the sale of a GUI-based application to the phone company. They resisted and resisted, despite our (and, unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s) ever-more-urgent importuning. We kept telling the executives that this was the future, it was the way they had to go and, damn it, you really need to get into the mid-1980s. They wanted to stay with character-based apps, but as the phone company used to regularly do (at least when I was with IBM), they did what we told them to do.

    Such were the GUI wars.

    But I didn’t realize that the war had ended…that we had “won”…until one Sunday in the early 1990s. I was, as I was wont to do, red-faced and furious on a Sunday afternoon at the amazing ineptness of the New England Patriots, who if I remember correctly, were losing 5000 to 0 to the Dolphins, when a Dodge Ram commercial interrupted the carnage. That commercial’s visual metaphor was a GUI. I realized that what was once “never going to happen” had now happened so completely, so permanently, that people didn’t even remember when they didn’t use and understand GUIs. It had crossed from a technological feature to a cultural idiom.

    I’m not talking about Crossing the Chasm-style adoption. Instead, I am talking about how resistant everyone seems to be to something after which they are not only passive to it, they have amnesia about what life, or technology, or sports, or anything was like before they adopted whatever it is they’ve adopted en masse. It’s like we’re dogs: we live only in the moment.

    So it is with podcasting. Nobody believes podcasting will ever be a mass medium. Nobody believes it can change the world. Pshaw! Phooey! Feh! All podcasting can be is a niche thing for techies.

    Well, they didn’t spend Sunday afternoon with my college-age daughter and me. Returning from dropping my other kid off at summer camp, Sarah whipped out her iPod, plugged it into the car and said, “Dad, wanna hear my nursing podcasts?”

    Nursing podcasts? I didn’t know you were into podcasts!”

    “Sure, Dad. [You helplessly out-of-tune old fart]. I listen to a bunch of ‘em.”

    It was an instant replay of the Dodge Ram commercial. This new medium, which software company clients as recently as 2006 were insisting was irrelevant, to which nobody paid any attention, had reached its final destination: a fait accompli. And nobody remembers a time when they thought podcasting was a waste of electrons, spent for the enjoyment of social misfits.

    Instead, podcasting, is, and always was, an excellent way to reach specific audiences. It’s part of every nutritionally well-balanced software company’s marketing strategy. Podcasts are the best way to reach your audiences….and they always have been.

    The way people seem to be acting about this — without any connection to the previous reality — is gonna put a whole bunch of singing fat ladies out of business. After all, if nothing’s changed, who needs ‘em to signal a transition?

     
  • Right Hemipshere: still grasping at straws

  • Alex Neihaus 11:03 am on June 5, 2008 | 5 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , cad, plm

    Let me say right off the bat that I know that I really should get over it. I should stop being so competitive that I am willing to blast former business competitors for things that no longer matter to me (or the descendants of the original competition).

    But I can’t help it. It’s just part of me. I still like to throw an occasional lighted one at Microsoft (I’m still brooding over the 1990’s battle between Notes and Exchange) or Autodesk (we got a blessed divorce in 2002).

    Today, it’s Right Hemisphere’s turn. These are the guys who took government money from New Zealand, then took money from SAP, undoubtedly turning their cap table into a cross between the Auckland and Walldorf phone books, then called themselves a startup and hired a marketing team whose first apparent deliverable to the marketplace in 2007 was an 18-page glossy brochure. (Now, I know some people love brochures, but they are both expensive and passe. Ask RH how many of those are sitting in boxes collecting dust in the marketing group’s area at HQ.)

    When I was with Seemage, we never really considered RH much of a competitor, what with their message being….well, what exactly was their message? Can’t seem to remember it. Think it had something to do with Adobe, then SAP, then servers all over the place. OTOH, at Seemage it was simple: we were about CAD reuse on the desktop without the heavy costs of PLM.

    OK, so what’s the proximate cause of this screed? After all, Seemage is gone…and I’m no longer consulting for Dassault. In a word, it’s RH’s new “blog.” After a couple of years, it looks like RH finally wants to try to grasp the power of community….by copying the old Seemage formula of an in-your-face blog.

    At Seemage we had 3dmojo.com. And for a while, it was all we had. But we poured our hearts out. And it was an incredibly effective way for a great product (and a pretty damn good company, IMHO) to get noticed. No fancy stuff…just a direct conversation with the 3D CAD community, who listened intently (and who still do).

    We said what we meant and we weren’t afraid to say practically anything (a representative sample is here), as long as we passionately believed in it. A sales rep crashed a competitive trade show using an iPod to show what was then called Seemage (now 3DVIA Composer). It was such a success that we started a podcast that goes on today. Traffic built because we had something to say that was intelligible and cogent.

    So, now imagine you are RH. You’ve got questions: your brochure is gathering dust…people come to the seminars at the Capital Grille for the steak, not the software…and little ole Seemage went on to greater glory inside DS. What was the magic about them? Ah ha! It had to be their blog. Gotta git me one of them! Voila: deep3d.com.

    A more banal corporate blog I don’t think I’ve ever seen. They have nothing to say. Rehashes of trade shows from the vp of marketing. An SE kowtowing to Adobe Flex (big surprise there). The CEO reprising their SAP deals. (I’m beginning to feel the warm excitement of SAP as a new target…check out the stunt we pulled at SAPPHIRE.)

    In short, the reason people who are imitated don’t usually feel flattered by the imitator is that, by definition, imitations lack inspiration. Go ahead, RH: paint a happy face on your toy blog. The only thing apt about it is that the name is somewhat onomatopoeic: this blog is going deep6d very quickly.

     
    • 3DMojo » Blog Archive » Technology Asset Yard Sale 11:04 pm on June 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      [...] that is a sarcastic stretch… but for a really good rant on Right Hemisphere you should read this blog post by our former head of marketing). Regardless, it sounds to me like they are prepping to be bought [...]

    • Todd Allen 8:11 pm on June 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I’m surprised that you couldn’t come up with a better commentary than this, especially being unemployed. I love the internet and all it offers, until I read something like this and realize: anyone with some time on their hands, a new dictionary and a chemical imbalance can write a blog.

      I am not a decision maker, just a grunt on an evaluation team that is looking at both Right Hemisphere and Seemage. Both have great stories and good products, but biased rants with no substance do not help me and the rest of our team evaluate software. You seem like a somewhat intelligent person, and can’t help but think you could come up with some concrete pros and cons for the public to digest.

      My summation of this article….boring, bitter and angry. You must be struggling on those unemployment checks…whoever you are.

    • Alex Neihaus 8:56 pm on June 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Hi, Todd.

      Thanks for worrying about my employment status, which is just fine. (-:

      I didn’t set out to help you (or anyone else) evaluate RH vs. 3DVIA Composer. I don’t have a dog in that hunt.

      I am expressing my opinion — on my blog — about a company that is both derivative and drifting. You don’t have to read it…you don’t have to consider it.

      You want Right Hemisphere? Help yourself. No skin off my back. But there’s one thing you should consider: what I say about imitation is a valuable clue about what using their software might be like.

      All software is intangible (though I suspect you are trying to make it less so in your evaluation). How often do evaluators get an inside look at the competitive dynamics between alternatives? That’s a more reliable metric than feature checklists, IMHO.

      For the record, I am not “bitter and angry.” I just think their blog is terrible. And if they don’t like the feedback, then they don’t belong in the blogosphere.

      Good luck to you.

    • Todd Allen 11:22 pm on June 7, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Your right, I am going to go re-read the Right Hemisphere and Seemage blogs…hang on. Yes, I see your point, and actually both Right Hemisphere AND Seemage’s blogs are lacking. They lost credibility with me the minute I noticed that they don’t have a picture of a little toy “phone-car” on their blog like you do. Do you have matching pajamas?

    • Winning with blogging: real authenticity | Thinking aloud 4:28 pm on May 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      [...] fact that we used community to start a discussion about those ideas simply blew competitors away. Right Hemisphere is still trying to figure out what happened to them, long after Seemage went onto greater glory in [...]

  • Don’t worry, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM. That BMW you see in your rear-view mirror isn’t coming after your maintenance business

  • Alex Neihaus 11:15 am on May 30, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 330i, bmw, e90, software

    why bmw is never going to threaten microsoft or apple, or carmakers stink at software

     

    When I first bought my 330i with the notorious iDrive (which, by the way, is very, very cool), I was stuck by the fact that the car seemed to be less a mechanical device than a digital one with wheels. That impression has only been confirmed over the last three years as the car has needed just three oils changes but half a dozen reprogrammings. When the car is reprogrammed, it takes the dealer more than a day and, if it crashes, not only does it have to be restarted, but the frakkin’ car (what am I going to do when Battlestar Galactica ends??) won’t even start until the entire image is properly downloaded. OK, I gotta admit I think that’s kinda cool, especially when the dealer does it on his nickel and you get a BMW loaner to drive for two days.

    But that isn’t what’s pissed me off. What gets my goat is that for the last three years, each reprogramming has added new functionality. The dealer doesn’t know what’s in the new release of E90 software. BMW keeps it a secret. They seem to see this as service and not as a benefit to owners. We upgrade our computers, why doesn’t BMW encourage us to update our cars?

    Want some examples? Here’s partial list of functionality that’s been added to my car over the several reprogrammings it has had:

    • MP3 was added to the CD player
    • Color schemes in the graphics display were changed
    • iDrive performance was improved
    • A new automatic ventilation program was added to the climate control
    • New commands were added to the voice control system
    • Mileage has improved by about 3%

    So, what am I bitching about? Simple: if I didn’t have these things done under warranty repairs, I’d have never received them. Dealers won’t upgrade the car on request; you have to have a warranty problem. Plus, they have no idea what’s in these updates; they simply apply them when instructed to solve a problem — even a problem that has nothing to do with the lack of functionality provided in the updates. BMW never makes the list of enhancements public. My question is: why?

    Think of the revenue stream from upgrades from people who own a 2006 model which, when produced, didn’t have a timer to start the ventilation system on hot days, but which through the magic of software can be made to have it. (This actually happened in my last update and I had to download a manual for a 2007 model to figure out how it works!)

    I know why BMW is the best brand in the world. But nothing’s perfect…I suspect it’s more than a little German to keep adding functionality to older products but keep it a secret. Oracle, IBM and Microsoft people: sleep well tonight. BMW isn’t about to steal your maintenance agreements.

     
  • Riding the rails

  • Alex Neihaus 8:26 am on May 15, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: acela, high speed trains, t-mobile 3g

    acela in New Haven

    OK, so this isn’t going to be the most scintillating post I’ve written. Even I — (in)famous for the bitchin’, blastin’ blog post — need a little banality break now and then.

    The motivation to blog this morning is that I’ve written this post and uploaded it from an Acela train stopped in New Haven on the way to a business meeting in NYC. I’ve got my ThinkPad plugged in and my Internet connection going over an incredibly slow (but serviceable) T-Mobile Internet sharing connection on my cell phone. (Why it’s taken T-Mobile until now to launch 3G is beyond me. And the 3G network they are launching uses trash spectrum nobody else in the world is using.)

    Back to the post…I remember when a stop in New Haven on a Northeast Corridor train necessitated a switch from electricity to diesel. I remember when you couldn’t hold a cup of coffee on the train because the rails didn’t understand parallel. I also remember when “on time arrival” meant “sometime on the scheduled day.” And, the general condition of the car I am sitting in isn’t terrible, as far as public accommodations in the US go. So things are improved. And the Acela, for all its problems, really does beat an airplane ride for a Midtown meeting.

    But does this train — after all the investment and tax money — compare to the Shinkansen or the Inter-City Express or even the TGV? In a word, nope. No matter how much train buffs (a subculture I brushed up against when I was technology manager for the now-defunct Boston & Maine RR) wish it could be, this train isn’t even close. The cars are a little too run down. The service is a little too infrequent (why not Acela trains every 30 minutes in the morning and evening?).

    But the major problem? It’s a number: 3:16. That’s the published time from Route 128 to Penn Station. Even the Big Dig has been completed (at an astonishing cost and loss of life). But Amtrak’s promise of a 2:30 trip from Boston to New York hasn’t been realized…and I doubt it ever will.

    It’s a metaphor for the decline of American technology and capability. If ever there was a train route in the continental US that could support high-speed traffic, this is it. What a shame.

     
  • Deelip drinks Autodesk’s Kool-Aid

  • Alex Neihaus 4:11 pm on April 21, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply

    After Revit was purchased by Autodesk in 2002, I spent a grand total of a few months there. I’ve not written much publicly about my experiences there because they have a reputation for long institutional memories. I am sure that this post isn’t going to make them love me any more than they already don’t.

    Before Autodesk bought Revit, I always wondered about the apparent favorable bias among the CAD press towards them. In my time in the industry, they were pushing their boots into customers’ and partners’ heads (something I suspect they’re still pretty good at) but portions of the CAD press always seemed to give them a bye. Truth be told, there were some CAD journalists who hated them unreasonably, but by and large, they got a pass.

    Still, the “professional” CAD press was careful to hide it. Very careful. But it was there. In an incident that blew up on Autodesk, a letter that Revit sent to ADT consultants ended up in the hands of a journalist who told me Autodesk’s PR department had faxed it to him. They were simply reprinting whatever they were sent by Autodesk.

    But now, and for the first time, we got ‘em. Dead to rights. Check out this quote from Deelip Mendez, one of the arrivistes in the CAD press, a blogger who would have little traffic if not for the fact that Ralph and Roopinder have been promoting his blog:

    But I know that Autodesk Marketing is the best there is and when they say something, I listen and wonder.

    This comes in a long, unfocused post in which Deelip tries hard to make something out of nothing between Dassault and SolidWorks. But there it is: the slavish, unthinking bias that Autodesk is…wait for it…a thought leader. And that that leadership comes from…squeeze your eyes shut in case you are blinded by the revelation…the marketing department.

    In being so overt, Deelip has blown everyone’s cover, the thin veneer of independence that has been carefully nurtured for a long time. The CAD world is a small place…there’re only so many vendors to bill. Between dissing startups as irrelevant (they said that about both Revit and Seemage) and kowtowing to ADSK’s marketing department, it must get monotonous drinking the same flavor of Kool-Aid all the time.

     

     
  • The sweet smell of retaliation, or how a great blog can really mess you up

  • Alex Neihaus 3:01 pm on April 18, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , clicky, retaliation

    retaliation

    At work, we use Clicky web analytics to supplement our web statistics. It’s a great service, and Sean at Clicky has always answered my questions quickly and personally. In short, they’re exactly the kind of people you want to work with.

    So, I can imagine how furious he must have been when he had to deal with Linksys "technical" support on a blown switch.

    You can read the story here, but the real point is that Sean got smart: he used his blog and his knowledge of SEO to make damn sure Linksys will pay and pay. Just check out the searches Sean posts. If I were looking for a switch, I’d search for exactly these terms and walk, no make that run, away from this particular switch.

    The moral: not only is blogging the ultimate version of Consumer Reports (minus the holier-than-thou-1930’s Socialist slant), but the sweet, sweet satisfaction of really stickin’ it to mega-roadblocks like Linksys delivers catharsis and helps others.

    Right on, Sean. And thanks for the warning, though I wish you had some Netgear stuff to trash. I want them to suffer, too, but my blog isn’t as well trafficked.

     
  • A nasty surprise: FiOS and HDTV on demand can crash your Internet connection

  • Alex Neihaus 9:56 pm on April 5, 2008 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: fios, hdtv, iptv, moca, qam, vod

    fios-can't-deliver-high-speed-internet-and-hdtv-on-demand

    You know all those commercials Verizon is running with a young boy talking about “30db hot” and in which, in open-mouth wonderment, he seems to be awash in light? Well, fudgedaboutit, at least when it comes to multiple HD video on demand streams and high-speed Internet.

    Not many people realize that FiOS uses a hybrid system for video. It uses both QAM (what we think of as “normal” cable) for much of its programming. But for VOD, it’s IPTV. IPTV data streams are delivered via the Actiontec routers that Verizon requires customers to use because these routers have a network interface module, or NIM, that bridges IEEE 802.3 Ethernet as we know it to the set-top boxes. The set-top boxes are connected by coax cable, of course, and a standard called MoCA (multimedia over COAX) enables them to receive IPTV. It might surprise people to know that FiOS set-top boxes get an IP address from the router just like computers do. To try to make sure that the VOD video streams do not detract from subscribers’ Internet connections, the router implements QOS for the the IPTV video streams.

    Complex? You bet. And it all worked great until VZ started offering HDTV VOD.

    Tonight, for the first time, I had two HDTV streams going and it killed my Internet connection. I called VZ and the first thing the guy tried to make me do was factory-reset the router. When I objected, he told me that “hundreds of customers watch multiple HTDV VOD streams while getting full bandwidth from Internet connections.” Because I insisted, he agreed to consult with a video expert.

    A few minutes later, he came back on the line and admitted that FiOS can’t support more than one simultaneous HDTV video on demand stream. He didn’t blame the router. Astonishingly, he blamed the ATM switches in the central office. (ATM is old, old, old, and I can’t believe VZ implemented it in FiOS…they can’t seem to help themselves. Billions to build a new network, but they’re still using protocols from the 70s in it.)

    Bottom line: when you get FiOS you get fiber, all right. But you don’t get the ability to really use its capacity. In fact, it’s easy to overwhelm it.

     
    • hwilner 3:47 pm on April 9, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      While most FiOS TV customers aren’t served by the ATM network architecture you describe, we don’t currently support multiple streams on HD VOD in any of our markets. Keep in mind that this limitation affects only HD VOD – FiOS TV supports multiple simultaneous streams for our HD Local and National programming in all markets. We continue to enhance the service and expect to support more than one stream for HD VOD in the future.

      Heather Wilner
      Verizon – Media Relations

  • Never one to let an Internet fad go by, it’s my turn to say…

  • Alex Neihaus 7:39 pm on April 1, 2008 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 80s, rick astley, rickroll

    Ha ha! You’ve been Rickrolled!

     
    • limeduck 7:54 am on April 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      I had hair like that in the 80’s. Call me old-fashioned, but I kinda prefer the good old-fashioned duckroll.

  • WordPress 2.5 rocks

  • Alex Neihaus 11:07 am on April 1, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: drupal, joomla, WordPress

    WordPress 2.5 rocks

    I know I’ve been very lax about blogging here because launching a whole new category of enterprise application development software is taking up all my time.

    Still, I am compelled to stop for a moment and give WordPress2.5 maximum love for being a killer upgrade. Installation was a snap, and the single problem I had with uploading images was taken care of with one Google search.

    In a word, awesome. Those VCs funding Joomla and Drupal are going to wish they’d never written the check.

     
  • Hey, guys, want to know what a feminist writing in the The Atlantic thinks of you?

  • Alex Neihaus 5:08 pm on March 6, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: feminism, marriage, misandry, the atlantic

    what women want

    In one of the worst examples of misandry posing as journalism I’ve read in many, many moons, Lori Gottleib writes in The Atlantic that women should just “settle” for men they don’t necessarily love in order to get married.

    Guys, you gotta read this article. Initially, you get the feeling that you are being given a peek inside the most mysterious organ on the planet: the romantic pathways of an American woman’s brain. Gottleib writes in a “let’s just dish” style that I imagine will resonate with women. That tone lets you feel like you are about to be enlightened about what’s really going on inside as women deal with the tough balances of marriage, family and work. You keep hoping that Gottleib will recognize the real value of marriage: the roles fathers can play in their children’s lives.

    But it’s not to be. Turns out this all about Gottleib. Her penis-and-a-paycheck feminism turns out to be simple narcissism and personal regret at single motherhood posing as “don’t make the mistake I made” pseudo-advice. Check this out:

    My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go.

    Uh, “infrastructure??” Is that some kind of new term for a human male?

    Using that all-important cultural touchstone, the sitcom, as a reference point, Gottleib declares, “So what if Will and Grace weren’t having sex with each other? How many long-married couples are having much sex anyway?” Uh, sorry, Lori. If you knew much about men, this wouldn’t be a question.

    Gottleib goes on and on and on and on about…herself. Her son, someone that should’ve figured prominently in the logic for settling, gets short shrift:

    Even women who settle but end up divorced might be in a better position than those of us who became mothers on our own, because many ex-wives get both child-support payments and a free night off when the kids go to Dad’s house for a sleepover. Never-married moms don’t get the night off. At the end of the evening, we rush home to pay the babysitter, make any houseguest tiptoe around and speak in a hushed voice, then wake up at 6 a.m. at the first cries of “Mommy!”

    It’s all so disingenuous. At the end of the day, this article devalues men and objectifies them in ways no male writer could ever hope to get away with when discussing women. It’s a damn shame The Atlantic is so important a magazine. Someone might actually believe this tripe.