Archive for 2011



The gods and goddesses of Olympus have listened! I was so lucky to have been able to go to one of the most reputable management schools in the world the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) last April 15, 2011 let alone be in the presence of Mr. Gen Kanai the Director of Asia Business Development to talk about "Lessons from Mozilla" and how the global community created a popular free software for over 400 Million people worldwide!

Yes, take that out of your head now... I am in the presence of people from Mozilla; so I've got to listen since this is professionally in my niche. Management of people and communities is pretty hard and if the actual technological group that they have would involve millions of programmers, software engineers and computer enthusiasts; it would be information overload. We probably all use Mozilla and some add ons of it on our computers; and isn't it a great choice over the highly commercialized and overrated Internet Explorer? I personally love Beta 4.0 (the one I'm currently using) and they already have it tested and ready for release in a few months.


One of the key points that I liked is pushing "decision making procedures" to the edges.

Being Open source has a lot to do with Mozilla's success because the feedback and general work cut out for the browser and other software from the same company is made for and by people who joined the organization. This also includes bug reports, code releases and versions upon versions of the browser if a fix or two comes along. Managing these people would take a keen eye for those that can be accepted as fact and those which you just shrug off because it wouldn't work. Mr. Kanai showed us several people ranting off on issues regarding the famous browser and even if they (Mozilla) knew some of them (already) were just known issues they still listened to some of it since it made sense. The community they have plays an important role in where the project/software development was heading; and it is how these things converge without having conflict for all those who contributed in these projects. I can imagine if my inputs would just go to the bin if I felt that it would have made a difference and they just didn't take me seriously I'd probably be mad and call for a military junta. If they can do it with this management model they must have been doing something right. I'll try to employ it on the communities I manage and see if the outcome would turn out to be the same or relatively very different.

These are some of the things we got to touch on in very detailed examples throughout the talk with Mr. Gen Kanai.

While this talk was happening I had a few questions in mind. Good thing someone asked it for me... how do they finance operations in Mozilla? (which makes sense since they need to pay for CEO's, Directors and whatnot) he said it simply; that search engine Google played a big part of it since this defaults as their webpage every time the browser launches. The answer to the question every one asks though as to "What does Mozilla do?" is simple... they promote CHOICE and INNOVATION on the Internet. That does make them a better browser than anything I've seen; hence, I choose to stay with them too! =)

What make this organization unique is their standing Non-Profit status. If I owned a corporation this big I would have wanted to still earn something from it since in the real world (let's face it!) you need to get paid for what you work for. I'm very impressed though that they have kept it this way since the early time of browser wars and with nobody holding them down they are still doing great in spite of the joys and wonders of economic instability in the US and elsewhere in the world.

A realization: You can get a lot of ideas from the community and you should learn to listen to what they have to say no matter how small or preposterous it could be with other people.




Thank you so much to Asia Society Philippine Foundation Inc. and AIM for hosting the event.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Asia Society "Asia Society is a non profit organization with a mission to promote understanding of Asia through education,lectures, films, exhibitions, conferences, seminars and travel- study tours." About Mr Gen Kanai "Mr. Gen Kanai is responsible for business development for Mozilla in Asia, community marketing and development. He was also part of the organization responsible for the launch of Technocrati Japan. He also worked for Sony Marketing of Japan, Sony Electronics, Inc., and Toyota Motor Sales, USA Inc.among others."

To get in touch with Asia Society and their projects simply call (+632)7524374 and (+632)8108938 or visit their website at http://asiasociety.org/centers/philippines



COWPhotobucket

Lessons From Mozilla With Gen Kanai


Networking giant Cisco has sent 550 pink slips this weekend to employees of FLIP Video, the most popular hand held video camera in the US. I own a couple of these and I am also shocked about this decision by John Chambers and his men but this is apparently the only thing they can do in this situation. The Flip hasn't been selling well in the US Market since a lot of competitors also ventured into the same gadget. The price difference is huge with Flip pegged at under 200 dollars and the profit from it wasn't as it was expected to be. Though I have been a huge Flip Ultra user these past few years, I thought they were stable and can provide after sales support. They didn't concentrate on providing so and the technical issues of each unit were piling up. The forum was their only channel and things like these can't be manually fixed. They usually throw it out if it is broken. Not a good investment even for a cheap camera.

As for where those employees will go, no one knows but since it did perform poorly this year I hope their decision to move the UMI into enterprise would bear something good. A lot of UMI users already know how expensive the unit is and with that bundled with Verizon or whatnot for connections it'll be hard to recuperate from the losses the already incurred. If money from this project would not increase this year. UMI might be the next one to say goodbye.

In the meantime.. here's John Chambers calling ducks inside the office... LOL







COWPhotobucket

Cisco Gives Up FLIP Video, Sends UMI to Enterprise

Cisco gave in and announced a new version of it's consumer grade UMI teleconference device. It was supposed to only cater to high end individuals but with dwindling sales and a great competitor by the name of LOGITECH the immediately released a 720p version, got their rates lower and made it work on lower bandwidth requirements. This has startled the network gurus of PC world and Engadget these past few days and they were all praises. Imagine how this would end up on people's living room in the next few years. The promos for partner Internet connection giants were also tempting prompting a great response from consumers in the US. They also had this service work across platforms such as their business grade teleconference services and Google.



People who have sampled this UMI technology just saw their favorite NBA superstars and did you see their reaction? Yeah it was like the person they were talking to was in the same room. This is the actual selling point of the UMI system and if they can deliver this pretty soon with no glitches it would earn the much needed money they invested in it making every Cisco shareholder happy.... your thoughts?!





COWPhotobucket

Cisco Cuts UMI HD Video Conference Prices



So there goes my fascination with the Apple IPAD. I will never get that gadget since I have tried it numerous times and it just fell to the feel of a BIG ITOUCH and more expensive version of it. I need a tablet and was gearing towards the Samsung Galaxy a couple of days ago but when I saw this preview for the Blackberry Playbook I changed my mind BIGTIME!

I've been a blackberry user for a long time now and the deal is I've learned to love this RIM operated gadget. The thing boasts of a 7 inch display but can rival the best 1024×600 resolution money can buy. Small and compact; but very powerful... that is what I'd like it to be. I don't want anything complicated but just give me the WIFI or 3G-4G capability and I'm ready to go. The portability of it (since it is quite smaller than the IPAD) might have sold me this device but they say this will be sold to consumers this quarter (in the US) and the latter half of the year worldwide. If they finally switch to Windows7 just like Nokia then it would be not my cup of tea.


Mike Lazaridis CEO of Blackberry. Holding that gear in his hands!

Please release this one with a great price! Rumors say that it'll go for around 800 dollars too. That will be too expensive for me ugh! There will be a release of IPAD 2 also in the works which is rumored to be done on March 2 on their Apple event.

As for me I'll go for the galaxy, but if they release this with e different price point I'll go for the Blackberry Playbook.



COWPhotobucket

Blackberry Playbook

- Copyright © TechCOW - The Geek Within - Blogger Templates - Powered by Blogger - Designed by Johanes Djogan -