Random Thoughts

Apple turned around my update quickly. At 5pm yesterday the updated version of the app is now live on the App Store. Let me know what you think!

I started writing this app years ago, and I try to put out a new version each year, just to keep up with Apple’s API changes. The last two versions are the biggest changes I’ve had to make in a while.

First, Apple has removed their social sharing capabilities, requiring me to re-write the app to use both Twitter and Facebook’s own APIs. Both of these have ballooned the size of my app from only about 8MB to over 100MB! Crazy. {Well after I posted it, I see it is only 15MB, so I guess that is not too bad)

I also added a feature I am looking forward to, and that is tracking the total number of people in meetings over time. The app captures the # of people only twice, each run. Once when you press “Quorum”, meaning that we know how many people had to wait before the meeting started, and once when the meeting ends. While this will undercount the number if people leave early, it will give you a cool metric of how many people you meet with.

One key thing to know is that I don’t ever have access to this information. All data is stored on the persons own iPhone, so the only time any information is shared, is if you setup twitter to say how much time was wasted. And even this is based on time, number of people and the rate you provide. As such, it is pretty hard for anyone to back out any real data. So what do you think? I’d love to hear from you!

Hope to get the Domain name moved over as soon as I can, but for now you can find my posts at http://rowewp.mydrobo.com – Hope to be posting more soon.

Btw, I did just submit an updated to my app -WastedTime to the Apple App Store. Nice to be able to program a bit.

after checking the price increase of my hosting provider, I will be either shutting down or moving this site next month. In the end, for a hobby site, it is not worth the hosting fees to keep it running on this provider. It’s not that they are too expensive, but that the return is not worth it. I will also be looking at if I can truly self host, we shall see.

I had originally thought about writing a post for Thanksgiving, about all the things that I am thankful for, but realized I just didn’t have the time. I have decided to write a bit later and think thru the last year and all the things I am thankful for, and all the things I am looking forward to, in the world of tech.

1) The many waves of technological advancement. I’ve been a big fan of tech since I was able to take a computer class when I was in the fifth grade. I was lucky enough to be part of a small group of students that got to take college classes in fifth grade. I still remember all three classes I took, one was Egyptian history, one was aeronautics (and flight) and the last was computers. Now this was in the mid-1970s and a computers class meant cards, green screens and green bar paper. Seeing the various transitions in computing over the years has been fantastic. Transitioning from mainframes to PCs, from PCs to the Web, from Web to Mobile, and now to wearables and sensors. Each of these waves have been made possible by distruptive innovation. And we are living thru one right now. The rate and pace of computing power increase, the ubiquity of communication/connectivity, and the enablement of voice and AR as means of interacting with computing devices, is bringing many new challenges to policy, privacy and profitability. Companies are having to think about new business models, governments are having to work thru security and privacy policy, and individuals need to re-assert the rights to their own data (think of all the issues uncovered by Equifax’s news this year).

2) Backlash driving political engagement. I have long considered myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Right now there’s not a single political party that matches that world view. We have the right that claims fiscal conservatism but their policies drive high deficiets and do not address the basic requirements of governing, i.e. providing an environment that promotes all of the citizens of the country. On the left they claim progressive, but they have alienated a large swath of the population, which is actually driving much more backsliding of many of the social policies that have been fought for over the years. An educated and informed citizen is a bedrock of our country and both parties have actively driven wedge issues as a means of playing to their base. If we are to continue for another 250 years, heck another 50 years, we need to get back to a much more centrist set of policies. Seeing a resurgence of political engagement on both sides of all issues, will hopeful drive us to compromise and compassion, instead of the current policy of “my way or the highway”!

3) Music. I love music, and this year I had the opportunity to perform in a world premier opera, participate in a long weekend of incredible music and hear new music on an almost daily basis through online technology. I have been signing since I was a small child and the opportunity to continue to sing as an adult has been a highlight for me. Singing brings me joy, relaxation, excitement and positive feedback when I get to do it in front of an audience of strangers.

I hope that next year, will see more cool and exciting technology, an increase of political engagement that drives us towards compassion and compromise, and many more songs.

A quick poem I created during a walk today:

Too much
Information
Connecting unknowable
Knowledge

Transparency
Over sharing
Cooking
Knives

Titter
Instagram
Communities
Kindergarten

Tale-tale
Opportunities
Consumerism
Kremlinology

Bad
Offering
Orthogonal
Madness

While the title may seem like click bate, I really believe this is true. I’ve been thinking about how many people have gotten rid of their libraries (Music, Videos, Games, etc,) for the convenience of streaming content. All you have to do is start the latest app and you now have access to most of the music you like, most of the movies you want to watch, and most of the books you may want to read. It’s so easy and it only costs $10 per month per service.
As you may know, if you follow my blog, I had to rebuild my NAS of my Video collection. Not a problem, I own the Blu-ray and DVDs for the movies and TV shows, so I just fired up handbrake and MakeMKV to start rebuilding. As I was going thru them, some of the Blu-Ray’s were combo packs with the digital downloads. Of course the codes are no longer valid.
In the mean time Disney just partnered with a bunch of other companies and released their new Movies Anywhere app and platform, and if you connect some of your other accounts you get free movies. Now why would they do this? I believe they do it so they can get visibility to those accounts and ultimately allow them to gain additional data about you and your viewing habits.
All of this is still OK, better customer knowledge means better targeted ads, etc.
However, with any digital media that you don’t own, the provider can disable the content. Imagine if the book burning parties of the 1930’s could have been done with a push of a button. Wiping out years of knowledge and content in seconds – amazing German efficiency. And now, let’s look at all the data that can be seen and used to correlate “incorrect” thoughts of behaviors. So something that was OK this year, becomes incorrect next year. We can know identify and target that content and delete it.

We are 30 years into the business cycle of Shareholder value. And over those thirty years we’ve seen a major shift in how businesses behave. The idea of Shareholder value was popularized by Jack Welsh. The basic idea can be netted out to the idea that if you take care of the Shareholder, by increasing the value of the stock, all the rest of a businesses priorities will be aligned to grow the business, keeping customers and employees happy too. While there are many articles available now, as to why this is not necessarily true.

To start with let’s focus on what value is to the shareholder. Shareholders are people who buy stock low, in order to sell it high. That’s the value, they get “profit” from their share purchases. The company does not get any value from the shareholders. Companies only get the value from their stock, when they offer new shares to the market. Those shares get sold, and the company get’s an infusion of cash. The difference between the original prices the company can offer it at, and the price that the seller gets is not captured by the company, but by the seller of the stock who bought it from the company. So at the very simplest, Stock is only valuable to a company when it issues new shares. But, since publicly traded companies have officers (AKA executives) the biggest value to the company is as a way of compensating executives, who receive stock as part of the compensation packages (usually at a lower price than it is available on the public market at time of issuance). In this regard, executives are shareholders of the company, and they receive move value if the price of them stock grows quickly from the time of issuance and when they can sell it. Companies that “grow” quickly, will provide a lot of value to the shareholder.

Employees, on the whole, want a stable work environment that allows them to utilize their skills, grow new ones, and have a rewarding career that reduces the amount of stress in their personal lives. Seeing your work being used in the market is rewarding, and knowing that you have the time to improve your products or services leveraging your abilities. Being recognized for your contribution is extremely important for many employees, and sharing the reward of the company’s success provides a powerful incentive to rank and file employees. For many years, employees could achieve this by getting stock from the company in a manner similar to the executive team. This helps employees, align their priorities to those of the executive team. But does it align with the customer?

But what about the value to customers. Let’s try and see how this is helpful. Customers what high value products and services at a low price. Maximizing the value of the investments in those products and services. They also want to buy things that have long life, again to maximize their investments. This means they want stable companies, that support their products over time. If customers perceive ongoing value, they will continue to buy those goods and services. If the product or service is complex to implement and use, then stability in use, without a lot of complex upgrades and changes, may be more valuable, then lots of feature upgrades. Feature complete (or good enough) products and services are therefore more important than change and growth.

So if we look at these competing priorities, it seems to me that focusing on Shareholder value, while powerful for rewarding executives and investors, does it benefit employees, and ultimately customers? Customers are critical in the life of a company. I would say, without customers there is no value for businesses. Customers, can be other companies, individual, and governments but ultimately the provide the revenue that drives all aspects of value. If you keep customers happy and engaged, then your company should make an appropriate revenue, allowing you to pay your employees and executives appropriately. What about the Shareholders? Well they make their money in speculation in the post initial offering, I say: don’t worry about them. Don’t measure yourself on their profits, that’s a separate business.

I have a problem, I like to own my media. Yes, I know in this age of streaming music, streaming video, and streaming games, why would anyone want to own their media.

First off, if you watch the changing landscape of services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Apple, etc. The various media services are constantly adding and removing content. Everyone is trying to figure out how to eek out as much “Value” (AKA – money) from every piece of content. Most of the money doesn’t go to the creators, but is siphoned away by producers, distributors, lawyers, and agents. And, if you have any network issues, you Chan’s necessarily get access to specific content.

Years ago, I started converting a ton of old media, LPs, Cassettes, and VHS tapes, to digital and storing them on my NAS. I also made DVD and CDs from those newly digitized files.

So as I started dealing with reorganizing my terra-bytes of media content, I ended up finding multiple copies of content across my NAS drive. I used a few tools – including Gemini 2 to find and clean this up. Imagine my surprise when I re-established my media library and discovered that I had accidentally deleted full copies of my movies library.

So for the next few months, I will be re-ripping my newly created DVDs from old shows I was in and other content.

*sigh*