The Smartphone Technology Has No Boundaries. A phone so flexible you can wear it on your wrist: Android Flexy, not only smart but fashionable?
Think a flexible smartphone is just science fiction? You might have to think again, thanks to Samsung. The Korean company recently unveiled Galaxy Skin, an Android smartphone that can take on different shapes and take on even hammer blows, set for a 2012 Q2 release. So aside from its flexible form, what specs can Galaxy Skin boast of? For starters, it will have a flexible 4″ AMOLED display (800×480) made of plastic polyimide substrate. Samsung already confirmed that they have started production of such screens. This form of AMOLED technology consumes less energy but still delivers good screen brightness compared to the normal Samsung AMOLED screens. Other known specs of Galaxy Skin include 1 GB RAM; 1.2 GHz processor; 8 MP rear camera and VGA front camera with auto focus, self-portrait, stop motion, action shot, and Panorama shots; and 1500 mAh battery. Connectivity-wise, it has Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0, and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n features. It will reportedly run on Android Jellybean (the next Google OS version after Ice Cream Sandwich), but there are speculations that Google will make a special version for it, namely Android Flexy. With the Galaxy Skin, one can have table clock, smart projector, or even a wristwatch.
Brilliant Letter Leaked: #RIM Top-Level Employee addresses CEOs: “I Have Lost Confidence” How many could apply this to their own working environments?
Today a letter slipped out addressed to RIM’s co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis. It was written by a “high-level” employee, who BGR claims to have identified and confirmed as the author. The letter is not angry, disgruntled, nor does it cross the line. It is a simple, heartfelt plea to get RIM back in the game.
There’s a lot we can talk about when it comes to RIM’s “struggle” as of late. We can comment on the half-baked BlackBerry PlayBook and the lack of worthwhile apps. We can talk about the fact that the company’s leaders (Lazaridis in particular) have shown no humility whatsoever over the drop in their platform’s popularity, made poignant in this BBC interview. We can discuss how the transition to QNX is about four years too late, and taking more time to deliver than the company can afford. We can even comment on how RIM’s dual-leadership hasn’t evolved to meet the expectations of today’s mobile marketplace, and that both ex-employees and (obviously) current employees are well aware of it. But there’s no reason to.
The author of this letter puts it better than any of us could because he (or she) knows exactly how it feels to raise the mast on a sinking ship. I truly and sincerely hope that the author of this letter is heard, without repercussions, and perhaps even given a solid pat on the back. Mike and Jim: Please, not just for you, but for all the folks out there who have been loyal to RIM and want their beloved BlackBerry back, please… shut your lips and learn.
While I hide it at work, my passion has been sapped. I know I am not alone — the sentiment is widespread and it includes people within your own teams.
Mike and Jim, please take the time to really absorb and digest the content of this letter because it reflects the feeling across a huge percentage of your employee base. You have many smart employees, many that have great ideas for the future, but unfortunately the culture at RIM does not allow us to speak openly without having to worry about the career-limiting effects.
Before I get into the meat of the matter, I will say I am not part of a large group of bitter employees wishing to embarrass us. Rather, I believe these points need to be heard and I desperately want RIM to regain its position as a successful industry leader. Our carriers, distributors, alliance partners, enterprise customers, and our loyal end users all want the same thing… for BlackBerry to once again be leading the pack.
We are in the middle of major “transition” and things have never been more chaotic. Almost every project is falling further and further behind schedule at a time when we absolutely must deliver great, solid products on time. We urge you to make bold decisions about our organisational structure, about our culture and most importantly our products.
While we anxiously wait to see the details of the streamlining plan, here are some suggestions:
1) Focus on the End User experience
Let’s obsess about what is best for the end user. We often make product decisions based on strategic alignment, partner requests or even legal advice — the end user doesn’t care. We simply have to admit that Apple is nailing this and it is one of the reasons they have people lining up overnight at stores around the world, and products sold out for months. These people aren’t hypnotized zombies, they simply love beautifully designed products that are user centric and work how they are supposed to work. Android has a major weakness — it will always lack the simplicity and elegance that comes with end-to-end device software, middleware and hardware control. We really have a great opportunity to build something new and “uniquely BlackBerry” with the QNX platform.
Let’s start an internal innovation revival with teams focused on what users will love instead of chasing “feature parity” and feature differentiation for no good reason (Adobe Flash being a major example). When was the last time we pushed out a significant new experience or feature that wasn’t already on other platforms?
Rather than constantly mocking iPhone and Android, we should encourage key decision makers across the board to use these products as their primary device for a week or so at a time — yes, on Exchange! This way we can understand why our users are switching and get inspiration as to how we can build our next-gen products even better! It’s incomprehensible that our top software engineers and executives aren’t using or deeply familiar with our competitor’s products.
I’m going to say what everyone is thinking… We need some heavy hitters at RIM when it comes to software management. Teams still aren’t talking together properly, no one is making or can make critical decisions, all the while everyone is working crazy hours and still far behind. We are demotivated. Just look at who our major competitors are: Apple, Google & Microsoft. These are three of the biggest and most talented software companies on the planet. Then take a look at our software leadership teams in terms of what they have delivered and their past experience prior to RIM… It says everything.
3) Cut projects to the bone.
There is a serious need to consolidate our focus to just a handful of projects. Period.
We need to be disciplined here. We can’t afford any more initiatives based on carrier requests to squeeze out slightly more volume. Again, back to point #1, focus on the end users. They are the ones making both consumer & enterprise purchase decisions.
Strategy is often in the things you decide not to do.
On that note, we simply must stop shipping incomplete products that aren’t ready for the end user. It is hurting our brand tremendously. It takes guts to not allow a product to launch that may be 90% ready with a quarter end in sight, but it will pay off in the long term.
Look at Apple in 1997 for tips here. I really want you to watch this video because it has never been more relevant. It is our friend Steve Jobs in 97 and it may as well be you speaking to RIM employees and partners today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY
4) Developers, not Carriers can now make or break us
We urgently need to invest like we never have before in becoming developer friendly. The return will be worth every cent. There is no polite way to say this, but it’s true — BlackBerry smartphone apps suck. Even PlayBook, with all its glorious power, looks like a Fisher Price toy with its Adobe AIR/Flash apps.
Developing for BlackBerry is painful, and despite what you’ve been told, things haven’t really changed that much since Jamie Murai’s letter. Our SDK / development platform is like a rundown 1990′s Ford Explorer. Then there’s Apple, which has a shiny new BMW M3… just such a pleasure to drive. Developers want and need quality tools.
If we create great tools, we will see great work. Offer shit tools and we shouldn’t be surprised when we see shit apps.
The truth is, no one in RIM dares to tell management how bad our tools still are. Even our closest dev partners do their best to say it politely, but they will never bite the hand that feeds them. The solution? Recruit serious talent, buy SDK/API specialist companies, throw a truckload of money at it… Let’s do whatever it takes, and quickly!
5) Need for serious marketing punch to create end user desire
25 million iPad users don’t care that it doesn’t have Flash or true multitasking, so why make that a focus in our campaigns? I’ll answer that for you: it’s because that’s all that differentiates our products and its lazy marketing. I’ve never seen someone buy product B because it has something product A doesn’t have. People buy product B because they want and lust after product B.
Also an important note regarding our marketing: a product’s technical superiority does not equal desire, and therefore sales… How many Linux laptops are getting sold? How did Betamax go? My mother wants an iPad and iPhone because it is simple and appeals to her. Powerful multitasking doesn’t.
BlackBerry Messenger has been our standout, yet we wasted our marketing on strange stories from a barber shop to a horse wrangler. I promise you, this did nothing to help us in the mind of the average consumer.
We need an inventive and engaging campaign that focuses on what we are about. People buy into a brand / product not just because of features, but because of what it stands for and what it delivers to them. People don’t buy “what you do,” people buy “why you do it.” Take 3 minutes to watch the this video starting from the 2min mark:
6) No Accountability – Canadians are too nice
RIM has a lot of people who underperform but still stay in their roles. No one is accountable. Where is the guy responsible for the 9530 software? Still with us, still running some important software initiative. We will never achieve excellence with this culture. Just because someone may have been a loyal RIM employee for 7 years, it doesn’t mean they are the best Manager / Director / VP for that role. It’s time to change the culture to deliver or move on and get out. We have far too many people in critical roles that fit this description. I can hear the cheers of my fellow employees now.
7) The press and analysts are pissing you off. Don’t snap. Now is the time for humility with a dash of paranoia.
The public’s questions about dual-CEOs are warranted. The partnership is not broken, but on the ground level, it is not efficient. Maybe we need our Eric Schmidt reign period.
Yes, four years ago we beat Microsoft when everyone said Windows Mobile with Direct Push in Exchange would kill us. It didn’t… in fact we grew stronger.
However, overconfidence clouds good decision-making. We missed not boldly reacting to the threat of iPhone when we saw it in January over four years ago. We laughed and said they are trying to put a computer on a phone, that it won’t work. We should have made the QNX-like transition then. We are now 3-4 years too late. That is the painful truth… it was a major strategic oversight and we know who is responsible.
Jim, in referring to our current transition recently said: “No other technology company other than Apple has successfully transitioned their platform. It’s almost never done, and it’s way harder than you realize. This transition is where tech companies go to die.”
To avoid this death, perhaps it is time to seriously consider a new, fresh thinking, experienced CEO. There is no shame in no longer being a CEO. Mike, you could focus on innovation. Jim, you could focus on our carriers/customers… They are our lifeblood.
8) Democratise. Engage and interact with your employees — please!
Reach out to all employees asking them on how we can make RIM better. Encourage input from ground-level teams—without repercussions—to seek out honest feedback and really absorb it.
Lastly, we’re all reading the news and many are extremely nervous, especially when we see people get fired. We need an injection of confidence: share your strategy and ask us for support. The headhunters have already started circling and we are at risk of losing our best people.
Now would be a great time to internally re-brand and re-energize the workplace. For example, rename the company to just “BlackBerry” to signify our new focus on one QNX product line. We should also address issues surrounding making RIM an enjoyable workplace. Some of our offices feel like Soviet-era government workplaces.
The timing is perfect to seriously evaluate at our position and make these major changes. We can do it!
Listening is the first step in social media. You have to listen to what others are saying about you before you jump into the fire. Listening will tell you what people are saying, and where they are saying it, so you know where to get started.
Many of these tools are Twitter-focused, because Twitter is the easiest place to get started in listening.
Here are 5 (FREE!) tools I recommend to get started.
At the bare minimum, you should use Google Alerts for your organization’s name, acronym, prominent staff names like your CEO, and large campaigns you’re working on. Depending on the number of mentions you get, you’ll probably want to set the alerts to come to your inbox as they happen, so you know quickly what’s being said and can determine a response, if needed.
Tweetdeck is great because it runs in the background and gives you desktop alerts for mentions, similar to Microsoft Outlook when you get a new email. You can customize the different columns and have an array of search terms for people talking about you on Twitter. For example, mine has the following columns: @ replies of my personal twitter account, @ replies of my organizational account, mentions of “humane society”, mentions of “hsus”, and direct messages. When you’re ready to get REAL serious, ask your IT department for a second monitor that you can put just Tweetdeck on. (See photo, below.)
Tweetbeep is essentially Google Alerts for Twitter. Whenever you're mentioned on Twitter, you’ll get sent an email with details of that mention. You can specify any search term you want. This is great for people who are not ready for the power of Tweetdeck with all its bells and whistles. Twitter is the most real-time account you have of what people are saying about you, so it’s really important to have a Twitter listening tool that matches your comfort level.
It is amazing, and scary, how many people still do not lock down the privacy on their Facebook profiles. That’s what makes Kurrently so useful: it’s a search engine for public Facebook updates. It actually now pulls in a lot more than Facebook updates, but that’s what I find it most useful for.
It is very important to think about your goals and how you’re going to measure success when diving into a new online venture, and listening is no different. There are many tools out there for measurement, but I like Twitter Analyzer, because of the breadth of statistics it provides and its ease of use. The graphs are pretty, too. It provides data such as number of followers, number of tweets, number of retweets, top hashtags, number of mentions, etc – which are great metrics. For Facebook, check out their built-in analytics for your fan page.
So you start listening, and you see people talking about you. You even see negative conversations. What do you do? When we see something being said about us, we kick a simple process into gear:
Identify the person behind it. What kind of influence do they have – how many followers do they have, what kind of people are following them? Are they a known detractor or troll?
Identify the tone. Are they annoyed? Angry? REALLY angry? This will give you an idea of how easily they can be persuaded.
Decide whether or not to respond. Based on tone and influence, you should make an executive decision on who this person is and if they can be turned around.
Craft the response. We work with our PR team to get our official stance or response on the issue, then craft it under 140 characters or less – (which can prove to be very challenging with a PR response!
Deliver the response. Always deliver in the medium the conversation began. For instance, if someone says something about you on Twitter, don’t go seeking them out on Facebook to send them a message.
Monitor the aftermath. Don’t just respond and walk away. Monitor the conversation following, but know when to reach a stopping point and move on.
This is mostly for negative conversation. If it’s positive, you should absolutely @reply them, follow them, or direct message them to start a relationship with them! If on Facebook, find their fan page and add them to your favorite pages, tag them in a status update, or post a message on their page from your fan page account.
It’s all about relationship building. Negative comments can often be turned into positive experiences! We often have listening experiences where people will say something negative, we’ll respond, and they can’t believe we were paying attention and took them time to respond to them. This kind of customer service is becoming more popular, but is still new – so take advantage of it!
As Director of Emerging Media at The Humane Society of the United States, Carie leads social media and online advertising campaigns for the nation’s largest and most powerful animal welfare organization. Though focusing on fundraising and advocacy on a day to day basis, she particularly enjoys using Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare for the purpose of community building. As media is constantly changing, a large part of Carie’s responsibilities include evaluating new technologies and trends, as well as brand monitoring. When Carie is not sitting in front of a computer, she enjoys being outside with her rescued pitbull, Bella. Find her on Twitter @cariegrls.
By Carie Lewis, Director of Emerging Media, Online Communications, 
