SOPA PIPA

It’s about the Internet. Our Internet. Your Internet.
The foundations of the Internet are at risk!

SOPA and PIPA legislation is about to construct a global firewall limiting free speech and putting websites at risk of shutdown for copyright infringement even if a person were to leave a comment on a page of the site that, in some way, breaches a copyright. In fact, even a search engine could face infringement charges and penalties for allowing links to sites that infringe copyrights.

If you don’t think this is right…
Call a US Senator today or visit http://stopthewall.us

The Internet is a thriving ecosystem that powers our economy and our society.

PIPA and SOPA threaten the web.

PIPA
PIPA is an acronym for the Protect IP Act, and was first introduced to the U.S. Senate on May 12, 2011 by Senators Patrick Leahy, Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley. It is also good to take note that PIPA is a re-written legislation, the original failed to pass and was called the ‘Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) of 2010′.

PIPA, if passed, would:

• Give U.S. corporations and the government the right to seek affirmative legal action with any website that they see as enabling copyright infringement whether of U.S. origin or not. Here is a breakdown of all that they will have the power to do.
• Force U.S. internet providers to block access to websites deemed as enablers of copyright infringement
• Seek legal action by suing search engines, blog sites, directories, or any site in general to have the black listed sites removed from their website
• Force advertising services on infringing websites, and those supporting of them, to remove them from their advertising accounts
• Give companies the power to sue any new websites that get started after this bill is passed, if they believe that they are not doing a good job of preventing infringement

SOPA

SOPA is an acronym for the Stop Online Piracy Act, and is a bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Lamar Smith on October 26, 2011.  SOPA is also built on previous legislation. This legislation was the PRO-IP Act of 2008.

SOPA, if passed, will work in conjunction with PIPA and is nothing more than a black list. Here is a breakdown of the power given to the US government and private corporations.

The U.S. Attorney General can now seek a court order that would force search engines, advertisers, DNS providers, server hosting firms, and payment processors from having any contact with allegedly infringing websites. You could lose your online business overnight!  You could lose your online business before even getting a date to defend your case in a court of law.

SOPA will allow private corporations to create their own personal hit lists composed of websites that they feel are infringing upon their copyrights. These companies would even be able to contact a website’s payment processor(s) directly and serve notice to cut off all payments involving the targeted website. The payment processors and website in question will have five days to act before the site is simply taken offline by the government authorities. Payment processors will have the power to cut off any website they work with as long as they can provide a reason why they believe a site is violating copyrights. Truth be told, payment processors can do this today too but SOPA forces them to be extra diligent and receptive after receiving correspondence from a corporate attorney who desires to attack using this broad brushstroke method of putting you and your site out of business.

If this isn’t scary enough, just imagine the internet becoming a hunting ground for any potential copyright violation. Of course the US government loves blogs and bloggers, so it is only natural to think that they will receive a lot of special attention. These acts make the blog owners responsible for everything that is displayed on their site, including comments left by visitors.

So say that an article is published on a blog featuring a logo, or trademark, of a given corporation and that given company doesn’t like that it is being put on display on the blogger’s site. Forget for a moment that the author of this article could have used the marks and logo as a teaching aid, critique, model of good design, or anything else, the author could be charged with copyright infringement and risk having the entire blog shut down within five days as they get added to the SOPA black list.   Think about it for a moment….The entire blog might not even belong to that author.  Is that a power that you want to put into the hands of corporations whose only interest is in discovering and shutting down cases of alleged copyright infringement online?  Please contact your Senator or or visit http://stopthewall.us today.

If you are a bear, you are a bear. If you are a dog, you are a dog. If you are a marketer, you are NOT an entrepreneur.

OK… now the longer version.

Marketing is about numbers and can be highly opportunistic in that, if something doesn’t work after a reasonable amount of testing, try something else. The numbers dictate the next action and thus, marketing (especially online marketing) is a very tactically oriented approach to success. Also, wrt online marketing, a marketer can jump from one product to the next quickly and easily by creating new lists of Customers and even by cross pollinating these lists.

The entrepreneur, on the other hand, is out to change the world with his or her vision. The best definition I’ve ever read on what an entrepreneur is, was written in 1975 by a professor at Harvard named Howard Stevenson.

“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”

This is categorically different from what marketers are tasked with. Marketers need resources that they can control or at least manipulate in order to achieve their objective. Entrepreneurs are strategic thinkers whereas marketers are tactical opportunists. This may sound a bit harsh but, please bear with me because my marketing oriented colleagues who see themselves as entrepreneurs have just gone belly up.

I’d like to help you avoid making a similar mistake by drawing your attention to one of the not so obvious yet, really poor recommendation made by these guru screwballs in the hopes that you heed my words of caution and can improve your business results at the same time.

The gurus stated as recently as December 2011 that entrepreneurs should put Customers to work to help improve the product and thus increase sales. They pitched ‘Ask Customers what they want, build it, deliver it and become fantastically wealthy in the process’. Fellow entrepreneurs and dear friends, this sounds easy enough and basic enough but it is a sure way to entrepreneurial failure. It is however a wonderful marketing tactic when used properly.

After a few years of sitting on the wall watching people act on such advice, we have come to the conclusion that this is a recipe for entrepreneurial business failure. There is one exception and that is the case where you wash, lather, rinse and repeat this cycle in as many different niches as possible. By our definition, this is not an entrepreneurial business model but rather an opportunistic approach to making money with slick marketing tactics. As a marketer, you can change direction as many times each month as you desire and you can continue to use process to drive your opportunistic fishing expeditions. If you catch a few thousand fish, you win and if your bucket is empty, you move on to the next hole. THe thing is that you do not build a sustainable business with this approach. You do however, have the possibility of earning a boatload of cash for yourself and your buddies until that niche dries up and you need to start all over again.

If an entrepreneur were to follow the guru’s advice, that business would very likely fail. The reasons are simple – part of every entrepreneur’s job is to invent the future. If you have a vision of improving a business model through the introduction of a new product or service, it is likely based upon your unique experiences in that industry. Your Customers have a tough enough time doing their own jobs. They don’t spend time trying to reinvent industries or improving how jobs are performed. Sure, every now and then you come across an exception. But you can’t bet the company on finding such a person within your Customer base.

Even more important to remember is that Customers typically don’t see the value in or need for a new product or service until they can either compare it with something that they use and know (perhaps a competitive product) or until they see a new product in action.

That means that if your firm is dependent on Customer feedback for innovation, you will always be behind the curve because Customers are only aware of a small sampling of what exists today. Resources and brainpower that could be applied to “inventing the future” at your firm will instead be used to catch up with features that lock the company into the past.

Your Customers can tell you about things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don’t rely on them to create the future road map for your product or service. That’s the takeaway here.

Since entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled, get out there and do your homework, create that vision and then build a business that adds value to a specific niche of Customers that are willing to pay for that value.

Every time you want to make any important decision, there are two possible courses of action. You can look at the array of choices that present themselves, pick the best available option and try to make it fit. Or, you can do what the true entrepreneur does: Figure out the best conceivable option and then make it available. Don’t ever ask your Customers where you should be headed. Just get up and lead instead.

Reminders.
Siri works with the reminders in iOS5 to make sure you don’t forget to do something. These are the first thing that most iPhone 4S owners get familiar with, and the longer I use Siri the more use I get out of reminders. I use it all the time for simple things.

My wife asks me to repair an item before our guests arrive and I tell Siri to “remind me to repair the dishwasher in an hour”. Today I told Siri to “remind me to water the plants” She did, and the plants are grateful.

I am getting good at not just using Siri for timed actions like those above, but for lots of other functions. I often tell Siri to “remind me to note something I need to remember” for anything I would normally jot down on a post-it note. This is so easy to do I never forget simple things like this, now that I have a personal assistant.

Requests for Information.
Like most folks I have become dependent on web searches to get information I need. Siri has assumed a big role in my quest for information, both simple searches I used to manually type into Google and others that are less structured.

Sunday I wondered what Roger Federer’s schedule looked like for the rest of the year so I had said “Siri, show me Roger Federer’s schedule”. Siri delivered a Google serp that took me right to the schedule I needed. Lucky guess? Perhaps… Convenient? Hell yea!

These are very simple examples, but I am gradually coming to depend on Siri to get me more specific information through Apple’s integration with other services. Preceding a request with “wikipedia” instead of Siri tells Siri I want her to use that service to look for the information I am requesting. You can also preface a question with Bing or Yahoo, if you want those services to be used. Now, not a ingle day passes without at least 5 queries or Siri.

Sending text messages.
In the beginning I would tell Siri to “Send a text to person’s name” along with the line of text I wanted to send. As I used Siri, I realized she could learn how those who I text frequently are related to me. Now I simply tell Siri to “Text my wife I will be running late” and after once telling Siri which contact is my wife, Siri takes care of the rest. I’ve done the same thing with my assistant and a few of my best friends. Since getting the iPhone 4S I find I send more sms thn ever before often, due to how easy it is with Siri.

I also use Siri’s ability to send text messages to tweet occasionally. I set up Twitter to allow tweeting via SMS, and trained Siri what number that was. Now I tell Siri to “Send a text to Twitter” followed by a short tweet. Nice and simple and totally hands-free. You can also configure Google+ and Facebook to allow you to post updates using this method.

Making phone calls.
I use Siri more and more to initiate phone calls, especially in the car. It is so easy to tell Siri to “call my wife at home” and have the call initiated with no further action required from me.

The same method is good for getting contact information I need. Asking Siri “what is The address for Client X?” is a lot easier than manually finding it in the Address Book. I can even ask Siri what so-and-so’s birthday is and get the date. I’d be great if more apps like SalesForce.com were to support Siri, then such address queries would be much easier. Alas, SalesForce.com are not known for reacting quickly to such requests

Setting alarms.
I now use Siri to set alarms. This is as simple as “Wake me tomorrow at 5:30″ or “set an alarm for 6:30″. That gets the nagging iPhone alarm set to disturb me appropriately.

Scheduling.
Siri is especially good at scheduling meetings and events. “Meet with Peter today at 14:00 gets the appropriate event in my schedule. I really like the ability to ask Siri “What does my schedule look like on Friday?” and having it shown. This is where the natural language of Siri really shines.

Siri is far from perfect, but as I use it more and more I am getting better at figuring out what type of natural language commands work best. I can state confidently that I am using the iPhone 4S and Siri more than I have used any other smartphone, because I am finding more things Siri can do for me all the time. It’s also a lot of fun!

Have a look for yourself,
It’s pretty amazing stuff.
Here is a collection of projects that our team Nuformer delivered.

I don’t enjoy wasting my time with video based games that challenge players to overcome ridiculous obstacles and unfathomable odds just to get to the other side where they can then compare their scores with those of other suckers who paid for the privilege (or the armor, medical kit, healing herbs, weaponry, speed, abilities or accessories that you need to buy to get there). Though, I do appreciate the brilliant and highly manipulative upsell techniques used.

Hey, don’t get me wrong.. It’s not that I object to some R&R after achieving desired results but there are so many ways to spend your time these days that learning seems to always take a back seat to gaming. To me, that is simply not right.

Then, one of my graphic designers showed me an animation that combines both learning and gaming in one skit. The caveat is that in order to participate, you need at least 9 lives, a medicine pouch, jumping and acrobatic abilities plus speed and dexterity. All accounted for: $49.99. So, the game is free, but to get to the other side… it’ll cost you an arm and a leg!

There are a few tablets around my office and home that I have used in many niches of my life and work. These include Android tablets big and small, a BlackBerry PlayBook, and even an HP TouchPad sitting quietly in its Touchstone dock. I have used at least a dozen different Android tablets in addition to the three I own. I use tablets often, and have grown increasingly frustrated over the inconsistent user experience. That is why I just bought an iPad 2.

I think the HP TouchPad is far ahead of all Android Honeycomb tablets as the user experience provided by webOS is much better than that of Honeycomb. Sadly, HP has orphaned the TouchPad, and it makes no sense to use it any longer. I need my mobile devices to evolve, in both system capability and apps available, and sadly, that’s not going to happen for the TouchPad.

Given the TouchPad’s pitiful state, I turned back to an Android tablet for my daily tablet fix. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a cool chunk of hardware, but it is saddled with the Honeycomb sloppiness. The same Android inconsistent performance and implementation on phones that drove me to the iPhone 4S, has now driven me to the iPad 2.

Tablets are really personal devices so lagging or slow performance, inconsistent app controls, and long app load times add up to an annoying user experience. A key ingredient for a tablet to be well received is smooth operation. When you tap something on the screen, the expected action should happen immediately. When you scroll down a long list or web page, that should happen with fluid motion. That is not the case with Android tablets.

I bought the original iPad when it was first launched, and knew it was going to start a tablet craze. I liked using the iPad, even though there weren’t a lot of good apps for it back then, and it became an integral part of my gadget usage. Sure we developed Apps for the iOS platform but, we also try to stay balanced and deliver for multiple platforms at the same time thus guaranteeing maximum reach for our Clients.

When the original Galaxy Tab arrived, I was drawn to the 7-inch form that better fit how I used tablets at the time and I still use it today. When I hit the point that I was using the smaller Tab most of the time, I passed the iPad to one of our team members for testing as it was just sitting there.

Owning the original iPad played a role in the purchase of the iPad 2. I was already invested in the iOS ecosystem, through the earlier iPad ownership and the new iPhone 4S I recently bought. Every app I have ever bought in the App Store was sitting there waiting to install on the new iPad 2. I didn’t have to invest a single cent to get going with the new iPad 2.

I will be describing some pros and cons of the iPad 2 in the future as I gain more experience that comes with daily use (it has become my main tablet of choice now). Rest assured I am quite happy with the purchase. The hardware is typical Apple quality, and the software works as expected. It is smooth and snappy, and already impacting my work in a positive way. It just works.

Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. Depending on the decision, sometimes you turn to your social graph, and sometimes you turn to Google. So, as a brand marketer, you need to know what online channels you should be targeting in order to reach the ideal audience for your product.

But regardless of what kind of consumer you’re trying to reach or what you’re selling, your SEO better be top notch — search is still the most important influencer on the web.

The infographic below, featuring data from M Booth and Beyond, analyzes the differences between high and low sharers and various purchasing decisions, helping brands to understand how to target consumers more effectively.

What kind of consumer are you? Let us know in the comments below.

For example, when we meet people that want to learn more about transforming a printed publication into an immersive mobile App, then it is really likely that they are marketers who know something about QR codes. If they don’t know what a QR code is or how to read one, then they probably shouldn’t be on our radar.

Hey, while you’ve got time, why not try on a QR code for size? Getting one is very easy, just go to this site or even this one and enter the requisite information and voila, you will be presented with a fully functional QR code that points smartphones to content that you would like them to view (or process).

I like to send my contacts to a page that is all about me since, IMHO.. that is the reason they requested the business card in the first place. I also enjoy making it more of a challenge for people to get in touch with me directly, since, let’s face it, not many of us can process more than 400 emails each day without having some sort of negative impact on our social lives (or sleep patterns).

One more thing, since QR codes can be URLs, text, phone numbers, google map location, an event announcement, a paypal buy now link or even SMS text messages… you might consider using multiple QR codes depending on your objective. Here are what a few of mine look like.

My mentor wanted to put a ding in the universe. Whether or not you think he succeeded, there is no doubt that he put one in the universal consciousness of consumers.

Below are some of my most memorable Steve Job’s quotes.

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
~ Steve Jobs

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick, don’t lose faith.”
~ Steve Jobs

“stay hungry, stay foolish”
~ Steve Jobs

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”
~ Steve Jobs

“Death Is The Destination We All Share”
~ Steve Jobs