Why Isn’t More Technology Like LEGO?

2012 has been a bumpy year so far, and my mind hasn’t been on the technology game at all.

So I had to ask my 8-year old son, Cole, for a column idea this week.

“Tell everybody about how much I like LEGO,” he says.

That’s not hard to do. He likes LEGO a lot. Like, a lot a lot.

And to be honest, so do I.

Many of us primarily look at LEGO products as toys.

But they can also be considered as a technology unto themselves, as base units for conceiving and building other things.

We Are the Product

Once upon a time, the customer was the foundation for an economic system. More and more, however, we are not. Instead, we are the product that drives market value in an entirely different direction.

Consider these two quotes published today. First, from Daring Fireball (‘Clopen’ Sounds Like Something You Treat With Antibiotics):

It isn’t just that Google doesn’t sell the Android operating system to consumers. It is that the consumer is Google’s product. Android is a delivery system to serve the consumer to Google’s target market — the advertisers.

Then this one, from a story on CBC.ca today (Richest CEOs will earn your 2012 salary by noon):

… many companies use stock options for a large part of their executives’ bonuses, a practice that not only drives up pay packages but also ties compensation to share price rather than company performance …

Google’s business plan is to resell its customers to advertisers. Corporations are motivated neither by customer satisfaction nor interest, but by shareholder return, which is measured not in our satisfaction, but numerical abstraction based in part on how many of us horses are locked in the stable.

It’s a world turned upside down when the customer becomes ancillary to a marketplace. Instead of being the driving purpose, we are now the product that drives value to other interests, like shareholders and advertisers.

No wonder the world’s economic climate is so screwy. We, the customer, are no longer the focus of a game that has become so grossly abstract as to be fantasy.

Telecom Foreign Investment: It’s Customers vs. Shareholders

2012 will see a lot of debate on the question of increased foreign investment into Canadian telecommunications carriers.

Small players and consumers like the idea of increased foreign investment because the inevitability of increased competition will drive prices down and quality of service up. Corporations don’t like it because it draws value away from their existing shareholders, as pointed out in a recent Globe and Mail article (Telecom firms under pressure to keep up with smartphone obsession):

Incumbents, though, oppose an asymmetrical reform of foreign investment rules, arguing it would benefit foreign investors at the expense of Canadian shareholders.

That’s the heart of the problem with Canada’s telecommunications carriers: a focus on shareholder value over customer satisfaction. (It’s definitely the problem with our northern carrier.)

However, keep this quote from Roger L. Martin’s “Fixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes, and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL“ in mind:

“We must shift the focus of companies back to the customer and away from shareholder value. The shift necessitates a fundamental change in our prevailing theory of the firm… The current theory holds that the singular goal of the corporation should be shareholder value maximization. Instead, companies should place customers at the center of the firm and focus on delighting them, while earning an acceptable return for shareholders.”

Imagine if Canadian telecommunications carriers put investors in the back seat and began to focus on customers instead. Because isn’t the the foundation of economic theory: a happy customer?

An iPhone User Considers Window Phone 7

There’s that moment you get off a plane in a foreign land. The air smells different. You don’t understand people when they talk to you. And they drive on the wrong side of the road.

It’s all so foreign, so different; but it’s also appealing and attractive.

That’s how it felt the the first time I used a Windows Phone 7 device.

I was instantly enchanted. But also disoriented and more than a little confused. It’s very different – in a good way – from my beloved iPhone.

A Mac User Considers His Zune Options

So, if it isn’t obvious yet, I’m quite smitten with Microsoft’s Zune subscription service. Mostly because it’s cheap.

I’m a heavy music consumer and spend anywhere from $50 to $200 every month at iTunes. And that’s with an extreme degree of musical abstinence!  I generally don’t listen to what I purchase more than two or three times, though, so it’s a very, very costly habit. Spending $10 at Zune every month for the same thing is an extremely attractive proposition, and it would grant me more options in terms of listening to what I want, rather than what I can afford.

The problem is, I don’t have a Windows-based PC. I don’t have a Windows Phone 7. I have an XBox, but I’m not always listening to music in my living room.

So how do I make Zune work for me?

With Music, Apple Pleases Older People, Microsoft Focuses on Youth

I’ve spent the last few weeks with a demo Windows Phone running the new version 7.5, or  ”Mango”, operating system. It’s been a splendid time. Microsoft is really onto something.

My regular phone is an iPhone 4S, though, and I have to say: there are no two operating systems so different as Apple’s iOS, which runs on my iPhone, and Mango. They differ in every way, from philosophy, to user experience, to look and feel. And that’s a good thing.

One key element I’ve noticed about the two platforms is this: Apple’s iOS is geared towards an older crowd, while Microsoft’s approach is much more attuned to youth culture.

A good example of this is in the way the two platforms provide commercial access to music.

Texting and Driving More Like Smoking?

I find this quite true:

…the cigarette analogy [is] more apt [to driving while operating a vehicle] than drunken driving because … people who drive drunk do not find any satisfaction in doing so. In contrast, checking e-mail or chatting while driving might relieve the tedium of being behind the wheel.

This idea leads me to think there’s also a link with the automated systems on the road, like stop lights, that implicitly enable us to pay less attention to the act of driving.

From “News Analysis: Reframing the Debate Over Using Phones While Driving” in the New York Times.

There Is a Flip Side

Well put, as usual, by John Gruber:

“Fear of Apple is about losing control over the software on our computers. Fear of Google is about losing control over our privacy.”

From “There is a Flip Side“.