Happy New Year | About Change

One year since Steve passed away, why do I care

It's been already one year, lightning fast, since the late Steve Jobs passed away. I remember vividly the very day this was announced in our part of the world, I was in Paris that day.

Like I think most of us, there a great times and troubled times in our life. This is part of what life is about and why we grow and learn more than usual in these tough moments. Human nature is lazy and we sometimes wait for adversity to kick in to really unleash our full potential. This day was a day like this to me, I wanted to fully be part of the social revolution and walk the talk.

Since quite a while, when I felt a bit down, I went back to Steve commencement speech to recharge my motivation and inspiration batteries -- listening to it while I write this btw. It's there, in your face, what you really must focus on to get rid of that grey weather on your mind. "Stay hungry, Stay foolish" coins it pretty well to me.

On that specific day, one year ago, I felt the urgent need for a change. It became obvious and explicit when I heard on the radio, going to work, "Steve Jobs is dead". Passion didn't seem to be my day to day and I wanted to embark onto new heights. I enjoyed very much the revolutions we've been through in the last 30 years and each time I tried to grab a piece of it to fuel my path. Started with the PC revolution in the early eighties -- I founded my software company, then came the Internet revolution -- I was preaching fortune 500 top execs with the IBM logo in the back then switched to Sun Micro to live the Silicon Valley excitement about it, and now is the era of the Cloud, Mobile and Social Networks -- brought me to Salesforce.com. Steve inspires many of us, since long. When leading a team of developers back at the software company I founded years ago, I'd share with them "The journey is the reward" and the story of the Macintosh. I wanted to inspire them to achieve "insanely" great things.

So this is why I care. I'd really like to meet with more youngsters willing to change the world. The conventional wisdom surrounding us tends to mitigate this, wrongly. Let's remember more often individuals like Steve and the ones he chose to have in the Think Different campaign, the crazy ones, the misfits, to change the world and make it a better place for all of us.

Working in a social enterprise: On boarding @salesforce experience

I've just completed my third week at salesforce.com and I wanted to share with you the light and colors of this amazing on-boarding.

My first day already had a special flavor. What would a geek like me do when arriving in the lobby? Foursquare it! And as I've included the @salesforce handle in my message that of course got spanned on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook among others - I'm becoming lazy and all my accounts are chained- the salesforce team back in the Bay Area using Radian 6 spotted me within minutes as a new hire. What a surprise when I got a response message on Twitter from the official @salesforce feed stating "Welcome to the family". I felt it as a social hug if you will, a good first impression of a social enterprise.

This very first day I could feel the energy, passion, commitment and team spirit of this fast growing company individuals. If you were not aware, Salesforce has been to date the B2B software vendor to reach the $2B mark the fastest. It was not Microsoft, Oracle nor SAP. Combined with the think different kind of attitude and this desire to show the world that cloud computing is a must for all enterprises, Salesforce employees seem all to be part of a burning quest: Born Cloud, Reborn Social.

Another clue that I have been joining a cloud company, I could finally behave at work just as I had been in my day to day life: everything on the cloud - my music, my videos, my books, my address book, my email, my calendar, my files from multiple devices, my bank accounts... The ultimate mobility lies in this, just give me a connected device and I can operate within minutes just from everywhere. Computing has truly become a utility, plug and live! Salesforce.com is walking the talk. Good to feel.

As a matter of fact I was totally able to operate with the corporate environment at the end of the very first day, using a Mac at work, my personal iPhone certified and even a request for me to buy an iPad for work. What a difference from any other company I was given to work for before.

I've been meeting a lot of people at salesforce since this first day and I can attest there is a true company's culture by which we all live by. Someone summarized one aspect of it with this quote "Type A people environment where A.H. cannot survive".

I believe such a company is due to succeed big time because of the people. I've been given to compete against very large companies before and I know it: a small gang of passionate and committed individuals with strong beliefs and a quest at heart can make a huge difference.

To be continued...

Mobile computing is taking IT by storm: mobile world congress - iPad 3 announcement - Ray Ozzie interview

Without surprise it was the mobility week recently. With Mobile World 2012 just closing, this has been a week of announcements and research publications. As eWeek tries to summarize it, here are 10 hot mobile Trends to watch at Mobile World Congress 2011:

1. Bigger is better: it seems larger display are more desirable this year
2. Android Galore: without Apple around, Android was everywhere leaving Windows on the side for next year
3. Microsoft needs Nokia—desperately
4. Dual- and quad-core processors are everything
5. Fresh new designs aren't needed? No revolutionary designs introduced.
6. The "converged" device matters: smartphone bridging the gap with tablets
7. There's no changing carriers: disappointed if you wanted to hear some breaking news from Carriers though customer relations are in pain.
8. Companies think there's room for other operating systems: Mozilla announced its own mobile OS, Samsung did the same with Bada, running after Android and iOS.
9. iPad 3 fear reigns supreme: anticipated announcement on March 7, even Google had to admit via Andy Rubin that they're behind iOS.
10. The enterprise is an afterthought: Mobile World Congress is all about consumers. To be analyzed with CIO client strategy in the enterprise.

$GOOG Google Play replaces #Android Market, new source for apps, books, movies and music (funny video 1'30)engt.co/zYiIaf

The New Era of Computing bit.ly/xjxIfO

The announcement of the iPad HD, capturing all the buzz, is showing once again how much Apple is running the show. It looks like the entire industry is positioning itself regarding Apple and the impact of "The Barber Of Infinite Loop" on once the center of all attention Microsoft could be serious. Thus I encourage you to take a look at this Ray Ozzie interview video, the once Bill Gates visionary successor at Microsoft, who is starting a new venture and tells it very directly PC doesn't mean desktop PC anymore but Personal Computing in a variety of form factor. What a thrilling industry!

Apple's new iPad announcement: The numbers to know | ZDNet zd.net/ACGsNH

Video Q&A: Ray Ozzie, Bill Gates successor as $MSFT visionary on startups, Microsoft, ... states world is over the PC bit.ly/y4WY1s

The Barber Of Infinite Loop: How The #iPad Could Give Microsoft A Serious Revenue Haircut - $MSFT productivity apps tcrn.ch/wrrKC7

Week in review: Big Data's impact on the world - Enterprise Apps gold rush to the cloud

Big Data is pursuing to bubble up as the topic of choice for the beginning of 2012, even during Davos. Not surprising when one can attest that the cloud computing model is making significant progress all over the planet and even in my home country, France, where skepticism used to be the attitude regarding it. In turn, leveraging the cloud leads to Big Data, in a business context as well, to try to extract from all sorts of data streams meaningful business insights.

Big Data’s Impact in the World
Steve Lohr, in the New York Times, develops some examples in various areas and highlights some interesting numbers.

• Big Data, Big Impact: New Possibilities for International Development - World Economic Report 
• Cloud Computing to reach $270B in 2020 CAGR 30%: Kleiner Perkins said to eye “cloud” fund
• Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity - McKinsey Global Institute Report

I won't come back on Facebook IPO as the entire planet just twitted and blogged about it. But let's step back 5 years ago and remember how people where viewing Facebook back then. It changed big time, Facebook is no longer a youngster phenomena but a business eye opener. Amazing 180° view of the world for a company supposedly going to be valued more than $100B now. Don't you think? We're already in a new world. Social Media is now a reality to most businesses, Marketing cannot ignore it anymore and mobile devices are becoming rapidly the #1 entry point to it. By the way, what is the revenue Facebook is making on mobiles ;-)? (None for now, but stay tuned).

• The Web vs. Mobile Apps: How iOS and Android Are Disrupting The Open Internet 
• Google testing 'next-gen personal communication device'
• Interesting stats: Content Marketing Tactics Now Critical to All Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC] 
• $267B enter­prise tech­nol­o­gy mar­ket: The 3 secrets behind the enterprise tech gold rush 

By the way, recently SAP acquired Successfactors for $3.4B, Salesforce.com did the same with Rypple and Oracle with Taleo for $1.9B and RightNow, check this out. The enterprise apps gold rush seems to be on the cloud.

As Larry Ellison said about cloud computing in 2008: "What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?" Not there yet apparently ;-)

So are you ready for Big Data, cloud computing, social networks and mobile internet?

Week in review: Social Networking Bubble - Value of User Experience - Winston Churchill leadership lessons

Are We in a Social Networking Bubble? 
Coming back from the Bay Area, I can attest IT is on a roll again. The front stage vendors have changed and the topics making a lot of buzz are Big Data with Hadoop, Cloud Computing and PaaS with a heating battle accelerating, Mobility with a head to head competition between Apple and Google Android and of course social networking with a search for talents and executives move (100k+ job posts in the Bay Area).

All of this could make one think that we are living through a new bubble, thus I found this analysis pretty thoughtful and interesting.
Additionally, here are some recent data about VC's investment in the US: Venture capital investing hits 10-year peak, sparking bubble talk.

Volume is not enough, User Experience is key: Android's Market Share Collapses As Apple Surges Thanks To The iPhone 4S
I am a big believer in the importance of UI for user adoption and as the main User Experience differentiator. User Experience, as I did state many times, is nowadays critical to stand out in crowded world. Any business not giving some thoughts on this is exposing itself to tough competition. Apple vs. Android is a very good example of how User Experience makes a difference in a very competitive market that saw key leaders like RIM Blackberry and Nokia decline, attesting to it.

Winston Churchill's Leadership Lessons
Let's close with some lessons learned from Winston Churchill leadership, though this ebook is not that great ;-)

• Seize the day,
• Never hesitate to occupy the limelight
• Do the necessary
• Learn to be eloquent - but don’t get carried away by your own words
• Stick to your guns - but know when to compromise

Have a great week.

Happy New Year, Heart and Intuition

Happy New Year to you all, may it bring you courage to follow your heart and intuition
Emmanuel