An Interesting Few Weeks Around The Web: Brief Thoughts

Just like many around the World, I welcomed the annoucement by Mark Zuckenberg of the creation of Internet.Org to help bring the World Wide Web to the estimated 5 Billion People.    S.   ome noted that he had a rather selfish motive:  to further "drive" Facebook's penetration to all around the World.  It noted in a recent update that people log in some 850,000,000 times a month.    That's a lot of traffic!!!

The more crucial development was when Google, Amazon and Microsoft each went down.  Although the outage was not that long, it underscored a sense of vunerability that continues to of concern.    Google and Amazon are also major players in the so-called Cloud Space and serve as hosting sites for many.    I was not "in World" during the outage--but the idea of not being able to access the data and be engaged is frankly of profound concern.

There is one more key development:  The Wearables.    The Sunday Edition of the New York Times featured Google's Sergei Brin along with the designer Dianne Von Fronsterberg at a fashion show showcasing Google Glass and its' possiblities that many continue to evaluate.  But there are many who have already beaten Google to the Market--the one that comes to mind is GlassUp.    It will be an evolving movement.  It pays to sometimes check out Kickstarter.

I was also very impressed with the thoughts Chris Yeh shared on his Sulia Channel On Steve Jobs as reflected in this "Notes" titled The Real Lesson of Steve Jobs: Results Trump Personality:

Like many people, I'm addicted to reading about Steve Jobs. I've said before that he's a towering figure whose name will be on a par with Ford or Rockefeller--an all-time great. But I've also had a hard time reconciling the greatness and pettiness of the man.I recently read a Wired article from 2012 that offers a useful taxonomy for how people react to Jobs' story:Read more ›"In one camp are what you might call the acolytes. They’re businesspeople who have taken the life of Steve Jobs as license to become more aggressive as visionaries, as competitors, and above all as bosses....The second camp is what you might call the rejectors. These are entrepreneurs who, on reading about Jobs since his death, have recoiled from the total picture of the man—not just his treatment of employees but the dictatorial, uncompromising way that he approached life."I freely admit to being a rejector. After all, as early as 2006, I wrote that I'd rather prioritize family over business success:Read more ›Yet I understand the hero worship of the acolytes. Jobs is the greatest business genius of our time, and a man of nearly unparalleled charisma, the kind of man who could win over a room even as he was insulting them:Read more ›But I believe that attributing Steve's success to his harsh personality is mistaking correlation for causation. The real lesson of Steve Jobs is that success is the best deodorant. When Steve was a stubborn arrogant jerk in the 1980s, he was fired from Apple--not because he was a stubborn, arrogant jerk, but because he wasn't delivering business results. When Steve was a stubborn arrogant jerk after his return, he was celebrated--not because he was a stubborn, arrogant jerk, but because he was delivering business results.It's like a beautiful actress with a "difficult" personality--she gets parts in spite of her personality, not because of it. Or, as one writer put it when describing a young Denise Richards, "Let's face it--if she looked like Kathy Bates, she'd be slinging Popcorn Chicken at KFC."By all means, have high standards and demand greatness. Those are Jobs character traits that helped him succeed. But don't lump them in with his cruelty and selfishness. For every 1,000 wannabe entrepreneurs that revel in their "bluntness," I'll bet there's 999 a....who are doomed to failure, and one entrepreneur whose talent somehow manages to compensate for his toxic personality. 

One thing is for sure:  there is never, ever a dull moment.