Think Tank: Brand Strategy in The Digital Age
Who: NWEN
When: May 25th, 2010
Where: Seattle University
UW Tech Transfer Pub Night
Who: UW Community
When: June 1st, 2010
Where: Pub near UW
Past Events
ReDefining Leadership
Who: Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo
When: May 20th, 2010
Where: University of Washington
A good read from Knowledge@Wharton on how new trends are evolving in the E-commerce arena.
According to an article published by Marketing Charts Samsung has maintained its lead in the mobile devices used by 234 million subscribers in the US.
Below are some of the rankings:
What I find interesting about these numbers is that Nokia is the most popular brand in the emerging nations but it is lagging in the US. And despite all the buzz about iPhone other phones are still in the lead.
On the carrier front Verizon is maintaining its lead at 31.1% followed by AT&T at 25.2%.
On the content front 64% users have used text messaging (fits along the strategy Microsoft has for its Kin phones), 31.1% are browsing the web and Apps downlodas have increased to 29.8%. Social networking and music downloads have also increased.
It is always interesting to see how small startups will come up with game changing ideas and revolutionize the entire industry. Came across a rather interesting presentation on HP's introduction of a calculator, which was a game changer not only in the mathematical and engineering fields. It literally killed the slide rule...and gave some releif to poor folks like me who had to read through log tables in high school (anyone else in the club?). Not only that it also enabled HP to become a strong IT giant and resulted in several innovations in IT. Here goes the link to that presentation.
A real test of Made in China will take place during Beijing Olympics. According to Channel Web "This year when the Olympic Games kick off in Beijing, more than 30,000 pieces of Lenovo computer equipment will be working behind the scenes to make sure the games go off without a hitch. For a full year Lenovo has been testing more than 20,000 products, from servers to desktop and notebook computers to monitors, to make sure the system is airtight. From June 10-12, Lenovo will have its final test of the technology infrastructure that will support the Beijing Olympic Games, with atechnology rehearsal that will bring in more than 300 Lenovo engineers, the company said Thursday. In August at the Olympics, Lenovo will have 580 engineers on-site. " While I am very happy with the Lenovo I own, this will be the true test of Made in China. IBM, the parent company of Lenovo will defintely benefit from this since the entire world will be watching. Time to buy some IBM stock?
Link to full story
Came across a good whitepaper by Silicon Valley Product Group on writing a good PRD. It adresses some of the common mistakes made by Product Managers while planning a product. I think its worth a look.