I spent the first week of January in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show 2007 browsing the booths along with 140,00 attendees from across the world. CES is considered as the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, and certainly it deserves its reputation. Most of the action happened in four venues, Las Vegas Convention Centre, Sands Expo and Convention Center, Las Vegas Hilton and the Venetian. Given the huge size of these venues like almost any building in Las Vegas, the distance between them and the traffic created by the immense flow of human crowd from one location to another, it was quite a marathon. Still, I managed to see the booths and exhibits of all the big boys, up and coming ones and even attended most of the keynotes.
At the consumer front, there was a lot of talk around the Full HD (aka 1080p) TVs, HDMI standards, Blue-ray Disc and HD-DVDs. Here in North America, Full HD TVs and HDMI are already commodities. All major retailers are increasingly pushing these products into our living rooms. In December and January, we needed them because it was Christmas and in February, it was the Super Bowl. Most of us, who are into watching TV, will eventually get one 1080p HDTV if not already have. The CES proved to me that the affordability is defined by the size of the screen, not by the technology anymore. Some consumers will pay for the larger screens as long as their living room and their wallet can accomodate. And the manufacturers will keep on delivering bigger sizes. For the Blue-ray and HD-DVD, many of us have been holding off since we did not know which technology would prevail. Not a mystery anymore, both technologies will do OK. LG introduced the combo Blu-ray and HD-DVD player, BH100 “Super Multi Blue Player” during the CES and even priced it around $1200 to be available in major retailers by the beginning of February. I am sure there will be more manufacturers to follow LG’s lead and eventually two formats will be treated as one, of course, other than their technological differences.
It was also visible to me in CES that Voice over IP (VOIP) telephony was getting more accessible and consumer friendly. VOIP based telephony service providers and VOIP related hardware manufacturers had claimed huge booth territory. There is a disruptive revolution happening on this front and it is just a matter of time until it becomes a commodity. Beware big telco, it won’t take long until each household with a broadband internet connection will have a plug and play configurable, half the price of standard phone VOIP service with a nice looking telephone set. There is a lot of money to be made for the enterpreneurs in this business at many levels.
Nokia and Microsoft were both heavily showcasing their location-based services through their GPS enabled telephones and software. GPS based products and services will continue to make our lifes easier while we are on the road by seamlessly integrating into our mobile phones, laptops and alike. Soon, like claiming the first spot in search engines, to claim the first spot among many competitors in a certain business line or on a building floor might depend on how much it is spent for bidding by the advertiser to these location-based service providers.
One of the busiest booths in CES was Sling Media. Sling Media sells the Slingbox, which beams programs from your TV to your laptop, cell phone or like, so letting you watch your TV while you are on the move. They have announced two new products. First one is Sling Catcher, which makes the Slingbox technology two-way, by letting web video to be viewed on your TV or your home TV to be viewed on your, say, hotel room TV. The second one was the Clip + Sling technology, which lets you to record clips from the shows you are watching and send them to a portal to share with your friends. Certainly, these are very interesting, very creative disruptive technologies and not only are changing the way we watch TV but also the concept of TV viewership.
The people at Sling Media are also working with CBS to build a Sling and CBS branded video destination site for Clip + Sling. Les Moonves, the CBS CEO, shed more light into the big picture as he sees it during his keynote address. Following the popularity of YouTube and myspace, the media companies seem to formulate the success equation on Web 2.0 with three main components; content, portal and community. Since content is their main line of business, they are heavily concentrating into building different portals and expecting the community to gather around these. They expect that as the community grows, through interaction, the content will get more aligned to community expectations, hence their customer base will also grow. He emphasized new partnerships of CBS with Sling Media and YouTube in his keynotes and supported the positive impact they make on CBS’s business with some neat examples. You might want to check “CSI Miami – Endless Caruso One Liners” on YouTube. Now wonder why Horatio Caine (David Caruso) makes much less cheesy one line statements in recent episodes of CSI Miami.
I agree that the content-portal-community approach is a good recipe for success and opportunities are not only limited to content providers but also portal providers and community opinion leaders. If you have an opinion and want to get heard, there has been a better time. With all this technology and buzz about mobility, connectivity, accessibility, community interaction which enables content enhancement, Web 2.0 sounds to me more and more like Renaissance 2.0.
It is always refreshing to see and hear new things, things that make you think deeper and thoroughly which normally you would not have time in your daily routine. For me, CES was not only a physical marathon but a mental one. And of course, a very rewarding one.
Written by Kaan Bora on February 11th, 2007 with no comments.
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Within last week, I received the sad news regarding two colleagues’ lay off from my former project organization. This was not a surprise due to the fact that all the major projects that the company was dealing were completed since months now and the company had lost all the prospective biddings in a very confined and limited telecommunications market. Of course, without a new project in visible future, the company had to cut its losses at some point and minimize the manpower overhead. The really sad thing is, these two colleagues were experienced, smart and loyal employees who will be hard to replace should the business bounce back. So, the question is, how can a project organization retain key employees in the absence of a prospective project?
Projects, by definition, are unique undertakings with a definite start and end dates. Projects don’t last forever, operations of a company does, of course, as long as the profitability is sustained. Is transferring the key project employees to operational departments like Sales, Marketing, Finance and Administration the solution for retention? Can the company still utilize these proven project employees in these operational domains?
I think the answer is “hardly”. There are several reasons for that, but primarily, the project people have the project mindset. They are used to work under strict deadlines, for defined tangible outputs and most of the time under high pressure. This is high adrenaline environment and as we all know, adrenaline is addictive. On the other hand, the operational departments are quite different habitats. In departments like Finance and Administration, the tasks are repetitive and expectations are predictable. In departments like Marketing, mindset is completely different, creativity and deadlines are not the best friends. And in Sales, yes, the presssure is there but at specific intervals within specific targets. At the end, when the sale is done, product delivery, acceptance, support becomes somebody else’s problem and that is always a relief for the Sales team. Project people hardly fit into these roles. And then, there is the fundamental question, do they really need to fit? Do companies need project managers with sales skills? I am a strong believer in specialization and expertise so, I seriously doubt that.
Bottomline is, companies need projects to retain their key project people. Or else, those who live by the sword, will always die by the sword.
Written by Kaan Bora on October 29th, 2006 with no comments.
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The story “Speed and shadows on the St. Lawrence River” in the October’06 issue of Sport Diver was the first reason for a weekend day trip to 1000 islands area. I never thought that St. Lawrence waterway had such good diving spots until I saw the photos in the magazine. The idea of diving wrecks with a visibility of more than 60 ft was simply thrilling for a person living in the 3 hours proximity of the area. So, before attempting the dive, I wanted to have a first person impression of the dive shop and the people running it. Besides, it was the Canadian thanksgiving weekend so Monday was off and I’d had this urge to test my new car on the 401 since some time now. Knowing that snow is only couple of months away and weatherman forecasting for a sunny day in high 20’s were also convincing reasons.
We took off early in the morning and drove a little bit more than 3 hours till our first stop, Gananoque (Pronounce it as Ghana-nock-way). This is the small town where we took the 3 hour Thousand Islands tour boat. We enjoyed breathtaking views enhanced with the colors of fall and we had plenty of sunshine. I shared some of them in My Photo Gallery.
When the tour was over, we finally drove over to Brockville, 52 km’s norteast of Gananoque along the banks of the St. Lawrence River. It took us less than 5 minutes to locate the Dive Brockville Adventure Centre and couple of minutes later, we were discussing about the dives, equipment and rates with Helene, the very friendly lady who runs the shop. When we left the shop, I was convinced that this would be the place I would spend couple of weekends next summer. Brockville not only has a fantastic dive shop, it also has many places to eat. We were handed out a pamphlet, “Downtown Brockville Restaurant Guide” by the dive shop which listed many good eats within walking distance. Among the many local favorites circled by Helene, we opted for number 12, the Keystorm Pub. At the pub, the menu offered many choices, but we settled for a suggested hamburger which has proven to be the right choice.
On the way back to Toronto, we stopped by Kingston. Apparently, the city has a lot to offer for the history and nature lovers. We got our caffeine load in a local coffee shop on the main street and then off we go, back home to Toronto. Trip back took again around 3 hours with no difficulties. Certainly, it was a pleasant trip done most probably at the last warm weekend day of this year.
And finally about testing my new car, highway driving was a pleasure and occasionally speedy. Later on, I read in the newspaper that, during that weekend, Ontario Police ticketed 5500 drivers for speeding. Luckily, I was not one of them.
Keep discovering and drive safe…
Written by Kaan Bora on October 25th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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Last year these times, I was preparing to leave the Philippines for good. My project was over and it was time to move on after two beautiful years. Just two weeks before the final departure, we went for a weekend diving trip to Puerto Galera on Mindoro island. We did some excellent dives and we all had great time. A close friend, Cai Feng was visiting from China so we also used the occasion to certify him as a PADI open water diver thanks to Daniel Burgaud, the Master Scuba Diver Trainer, our diving hero and close friend.
I posted some photos from that weekend in My Photo Gallery. While I was uploading the photos, it suddenly appeared to me that all the participants of that trip are scattered around four continents now. Daniel is still in the Philippines, Cai Feng is back to China, Pascal is now in Paris, Bora is somewhere in African continent and I am in Toronto. Of course, we all keep in touch and make plans about diving somewhere sometime together but then again, we all know that it is quite unlikely that it will happen that soon and that easy.
It is amazing that how quickly life can change. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I did some great stuff with some great people last year and I am doing the same this year but within a different environment. It is completely a different experience and yes, it is fun as usual.
About diving, Canada so far has not been the best place, but there is some positive signs. I will go into details in my next post.
Until then, for the ones who are able, keep diving, and for the rest of the flock, keep dreaming.
Written by Kaan Bora on October 11th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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My wife and I are our daughter’s tireless paparazzis. Thanks to digital photography revolution, this is what most parents have become these days.
I had been out of my paparazzi job since couple of months now due to Hande Selin’s extended vacation in Turkey. Although, all the family members who has a digital camera kept emailing me her photos, it is not the same thing as being there while she is growing up that fast. Regardless, I uploaded some of these photos to a dedicated album for her in My Photo Gallery.
I will be back to paparazzi business next week and I am going to take the photos of my favorite subject once again. Rest assured, I will make up for the time gap…
Written by Kaan Bora on September 8th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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Long awaited, baby is here since 3:00 am. Pelin stayed in active labour almost 24 hours and finally delivered.
Nothing ever compares to this feeling…
You can see the first photos of her in My Photo Gallery.
Written by Kaan Bora on March 12th, 2006 with 30 comments.
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I have uploaded the legacy photos from my old www.soran.com home page to the new embedded gallery2 module (My Photo Gallery) on the blog page. So far, it seems to work fine.
Below is an example:
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Photo taken with my sister on her wedding day…
Written by Kaan Bora on February 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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You are right. It took me a lot of time to figure this out. Last update on soran.com was in March, 2002. Since then, I could not touch the site due many reasons; I migrated my data over three computers, I lost the photoshop images, my Front Page broke, etc. Besides, I could not decide how to structure the way my professional and personal web sites should look and link to eachother. But now, I know how to do it.
From now on, I will be blogging and experimenting with WordPress on blog.soran.com about my personal stuff. I will use soran.com for professional purposes, primarily about my views on project management as a profession and its impact on telecommunication and IT industries.
As a consequence, I should be able to provide you more updates on both ends soon…
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Written by Kaan Bora on February 21st, 2006 with no comments.
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