We moved yet again. We’re still here in the greater Portland area but a little more south. Along with the general pain of moving is getting all your services transfered to the new house. For Internet, I was able to negotiate a killer deal with Frontier who runs FIOS fiber in this neighborhood. The house was not connected with fiber, so Frontier installed a new line to the house and hooked us up. So far, so good. Unfortunately Frontier decided to price itself right out of the TV market, so we tried for DirectTV. Fortunately and unfortunately, we are surrounded by lots of tall trees and there was no good line to the sky where DirectTV need to see. We could have tried Dish Network as their satellites are in a different part of the sky, but I have a long running beef with Dish Network and I wasn’t willing to give them my business again. So, reluctantly, we went back to Comcast. Reluctantly because Comcast was ridiculously expensive. No satellite available at the old house either. Damn Portland and all it’s trees

After once missed appointment which I will admit was my fault a Comcast guy came out and we realized there was no cable from the street to the house. These owners we bought from were decidedly low tech indeed. So, the friendly Comcast installer arranged for a line to be installed underground. Same drill as Frontier. Here’s where it starts to get weird. He drove off without checking back with me. Never came back to say everything was setup for the line install. I assumed everything was in order, but I was left a little confused and in doubt. I didn’t even know what day or time to expect the line install.

The next day came and I called to ask about the line install. The person on the phone said it was going to be that day between 6-8pm. “Really?” I asked. That seemed very strange to me as it would be dark by then. “Oh, yes”, I was assured. “We work whenever we need to.” Sure enough nobody came that night and no phone call or communication of any kind about the status. I called the next day, which was today and was told the install would be today and it was an open ended time, so it could be anytime. The lady I talked to said she would put in a notice to have someone call me with a better ETA or at least an update on status. I called back after a few hours and was told it could take up to 4 hours for a call back. Four hours? Really? That seemed odd too. It was getting on to late afternoon and I was getting that sinking feeling so I called yet again. This time the answering system told me I couldn’t be connected to anyone and I should check the website. By early evening, obviously nobody is coming and I’m starting to get really frustrated. I do get through to someone this time and she tells me there’s nobody coming because they have not gotten approval from the city to dig and that could take up to 10 days. Ten……days…..

It took absolutely everything I had not to go ballistic. Calmly, I asked why I was repeatedly told the install would happen, first on Friday, than on Saturday. She finally gave my an answer that kind of made sense but in a very stupid way. Why didn’t the other reps know what she knew looking at the same data? The Comcast installer I had originally talked to mentioned they might drop a temporary line on top of the ground before they dug one underground if needed. So, I asked about that and was told that would not be a viable option as the first available date for that would be four days away and by that time they would be very close to having the dig permit. “Yes”, I said, “But you’ve really messed up here with repeated missinformation and when you screw up a situation, I would think you do something extra for the customer.” No, I was told, that was not going to happen and they would not, as I suggested, get someone to my house first thing Monday morning to run a line above ground.

A few years ago, former Comcast employee Frank Eliason did something remarkable. He created the @ComcastCares Twitter account and started handeling frustrated customer requests online. People were blown away. It was a pioneering act of customer service. Case studies were written and presentations at social media conferences given. Frank single handedly did more for Comcast’s reputation and brand than anything Comcast ever did for itself. But here’s what I have learned from my experience. Comcast doesn’t care, they never cared. Frank Eliason and the small team he built cared. Comcast was and is a shitty company and Frank covered for them remarkably well. Now Frank is gone and even though some of his team remain, the scars are showing. Comcast screwed up my situation, caused me lots of time and grief and ultimately didn’t give a crap about it. They never so much as apologized for it nor made any attempts to make things better. It’s not even like I was a new customer. I had been a customer for nearly two years and was trying to transfer my service.

Now I am going back to Dish Network. That beef I had with them seems like nothing compared with Comcast. Interestingly that beef with Dish also had to do with deference to a long standing customer. I don’t care where they have to stick the dish to get a signal. I may have to put up with some inconvenience when it comes to that, but at this point, I’ll deal with it.

Why is it so hard for companies to treat customers well? They all talk the talk in their board rooms and managers meetings, but where the rubber hits the road, it doesn’t happen. I’m calling bullshit on every company that says they care about the customer, that the customer is everything. 80% of the time, in my experience, it’s not true when it comes to the daily reality. I can count on one hand the number of companies that have truly treated me exceptionally. At the end of the day, the employee works for the company and their job is to protect the company, not advocate for me. And there it is.

Once you have sold plenty of HDTV’s, what’s next? How do you get consumers to keep upgrading their televisions? I understand the motivation but 3D is completely the wrong answer. It’s a gimmick, and not a very good one either. The same thing is happening with movies in theaters. Way too many 3D movies that have no reason to be 3D and they don’t even look better. Read Roger Ebert’s great article on why 3D movies suck.

We may have a solution, however. What will propel the televisions in 2012 and beyond will not be the evolution is so-called “smart” tv’s. These are televisions with Wi-Fi and Internet applications built in. We have been waiting for this convergence for a long time and it’s looking like 2012 is the year it will happen. Apple is driving this change with their still rumored TV product. Even before the rumors are confirmed, other manufacturers are racing to get their own smart tv’s out. I will write more on smart tv’s later but for now let’s hope the smart tv technology will spell the end of the great 3D TV scam.

Occupy likes to think of itself as an ultra-democratic, grass roots, no formal organization and leaderless body. That’s great for a utopian dream, but impractical in today’s reality. You can take your hippie-dippie values and shove ‘em, the only thing that counts is real change and real change takes leaders and solid ideas. Unfortunately or fortunately the only way to make real change is to wield the levers of power. The two levers of power in this world are money and politics. So either Occupy finds some very rich support or they had better start figuring out how to get folks elected to local, state and national office. I’m sure most Occupy folks abhor money and politics but if they don’t get over this problem soon, they will amount to a hill of beans. Yell, scream and shove signs in my face all day and I don’t care. Why don’t you pick up a shovel and get to work already. Stop shouting and DO something.

Again, this is where you have to greatly respect the Tea Party. They did their protests in the park and waved their signs, and then they got to work getting people elected. They realized the current folks in power were not going to pay attention to them, so they worked to get them out in favor of candidates who held values closer to their own. It didn’t always work and they lost plenty of times, but they moved the needle.

This is how it works and unfortunately I don’t see any ambition or organization in Occupy to do anything like this. People WILL tire of your bitching and complaining if that’s all you seem to do. 2012 is the make or break year for Occupy. Time to stand up or fade away.

They announced today the hugely popular Galaxy S line of Android phones will NOT be getting the latest Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. Samsung only sold around 10 million of those phones last year. One year and your phone is already software out of date! It’s outrageous. The excuse is that the phones are not powerful enough to run the new OS. Not powerful enough actually to run the OS and Samsung’s user interface layer they put on top of Android.

This is going to be a huge blow to Google and the Android OS. The ramifications will spread beyond the 10 million customers they just instantly pissed off to many future owners of Android. Who wants to buy a phone when there is no guarantee you can update the OS? Apple could pound this point home in it’s marketing. Every iPhone gets the same software update the moment Apple releases it. Apple only leaves behind phones that are more than 2 generations old. By that time, your two year contract is up and you are eligible for another discounted phone.

Here’s what’s worse; they risk loosing the tech community and influencers who have been hot on Android. These folks set the buzz around products and the buzz on Android is going to get pretty sour.

Google has not been able to control Android and this is the worst example to date. There was supposed to be a rule that all Android phones would be updated to the newest OS within 18 months. Samsung just threw that rule right out the window. Google is going to have to do something to these vendors to bring them in line. These are the perils of an open system. It sounds so great in theory, but when you get down to the practical day to day it often causes more trouble. I don’t always like Apple’s maniacal control, but I do love that my iPhone works really well all the time and I can expect regular software updates until I am eligible to move to the next model.

This flakiness in updating OS software has been going on for awhile in the Android universe, but this could be the straw that breaks the camels back because the Galaxy S line have been the most popular Android phones ever. This could be the tipping point that really causes serious damage to Android. It will be very interesting to see how Google responds to this crisis.

It’s hard to describe how wrong the show is. The kinds of pressure they put the kids under, the complete obsession with “winning”. I literally make me upset just to talk about it. I suggest you watch an episode yourself to fully understand. I can’t stand watching the kids on this show, no matter how much they seem to enjoy it at times. I’m sure an elephant at a circus thinks it’s got it good at times, but we all know he would be just as well and probably better free on the safari.

The general objectivity of beauty at such an early age, the mothers who often act horribly and yell at the kids. The pounds and pounds of makeup, the mouth inserts to change the jawline. This show literally makes me want to cry. I cannot watch it. There is nothing cute or funny about it. These are real kids who deserve to just be kids and not parade around and win crowns to make their moms feel better about themselves.

I am watching with great interest the Republican process to see who will challenge Obama next year. It has been quite shocking to see the collection of candidates they have to choose from. And here we thought George W Bush was not very smart. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachman; these guys make Bush look like Albert Einstein. When did dim witted become the new black in Republican politics?

Of course even those who are not completely out to lunch are full of s*it. Politicians have always been full of s*it, but they used to be better at hiding it. These days, it seems, you don’t even need to.

I am not a big fan of Ron Paul and I’m certainly not a Libertarian. Yes, remember Ron Paul isn’t even a real Republican, he’s a Libertarian. Twice he was their candidate for President. However, the more I watch and listen this campaign year the more it becomes painfully obvious that Ron Paul is the only intellectually honest Republican left. I don’t agree with most of Paul’s positions and I wouldn’t vote for him for president, but what a breath of fresh air he is into a room full of skullduggery. It’s no wonder he gets good support from young people. The youth these days can sniff out bull crap a mile away and they’re sick of it. Young people know Paul is the only intellectually honest Republican and they love him for that.

Despite being a Democrat, I don’t think the country would be a better place if everyone was a Democrat. We need a strong two party system, at least two parties. But the Republican party is not strong and full of intellectually honest people. It seems to only value the dim witted, completely non flexible types. Donald Trump, Christine O’Donnell, Sarah Palin. This is your new Republican party. I can’t help think William F. Buckley himself would be embarrassed.

This nightmare senario is playing out again four years later, but this time it’s on the Republican side and the victim is Mitt Romney. This was Romney’s primary to loose. He has had everything on his side; the money, the establishment. Newt Gingrich’s primary was over before it even began. In the first week of his run, Gingrich imploded in spectacular fashion. Over, done. Now, the one thing that Romney could not afford to happen has happened. With all the other Republican candidates worn out, the anti-Romney votes have all coalesced around Newt Gingrich. As a commentator I heard recently said, Romney has been playing not to loose rather than to win. But, in fact, the more Romney opens his mouth, the more he puts his foot in it. The Bret Baier Fox interview, the $10,000 bet debacle. Romney looked a lot smarter when he hardly said anything. I could easily see Gingrich taking this primary from Romney and then loosing to Obama. People forget, outside of the far right, Gingrich has pretty high negatives. His ego is out of control  and he can often be a pompous ass. It’s ironic too because the anti-establishment tea party is about to help choose the most inside guy you could imagine for the Republican candidate for president in 2012. The entire Republican field this year has resembled the Insane Clown Posse more than a group of serious people with solid solutions for these difficult times. I think Obama has done some good things in his first term, but also has made some big mistakes. He needs to get a lot tougher in the second term and start calling bullshit on more people.

A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology there.

3D printing is not terribly new and has been around a few years, but putting this technology into the hands of kids IS groundbreaking and could lead to all kinds of unexpected consequences. The prototype Origo 3D printer is made for children 10 and up to design objects on a computer and print them out in 3D to play with. Yes, kids designing and creating their own custom made toys. I have always preferred the random box of legos to the highly designed play sets they make these days. With a random box of shapes and colors, you can endlessly create all kinds of lego toys to play with. The only limit is your imagination. In that same spirit, this 3D printer can free kids minds even further to create literally anything they can think of. They could even make toys for friends. Technologically, the ability to design and create your own objects is very cool, but what kind of disruption could this cause for the toy industry?

Oh Barbie and GI Joe don’t have to worry quite yet, but for how long? Per the definition, disruptive technology can take decades, so how much better do you think the technology will be in 20 years? This isn’t just a disruptive technology for the toy industry but as larger, and even more sophisticated versions of 3D printing are made for adults, it could be disruptive to a large sector of manufacturing. How many companies will be savvy enough to make the transition to selling the designs for objects rather than the objects themselves? How many entrepreneurs will get there first, selling their own versions of products directly to customers on the Internet?

“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”

The simplest user interface you could imagine. Some people are theorizing about a gester interface like the Kinnect on XBox, but this is wrong. The interface revelation is Siri. What could be easier than talking and simply telling your tv what you want. “Change channel to ESPN”, “Record this program”. “When is the next episode of The Walking Dead on?” Sounds like giving commands to an iPhone. Build your television with iOS and you have it all. iCloud/iTunes integration, Siri, apps, everything.

Trust me, Apple will have a television in 2012 and it will be built on iOS and you will talk to it via Siri, and you will die to have one.