In 2006, my enthusiasm for storytelling compelled me to join Cambridge, MA based Panraven, a company that, through an intuitive, flexible interface, lets consumers combine media (text, photos, audio and video) into one rich expressive story. “Our Guardian Angel,” a personal account written by Panraven member, SilverWaves, about her friend’s tragic car accident, will stay with me forever. The story appears in the interactive viewer below.

Below are two of my favorite quotes that to me capture the power of storytelling:

“We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say-and to feel- ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought.” -John Steinbeck

“Because there is a natural storytelling urge and ability in all human beings, even just a little nurturing of this impulse can bring about astonishing and delightful results.” -Nancy Mellon, The Art of Storytelling

STORYTELLING MEETS THE IPAD

Here we are in 2011, at the onset of the second wave of digital publishing. The iPad, with its touchscreen, accelerometer, and other advanced features, has ushered in a whole new era of storytelling, one with unprecedented potential to captivate in an immersive learning environment. Publishers are creating rich, interactive apps that make e-book readers, which merely simulate traditional book reading, seem so 2010. Today’s apps are even tailored to different types of learners, from visual to auditory. With an iPad app, one child can read and interact with stories independently, while another can have them read aloud and/or accompanied by music. Other perks, such as short-length videos, quizzes, challenges and games, are often included in addition to the core content. (I will continue to focus the rest of this article on children’s books, because it is one of the categories that stands to benefit most from the iPad’s capabilities.)

Two companies in the children’s app space with stellar execs and killer apps worth the money are Callaway Digital Arts and Ruckus Media Group. Callaway, a spinoff of Callaway Arts & Entertainment, recently received $6 million in Series A funding in a round led by Menlo Park, CA-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and is set to open an office in San Francisco. John Lee, CEO of Callaway and a toy industry veteran has called the newly created company “a cross between publisher Random House and animated film studio Pixar.” Ruckus CEO Rick Richter, spent twelve years at Simon & Schuster, including as President and Publisher of the Children’s Publishing Division. According to Richter, the Norwalk, CT-based company has received only seed financing to date.

The typical industry business model includes releasing titles for both owned and licensed brands. Callaway has rights to create stories for kid favorites Thomas & Friends, Sesame Street and Miss Spider. Apple recently named Miss Spider’s Bedtime Story, the only Callaway title out long enough for consideration, one of the Best Interactive Story Apps of 2010. Ruckus Media has enlisted talent such as Meg Ryan, Robin Williams, and Meryl Streep to narrate classics such as The Velveteen Rabbit and Goldilocks, as well as other original stories created specifically for the iPad. There are many more children’s books for the iPad—here is a list of Mashable’s top picks for 2010.

ADOPTION CHALLENGES

Rich media storytelling apps are like candy for a child’s senses. And parents love them, because if their kids are absorbed in the content and having fun at the same time, they are far more likely to learn. Why, these apps are so hot you’d think they should all but sell themselves, especially given how word-of-mouth spreads amongst moms. So what, aside from asking its customers first to plunk down $800 for a family iPad, is standing in the way of a smashing success for this new breed of companies?

Well, for starters the app discovery challenge amidst mobile industry fragmentation persists. But there are at least a few other challenges unique to this category:

1) Although I believe many apps are worth the price today, consumers won’t continue to pay $2.99 to $7.99 per app. As companies scale and achieve efficiencies, they can afford to charge less, but at some point consumer willingness to pay will reach its limit.

2) Unlike with most mobile apps, file size is a major hurdle. Story apps for iPad can be as large as 300 to 400 megabytes apiece. Even if a company can convince someone to take the time to download and surrender the Flash memory space, 3G bandwidth is insufficient, meaning consumers need to be connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot to download. And if they aren’t, the marketer’s dreaded latency problem comes into play, conversion plummets, and precious dollars go to waste.

3) Particularly for the toddler demographic, there are two separate and distinct target consumers for each transaction, the child (the end user) and the parent (who controls the purchase). How might companies efficiently allocate marketing resources to reach both segments?

THE SOLUTION: A CLOUD-BASED ECOSYSTEM

Many companies realize the pay-per-download model is not sustainable and are already switching to a freemium model (free basic app with limited features and in-app purchase capability) to realize greater stickiness and generate repeat business. According to Jupiter Research, in-app purchases will overtake download revenues by 2013 and grow to $11 billion by 2015. Planting a seed on the device gives marketers valuable behavioral data that can help them engage customers and push cross-sell opportunities, but it alone does not solve any of the intrinsic problems mentioned above.

So let’s tackle them one by one. Fixing problem No. 1 could be as simple as switching to a subscription model. Once a company has a critical mass of apps, it should offer monthly or annual fees for app bundles. Borrowing from the social gaming playbook, a loss in margin due to the model shift could be offset by virtual goods revenues (the relevance of which is discussed below).

A logical solution to No. 2 is for the free thin downloadable client to serve as the key that unlocks a trusted, safe ecosystem (under the Callaway brand name for example), where most rich content is served from the cloud. Doing so would also lend insight on kids’ app usage patterns. Imagine a dashboard where parents can observe how children are interacting with an app, where they are having the most success, and where they are getting stuck and need practice. Additional functionality might include parental controls and the ability to approve new stories on a “Wish List” before a child downloads and/or purchases them. This last feature addresses part of the problem in No. 3.

The other answer to No. 3 (and a way to aid discovery in general) is to stimulate a network effect. Embedding viral widgets within an app enables kids to share with friends, so they can read/watch content and play games with each other. After all, children will spend more time on a memory exercise if they can compete virtually. This also opens the door for virtual goods opportunities, as mentioned above. Lastly, facilitating these peer connections promotes social engagement, which has been fundamental to storytelling over the years, yet has been a shortcoming of rich media apps thus far.

In summary, while elegant design and user experience are prerequisites for market traction, entrepreneurs who 1) stay true to the essence of storytelling and 2) employ proven digital distribution and business models addressing well understood shortcomings of the mobile platform, have the greatest chance for success.

Normally I don’t use my blog for self-promotional purposes, but since this post fits the theme “Against the grain,” I figured it was acceptable on a one-time basis.

In my opinion, video resumes are the future of job search, and marketers need to pave the way. Not that a video resume will completely replace the need for more comprehensive materials (e.g. website, traditional CV), but unlike the others, video brings your skills and accomplishments to life. And if you are a digital marketing professional, you can also demonstrate your inbound marketing savvyness by how well you market the resume through content publishing and social media outreach.

Two-page text resumes all look and sound the same after a while, and I can’t imagine the boredom and apathy recruiters must experience in evaluating credentials in that fashion.

Aside from showing off your experience, video is a medium for expression and storytelling, one that can engage, entertain, show personality, and capture your personal brand essence, all within 3 minutes.

Enjoy my video, forward to others as you see fit, and please share your perspective below.

I’m almost ashamed to write about it, being a closet BlackBerry user who’s anxiously awaiting the day I am eligible for an upgrade. That puts me squarely within the ultra un-hip “late majority” consumer segment. The only way I can muster the courage to use my BlackBerry in public is that the choice becomes less clear with each passing day which device should be my next. Today if I buy an iPhone 3GS (still my favorite from a pure hardware standpoint), I’m stuck with AT&T, best known for dropped calls and clogged data pipes. Not to be ignored are the host of new Android-based devices that have started coming online. So, I’m waiting to see how things shake out over the next few months, and whether a clear winner emerges. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So you’re not convinced you, too, are behind the times and need some proof. Here goes:

It’s an app world—There’s no denying we are in the beginning of a mobile and social revolution. Whether your goal is to stay plugged into pop culture or keep your business skills honed, you had better embrace this brave new world or risk being left behind. Mobile apps have become an integral part of our culture, and almost all companies—from mobile pure plays and social media upstarts to large e-tailers starting to execute a mobile strategy—build for the iPhone first. That has translated to 100,000 apps in the iTunes store and over 2 billion total downloads as of November 2009, compared to just 5,000 applications in BlackBerry App World.

Wired vs. wireless—If your employer doesn’t “sponsor” your BlackBerry (if you work for a small company this may also apply to you), you likely connect to a BIS server to receive e-mail and connect to the Internet. That means keeping your schedule and contacts up to date between your BlackBerry and computer requires syncing the two via BlackBerry Desktop software, which despite having reached v5.x, constantly requires removal and reinstallation. But I digress. The main point is that like the RAZR, USB is so 2007. Apple has wireless syncing and backup options for all iPhone users. And, as industry experts expected, Apple is making inroads in the enterprise market. After all, if the necessary security measures are in place, IT managers will simply strive to meet the needs and wants of their customers (i.e. company employees).

Brand perception—In late December, the BlackBerry e-mail network suffered two outages over a two-week period. RIM’s service disruption was an aberration, but users were outraged and analysts criticized the company for not having adequate server backup measures. Following the outages, BlackBerry’s Buzz score fell to +28 (positive brand perception scores range from +1 to +100), a number I’d classify as mildly positive. Contrast RIM’s normally reliable service with that of the iPhone; especially in urban areas people are plagued with dropped calls and poor bandwidth on a daily basis. You could argue AT&T’s network, and not the iPhone itself, is largely to blame. But at the end of the day, you’d expect people to associate their frustrating experiences with all brands. That is not what happened. In 2009, Phone gained the top spot on Vitrue’s Top Social Brands list and Apple moved up 4 notches to #20 on Interbrand’s Best Global Brands list.

The Web is our lifeline—Can you imagine life without Google? Americans have become dependent on the Internet, with 253 million of us (74 percent) using it, 48 percent more than one hour per day. As a nation constantly on the go, it’s only natural mobile Web browsing eventually would take hold. What we lacked until the late 2000s was a mobile experience resembling that on the PC. Together with prevalent 3G access, iPhone’s clean, user friendly interface is largely credited with accelerating adoption of mobile Web browsing. Early last year, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project reported 56 percent of American adults had accessed the Internet wirelessly, and this number has surely increased since. Today, despite a global recession, smartphone shipments are projected to grow by 18 percent in 2010, totaling 235 million units worldwide. Virtually all of these phones have GPS, pegging your whereabouts and enabling a whole new class of valuable content and services, appropriately labeled location-based services (LBS). With approximately 50 percent of US smartphone traffic, iPhone is uniquely poised to capture the lion’s share of the benefit. Android is the only other operating system gaining share over the preceding 6 month period. BlackBerry is among the losers, dropping 11 percent.

Let the market be our guide—You bankers still not buying it? Well, let me speak in a language you understand. While BlackBerry’s stock (NASDAQ: RIMM) is up 80 percent since the Nasdaq market low in early March 2009, Apple’s stock (NASDAQ: AAPL) is up 130 percent during the same period. Granted, Apple also makes and sells Macs, not just smartphones. But as the mobile device market is growing faster than the PC market, you might expect that would have had a dilutionary effect, curbing otherwise greater growth in Apple’s share price.

Synergies for Apple loyalists – Like all Apple software, the iPhone platform is proprietary, leaving the door open for Google to enter the market and gain share with open source Android. That said, there are many benefits, ranging from software compatibility to a seamless user experience, for Mac users choosing the iPhone.

The Perfect Storm

By now, hopefully I have most of you on board, but what does it all mean? How bad is it for RIM? Well, on paper today the picture doesn’t look bad. BlackBerry is in the lead at 42 percent of the US smarphone market with Apple climbing to 25 percent. But the future holds a very different picture. In Q409, when BlackBerry had 13 smartphone models for sale, iPhone and Android were the only two operating systems that gained market share. IDC predicts that by 2013 Android will displace RIM as the number two operating system globally, shipping an estimated 68 million units. With such scale, Android will join Apple in making serious inroads into RIM’s base of enterprise customers. If the long-rumored agreement between Apple and Verizon Wireless were ever to come about, the result would be a crushing blow to BlackBerry.

But RIM still has time to reposition itself. How?

Focus, focus, focus

I’ll start with what I believe is a fundamental flaw in RIM’s strategy. The company treats the market as very fragmented and hence develops multiple devices (Pearl, Pearl Flip, Bold, Tour, Curve) to cover the entire landscape. For all intents and purposes, Apple has a single phone with options for additional memory, a faster processor, etc. While RIM prices its higher end phones for the corporate jetsetter, Apple makes its one phone affordable for the masses. BlackBerry would do better to save R&D costs and channel its resources toward fewer phones while obsessing over user experience. Being a purely mobile company without the distractions of other business lines has its advantages.

Don’t be a copycat

While BlackBerry has much to learn from Apple in terms of focus, I’ve never been a fan of mimicking your most successful competitor’s design and feature set. This holds especially true against a formidable brand like Apple, which will trump you in aesthetic and marketing savvy nine times out of 10. Sure, there is room for some manufacturers (a la Samsung Mythic and Palm Pre) to siphon off price sensitive market segments. But RIM is in a different category—it’s a smartphone industry pioneer capable of doing far more than developing cheap iPhone imitations like the Blackberry 9500 (aka the Storm).

Now in its second generation, the Storm was an unsuccessful attempt to steal Apple evangelists and wannabes. Despite a $100 million marketing effort and availability on a far superior network, the buggy Storm shipped about half of iPhone 3G’s 2.4 million units in the first three months post-launch. The second generation Storm (aka Storm 2) launch in Q409 was a non-event, because Verizon (and partner Motorola) placed its $100 million bet on The Droid, the first Android 2.0-based phone, which debuted around the same time. I don’t have Storm 2 shipment figures handy, but my best guess is they are far less impressive than the original Storm. After its failed attempt and given the huge lead Apple has garnered, BlackBerry should leave the touchscreen to others.

Go back to your roots

Shifting gears from what not to do, BlackBerry should return to its core strengths, developing devices that boost productivity, while considering changes in the market and technology. Favoring BlackBerry, which is perhaps best known for having a QWERTY keyword front and center on almost all devices, is the fact that entering text on a mobile device is only increasing in importance. Uses have expanded beyond dialing their phones and typing e-mails to include SMS, Web searches, social networking profile updates, completing Web forms, and more. The problem for BlackBerry arises when its function-centric devices compromise the user experience for other emerging consumer needs like multimedia entertainment and mobile gaming, which are forecast to yield $77 billion in combined revenues by 2012. Devices like the Palm Pre and Motorola Droid seemed to have this solved for now, albeit with a slightly thicker form factor. Now you can have the best of both worlds, a viewable screen that extends the length of the device and an accessible QWERTY keyboard hidden underneath.

How Boston can help

So is the solution as simple as that? Not quite. First, this is a short-term “patch.” Second, BlackBerry has plenty of catch up to do in its user interface. In the medium to longer term, these efforts will fall far short in a head-to-head battle with Apple + Google. No, BlackBerry needs iPhonesque disruption. Where better to look than a city quickly becoming a mecca for mobile?

Boston is home to two best-of-breed speech recognition technology companies, Nuance Communications (NASDAQGS: NUAN), a publicly traded company whose market cap is greater than $4 billion and whose roots date back to 1992, and Vlingo Corporation, a Cambridge-based startup backed by Yahoo!, AT&T, Charles River Ventures and Sigma Partners, among others. Until now, the term “hands-free” was really a misnomer; you couldn’t accomplish much without your device in hand. But with advances in both text-to-speech and speech-to-text technology, these companies have developed commercially viable services that allow you to speak commands to your mobile device, have them spoken back to you for validation, and in some cases, receive responses and updates by voice.

Currently Nuance offers Dragon Dictation & Search for iPhone, but the company will undoubtedly come out with Android and BlackBerry apps before long. Vlingo is already available for BlackBerry, iPhone, Nokia S60 and Windows Mobile devices, with specific functionality varying by platform. The most feature-rich app is Vlingo Plus for BlackBerry, which allows customers to use voice for any task where they’d normally have to type. Both Dragon and Vlingo are shockingly accurate in deciphering speech even with a moderate level of background or ambient noise. Even as third-party apps, there’s a whole lot of value to the user. Now imagine if BlackBerry deeply integrated the technology into its operating system and invested in its continued advancement.

Will physical and/or virtual keyboards disappear any time soon? Not likely. But in my view the Nuance and Vlingo apps are the types of productivity applications that could serve as catalysts for BlackBerry to re-emerge as an innovator, charting its own path to success.

• My offense: I ordered a medium coffee in a large cup so that it doesn’t spill in my car.
• The response: With a straight face, the cashier rang up a large because “we need to charge you for the extra milk you will be using.”

Brilliant! Annoy a customer over a measly…10 cents. Once I realized she was serious (which took an awkward 10 seconds or so), I dropped the extra dime on the counter and walked away, never to return. (There are at least 5 other places within close proximity serving as good or better coffee.)

Now for a positive spin. Because of this experience and countless others like it, we have come to expect such treatment, which is why it’s even more noteworthy when someone representing a company or brand surprises and delights you. And since the Thanksgiving season is all about showing gratitude and giving thanks, I want to call attention to someone, who on multiple occasions, has gone way above and beyond in providing me with superior service. His name is Kyle Cunningham, manager of the AT&T Mobility store at the Natick Collection in Natick, MA. For all of the legitimate criticism of AT&T’s shoddy 3G network and customer unfriendly policies, this guy makes up for all of it, and then some.

A bit of background. My BlackBerry Bold is near death. Despite OS upgrades, the device is super sluggish, has memory leak issues, and is powered by two almost completely drained batteries. Time for a new phone.

• The problem: I am not eligible for an iPhone 3Gs for another 5 months, and the “powers that be” will make no exceptions to this policy. Sound familiar?
• The solution: The best offer AT&T could make is $399 for the 12GB version, and only if I extend my contract for another 2 years. That is $200 more than the price I’d pay if I were eligible.

Sheer stupidity. I can cancel my account for $175 ($24 less), walk over to Verizon–whose network is far more reliable–port over my mobile number, and get a brand spanking new Motorola Droid for $200 with a 2-yr commitment. In other words, AT&T is telling a customer who has always paid on time, has 2 accounts (my wife is also a subscriber), and spends well more than the monthly average, that it will give him $24 to take a hike and go its biggest competitor. I guess AT&T doesn’t use CRM, segment its customer base, or care about retention or loyalty. Or if it does, it doesn’t know how to apply these tools and disciplines to real world situations. Maybe instead of spending time, money and resources on suing Verizon for false advertising, AT&T should focus its efforts on serving its customers.

Now that I got the marketing jargon in, back to the story. Despite it all, I am still with AT&T, because quite simply, Kyle provides the absolute best customer service on the planet. Having worked for mobile app company, WorldMate, I called on Kyle countless times over the past two years. In this particular case, Kyle not only did everything in his power short of risking his job, but he also offered to lend me his virtually brand new Bold until I am upgrade eligible. How often do you experience that caliber of service? I am 36 years old, and so far, just once in my lifetime. With nonsense business practices that create negative switching costs, AT&T puts an unfair burden on Kyle to keep subscriber attrition in check. I’m sure upper management doesn’t realize how lucky they are to have him.

In the spirit of the holiday, please express your appreciation to those who’ve served you well in the past year. If we let these folks know and share our stories with others (it’s as easy as a tweet or brief mention in conversation), just maybe kick-ass service will start to become a trend.

• Seth Priebatsch (CEO, SCVNGR). SCVNGR is a super cool, turnkey hyper-local mobile gaming platform with a high level of cross-device and OS portability.
• Chuck Goldman (CEO, Apperian). Apperian is a Boston-based iPhone app development shop founded by former Apple execs.
• Jaime Thompson (President, Pongr). Pongr is a service that connects users with brands when they snap a picture with their mobile camera and share with friends via social networks. Pongr’s differentiators include proprietary image recognition technology and cross-carrier MMS interoperability.
• Jack Kelly (CEO, Adva Mobile). Adva Mobile is an app that enables music artists to engage fans on their mobile phones.

As you’d expect, during the panel discussion that ensued following the presentations, the challenge of discoverability was the most prominent theme. As folks in the industry well know, OS/platform fragmentation and incompatibility issues create a ceiling on viral sharing. Case in point – despite the aura and popularity of the iPhone, 93% of smartphone users don’t have one^* and cannot download and use apps in the iTunes store. So while word of mouth can be potent, fueled by Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels, you cannot simply refer an app to all of your friends.

*Note: This figure excludes iPod Touch handsets

One obvious solution would be some standardization agreed upon by the device manufacturers (a la the Blu-ray for high definition DVD), but we all know that isn’t going to happen given Apple’s obsession with control and closed software environment. And therein lies an opportunity…for Google.

Thanks to a media blitz, largely funded by Verizon Wireless (it finally has a venerable contender to the iPhone), the Motorola Droid will be the impetus to take Google’s mobile platform, Android, mainstream. While Google’s open platform strategy is the antithesis to Apple’s, like Apple it promises seamless integration with its software and tools, including Gmail, Google docs and the Google chrome browser. The next logical question: what about Search?

Imagine you do a web search for “Flight Delays Kennedy Airport” (maybe the query should be “Flights not delayed to/from Kennedy”), wouldn’t it be useful if in addition to a list of notoriously problematic flights and current delays, there was a list of mobile apps that offer flight delay notifications? In this particular case, TripIt, WorldMate, FlightTrack, TripCase, TripChill, etc. might appear. As Chuck Goldman points out, Google would have access only to apps created for Android and not to those in iTunes or other “closed” app stores where the meta data associated with the downloads isn’t accessible. And Google, much like iPhone, will take time to penetrate the market and capture meaningful share. That said, unless Apple wants to cede this competitive advantage indefinitely, it is in its best interest to lift the walls around iTunes and allow web bots to crawl and index its pages.

What do you think? Will Google’s approach with Android be the catalyst to solve discoverability for mobile app pure plays? If so, is there any hope for virality? Please share any comments and ideas you have.

Recalls are never welcome news, especially ones that imply our children were in harm’s way. But, unless flaws were the result of gross negligence and/or led to numerous fatalities or serious injuries, people are forgiving and don’t abandon companies with an otherwise solid track record. After all, product design is an imperfect science. This of course assumes the company works diligently to resolve the problem.

The scenario: a fairly typical case study in corporate crisis management. Your goal: to demonstrate good corporate citizenship and minimize damage to the brand’s reputation. Handled effectively, the incident is a mere hiccup in the company’s history. Have a miscue in your disaster management plan? You add fuel to the fire, resulting in negative word-of-mouth and bad will–and quite possibly customer disloyalty that impacts earnings for years.

Following Maclaren USA’s announcement this morning, the company made perhaps the most fundamental oversight prior to going public with the news. The most obvious and supposedly reliable place to obtain detailed information on the recall (its website) was flooded with traffic and has been down ever since (as of 5pm EST).

I have no idea what a recall of 1mm strollers will cost Maclaren, but I do know a dedicated server capable of supporting the surge in bandwidth would add nominally to the final bill. Instead of what should have been a 10-minute exercise learning about the recall and ordering the appropriate kit for their models (nine models in total are affected), moms and dads (and grandmas and grandpas) everywhere were shut out and instead relied on the media to accurately relay the message. In my experience, it won’t take much for the broken communication over this non-trivial safety matter to translate to loss of trust and business, especially amongst Type A, educated consumers in a market increasingly crowded by trendy strollers.

Am I over-dramatizing? I encourage loving parents and communications professionals everywhere to share their thoughts.

I am extremely fortunate to be attending what is certain to be one of best conferences of the year, TEDMED 2009, being held at the Hotel del Coronado next week from Oct 27 – 30. For starters, if you are familiar with TED, you know attendees are always in for a treat. To be honest, I have attended only one TED event in the past, TEDxBoston this past July, and I was simply blown away by the degree of innovative thinking, caliber of presentations, and passion of those involved. (Note: TED and TEDMED are independent organizations, which share the same founder, Richard Saul Wurman.)

So after a five-year hiatus, Marc Hodosh and Richard Saul Wurman are re-launching TEDMED focused squarely on remarkable people, their ideas, and their inventions in the fields of medicine and health care. I expect the TEDMED sessions to be nothing short of inspirational and uplifting, because the common underlying mission is to improve quality and length of life in ways and to degrees that many technology products and services simply cannot. And there couldn’t be a more relevant time as President Obama and Congress work to bring a historic health care reform package to the finish line. A total of 54 speakers will open the minds of TEDMED attendees to the world of opportunities and possibilities in this fascinating field. Below is a small peek at what’s in store, a very short list of speakers and their speech topics:

• Ezekiel Emanuel, Special Advisor for Health Policy, OMB, Executive Office of President Obama - Can We Reform Health Care In America?
• Dean Kamen, President, DEKA Research & Development – Can A Prosthesis Be Better Than The Real Thing?
• Deepak Chopra, Chairman & Co-Founder, Chopra Center for Wellbeing – Can You Yourself Change Your Genes?
• Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN – Can Media Deliver Accurate & Trusted Medical Information?
• Paul Jacobs, Chairman & CEO, Qualcomm – What Does A Wireless Band-Aid Do?
• David Pogue, Technology Columnist, New York Times – Can My iPhone Save My Life?
• Keith Black, Chairman of Neurosurgery, Cedar-Sinai Medical Center – Can Neurosurgery Be Non-Invasive?

I’ll end on a slightly more personal note. Aside from the reasons already mentioned, I expect to find TEDMED especially refreshing. As someone who spends a great deal of time staying abreast of the latest digital strategies and communication tools (social media alone warrants a significant personal investment), I don’t have much time to attend product-oriented conferences. Don’t get me wrong. I became a B2C marketer for the opportunity to directly interact and engage, build relationships, earn trust, etc. But sometimes by being so customer-centric, I don’t fully appreciate many of the extraordinary breakthroughs in modern science and technology, or the brilliance behind them.

The subject of this rant is the Starbucks Card. First, some background. The card itself offers customers the convenience of electronic currency, though I’m pretty sure baristas get screwed on tips now that fewer customers are dipping into their pockets and receiving loose change. Registering a Starbucks Card means creating an online account where contact details, credit card info, etc. are stored. This gives you access to free Wi-Fi, lets you avoid $0.40 surcharges for soy milk, and enables you to auto-reload your card. This last feature could backfire for certain folks who are super-vigilant of their credit cards transactions (as I am). In fact, ever since I saw how often Starbucks was charging my card 20 bucks, I’ve cut back, perhaps not on my total caffeine consumption, but certainly in downgrades from espresso drinks to house blends and dark roasts.

No, I’m not complaining that Starbucks has made me more financially responsible. As a marketer, I am in disbelief that the company has not better seized the opportunity that registered card holders present. It’s a database marketer’s dream to have access to such a wealth of customer data, including purchase history, buying habits, personal preferences, etc. We’re talking about brand evangelists here, engaged and loyal clientele who are presumably the most receptive to special promotions and offers. Why not a rewards program? A referral incentive? Or dare I say something even more tailored and creative – “Because you like X, we think you’ll like Y, so here’s a one-time coupon.” I have my “regular” drink, but I’m always open to something new.

This is just another example how Starbucks has vastly underutilized the power of CRM. As far as I can tell, aside from an occasional offer to complete a survey and receive a free drink (which may be completely random anyway), I’m not aware of any targeting that Starbucks does to uniquely position its product to the various customer segments it reaches.

• Clear and Compelling Value Proposition. The demands for our time and expectations for results are greater than ever. Leah has done a fabulous job addressing the various target personas and messaging how the service works. The site’s branding, look-and-feel and ease-of-use were initially what caught my eye.

• fbFUND Winner. RUNmyERRAND was the only east-coast fbFUND finalist. Being selected for such a prestigious program has afforded the company unique opportunities. Leah has had the privilege of tapping into Facebook wisdom and resources. Networking opportunities abound, it also means she stands a far better chance than most to raise additional funding when needed.

• Zipcar Synergy. Fortune Magazine recently named Zipcar the best new idea in business, and Zipcar’s Scott Griffith is on RUNmyERRAND’s Advisory Board (along with Timothy Ferris, author of #1 New York Times bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek). Like Zipcar, RUNmyERRAND promotes green living by reducing urban transportation (in this case by consolidating errands to fewer individuals). Hence, RUNmyERRAND has participated in Zipcar marketing campaigns, including the recent Low-Car Diet Challenge, for which the company gave away free “runner credits” to reduce the urge for participants to take back their cars. RUNmyERRAND will likely follow in Zipcar’s footsteps and only expand to other cities once its initial hyperlocal model (relying on demographics, supply/demand economics and other operational logistics) is optimized in Boston.

If the points above don’t have you convinced that RUNmyERRAND has great start towards a bright future, consider this. Though it’s an ambitious endeavor to say the least, think about how useful it would be to have an auction site like eBay, but focused on services instead of products. Or put another way, imagine an online exchange version of CraigsList.

What do you think? Are there other impressive startups meeting this need? Please share your thoughts…

On the other hand, good business books start with a foundation and build on those core concepts, illustrating with examples and case studies along the way. Hence, you miss out on important takeaways if you don’t read a book cover to cover. And let’s face it, no one wants to read a 200+ page book on a computer.

Enter the Kindle and all of the look-a-like e-book readers that have started and will continue to penetrate the market over the months to come, and you have the perfect example of disruptive technology. While I don’t own a Kindle as of yet (I’m usually an early follower when it comes to gadgets and wait for the price to drop a bit before I jump in), my friends and colleagues tell me they read more quickly and it’s easy on the eyes. Apparently digital ink technology has eliminated one of the top reasons to do your reading offline.

Now, let’s use the following evolution of movie rentals/ownership…

Blockbuster –> Netflix (via mail) –> Video on Demand (VOD)

…as an analogy to see how it relates and whether it can help us predict the future of printed books and bookstores:

• Instant gratification – Because the internet is accessible 24/7, consumers have grown accustomed to getting what they want in real-time. Netflix pioneered cost-effective overnight delivery of movies, and now along with the broadband providers, is moving its library to VOD. Let’s face it, if you have some free time now, would you rather spend it traveling to the book store or downloading the title at the top of your list and reading the first few chapters?

• Convenience – Netflix made it simple to return movies without incurring late fees. When you’re on vacation or in your second office (i.e. the airplane), the Kindle stores all of the books on your reading list and weighs far less.

• Scarcity of time and space – Except for a select few real classics, most people don’t watch the same movie more than once in a short time frame. Hence, it makes little sense to own a movie, especially since Netflix has removed the pain points from the return process and the marginal cost of re-renting a Netflix movie later on is nearly zero (under most price plans). Similarly, while some folks like keeping good books on display at home or in the office, the trend towards urban living and cubicles means space is at a premium. (Trust me, it hurts me to say this, as I have dreamed of having a library in my future home. I really worry that our society will lose all of its character, and our abodes will resemble sterile laboratories in the not too distant future.)

You might claim the analogy is flawed in that, my definition of movie is as a secondary market (i.e. for the most part, movies are available on DVD/Blu-ray/VOD only after they have hit the theater), while books, by nature, address a primary market (i.e. there is no previously released version). It’s true some consumers watch a movie on the big screen and then rent it again at home (largely due to the low cost). There’s no doubt an e-book has similar residual value (as a reference tool or refresher), because it’s difficult to absorb and digest all key learnings after just one read. However, since you don’t have to return an e-book as you do a movie rental, this argument doesn’t hold weight.

So what’s my conclusion? Book stores will not disappear in the very near future; some genres with illustrations and other characteristics that appeal to the senses (e.g. travel books, cookbooks, children’s books, some novels) will still be preferable in hard copy. But if the Barnes & Noble’s of the world know what’s good for them, they had better innovate more quickly than Blockbuster has in this decade. Providing couches and chairs where shoppers lounge, sip lattes and leisurely preview the latest best sellers is not a viable business strategy. Further investment in e-commerce is insufficient. And with all of that costly real estate on their hands, they can ill afford to be defensive and simply rely on imitation Kindles to save their legacy businesses.